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Ziegfeld Follies Of 1936
''The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936'' is a musical revue with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, music by Vernon Duke and sketches by Gershwin and David Freedman. The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of revues presented from 1907 through 1931, 1934, 1936, 1943, and 1957. Productions and background Original 1936 The musical premiered on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre on January 30, 1936 and closed on May 9, 1936 after 115 performances. Produced by Billie Burke Ziegfeld and Lee Shubert and J. J. Shubert, it was directed by John Murray Anderson and Edward Clarke Lilley, choreographed by Robert Alton, sketches directed by Edward D. Dowling, and ballets directed by George Balanchine. Scenic design and costumes were by Vincente Minnelli, with additional costumes by Raoul Pène Du Bois, and original orchestrations were by Robert Russell Bennett, Conrad Salinger, Hans Spialek and Don Walker. The cast starred Fanny Brice, Bob Hope, Eve Arden, Josephine Baker, Judy Canova, Gertrude Niesen, June ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vernon Duke
Vernon Duke ( 16 January 1969) was a Russian-born American composer and songwriter who also wrote under his birth name, Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for " Taking a Chance on Love," with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche (1940), "I Can't Get Started," with lyrics by Ira Gershwin (1936), " April in Paris," with lyrics by E. Y. ("Yip") Harburg (1932), and "What Is There To Say," for the '' Ziegfeld Follies'' of 1934, also with Harburg. He wrote the words and music for " Autumn in New York" (1934) for the revue '' Thumbs Up!'' In his book, ''American Popular Song, The Great Innovators 1900-1950'', composer Alec Wilder praises this song, writing, “The verse may be the most ambitious I’ve ever seen." Duke also collaborated with lyricists Johnny Mercer, Ogden Nash, and Sammy Cahn. Early life Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky ( Russian: Владимир Александрович Дукельский) was born in 1903 into a Belarusian noble family in the village ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Walker (orchestrator)
Don Walker (October 28, 1907 – September 12, 1989) was a prolific Broadway theatre, Broadway orchestrator, who also composed music for musicals and one film and worked as a conductor in television. Biography Walker was born in Lambertville, New Jersey, Lambertville, New Jersey. He attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Audrey, had a daughter, Anne Liebgold, and a son, David. Walker died in New Hope, Pennsylvania in 1989 at the age of 81.Shepard, Richard F"Don Walker, 81, an Orchestrator of Broadway Musical Comedies" ''The New York Times'', September 13, 1989, accessed July 20, 2009 Career As with many of the other great orchestrators, Walker served a long apprenticeship with Max Dreyfus at Chappell Music's arranging department starting in the 1930s, until he finally went out in business for himself in the early 1950s setting up office in New York City. Among the scores that he orchestrated were those for the popular musicals ''Carousel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City Center
New York City Center (previously known as the Mecca Temple, City Center of Music and Drama, and the New York City Center 55th Street Theater) is a performing arts center at 131 West 55th Street (Manhattan), 55th Street between Sixth Avenue, Sixth and Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenues in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Developed by the Shriners between 1922 and 1924 as a Masonic bodies, Masonic meeting house, it has operated as a performing arts complex owned by the government of New York City. City Center is a performing home for several major dance companies as well as the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), and it hosts the Encores! musical theater series and the Fall for Dance Festival annually. The facility was designed by Harry P. Knowles and Clinton and Russell in the Moorish Revival architecture, Moorish Revival style and is divided into two parts. The southern section houses a main auditorium, with 2,257 seats across three levels; this auditorium ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cass Daley
Cass Daley (born Catherine Dailey; July 17, 1915 – March 22, 1975) was an American actress, comedian and singer. Career The daughter of an Irish streetcar conductor, Daley began singing as a child in front of neighborhood storefronts. Noted for her buck teeth and comical singing style, she sang at clubs as a teen while working as a hat-check girl and electrician. Before Daley became a professional entertainer, she entertained other employees during lunch hours at the hosiery mill at which she worked in Pennsylvania, including an impersonation of the boss among her skits. In the 1930s, she began a stage career, including a role in a production advertised as a "Great Vaudeville Show" in 1934. She appeared in the 1936-1937 Ziegfeld Follies featured as the "Cyclone of Syncopation." Daley started to perform at night clubs and on the radio as a band vocalist in the 1940s. She also embarked on a movie career, most notably in '' The Fleet's In'' (1942) with Dorothy Lamour and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee (born Rose Louise Hovick, January 8, 1911 – April 26, 1970) was an American burlesque entertainer, stripper, actress, author, playwright and vedette, famous for her striptease act. Her 1957 memoir, '' Gypsy: A Memoir'', was adapted into the 1959 stage musical ''Gypsy''. Early life Rose Louise Hovick was born in Seattle, Washington, on January 8, 1911;Karen Abbott (2010) ''American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare, The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee'', New York: Random House; ; however, she always gave January 9 as her date of birth. She was known as Louise to her family. Her sister, actress June Havoc, was born in 1912. Their mother, Rose Thompson Hovick, forged various birth certificates for each of her daughters—older when needed to evade varying state child labor laws, and younger for reduced or free train fares. The girls were unsure until later in life what their years of birth were. Their mother had married Norwegian-American John Olaf Hovick, a newspape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bobby Clark (comedian)
Robert Edwin Clark (June 16, 1888 – February 12, 1960), known as Bobby Clark, was an American minstrel, vaudevillian, performer on stage, film, television and the circus. Known for his painted-on eyeglasses, he was part of a comedy team with Paul McCullough for 36 years. Early years He was born in Springfield, Ohio. While still in grammar school he formed a friendship with classmate Paul McCullough. The two attended tumbling classes, and began performing an acrobatic act in minstrel shows and later in the Ringling Brothers' Circus.Slide, Anthony (2012). ''The encyclopedia of vaudeville''. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. p. 100. . The team worked as clowns from 1906 to 1912. In 1912, they made their debut in vaudeville with a pantomime act built around the simple act of placing a chair on top of a table. In 1922, they starred in Irving Berlin's Broadway show ''Music Box Revue''.Slide, Anthony (2012). ''The encyclopedia of vaudeville''. Jackson: University Press of M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brooks Atkinson
Justin Brooks Atkinson (November 28, 1894 – January 14, 1984) was an American theater critic. He worked for ''The New York Times'' from 1922 to 1960. In his obituary, the ''Times'' called him "the theater's most influential reviewer of his time." Atkinson became a ''Times'' theater critic in the 1920s and his reviews became very influential. He insisted on leaving the drama desk during World War II to report on the war, and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for his work as the Moscow correspondent for the ''Times''. He returned to the theater beat in the late 1940s, until his retirement in 1960. Biography Atkinson was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, to Jonathan H. Atkinson, a salesman statistician, and Garafelia Taylor. As a boy, he printed his own newspaper (using movable type), and planned a career in journalism. He attended Harvard University, where he began writing for the '' Boston Herald.''"Atkinson, (Justin) Brooks." The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Brothers
The Nicholas Brothers were an entertainment act composed of brothers, Fayard (1914–2006) and Harold (1921–2000), who excelled in a variety of dance techniques, primarily between the 1930s and 1950s. Best known for their unique interpretation of a highly acrobatic technique known as " flash dancing", they were also considered by many to be the greatest tap dancers of their day, if not all time. Their virtuoso performance in the musical number "Jumping' Jive" (with Cab Calloway and his orchestra) featured in the 1943 movie '' Stormy Weather'' has been praised as one of the greatest dance routines ever captured on film. Growing up surrounded by vaudeville acts as children, they became stars of the jazz circuit during the Harlem Renaissance and performed on stage, film, and television well into the 2000s. Diminutive in size, they were appreciated for their artistry, innovation, and soaring leaps. Early lives Fayard Antonio Nicholas was born August 28, 1914, in Mobile, Alabama, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
June Preisser
June Preisser (June 26, 1918 – September 19, 1984) was an American actress, popular in musical films during the late 1930s and through the 1940s, many of which capitalized on her skills as an acrobat. Life and career Born June 26, 1918, in New Orleans, Preisser was one of six children. As a child, she was underweight and began going to an athletic club in an attempt to build strength and gain weight. It was there that Preisser and her sister Cherry learned acrobatics, in which they excelled. Their mother was keen to have them follow a career in show business, especially when their father died suddenly, leaving the family with few options to make a living. When Preisser was nine years old, an actor noticed the two sisters performing acrobatics on a sidewalk near their home, and his interest led to their working in vaudeville and later for the Ziegfeld Follies in 1934 and 1936. The Preisser sisters were successful in the United States, and performed in Europe, including for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gertrude Niesen
Gertrude Niesen (July 8, 1911 – March 27, 1975) was an American Torch song, torch singer, actress, comedian, and songwriter who achieved popular success in musical theatre, musicals and films in the 1930s and 1940s. Early years Niesen was born aboard ship as her Swedish father and Russian mother returned from a vacation in Europe. As a child, she hoped for a career on stage and began performing in vaudeville. She attended Brooklyn Heights Seminary, where she found and developed an interest in music. Career Niesen began singing as a career in the early 1930s, performing on radio and in night clubs. She first appeared on film (credited as Gertrude Nissen) with Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Orchestra and Artie Shaw in a Vitaphone short film, ''Yacht Party'' (1932). On old-time radio, Niesen was the featured singer on ''The Ex-Lax Big Show'' on CBS and host of ''The Show Shop'' (1942), on NBC-Blue. She left ''The Ex-Lax Big Show'' in the summer of 1935 to sing leads in musical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Judy Canova
Judy Canova (November 20, 1913 – August 5, 1983),Although one source gives her birth date as November 20, 1916, (DeLong, Thomas A. (1996). ''Radio Stars: An Illustrated Biographical Dictionary of 953 Performers, 1920 through 1960''. McFarland & Company, Inc. , pp. 47–48), census records show an earlier birth date. The 1920 census shows age 7 in January 1920 for Julia Canova1920 Census.Starke, Florida. Household of Joe and Retta Canova, indicates 1912. The 1930 census shows age 17 in April 1930 for Juliaett Canova1930 censusJacksonville Florida. Line 21. Household of Retta Canova, also indicates 1912.The 1940 census shows age 21940 censusLos Angeles, California. Household of Harry Canova (brother). born Juliette Canova (some sources indicate Julietta Canova), was an American comedienne, actress, singer and radio personality who appeared on Broadway and in films. She hosted her own eponymous network radio program, a popular series broadcast from 1943 to 1955. Biography Early ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josephine Baker
Freda Josephine Baker (; June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975), naturalized as Joséphine Baker, was an American and French dancer, singer, and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in France. She was the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 French silent film ''Siren of the Tropics'', directed by and . During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the in Paris. Her performance in its 1927 revue caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting only of a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French nationality law#Dual citizenship, Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
