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Hollywood Daffy
''Hollywood Daffy'' is a 1946 Warner Bros. ''Merrie Melodies'' cartoon, starring Daffy Duck. The cartoon was written by Michael Maltese and was released on June 22, 1946. Friz Freleng was originally intended to direct the short, but refused to work on it as he was unsatisfied with the story. The feud resulted in Freleng receiving about a month suspension from the studio. Hawley Pratt, Freleng's layout artist, would direct the short uncredited. Plot The film begins with a pack of wolves howling in the center of Hollywood (a reference to Hollywood and Vine) as a spot for men looking to pick up women ("wolves" in the slang of the day). Daffy, having travelled to Hollywood, attempts to get into the "Warmer Bros." studio to see movie stars. However, the abrasive Keystone Cops-like security guard with a Joe Besser-like voice will not let him pass through the gate. After unsuccessfully endeavoring to enter the studio by way of various disguises and being thrown out each time, culminati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hawley Pratt
Hawley B. Pratt (June 9, 1911 – March 4, 1999) was an American film director, animator, designer and illustrator. He is best known for his work for Warner Bros. Cartoons and as the right-hand man of director Friz Freleng as a layout artist and later as a director. Pratt also worked for Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Filmation, and DePatie-Freleng Enterprises where he co-created The Pink Panther (character), The Pink Panther. Life and career Born in Seattle and raised in the Bronx by his widowed mother Mabel, Pratt graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He became an assistant animator then full-animator at Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Studios in 1933, especially he worked on The Nutcracker, The Nutcracker Suite sequence for ''Fantasia (1940 film), Fantasia'' where he animated the spinning flowers dancing to “Dance of the Reed-Flutes”. He later left to joined Warner Bros. Cartoons, along with fellow animators Bill Melendez, Cornett Wood, and Jack Brad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Besser
Joe Besser (born Jessel Besser, August 12, 1907 – March 1, 1988) was an American actor and comedian known for his impish humor and wimpy characters. He is best known for his brief stint as a member of The Three Stooges in movie short subjects of 1957–1959. He is also remembered for his television roles: Stinky, the bratty man-child on '' The Abbott and Costello Show'', and Jillson, the maintenance man on '' The Joey Bishop Show''. Early life Besser was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 12, 1907. He was the ninth child of Morris and Fanny echtBesser, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He had seven older sisters and an older brother, Manny, who was in show business, primarily as an ethnic Jewish comic. From an early age, Joe was fascinated with show business, especially the magic act of Howard Thurston that visited St. Louis annually. When Joe was 12, Thurston allowed him to be an audience plant. Besser was so excited by this that he sneaked into Thurston's train ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ann Sheridan
Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan (February 21, 1915 – January 21, 1967) was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films ''San Quentin'' (1937), '' Angels with Dirty Faces'' (1938), '' They Drive by Night'' (1940), '' City for Conquest'' (1940), '' The Man Who Came to Dinner'' (1942), ''Kings Row'' (1942), '' Nora Prentiss'' (1947), and '' I Was a Male War Bride'' (1949). Early life Clara Lou Sheridan was born in Denton, Texas, on February 21, 1915, the youngest of five children (Kitty, Pauline, Mabel, and George) of garage mechanic George W. Sheridan and Lula Stewart (née Warren). According to Sheridan, her father was a grandnephew of Civil War Union general Philip Sheridan. She was active in dramatics at Denton High School and at North Texas State Teachers College. She also sang with the college's stage band and played basketball on the North Texas women's basketball team. Then, in 1933, Sheridan won the prize of a bit part in an upcoming Param ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abbott And Costello
Abbott and Costello were an American comedy duo composed of comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, whose work in radio, film, and television made them the most popular comedy team of the 1940s and 1950s, and the highest-paid entertainers in the world during the Second World War. Their patter routine " Who's on First?" is considered one of the greatest comedy routines of all time, a version of which appears in their 1945 film '' The Naughty Nineties''. Abbott and Costello made their film debut in the 1940 comedy '' One Night in the Tropics''. The following year, they appeared in three armed service comedies: '' Buck Privates'', '' In the Navy'', and '' Keep 'Em Flying''. They also appeared in the 1941 horror comedy film ''Hold That Ghost'', and went on to appear in several other horror comedies, including ''Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'' (1948), ''Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff'' (1949), '' Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man'' (1951), '' Ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Bickenbach
Richard Frederick Bickenbach (August 9, 1907 – June 28, 1994) was an American animator who worked for Warner Bros. Cartoons and as a layout artist and character designer for MGM and Hanna-Barbera Productions. He worked on animation for many cartoons, and drew the art for several comic book adaptations of Hanna-Barbera's shows, including ''Yogi Bear'' and ''The Flintstones''. Career Bickenbach began his career as an animator for Ub Iwerks Studios, the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio and Walter Lantz Productions until finally settling at Warner Bros. cartoon division Leon Schlesinger Productions. He would animate the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series for directors Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton, Friz Freleng, Frank Tashlin, and Robert McKimson in a span of roughly 8 years. He also provided his voice for a few cartoons, mostly portraying caricatures of Bing Crosby. He later left and moved back to MGM in 1946 to provided layouts for roughly eighty ''Tom and Jerry' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, comedian, entertainer and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. Crosby was a leader in record sales, network radio ratings, and motion picture grosses from 1926 to 1977. He was one of the first global cultural icons. Crosby made over 70 feature films and recorded more than 1,600 songs. Crosby's early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed, such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon. Yank, the Army Weekly, ''Yank'' magazine said that Crosby was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive", ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Durante
James Francis Durante ( , ; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side New York accent, accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of the United States' most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He often referred to his nose as ''the schnozzola'' (Italianization of the American Yiddish slang word ''schnoz'', meaning "big nose"), and the word became his nickname. Early life Childhood Durante was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was the youngest of four children born to Rosa (née Lentino) and Bartolomeo Durante, both immigrants from Salerno, Campania, Italy. Bartolomeo was a barber. Durante served as an Altar server#Altar servers in the Catholic Church, altar boy at St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church, known as the Actor's Chapel. Early career Durante dropped out of school in seven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tramp
The Tramp (''Charlot'' in several languages), also known as the Little Tramp, was English actor Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character and an icon in world cinema during the era of silent film. ''The Tramp (film), The Tramp'' is also the title of a silent film starring Chaplin, which Chaplin wrote and directed in 1915. The Tramp, as portrayed by Chaplin is a childlike and bumbling but generally good-hearted character who is most famously portrayed as a mischievous Vagrancy (people), vagrant. He endeavours to behave with the manners and dignity of a gentleman despite his actual social status. However, while the Tramp is ready to take what paying work is available, he also uses his cunning self to get what he needs to survive and escape the authority figures who will not tolerate his antics. Chaplin's films did not always portray the Tramp as a vagrant, however. The character ("The little fellow", as Chaplin called him) was rarely referred to by any names on-scre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is considered one of the film industry's most important figures. His career spanned more than 75 years, from his childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both accolade and controversy. Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. His father was absent and his mother struggled financiallyhe was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the Fred Karno company, which took him to the United States. He was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon intr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tarzan
Tarzan (John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, a feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan first appeared in the novel ''Tarzan of the Apes'' (magazine publication 1912, book publication 1914), and subsequently in 23 sequels, several books by Burroughs and other authors, and innumerable works in other media, both authorized and unauthorized. Character biography Tarzan is the son of a British lord and lady who were marooned on the coast of Africa by mutineers. When Tarzan was an infant, his mother died, and his father was killed by Kerchak, leader of the ape tribe by whom Tarzan was adopted. Soon after his parents' death, Tarzan became a feral child, and his tribe of apes is known as the Mangani, great apes of a species unknown to science. Kala (Tarzan), Kala is his ape mother. Burroughs adde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Weissmuller
Johnny Weissmuller ( ; born Johann Peter Weißmüller, ; June 2, 1904 – January 20, 1984) was a Hungarian-born German American Olympic swimmer, water polo player and actor. He was known for having one of the best competitive-swimming records of the 20th century. He set world records alongside winning five gold medals in the Olympics. He won the 100m freestyle and the relay team event in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris and the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam. Weissmuller also won gold in the 400m freestyle, as well as a bronze medal in the water polo competition in Paris. Following his retirement from swimming, Weissmuller played Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan in twelve feature films from 1932 to 1948; six were produced by MGM, and six additional films by RKO. Weissmuller went on to star in sixteen '' Jungle Jim'' movies over an eight-year period, then filmed 26 additional half-hour episodes of the ''Jungle Jim'' TV series. Early life Johann Peter Weißmüller was born ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sara Berner
Sara Berner (born Lillian Ann Herdan; January 12, 1912 – December 19, 1969) was an American actress. Known for her expertise in dialect and characterization, she began her career as a performer in vaudeville before becoming a voice actress for radio and animated shorts. She starred in her own radio show on NBC, ''Sara's Private Caper'', and was best known as telephone operator Mabel Flapsaddle on '' The Jack Benny Program''. Columnist Erskine Johnson described Berner in 1944 as "the most famous voice in Hollywood." Early life and career Born Lillian Ann Herdan in 1912 in Albany, New York, she adopted her stage name by combining her mother's first name (Sarah) and her maiden name of Berner. She was the oldest of four children, and her family relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma when she was a teenager. She became interested in performing after watching silent movies and vaudeville shows at a theater and then imitating scenes in front of the women's restroom attendant. Berner perfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
