1.
George Marshall (director)
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George E. Marshall was an American actor, screenwriter, producer, film and television director, active through the first six decades of movie history. Relatively few of Marshalls films are well-known today, with Destry Rides Again, The Blue Dahlia, The Sheepman, Marshall co-directed How the West Was Won with John Ford and Henry Hathaway, handling the railroad segment, which featured a celebrated buffalo stampede sequence. While Marshall worked on almost all kinds of films imaginable, he started his career in the silent period doing mostly Westerns. In the 1930s he established a reputation for comedy, directing Laurel, later in his career, he was particularly sought after for comedies. He did around half a dozen films each with Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, fields, Jackie Gleason, and Will Rogers. Lucille Ball chose George Marshall to direct episodes of her Heres Lucy television series in 1969. Marshall is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, Los Angeles, for his contribution to the film industry, George Marshall has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7048 Hollywood Boulevard. A Message to Garcia Love Under Fire Can This Be Dixie, eight on the Lam Hook, Line & Sinker George Marshall at the Internet Movie Database
2.
Arthur Sheekman
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Arthur Sheekman was an American theater and movie critic, columnist, playwright and editor—but best known for his writing for the screen. Groucho Marx called him The Fastest Wit in the West, Arthur Sheekman was born February 5,1901 in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, Nettie Green Sheekman and Charles Grover Sheekman were Jewish immigrants from Russia, Sheekman was the middle child of three, coming between Edith and Harvey. In Sheekmans early years, the family lived in St. Paul, Minnesota, as Charlie Sheekman wasnt much of a provider, the children had to scramble to help support their family. At twelve, Sheekman got his first job, working after school, Sheekman rose to become the papers theater and movie critic, writing his column, The Voice Off-Stage. Wanting to go to college, Sheekman enrolled at the University of Minnesota, in 1926, Sheekman is rumoured to have filled in for a colleague’s place on journalist’s trip to the Sesquicentennial International Exposition in Philadelphia. When the editor of the Chicago Journal stopped laughing, he offered Sheekman three times the salary he was getting at the Daily News and that was how Sheekman got back to his native Chicago. On the Chicago Journal, Sheekman continued writing about the movies and Hollywood in his column, Short Shot, then he was awarded the noteworthy space, A Little About Everything, a column previously occupied by humorists Bert Leston Taylor, Finley Peter Dunne and Franklin P. Adams. A leading merchant of Chicago. remarked, I like his column because he is a cynic without scorn, finally, Sheekman moved to Chicagos Daily Times where his column Ahead of the Times was a A Daily Potpourri of Wit and Verse. Groucho Marx played a role in Sheekmans life. The two men met in the fall of 1926 when The Marx Brothers came to Chicago on tour in their musical play, The Cocoanuts. When Sheekman interviewed them for his column, the brothers told him that Groucho, Harpo, then again after the Broadway run of their musical play, Animal Crackers, the brothers again came to Chicago on tour. Sheekman gave Groucho his columns space, advising his readers, On Tuesday, Mr. Groucho Marx, Mr. Marx is the man who said, It would be a happier world for children if parents ate the spinach themselves. The following year, the version of Animal Crackers was released. Groucho wanted Sheekman to come to Hollywood and write for The Boys, instead, with Sheekman in Chicago and The Boys in Los Angeles, Sheekman did write for one of them. In 1929, a book titled Beds was serialized in the magazine, College Humor, Beds bore Groucho Marxs name as author but it was Arthur Sheekman who wrote it. Early in 1931, Sheekman accepted Grouchos invitation and moved west to work on Monkey Business—his credit on that first picture was Dialog by Arthur Sheekman, next he worked on Horse Feathers but just with Groucho. Sheekman makes an appearance in the movie as a sports writer in the press box
3.
Paulette Goddard
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Paulette Goddard was an American actress. A child fashion model and a performer in several Broadway productions as a Ziegfeld Girl and her most notable films were her first major role, as Charles Chaplins leading lady in Modern Times, and Chaplins subsequent film The Great Dictator. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in So Proudly We Hail and her husbands included Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich Maria Remarque. They married in 1908 and separated while their daughter was very young, according to Goddard, her father left them, but according to J. R. Levy, Alta absconded with the child. Goddard was raised by her mother, and did not meet her again until the late 1930s. In a 1938 interview published in Colliers, Goddard claimed Levy was not her biological father, in response, Levy filed a suit against his daughter, claiming that the interview had ruined his reputation and cost him his job, and demanded financial support from her. In a December 17,1945, article written by Oliver Jensen in Life Magazine, Goddard admitted to having lost the case, to avoid a custody battle, her mother and she moved often during her childhood, even relocating to Canada at one point. Goddard began modelling at an age to support her mother and herself, working for Saks Fifth Avenue and Hattie Carnegie. An important figure in her childhood was her great-uncle, Charles Goddard and he played a central role in Goddards career, introducing her to Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld. In 1926, she made her debut as a dancer in Ziegfelds summer review, No Foolin. Ziegfeld hired her for musical, Rio Rita, which opened in February 1927. It was, however, a flop and closed only three days following its premiere in Atlantic City. Soon after the closed, Goddard was introduced to Edgar James, president of the Southern Lumber Company, located in Asheville, North Carolina. Aged 17, considerably younger than James, she married him on June 28,1927, in Rye and it was a short marriage, and Goddard was granted a divorce in Reno, Nevada, in 1929, receiving a divorce settlement of $375,000. Goddard first visited Hollywood in 1929, when she appeared as an extra in two films, the Laurel and Hardy short film Berth Marks, and George Fitzmaurices drama The Locked Door. Following her divorce, she briefly visited Europe before returning to Hollywood in late 1930 with her mother and her second attempt at acting was no more successful than the first, as she landed work only as an extra. In 1932, she signed her first film contract with producer Samuel Goldwyn to appear as a Goldwyn Girl in The Kid from Spain. However, Goldwyn and she did not get along, and she began working for Hal Roach, the year she signed with Goldwyn, Goddard began dating Charlie Chaplin, a relationship that received substantial attention from the press
4.
Macdonald Carey
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Edward Macdonald Carey was an American actor, best known for his role as the patriarch Dr. Tom Horton on NBCs soap opera Days of Our Lives. For almost three decades, he was the central cast member. He first made his starring in various B-movies of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. He was known in many Hollywood circles as King of the Bs, sharing the throne with his queen, a successful radio actor, Careys work included playing Dick Grosvenor on the soap opera Stella Dallas and Ridgeway Tearle in Johns Other Wife, both in the early 1940s. As a stage performer, his credits include the hit Broadway show Lady in the Dark, Carey also appeared in the 1942 films Wake Island and Take a Letter, Darling, and Alfred Hitchcocks Shadow of a Doubt in 1943. Later that year, he joined the United States Marine Corps, in 1947 Carey returned to Paramount in Suddenly, Its Spring. In 1949 he co-starred as Nick Carraway in Alan Ladds version of The Great Gatsby and he continued with Paramount into the 1950s, slipping into more noticeable character roles in Westerns, including Copper Canyon, Comanche Territory, The Great Missouri Raid, and Man or Gun. In 1955 he appeared as Fred Gaily in The 20th Century-Fox Hour remake of the 1947 film classic, Miracle on 34th Street, starring Maureen OHara, Carey played patriot Patrick Henry in John Paul Jones. He appeared in Blue Denim, The Damned, Tammy and the Doctor, in 1956 Carey took over the role of the kindly small-town physician Dr. Christian, a character created in the late 1930s by actor Jean Hersholt on radio and in films. Carey portrayed Dr. Christian on syndicated television for one season, Carey also starred as crusading Herb Maris in the 1950s syndicated series Lock-Up. A total of episodes were made between 1959 and 1961. In 1957 Carey appeared on NBCs The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, on February 7,1958 Carey appeared in the episode License to Kill of CBSs Dick Powells Zane Grey Theater. Carey appeared on CBSs Appointment with Adventure, and in the episode The Incident of the Golden Calf of CBSs Rawhide and he appeared in The Bill Tawnee Story of NBCs Wagon Train with Ward Bond. He guest starred in the 1964-1965 sitcom The Bing Crosby Show on ABC and he appeared as Mr. Edwards in the 1963 episode Pay the Two Dollars of the NBC education drama series, Mr. Novak, starring James Franciscus. In 1961 Carey played a starving artist in The Devils Ticket, in the first season of The Outer Limits, Carey starred in the episode titled The Special One. He later appeared in many all-star television miniseries, such as Roots, The Rebels, Top of the Hill and Condominium. For the remainder of his career, Carey played Tom Horton on Days of Our Lives, from 1965 until his death from cancer in Beverly Hills, California in 1994. During this time, Carey suffered from a problem
5.
Paramount Pictures
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Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film studio based in Hollywood, California, that has been a subsidiary of the American media conglomerate Viacom since 1994. In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor contracted 22 actors and actresses and these fortunate few would become the first movie stars. Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, in 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. Paramount is the fifth oldest surviving studio in the world after the French studios Gaumont Film Company and Pathé, followed by the Nordisk Film company. It is the last major film studio headquartered in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Paramount Pictures dates its existence from the 1912 founding date of the Famous Players Film Company, hungarian-born founder, Adolph Zukor, who had been an early investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrants. With partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman he planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to the class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time. By mid-1913, Famous Players had completed five films, and Zukor was on his way to success and its first film was Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, which starred Sarah Bernhardt. That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse L. Lasky, opened his Lasky Feature Play Company with money borrowed from his brother-in-law, Samuel Goldfish, the Lasky company hired as their first employee a stage director with virtually no film experience, Cecil B. DeMille, who would find a site in Hollywood, near Los Angeles, for his first feature film. Hodkinson and actor, director, producer Hobart Bosworth had started production of a series of Jack London movies, Paramount was the first successful nationwide distributor, until this time, films were sold on a statewide or regional basis which had proved costly to film producers. Also, Famous Players and Lasky were privately owned while Paramount was a corporation, in 1916, Zukor maneuvered a three-way merger of his Famous Players, the Lasky Company, and Paramount. Zukor and Lasky bought Hodkinson out of Paramount, and merged the three companies into one, with only the exhibitor-owned First National as a rival, Famous Players-Lasky and its Paramount Pictures soon dominated the business. It was this system that gave Paramount a leading position in the 1920s and 1930s, the driving force behind Paramounts rise was Zukor. In 1926, Zukor hired independent producer B. P. Schulberg and they purchased the Robert Brunton Studios, a 26-acre facility at 5451 Marathon Street for US$1 million. In 1927, Famous Players-Lasky took the name Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation, three years later, because of the importance of the Publix Theatres, it became Paramount Publix Corporation. In 1928, Paramount began releasing Inkwell Imps, animated cartoons produced by Max, the Fleischers, veterans in the animation industry, were among the few animation producers capable of challenging the prominence of Walt Disney. The Paramount newsreel series Paramount News ran from 1927 to 1957, Paramount was also one of the first Hollywood studios to release what were known at that time as talkies, and in 1929, released their first musical, Innocents of Paris
