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Hollywood Cavalcade
''Hollywood Cavalcade'' is a 1939 American film featuring Alice Faye as a young performer making her way in the early days of Hollywood, from slapstick silent pictures through the transition from silent to sound. Famous directors and actors from the silent film era appear in the picture including Mack Sennett, Buster Keaton, Chester Conklin and Ben Turpin. Plot In 1913 New York City, movie director Michael Linnett Connors chooses Broadway ingenue Molly Adair to be in his next film. He makes her a major star in slapstick comedies. Although she is in love with him, she can't understand his preoccupation with the picture business, and wrongly thinks that Connors regards her only in terms of movies. When she marries her co-star Nicky Hayden, Connors misunderstands her and fires her. The disillusioned director's career quickly declines, but his ice-cold demeanor changes when he sees the first talking feature film. Inspired, he approaches Molly and eagerly plans her first sound fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irving Cummings
Irving Cummings (October 9, 1888 – April 18, 1959) was an American movie actor and director. Career Born in New York City, Cummings started his acting career at age 16 in ''Diplomacy (play), Diplomacy''. His Broadway theatre, Broadway, performances included ''In the Long Run'' (1909) and ''Object -- Matrimony'' (1916). Acting in the Proctor Stock Company, Cummings appeared with Lillian Russell and other actresses. Cummings entered into movies in 1909, acting with the P. A. Powers company in Mount Vernon, New York, and quickly became a popular leading man. Few of the films he made as an actor are easily available. Exceptions include Buster Keaton's first feature film, ''The Saphead'' (1920), in which Cummings plays a crooked stockbroker; Fred Niblo's film ''Sex (1920 film), Sex'' (1920), one of the first films to depict a new phenomenon in 1920s America, the Flapper; and ''The Round-Up (1920 film), The Round-Up'' (1920), a Western drama starring Roscoe Arbuckle (with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Turpin
Bernard "Ben" Turpin (September 19, 1869 – July 1, 1940) was an American comedian and actor, best remembered for his work in silent films. His trademarks were his Esotropia, cross-eyed appearance and adeptness at vigorous physical comedy. A sometimes vaudeville performer, he was "discovered" for film while working as the janitor for Essanay Studios in Chicago. Turpin went on to work with notable performers such as Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, and was a part of the Mack Sennett studio team. He is believed to have been the first filmed "victim" of the Pieing, pie in the face gag. When sound came to films, Turpin chose to retire, having invested profitably in real estate, although he did do occasional cameos. Personal life Turpin was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 19, 1869,His birth date was given as September 19, 1869, but other years were used at various times in his Hollywood publicity material. In the 1900 United States Census he used the year "1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Lowery (actor)
Robert Lowery (born Robert Lowery Hanks, October 17, 1913 – December 26, 1971) was an American motion picture, television, and stage actor who appeared in more than 70 films. He was the second actor to play Batman, appearing as the character in the 1949 film serial '' Batman and Robin''. Early life Lowery was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Syndicated newspaper columnist Harrison Carroll reported that Lowery was "a direct descendant of Nancy Hanks" (Lincoln). He graduated from Paseo High School in Kansas City, and soon was invited to sing with the Slats Randall Orchestra. Career Lowery debuted in motion pictures in '' Come and Get It'' (1936). During his career, Lowery was primarily known for roles in action films such as '' The Mark of Zorro'' (1940), '' The Mummy's Ghost'' (1944), and '' Dangerous Passage'' (1944). He became the second actor to play DC Comics' Batman (succeeding Lewis Wilson), starring in a 1949's '' Batman and Robin'' serial. Lowery also had role ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snub Pollard
Harold Fraser (9 November 1889 – 19 January 1962), known professionally as Snub Pollard, was an Australian-born vaudevillian who became a silent film comedian in Hollywood, popular in the 1920s. Career Born in Melbourne, Australia, on 9 November 1889, young Harry Fraser began performing with Pollard's Lilliputian Opera Company. The company ran several highly successful professional children's troupes that traveled Australia and New Zealand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Like many of the actors in the popular juvenile company -- among them Daphne Trott -- Fraser adopted Pollard as his stage name. In 1908, Harry Pollard joined the company tour to North America. After the completion of the tour, he returned to the United States. By 1915, he was regularly appearing in uncredited roles in movies, for example, Charles Epting notes that Pollard can clearly be seen in Chaplin's 1915 short '' By the Sea''. In later years, Pollard said Hal Roach had discovered h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chick Chandler
Fehmer Christy "Chick" Chandler (January 18, 1905 – September 30, 1988) was an American film character actor who appeared in more than 130 films from 1925 through the mid-1950s. Chandler was known for his starring role as Toubo Smith in the Universal-produced 1955 syndicated television series ''Soldiers of Fortune (TV series), Soldiers of Fortune''. Early life Born Fehmer Christy Chandler (named after his uncle, well-known architect Carl Fehmer), in Kingston, New York, to Colonel George F. Chandler and the former Martha Schultze (a sportswriter and daughter of Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Carl Schultze). By the age of 12, he was appearing as a dancer and entertainer in local stage shows. His father, an army surgeon and organizer of the New York State Police, enrolled him in a military academy, Manlius Pebble Hill School, The Manlius School, which he attended for three years, serving with distinction and rising to the school rank of corporal. At 16, though he was b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Finlayson (actor)
James Henderson Finlayson (27 August 1887 – 9 October 1953) was a Scottish actor who worked in both silent and sound comedies. Balding, with a fake moustache, he had many trademark comic mannerisms—including his squinting, outraged double-take reactions, and his characteristic exclamation: "D'ooooooh!" He is the best remembered comic foil of Laurel and Hardy. Finlayson was known by a variety of nicknames. According to Laurel and Hardy scholar Randy Skretvedt, he "called himself Jimmy, was known around the lot as Jim and is usually referred to today as 'Fin'"Skretvedt, p. 77—a truncated version of his surname, as author John McCabe also noted in his 1961 biography ''Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy''. Early life and stage career Born in Larbert, Stirlingshire, Scotland to Alexander and Isabella (née Henderson) Finlayson, James worked as a tinsmith before pursuing an acting career. As part of John Clyde's company, he played Jamie Ratcliffe in ''Jeanie Deans'' at the Theatre R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinie Conklin
Heinie Conklin (born Charles John Conklin; July 16, 1880July 30, 1959) was an American actor and comedian whose career began in the silent film era. Early years Conklin was born Charles John Conklin on July 16, 1880, in San Francisco, California. He attended San Francisco's public schools. Career In vaudeville, Conklin headlined shows on the Keith and Orpheum circuits. He was billed as Charles Conklin until 1927. He began working in films in 1915 after 17 years on stage and in vaudeville. One of the original Keystone Cops, Conklin wore makeup of heavy eyebrow lining and a thin, upside-down, painted-on variation of Kaiser Wilhelm's mustache. In areas where anti-German sentiments still ran high during the post-World War I era, Conklin was billed as Charlie Lynn. One of Conklin's first talking pictures was '' All Quiet on the Western Front'' as a hospital patient. For the rest of his career in talking pictures, he had small roles in 2-reelers which starred The Three Stooges ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hank Mann
Hank Mann (born David William Lieberman; May 28, 1887 – November 25, 1971) was a Russian-born, American comedian and silent screen star who was a member of the Keystone Cops, and appeared as a supporting player in many of Charlie Chaplin's films. Career Hank Mann was born in the Russian Empire, but emigrated to New York City with his parents and siblings in 1891. Mann was one of the earliest of film comedians, working first for Mack Sennett as an original Keystone Cop, and later for producers William Fox and Morris R. Schlank in silent film comedies. With the advent of motion picture sound and the "talkies", he became a popular bit player and background extra in many quintessential motion picture dramas as well as comedies, including '' The Maltese Falcon'' (one of a group of reporters) and ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (as a photographer). One of his more sizable talkie roles was as a flustered hotel manager in the 1944 comedy-mystery '' Crime by Night'', and he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russell Hicks
Edward Russell Hicks (June 4, 1895 – June 1, 1957) was an American film character actor. Hicks was born in 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east .... During World War I, he served in the United States Army, U.S. Army in France. He later became a Lieutenant colonel (United States), lieutenant colonel in the California State Guard. Hicks was a character actor appearing in bit parts and small supporting roles in nearly 300 films between 1933 and 1956. He often appeared as a smooth-talking confidence man, or swindler as in the W. C. Fields, W.C. Fields film ''The Bank Dick'' (1940). Hicks played a variety of judges, corrupt officials, crooked businessmen and attorneys, working in a variety of mediums almost until his death. Hicks appeared once i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eddie Collins (actor)
Edward Bernard Collins (January 30, 1883 – September 2, 1940) was an American actor. He is best remembered for voicing Dopey in Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' (1937) and for portraying Tylo in the Shirley Temple film '' The Blue Bird'' (1940). Early years Collins was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Career He began working in vaudeville in 1905 and started working in burlesque around 1925. An animator for Walt Disney Productions saw him in a burlesque show and suggested that Disney hire him as a live-action reference model for Dopey in ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' (1937)."1938 Movie Mirror Magazine" Retrieved February 6, 2018. In the film, Dopey is clumsy and mute, with Happy explaining that he has simply "never tried" to speak. In the movie's trailer, |
Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. Self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," Jolson was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, as well as the first openly Jewish man to become an entertainment star in the United States. He was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, along with popularizing many of the songs he sang. According to music historian Larry Stempel, "No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway." Stephen Banfield wrote that Jolson's style was "arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical." Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers". Although best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), he starred in a series of successful musical films during the 1930 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Givot
George David Givot (February 18, 1903 – June 7, 1984) was a Russian-born American comedian and actor on Broadway and in vaudeville, movies, television and radio. He was known for speaking in a comedic fake Greek dialect and was styled the "Greek Ambassador of Good Will". His best known movie role may be as the voice of Tony in the Disney film ''Lady and the Tramp'' (1955). Early life Givot said that he did not know who his parents are; he was adopted by a French family when he was three. According to official documents, he was born on 18 February 1903 in Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipro, Ukraine), Russian Empire, to Walf Givistinsky - later William Wolf Givot(1875–1955) and Sofya—later Sarah—Givistinsky (née Garber) (1875–1930). According to the 1910 census, the family emigrated to the US in 1906 and settled in Omaha, Nebraska. They later moved to Chicago, where Givot went to high school and college. His night school journalism instructor became fed up with the class clo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
