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- Actor
- Soundtrack
As a young man, Kurt Kasznar enrolled in Max Reinhardt's seminars. He came to the US in the mid-30s in "The Eternal Road," in which he played at least 12 roles. In 1941, he produced the New York show, "Crazy with the Heat." That same year, he was drafted into the army, where he was trained as a cinematographer and served in the Pacific. His first major Broadway role was "The Happy Time." Kasznar also played in "The Sound Of Music," "Barefoot in The Park," "Waiting for Godot" and "Six Characters in Search of an Author." He has appeared in many films.- Actor
- Soundtrack
The career of actor and night club nightclub performer Charles Pierce, "Male Actress," Stand-Up Comic in a Dress, and the "Master and Mistress of Surprise or Disguise" included acting and radio announcing, but as a female impressionist, Pierce has left his audiences weak with laughter, and brightened their lives with his wicked and sometimes irreverent impressions of film stars, including Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Carol Channing, Katharine Hepburn and even "Mrs. Olsen" of the Folgers coffee commercials. His career took him to London, New York, San Francisco, Miami Beach, Los Angeles and Chicago. His 1984 show at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was filmed and broadcast on the Playboy Channel. His engagements at the Henry Fonda Theatre (Hollywood), Ballroom and Village Gate (Manhattan) and the Fortune Theatre (London) were all sell-outs. During his illustrious career, celebrities around the world, including Tommy Tune, Anita Loos, Beatrice Arthur, Eugenia Bankhead (the sister), the Incomparable Hildegarde (with whom he appeared at Town Hall in New York), and Stephen Sondheim have toasted him. In the mid-1990s he retired, having lost several staff members to the AIDS epidemic. He made a few appearances for special events, such as author/actor Charles Busch's highly successful Town Hall drag summit show in New York City, which featured Milton Berle and all the best drag acts. In the last couple of years, Charles gathered together all his scrapbooks photographs, programs, recordings and videotapes and shipped them to the Performing Arts Library of Lincoln Center, New York, and to the ONE Archives at USC in Los Angeles. By May 1999 the materials were catalogued, and are now available to researchers.
Born on Bastille Day in 1926, Charles was named after his grandfather, Dr. Charles E. Pierce, and spent his youth in Watertown, New York. Beginning around 1944, Charles worked at a local radio station WWNY, playing the Hammond organ and acting in radio dramas. In a vintage photo taken at the station, 18-year-old Charles, seated at the organ, is shown looking at the sheet music of "They're Either Too Young Or Too Old," a song Bette Davis sang in the Warner Bros. film "Thank Your Lucky Stars." It was not easy for the critics to describe Charles' unique act, but when they did, he would happily appropriate the description. Apparently it was Herb Caen (in whose San Francisco Chronicle gossip column Charles appeared 50 times) who dubbed Charles a "male actress." When he played the Fairmont Venetian Room in the 1980s, the ads showed Charles as Bette Davis, holding a smoldering cigarette, with the caption, "The Last Drag."
Charles' first stand-up comedy routines were naïvely costumed. In a 1983 Public Radio interview on KALW in San Francisco, Charles said, "Through the years the act has had a lot of phases. I originally started in a tuxedo with a box of props. Then I started working clubs in Florida that required a lot of changes in material, so then I started working more or less in drag, and I say 'more or less' because Florida [laws] were very strict: You could wear black pants, you could wear a black turtle neck sweater, but you could not wear a dress. You could put feather boas on, and hats and gloves and pocketbooks, but you couldn't be in drag. And so we did a lot of pantomimes, and then I would do my 'live' material (maybe 10 minutes) at the end of that show. Eventually we ended up here in San Francisco (When I say 'we,' I refer to my performing partner at that time, Rio Dante), and we 'holed up' at the Gilded Cage for six years. We did a lot of pantomimes, and Mae West's [rock and roll] 'Treat Him Right' was one of them." In this same interview, Pierce admitted he never took the impersonations too seriously, "I've been billed as the 'stand up comic in a dress or 'the grand impostor,'...but it's all for laughs, it's all for fun and comedy."
Through the years, Charles' reputation built up from playing small gay clubs around the country, but San Francisco embraced him as no other town. John Wallraff, who attended the Pasadena Playhouse with Charles in 1947-48 reminisced: "He wanted to be a stage actor. He raced around Hollywood trying to get jobs. He went to a theatre group called Cabaret Concert, doing sketches à la Noël Coward. Back at Pasadena Playhouse, he played in Richard III and played the Ghost of Christmas Past in A Christmas Carol, Pierce also did some summer stock in upstate New York before returning to California. He had gone to see Arthur Blake - who did famous impressions of Bette Davis, Charles Laughton, and Tallulah Bankhead. Charles submitted some material to Blake, but Blake told him he wrote his own, so Charles said 'I'll use it myself!' While Living at Algonquin Hotel in Pasadena, in the early 50s, we went to see 'The Star' with Bette Davis. Charles decided it was fodder for a comedy parody, and performed it for me in his apartment. Charles and I started writing material, such as the Norma Desmond routine. At a Hollywood party, he played for a group that included Harriet Parsons (Louella's daughter), Jane Withers, Franklin Pangborn, and Mary McCarty. Charles did the tux bit in Altadena at Café La Vie, doing stand-up seriously. At various bars, he would improvise. Eventually Ann Dee, of Ann's 440 (San Francisco) saw him in Altadena and signed him up for her club, where Johnny Mathis later got his start."
"He then traveled to Florida, to the Red Carpet (Miami Beach) and the Echo Club. In Miami he met his future show-biz partner, Rio Dante, and they started to do lipsynching. They also created the puppets (The Moppettes), headless puppets Charles would put up to his own face and then perform outrageous dialogue and suggestive poses - with the likes of Shirley Temple, a Singing Nun, and a stripper. Rio Dante and Charles did a gig at the Statler Hotel in Hollywood and the Club Capri. Next stop was San Francisco's legendary Gilded Cage, in 1963, where he played a record six years. He made many appearances on television, but not always in drag: Wonder Woman, Designing Women, Fame (as a bag lady), Wayland Flowers and Madame in Madame's Place, Love American Style, Chico and the Man. Starsky and Hutch, Laverne & Shirley, and the talk shows of Dick Cavett, Merv Griffin, Mike Douglass and Regis & Kathy Lee."
He was selected by playwright Harvey Fierstein to play "Bertha Venation" in the film "Torch Song Trilogy." Pierce rolls his eyes in the dress shop when Harvey Fierstein tells Matthew Broderick that "...if anyone asks, I'm the pretty one." Through the years, Charles had the best musical directors/accompanists in the business, and they all admitted to having learned a great deal about comedy and timing from Mr. Pierce. Those who have accompanied him include Michael Biagi, Michael Ashton, Joan Edgar, Rio Dante, and Michael Feinstein (Backlot of Studio One, September, 1981). That's three Michaels, a Rio and a "real Woman," as Charles used to call Joan in front of a screaming, adoring audience. Joan Edgar, Charles' musical director for seven years, marveled at the way he would constantly work on his act, even up to the final performance. At the end of a three-month run, just before the final show, in his dressing room he remarked, "Darling, you know that line where I say that our theatre curtain used to be Orson Welles' boxer shorts? Well, it would sound funnier if I said, "It was one of Kate Smith's slack suits. You see, the sound of all those consonant 'ks' make it sound funnier... or, how would it sound to say Rosemary Clooney's caftan?"
Billy Saetre, a professional singer/friend of Pierce living in Munich, remarked, "There is a genuine warmth and love of the 'art' of performing that so few folks have anymore. Of course being in the classical branch of performing, I see a completely different side of this silly world, where 'genuineness' is absolutely foreign. There is such a love of humor with Charles, and when he blows a line, or messes up a joke/story, he relishes in his own embarrassment as well as getting himself out of the situation... I remember crying at his last show when he sang "Illusions" (an old Dietrich number). There is something so poignant about him and his connection with an audience... Charles Pierce completes the information from Alpha to Omega. Everything the audience not only wants, but needs to know, is shared. No silly nonsense or mystery there. Gott sei Dank!"
Russ Alley (General Manager of San Francisco's York Hotel and Plush Room 1980-1983) produced more than 500 performances of Pierce at the York Hotel's Plush Room. Alley later went to work at the Fairmont Hotel in SF, as director of Public Relations & Entertainment, for Rick Swig. It was there that Alley convinced Swig to hire Charles Pierce, by showing him that Pierce's revenue had "saved" the Plush Room from closing. Alley remarked, "I had been trying to sell Charles to the Fairmont for years. I showed Swig the numbers, and told him 'Herb Caen will love it.'" And he did. Alley continued, "There will never be another Charles... or a better Katharine Hepburn as 'Eleanor of Acquitaine' (turkey wattle!), Maria Ouspenskaya (one of his Turban Ladies), Bette, Tallulah, those ratty foxes of his from way back.... Dietrich: "I was on a fwight fwom pawwis to Los Angewis and both of my wegs were on the fwight wif me; one in first cwass and the other in coach...", and of course Jeanette MacDonald and that swing. So many great memories."
John Epperson (The Fabulous Lypsinka) remarked, "Charles Pierce, the self-described 'male actress,' was one of the funniest people in the world. He was also incredibly generous. He had many successes at The Ballroom, a nightclub in New York City. In 1991, when the management asked him to PLEASE come back again, he said, 'Call Lypsinka instead.' He was sorely missed by all of his fans for the last several years in all the venues where he was so popular.
At The Plush Room many years ago, he acknowledged his good friend Beatrice Arthur, in the audience, as having the greatest comic timing in the world. He should know: Charles had the second best. People who never saw him as Tallulah and Bette Davis--at the same time--don't know what they've missed. (People who don't know Tallulah and Bette don't know what they're missing!) People who did see Charles' act know they saw a comic mastermind.- Edward Duke was educated at British private schools, Balcombe Place and Stonyhurst College. His expulsion from Stonyhurst was in the tradition of other luminaries Charles Laughton and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. When his father was posted in Japan as a cultural diplomat, Duke studied Kabuki Theatre, which became his biggest influence. Before embarking on the usual rounds of regional Theatre, Duke trained at the Arts Educational School of London. In the West End, he was also seen in Why Not Stay for Breakfast? Peg of My Heart (as Alaric), and Filumena (directed by Franco Zeffirelli). In 1980 the Society of West End Theatre voted Edward Duke "Most Promising Newcomer" for his conception and adaptation of "Jeeves Takes Charge" by P.G. Wodehouse. His one-man Jeeves show was directed by Gillian Lynne and opened at London's Fortune Theatre in September of 1980, and subsequently played in Canada, Australia, and Taiwan. In the U.S. his show played in Cleveland, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and ran two seasons in New York, where he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. His proudest moment came when he was invited to perform the play privately for Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother - who was an avid Wodehouse fan. While at the height of his powers he was stricken with AIDS, which he referred to as his "dreaded inconvenience." His parents predeceased him and a sister and three brothers survived him. The theatre lost a clever, bright, young talent a few months before his fortieth birthday. Thankfully he left behind the memory of full houses laughing at his brilliant comedic performances. His legacy lives on in audio book versions of Wodehouse plays.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Producer
Composer-pianist-arranger Johnny Green was born in Far Rockaway, New York. The son of musical parents, Green was accepted by Harvard at the age of 15, and entered the University in 1924. Between semesters, bandleader Guy Lombardo heard his Harvard Gold Coast Orchestra and hired him to create dance arrangements for his nationally famous orchestra. He gained a thorough education in music, history, economics, and government before returning to pursue a master's degree in the field of English literature. His father interrupted Johnny's education and forced him to become a stockbroker, and with great unhappiness, Johnny tried it for six months. His young bride Carol (to whom he dedicated Out of Nowhere) encouraged him to leave Wall Street and cultivate his many musical talents. She remarked, "We didn't have children, we had songs" (indeed, it was during his first marriage that most of his hit standards were composed, including "I Cover the Waterfront," You're Mine, You," "Easy Come, Easy Go," "Rain Rain Go Away" and "I Wanna Be Loved."). During the lean years, he arranged for dance orchestras, most notably Jean Goldkette on NBC. He was accompanist/arranger to stars such as James Melton, Libby Holman and Ethel Merman. It was while writing material for Gertrude Lawrence that he composed Body and Soul, the first recording of which was made by Jack Hylton and His Orchestra, eleven days before the song was copyrighted. 'Nathaniel Shilkret' and Paul Whiteman commissioned him to write larger works for orchestra, and he scored numerous films at Paramount's Astoria Studios. He conducted in East Coast theatres and toured vaudeville as musical director for Buddy Rogers. During his two-and-a-half years at Paramount Studios, he was able to learn more about arranging from veterans Adolph Deutsch and Frank Tours. In 1934, he returned from London, where he had composed a musical comedy for Jack Buchanan. At the age of 25, he had several hit songs under his belt. William Paley, the president of the Columbia Broadcasting System and an investor in New York's St. Regis Hotel, encouraged John W. Green to form what became known as Johnny Green, His Piano and Orchestra. (Green added, "My arm didn't need much twisting.") His orchestra made dance records for the Columbia and Brunswick companies, in a depressed era when record sales were inconsequential to a song's popularity. In 1935, Green starred on the Socony Sketchbook, sponsored by Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. He lured the young California songstress Virginia Verrill to headline with him on the Friday evening broadcasts. His "regular" cast of vocalists included former débutante Marjory Logan, Jimmy Farrell, and the four Eton Boys, all of whom appeared in films and on stage. Green's piano playing is intricate, and his musical ideas are exceedingly clever. Green was at the top of his field in New York, and he continued conducting on radio and in theatres into the 1940s, until he decided to move to Hollywood and make his mark in the film business. His credits as musical executive, arranger, conductor and composer are lengthy, but include such highlights as Raintree County (1957), Bathing Beauty (1944), Something in the Wind (1947), Easter Parade (1948) (Academy Award), Summer Stock (1950), An American in Paris (1951) (Academy Award), Royal Wedding (1951), High Society (1956) and West Side Story (1961) (Academy Award). Married three times, he had a daughter with actress Betty Furness and two daughters with MGM "Glamazon" Bunny Waters. He was a respected board member of ASCAP and guest conductor with symphonies around the globe, including the Hollywood Bowl, Denver Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and more. He was a chairman of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and a producer of television specials.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Werner Paul Raetzmann was one of seven children born to a German-born father and Wisconsin-born mother. He and one brother decided to change their last name to Richmond. Living in rural Wisconsin, he became an expert horseman as a young man, and this skill would later earn him roles in western movies. He had blue/gray eyes and brown hair, handsome, chiseled features and maintained an enviable physique. A Chicago census from 1910 gives his occupation as a traveling salesman of musical merchandise. Moving to New York City, Warner became a true pioneer of the American cinema, making his first films in 1912. By 1917 he was a regular in the New Jersey studios (Solax Studio in Fort Lee) of Maurice Tourneur. When the film industry moved to southern California, Richmond and his wife also moved to rural Toluca Lake with their only son. He was not a contract player, so he made films, silent and subsequently talking pictures, with every major and minor studio. Included in his many screen credits are short subjects and serials, such as 'Flash Gordon' and many westerns. For 34 years he was steadily employed as a screen actor. His co-stars included Carole Lombard, Pearl White, Mary Astor, Ben Lyon, Theda Bara, Dorothy Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Richard Dix, Hoot Gibson, Tex Ritter, ZaSu Pitts, Spencer Tracy, William Haines, Jason Robards, Sr., Frank Morgan, Gene Autry, John Wayne, William Boyd, Pola Negri and Gabby Hayes. In two different films he portrayed American patriot John Hancock. He made several films under the direction of John Ford, Karl Freund, King Vidor, W. S. Van Dyke, William A. Seiter, Lloyd Bacon, Ralph Ince, Albert S. Rogell, Raoul Walsh, Cecil B. DeMille and Harry Beaumont. He was often cast as a lawyer, judge, father, henchman, and district attorney. In his fourth decade of acting, he suffered partial facial paralysis after a nasty fall from a horse. Following a diligent regime of physiotherapy, he overcame his injury and returned to work in the Hollywood studios.- Actress
- Soundtrack
As a singer of light opera, Bernice Claire could be called the trailblazer for Jeanette MacDonald. In the year 1930, Claire and Alexander Gray were "the" operetta duo of talking pictures.
Bernice Claire Jahnigen was born March 22, 1909 in Oakland, California, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Jahnigen (later mistranscribed as Jahnigan). Her distinguished Castlemont High Schoolteacher, Alice Eggers, favorably influenced Bernice. It was Eggers who persuaded Bernice to audition for orchestra leader Emil Polak, who led theatre and radio orchestras in San Francisco at that time. Claire's publicist would later fabricate a teacher-student relationship between Claire and opera great Maria Jeritza. She possessed a remarkably clear and pure coloratura voice and had no difficulty singing demanding roles such as Victor Herbert's "Mlle Modiste," in which she starred in a school production.
She moved to New York in the 1920s, where she met singer Alexander Gray, a veteran of the Ziegfeld Follies. Together they co-starred in operettas such as "The Desert Song." Around 1929 Mr. Gray asked her to accompany him to a screen test for First National-Vitaphone at the time the studios were hastily converting to sound, and bolstering their music departments. The producers liked the team so much, they were both signed. Gray was signed to co-star with Marilyn Miller in "Sunny," and Claire was assigned the starring role in the first screen version of No, No, Nanette (1930). They both moved to Hollywood. Within little more than one year, Bernice Claire made the first screen versions of such hits as "Mlle Modiste" (released as Kiss Me Again (1931)), Spring Is Here (1930) (in which she sings "With a Song in My Heart"), The Song of the Flame (1930) and an original film musical Top Speed (1930) starring Joe E. Brown. When the studios determined that musicals had lost their drawing power, Claire was given a very different role in the prison drama Numbered Men (1930), directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Her co-star was Conrad Nagel. By 1932 Claire returned to New York radio and appeared with many prestigious orchestras, including Rudy Vallee, Erno Rapee and others. Her apartment was located at number 2 West 67th Street, just off Central Park West. The Vitaphone Company continued to use Claire's talent in film shorts, such as The Red Shadow (1932), based on "The Desert Song," with Alexander Gray. In 1934 she co-starred in The Flame Song (1934) with J. Harold Murray in an abbreviated version of The Song of the Flame (1930) (which she had made as a feature in 1930). She also toured in vaudeville and played roles in comedies and operettas, such as "Her Master's Voice." In 1933 she and Alexander Gray sang a duet in Universal's Moonlight and Pretzels (1933). In 1935 Claire co-starred in a British musical film Two Hearts in Harmony (1935), co-starring George Curzon. In the 1930s, her days and nights were occupied with radio and special appearances, including the 1935 San Diego Exposition. In 1937 she was elected "Miss Perfume for 1937" by delegates to the Perfume and Cosmetics Buyers Conference at the Hotel Roosevelt.
With her new dog, named "Jimmy Walker," she moved to a new apartment at 162 East 86th Street in the Upper East Side. On WABC she appeared with Frank Munn in 1935, accompanied by Gustave Haenschen's Orchestra. The following year she was on "Melodiana" for station WJZ. Instead of her being cover girl for the movie magazines, now she appeared on the covers of radio magazines, such as "Tower Radio." Throughout the country, Claire starred in numerous revivals, such as "The Chocolate Soldier," "Naughty Marietta" (Grand Rapids Municipal Opera), "The Fortune Teller," "Robin Hood," "The Firefly," "The Pink Lady," and "Salute to Spring" by Richard Berger (St. Louis Municipal Stadium).
In October 1938, when Rodgers and Hart's "I Married an Angel" was produced in Sydney, Australia, Bernice Claire played the role of Countess Peggy, which was originated by Vivienne Segal on Broadway. She returned to Australia the next year to perform "The Waltz Dream." Back in the U.S.A. she played Lorna Moon, opposite Eric Linden, in "Golden Boy." Into the 1940s Bernice continued to play leading ladies in such crowd-pleasing shows as "Irene" and "The Firefly."
When her first husband died, she felt unable to continue her performing. She and her second husband, Douglas Morris, owned property in southern California, including convalescent homes. During the 1970s and '80s Bernice was honored by local film societies in the San Francisco Bay Area. When her health deteriorated she quietly left her social and professional circles for retirement.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Hal Le Roy's first professional job was in "Hoboken Heroes" at the Lyric Theater, Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1928. He was young, tall, thin as a pole and had a distinctive, dazzling, eccentric style that was acclaimed by audiences and dancers alike. In 1931 he attracted the attention of Broadway producers, who engaged him in the short-lived Broadway show "The Gang's All Here." Later that year he and partner Mitzi Mayfair stole the spotlight from big stars such as Harry Richman and Ruth Etting in the "Ziegfeld Follies of 1931." His unique, eccentric style made him popular in numerous film shorts made in the Brooklyn Vitaphone Brooklyn studios. He was a feature of several Broadway shows, including "The Gang's All Here" (1931, with Eunice Healy), "Ziegfeld Follies of 1931" (with Mitzi Mayfair), "Thumbs Up" (1935, again with Healy) and Rodgers & Hart's "Too Many Girls" (1939, with partner Mildred Law). His biggest feature film was Warner Bros. Harold Teen (1934) in which he performs an elongated solo (to the song "Collegiate Wedding") in the last reel.
He made news in July 1935 when he sued his father for $70,000. Le Roy charged that when he married his dancing partner, Ruth Dodd, his father drew out the money, which had been on deposit (set up by Hal's late mother) in a joint account in 4 banks. The arrangement was supposed to have continued until he was 21. Throughout the 1930s he was given the occasional "spot" in feature films, such as the brilliant college dance scene in Start Cheering (1938).
In vaudeville, he appeared throughout the 1930s and '40s in such venues as Radio City Music Hall, the Capitol Theatre (with the Woody Herman band), the State Theatre (with Smith & Dale) and the Earle Theatre (Philadelphia) with Clyde McCoy's band. He appeared on television and summer stock, including Guy Lombardo's production of "Show Boat" (1956) at Marine Stadium, Jones Beach, New York. In 1966 he directed the off-Broadway show "Summer's Here." He died in 1985 following heart surgery.- Young "Sunny Jim" McKeen was featured in 39 "Newlyweds and Their Baby" shorts in the late 1920s, then went on to make a series of six sound shorts on his own. A very blond little boy, he was a contemporary of the child actors such as Allen 'Farina' Hoskins and Jackie Cooper, Davey Lee and Shirley Temple. He died of blood poisoning in 1933, at the age of 8.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Alexander Gray called himself "a bashful man with a stutter." A native of Pennsylvania, Mr. Gray attended primary and grammar school in Baltimore, Maryland. His summers were spent milking his uncle's cows in Lancaster County, PA. No one would have dreamed that this cow-milking boy would become a recitalist, operetta star, Broadway actor, film actor and radio star. Gray showed an early liking of things mechanical and electrical. He first considered singing when he attended Pennsylvania State and sang in its Glee Club and enrolled in dramatic classes. Right after earning his credentials in industrial engineering, he worked his way to Europe as a deckman on the merchant steamer. Upon his return he taught carpentry and wood shop in a private boys' school, and for a time was on the editorial staff of "Iron Age," a trade publication. In Chicago he was an instructor at Northwestern Military and Naval Academy, but studied voice on the side. Opera diva Mme. Louise Homer heard him and she encouraged him to pursue his vocal career seriously. After he won a contest sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs, he was paid to sing recitals in different cities. After realizing that concert life was not very lucrative, he took a position as Manager of Advertising and Sales Promotion for the Diamond T. Truck Company of Chicago. During this time he kept up his singing at church.
The longing to sing fully bloomed when Chamberlain Brown arranged an audition for Gray with producer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. and composer Gene Buck. They were preparing a new "Midnight Frolic" atop the New Amsterdam Theatre and Gray was engaged to do the singing. After the New York run, Ziegfeld sent out a road company of the "Frolic" headed by Will Rogers, which toured for a year during which time Gray became principal male singer. Then followed the "Ziegfeld Follies" and performances in "Sally" while it was on tour. In 1925 he co-starred in Oscar Straus' musical play "Naughty Riquette" with Stanley Lupino. This led to him playing the lead juvenile on "Tell Me More," with a score by the Gershwins. In 1925 he made his first recordings for Columbia Records. In the mid 1920s, the producers Schwab and Mandel sent for Gray to take the place of Robert Halliday as the Red Shadow in "The Desert Song," one of the most popular musical shows of the decade. He played the entire summer, and when Gray was cast in the Chicago company. Box office records were broken every where. In 1928 soprano Bernice Claire, who had played with Gray on the Albee Vaudeville Circuit, was the understudy for Vivienne Segal in "The Desert Song," and stepped into stardom. Claire and Gray toured in the show (Kansas City, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago) for many seasons. When Jack Warner ordered a screen test of Alexander Gray, arrangements were made with the east coast Vitaphone Studios. Gray asked Bernice Claire if she would perform a duet with him for the test. Warners not only signed Gray to co-star with Marilyn Miller in "Sally," but they gave Bernice Claire leading roles in several musical films, three with Alexander Gray. They became the screen's first operetta team, predating Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy. While in Hollywood Mr. Gray was engaged to play the leads in complete 2-hour radio adaptations of "Blossom Time" and "The Chocolate Soldier," the latter with composer Oscar Straus conducting. When the vogue for all talking/singing/dancing films became threadbare, Mr. Gray returned to New York where, with his illustrious Hollywood credits, he achieved great success in operetta revivals, vaudeville and radio. Gray also continued his vocal studies with teacher Jean Teslof. Beginning in 1932 Mr. Gray appeared on the Chesterfield Radio Program for seven months, followed by six months of "Voice of America" sponsored by Underwood-Elliott-Fischer Company. In January 1934 Gray gave his first New York recital at The Town Hall. The New York Evening Journal wrote, "His broad experience in musical comedy and radio, together with his earnest study of the classics, gives him the immense advantage of knowing just how to 'sell himself' to his audience. He knows, in other words, what so many singers lack, the value of projecting the meaning of a song, so that it loses nothing when it slides over the edge of a concert stage. In diction, tone production and delivery he was master of the situation to the vast delight of a wildly enthusiastic audience." Following his triumph at The Town Hall, Gray was on the Chrysler Motors Radio Program for eight months. The rest of his career was spent singing in operettas, supper clubs and radio. In theatres across the country, he glided effortlessly between performances (some only 24 hours apart) of "Rose Marie," "The Chocolate Soldier," "Blossom Time" and "Rio Rita."- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
The King's Men quartet comprised Ken Darby, arranger & bass; Rad Robinson baritone; Jon Dodson, lead tenor; Bud Linn, top tenor. As The Ramblers, the quartet was founded in Los Angeles in 1929. The quartet was featured on radio and recorded with The Happy Chappies for Columbia Records in 1930. By June, 1931 the tenor Joe Mitchell was replaced by Rad Robinson, and the name was changed to the King's Men, named for a radio sponsor named King. Their first film appearance was as a singing foursome in the Paramount film Sweetie (1929). This led to other films and radio contracts. When the The Boswell Sisters left Los Angeles station KFWB in 1932, the The King's Men replaced them for two years.
They achieved national prominence on radio and records as a feature of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. They sang with Paul Whiteman's Orchestra from 1934 until 1937. Whiteman also acted as their agent, and encouraged their musical activities outside his organization. They subsequently appeared on other broadcasts, including the Rudy Vallee program. They were heard, and sometimes seen, in many feature films, including Sweetie (1929), ("My Sweeter than Sweet"), Hollywood Party (1934) ("Feelin' High"), Let's Go Native (1930) (title song), Belle of the Nineties (1934) ("Troubled Waters"), Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), Murder at the Vanities (1934) ("Lovely One"), and notably The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which they are the off screen voices for the Lollipop Guild.
After leaving the Whiteman band in 1937, Ken Darby was hired by conductor/composer Herbert Stothart at MGM. Darby's first screen credit was as vocal arranger and supervisor for The Wizard of Oz (1939) in which the The King's Men are the off screen voices for specific Munchkins. Darby was the voice of the Mayor of Munchkin Land, while Robinson's voice was heard as Coroner. Dodson and Linn represented the two boys in the Lollipop Guild. Darby's other MGM films included three MacDonald/Eddy pictures. On screen, The King's Men were best remembered as the singing cowboys in sixteen Hopalong Cassidy films. In the film Honolulu (1939), the The King's Men play the The Marx Brothers on ice skates. Darby was subsequently associated with the Music Department at Walt Disney Studios (Dumbo (1941), Song of the South (1946), Make Mine Music (1946), Pinocchio (1940), So Dear to My Heart (1948), Bambi (1942).
For fifteen years The King's Men were regulars on the "Fibber McGee and Molly" broadcasts, and made records with Jim Jordan and Marian Jordan. The King's Men quartet was the basis for the Ken Darby Singers, featured on John Charles Thomas "Westinghouse Broadcasts" and on many Decca phonograph records, such as Bing Crosby's original recording of "White Christmas." Darby went on to win three Academy Awards (The King and I (1956), Porgy and Bess (1959), Camelot (1967)) as Associate Musical Supervisor with Alfred Newman and André Previn. The King's Men and their families remained lifelong friends.- Actress
- Soundtrack
June Mary MacCloy was born in Sturgis, Michigan on June 2, 1909. When she was a child her family moved to Toledo, Ohio. With her radiant smile, her tall, blonde, good looks and unusual voice, she brightened many a film and stage with her talent. After 1940 she became an obscure part of Hollywood and Broadway history. When she was a deep-voiced, 5' 71/2" teenage girl, she was chosen by song writer Lew Brown (of the prolific team DeSylva, Brown & Henderson) to do an impersonation of Broadway star Harry Richman, singing "I'm On The Crest of a Wave" in the ninth edition of George White's Scandals (Apollo Theater, July 2, 1928; 230 performances), starring Richman, Frances Williams, Willie & Eugene Howard and Ann Pennington. She and her mother moved to New York, and before embarking on a film career she was featured in the Parkington unit vaudeville shows, designed by Vincente Minnelli. In 1930 she was signed by Paramount Pictures to make film shorts in Astoria, L.I. Before making any features for Paramount, she was loaned out to United Artists to make her first feature, "Reaching for the Moon" with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and Bebe Daniels. She's the memorable, tall, pretty blond with the deep voice, singing 16 measures of "When the Folks High Up Do The Mean Low Down!" by Irving Berlin. That same year, Paramount co-starred her with Frances Dee and Jack Oakie in "June Moon" (based on the Lardner-Kaufman play). Next came "The Big Gamble" (R-K-O Pathe) starring Bill Boyd, with Dorothy Sebastian, Warner Oland and ZaSu Pitts. In the early 1930s MacCloy made at least nine film shorts, including a series of short comedies called "The Gay Girls" with Marion Schilling and Gertrude Short. Three of her shorts were directed by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, using the name "William Goodrich." In 1932 she appeared with Lupe Velez, Bert Lahr, Buddy Rogers and June Knight in Hot-Cha, Florenz Ziegfeld's last production (Ziegfeld Theater, March 8, 1932; 119 performances). Her featured song was "Little Old New York" (unpublished) by Lew Brown and Ray Henderson. When Hot-Cha closed, June sang on the cruise ship, "S.S. Transylvania, " and spent the rest of the decade performing in Chicago, New York and San Francisco clubs and theaters, with the orchestras of Johnny Hamp, Henry King, Ben Pollock and Griff Williams (with whom she recorded for Decca). Some of these spots included New York's Paramount Theater, Chicago's Chez Paree, and San Francisco's Hotel Mark Hopkins. For Warner Bros./Vitaphone, she made a Technicolor two-reeler with Leon Erroll called "Good Morning, Eve, " directed by Roy Mack (September, 1934). Because of her contralto voice, she felt she was overlooked by radio producers. She suspected, many years later, that film producers may have thought she was a Lesbian. At Columbia Studios, she made "Glamour for Sale" in 1940, with Anita Louise and Roger Pryor. Her last real role was in "Go West" (MGM, 1940) in which she tried to seduce Groucho Marx, and sang a song, "You Can't Argue With Love" (unpublished) in the beer hall. She retired from performing when she married California architect Neal Wendell Butler, with whom she raised two children in Southern California. She met her husband through their mutual love of jazz music. She was widowed in 1985.- Music Department
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A specialist in recreating the hot jazz and dance music of the 1920s and early 1930s. His "Nighthawks" band has been featured in many movies, television shows, National Public Radio broadcasts and concerts in several countries. He has produced and played on many CDs, including the Grammy Award-winning 'Boardwalk Empire.' He plays many instruments himself, and is an expert in the rarely heard bass saxophone. He has provided vintage orchestrations for many important films, especially those of director Woody Allen. He lives in Brooklyn.- A native New Yorker, Joan Castle was attracted to the stage as a child, and the famous talent scout Gus Edwards became her agent in the 1920s. Although Hollywood beckoned in the 1930s, her true love was the stage, and she always gravitated back to Manhattan. In 1930 she was sent to Hollywood to audition for the first science-fiction musical, Just Imagine (1930). The part was eventually given to Maureen O'Sullivan, but Castle became a contract player for Fox Films and appeared in several features. Because of a major studio fire, her first Hollywood films are considered lost: Young Sinners (1931), Hush Money (1931), in which she played Joan Bennett's sister, and Mr. Lemon of Orange (1931), opposite "the world's funniest Swede," El Brendel. In New York she was co-star of several comedy shorts, such as Wrongorilla (1933), opposite Jack Haley, I Know Everybody and Everybody's Racket (1933), opposite Walter Winchell, and Here, Prince (1932) opposite Joe Penner. Her first big break was playing the female lead ("Billie 'Stonewall' Jackson") in the hit Broadway comedy "Sailor Beware" (Lyceum, 1933) produced by her friend H. Courtney Burr. With Burr she had seen the show many times, and happened to be in the theater the night Audrey Christie became ill. She stepped into the part and immediately established herself as a qualified actress. When Christie's contract expired, Castle assumed the role until the show closed in December 1934. In a touring company, she appeared opposite José Ferrer in "The Play's The Thing." During World War II she toured for eight months in the USO show "Nothing But The Truth." The tour, which she called "the happiest time of my career," took her to troops in South America, Africa and Egypt. When Hollywood beckoned again, it was Twentieth Century-Fox, where she had minor parts in a few films in the late 1930s. Her biggest role was playing "Vera Grant" opposite Allan Jones in the Universal feature Sing a Jingle (1944).
Back in New York she replaced Effie Afton in the comic part "Violet Shelton" in "My Sister Eileen", opposite Shirley Booth. During the long run of the successful comedy she married the leading man, William Post Jr., who had also made a few films in Hollywood. The marriage ended in divorce. She subsequently was engaged to Neil Vanderbilt, but married English sea captain William Sitwell of the legendary Sitwell family. During her 18-year marriage to Sitwell they lived in the 11th-century Barmoor Castle in Lowick, Northumberland, and she occasionally appeared on Radio Éireann with the Abbey Players in Dublin. - Named after the King of Spain, pianist Carlos Alfonso Zelaya was the son of José Santos Zelaya, President of Nicaragua from 1893-1909. He was educated in Europe before his father sent him to America to be a general. He was a graduate of West Point, 1910, and served four years in the U.S. Army during World War I. In 1911 he married his first wife, American-born Marguerite Lee, grandniece of General Robert E. Lee. They had a son they named José Santos. As pianist he played with the San Francisco and Minneapolis symphony orchestras. With a repertoire of 300 classical pieces, his performances were not limited to the concert stage, for he also enjoyed bringing classical music to the vaudeville (Keith-Orpheum Circuit) stage. According to the Spokane (Washington) Spokesman-Review (Mar. 4, 1932), "...what is unique about this most affable and rotund Castilian is that he plays classical music and makes vaudeville audiences like it. He has a certain humor, a philosophical way of presenting his music that makes his audiences clamor for more and more." Beginning in 1933 he made sporadic film appearances playing bit parts. His last role was as "Gimpy," the piano player in Macao (1952). He died in North Hollywood on December 14, 1951, the day before the death of celebrated Mexican composer María Grever. He was survived by his second wife, Olga Desmondae ("Des") Rieman (1899-1966), a singer who had been in vaudeville with her first husband, Otis Mitchell. (Zelaya's widow subsequently married famous comic Bert Wheeler.) He was buried at Forest Lawn (Glendale) Cemetery.
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The son of stage actor/playwright Arthur L. Jarrett (1884-1960), Arthur Jarrett was a prominent singer in the 1930s and 1940s. Near the end of the 1920s he recorded for Victor and Brunswick with dance orchestras of Ted Weems, Earl Burtnett, Red Nichols, Jimmie Noone and 'Frankie Trumbauer' . He was famous for his high tenor "counter melody" style. He made many feature films and shorts, and introduced such hit songs "Everything I Have is Yours" (Dancing Lady (1933)), "Let's Fall in Love" (Let's Fall in Love (1933)) "Did You Ever See a Dream Walking" (Sitting Pretty (1933)) and "I've Got a Date With a Dream" (My Lucky Star (1938)). He led his own orchestra in the mid-'30s while married to swimmer Eleanor Holm. He starred in one "B" western. He took over Hal Kemp's band in early 1941 after Kemp was killed in an auto accident. Jarrett also appeared on Broadway in "Three After Three" (aka "Walk With Music"). He led orchestras throughout the 1940s before becoming a disc jockey and later a salesman.- Music Department
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Harry MacGregor Woods' contributions to popular music in the early 20th century are significant and often ignored by scholars. Few composers could boast that their songs lived far beyond the age of most tunes. He could have retired from just his first few hits, but he kept composing successful songs throughout the 1920s and '30s. His compositions include Paddlin' Madelin Home, When The Red, Red, Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along, I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover, The Man From the South, Me Too, Side By Side, River, Stay 'Way From My Door, What a Day!, When The Moon Comes Over The Mountain (Kate Smith's radio signature), The Clouds Will Soon Roll By, Just An Echo In The Valley, Try A Little Tenderness, What A Little Moonlight Can Do, and several written for British motion pictures "Evergreen" and "It's Love Again," both starring Jessie Matthews. Most of his compositions are known as "independent" songs, not written specifically for a stage show or film. Woods lived in England for three years, during which time he wrote some hugely successful film songs such as When You've Got a Little Springtime In Your Heart, You Ought To See Sally On Sunday, Celebratin', Over My Shoulder, My Hat's On the Side of My Head, It's Love Again and I Nearly Let Love Go Slipping Through My Fingers. Although he wrote words and music to many of his songs, he also collaborated with Mort Dixon and Gus Kahn.- Actor
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After receiving a Masters degree in Business, Milton Miron adopted the name "Sebastian" (inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach). From 1967 to 1971 he was an accountant for legendary rock impresario Bill Graham in San Francisco. In 1970 he was screening independent and vintage movies in San Francisco's Palace Theatre at midnight on weekends. When a group of gender-bending drag queens and their friends started throwing live shows together as an almost impromptu prologue, Sebastian offered to organize and produce their nocturnal fantasies. In the early 1970s the "Cockette" shows became wildly popular with the pot-smoking, acid-dropping free spirits of San Francisco. His management of the Cockettes lasted until 1972. He also directed their only film, Tricia's Wedding (1971), a grossly satirical spoof on the June 1971 wedding of Tricia Nixon and Edward Cox. Miron has also been involved with filmmaking, having made six short films including "Adolph & Eva." He also wrote and directed "Heartbreak of Psoriasis" starring Divine. He owns his own successful tax preparation and accounting business.- Music Department
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Carroll Gibbons, the composer/bandleader/arranger, was originally from Clinton, Massachusetts. He had worked extensively on the London music scene since his arrival in 1924 with the brassless Boston Orchestra that played at the Hotel Savoy. Gibbons later became the co-leader of the Savoy Orpheans and the leader of the New Mayfair Orchestra (preceding the legendary Ray Noble) for the Gramophone Company, Ltd., makers of "His Master's Voice" records. Gibbons made some return trips to America, but ultimately settled in England and took exclusive leadership of the Savoy Hotel Orpheans, recording hundreds of popular songs between June, 1932 and his sudden death on May 10, 1954. As a composer, Gibbons' most popular songs were "A Garden in the Rain" (1928) and his radio signature "On The Air" (1932) which was appropriated by American band leaders Rudy Vallée (1933) and 'Lud Gluskin' (1936). Gibbons' piano novelties, such as "Bubbling Over" and "Moonbeam Dance" also achieved some success in Britain.- Actress
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Tamara [Drasin], a native of Sorochintzy, in the Ukraine. Attended elementary school and Hunter College in New York City. After appearing in a 1927 revue called "The New Yorkers" (not the Cole Porter show) she played many Russian Restaurants in Manhattan, notably the Gypsy Tavern and the Kretchma. She also had brief appearances in Broadway shows such as "Crazy Quilt," "Americana" and "Free For All." Later she rose to fame in "Roberta," "Right This Way" and "Leave It to Me," in which she sang "Get Out Of Town." In 1936 she starred at New York's Versailles in a night club act. She was one of 24 casualties of a plane crash in the Tagus River, near Lisbon in March, 1943. Jane Froman survived. In private life was wife of Erwin D. Swann, vice president of Foote, Cone & Belding Ad Agency. Luther Adler delivered the eulogy at her service, attended by 500 mourners on 16 April 1943.- Milt Britton started playing vaudeville around 1914. In 1917 he formed a double act (trombone and cornet) with Frank Wetzel, who then changed his name to Frank Britton. Originator of the "slapstick" orchestra, Britton's Orchestra became known in Europe and the USA as "America's Craziest Orchestra" and "The Mad Musical Maniacs." The band's routine was to begin playing a selection in the normal way, then about half way through the song, a musician would stumble and knock an instrument out of another's hand, thereby starting a melee of comedy. Their band played some Broadway shows, made tours of South America and the US, and made appearances in shorts and feature films. They are seen causing mayhem during the title song in Moonlight and Pretzels (1933).
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Wrote first song words at age ten. At 16 had own orchestra, playing Catskills, Adirondacks, Poconos, also local New York jobs. At 18 started with Witmark & Sons Music Publishers, in Minstrel Department, "producing" shows for fraternal, religious and other organizations, supplying them with songs, skits, and jokes from Tams Library. Transferred to "Professional" departments of various music publishers. Duties included song plugging, rehearsing singers, writing special material, punch lines, gags and skits. His first published songs had lyrics by Spina and music by others. In early 1930s had minor hit songs "Let's Drift Away on Dreamer's Bay" and "We Were Only Walkin' in the Moonlight." A collaboration with Johnny Burke led to many successes in the middle 1930s, such as "Annie Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and "The Beat o' My Heart." Spina adapted the Mexican song "La Cucaracha" from a 6/8-meter song to 4/4. It became a worldwide hit with his treatment. Lyrics were by Johnny Burke. They used the name JUAN Y D'LORAH on the published song, "Juan" being Johnny Burke, and "d'lorah" being Harold spelled backwards. Burke and Spina composed songs for the top orchestra leaders of the 1930s. For Guy Lombardo they wrote "Annie Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (with Joe Young), for Paul Whiteman they wrote "The Beat o' My Heart," and for Fred Waring they wrote "It's Dark on Observatory Hill." Fats Waller recorded several of their songs, including "You're Not the Only Oyster in the Stew." At the Long Island film studios they wrote songs for several short subjects, which featured the talents of Bob Hope, Bert Lahr, Lillian Miles, and Ethel Waters. Burke and Spina went separate ways in 1936, when Burke teamed up with Arthur Johnston for the film Pennies from Heaven (1936). Spina went to Hollywood in 1937 and wrote many film songs with lyricist Walter Bullock. They wrote songs for film stars Jimmy Durante, Shirley Temple, Kenny Baker, George Murphy, Bill Robinson and Alice Faye. Later he wrote for MGM and Columbia. The best known of these songs are "I Love to Walk in The Rain" (from Just Around the Corner (1938), "I Still Love to Kiss You Goodnight" (from 52nd Street (1937)) and "Be Optimistic" (from Little Miss Broadway (1938)). 1940 Spina wrote the book and music for "Stovepipe Hat," a musical legend produced in New York in 1944. In London, Spina wrote directed and recorded 76 of his own compositions with his orchestra and vocalists for BBC radio. Spina returned to lyric writing in 1947 and had a hit with "Cumana" (written with Roc Hillman and Barclay Allan), popularized by Freddy Martin's Orchestra. In the 1950s he wrote, directed and recorded numerous LPs, which utilized the talents of Cesar Romero, Marie Wilson, George Jessel and the Merry Macs. At Capitol Spina wrote for Anthony Quinn's album "In My Own Way." On radio Spina created and produced the Jim Ameche Show, one of the first disk jockey shows with international syndication. On television Spina was involved with many song writer tributes. They were called "Down Tin Pan Alley" (Harold Spina, host) and "And Then I Wrote" (writer, director). In 1950 he had a huge success with the song "It's So Nice to Have a Man Around the House" (lyrics by Jack Elliott) and "Would I Love You, Love You, Love You" which sold over a million records for Patti Page.- After his graduation from University of Indiana, Mr. Hill became a newsman. As one of the New York Sun's star reporters he covered centers of interest around the world. He became a director of newsreels and wrote syndicated newspaper columns. He was fond of riding, golf and his bull terrier. His flair for human interest won him a wide following.
- The Four Eton Boys were educated in small towns near St. Louis, where they all gained dramatic experience in amateur productions. Charlie and Jack Day toured the country for nine years as acrobats, playing the Palace Theatre on Broadway nine times in a single year. In 1923 the introduction of their songs in their act was so successful that they were booked at every variety theatre on Broadway, appeared in the musical comedy Rufus Lemaire's Affairs, and were featured in a two-reel comedy film. After singing with the Four Rajahs and announcing at station KMOX, St. Louis, Mr. Gentry joined the quartet as lead. Earl Smith left vaudeville in the Middle West for New York night club work, joining the Day brothers at the Nut Club. A popular CBS feature, the Eton Boys enlivened Borden's Forty-Five Minutes in Hollywood and were heard in the Columbia Varieties program. They made Paramount and Warner shorts and toured the Loews Circuit. They recorded for Columbia records and in 1935, they joined the cast of the Socony Sketch Book, the weekly radio series conducted by Johnny Green.
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Jon Dodson's association with The King's Men quartet was his primary profession, beginning in 1930. From 1934 to 1937 The King's Men ('Ken Darby', Arranger & Bass; Rad Robinson, Baritone; Jon Dodson, Lead Tenor; Bud Linn, Top Tenor) were a feature of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra on RCA records and the Kraft Music Hall. They subsequently appeared with many other orchestra leaders, including Rudy Vallee. They were heard, and sometimes seen, in many feature films, including Sweetie (1929) (My Sweeter than Sweet), Hollywood Party (1934) (Feelin' High), Let's Go Native (1930) (title song), Belle of the Nineties (1934) (Troubled Waters), Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), Murder at the Vanities (1934), (Lovely One) and notably The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which they are the off screen voices for the Lollipop Guild. On screen they were remembered as the singing cowboys of the Hopalong Cassidy films. In the costume party scene of the film Honolulu (1939) the King's Men play the Marx Brothers (Dodson plays Chico). For a few years they were associated with the Music Department at Disney Studios, and are heard in Make Mine Music (1946) and Pinocchio (1940). The quartet was a regular featured on the long-running radio show "Fibber McGee & Molly." The King's Men group was the basis for the Ken Darby Singers, featured on John Charles Thomas' "Westinghouse Broadcasts" and on many Decca phonograph records, such as Bing Crosby's original recording of "White Christmas."- The Four Eton Boys were educated in small towns near St. Louis, where they all gained dramatic experience in amateur productions. Charlie and Jack Day toured the country for nine years as acrobats, playing the Palace Theatre on Broadway nine times in a single year. In 1923 the introduction of their songs in their act was so successful that they were booked at every variety theatre on Broadway, appeared in the musical comedy Rufus Lemaire's Affairs, and were featured in a two-reel comedy film. After singing with the Four Rajahs and announcing at station KMOX, St. Louis, Art Gentry joined the quartet as lead. Earl Smith left vaudeville in the Middle West for New York night club work, joining the Day brothers at the Nut Club. A popular CBS feature, the Eton Boys enlivened Borden's Forty-Five Minutes in Hollywood and were heard in the Columbia Varieties program. They made Paramount and Warner shorts and toured the Loews Circuit. They recorded for Columbia records and in 1935, they joined the cast of the Socony Sketch Book, the weekly radio series conducted by Johnny Green.