25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Nathan Lane

October 25, 2019

Nathan Lane is a two-time Tony and Emmy award-winning American actor of stage and screen. He is best known for his roles as Albert in The Birdcage, Max Bialystock in the musical The Producers, Ernie Smuntz in MouseHunt, Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and his voice work in The Lion King and Stuart Little. In 2008, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Lane was born Joseph Lane in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Irish American Catholic

parents. He was named after his uncle, a Jesuit priest. His father, Daniel, was a truck driver and an aspiring tenor who died from alcoholism when Lane was eleven; his mother, Nora, was a housewife and secretary, who suffered from manic-depression, and died in 2000. He has two brothers, Robert and Daniel. Lane attended Roman Catholic schools in Jersey City, including Jesuit-run St. Peter’s Preparatory High School where he was selected Best Actor in 1974.

His brother Dan accompanied him to what was supposed to be his first day at St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia. When they arrived, they learned the drama scholarship Lane had won didn’t cover enough of the expenses for him to stay. They went back home. “I remember him saying to me, ‘College is for people who don’t know what they want to do,'” Dan Lane recalls. Because there already was a Joseph Lane registered with Actors Equity, he changed his name to Nathan after the character Nathan Detroit from the musical Guys and Dolls. He moved to New York City where, after a long struggle, his career began to take off, first with some brief success in the world of stand-up comedy with partner, Patrick Stack, and later with off-Broadway productions at Second Stage Theatre, the Roundabout Theatre, the Manhattan Theatre Club, and his 1982 Broadway debut in a revival of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter as Roland Maule with George C. Scott, Kate Burton, Dana Ivey, and Christine Lahti.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Recording Permalink

Morey Amsterdam

October 25, 2019

Morey Amsterdam was an American television actor and comedian, best known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s.

Amsterdam was born Moritz Amsterdam in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of the three sons of Max and Jennie Amsterdam, Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary. He began working in vaudeville in 1922 as the straight man for his older brother’s jokes. He was also a cellist, a skill he used throughout his career. By 1924, he was working in a speakeasy operated by Al Capone. After being caught in the middle of a gunfight, Amsterdam moved to California and worked writing jokes. His enormous repertoire and ability to come up with a joke on any subject earned him the nickname The Human Joke Machine. He sometimes performed with a mock machine on his chest, hanging by a strap. He turned a hand crank and paper rolled out; he would then read the machine’s joke, although actually the paper was blank. Amsterdam’s reputation for humor preceded him. Hal Block tells of Amsterdam walking up Sixth Avenue in New York and meeting an old friend. “Where have you been?” the friend asked. “Sick,” Amsterdam replied, “I’ve been in bed with a cold.” His friend looked at him and asked, “What’s so funny about that?”

During the 1930s, Amsterdam was a regular on The Al Pearce Show radio program, and by 1937 was the master of ceremonies on The Night Club of the Air. He also wrote songs, including “Why Oh Why Did I Ever Leave Wyoming.” He stole the popular “Rum and Coca-Cola”, although the song was written by a Trinidadian calypso singer named Lord Invader. Amsterdam lost a copyright suit over the song. In the early 1940s he was a screenwriter, contributing dialogue for two East Side Kids films. By 1947, he was performing on three daily radio shows. Beginning in 1948, he appeared on the radio show Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One. The Morey Amsterdam Show aired on CBS radio from July 10, 1948 to February 15, 1949. For three months, it was on both radio and TV, using different scripts with the same premise and cast.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Morgan Freeman

October 25, 2019

Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Jr. is an American actor, film director, and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice.

Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby. He has also won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Freeman has appeared in many other box office hits, including Unforgiven, Glory, Seven, Deep Impact, The Sum of All Fears, Bruce Almighty, Batman Begins, The Bucket List, Evan Almighty, Wanted, and The Dark Knight.

Morgan Freeman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Mayme Edna and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Sr., a barber who died in 1961 from cirrhosis. He has three older siblings. Freeman was sent as an infant to his paternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi. His family moved frequently during his childhood, living in Greenwood, Mississippi; Gary, Indiana; and finally Chicago, Illinois. Freeman made his acting debut at age 9, playing the lead role in a school play. He then attended Broad Street High School, currently Threadgill Elementary School, in Mississippi. At age 12, he won a statewide drama competition, and while still at Broad Street High School, he performed in a radio show based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1955, he graduated from Broad Street High School, but turned down a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University, opting instead to work as a mechanic in the United States Air Force.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Morris Stoloff

October 25, 2019

Morris Stoloff was a musical composer. Stoloff worked as a music director at Columbia Pictures from 1936 to 1962. Among space age pop fans, he is best remembered for his 1956 Top 10 hit that paired the swing era tune “Moonglow” with the love theme from the movie Picnic.

A child prodigy on the violin, Stoloff was taken under the wing of W. A. Clark. After studying with Leopold Auer for several years, Stoloff was touring the U.S. as a featured soloist at the age of 16, and joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic a year later as its youngest member ever.

When sound came to motion pictures, studios came looking for musicians to provide it, and Stoloff was one of the first to cross over from classical music to movies. He was the first concertmaster on Paramount Pictures’ payroll, and he worked with setting up the mechanics of a system that had to provide a steady stream of music for everything from epic dramas to serials and comedy shorts.

In 1936, Stoloff moved over to Columbia Pictures, where he took the title of music director, a new position unique to the studio system. As music director, he was the chief executive responsible for providing musical production support to every film the studio released. This meant matching up composers, orchestrators, conductors, musicians and recording facilities to meet the creative scope of each project as well as its schedule and budget.

25 Oct 2019
Radio Permalink

Morton Downey

October 25, 2019

Morton Downey was a singer popular in the United States, enjoying his greatest success in the 1930s and 1940s. Downey was nicknamed “The Irish Nightingale”.

Sean Morton Downey was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, the child of James and Bessie Downey. He later dropped his first name in favor of his middle name as his professional name

For a time in the 1920s, Downey, a tenor, sang with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra. He first recorded in 1923 for Edison Records under the pseudonym Morton James; the following year he recorded for Victor with the S.S. Leviathan Orchestra. In 1925 he began 4 years of recording for Brunswick Records. In 1926 he had a hit in the show Palm Beach Nights.

He toured London, Paris, Berlin, New York City and Hollywood. He also began appearing in motion pictures in 1929.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Morton Gould

October 25, 2019

Morton Gould was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist.

Born in Richmond Hill, New York, Gould was recognized early as a child prodigy with abilities in improvisation and composition. His first composition was published at age six. Gould studied at the Institute of Musical Art, although his most important teachers were Abby Whiteside and Vincent Jones.

During the Depression, Gould, while a teenager, worked in New York City playing piano in movie theaters, as well as with vaudeville acts. When Radio City Music Hall opened, Gould was hired as the staff pianist. By 1935, he was conducting and arranging orchestral programs for New York’s WOR radio station, where he reached a national audience via the Mutual Broadcasting System, combining popular programming with classical music.

In the 1940s, Gould appeared on the Cresta Blanca Carnival program as well as The Chrysler Hour on CBS where he reached an audience of millions.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew

October 25, 2019

Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew were an American comedy team on stage and screen.

Sidney Drew, or Mr. Sidney Drew as he was usually billed, was an uncle of the Barrymore family of actors: Lionel, Ethel & John Barrymore. His origins have been the subject of much speculation. Sidney’s mother Mrs Louisa Drew said she adopted him not long after the death of her husband John Drew Sr in 1862. Researchers have speculated that Sidney was Mrs Drew’s biological child either from her late husband or from a love affair. It was noticed that she disappeared for some time to the country before returning to Philadelphia with baby Sidney. John Barrymore always said Sidney looked too much like Grandmother Louisa to be anyone else’s child.

Sidney had been a light hearted leading man along with his wife, Gladys Rankin, better known as Mrs. Sidney Drew. They entered films as a team with the old Kalem Company in 1911, but achieved greater success after their switch to Vitagraph in 1913. Rankin died later that year and Sidney Drew was briefly paired with Clara Kimball Young, with whom Drew starred in the two-reel melodrama satire Goodness Gracious; or, Movies as they Shouldn’t Be directed by Clara’s husband James Young.

He remarried to Lucile McVey, born in Sedalia, Missouri, a Vitagraph scriptwriter who briefly went under the name Jane Morrow.

25 Oct 2019
Live Performance Permalink

Muhammad Ali

October 25, 2019

In memory of Walk of Famer Muhammad Ali, flowers were placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Saturday, June 4, 2016 at 12 noon PDT. The star in category of Live Performance is located at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. “Float like a Butterfly Mr. Ali Rest in Peace” Ana Martinez, Producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame signed the card on behalf of the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Muhammad Ali is a former American boxer and three-time World Heavyweight Champion, who is widely considered one of the greatest heavyweight championship boxers of all time. As an amateur, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. After turning professional, he went on to become the first boxer to win the lineal heavyweight championship three times.

Originally known as Cassius Clay, Ali changed his name after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964, subsequently converting to Sunni Islam in 1975 and more recently to Sufism. In 1967, Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. military based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. He was arrested and found guilty on draft evasion charges, stripped of his boxing title, and his boxing license was suspended. He was not imprisoned, but did not fight again for nearly four years while his appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was successful.

Nicknamed "The Greatest", Ali was involved in several historic boxing matches. Notable among these are three with rival Joe Frazier and one with George Foreman, whom he beat by knockout to win the world heavyweight title for the second time. He suffered only five losses with no draws in his career, while amassing 56 wins. Ali was well known for his unorthodox fighting style, which he described as "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee", and employing techniques such as the rope-a-dope. He was also known for his pre-match hype, where he would "trash talk" opponents on television and in person some time before the match, often with rhymes. These personality quips and idioms, along with an unorthodox fighting technique, made him a cultural icon. In later life, Ali developed Parkinson's disease. In 1999, Ali was crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC.

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky. The elder of two boys, he was named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr., who was named for the 19th century abolitionist and politician of the same name. His father painted billboards and signs, and his mother, Odessa Grady Clay, was a household domestic. Although Cassius Sr. was a Methodist, he allowed Odessa to bring up both Cassius and his younger brother Rudolph "Rudy" Clay as Baptists. He is a descendant of pre-Civil War era American slaves in the American South, and is predominantly of African-American descent with Irish and English ancestry.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Myrna Loy

October 25, 2019

Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles in The Thin Man. Her successful pairing with William Powell resulted in fourteen films together, including several subsequent Thin Man films.

Loy was born Myrna Adele Williams to Adelle Mae and rancher David Franklin Williams in Radersburg, Montana, a small town near Helena. She was of Welsh and Scottish ancestry. Loy’s first name came from a train station whose name her father liked. Her father was also a banker and real estate developer and the youngest man ever elected to the Montana state legislature. Her mother studied music at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.

During the winter of 1912, Loy’s mother nearly died from pneumonia, and her father sent his wife and daughter to La Jolla, California. Loy’s mother saw great potential in Southern California, and during one of his visits she encouraged her husband to purchase real estate there. Among the properties he bought was land he later sold at a considerable profit to Charlie Chaplin so the filmmaker could construct his studio there. Although Loy’s mother tried to convince her husband to move to California permanently, he preferred ranch life and the three eventually returned to Montana. Soon after, Loy’s mother needed a hysterectomy and insisted Los Angeles was a safer place to have it, so she, Loy, and Loy’s brother David moved to Ocean Park, where Loy began to take dancing lessons. They continued after she returned to Montana, and at the age of twelve Myrna Williams made her stage debut performing a dance she choreographed based on The Blue Bird from the Rose Dream Operetta at Helena’s Marlow Theater.

Following her father’s death, Loy and her family fulfilled her mother’s dream by moving to Culver City. She attended the exclusive Westlake School for Girls in Holmby Hills and continued to study dance in Downtown Los Angeles. When her teachers objected to her participating in theatrical arts, her mother enrolled her in Venice High School, and at fifteen she began appearing in local stage productions.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Monty Hall

October 25, 2019

In memory of entertainer and Walk of Famer Monty Hall, flowers were placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday, October, 2, 2017 at 11:30 a.m. PDT. The star in category of Television is located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard. “Rest in peace Mr. Hall.” Ana Martinez, Producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame signed the card on behalf of the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Monte Halperin, OC, OM, better known by the stage name Monty Hall, is a Canadian-born emcee, producer, actor, singer and sportscaster, best known as host of the television game show Let's Make a Deal.

Hall was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the son of Rose and Maurice Harvey Halperin, both of whom belonged to an Orthodox congregation of Judaism and who jointly owned a slaughterhouse. He was raised in Winnipeg's north end, where he attended St. John's High School. Hall started his career in Toronto in radio.

Early in his career, Hall hosted game shows such as Bingo at Home on DuMont and guest-hosted more established game shows such as Strike It Rich on CBS, before hosting the first show of his own, Keep Talking in 1958. He succeeded Jack Narz as host of a well-received and unique game show called Video Village, which ran from 1960 to 1962 on CBS. On Video Village, contestants played on a giant game board consisting of three sections: Money Street, Bridge Street and Magic Mile. Players advanced with the roll of a large die. The further contestants advanced along the board, the better the prizes that were offered. A spinoff called Video Village Junior, featuring youngsters, was hosted by Hall and ran during the 1961?1962 regular television season.

Hall had also served as the host/performer of two local New York City TV film shows for children: "Cowboy Theater" for WRCA in 1956 and "Fun In The Morning" for WNEW in the early 1960s.