25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Ramón Novarro

October 25, 2019

Ramón Novarro was a Mexican actor of Hollywood who achieved fame as a “Latin lover” in silent films.

Born José Ramón Gil Samaniego in Durango, Mexico, he moved with his family to Los Angeles, California, to escape the Mexican Revolution in 1913. A second cousin of the Mexican actresses Dolores del Río and Andrea Palma, he entered films in 1917 in bit parts; and he supplemented his income by working as a singing waiter. His friends, the actor and director Rex Ingram and his wife, the actress Alice Terry, began to promote him as a rival to Rudolph Valentino, and Ingram suggested he change his name to “Novarro.” From 1923, he began to play more prominent roles. His role in Scaramouche brought him his first major success.

In 1925, he achieved his greatest success in Ben-Hur, his revealing costumes causing a sensation, and was elevated into the Hollywood elite. As with many stars, Novarro engaged Sylvia of Hollywood as a therapist. With Valentino’s death in 1926, Novarro became the screen’s leading Latin actor, though ranked behind his MGM stablemate, John Gilbert, as a model lover. He was popular as a swashbuckler in action roles and was considered one of the great romantic lead actors of his day. Novarro appeared with Norma Shearer in The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg and with Joan Crawford in Across to Singapore. He made his first talking film, starring as a singing French soldier, in Devil-May-Care. He also starred with the French actress Renée Adorée in The Pagan. Novarro starred with Greta Garbo in Mata Hari and was a qualified success opposite Myrna Loy in The Barbarian. When Novarro’s contract with MGM Studios expired in 1935, the studio did not renew it. He continued to act sporadically, appearing in films for Republic Pictures, a Mexican religious drama, and a French comedy. In the 1940s, he had several small roles in American films, including John Huston’s We Were Strangers starring Jennifer Jones and John Garfield. In 1958, he was considered for a role in a television series, The Green Peacock with Howard Duff and Ida Lupino after the demise of their CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve. The project, however, never materialized. A Broadway tryout was aborted in the 1960s; but Novarro kept busy on television, appearing in NBC’s The High Chaparral as late as 1968.

25 Oct 2019
Live Performance Permalink

Plácido Domingo

October 25, 2019

José Plácido Domingo Embil KBE, better known as Plácido Domingo, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range. In March 2008, he debuted in his 128th opera role, giving Domingo more roles than any other tenor. One of The Three Tenors, he has also taken on conducting opera and concert performances, as well as serving as the General Director of the Washington National Opera in Washington, D.C. and the Los Angeles Opera in California. His contracts in both Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. have been extended through the 2010?2011 season.

Plácido Domingo was born near the Barrio de Salamanca section of Madrid, Spain, and moved to Mexico with his family, who ran a zarzuela company. He studied piano at first privately and later at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City.

In 1957, P. Domingo made his first professional appearance, performing with his mother in a concert at Mérida, Yucatán. He made his opera debut performing in Manuel Fernández Caballero’s zarzuela, Gigantes y cabezudos, singing a baritone role. At that time, he was working with his parents’ zarzuela company, taking baritone roles and as an accompanist for other singers. Among his first performances was a minor role in the first Mexican production of My Fair Lady where he was also the assistant conductor and assistant coach. The company gave 185 performances, which included a production of Lehár’s The Merry Widow in which he performed alternately as either Camille or Danilo.

In 1959, Domingo auditioned for the Mexico National Opera as a baritone but was then asked to sight-read some arias and lines in the tenor range. Finally he was accepted in the National Opera as a tenor comprimario and as a tutor for other singers. He provided backup vocals for Los Black Jeans in 1958, a rock-and-roll band led by César Costa. He studied piano and conducting, but made his stage debut acting in a minor role in 1959 at the Teatro Degollado in Guadalajara as Pascual in Marina. It was followed by Borsa in Rigoletto, Padre Confessor and others.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Pola Negri

October 25, 2019

Pola Negri was a Polish film actress who achieved worlwide fame as a femme fatale in silent films between 1910s and 1930s.

Born Barbara Apolonia Cha?upiec according to her birth record and autobiography on January 3, 1897 in Lipno, Vistula Land, as an only child in a poor family, her mother had to make a living alone after Cha?upiec’s father was arrested by the Russians and sent to Siberia. Her father, Juraj Cha?upiec, was a Slovak immigrant tinsmith.

In 1902, both moved to Warsaw, where they lived in extreme poverty. She trained as a dancer at the Ballet School in Warsaw and performed there until tuberculosis forced her to stop dancing.

During her movie career, she was also touted as an accomplished organist, and at least one extant photograph shows her apparently performing on a two manual pipe organ, but this may have been merely publicity, as her family’s extreme poverty would seem to argue against her studying with any well-known organist.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Polly Moran

October 25, 2019

Polly Moran was an American actress and comedian.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Moran started out in vaudeville, and toured all over the world including Europe and South Africa. She left vaudeville in 1914 after signing for Mack Sennett at Keystone Studios. She proved effective at slapstick and remained with Sennett for several years until she was signed by MGM. She partnered with the famous Broadway star Marie Dressler in The Callahans and the Murphys, and the two went on to appear in several films together such as Chasing Rainbows and Caught Short. After Dressler’s death in 1934 Moran’s career declined, and she only starred in low budget comedies or B-movies, though she still maintained an active Hollywood social life, throwing large and well-publicized parties.

Moran made a comeback after co-starring in Adam’s Rib. She died of cardiovascular disease in 1952.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Television Permalink

Portland Hoffa

October 25, 2019

Portland Hoffa was an American comedienne, actor, and dancer. She is remembered best as the stage and radio partner of her first husband, Fred Allen.

A veteran of vaudeville and Broadway-level stage productions, Portland Hoffa met Fred Allen while performing in The Passing Show in 1922 and joined him in his vaudeville routines ; the couple married before Allen began his long-running radio work in 1932, with Hoffa taking instruction in the Roman Catholic Church prior to the marriage.

Hoffa became familiar for her high-pitched voice, her brief routines involving jokes bounced off or from her mother, and, later, strolling Allen’s Alley with her husband, after asking him what his question of the week for the Alley denizens would be. Although Hoffa performed under her real name on her husband’s show, the character she portrayed as “Portland Hoffa” in the radio broadcasts was not Allen’s wife; instead, she depicted an enthusiastic girl of indeterminate age, around thirteen years old. One of Allen’s sponsors loathed the character played by Hoffa, and kept urging Allen to drop her from the show. Allen ignored these requests for as long as he could, then finally — in an angry outburst at a sales meeting — told the executive that the broadcasts were bearable only due to Hoffa’s presence, and that if she were removed from the program then Allen would quit.

Fred Allen’s declining health was the main reason why he ceased hosting his own show after 1949, but Hoffa often joined him as a semi-regular on Tallulah Bankhead’s radio variety show, The Big Show. She also appeared as the “mystery guest” on one episode of television’s What’s My Line, on which Allen had become a panelist from 1954 until his death in early 1956. Hoffa and Allen had also appeared in such films as Is Everybody Listening? and the Jack Benny vehicle Buck Benny Rides Again .

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Preston Foster

October 25, 2019

Preston Foster was an American stage and film actor, and singer. Foster entered films in 1929 after appearing as a Broadway stage actor. He was appearing in Broadway plays as late as October 1931 when he acted in a play titled Two Seconds starring Edward J. Pawley. Some of his notable films include: Doctor X, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Annie Oakley, The Last Days of Pompeii, The Informer, and My Friend Flicka. He starred on the television drama, Waterfront, playing the role of Captain John Herrick. Foster has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was sometimes credited in movies as Preston S. Foster. His first wife was stage actress Gertrude Warren. He had one daughter, Stephanie. He was married to his second wife, actress Sheila Darcy, from 1946 until his death.

During World War II while serving with the United States Coast Guard, he rose to the rank of captain, Temporary Reserve. He eventually held the honorary rank of Commodore in the U.S. Coast Guard.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Preston Sturges

October 25, 2019

Preston Sturges, originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois. In 1941 he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film The Great McGinty .

Sturges took the screwball comedy format of the 1930s to another level, writing dialogue that, heard today, is often surprisingly naturalistic, mature, and ahead of its time, despite the farcical situations.

In recent years, film scholars such as Alessandro Pirolini have also argued that Sturges’ cinema anticipated more experimental narratives by contemporary directors such as Joel and Ethan Coen, Robert Zemeckis, and Woody Allen: “Many of movies and screenplays reveal a restless and impatient attempt to escape codified rules and narrative schemata, and to push the mechanisms and conventions of their genre to the extent of unveiling them to the spectator. the disruption of standardized timelines in films such as The Power and the Glory and The Great McGinty an apparently classical comedy such as Unfaithfully Yours shifts into the realm of multiple and hypothetical narratives.

Though not the first person in Hollywood to direct from his own script – Charlie Chaplin had done so as early as 1921 – Sturges is often regarded as the first screenwriter, established as a success in that field, to move into directing his own scripts, at a time when those roles were almost universally entrenched and separate. Famously, Sturges sold the story for The Great McGinty to Paramount Pictures for $1, in return for being allowed to direct the film; the sum was quietly raised to $10 by the studio for legal reasons.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

Queen Latifah

October 25, 2019

Dana Elaine Owens, better known by her stage name Queen Latifah, is an American rapper, actress and singer. Queen Latifah’s work in music, film and television has earned her a Golden Globe award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Image Awards, a Grammy Award, six additional Grammy nominations, an Emmy Award nomination and an Academy Award nomination.

Queen Latifah was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of Rita, a schoolteacher who worked at Irvington High School, and Lancelot Owens, Sr., a police officer. Her parents divorced when Latifah was ten. Latifah was raised in the Baptist church and she attended Catholic school in Newark, New Jersey. Her stage name, Latifah, meaning “delicate” and “very kind” in Arabic, was given to her by her cousin when she was eight. Always a tall girl, the 5’10” tall Latifah was a power forward on her high school basketball team. She performed the number “Home” from the musical The Wiz in a high school play.

Latifah started beatboxing for the rap group Ladies Fresh. Latifah was one of the members of the original version of the Flavor Unit, which, at that time, was a crew of MCs grouped around producer DJ Mark the 45 King. Mark James aka “DJ Mark the 45 King” made a demo recording of Queen Latifah’s rap Princess of the Posse. He gave the recording to the host of Yo! MTV Raps Fab 5 Freddy. The song got the attention of Tommy Boy Music employee Dante Ross, who signed Latifah and in 1988 issued her first single, “Wrath of My Madness”.

Freddy helped Latifah sign with Tommy Boy Records, which released Latifah’s first album All Hail the Queen in 1989, when she was nineteen. That year, she appeared as Referee on the UK label Music of Life album “1989?The Hustlers Convention “. In 1998, Co Produced by Ro Smith, now CEO of Def Ro Inc., she released her fourth hip-hop album Order in the Court.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Queen

October 25, 2019

Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, and Roger Taylor. Queen’s initial works were chiefly glam rock, heavy metal and progressive rock orientated ; however, with time, the band has incorporated diverse and innovative styles in their music, exploring the likes of vaudeville, electronic music and funk. The band digressed from using progressive themes in their music in the mid-1970s, with more conventional and radio-friendly works bringing them greater success.

Brian May and Roger Taylor had been playing together in a band named Smile. Freddie Mercury was a fan of Smile, and encouraged them to experiment with more elaborate stage and recording techniques. Mercury himself joined the band shortly thereafter, changed the name of the band to ‘Queen’ and adopted his familiar stage name. John Deacon was recruited prior to recording their first album. Queen enjoyed success in the UK during the early 1970s, but it was the release of Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at the Opera that gained the band international success. The latter featured “Bohemian Rhapsody”, which stayed at number one in the UK charts for nine weeks. In 1991 Mercury died of bronchopneumonia, a complication of AIDS, and Deacon retired in 1997. Since then May and Taylor have infrequently performed together, including a collaboration with Paul Rodgers under the name Queen + Paul Rodgers.

The band has released a total of 18 number one albums, 18 number one singles and 10 number one DVDs, and have sold over 300 million albums worldwide, making them one of the world’s best-selling music artists. They have been honoured with seven Ivor Novello awards and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

In 1968, guitarist Brian May, a student at London’s Imperial College, and bassist Tim Staffell decided to form a band. May placed an advertisement on the college notice board for a “Mitch Mitchell/Ginger Baker type” drummer; Roger Taylor, a young dental student, auditioned and got the job. The group called themselves Smile.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Pierre Monteux

October 25, 2019

Pierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, rue de la Grange Batelière. Monteux later became an American citizen.

Monteux studied violin from an early age, entering the Paris Conservatoire at the age of nine. He became a proficient violinist, good enough to share the Conservatoire’s violin prize in 1896 with Jacques Thibaud. In his spare time he also played at the Folies Bergères. He later took up the viola studying with Théophile Laforge and played in the Geloso Quartet which played one of Brahms’s string quartets in a private performance for the composer and in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique, leading the viola section in the première of Debussy’s opera, Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902.

In 1910, Monteux took a conducting post at the Dieppe casino. The next year, 1911, he became conductor of Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet company, the Ballets Russes. In this capacity he conducted the premières of Stravinsky’s Petrushka and The Rite of Spring – with its famous riot – as well as Debussy’s Jeux and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. This established the course of his career, and for the rest of his life he was noted particularly for his interpretations of Russian and French music.

With the outbreak of World War I, Monteux was called up for military service, but was discharged in 1916, and travelled to the United States. There he took charge of the French repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1917 to 1919. He also conducted the United States premières of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Golden Cockerel and Henri Rabaud’s Mârouf, savetier du Caire at the Metropolitan Opera.