Eddie Fisher (singer)
Edwin John "Eddie" Fisher was an American singer and actor. He was one of the most popular artists during the first half of the 1950s, selling millions of records and hosting his own TV show. Fisher divorced his first wife, actress Debbie Reynolds, to marry Reynolds' best friend, actress Elizabeth Taylor, after Taylor's husband, film producer Mike Todd, was killed in a plane crash; the scandalous affair was reported, bringing unfavorable publicity to Fisher. He married Connie Stevens. Fisher fathered Carrie Fisher and Todd Fisher with Reynolds, Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher with Stevens. Fisher was born in Philadelphia, the fourth of seven children born to Gitte and Joseph Tisch, who were Russian-Jewish immigrants, his father's surname was Tisch, but was changed to Fisher by the time of the 1940 census. To his family, Fisher was always called "Sonny Boy", a nickname derived from the song of the same name in Al Jolson's film The Singing Fool. Fisher attended Thomas Junior High School, South Philadelphia High School, Simon Gratz High School.
It was known at an early age that he had talent as a vocalist, he started singing in numerous amateur contests, which he won. He made his radio debut on a local Philadelphia radio station, he performed on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, a popular radio show that moved to television. Because he became a local star, Fisher dropped out of high school in the middle of his senior year to pursue his career. By 1946, Fisher was crooning with the bands of Charlie Ventura, he was heard in 1949 by Eddie Cantor at Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel in the Borscht Belt. Cantor's so-called discovery of Fisher was described as a contrived, "manipulated' arrangement by Milton Blackstone, Grossinger's publicity director. After performing on Cantor's radio show he gained nationwide exposure, he signed a recording contract with RCA Victor. Fisher was drafted into the U. S. Army in 1951, sent to Fort Hood, Texas for basic training, served a year in Korea. From 1952 to 1953, he was the official vocal soloist for The United States Army Band and a tenor section member in the United States Army Band Chorus assigned at Fort Myer in the Washington, D.
C. Military District. During his active duty period, he made occasional guest television appearances, in uniform, introduced as "PFC Eddie Fisher". After his discharge, he began to sing in top nightclubs and had a variety television series, Coke Time with Eddie Fisher on NBC. Fisher appeared on The Perry Como Show, Club Oasis, The Martha Raye Show, The Gisele MacKenzie Show, The Chesterfield Supper Club and The George Gobel Show, starred in another series, The Eddie Fisher Show. Fisher's strong and melodious tenor made him a teen idol and one of the most popular singers of the early 1950s, he had 17 songs in the Top 10 on the music charts between 1950 and 1956 and 35 in the Top 40. In 1956, Fisher costarred with then-wife Debbie Reynolds in the musical comedy Bundle of Joy, he played a dramatic role in the 1960 drama Butterfield 8 with second wife Elizabeth Taylor. His best friend was showman and producer Mike Todd, who died in a plane crash in 1958. Fisher's affair, divorce from Reynolds, subsequent marriage to Taylor, Todd's widow, caused a show business scandal.
Due to the unfavorable publicity surrounding the affair and divorce, NBC canceled Fisher's television series in March 1959. Beginning in fall 1959, he established two scholarships at Brandeis University, one for classical and one for popular music, in the name of Eddie Cantor. In 1960, he was dropped by RCA Victor and recorded on his own label, Ramrod Records, he recorded for Dot Records. During this time, he had the first commercial recording of "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof; this technically counts as the biggest standard Fisher can claim credit for introducing, although it is associated with him. He recorded the albums Eddie Fisher Today and Young and Foolish; the Dot contract was not successful in record sales terms, he returned to RCA Victor and had a minor single hit in 1966 with the song "Games That Lovers Play" with Nelson Riddle, which became the title of his best selling album. When Fisher was at the height of his popularity, in the mid-1950s, rather than albums, were the primary medium for issuing recordings.
His last album for RCA Victor was an Al Jolson tribute, You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet, released in 1968. In 1983 he attempted a comeback tour but this was not a success. Eddie Fisher's last released album was recorded around 1984 on the Bainbridge record label. Fisher tried to stop the album from being released; the album was arranged by Angelo DiPippo. DiPippo, a world-renowned arranger, worked with Eddie countless hours to better his vocals but it became useless, his final recordings were made in 1995 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. According to arranger-conductor Vincent Falcone in his 2005 autobiography, Frankly: Just Between Us, these tracks were "the best singing of his life." Fisher performed in top concert halls all over the United States and headlined in major Las Vegas showrooms. He headlined at the Palace Theater in New York City as well as London's Palladium. Fisher created interest as a pop culture icon. Betty Johnson's "I Want Eddie Fisher For Christmas", containing references to a number of hit songs, reached #28 in the Music Vendor national survey during an 11-week chart run in late 1954.
Fisher has two stars on
Lux Radio Theatre
Lux Radio Theatre, sometimes spelled Lux Radio Theater, a classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network. The series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films; these hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences. The series became the most popular dramatic anthology series on radio, broadcast for more than 20 years and continued on television as the Lux Video Theatre through most of the 1950s; the primary sponsor of the show was Unilever through its Lux Soap brand. Broadcasting from New York, the series premiered at 2:30 p.m. October 14, 1934, on the NBC Blue Network with a production of Seventh Heaven starring Miriam Hopkins and John Boles in a full-hour adaptation of the 1922–24 Broadway production by Austin Strong; the host was the show's fictional producer, Douglass Garrick. Doris Dagmar played another fictional character, Peggy Winthrop, who delivered the Lux commercials; each show featured a scripted session with Garrick talking to the lead actors.
Anthony appeared as Garrick from the premiere 1934 episode until June 30, 1935. Garrick was portrayed by Albert Hayes from July 29, 1935, to May 25, 1936, when the show moved to the West Coast. Famed studio executive and film producer / director Cecil B. DeMille, took over as the host on June 1, 1936, continuing until January 22, 1945; that initial episode with DeMille featured stars Marlene Dietrich and Clark Gable in The Legionnaire and the Lady. On several occasions when he was out of town, he was temporarily replaced by various celebrities, including Leslie Howard and Edward Arnold. Lux Radio Theatre strove to feature as many of the original stars of the original stage and film productions as possible paying them $5,000 an appearance. In 1936, when sponsor manufacturer Lever Brothers moved the show from New York City to Hollywood, the program began to emphasize adaptations of films rather than plays; the first Lux film adaptation was The Legionnaire and the Lady, with Marlene Dietrich and Clark Gable, based on the film Morocco.
That was followed by a Lux adaptation of The Thin Man, featuring the movie's actual stars, Myrna Loy and William Powell. Though the show focused on film and its performers, several classic radio regulars appeared in Lux Radio Theatre productions. Jim and Marian Jordan, better known as Fibber McGee and Molly, appeared on the show twice and built an episode of their own radio comedy series around one of those appearances, their longtime costar, Arthur Q. Bryan, made a few Lux appearances as well. Bandleader Phil Harris, a longtime regular on Jack Benny's radio program and his wife Alice Faye, who became radio stars with their own comedy show in 1948, appeared in a Lux presentation. Fred Allen, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen were among the other radio stars who were invited to do Lux presentations as well. Lux Radio Theatre once presented an adaptation of the film version of a radio series, The Life of Riley, featuring William Bendix as the Brooklyn-born, California-transplanted, stumbling but bighearted aircraft worker he made famous in the long-running radio series of the same name.
At least once Lux Radio Theatre offered a presentation without any known performers. A famous urban legend claimed that actor Sonny Tufts was slated to appear as a guest alongside Joan Fontaine for a production of The Major and the Minor on Lux Radio Theatre; when Joseph Cotten read the names of the next week's cast, he said, with a mixture of shock and astonishment, that listeners would hear "that new, talented personality... Sonny Tufts?!" However, this never happened. The legend began as a fake segment on one of Kermit Schafer's popular "Bloopers" albums, which have been criticized for their re-creations and lack of accuracy. In actuality, Tufts was introduced by Cotten on the radio series Suspense, but Cotten's introduction was normal. A clash over closed shop union rulings favored by the American Federation of Radio Artists ended DeMille's term as host of Lux Radio Theatre. AFRA assessed members a dollar each to help back a campaign to enact closed-shop rulings in California. DeMille, an AFRA member but a stern opponent of closed shops, refused to pay because he believed it would nullify his opposition vote.
When AFRA ruled those not paying faced suspension from the union, thus a ban from appearing on the air, DeMille was finished in radio. In his 1959 autobiography, DeMille alleged that a former member of the American Communist Party confided to him that the party had consciously orchestrated these circumstances of his exclusion from radio, as they considered him to be one of their two foremost enemies in radio. Lux Radio Theatre employed several hosts over the following year choosing William Keighley as the new permanent host, a post he held from late 1945 through 1952. After that, producer-director Irving Cummings hosted the program until it ended in 1955. For its airings on the U. S. Armed Forces Radio Service, the program was hosted by Don Wilson in the early 1950s. During its years on CBS in Hollywood, Lux Radio Theatre was broadcast from the CBS Radio Playhouse at 1615 North Vine Street in Hollywood, one bl
Buddy DeSylva
George Gard "Buddy" DeSylva was an American songwriter, film producer and record executive. He wrote or co-wrote many popular songs and along with Johnny Mercer and Glenn Wallichs, he founded Capitol Records. DeSylva was born in New York City, but grew up in California and attended the University of Southern California, where he joined the Theta Xi Fraternity, his father, Aloysius J. De Sylva, was better known to American audiences as the Portuguese-born actor, Hal De Forrest, his mother, Georgetta Miles Gard, was the daughter of Los Angeles police chief George E. Gard. DeSylva's first successful songs were those used by Al Jolson on Broadway in the 1918 Sinbad production, which included "I'll Say She Does". Soon thereafter he met Jolson and in 1918 the pair went to New York and DeSylva began working as a songwriter in Tin Pan Alley. In the early 1920s, DeSylva worked with composer George Gershwin. Together they created the experimental one-act jazz opera Blue Monday set in Harlem, regarded as a forerunner to Porgy and Bess ten years later.
In April 1924, DeSylva married a Ziegfeld Follies dancer. In 1925, DeSylva became one third of the songwriting team with lyricist Lew Brown and composer Ray Henderson, one of the top Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the era; the team was responsible for the song Magnolia, popularized by Lou Gold's orchestra. The writing and publishing partnership continued until 1930, producing a string of hits and the perennial Broadway favorite Good News; the popularity of this team was so great that Gershwin's mother chided her sons for not being able to write the sort of hits turned out by the trio. DeSylva joined ASCAP in 1920 and served on the ASCAP board of directors between 1922 and 1930, he became a producer of screen musicals. DeSylva went under contract to Fox Studios. During this tenure, he produced movies such as The Little Colonel, The Littlest Rebel, Captain January, Poor Little Rich Girl and Stowaway. In 1941, he became the Executive Producer at Paramount Pictures, a position he would hold until 1944.
At Paramount, he was an uncredited executive producer for Double Indemnity, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Story of Dr. Wassell and The Glass Key. Betty Hutton always credited DeSylva for launching her film career; the Paramount all-star extravaganza Star Spangled Rhythm, which takes place at the Paramount film studio in Hollywood, features a fictional movie executive named "B. G. DeSoto", a parody of DeSylva. In 1942, Johnny Mercer, Glenn Wallichs and DeSylva together founded Capitol Records, he founded the Cowboy label. He is sometimes credited as: Buddy De Sylva, Buddy DeSylva, Bud De Sylva, Buddy G. DeSylva and B. G. DeSylva. Buddy DeSylva died in Hollywood, aged 55, is buried at Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. Desylva, Buddy, B. G. De Sylva, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson. Good News: vocal selection.: Chappell, n.d. OCLC 495863850 Henderson, Ray, B. G. De Sylva, Bud Green. Alabamy Bound. New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Co, 1925. OCLC 645628000 De Sylva, B. G. Lew Brown, Ray Henderson. Magnolia.
1927. OCLC 918927178 Sonny Boy 1919 - La La Lucille 1922 - George White's Scandals of 1922 1922 - Orange Blossoms 1922 - The Yankee Princess 1923 - George White's Scandals of 1923 1924 - Sweet Little Devil 1924 - George White's Scandals of 1924 music by George Gershwin 1925 - Big Boy 1925 - Tell Me More! 1925 - George White's Scandals of 1925 1925 - Captain Jinks 1926 - George White's Scandals of 1926 1926 - Queen High 1927 - Good News 1927 - Manhattan Mary 1928 - George White's Scandals of 1928 1928 - Hold Everything! 1929 - Follow Thru 1930 - Flying High 1932 - Take a Chance Stepping Sisters My Weakness The Stork Club The 1956 Hollywood film The Best Things in Life Are Free, starring Gordon MacRae, Dan Dailey, Ernest Borgnine, depicted the De Sylva and Henderson collaboration. Ewen, David. Great Men of American Popular Song ASIN: B000OKLHXU Green, Stanley; the World Of Musical Comedy. Publisher: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80207-4 Buddy DeSylva at the Internet Broadway Database Buddy G. DeSylva on IMDb Buddy DeSylva and the 1909 Copyright Act Buddy DeSylva at the Internet Archive
Charles Coburn
Charles Douville Coburn was an American film and theatre actor. Best known for his work in comedies, Coburn received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1943's The More the Merrier. Coburn was born in Macon, the son of Scotch-Irish Americans Emma Louise Sprigman and Moses Douville Coburn. Growing up in Savannah, he started out at age 14 doing odd jobs at the local Savannah Theater, handing out programs, ushering, or being the doorman. By age 17 or 18, he was the theater manager, he became an actor, making his debut on Broadway in 1901. Coburn formed an acting company with actress Ivah Wills in 1905, they married in 1906. In addition to managing the company, the couple performed on Broadway. After his wife's death in 1937, Coburn relocated to Los Angeles and began film work, he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a retired millionaire playing Cupid in The More the Merrier in 1943. He was nominated for The Devil and Miss Jones in 1941 and The Green Years in 1946.
Other notable film credits include Of Human Hearts, The Lady Eve, Kings Row, The Constant Nymph, Heaven Can Wait, Impact, The Paradine Case, Everybody Does It, Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, Monkey Business, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, John Paul Jones. He played comedic parts, but Kings Row and Wilson were dramatic parts, showing his versatility. For his contributions to motion pictures, in 1960, Coburn was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6268 Hollywood Boulevard. In the 1940s, Coburn served as vice-president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a group opposed to leftist infiltration and proselytization in Hollywood during the Cold War. Born and raised in the southern state of Georgia, Coburn was a member of the White Citizens' Councils, a white supremacist group which opposed racial integration. Coburn married Ivah Wills on January 29, 1906 in Georgia, they had six children. Ivah died on December 3, 1937 in New York City of congestive heart failure, aged 59.
Coburn married Winifred Natzka on June 1959 in Los Angeles. She was the widow of the New Zealand bass opera singer Oscar Natzka, they had a daughter. Coburn died from a heart attack on August 1961, at age 84 in New York City. Winifred moved to New Zealand. List of actors with Academy Award nominations Charles Coburn on IMDb Charles Coburn at the Internet Broadway Database Charles Coburn at Find a Grave
Garson Kanin
Garson Kanin was an American writer and director of plays and films. Garson Kanin began his show business career as a jazz musician, burlesque comedian, actor, he graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and made his Broadway debut in Little Ol' Boy. In 1935, Kanin soon became Abbott's assistant. Kanin made his Broadway debut as a director in 1936, at the age of twenty-four, with Hitch Your Wagon. In 1945, Kanin directed Spencer Tracy in Tracy's first play in 15 years. Tracy had been through a dark patch personally—culminating with a stay in hospital—and Katharine Hepburn felt that a play would help restore his focus. Tracy told a journalist in April, "I'm coming back to Broadway to see if I can still act." The play was The Rugged Path by Robert E. Sherwood, which first previewed in Providence, Rhode Island on September 28, to a sold-out crowd and tepid response; the Rugged Path was a difficult production, with Kanin writing, "In the ten days prior to the New York opening all the important relationships had deteriorated.
Spencer was tense and unbending, could not, or would not, take direction". Tracy considered leaving the show before it opened on Broadway, lasted there just six weeks before announcing his intention to close the show, it closed on January 1946, after 81 performances. Tracy explained to a friend: "I couldn't say those goddamn lines over and over and over again every night... At least every day is a new day for me in films... But this thing—every day, every day and over again."Kanin's 1946 play Born Yesterday, which he directed, ran for 1,642 performances. Kanin worked, uncredited, on the screenplay of the 1950 film adaptation, his other stage work includes directing The Diary of Anne Frank, which ran for 717 performances, the musical Funny Girl, which ran for 1,348 performances. Kanin wrote and directed his last play, Peccadillo, in 1985, the same year he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, his first film as a director was A Man to Remember, which The New York Times considered one of the ten best films of 1938.
Kanin was twenty-six at the time. Other directing credits include The Great Man Votes, My Favorite Wife, They Knew What They Wanted and Tom and Harry. Kanin's Hollywood career was interrupted by the draft, he served in the United States Army from 1941 to 1945. During this time Kanin, with Carol Reed, co-directed General Dwight D. Eisenhower's official record of the Allied Invasion, the Academy-award-winning documentary The True Glory. During this time, he began writing. Kanin's best-remembered screenplays, were written in collaboration with his wife, actress Ruth Gordon, whom he married in 1942. Together, they wrote the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn film comedies Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike, as well as A Double Life, starring Ronald Colman, all directed by George Cukor. In the 1950s through the 1980s, Kanin adapted several of his stories and plays for television, most notably Mr. Broadway, Moviola. Kanin's best-selling novel Smash, about the pre-Broadway tryout of a musical comedy, has been adapted into the television series Smash.
He was a colleague of Thornton Wilder, who mentored him, an admirer of the work of Frank Capra. Kanin said "I'd rather be Capra than God, if there is a Capra." Kanin and Katharine Hepburn were the only witnesses to Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh's wedding in California on August 31, 1940. In 1941, he and Katharine Hepburn worked with his brother Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner, Jr. on the early drafts of what would become Woman of the Year right before Garson enlisted in the army. He is quoted as saying, "When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt." His most famous quote, from his hit play "Born Yesterday," is on a New York City Public Library plaque on a 41st Street sidewalk: "I want everyone to be smart. As smart as they can be. A world of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in." The Academy Film Archive "Salut a La France" by Garson Kanin. Kanin was married to his frequent collaborator, Academy-award-winning actress Ruth Gordon, from 1942 to her death in 1985. In 1990, Kanin married the celebrated stage actress Marian Seldes.
In 1999, Kanin died at age 86 in Manhattan of undisclosed causes. Kanin was Jewish. Remembering Mr. Maugham, with an introduction by Noël Coward, 1966. Hollywood: Stars and Starlets, Moviemakers, Hopefuls, Great Lovers. New York: Viking, 1967. Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir. New York: Viking, 1971. Novels Blow Up a Storm Do Re Mi Moviola Smash The Rat Race Where It's At A Thousand SunsPlays Born Yesterday The Smile of the World The Rat Race The Live Wire Come on StrongMusicals Fledermaus Do Re Mi A Man to Remember - director Next Time I Marry - director The Great Man Votes - director Bachelor Mother - director They Knew What They Wanted - director My Favorite Wife - director Tom and Harry - director The More the Merrier - writer The True Glory - director From This Day Forward - writer A Double Life - writer Adam's Rib - writer Pat and Mike - writer The Marrying Kind - writer It Should Happen to You - writer The Girl Can't Help It - original story High Time - original story The Rat Race - writer Some Kind of a Nut - writer, director Where It's At - writer, director Curtis, James.
Spencer Tracy: A Biography. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-178524-3. Garson Kanin on IMDb Garson Kanin at the Internet Bro
Ernest Truex
Ernest Truex was an American actor of stage and television. Born in Kansas City, Truex started acting at age five and toured through Missouri at age nine as "The Child Wonder in Scenes from Shakespeare", his Broadway debut came in 1908, he performed in several David Belasco plays and portrayed the title role in the 1915 musical Very Good Eddie. Truex played the lead role in the disastrous 1923 premiere of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Vegetable. In 1927, he created the role of Bill Paradene in Good Morning, adapted by P. G. Wodehouse based on a play by Ladislaus Fodor. In 1926 he performed for the first time in London's West End, he played a leading role in The Fall Guy at the Apollo Theatre. He continued to perform in plays in London for the next three years while his two sons attended Leighton Park boarding school in Reading. In 1927 he acted in Good Morning, Bill at the Duke of York's Theatre and in 1928 he performed in Sexes and Sevens at the Globe Theatre, he did not work in film full-time for another twenty years.
He tended to play "milquetoast" characters and in The Warrior's Husband he played a "nance". In the 1938 The Adventures of Marco Polo, he played Marco Polo's comical assistant, opposite Gary Cooper. Early in television, Truex guest starred on CBS's Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town. In 1949, Truex played Caspar Milquetoast on the DuMont Television Network's Program Playhouse Series. From 1953 to 1954, he co-starred with a young Brandon deWilde in Jamie on ABC, he played aging Grandpa McHummer striking a bond with young Jamie, his orphaned grandson. In life, he became known for playing elderly men on television in works such as Justice, Mister Peepers and Father Knows Best, he had the main role in the "Kick the Can" episode of Rod Serling's original The Twilight Zone. In another Twilight Zone episode, "What You Need", he played a traveling peddler who just happened to have what people needed just before they knew they needed it, he starred in the first season of CBS's The Ann Sothern Show as Jason Macauley, the manager of the swank Bartley House hotel in New York City.
Reta Shaw played Flora. In 1960, Truex appeared with Harpo Marx in the episode "Silent Panic" of CBS's anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson, he guest starred on Dennis the Menace, with Jay North as the series lead. His first wife was Julia Mills with whom he had two sons, Philip in 1911 and James in 1912. Philip had an acting career until the early 1950s. Philip Truex's greatest success in the theatre was when he landed the starring role of Og in the Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow in 1947, his most famous film performance is the title role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry as Harry, the corpse dragged all over the countryside by several other characters in this film. Philip had expected to have substantial lines to speak in the role but Hitchcock decided to kill off the character of Harry before he could utter one word. After this disappointment Philip decided to give up acting and turned his hand to landscape gardening. A widower, Ernest married stage actress Mary Jane Barrett, appearing with her in New York in such plays as The Third Little Show, The Hook-Up, Fredericka.
They had Barry Truex, who had an acting career of his own from 1949 to the early 1960s. His career began in 1949 when he played the role of Ernest's youngest son in the TV situation comedy The Truex Family broadcast on WPIX New York. All of Ernest Truex's immediate family had acting parts in this show, co-written by his second son James Truex. In 1962 Barry would again play opposite his father Ernest in the episode "Kick the Can" of the TV series The Twilight Zone. Barry's most memorable film roles were in The Benny Goodman Story playing the young Benny Goodman, Rockabilly Baby, Dragstrip Riot, he acted in numerous TV productions. In 1934, Ernest Truex directed, co-produced, starred in the play Sing and Whistle, which co-starred actress Sylvia Field who would become his third wife upon his divorce from Mary Jane Barrett. On June 26, 1973, Truex died of a heart attack at the age of 83. Ernest Truex on IMDb Ernest Truex at the Internet Broadway Database Ernest Truex at Find a Grave
Bundle of Joy
Bundle of Joy is a Technicolor musical remake of the comedy film Bachelor Mother, which starred Ginger Rogers. It stars Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, Adolphe Menjou. An unmarried salesgirl at a department store takes care of an abandoned baby. Much confusion results when her co-workers assume the child is hers and that the father is the son of the store owner. Polly Parish works in the Millinery Department at J. B. Merlin & Son's department store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, she is summoned to the office of the store manager, who informs her that she is fired because she is overselling hats, which creates too many returns and too much work for the accounting department. After work, Polly wonders what she will do to make ends meet. On a step, she instinctively picks it up to comfort it; as she bends over, the door behind the step opens and a woman ushers Polly and the baby inside. Polly has not noticed the sign; when she denies the baby is hers inside, the staff disbelieve her, having experienced countless women ashamed to admit that they bore a child out of wedlock.
Polly explains that she has just lost her job at J. B Merlin & Son's and insists there is no way that she will care for a baby, not hers. After she leaves, the head of the orphanage decides to intervene on her behalf, knowing the Merlins to be charitable, he convinces the firm to hire Polly back, she is summoned to a meeting with Dan Merlin the son of the titular owner. Dan informs her that she will be hired back at $10 more per week and that a gift will be delivered to her apartment that night; when the baby arrives, Polly is flabbergasted. She convinces a friend to help her deliver the baby back to Dan at his home on East 63rd Street, they leave the baby in the care of Dan's butler, whom Dan enlists to help him return the baby to Polly. They track her down to a dance hall. Dan gets thrown out. So he waits for her there with the baby. Forced to care for the baby, Polly makes grows fond of him, she names the child John, Dan checks in on her from time to time. On New Year's Eve, Dan is stood up by his date.
He arranges for Polly's landlady to watch John. He takes her to the department store to get an outfit for a night out on the town; when he drops her off back at home, he jokes. Meanwhile, J. B. Merlin has been misinformed, he begins to make arrangements for Dan to have full custody of the child. Polly panics at the thought of losing John. So she pretends that her landlady's nephew, visiting from Harvard, is John's real father. Dan produces a store employee to pretend; the ensuing confusion leads to a full confession of love from Dan and a happy union for the new family, J. B. is convinced. Eddie Fisher as Dan Merlin Debbie Reynolds as Polly Parish Adolphe Menjou as J. B. Merlin, Dan's father and Polly's ultimate boss Tommy Noonan as Freddie Miller Nita Talbot as Mary Una Merkel as Mrs. Dugan Melville Cooper as Adams Gil Stratton as Mike Clancy Bill Goodwin as Mr. Creely Howard McNear as Mr. Appleby Robert H. Harris as Mr. Hargraves Mary Treen as Matron Edward Brophy as Dance Contest Judge Scott Douglas as Bill Rand Music by Josef Myrow and lyrics by Mack Gordon.
His second picture with Henry Koster, Felix Jackson, Franciska Gaal was Kleine Mutti about the orphan Marie who raises a foundling and ends up marrying a banker. The German-language film was remade in English as Bachelor Mother three years later. Bundle of Joy is a musical adaptation of Bachelor Mother, Jackson retains story credit on both pictures. RKO Studios had ceased production; the new owners announced a program of 11 films costing $22,500,000. Filming started in June 1956, it finished in August."I know I"m not an actor but I haven't had too much to worry about," said Fisher. Carrie Fisher tells the story in her memoir and subsequent documentary film Wishful Drinking that Reynolds was pregnant with her during production of this film as well as Tammy and the Bachelor. During production, director Norman Taurog was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Little was known about the illness at the time, so Debbie Reynolds and the rest of the cast and crew "just coped with" his unexplained memory losses and constant repeated instructions.
The movie's premiere was given at the Capitol Theatre in New York on December 19, 1956. The event doubled as a fundraiser for refugees of the Hungarian Revolution, which had ended only a month earlier. George Jessel was the master of ceremonies. Archduke Leopold of Hapsburg and his sister were notable guests along with other celebrities and executives of RKO pictures; the event raised $21,000 for CARE and First Aid for Hungary, formed on October 29, 1956 in order to "bring aid to the hundreds of Hungarian Freedom Fighters, force
