25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

George Harrison

October 25, 2019

Beatles legend George Harrison was honored posthumously with the 2,382nd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Leron Gubler presided over the ceremony. Olivia and Dhani Harrison accepted the star on his behalf. Guests included Tom Hanks, Eric Idle, Sheryl Crow, Richard and Lauren Donner, David Foster, Rita Hanks, Tom Petty, and many others.

1750 Vine Street on April 14, 2009.

BIOGRAPHY

George Harrison was born on February 25, 1943 in Liverpool. After a stint playing with his group the Rebels, George, together with his schoolmate Paul McCartney, joined John Lennon's Quarrymen. He was fifteen at the time, and the stage was set for The Beatles to emerge as the best possible news in post-War Britain.

Over the course of The Beatles' career, Harrison played the role of guitarist, singer and songwriter. His contributions to The Beatles' catalogue include I Need You, Taxman, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Something and Here Comes the Sun, to name only a few. His lifelong interest in Indian culture advanced considerably through his friendship with Ravi Shankar and affected all of The Beatles and their musical explorations.

In the years immediately following the break-up of The Beatles, George released his first solo album All Things Must Pass to worldwide acclaim, followed by further major recordings, the bulk of which went gold or platinum. One could argue that The Concert for Bangladesh, featuring George's friends Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar, Leon Russell, Ringo Starr, and others, has had the greatest impact. As a response to a world crisis, it was like nothing that the music business had witnessed up to that point and earned a Grammy for Album of the Year in 1973.

In 1987 on the heels of George's top ten album Cloud Nine he formed the Traveling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. Handle with Care was the Wilburys' first single and it caught the world by surprise. The Wilburys would go on to earn a Grammy and are still remembered as the "supergroup" with no equal.

After a life of excursions in the arts and spiritual adventures, George Harrison passed away in 2001. The following year, A Concert for George was organized by Eric Clapton and Olivia Harrison. Filmed at The Royal Albert Hall his former bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne created a magical night. The event captured something of the warm and intense impact George had on those fortunate enough to know him well.

His songwriting was powerful enough to generate standards in the field. His love for humour and film turned him, almost inadvertently, into an important movie producer. And, without a doubt, his contribution to The Beatles left an indelible mark on that band's music and character—we hear it still.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Gene Tierney

October 25, 2019

Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best-remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven. Other notable roles include Martha Strable Van Cleve in Heaven Can Wait, Isabel Bradley Maturin in The Razor’s Edge, Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Ann Sutton in Whirlpool, Maggie Carleton McNulty in The Mating Season and Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God. Certain of her film-related material and personal papers are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives, to which scholars and media experts from around the world may have full access.

Tierney was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Howard Sherwood Tierney and Belle Lavina Taylor. She had an elder brother, Howard Sherwood ?Butch? Tierney, Jr., and a younger sister, Patricia ?Pat? Tierney. Her father was a prosperous insurance broker of Irish descent, her mother a former gym teacher.

Tierney attended St. Margaret?s School in Waterbury, Connecticut, and the Unquowa School in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Her first poem, entitled ?Night,? was published in the school magazine, and writing verse became an occasional pastime during the rest of her life. She then spent two years in Europe and attended the Brillantmont finishing school in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she learned to speak fluent French.

Tierney returned to the U.S. in 1938 and attended Miss Porter’s School. On a trip to the West Coast, she visited Warner Bros. studios. The director Anatole Litvak, who was so taken by the seventeen-year-old?s beauty, told her that she should become an actress. Warner Bros. wanted to sign her to a contract, but her parents advised against it because of the low salary.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Gene Vincent

October 25, 2019

Vincent Eugene Craddock, better known as Gene Vincent, was an American musician who pioneered the styles of rock and roll and rockabilly. His 1956 top ten hit with his Blue Caps, “Be-Bop-A-Lula”, is considered a significant early example of rockabilly. He is a member of the Rock and Roll and Rockabilly Halls of Fame.

Vincent Eugene Craddock was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on February 11, 1935. His early musical influences included country, rhythm and blues and gospel music. He showed his first real interest in music while his family lived in Munden Point, Virginia, near the North Carolina line, where they ran a country store. He received his first guitar as a gift from a friend at the age of 12.

His father, Ezekiah Jackson Craddock, volunteered to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard and patrolled American coastal waters to protect Allied shipping against German U-boats during World War II. His mother, Mary Louise Craddock, maintained a general store at Munden Point. Craddock’s parents moved the family and opened a new general store and sailor’s tailoring shop in Norfolk.

Having spent his youth in the Norfolk area, Craddock decided to pursue the life of a sailor. He dropped out of school at age 17 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1952. Craddock’s parents signed the required forms allowing him to join the Navy. He completed basic training and joined the fleet as a crewman aboard the fleet oiler USS Chukawan, although he did spend a two week training period on the repair ship USS Amphion before returning to the Chukawan. He proved to be a good sailor while deployed at sea, but gained a reputation as a trouble-maker while on liberty ashore. Craddock never saw combat, but completed a Korean War deployment. He sailed home from Korean waters aboard battleship USS Wisconsin, but was not part of the ship’s company.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Genevieve Tobin

October 25, 2019

Genevieve Tobin was an American actress. The daughter of a vaudeville performer, Tobin made her film debut in 1910 in Uncle Tom’s Cabin as Eva. She appeared in a few films as child, and formed a double act with her sister Vivian. Their brother, George, also had a brief acting career. Following her education in Paris and New York, Tobin concentrated on a stage career in New York.

Although she was seen most often in comedies, she also played the role of Cordelia in a Broadway production of King Lear in 1923. Popular with audiences, she was often praised by critics for her appearance and style rather than for her talent, however in 1929 she achieved a significant success in the play Fifty Million Frenchmen. She introduced and popularized the Cole Porter song “You Do Something to Me” and the success of the role led her back to Hollywood, where she performed regularly in comedy films from the early 1930s.

She played prominent supporting roles opposite such performers as Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert, Joan Blondell and Kay Francis, but occasionally played starring roles, in films such as Golden Harvest and Easy to Love. She played secretary Della Street to Warren William’s Perry Mason in The Case of the Lucky Legs. One of her most successful performances was as a bored housewife in the drama The Petrified Forest opposite Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Television Permalink

George Gabby Hayes

October 25, 2019

George Francis “Gabby” Hayes was an American radio, film, and television actor. He was best known for his numerous appearances in Western movies as the colorful sidekick to the leading man.

Hayes was born the third of seven children in Wellsville, New York, and did not come from a cowboy background. In fact, he did not know how to ride a horse until he was in his forties and had to learn for movie roles. His father, Clark Hayes, operated a hotel and was also involved in oil production. George Hayes played semi-professional baseball while in high school, then ran away from home in 1902, at 17. He joined a stock company, apparently traveled for a time with a circus, and became a successful vaudevillian. He had become so successful that by 1928 he was able, at 43, to retire to a home on Long Island in Baldwin, New York. He lost all his savings the next year in the 1929 stock-market crash and returned to acting.

Hayes married Olive E. Ireland, daughter of a New Jersey glass finisher, on March 4, 1914. She joined him in vaudeville, performing under the name Dorothy Earle. She convinced him in 1929 to try his luck in motion pictures, and the couple moved to Los Angeles. They remained together until her death July 5, 1957. The couple had no children.

On his move to Los Angeles, according to later interviews, Hayes had a chance meeting with producer Trem Carr, who liked his look and gave him thirty roles over the next six years. In his early career, Hayes was cast in a variety of roles, including villains, and occasionally played two roles in a single film. He found a niche in the growing genre of western films, many of which were series with recurring characters. Ironically, Hayes would admit he had never been a big fan of westerns.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

George Spanky McFarland

October 25, 2019

George Robert Phillips “Spanky” McFarland was an American actor most famous for his appearances in the Our Gang series of short-subject comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. The Our Gang shorts were later popular after being syndicated to television as “The Little Rascals”.

McFarland was born in Dallas, Texas, at Methodist Hospital in 1928 to Robert Emmett and Virginia McFarland. He had three siblings, Thomas, Amanda, and Roderick. Prior to joining the Our Gang comedies, Buddy, as he was called by his family, modeled children’s clothing for a Dallas department store and also was seen around the Dallas area on highway billboards and in print advertisements for Wonder Bread. This established “Buddy” early on in the local public’s eye as an adorable child model and provided experience before cameras.

In January 1931, in response to a trade magazine advertisement from Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California, requesting photographs of “cute kids,” Spanky’s Aunt Dottie sent pictures from Buddy’s portfolio. An invitation for a screen test soon arrived, which happened that spring, leading to his acting career. Portions of Spanky’s screen test are included in a 1932 Our Gang entry, aptly entitled Spanky.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

George Arliss

October 25, 2019

George Arliss was an English actor, author, playwright and filmmaker who found success in the United States. He was the first British actor to win an Academy Award.

Born George Augustus Andrews in London, England and educated at Harrow, he started work in his father’s publishing office but left age eighteen to go on the stage. He began his acting career on the stage in the English provinces in 1887. By 1900, he was playing London’s West End, the equivalent of New York’s Broadway, in supporting roles. He embarked for a tour of America in 1901 in Mrs Patrick Campbell’s troupe. Intending to remain in the U.S. only for the length of the tour, Arliss stayed for twenty years, eventually becoming a star in 1908 in The Devil. Producer George Tyler commissioned Louis Napoleon Parker in 1911 to write a play specifically tailored for Arliss and the actor toured in Disraeli for five years, eventually becoming closely identified with the 19th century British prime minister.

He began his film career with The Devil, followed by Disraeli and four other silent films. Today, only The Devil, $20 a Week and The Green Goddess, based on the hit stage play in which he had starred, are known to have survived. He remade Disraeli in sound, converting successfully at the age of 61 from a star of the legitimate theater, then silent films, to the talkies.

Arliss made ten sound films exclusively for Warner Bros. under a contract that gave the star an unusual amount of creative control over his films. Curiously, his casting of actors and rewriting of scripts were privileges granted him by the studio that are not even mentioned in his contract. One of these films, The Man Who Played God, was Bette Davis’ first leading role. Until the end of Davis’ life, she would credit Arliss for personally insisting upon her as his leading lady and giving her a chance to show her mettle. The two also co-starred in The Working Man in 1933.

25 Oct 2019
Recording Permalink

George Benson

October 25, 2019

George Benson is a multi Grammy Award winning American musician, whose recording career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist. He is also known as a pop, R&B, and scat singer. This one-time child prodigy topped the Billboard 200 in 1976 with the triple-platinum album, Breezin‘. He was also a major live attraction in the UK during the 1980s. Benson uses a rest-stroke picking technique similar to that of gypsy jazz players such as Django Reinhardt.

Benson was born and raised in the Hill District in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the age of 7, Benson first played the ukulele in a corner drug store for which he was paid a few dollars; at the age of 8, he was playing guitar in an unlicensed nightclub on Friday and Saturday nights which was soon closed down by the police. At the age of 10, George recorded his first single record with RCA-Victor in New York, called ‘She Makes Me Mad’.

Benson attended the Connelly High School although he left before graduation. As a youth, instead, he learned how to play straight-ahead instrumental jazz during a relationship performing for several years with organist Jack McDuff. At the age of 21, he recorded his first album as leader, The New Boss Guitar, featuring McDuff. Benson’s next recording was It’s Uptown with the George Benson Quartet including Lonnie Smith on organ and Ronnie Cuber on baritone saxophone. Benson followed it up with The George Benson Cookbook, also with Lonnie Smith and Ronnie Cuber on baritone and drummer Marion Booker.

Miles Davis employed Benson in the mid 1960s, featuring his guitar on “Paraphernalia” on his 1968 Columbia release, Miles in the Sky. Benson went to Verve Records afterwards. Then, he signed with CTI Records, where he recorded numerous albums with jazz heavyweights guesting to limited financial success. Benson also did a version of The Beatles’s 1969 album Abbey Road called The Other Side of Abbey Road, also released in 1969, and a version of “White Rabbit”, originally written and recorded by San Francisco rock group Jefferson Airplane, around this time.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

George Brent

October 25, 2019

George Brent was an Irish film and television actor in American cinema.

He was born George Brendan Nolan in Raharabeg, County Roscommon on the opposite bank of the River Shannon from the town of Shannonbridge, County Offaly, Ireland, to a family with a history of British Army service. However, during the Irish War of Independence, Brent was part of an IRA Active Service Unit as early as 1920, carrying out IRA directives. He fled with a bounty set on his head by the British, although he claimed only to have been a courier for guerrilla leader and tactician Michael Collins.

He eventually moved to Hollywood where he made his first film in 1930. Signed to a contract with Warner Brothers, Brent carved out a successful career as a top-flight leading man of the late 1930s and 1940s. Highly regarded by Bette Davis, he became her most frequent male co-star, appearing with her in thirteen films, including Front Page Woman, Special Agent, The Golden Arrow, Jezebel, The Old Maid, Dark Victory and The Great Lie. Brent also played opposite Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street, Greta Garbo in The Painted Veil, Madeleine Carroll in The Case Against Mrs. Ames, Jean Arthur in More Than a Secretary, Myrna Loy in Stamboul Quest and The Rains Came, Merle Oberon in ‘Til We Meet Again, Ann Sheridan in Honeymoon for Three, Joan Fontaine in The Affairs of Susan, Barbara Stanwyck in The Purchase Price, The Gay Sisters and My Reputation, Claudette Colbert in Tomorrow Is Forever, Dorothy McGuire in The Spiral Staircase, Lucille Ball in Lover Come Back and Yvonne De Carlo in Slave Girl. Brent drifted into “B” pictures from the late 1940s and retired from film in 1953. He continued to appear on television until 1960, starring in the series Wire Service in 1956. In 1978, he made one last film, the made-for-television production Born Again.