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1-50 of 137
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Conductor, composer, arranger, orchestrator, violinist and bandleader whose orchestra was regularly featured on a number of network radio programs of the 1940s including "Beulah". Al Sack, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, began his career as a violinist under the tutelage of Rudolph Ringwall, the assistant conductor of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. Concentrating on arrangements and conducting, Al became the musical director for Olsen and Johnson productions. Settling in California, he worked in close conjunction with David Rose. Soon, Paul Whiteman appointed Al chief arranger and associate conductor on his Chase and Sanborn Hour radio program which emanated from Hollywood. Al Sack's orchestra recorded for Black and White Records and also made a number of recordings with such vocalists as Tony Martin, Ginny Simms, Andy Russell, Frank Morgan, Ann Sothern, Fred Astaire, Gracie Fields and Dinah Shore. (Al Sack is not to be confused with furniture expert Albert M. Sack or the quickie film producer Albert Sack.)- Special-effects expert Alex Haberstroh and his partner Leo Russell (Haberstroh Studios, Russell and Haberstroh) were pioneers in science-fiction and documentary productions, beginning with the popular "Captain Video and His Video Rangers" television series over the 'DuMont Television Network'. This success led to other production contracts including numerous television commercials and documentary films including a five-film series on astronomy produced with the cooperation of McGraw-Hill Films and several other documentaries in conjunction with Encyclopaedia Brittanica Films, Inc. A number of his films have been exhibited at the Hayden Planetarium and have entered the permanent collections at the New York Museum of Natural History. The Haberstroh Film Studio, Inc. was at 9 West Ninth Street, and his residence was 463 West Street in New York. His sister Cora Haberstroh was the studio's business manager. He died of a stroke at age 67 in St. Vincent's Hospital.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Composer, pianist, conductor, producer and inventor educated at the Budapest Academy and a private music student of A. Szeny, A Kovacs, and V. Herzfeld. He was a piano soloist with the Bluthner Orchestra in Berlin in 1915, and gave piano recitals in Europe from 1921 to 1923. He invented the Colorlight device, a mechanism that reproduces music with color, which was first used at the Kiel Music Festival in 1924. Between 1925 and 1926 he gave recitals in opera houses throughout Germany, and the following year he became the music director at the Munich Cinema Art Studios, remaining until 1933. He was also a professor of film music at the German Stage and Film Academy, the head of the music department at the Hungarian Film Office, and the executive producer of documentary film for the Hungarian government from 1933 to 1938, at which point he came to the United States and became a music professor at the Institute of Design in Chicago, Illinois. He joined ASCAP in 1942 and became an American citizen in 1944, the same year he came to Hollywood to score films and become music director at NBC Radio.- Composer Anita Leonard was a student of Otto Cesana, Wallingford Rieger, Modena Lane, Bruno Eisner and Herman Wasserman. She was educated at New York University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree, and wrote a number of variety shows and the scores to four ballets. She was the staff composer for two seasons of summer stock, and joined ASCAP in 1948. Her popular-song compositions include "A Sunday Kind of Love", "The Bee Song", "William Didn't Tell" and "Chitterlinswitch", and the children's songs "The Fox and the Grapes" and "The Amazing Adventures of Johnny".
- Anne Andrea was a trained vocalist who sang at numerous teas and weddings and enjoyed the opportunity to perform at the Allerton Hotel on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. She started her career as a kindergarten teacher at Bonnie Hame Elementary School in Kenosha, after which she took time off to raise her family. In 1971 she assisted in establishing the new library at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in Kenosha, after which she joined her husband Al in Andrea's, the family business in Kenosha, where she took the lead as buyer and creative visual merchandiser.
- Emmy nominee Arnold J. "Arnee" Nocks, a director for the ABC and DuMont television networks and an accomplished organist for church, theatre and nightclubs, lived at 325 Kintner Road in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania. He directed the first open-heart surgery on television. He was a son of the late Daniel and Sally (Levine) Nocks and a Navy veteran of World War II as a radio operator in the South Pacific. Nocks was a practice goalie for the New York Rangers hockey team and a player-coach for the New Jersey Rockets. As an organist, he played at Cascade Lodge in Kintnersville, at Christmas services at St. John's United Church of Christ in Riegelsville, Pennsylvania and at roller-skating rinks in New Jersey.
He was honored at an organ recital in the State Theatre in Easton, Pennsylvania in October of 1991 for donating an Allen organ to the theatre. He was survived by a sister, Shari Gladstone of Dix Hills, New York. - Writer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Composer, songwriter ("Asleep In the Deep"), lyricist, author and actor. He came to the USA in his youth, appearing in minstrel shows and joining the staff of music publishers. Joining ASCAP in 1942, his chief musical collaborators included Albert von Tilzer, Ernest Ball and 'Harry Von Tilzer', and his other popular-song compositions include "A Bird In a Gilded Cage", "Jennie Lee", "When the Bell In the Lighthouse Rings Ding Dong", "The Bird on Nellie's Hat", "You Splash Me and I'll Splash You", "When You've Had a Little Love, You Want a Little More", "The Spider and the Fly", and "The Mansion of Aching Hearts".- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Composer, songwriter, author, arranger and conductor Arthur Lange was educated in private music study and later became an arranger for Broadway musicals and dance orchestras. In 1929, he became the head of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer music department, and assumed similar duties at other film studios. Between 1947 and 1956 he conducted the Santa Monica Civic Symphony, which he had organized. He joined ASCAP in 1924. Mr. Lange had two boys by his first wife, from whom he separated in the late 1920s and finally divorced in 1931. He then married Marjorie Joesting, a runner-up for Miss America of 1926. Art and Margie had met during the 1927 run of the Broadway musical "Honeymoon Lane". They had no children. In addition to his skills as a composer and arranger, Lange was the musical director for Cameo Records, which were sold by R.H. Macy & Co. and other distributors.- Music Department
- Composer
- Additional Crew
Tony-nominated music director ("Sugar Babies") and Emmy-nominated conductor, composer, arranger, choral director and singer (Claude Thornhill Orchestra, Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band, Jackie Gleason Orchestra). He was a sideman on many records including the 1957 Jimmy Dorsey hit "So Rare" and sang commercial jingles for many national advertisers throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and took an album credit on "Jackie Gleason presents Oooo! with the Voices of Artie Malvin" (Capitol W905).- Stage, film, radio and television actress, a student at Columbia University and a member of the American Theatre Wing. She appeared on radio's "The March of Time", "Gangbusters", "Young Widder Brown" and "I Love a Mystery" and other radio series and programs, including one with Laurence Olivier in "Disraeli", which was one of his rare radio appearances. In one of her last films, Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls (1973), she co-starred with her husband, Jim Boles.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Bear McCreary is a degreed graduate of the prestigious USC Thornton School of Music (in 'Composition and Recording Arts'). Bear McCreary was one of a small and select group of proteges of the late, many-honored film composer Elmer Bernstein. Although he is now firmly in the mainstream of film composition, many of McCreary's earliest soundtrack-music compositions were for independent motion picture productions.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Singer, journeyman drummer and road manager of the Spike Jones City Slickers, which he joined in 1943. He began his professional musical career touring in the Everett Hoagland Band, which played the historic Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, California (where Stan Kenton was also one of the sidemen.) Beau Lee became a popular drummer for a variety of groups that worked in that venue. Lee came off the drums to participate in several vocal skits, but by far his most famous performance was as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in the film Meet the People. At the time, Beau Lee was also working the third shift at the Vega aircraft plant doing wartime defense production.- Ben Lackland came to New York in 1925 to study at the Theater Guild School and lived in Manhattan until 1958. During his career, he appeared in many plays with such figures as Josephine Hull, Walter Hampden, Ruth Gordon, Otis Skinner and Ethel Barrymore. He met his future wife, stage actress Marjorie Dulin, during the Lakeland Players' production of "Yes, My Darling Daughter" in Maine, and he played in thirty Broadway productions before switching to the infant medium of television in 1946. By 1950 he was a five-night-a-week regular on "Captain Video and His Video Rangers" as the benevolent Commissioner of Public Safety Charles Carey. He was 58 when he died at home from an overdose of barbiturates. The Essex County Medical Examiner's Office's autopsy report said that Ben Lackland was a "suicide by ingestion of an overdose of sleeping pills."
- Bandleader Benny Meroff's career falls into the category of what George T. Simon referred to as "The Veterans," leaders who had successful musical careers prior to the start of the Big Band Era. Meroff began his career on clarinet with Ted Lewis' "Nut" band near the end of World War I. Benny Meroff led bands of his own through the 1920s and 1930s, making recordings for Columbia, Okeh and Brunswick. Part of that period was spent leading stage bands in the Chicago area. Meroff, an accomplished musician, played virtually every instrument in his band. (Bandleader Vince Giordano acquired Benny's "straight" baritone sax, made especially for Benny by the Buescher company.)
Around 1936 Benny decided to reorganize his band, along the then-current "swing" style, which was made popular by another Benny...Benny Goodman. The Meroff band also featured comedy bits in its repertoire, and was billed as "Benny Meroff and his Jibe Orchestra." - Soundtrack
Born James Albert Leighton in Beacher, Illinois, composer, author and author Bert Leighton was educated in public schools. Eventually he joined a vaudeville team with his brother Frank. Joining ASCAP in 1945, his chief musical collaborators were Boyd Bunch and Ren Shields, and his popular-song compositions include "Steamboat Bill", "Frankie and Johnnie", "Ain't Dat a Shame?", "Fare Thee, Honey, Fare Thee Well", and "I Got Mine".- Betty Wells was a 20th-Century-Fox contract starlet whose dancing and singing career began at age three and a half. Named the "Baby Queen" of the Texas Centennial in Fort Worth, she appeared in the second edition of "Meet the People", which caught the attention of producers and began her contract with 20th Century-Fox, although she also worked for RKO-Radio in "Pretty Girl". Beginning in early 1945, Betty spent five months in a Dallas, Texas rest home for a malady described at the time as a nervous breakdown brought on by the strain from a lengthy tour of South America, Canada and Alaska as well as a number of studio-sponsored personal appearances. She was scheduled to continue her personal-appearance tours after New Years Day of 1946 with a booking in Mexico City, as she had earlier learned Spanish.
- Additional Crew
Educator, sportscaster and a longtime voice on Paramount newsreels, Bill Slater graduated from the United States Military Adacemy in 1924 and earned a master's degree in political science from Columbia University. He then joined the Greenbrier Military Adademy in Lewisburg, West Virginia as commandant of cadets and later became head of the mathematics department and football coach at Blake School for Boys in Minneapolis, Minnesota. While at Blake, a father persuaded Bill to broadcast a local football game, and his career as a sportscaster was thence initiated. At Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, NY, he was headmaster between 1933 and 1942; while there, Ted Husing asked him to help broadcast an Army-Navy game on CBS. He covered the Berlin Olympiad for NBC in 1936, and the next year he emceed NBC's "Uncle Jim's Question Bee". He joined the US Army in 1942, serving as a lieutenant colonel in public relations. Later he announced tennis from Wimbledon and Forest Hills, races at Indianapolis, and Big Ten football as well as the popular "Luncheon at Sardi's" and "Dinner at Sardi's" radio series, at times with his wife Marion. They lived at 39 Woodbine Avenue in Larchmont, New York, and Bill Slater, the well-liked sportcaster turned radio-TV personality, succumbed in 1965 after a ten-year illness.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Composer, conductor, arranger, pianist and songwriter, the son of Morris Goldenberg. He was educated at Columbia College (BA), where he composed and arranged the Columbia Varsity Shows, and also Camp Tamiment. He took private music studies with Hall Overton and he wrote incidental music for the Broadway revue "An Evening With Mike Nichols & Elaine May", and arranged dance music for "Greenwillow", "110 in the Shade", and "High Spirits". His chief musical collaborator was songwriter (and author) Larry Alexander. He joined ASCAP in 1961, and his popular-song compositions include "Shouldn't There Be Lightning?"; and "Take You For Granted". His classical compositions include "Brass Quintet"; "Woodwind Quintet"; and "String Quartet".- Actor
Robert Carder "Bob" Coe's family moved to Wasco, California - where the famed "North By Northwest" cropdusting scene was filmed - as a boy and he attended Wasco Union High School, graduating in 1941. From 1944 into early 1946, he served as First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a multi-engine instructor, a B-17 pilot and a B-29 pilot. He was a local crop duster pilot in and around the Wasco area for 37 years, and he was a lifetime member of the American Legion, Elks, and the Loyal Order of Coyotes.- Producer
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Blues Hall of Fame honoree (1996) Robert Gregg "Bob" Koester founded the Delmark (originally "Delmar") Records jazz label and Chicago's Jazz Record Mart. In his teen years, he became a record trader and collector, even while studying cinematography and business at Saint Louis University, using his dormitory room as his mail-order headquarters. While in St. Louis, he was a founding member of the St. Louis Jazz Club. Moving to Chicago in 1958, he operated Seymour's Jazz Mart in the Roosevelt University Building from 1959 to 1963, then at 7 West Grand Avenue until 1971 when it moved to 4243 N. Lincoln Avenue and, from 2006, to 27 East Illinois Street.- The son of Samuel L. and Grace A. (Smith) Merema, Bert S. Merema (credited as Burt) was a tractor and automobile hobbyist and Crosley car expert, leading to his appearance in "Powel Crosley and the 20th Century". Early in his working career, Bert was employed at Earl Hill's Garage in Albany and hauled milk, later working at Climax Engines and Auto Parts in Clinton. Beginning in December 1951 he was a founding partner with his brother Martin at Merema Bros. on Main Street in Fulton, and was later joined by his three sons.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Composer, songwriter ("That Old Devil Moon") and author, educated at the High School of Commerce and Dwight Academy, and a private music student of Simon Bucharoff. At fifteen, he was a staff writer for the Remick Music Company. He wrote the Broadway stage scores for "Earl Carroll Vanities of 1931", "Hold On to Your Hats", "Laffing Room Only", "Finian's Rainbow", and "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" (Grammy Award, 1965). He wrote songs for "Three's a Crowd" and "Third Little Show", and was president of the AGAC since 1957. Joining ASCAP in 1933, his chief musical collaborators included Harold Adamson, Ralph Freed, Ted Koehler, Al Dubin, E.Y. Harburg, Frank Loesser, Alan Jay Lerner, and Ira Gershwin. His other popular-song compositions include "Tony's Wife", "Heigh Ho, the Gang's All Here", "Look Who's Here", "Everything I Have Is Yours", "Have a Heart", "I Want a New Romance", "Swing High, Swing Low", "Stop, You're Breaking My Heart", "Madame, I Love Your Crepes Suzette", "Howdja Like to Love Me?", "Moments Like This", "The Lady's In Love With You", "Says My Heart", "Smarty", "Would You Be So Kindly?", "There's A Great Day Coming Manana", "Don't Let It Get You Down", "The World Is in My Arms", "I Hear Music", "How About You?", "Feudin' and Fightin'", "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?", "The Begat", "If This Isn't Love", "Look to the Rainbow", "Something Sort of Grandish", "When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love", "Too Late Now", "You're All the World to Me", "I Left My Hat in Haiti", "Open Your Eyes", "How Could You Believe Me?", "It Happens Every Time", "Applause Applause", "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever", "Come Back to Me", "Melinda", and many more.- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Author and songwriter Carolyn Leigh, a graduate of Queens College and NYU, worked in advertising as a print copywriter and for radio stations and was a member of the Dramatists Guild. She wrote early television specials ("Heidi") and Broadway stage scores including "Peter Pan", "Wildcat", "and "Little Me". Joining ASCAP in 1953, her chief musical collaborators included Moose Charlap and Cy Coleman, and her chief popular-song compositions include "Young at Heart", "How Little We Know", "Westport", "Spring in Maine", "The Rules of the Road", "The Best Is Yet to Come", "Firefly", "Witchcraft", "I'm Flying", "I Gotta Crow", "I Walk a Little Faster", "You Fascinate Me So", "Hey, Look Me Over", "Tall Hopes", "El Sombrero", "One Day We Dance", "It Amazes Me", "The Other Side of the Tracks", "Real Live Girl" (from 'Little Me'), "I've Got Your Number", "Here's to Us", "A Doodlin' Song", "Stay With Me" (from the film 'The Cardinal'), "On Second Thought", "Pass Me By" (from the film 'Father Goose'), "When in Rome", and "Ouzo".- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Hymn-composer, author and conductor Charles H. Gabriel, Sr. was educated in the public schools of Wilton, Iowa. In San Francisco, California he conducted church choirs, and later he compiled hymnals for publishing companies. He joined ASCAP in 1940, and his sacred-music compositions include "Awakening Chorus", "All Hail Immanuel", "He Is So Precious To Me", "Since Jesus Came Into My Heart", "Way of the Cross Leads Home", and "Brighten the Corner Where You Are".- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jazz pianist, saxophonist, trombonist, cornetist, accordionist, singer ("Maybe You'll Be There", a 1948 gold record)", arranger and composer (his first tune was the 1928 "Please Don't Go Away), educated at the College of Fine Arts and the University of Oklahoma. He had been a member, usually on alto sax, with Herb Cook's Oklahoma Joy Boys, Frank Williams and his Oklahomans, and Etzi Covato before 1929. In the early 1930s he performed in and around Oklahoma City, then went on tour and then came to Chicago in late 1932, leading his own bands and those of Wingy Manone and Jack Teagarden on their first recordings. Going back on tour in the mid-1930s he toured Texas and the midwest with Eddie Neibauer and Dell Coon, and led his own all-star recording group in Chicago (1935) before starting on radio in 1935. Going to Hollywood in 1938, he joined Frank Trumbauer in 1938, then worked in radio and recording studios in Hollywood with Skinnay Ennis, Victor Young, John Scott Trotter and Gordon Jenkins, and accompanied Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dick Haymes and other stars into 1950. He sang in the 'Golden Horseshoe Revue' at Disneyland until 1960, which was the most performed stage show in the Guinness Book of World Records. In 1958 he recorded as the blues vocalist on the concept album "The Letter" with Judy Garland. After an extremely busy decade following that, he organized a piano-repair and tuning service in Southern California. Joining ASCAP in 1956, his chief musical collaborators were Tom Adair and 'Bonnie Lake', and his popular-song compositions include: "The Blues Have Got Me", "Cuban Boogie Woogie", "It's All In Your Mind", and "Mis'ry & The Blues".- Actor, comic and award-winning playwright ("And May God Have Mercy" [May 8, 1937] ), Charles Mendick of Brooklyn, New York was the son of Joe and Celia Mendick and a 1937 graduate of Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences, the president of the Cornell Dramatic Club and a member of Cornell's University Theatre during his four years there as a drama and theatre major. He was a student of Prof. A. M. Drummond's "Public Speaking 49" group, a director of the Cornell Radio Guild and a member of Cornell's Savage Club, a group modeled after the famous London club by that same name.
- Born into a theatrical family, Chet would become a prolific film, radio-television, and stage actor and singer. Starting when very young, Chet toured as a child in repertory shows and in vaudeville. He studied at the University of Alabama and Rutgers University and later appeared on Broadway in White Oaks with Ethel Barrymore in [The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), as well as with Katharine Cornell, and many others. Chet also had much stage work, appearing in a number of plays including The Live Wire, The Connecticut Yankee, and Man and Superman. He played radio's Hop Harrigan, and was the lead player for a decade on The O'Neills, as well as appearing on The Lux Radio Theater, Schlitz Playhouse, and more. When the television era dawned, Chet appeared on many programs from both Hollywood and New York and was a frequent talk-show guest. A lot of people will definitely recall him from his many appearances as part of a stock troop who worked with Jack Webb in the late 1960s version of Dragnet 1967 (1967). When acting jobs were scarce, he supported himself by driving a furniture delivery truck and selling washing machines, even sailing to Europe aboard an oil tanker.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Prominent film composer, conductor and arranger, educated at Maryland University (with a Bachelor of Science degree) and the Curtis Institute. He studied music under Edgar Priest and David Pell, joined ASCAP in 1953, and composed musical scores for ballet companies including the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the Ballet Russe, and Sadlers Wells. His classical works include "Penguin Island" and "Golden Land"; and his ballets include "Royal Coachman", "Quiet Week", and "Decameron".- Composer, author, songwriter, drummer, trumpeter, singer and arranger, educated in high school and then a trumpeter, vocalist and drummer with the Hugh McGinnes Trio between 1936 and 1938. He entered World War II military service with the US Army, and then led vocal groups for the orchestras of Johnny Long and Gene Krupa from 1943 to 1945. Between 1947 and 1957 he arranged and contracted for vocal groups, and from then until 1964 he sang with the trio of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. During that time he appeared in the Broadway musical "Are You With It?", and made many records. Joining ASCAP in 1947, his popular-song compositions included "What's This?" and more.
- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Actress, author, producer, and Photoplay's "Most Popular Actress of 1961," the daughter of Ice Capades skating stars and choreographers Nathan and Edith Walley. She was skating with her parents at age three, but resisted her father's urging to continue, opting to study acting at the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her stage debut was at 14, in a summer-stock production of "Charley's Aunt". When she moved to Arizona to raise her three sons, she co-founded two children's theater companies (Pied Piper Productions and Sedona Children's Theater), introducing live theater and teaching acting to disadvantaged children. She also founded the Swiftwind Theater Company, writing film scripts and training American Indian actors and production-crew members. Her 1990 short film Legend of 'Seeks-to-Hunt-Great' (1989), starring Michael Horse, was awarded the National Cine Golden Eagle, the Oklahoma Tribal Council Award for best fiction film, the 1991 Algrave (Portugal) International Video Festival best-of-festival award, and the American Indian Film Festival's best short-subject award. She incorporated the story line -- an Indian boy's appreciation of nature while following a mountain lion -- into her 1993 children's book "Grandfather's Good Medicine." Deborah Walley also wrote scripts for her own production companies, for other children's films, and for Disney Animation, for which she supplied cartoon voice-overs.- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Composer, conductor, arranger and recording-company executive. He was educated at New York University, and was Artists-and-Repertoire director at several record companies, including Coral Records. One of his first arranging positions was for the Tommy Dorsey orchestra in the 1940s, after which he partnered with 'Sy Oliver' to arrange on a freelance basis.- Comedian, actor and radio personality (WGN, WLUP, WLIP, others), comedy instructor, comedy writer and non-fiction book author. Dobie Maxwell began his comedy stage career in 1984 at the Sardino's On Farwell jazz club on the north side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he entertained for one year. At that time he commenced his nationwide stage comedy career at some of the nation's top clubs, including the Hollywood Improv, Zanies in Chicago, the Punchline in Atlanta, and many more. His radio career commenced in 1990 at WMMQ in Lansing, Michigan, where he held down the morning on-air shift. In 1991 he returned to Milwaukee and the WQFM morning shift. By 1996 he was on the air at KQNV in Reno, Nevada and by 2000 on KKAT in Salt Lake City. Dobie has been a featured guest at several Hollywood celebrity conventions while continuing his stage and radio career.
- Actor and writer, best known as "The Video Ranger", "Jack Lane", and "Dr. Bob Hughes" on television. The youngest son of Hazel and Charles Hastings, he lived in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant area until he was six, attending Our Lady of Victory parochial school for one year. The family then moved to St. Alban's, Queens and, about that time, his older brother, Bob Hastings, was singing on Chicago's "National Barn Dance" and New York's "Coast to Coast on a Bus" radio shows, where Don was given a few lines, on occasion, earning $2.00 per week. Soon, he won the role of young Harlan in a touring company of "Life With Father", traveling ten months a year with his father. MGM offered Don a contract, but he wanted to return home, where he did the radio programs "Hilltop House", "Cavalcade of America", "One Foot in Heaven" and "Theater Guild on the Air" and some modeling (which he hated) and "I Remember Mama" on Broadway. Returning to school for fifth grade, he enrolled in the Professional Children's School and, later, Lodge High School and soon took up sports, playing for the St. Alban's Knights, the Police Athletic League, the Queens Village Ramblers and the Cambridge Heights Mohawks. At this time, he appeared in "A Young Man's Fancy" and "Summer and Smoke" on Broadway. While auditioning for DuMont's "The Magic Cottage" in 1949, the casting director, instead, cast Don as the "Video Ranger" in the new Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949), a six-year role which kept him from attending college. His hobbies include traveling and spending time with his family. His children include Jennifer Hastings (born 29 October 1957), Julie Hastings (born 25 April 1960), Matthew Hastings (born 21 October 1967), and Katharine Hastings (born 23 September 1982).
- Composer, songwriter, author and conductor, educated at the Jacksonville College of Music and in private music study. He conducted a dance orchestra in Windsor, Ontario, and sang in Detroit clubs between 1932 and 1939 before becoming the choral director at WJR in Detroit between 1940 and 1944 and again between 1946 and 1961 before directing choral music for the Wayne King Orchestra. He also composed special music for General Motors industrial shows including Futurama. Joining ASCAP in 1951, his popular-song compositions include "If We All Said a Prayer" and "Hayride".
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Writer and editor who wrote the "Flash Gordon" strip for twenty years. He graduated second in his Dartmouth class with a bachelor's degree in English and then joined his retired parents in Miami, taking jobs with the Miami Herald and the Miami Beach Beacon. He later founded the Nassau News Bureau (which became the Bahama News Bureau) and simultaneously worked for both the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) without letting the agencies know he was also on the staff of each other's rival.
He was an assistant editor for the pulp magazine Argosy in 1930; he was made full editor in late '30. In 1934, he became an assistant editor for Cosmopolitan magazine.
In 1934, King Features Syndicate approached him to create a strip to compete with the popular "Buck Rogers" science-fiction series. Moore accepted the job for $25 a week and created the new "Flash Gordon" strip, which was drawn by Alex Raymond. Simultaneously, he wrote "Jungle Jim".
Moving on to RKO Radio Pictures and Warner Brothers, he wrote fiction for Cosmopolitan magazine and was a story editor for MGM and Screen Gems television. His first television scripts were for "Captain Video and His Video Rangers".
He was married in approximately 1934 to Isabel Walsh (b. 1911); she became a short-story writer for Cosmopolitan. Their daughter was the novelist Pamela Moore. Don and Isabel divorced in 1946; Don had a second wife, Anne.
Don retired to Venice, Florida in 1969.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A child musical prodigy, Donna Lee O'Leary, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John O'Leary of 605 West Mercury Street in Butte, Montana, was the subject of considerable favorable comment In southern California's musical circles. At age five, she had signed a five-picture contract with Republic Studios. Later she appeared on several radio programs including "A Date With Judy".- Actor
- Soundtrack
Composer ("I'm My Own Grandpaw", "McNamara's Band"), author and singer who formed the Jesters Trio after his high-school graduation; the Jesters sang on radio, films, recordings and television between 1923 and 1950. From 1950, he was the West Coast representative for Hansen Publications and wrote a number of singing commercial jingles. He joined ASCAP in 1948 and his other musical compositions include "poetry", "Hiawatha's Mittens", "Bread and Gravy", "It's the Same the Whole World Over", and "I Had But Fifty Cents".- A longtime radio broadcaster and announcer who had been with WPAT in Paterson, New Jersey, Ed Condit went on to be a familiar and popular staff announcer with the DuMont Television Network until that network finally ended all programming in 1956. He lived at 1 Chester Road in Montclair, New Jersey, and died at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair at age 47.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Eddie Leonard played professional baseball before joining minstrel shows (including the Primrose & West Minstrel Show in 1902), served in the Spanish-American War, and then later sang at Tony Pastor's and other variety theatres. On Broadway, he acted in the musical "Roly Boly Eyes" for which he wrote the title song, and he concluded his career in the Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in 1940. His autobiography is "What A Life". Joining ASCAP in 1937, his popular-song compositions include "Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider", "Just Because She Made Them Goo-Goo Eyes, "Oh, Didn't It Rain?", "I'm On My Way", "I Lost My Mandy", "Sweetness", "Don't You Never Tell a Lie", "Mandy Jane", "Sugar Baby", "Beautiful", "Molasses Candy", and "I Wish I Was Some Little Girlie's Beau".- Songwriter ("How'd You Like to Spoon With Me?"), composer, author and publisher, a musical colleague of Jerome Kern, educated at the City College of New York and the New York Conservatory. He was a charter member of ASCAP (1914), and was a music publisher between 1908 and 1910. He also served as director of the Dramatists Guild. His other songs include "The Alcoholic Blues", "I Would Like to Marry You", "What We Want and What We Get", "Do Something", "Oh! You Don't Know What You're Missin'", "Sweet Little Caraboo", "Find Me a Lass Like Me Mother', and "Mary Wants a Little Sun".
- Edwin "Jay" Quinby was educated at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, at New York City College and by the International Correspondence Schools in electrical engineering. An expert in the field of mass-transportation, he began his transportation career with the North Jersey Rapid Transit Company between Paterson, N.J. and the suburban communities to Suffern, N.Y. as conductor and motorman on multiple-unit trains in Interurban service, then as maintenance mechanic and electrician and as substation operator, and then he joined the American Car & Foundry Company as a designer and inspector, and later, Western Electric Company and Radio Corporation of America, leaving in May, 1941 when called to active duty in the United States Naval Reserve, of which he had been a member since 1932, retiring with the rank of Commander. He held nine United States patents for electrical devices, railway signals, and audio and radio.
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Composer, violinist and educator, educated at first by his father and then the Imperial School at St. Petersburg with Auer. He made his violin debut at Berlin in 1907, followed by a tour of Europe. His American debut was with the Boston Symphony in 1911. Thereafter, he joined the faculty at the Curtis Institute in 1929 and became a director there in 1941. Conflicting sources give his date of birth as April 9th or April 21st, but because he was born in Russia prior to the 1917 Revolution, both dates can be considered as correct; one date is in the Old Style Calendar (pre-1917) while the other is within the New Style Calendar adopted with the revolution in 1917. His first wife was famed soprano Alma Gluck, one of the first sopranos to make best-selling recordings. He was the half-brother of author Marcia Davenport, the grandfather of Stephanie Zimbalist, and the father of Efrem Zimbalist Jr..- Music Department
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Composer, conductor, bandleader and pianist who made many records; he was educated at the University of Pennsylvania (graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree) and was a music student of Harl McDonald and Leon Barzin. He won state contests in high school during piano competitions, and led his own dance orchestra, touring throughout the United States. He directed musicals on Broadway, including "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and "Golden Boy". Joining ASCAP in 1945, his popular-music compositions include the songs "Sugartown Road", "Five O'Clock Shadow", "Once Upon a Moon", "Heart to Heart", "Box No. 155", and "Brown Betty".- Elmer G. Hentz was the University of Cincinnati (Ohio) co-op student who, along with fellow UC student and classmate Dorman Israel, developed the first commercially-available Crosley radio receiver for Cincinnati industrialist Powel Crosley Jr.. That individual product, coming as it did at the dawn of the radio age, laid the groundwork for the growth of the Crosley Corporation.
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The master of melody, Eric Coates, the composer of familiar music ("Sleepy Lagoon", "Knightsbridge") worldwide, had classical training at the Royal Academy of Music with Frederick Corder for composition and Lionel Tertis for the viola, his main instrument. As a freelance violist he became principal viola by 1913 for the Queen's Hall orchestra, leaving in 1919 to devote his full attentions to composition. His music was often used in ballet although he wrote only one, "The Seven Dwarfs", in 1930. An avid dancer himself, he studied jazz and wrote syncopated music under the pseudonym 'Jack Arnold". In the 1920s he and his wife moved to a seaside home near Selsey, Sussex where he found the quietude he sought to continue his work. His music was featured regularly over the BBC and sold hundreds of thousands of records. To this day his music carries a vast and loyal fan base.- Composer
- Music Department
Composer and author Eric Zeisl entered the Vienna State Academy at fourteen years of age and was acclaimed as one of Austria's young compositional lights. In 1934 he won the Austrian State Prize for his music, but because of growing anti-Semitic pressures there he he was unable to secure a publishing contract since his work would have been banned in Germany. Fleeing Vienna for Paris in 1938, he finally reached America in late 1939 and settled in Los Angeles. He joined ASCAP in 1951. Zeisl composed one piano concerto, one cello concerto, four ballets, several choral and chamber music works and an unfinished opera. Zeisl also made several recordings that were published at the height of his fame.
Eric Zeisl passed away after teaching an evening class at L.A. City College. He had one daughter, Barbara Zeisl, who married Ronald Schoenberg, one of the sons of composer Arnold Schoenberg; her brother-in-law is Italian composer Luigi Nono. Ronald Schoenberg, the Los Angeles judge who presided over the spousal-abuse trial of Nicole and O.J. Simpson, had four children with Barbara: Eric Randol "Randy," Marlena, Frederic "Rick" and Melanie.
In 2015, the English film "Woman in Gold" starring Helen Mirren depicted a famous art recovery case that Zeisl's grandson Randy Schoenberg (played by Ryan Reynolds) argued before the Supreme Court.- Ernie Capponi had always loved the film and radio arts, and saw many of his Kenosha, Wisconsin contemporaries go on to acting fame. In the 1950s and 1960s, Ernie founded the Midwest Classic Radio Actors in Kenosha, which performed original works over area stations including WGN, Chicago. By the 1980s, Ernie had begun to build a modest acting career in films shot in the Chicago-Milwaukee corridor, usually portraying a street-wise detective or gangster in small roles, including his part as an Al Capone mobster in the well-remembered "Untouchables" round-table scene with Robert De Niro. Ernie found himself in growing demand for such parts, and he was proud to have completed his first lead role as a tough Chicago detective in an urban crime drama with the working title "The Mangler" (no connection to the later Stephen King-based film of the same name). He never saw the final results, because a neglected respiratory infection led to his sudden death by pneumonia at 69.
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Whistler on radio, on stage and in film. He lost 99 percent of his normal vision by age two, and while attending a school for the blind he met a bird imitator who inspired and encouraged Fred to pursue his art. After joining WFAA in Dallas, Texas and later the Vincent Lopez Orchestra in New York, eventually Horace Heidt heard him and offered him a featured part within his shows. By 1945 he pursued an independent career with success. One of his hit pop recordings was as the featured whistler in the theme from "The High and the Mighty".- Pioneer TV actor and announcer best known as 'Communications Officer Rogers' on 'Captain Video and His Video Rangers'. He served in the Army Medical Corps during World War II and then moved to Long Island, New York where he participated in summer stock theater and in radio. He started his television career in 1946 at experimental television station W2XJT, and joined New York's WABD TV Channel 5 in 1948, the flagship station on the DuMont Television Network. In 1949 he began his role as Ranger Rogers, which lasted until the 'Captain Video' series ended in May of 1955. At one point he was doing eight programs a day and fourteen network shows a week.
His announcing role on "Captain Video and His Video Rangers" is spoofed by Frank Marth on "TV or Not TV", the first episode of "The Honeymooners" (1955).
After the Dumont Television Network faded out in 1956, Fred Scott remained an announcer for Channel 5 television in New York (later WNEW and WNYW) hosting a television cartoon show from New York as "Uncle Fred".
Fred Scott became the fourth and last host/performer of "Bugs Bunny Presents" seen weekday evenings on WNEW TV Ch.5 in NYC from Monday February 2, 1959 to Friday May 2, 1959. The show's title changed to "Nuts & Bugs" (because the series aired reruns of old movie comedies that featured Charlie Chase, Edger Kennedy, Leon Errol and Ben Turpin) along with "The Bugs Bunny" movie cartoons. "Nuts & Bugs" was seen weekday evenings on WNEW TV Ch.5 in NYC from Monday May 25, 1959 to Thursday August 13, 1959.
Fred Scott succeeded Sonny Fox as the second and last host of WNEW TV Ch.5 NYC's Saturday-morning kids' TV game show "Just For Fun". Scott presented the show from Saturday August 7, 1965 to Saturday September 4, l965. At one point he was doing eight programs a day and fourteen network shows a week.
He filled in for Soupy Sales for one week on his WNEW-TV show in January 1965, during Sales' suspension as a result of his infamous New Year's Day show.
A son, Fred Scott, Junior, was born on June 4th, 1950. - Mutual Broadcasting System radio newsman and columnist who originated the game "Twenty Questions" for radio and, later, television. Based on the "Animal, Vegetable or Mineral" parlor game, it was one of the first shows to transcend radio into the new medium of television, and was extremely popular. He was a "printer's devil" for his high school newspaper, then moved on to several other mainstream newspaper and wire-service jobs. He joined WOR in New York as a newscaster in 1944. When "Twenty Questions" began airing, Fred, his wife Florence Rinard and son Robert were among the panelists. It began on Mutual on February 2, 1946 and later came to the DuMont Television Network, finally ending when DuMont itself was fading, in May, 1955. After it ended, he turned to writing, lecturing and authoring several books; but he returned to newscasting over Mutual in the early 1960s, finally retiring to Greenville SC and his longtime dream of living in the South. He worked for the Greenville News, and then moved to Petersburg, Virginia where he wrote for the Progress-Index. Fred never liked using his full name on the air, as he felt it was too long.