25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Alfred Newman

October 25, 2019

Alfred Newman was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of music for films.

In a career which spanned over forty years, Newman composed music for over two hundred films. He was one of the most respected film score composers of his time, and is today regarded as one of the greatest film score composers in history. Along with such composers as Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, and Miklós Rózsa, Newman played a major part in creating the tradition of composing original music for films.

Newman also conducted the music for many film adaptations of Broadway musicals, as well as many original Hollywood musicals. He won Oscars for adapting the scores of such noted musicals as The King and I, Camelot, and Call Me Madam, as well as for adapting the songs in such Hollywood musicals as the Betty Grable vehicle Mother Wore Tights. He conducted the orchestra for all of the film adaptations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals except for Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music. He also conducted the orchestra for the only musical that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote specifically for film, State Fair, and its 1962 remake.

Newman won nine Academy Awards, more than any other composer in Oscar history, and second only to Walt Disney for the most wins by an individual. He was nominated a total of 45 times, making him the second most nominated person in the history of the Academy Award, again second to Disney and tied with John Williams.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Al St. John

October 25, 2019

Al St. John in his persona of Fuzzy Q. Jones basically defined the role and concept of “comical sidekick” to cowboy heroes from 1930 to 1951. St. John also created a character, “Stoney,” in the of a continuing Western film series, The Three Mesquiteers, that was later played by John Wayne.

Born in Santa Ana, California, St. John entered silent films around 1912 and soon rose to co-starring and starring roles in short comic films from a variety of studios. His uncle, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, may have helped him in his early days at Mack Sennett Studios, but talent kept him working. He was slender, sandy-haired, handsome and a remarkable acrobat.

St. John frequently appeared as Arbuckle’s mischievously villainous rival for the attentions of leading ladies like Mabel Normand, and worked with Arbuckle and Charles Chaplin in The Rounders. The most critically praised film from St. John’s period with Arbuckle remains Fatty and Mabel Adrift with Normand.

When Arbuckle formed his own production company, he brought St. John with him and recruited stage star Buster Keaton into his films, creating a formidable roughhouse trio. After Arbuckle was victimized by a trumped-up scandal and prevented from appearing in movies, he pseudonymously directed his nephew Al as a comic leading man in silent and sound films such as The Iron Mule and Bridge Wives. Dozens of St. John’s early films were screened during the 56-film Arbuckle retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2006.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Alice Brady

October 25, 2019

Alice Brady was an American actress who began her career in the silent film era and survived the transition into talkies. She worked up until six months before her death from cancer in 1939. Her films include My Man Godfrey, in which she played the flighty mother of Carole Lombard’s character, and In Old Chicago for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Brady was born in New York City as Mary Rose Brady, and was interested at an early age in becoming an actress. Her father, William A. Brady, was an important theatrical producer, and her mother was Rose Marie Rene who died in 1896 when little Alice was four. Alice first went on the stage when she was 14 and got her first job on Broadway in 1911 at the age of 18, in a show her father was associated with. She continued to perform there consistently for the next 22 years. In 1931 she appeared in the premiere of Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra. Her step mother was the Broadway star Grace George whom her father married when Alice was a child. Her half-brother was William A. Brady Jr, the son of her father & Grace George.

Brady’s father moved into movie production and presentation in 1913, with his World Film Corporation, and Brady soon followed along after him, making her first silent feature appearance in As Ye Sow in 1914. She appeared in 53 films in the next 10 years, all while continuing to perform on stage, the film industry at the time being centered in New York.

In 1923, she stopped appearing in films to concentrate on stage acting, and did not appear on the screen again until 1933, when she made the move to Hollywood and M-G-M’s When Ladies Meet become her first talking picture. From then on she worked frequently until her death, making another 25 films in seven years. Her final film was Young Mr. Lincoln .

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Alice Calhoun

October 25, 2019

Alice Calhoun was an American silent film actress.

Born Alice Beatrice Calhoun in Cleveland, Ohio, she made her film debut in a role not credited in 1918 and went on to appear in another forty-seven films between then and 1929. As a star with Vitagraph in New York City, she moved with the company when it relocated to Hollywood. In the comedy, The Man Next Door, Calhoun plays Bonnie Bell. A critic complimented her on being pretty and playing her role successfully.The Man From Brodney’s is a movie which displays the fencing talent of actor J. Warren Kerrigan. Directed by David Smith for

Vitagraph, the film is based on a novel by George Barr McCutcheon. Calhoun plays Princess Genevra. Between Friends is a motion

picture adapted from a story by Robert W. Chambers. Anna Q. Nilsson and Norman Kerry are part of a cast in which Calhoun plays an artist’s Model. Among her other movies titles are

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Alice Cooper

October 25, 2019

Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades. With a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls, Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand of heavy metal that was designed to shock.

Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith. The original Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit “I’m Eighteen” from the album Love it to Death, which was followed by the even bigger single “School’s Out” in 1972. The band reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.

Furnier’s solo career as Alice Cooper, adopting the band’s name as his own name, began with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. In 2008 he released Along Came a Spider, his 18th solo album. Expanding from his original Detroit rock roots, over the years Cooper has experimented with many different musical styles, including conceptual rock, art rock, glam metal, hard rock, new wave, pop rock, soft rock, experimental rock, heavy metal, and industrial rock. In recent times he has returned more to his garage rock roots.

Alice Cooper is known for his social and witty persona offstage, The Rolling Stone Album Guide going so far as to refer to him as the world’s most “beloved heavy metal entertainer”. He helped to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and has been credited as being the person who “first introduced horror imagery to rock’n’roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre”. Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Alice Faye

October 25, 2019

Alice Faye was an American actress and singer, called by the New York Times “one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career.” She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader-comedian Phil Harris. She is also often associated with the Academy Award?winning standard, “You’ll Never Know”, which she introduced in the 1943 musical, Hello, Frisco, Hello.

Born Alice Jeanne Leppert in New York City, she was the daughter of a New York police officer of German descent and his Irish-American wife, Charles and Alice Leppert. Faye’s entertainment career began in vaudeville as a chorus girl, before she moved to Broadway and a featured role in the 1931 edition of George White’s Scandals. By this time, she had adopted her stage name and first reached a radio audience on Rudy Vallée’s The Fleischmann Hour, where she may have met her future husband and comedy partner Phil Harris for the first time.

Meanwhile, she gained her first major film break in 1934, when Lilian Harvey abandoned the lead role in a film version of George White’s 1935 Scandals, in which Vallee was also to appear. Hired first to perform a musical number with Vallee, Faye ended up as the female lead. And she became a hit with film audiences of the 1930s, particularly when Fox production head Darryl F. Zanuck made her his protege. He softened Faye from a wisecracking show girl to a youthful, yet somewhat motherly figure such as she played in a few Shirley Temple films.

Faye also received a physical makeover, from being something of a singing version of Jean Harlow to sporting a softer look with a more natural tone to her blonde hair and more mature makeup, including her notorious “pencil” eyebrows. This transition was practically a plot point of 1938’s Alexander’s Ragtime Band, in which Faye’s ascent is dramatized by her increasingly elegant grooming.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Alice Lake

October 25, 2019

Alice Lake was an American film actress. She began her career during the silent film era and often appeared in comedy shorts opposite Roscoe Arbuckle.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lake began her career as a dancer. She made her screen debut was in 1912, and she appeared in a number of comedy shorts by Mack Sennett. Lake was often the leading lady of Roscoe Arbuckle in comedies like Oh Doctor! and The Cook. Arbuckle directed both films and was joined by Buster Keaton who had a leading role Oh Doctor.

Lake also played dramatic roles with Bert Lytell in Blackie’s Redemption and The Lion’s Den, both from 1919. During the 1920s she appeared in a number of Metro silent film features as the lead actress. At the height of her career she earned $1,200 per week as a motion picture actress. Lake had only limited success in dramatic roles. Following the introduction of talkies, her parts in films began to wane and she only performed in supporting roles. Her last appearance in film was in 1935 with a bit part in Frisco Kid. In all her screen credits numbered ninety-six.

In March 1925, Lake married fellow actor Robert Williams, but they were divorced in 1926. The couple separated and reunited three times before they made a permanent break. Williams was a vaudeville performer who had appeared in a number of stage plays. He was previously married to singer Marion Harris.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Alice Terry

October 25, 2019

Alice Terry was an American film actress who began her career during the silent film era, appearing in thirty-nine films between 1916 and 1933.

Born Alice Frances Taaffe in Vincennes, Indiana, she made her film debut in 1916 in Not My Sister, opposite Bessie Barriscale and William Desmond Taylor.

That same year, she played several different characters in the 1916 anti-war film Civilization, co-directed by Thomas H. Ince and Reginald Barker. One of her most acclaimed performances came as "Marguerite" in 1921's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, starring Rudolph Valentino.

In 1925 her husband co-directed Ben-Hur, filming parts of it in Italy. The two decided to move to the French Riviera, where they set up a small studio in Nice and made several films on location in North Africa, Spain, and Italy for MGM and others. In 1933, Terry made her last film appearance in Baroud, which she also co-directed with husband Rex Ingram.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Alice White

October 25, 2019

Alice White was an American film actress. She was born Alva White of French and Italian parents. Her mother, a former chorus girl died when Alice was only three years old. She attended Roanoke College in Virginia and then took a secretarial course at Hollywood High School also attended by future actors Joel McCrea and Mary Brian. After leaving school she became a secretary and “script girl” for director Josef Von Sternberg. After clashing with Von Sternberg, White left his employment to work for Charlie Chaplin, who decided before long to place her in front of the camera.

Her bubbly and vivacious persona led to comparisons with Clara Bow, but White’s career was slow to progress. After playing a succession of flappers and gold diggers, she attracted the attention of the director and producer Mervyn LeRoy who saw potential in her. Her first sound films included Show Girl made in the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, and Show Girl in Hollywood in the Western Electric sound-on-film process, both released by Warner Brothers and both based on novels by J. P. McEvoy. In these two films, White appeared as “Dixie Dugan”. In October 1929, McAvoy started the comic strip Dixie Dugan with the character Dixie having a “helmet” hairstyle and appearance similar to actress Louise Brooks. White also used the services of Hollywood ‘beauty sculptor’ Sylvia of Hollywood to stay in shape.

She left films in 1931 to improve her acting abilities, returning in 1933 only to have her career hurt by a scandal that erupted over her involvement with boyfriend actor Jack Warburton and future husband Sy Bartlett. Although she later married Bartlett, her reputation was tarnished and she appeared only in supporting roles after this. By 1937 and 1938, her name was at the bottom of the cast lists. She made her final film appearance in Flamingo Road. White died of complications from a stroke, aged 78, on February 19, 1983.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink
Albert Dekker, 1950s. (Photo by Film Favorites/Getty Images)
Albert Dekker, 1950s. (Photo by Film Favorites/Getty Images)

Albert Dekker

October 25, 2019

Albert Dekker was an American character actor and politician best known for his roles in Dr. Cyclops, The Killers, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Wild Bunch. He is sometimes credited as Albert Van Dekker or Albert van Dekker.

Born as Albert Van Ecke in Brooklyn, New York, he adopted his mother’s maiden name of Dekker as his stage name. Dekker attended Bowdoin College and made his professional acting debut with a Cincinnati stock company in 1927. Within a few months, Dekker was featured in the Broadway production of Eugene O’Neill’s play Marco Millions.

On April 4, 1929, Dekker married actress Esther Guernini. The couple had two sons and a daughter before divorcing.

After a decade of theatrical appearances, Dekker transferred to Hollywood in 1937, and made his first film, 1937’s The Great Garrick. He spent most of the rest of his acting career in the cinema, but also returned to the stage from time to time.