25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Chicago

October 25, 2019

Chicago is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The band began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had a steady stream of hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Second only to the Beach Boys in terms of singles and albums, Chicago is one of the longest running and most successful U.S. pop/rock and roll groups.

According to Billboard, Chicago was the leading U.S. singles charting group during the 1970s. They have sold over 38 million units in the U.S., with 22 gold, 18 platinum, and 8 multi-platinum albums. Over the course of their career they have charted five No. 1 albums, and have had 21 top ten hits.

The band was formed when a group of DePaul University music students who had been playing local late-night clubs recruited a couple of other students from the university and decided to meet in saxophonist Walter Parazaider's apartment. The five musicians consisted of Parazaider, guitarist Terry Kath, drummer Danny Seraphine, trombonist James Pankow, trumpet player Lee Loughnane. The last to arrive was keyboardist Robert Lamm, a music major from Chicago's Roosevelt University. The group of six called themselves The Big Thing, and continued playing top-40 hits, but realized that they were missing a tenor voice ; the voice they were missing belonged to local bassist Peter Cetera.

While gaining some success as a cover band, the group began working on original songs. In June 1968, they moved to Los Angeles, California under the guidance of their friend and manager James William Guercio, and signed with Columbia Records. After signing with Guercio, The Big Thing changed their name to Chicago Transit Authority.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Charles Laughton

October 25, 2019

Charles Laughton was an English-American stage and film actor, screenwriter, producer and two-time director.

Laughton was best known for his historical roles in films, but he started his career as a remarkable stage actor, during a time when many serious stage actors despised the motion picture medium, seeing it only as a source of income. Laughton showed keen and serious interest in the pioneering possibilities of film, and later other media, such as radio, recordings, and TV, proving that quality work could be made available to audiences other than theatre-goers. He became an American citizen in 1950.

Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, the son of Robert Laughton, a Yorkshire hotel keeper, and his wife Elizabeth. His mother was a devout Roman Catholic and he attended Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit school, in Lancashire, England. He served during World War I first with the 2/1st Battalion of the Huntingdonshire Cyclist Regiment and later with the 7th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment.

He started work in the family hotel business, while participating in amateur theatricals in Scarborough. Finally allowed by his family to become a drama student at RADA in 1925, Laughton made his first professional stage appearance on April 28, 1926 at the Barnes Theatre, as Osip in the comedy The Government Inspector, in which he also appeared at the London Gaiety Theatre in May. Despite not having the looks for a romantic lead, he impressed audiences with his talent and played classical roles in two plays by Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters. He played the title role in Arnold Bennett’s Mr Prohack, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot in Alibi, the title role in Mr Pickwick after Charles Dickens, Tony Perelli in Edgar Wallace’s On the Spot and William Marble in Payment Deferred. He took this last play across the Atlantic and in it he made his debut in the United States on September 24, 1931, at the Lyceum Theatre. He returned to London for the 1933-34 Old Vic Season and was engaged in four Shakespeare roles. In 1936, he went to Paris and on May 9 appeared at the Comédie-Française as Sganarelle in the second act of Molière’s Le Médecin malgré lui, the first English actor to appear at that theatre, where he acted the part in French and received an ovation.

25 Oct 2019
Television Permalink

Charles M. Schulz

October 25, 2019

Charles Monroe Schulz was an American cartoonist, whose comic strip Peanuts proved one of the most popular and influential in the history of the medium, and is still widely reprinted on a daily basis.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Schulz grew up in Saint Paul. He was the only child of Carl Schulz, who was German, and Dena Halverson, who was Norwegian. His uncle nicknamed him “Sparky” after the horse Spark Plug in the Barney Google comic strip.

Schulz loved drawing and sometimes drew his family dog, Spike, who ate unusual things, such as pins and tacks. Schulz drew a picture of Spike and sent it to Ripley’s Believe It or Not!; his drawing appeared in the comic published by Robert Ripley, captioned “A hunting dog that eats pins, tacks, and razor blades is owned by C. F. Schulz, St. Paul, Minn.” and “Drawn by ‘Sparky'”

Schulz attended St. Paul’s Richard Gordon Elementary School, where he skipped two half-grades. When he was in first grade, his mother helped him get valentines for everybody in his class, so that nobody would be offended by not getting one; but he felt too shy to put them in the box at the front of the classroom, so he took them all home again to his mother.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Charles McGraw

October 25, 2019

Charles Butters, best known by his stage name Charles McGraw, was an American actor, who made his first film in 1942, albeit in a small, uncredited cameo role. He was born in Des Moines, Iowa.

McGraw developed into a leading man, especially in film noir classics during the late 1940s and 1950s. His gravelly voice and rugged looks enhanced his appeal in the noir stylistic genre, and provided him many roles as cop or gunman.

Introduced with fellow “heavy” William Conrad as the two hitmen terrorizing a small town diner in the start of the 1946 film The Killers, McGraw’s notable roles include: “Honest Joe” insurance investigator turned thief by love interest in the noir classic Roadblock ; playing the grumpy cop hired to protect Marie Windsor in the noir B-movie The Narrow Margin ; Kirk Douglas’ gladiator trainer in the epic Spartacus; righteous cop Lt. Jim Cordell in the Armored Car Robbery ; and “The Preacher” in the science fiction cult classic A Boy and His Dog. McGraw is recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6927 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures 1 Comment Permalink

Charles Ray

October 25, 2019 1 Comment

Charles Ray was a silent film star. Extremely popular in a series of films casting him in juvenile roles, primarily rural young men, Ray’s career faded as he lost his youthful looks- he also had a reputation of being demanding and having an outsized ego. In 1926, he played the lead in Paris opposite a young Joan Crawford.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio, Television Permalink

Charles Ruggles

October 25, 2019

Charles Sherman ?Charlie? Ruggles was a comic American actor. In a career spanning six decades, Ruggles appeared in close to 100 feature films. He was also the brother of director, producer, and silent actor Wesley Ruggles. Charlie Ruggles was born in Los Angeles, California in 1886. Despite training to be a doctor, Ruggles soon found himself on the stage, appearing in a stock production of Nathan Hale in 1905. At Los Angeles’s Majestic Theatre, he played the romantic lead Private Jo Files in L. Frank Baum and Louis F. Gottschalk’s musical, The Tik-Tok Man of Oz in 1913. He moved to Broadway to appear in Help Wanted in 1914. His first screen role came in the silent Peer Gynt the following year. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s Ruggles continued to appear in silent movies, though his passion remained the stage, appearing in long-running productions such as The Passing Show of 1918, The Demi-Virgin and Battling Butler. His most famous stage hit was one of his last before a twenty year hiatus, Queen High, produced in 1930.

From 1929, Ruggles appeared in talking pictures. His first was Gentleman of the Press in which he played a comic, alcoholic newspaper reporter. Throughout the 1930s he was teamed with comic actress Mary Boland in a string of domestic farces, notably Six of a Kind, Ruggles of Red Gap, and People Will Talk; Boland was the domineering wife and Ruggles the mild-mannered husband. Ruggles is best remembered today as the big-game hunter in Bringing Up Baby. In other films he often played the “comic relief” character in otherwise straight films. In all, he appeared in about 100 movies.

In 1949, Ruggles halted in his film career to return to the stage and to move into television. He was the headline character in the TV series The Ruggles, a family comedy in which he played a character also called Charlie Ruggles, and The World of Mr. Sweeney. He returned to the big screen in 1961, playing Charles McKendrick in The Parent Trap and Mackenzie Savage in The Pleasure of His Company. In the latter film, he reprised the role for which he had won a Tony Award in 1959. He had a recurring guest role on The Beverly Hillbillies in the mid-1960s as Lowell Redlings Farquhar, father-in-law of Milburn Drysdale. Ruggles also played as Mr. Caldwell in the TV series Bewitched with Agnes Moorehead, Dick York, and Elizabeth Montgomery.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Charles Vidor

October 25, 2019

Charles Vidor was a film director. Born Károly Vidor to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he served in the Hungarian Army during World War I. He first came to prominence during the final years of the silent film era.

Among his film successes are The Bridge, Cover Girl, A Song to Remember, Gilda, The Loves of Carmen, Love Me or Leave Me, The Swan, The Joker Is Wild, and A Farewell to Arms. He was married four times:

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Charles Walters

October 25, 2019

Charles Walters was a Hollywood director and choreographer most noted for his work in MGM musicals and comedies in from the 1940s to the 1960s.

He was born in Pasadena, California, and educated at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

He is notable for directing Esther Williams' musicals involving underwater swimming and diving sequences, such as Dangerous When Wet, as well as several musicals starring Leslie Caron, such as Gigi and Lili. He has also directed musical remakes, including High Society, a remake of The Philadelphia Story, and The Tender Trap, a remake of Bachelor Mother. Walters also directed the last pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, The Barkleys of Broadway, as well as Cary Grant in the actor's last film Walk, Don't Run.

Walters died from lung cancer at the age of 71.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

Charles Winninger

October 25, 2019

Charles Winninger was an American stage and film actor, most often cast in comedies or musicals, but equally at home in drama.

He began as a vaudeville actor. His most famous stage role was as Cap’n Andy Hawks in the original production of the Jerome Kern – Oscar Hammerstein II musical classic Show Boat in 1927, a role that he reprised ? to great acclaim ? in the 1932 stage revival and the 1936 film version of the show. He became so identified with the role, and with his “persona” as a riverboat captain, that he played several variations of the role, notably on the radio program Maxwell House Show Boat, which was clearly inspired by, but not actually based on, the Broadway musical.

After the 1936 “Show Boat”, Winninger largely abandoned the stage and stayed on in Hollywood, becoming one of its most beloved and most often seen character actors. He appeared in such classics as the 1937 Nothing Sacred, the 1939 Destry Rides Again, as Deanna Durbin’s father in the film Three Smart Girls, and as Abel Frake in the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein film musical State Fair. He played the protective Irish Grandfather in MGM’s film version of George M. Cohan’s Little Nellie Kelly, and the father of a budding show-girl in Ziegfeld Girl, both starring Judy Garland. In all of these films, Winninger was the very image of the kindly, lovable, chubby, grandfatherly figure, but in “Show Boat”, especially, he showed that he could play a dramatic, emotional scene as well as any serious dramatic actor. He returned to Broadway only once more – for the 1951 revival of Kern and Hammerstein’s Music in the Air.

Winninger had the lead role in only one film, 1953’s The Sun Shines Bright, John Ford’s remake of his own Judge Priest. Winninger played the role that Will Rogers had undertaken in 1934.