1.
Susan Hayward
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Susan Hayward was an American actress. After working as a model, Hayward traveled to Hollywood in 1937. She secured a contract and played several small supporting roles over the next few years. Her career continued successfully through the 1950s and she received subsequent nominations for My Foolish Heart, With a Song in My Heart and she finally won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of death-row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live. After Haywards second marriage and subsequent move to Georgia, her appearances became infrequent, although she continued acting in film. She died in 1975 of brain cancer, Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner in Brooklyn, the youngest of three children born to Ellen and Walter Marrenner. Her paternal grandmother was an actress, Kate Harrigan, from County Cork and her mother was of Swedish descent. She had a sister, Florence, and an older brother, Walter, Jr. Hayward was educated at Public School 181. During her high school years, she acted in school plays and was named Most Dramatic by her class. Hayward began her career as a model, going to Hollywood in 1937. Although she did not win the role, Hayward found employment playing bit parts until she was cast in Beau Geste opposite Gary Cooper. During the war years, she acted with John Wayne twice, as a lead in Reap the Wild Wind. She also starred in the version of The Hairy Ape. After the war, Haywards career took off when she was contracted by producer Walter Wanger for a contract at $100,000 a year. With her first film being Canyon Passage, in 1947, she received the first of five Academy Award nominations for her role as an alcoholic nightclub singer in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman, her second film for Wanger. She continued as one of Hollywoods most popular leading ladies in films such as Tap Roots, My Foolish Heart, David and Bathsheba, Haywards portrayal of Graham won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1959, she played the lead, Mary Sharron, in Woman Obsessed, in 1956, she was cast by Howard Hughes to play Bortai in the historical epic The Conqueror, as John Waynes leading lady. Though Hayward never truly known as a singer because she hated her own singing
2.
Eddie Albert
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Edward Albert Heimberger, known professionally as Eddie Albert, was an American actor and activist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, other well-known screen roles of his include Bing Edwards in the Brother Rat films, traveling salesman Ali Hakim in the musical Oklahoma. And the sadistic prison warden in 1974s The Longest Yard and he starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the 1960s television sitcom Green Acres and as Frank MacBride in the 1970s crime drama Switch. He also had a role as Carlton Travis on Falcon Crest. Edward Albert Heimberger was born in Rock Island, Illinois, on April 22,1906, the oldest of the five children of Frank Daniel Heimberger, a realtor and his year of birth is often given as 1908, but this is incorrect. His parents were not married when Albert was born, and his mother altered his birth certificate after her marriage, when he was one year old, his family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Young Edward secured his first job as a boy when he was only six. During World War I, his German name led to taunts as the enemy by his classmates and he studied at Central High School in Minneapolis and joined the drama club. His schoolmate Harriet Lake graduated in the same class, finishing high school in 1926, he entered the University of Minnesota, where he majored in business. When he graduated, he embarked on a business career, however, the stock market crash in 1929 left him essentially unemployed. He then took odd jobs, working as a performer, an insurance salesman. Albert stopped using his last name professionally, since it invariably was mispronounced as Hamburger and he moved to New York City in 1933, where he co-hosted a radio show, The Honeymooners - Grace and Eddie Show, which ran for three years. At the shows end, he was offered a contract by Warner Bros. In the 1930s, Albert performed in Broadway stage productions, including Brother Rat and he had lead roles in Room Service and The Boys from Syracuse. Performing regularly on television, Albert wrote and performed in the first teleplay, The Love Nest. Hosted by Betty Goodwin, The Love Nest starred Albert, Hildegarde, The Ink Spots, Ed Wynn, before this time, television productions were adaptations of stage plays. In 1938, he made his debut in the Hollywood version of Brother Rat with Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman. The next year, he starred in On Your Toes, adapted for the screen from the Broadway smash by Rodgers and Hart
3.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of feature films and television programs. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California and it is one of the worlds oldest film studios. In 1971, it was announced that MGM would merge with 20th Century Fox, over the next thirty-nine years, the studio was bought and sold at various points in its history until, on November 3,2010, MGM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. MGM Resorts International, a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MGM, is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1966, MGM was sold to Canadian investor Edgar Bronfman Sr. whose son Edgar Jr. would later buy Universal Studios, the studio continued to produce five to six films a year that were released through other studios, mostly United Artists. Kerkorian did, however, commit to increased production and a film library when he bought United Artists in 1981. MGM ramped up production, as well as keeping production going at UA. It also incurred significant amounts of debt to increase production, the studio took on additional debt as a series of owners took charge in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 1986, Ted Turner bought MGM, but a few later, sold the company back to Kerkorian to recoup massive debt. The series of deals left MGM even more heavily in debt, MGM was bought by Pathé Communications in 1990, but Parretti lost control of Pathé and defaulted on the loans used to purchase the studio. The French banking conglomerate Crédit Lyonnais, the major creditor. Even more deeply in debt, MGM was purchased by a joint venture between Kerkorian, producer Frank Mancuso, and Australias Seven Network in 1996, the debt load from these and subsequent business deals negatively affected MGMs ability to survive as an independent motion picture studio. In 1924, movie theater magnate Marcus Loew had a problem and he had bought Metro Pictures Corporation in 1919 for a steady supply of films for his large Loews Theatres chain. With Loews lackluster assortment of Metro films, Loew purchased Goldwyn Pictures in 1924 to improve the quality, however, these purchases created a need for someone to oversee his new Hollywood operations, since longtime assistant Nicholas Schenck was needed in New York headquarters to oversee the 150 theaters. Mayer, Loew addressed the situation by buying Louis B. Mayer Pictures on April 17,1924, Mayer became head of the renamed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with Irving Thalberg as head of production. MGM produced more than 100 feature films in its first two years, in 1925, MGM released the extravagant and successful Ben-Hur, taking a $4.7 million profit that year, its first full year. Marcus Loew died in 1927, and control of Loews passed to Nicholas Schenck, in 1929, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation bought the Loew familys holdings with Schencks assent. Mayer and Thalberg disagreed with the decision, Mayer was active in the California Republican Party and used his political connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay final approval of the deal on antitrust grounds
4.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
5.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
6.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
7.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
8.
Alcoholics Anonymous
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Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid fellowship founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio. AAs stated primary purpose is to help alcoholics stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety, with other early members, Bill Wilson and Bob Smith developed AAs Twelve Step program of spiritual and character development. AAs initial Twelve Traditions were introduced in 1946 to help the fellowship be stable, the Traditions recommend that members and groups remain anonymous in public media, altruistically help other alcoholics and avoid official affiliations with other organizations. They also advise against dogma and coercive hierarchies, subsequent fellowships such as Narcotics Anonymous have adopted and adapted the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions to their respective primary purposes. According to AAs 2014 membership survey, 27% of members have been less than one year, 24% have 1–5 years sober, 13% have 5–10 years, 14% have 10–20 years. Studies of AAs efficacy have produced inconsistent results, while some studies have suggested an association between AA attendance and increased abstinence or other positive outcomes, other studies have not. The first female member, Florence Rankin, joined AA in March 1937, and the first non-Protestant member, AA membership has since spread across diverse cultures holding different beliefs and values, including geopolitical areas resistant to grassroots movements. Over 2 million people worldwide are members of AA as of 2016, AAs name is derived from its first book, informally called The Big Book, originally titled Alcoholics Anonymous, The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism. AA sprang from The Oxford Group, a non-denominational movement modeled after first-century Christianity, some members founded the Group to help in maintaining sobriety. Feeling a kinship of common suffering and, though drunk, Wilson attended his first Group gathering, within days, Wilson admitted himself to the Charles B. Towns Hospital after drinking four beers on the way—the last alcohol he ever drank, under the care of Dr. William Duncan Silkworth, Wilsons detox included the deliriant belladonna. At the hospital a despairing Wilson experienced a flash of light. Following his hospital discharge Wilson joined the Oxford Group and recruited other alcoholics to the Group, Wilsons early efforts to help others become sober were ineffective, prompting Dr. Silkworth to suggest that Wilson place less stress on religion and more on the science of treating alcoholism. Wilsons first success came during a trip to Akron, Ohio, where he was introduced to Dr. Robert Smith. After thirty days of working with Wilson, Smith drank his last drink on June 10,1935, by 1937, Wilson separated from the Oxford Group. AA Historian Ernest Kurtz described the split. more and more, Bill discovered that new adherents could get sober by believing in each other and this, then—whatever it was that occurred among them—was what they could accept as a power greater than themselves. They did not need the Oxford Group, in 1955, Wilson acknowledged AAs debt, saying The Oxford Groupers had clearly shown us what to do. And just as importantly, we learned from them not to do
9.
Palace Theatre (New York City)
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The Palace Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1564 Broadway in midtown Manhattan, New York City. From 1913 through about 1929, the Palace attained legendary status among vaudeville performers as the flagship of the Keith–Albee organization, Albee in turn demanded that Beck turn over three-quarters ownership to use acts from the Keith circuit. Beck took the deal, and was in charge of the booking, when the theatre finally opened on March 24,1913, with headliner Ed Wynn, it was not an instant success and lost money for months. Soon the Palace became the venue of the Keith–Albee circuit. The theater owner Albee sometimes traded on the desire for this goal by forcing acts to take a pay cut for the privilege. Even so, to play the Palace meant that an entertainer had reached the pinnacle of his vaudeville career, performer Jack Haley wrote, Only a vaudevillian who has trod its stage can really tell you about it. Only a performer can describe the anxieties, the joys, the anticipation, the walk through the iron gate on 47th Street through the courtyard to the stage door, was the cum laude walk to a show business diploma. A feeling of ecstasy came with the knowledge that this was the Palace, the epitome of the more than 15,000 vaudeville theaters in America, of all the thousands upon thousands of vaudeville performers in the business, you are there. This was a dream fulfilled, this was the pinnacle of Variety success, simply to play the Palace assured an enhanced reputation and future bookings, but to play the coveted headline spot, usually billed seventh and next to the closing act, was a special distinction. With the Great Depression came a rise in the popularity of film and radio, in 1929, the two-a-day Palace shows increased to three. By 1932, the Palace moved to four shows a day, in November of that year, it was rebranded the RKO Palace and converted to a cinema. Appearing on the bill when the venue ended its stage policy were Nick Lucas. Finally in 1957, the Palace, succumbed to the popularity of television and ceased stage presentations, beginning in 1949 under Sol Schwartz, the refurbished RKO Palace tried to single-handedly revive vaudeville, with a slate of eight acts before a feature film. It attracted acts like Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye, Lauritz Melchior, Betty Hutton, judy Garland staged a record-breaking 19-week comeback at the venue in October 1951. But while the shows were successful, they did not lead to a revival of the format, the RKO Picture Citizen Kane had its world premiere at the theatre on May 1,1941 and The Diary of Anne Frank premiered March 18,1959. In 1965, the Nederlander Organization purchased the Palace from RKO Theatres, in the late 1980s, a towering hotel was built above the theater, supported by two super-columns located behind the original auditorium structure. Today the theater façade is almost entirely hidden behind a wall of enormous billboards, the interior was renovated in early 2014 prior to the opening of Holler If Ya Hear Me. The theatre would be raised 29 feet and the occupied by the current lobby would be filled by retail space that would extend three additional levels below ground
