1.
Music video
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A music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. There are also cases where songs are used in tie in marketing campaigns that allow them to more than just a song. Tie ins and merchandising could be used in toys or marketing campaigns for food, although the origins of music videos date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they came into prominence in the 1980s when MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these works were described by terms including illustrated song, filmed insert, promotional film, promotional clip, promotional video, song video. Music videos use a range of styles of contemporary videomaking techniques, including animation, live action filming, documentaries. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation, music, combining these styles and techniques has become more popular because of the variation it presents to the audience. Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the songs lyrics, other music videos may be without a set concept, being merely a filmed version of the songs live performance. Product placement is a technique in music videos, exemplified by the appearance of the Beats Pill in numerous hip hop videos. In 1894, sheet music publishers Edward B, marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song The Little Lost Child. Using a magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. This would become a form of entertainment known as the illustrated song. In 1926, with the arrival of many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts featured many bands, vocalists and dancers, early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and especially Fantasia, the Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films. Live action musical shorts, featuring such performers as Cab Calloway, were also distributed to theaters. Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a short film called St. Louis Blues featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period, soundies, produced and released from 1940 to 1947, were musical films that often included short dance sequences, similar to later music videos
2.
MTV
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MTV is an American cable and satellite television channel owned by Viacom Media Networks and headquartered in New York City. Launched on August 1,1981, the originally aired music videos as guided by television personalities known as video jockeys. In its early years, MTVs main target demographic was young adults and it has received criticism towards this change of focus, both by certain segments of its audience and musicians. MTVs influence on its audience, including issues involving censorship and social activism, has also been a subject of debate for several years, in recent years, MTV had struggled with the secular decline of music-related cable media. In April 2016, MTV announced it would start to return to its original music roots with the reintroduction of the classic MTV series MTV Unplugged. It was also reported that the series MTV Cribs would be making a return on Snapchat, MTV has spawned numerous sister channels in the US and affiliated channels internationally, some of which have gone independent. As of July 2015, approximately 92,188,000 US households have received MTV, several earlier concepts for music video-based television programming had been around since the early 1960s. The Beatles had used music videos to promote their records starting in the mid-1960s, CBS rejected the idea, but Williams premiered his own musical composition Classical Gas on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, where he was head writer. The series featured clips from various popular artists, but was canceled by its distributor in 1971. The channel, which featured video disc jockeys, signed a deal with US Cable in 1978 to expand its audience from retail to cable television, the service was no longer active by the time MTV launched in 1981. The QUBE system offered many specialized channels, One of these specialized channels was Sight on Sound, a music channel that featured concert footage and music-oriented television programs. With the interactive QUBE service, viewers could vote for their favorite songs, the original programming format of MTV was created by media executive Robert W. Pittman, who later became president and chief executive officer of MTV Networks. Pittman had test-driven the music format by producing and hosting a 15-minute show, Album Tracks, the inspiration for PopClips came from a similar program on New Zealands TVNZ network named Radio with Pictures, which premiered in 1976. The concept itself had been in the works since 1966, when record companies began supplying the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation with promotional music clips to play on the air at no charge. Few artists made the trip to New Zealand to appear live. A shortened version of the shuttle launch ID ran at the top of hour in various forms. The first music video shown on MTV was The Buggles Video Killed the Radio Star and this was followed by the video for Pat Benatars You Better Run. Sporadically, the screen would go black when an employee at MTV inserted a tape into a VCR, MTVs lower third graphics that appeared near the beginning and end of music videos would eventually use the recognizable Kabel typeface for about 25 years
3.
Vaudeville
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Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment. It was especially popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, a typical vaudeville performance is made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. A vaudeville performer is often referred to as a vaudevillian, Vaudeville developed from many sources, including the concert saloon, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums, and literary American burlesque. Called the heart of American show business, vaudeville was one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America for several decades, the origin of this term is obscure, but is often explained as being derived from the French expression voix de ville. A second speculation is that it comes from the songs on satire by poet Olivier Basselin. Some, however, preferred the term variety to what manager Tony Pastor called its sissy. Thus, vaudeville was marketed as variety well into the 20th century, with its first subtle appearances within the early 1860s, vaudeville was not initially a common form of entertainment. The form gradually evolved from the saloon and variety hall into its mature form throughout the 1870s and 1880s. This more gentle form was known as Polite Vaudeville, in the years before the American Civil War, entertainment existed on a different scale. Certainly, variety theatre existed before 1860 in Europe and elsewhere, in the US, as early as the first decades of the 19th century, theatregoers could enjoy a performance consisting of Shakespeare plays, acrobatics, singing, dancing, and comedy. As the years progressed, people seeking diversified amusement found a number of ways to be entertained. Vaudeville was characterized by traveling companies touring through cities and towns, a significant influence also came from Dutch minstrels and comedians. Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable, institutionalized form centered in Americas growing urban hubs, pastors experiment proved successful, and other managers soon followed suit. B. F. Keith took the step, starting in Boston. Later, E. F. Albee, adoptive grandfather of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee, circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudevilles greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years, Albee also gave national prominence to vaudevilles trumpeting polite entertainment, a commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the remaining performances or were canceled altogether
4.
Reversal film
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In photography, reversal film is a type of photographic film that produces a positive image on a transparent base. The film is processed to produce transparencies or diapositives instead of negatives, Reversal film is produced in various sizes, from 35 mm roll film to 8×10 inch sheet film. A slide is a specially mounted individual transparency intended for projection onto a screen using a slide projector and this allows the photograph to be viewed by a large audience at once. The most common form is the 35 mm slide, with the image framed in a 2×2 inch cardboard or plastic mount. Reversal film is used as motion picture film, mostly in the 16 mm, Super 8 and 8 mm cine formats. This avoids the expense of using film, which requires additional film. The earliest practical and commercially successful color photography reversal process was the Lumière Autochrome and this was an additive method, using a panchromatic emulsion coated on a thin glass plate previously coated with a layer of dyed potato starch grains. Autochrome plates were discontinued in the 1930s after the introduction of Lumière Filmcolor in sheet film, also using the additive principle and reversal processing were the Agfa color screen plates and films and Dufaycolor film, all of which were discontinued by 1961. Leopold Godowsky, Jr. and Leopold Mannes, working with the Eastman Kodak Company, developed Kodachrome, Kodachrome was introduced in 1935 as 16mm motion picture film, and in 1936 as 35mm film for still cameras. The Kodachrome films contained no color dye couplers, these were added during processing, in late 1936, Agfacolor Neu was launched, Agfa having overcome earlier difficulties with color sensitivity problems. This film had the dye couplers incorporated into the emulsion, making processing simpler than for Kodachrome, amateurs who owned projection equipment used reversal films extensively because the cost of projection equipment and slide film was offset by not having to pay for prints. Eventually, print quality improved and prices decreased, and, by the 1970s, color negative film, digital media gradually replaced transparency film. All color reversal film sold today is developed with the E-6 process, the non-substantive Kodachrome films, the last of which was discontinued in 2009, were processed with the K-14 process. Polaroid produced an instant slide film called Polachrome and it was packaged in cassettes like normal 35mm film. A separate processing unit was used to develop it after exposure, black-and-white transparencies can be made directly with some modern black-and-white films, which normally yield negatives. The negative image is developed but not fixed, the remaining silver halide salts are re-exposed to light, developed and fixed, and the film is washed and dried. Black-and-white transparencies were once popular for presentation of materials using 3 1⁄4 by 4 glass-mounted slides. Such positive black-and-white projection is now rarely done, except in motion pictures, even where black-and-white positives are currently used, the process to create them typically uses an internegative with standard processing instead of a chemical reversal process
5.
Magic lantern
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The magic lantern or laterna magica is an early type of image projector employing painted pictures or photographs on sheets of glass, a lens, and a bright light source. It was mostly developed in the 17th century and commonly used for entertainment purposes, some lanterns, including those of Christiaan Huygens and Jan van Musschenbroek, used 3 lenses. Originally the pictures were painted on glass slides. Initially figures were rendered with black paint but soon transparent colors were also used, sometimes the painting was done on oiled paper. Usually black paint was used as a background to block superfluous light, many slides were finished with a layer of transparent lacquer, but in a later period cover glasses were also used to protect the painted layer. Most hand-made slides were mounted in frames with a round or square opening for the picture. After 1820 the manufacturing of hand colored printed slides started, often making use of decalcomania transfers, many manufactured slides were produced on strips of glass with several pictures on them and rimmed with a strip of glued paper. The first photographic lantern slides, called Hyalotypes, were invented by the German-born brothers Ernst Wilhelm and Friedrich Langenheim in 1848 in Philadelphia and patented in 1850. Apart from sunlight, the light sources available at the time of invention in the 17th century were candles and oil lamps. The invention of the Argand lamp in the 1790s helped to make the images brighter, the invention of limelight in the 1820s made them very much brighter. Several types of projection systems existed before the invention of the magic lantern, for these precursors, The magic lantern can be seen as a further development of the Camera Obscura. It was known at least since the 5th century BCE and experimented with in darkened rooms at least since circa 1000 CE, the use of a lens in the hole has been traced back to circa 1550. The portable camera obscura box with a lens was developed in the 17th century, in the 17th century there was an immense interest in optics. The telescope and microscope were invented and apart from being useful to some scientists, the magic lantern would prove to be a perfect successor. Prominent Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, is widely accepted as the true inventor of the magic lantern. Christiaans father Constantijn had been acquainted with Cornelis Drebbel who used some unidentified optical techniques to transform himself, Constantijn Huygens wrote very enthusiastically about a camera obscura device that he got from Drebbel in 1622. As this page was found between documents dated in 1659, it is believed to also have made in 1659. Huygens probably only constructed the lantern to amuse young family members and soon seemed to regret it, Christiaan initially referred to the magic lantern as la lampe and la lanterne, but in the last years of his life he used the then common term laterna magica in some notes
6.
Film
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A film, also called a movie, motion picture, theatrical film or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession, the process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry. The word cinema, short for cinematography, is used to refer to the industry of films. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film through a photochemical process, the adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the process of production, distribution. Films recorded in a form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack. It runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected, Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them, Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into the language of the viewer, some have criticized the film industrys glorification of violence and its potentially negative treatment of women. The individual images that make up a film are called frames, the perception of motion is due to a psychological effect called phi phenomenon. The name film originates from the fact that film has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for a motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Terms for the field, in general, include the big screen, the screen, the movies, and cinema. In early years, the sheet was sometimes used instead of screen. Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film, scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scène. Owing to the lack of any technology for doing so, the moving images, the magic lantern, probably created by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s, could be used to project animation, which was achieved by various types of mechanical slides
7.
Silent film
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A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. The silent film era lasted from 1895 to 1936, in silent films for entertainment, the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, mime and title cards which contain a written indication of the plot or key dialogue. During silent films, a pianist, theatre organist, or, in large cities, pianists and organists would either play from sheet music or improvise, an orchestra would play from sheet music. The term silent film is therefore a retronym—that is, a term created to distinguish something retroactively, the early films with sound, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were referred to as talkies, sound films, or talking pictures. A September 2013 report by the United States Library of Congress announced that a total of 70% of American silent feature films are believed to be completely lost, the earliest precursors of film began with image projection through the use of a device known as the magic lantern. This utilized a glass lens, a shutter and a persistent light source, such as a powerful lantern and these slides were originally hand-painted, but still photographs were used later on after the technological advent of photography in the nineteenth century. The invention of a practical photography apparatus preceded cinema by only fifty years, the next significant step towards film creation was the development of an understanding of image movement. Simulations of movement date as far back as to 1828 and only four years after Paul Roget discovered the phenomenon he called Persistence of Vision. This experience was further demonstrated through Rogets introduction of the thaumatrope, the first projected primary proto-movie was made by Eadweard Muybridge between 1877 and 1880. Muybridge set up a row of cameras along a racetrack and timed image exposures to capture the many stages of a horses gallop, the oldest surviving film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a film of people walking in Oakwood streets garden. Edison also made a business of selling Kinetograph and Kinetoscope equipment, due to Edisons lack of securing an international patent on his film inventions, similar devices were invented around the world. The Lumière brothers, for example, created the Cinématographe in France, the Cinématographe proved to be a more portable and practical device than both of Edisons as it combined a camera, film processor and projector in one unit. In contrast to Edisons peepshow-style kinetoscope, which one person could watch through a viewer. Their first film, Sortie de lusine Lumière de Lyon, shot in 1894, is considered the first true motion picture, the invention of celluloid film, which was strong and flexible, greatly facilitated the making of motion pictures. This film was 35 mm wide and pulled using four sprocket holes and this doomed the cinematograph, which could only use film with just one sprocket hole. From the very beginnings of film production, the art of motion pictures grew into maturity in the silent era. Silent filmmakers pioneered the art form to the extent that virtually every style, the silent era was also pioneering era from a technical point of view
8.
Reel
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A reel is an object around which lengths of another material are wound for storage. Generally a reel has a core and walls on the sides to retain the material wound around the core. In some cases the core is hollow, although other items may be mounted on it, the size of the core is dependent on several factors. A smaller core will obviously allow more material to be stored in a given space, however, there is a limit to how tightly the stored material can be wound without damaging it and this limits how small the core can be. Other issues affecting the core include, Mechanical strength of the core Acceptable turning speed any functional requirements of the core e. g. For a reel that must be mechanically turned the size of the grips that mount it on the mechanical turning device, the size of the mountings needed to support the core during unwinding. Anything mounted on the cores With material such as photographic film that is flat and long but is relatively wide, in cases where the material is more uniform in cross-section, the material may be safely wound around a reel that is wider than its width. In this case, several windings are needed to create a layer on the reel, most films have visible cues which mark the end of the reel. This allows projectionists running reel-to-reel to change over to the reel on the other projector. A so-called two-reeler would have run about 20–24 minutes since the short film shipped to a movie theater for exhibition may have had slightly less than 1,000 ft on it. Most modern projectionists use the term reel when referring to a 2, 000-foot two-reeler, as modern films are rarely shipped by single 1, a standard Hollywood movie averages about five 2000-foot reels in length. Had it not been standardized there would have many difficulties in the manufacture of the related equipment. A16 mm reel is 400 feet and it runs, at sound speed, approximately the same amount of time as a 1, 000-foot 35 mm reel. A split reel is a motion picture film reel in two halves that, when assembled, hold a specific length of motion picture film that has been wound on a plastic core. Using a split reel allows film to be shipped or handled in a lighter and smaller form than film would on a fixed reel, in silent film terminology, two films on one reel. Actors may submit a demo reel of their work to prospective employers, often in physical reel format
9.
Sheet music
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Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms and/or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. The first printed sheet music made with a press was made in 1473. Sheet music is the form in which Western classical music is notated so that it can be learned and performed by solo singers or instrumentalists or musical ensembles. Many forms of traditional and popular Western music are commonly learned by singers and musicians by ear, Score is a common alternative term for sheet music, and there are several types of scores, as discussed below. Sheet music from the 20th and 21st century typically indicates the title of the song or composition on a page or cover, or on the top of the first page. If the song or piece is from a movie, Broadway musical, or opera, if the songwriter or composer is known, her or his name is typically indicated along with the title. Black market sheet music, such as illegal jazz fake books may or may not indicate the songwriter or composer, the type of musical notation varies a great deal by genre or style of music. In most classical music, the melody and accompaniment parts are notated on the lines of a staff using round note heads, the lyrics, if present, are written near the melody notes. However, music from the Baroque music era or earlier eras may have neither a tempo marking nor a dynamic indication. The singers and musicians of that era were expected to know what tempo and loudness to play or sing a song or piece due to their musical experience. In the contemporary music era, and in some cases before, composers often used their native language for tempo indications. These conventions of music notation, and in particular the use of English tempo instructions, are also used for sheet music versions of 20th. Popular music songs often indicate both the tempo and genre, slow blues or uptempo rock, pop songs often contain chord names above the staff using letter names, so that an acoustic guitarist or piano player can improvise a chordal accompaniment. In other styles of music, different musical notation methods may be used, in jazz, while most professional performers can read classical-style notation, many jazz tunes are notated using chord charts, which indicate the chord progression of a song and its form. Like popular music songs, jazz tunes often indicate both the tempo and genre, slow blues or fast bop, professional country music session musicians typically use music notated in the Nashville Number System, which indicates the chord progression using numbers. Chord charts using letter names, numbers, or Roman numerals are widely used for notating music by blues, R&B, rock music. Many guitar players and electric bass players learn songs and note tunes using tablature, tab is widely used rock music and heavy metal guitarists. Singers in many music styles learn a song using only a lyrics sheet
10.
Roscoe Arbuckle
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Roscoe Conkling Fatty Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios and he mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton and Bob Hope. Arbuckle was one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s, between November 1921 and April 1922, Arbuckle was the defendant in three widely publicized trials for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in September 1921, Arbuckle was accused by Rappes acquaintance of raping and accidentally killing Rappe. After the first two trials, which resulted in hung juries, Arbuckle was acquitted in the third trial, despite Arbuckles acquittal, the scandal has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian. Following the trials, his films were banned and he was publicly ostracized, although the ban on his films was lifted within a year, Arbuckle only worked sparingly through the 1920s. He later worked as a director under the alias William Goodrich. He was finally able to return to acting, making short comedies in 1932 for Warner Bros. He died in his sleep of an attack in 1933 at age 46. Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March 24,1887 in Smith Center, Kansas, one of nine children of Mary E. Mollie Gordon and William Goodrich Arbuckle. He weighed in excess of 13 lb at birth and, as both parents had slim builds, his father believed the child was not his, consequently, the man named the baby for a politician whom he despised, Republican senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. The birth was traumatic for Mollie and resulted in health problems that contributed to her death 12 years later. When Arbuckle was nearly two his family moved to Santa Ana, California, Arbuckle had a wonderful singing voice and was extremely agile. At the age of eight, with his mothers encouragement, he first performed on stage with Frank Bacons company during their stopover in Santa Ana, Arbuckle enjoyed performing and continued on until his mothers death in 1899 when he was 12. His father, who had treated him harshly, now refused to support him. Arbuckle was in the habit of singing while he worked and was overheard by a customer who was a professional singer, the customer invited him to perform in an amateur talent show. The show consisted of the audience judging acts by clapping or jeering with bad acts pulled off the stage by a shepherds crook, Arbuckle sang, danced, and did some clowning around, but did not impress the audience. He saw the crook emerge from the wings and to avoid it somersaulted into the pit in obvious panic
11.
Fanny Brice
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Thirteen years after her death, she was portrayed on the Broadway stage by Barbra Streisand in the musical Funny Girl and its 1968 film adaptation, for which Streisand won an Oscar. Fania Borach was born in New York City, the child of Rose, a Hungarian Jewish woman who emigrated to America at age ten. The Boraches were saloon owners and had four children, Phillip, born in 1887, Carrie, born in 1889, Fania, born in 1891, under the name Lew Brice, her younger brother also became an entertainer and was the first husband of actress Mae Clarke. In 1908, Brice dropped out of school to work in a burlesque revue, two years later she began her association with Florenz Ziegfeld, headlining his Ziegfeld Follies from 1910 to 1911. She was hired again in 1921 and performed in the Follies into the 1930s, in the 1921 Follies, she was featured singing My Man, which became both a big hit and her signature song. She made a recording of it for Victor Records. The second song most associated with Brice is Second Hand Rose and she recorded nearly two dozen record sides for Victor and also cut several for Columbia. She is a recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for her 1921 recording of My Man. Brices Broadway credits include Fioretta, Sweet and Low, and Billy Roses Crazy Quilt and her films include My Man, Be Yourself. and Everybody Sing with Judy Garland. According to film historian Richard Barrios, My Man is a lost film, Brice, Ray Bolger and Harriet Hoctor were the only original Ziegfeld performers to portray themselves in The Great Ziegfeld and Ziegfeld Follies. For her contribution to the picture industry, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at MP6415 Hollywood Boulevard. Brices first regular radio show was probably The Chase & Sanborn Tea Hour, from the 1930s until her death in 1951, Fanny made a radio presence as a bratty toddler named Snooks, a role she premiered in a Follies skit co-written by playwright Moss Hart. Baby Snooks premiered in The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air in February 1936 on CBS, with Alan Reed playing Lancelot Higgins, her beleaguered Daddy. In September 1944, Brices longtime Snooks sketch writers, Philip Rapp and David Freedman, brought in partners, Arthur Stander and Everett Freeman, to develop an independent, the program launched on CBS in 1944, moving to NBC in 1948, with Freeman producing. First called Post Toasties Time, the show was renamed The Baby Snooks Show within short order, though in later years it was known colloquially as Baby Snooks. On the spinoff version of Baby Snooks, Hanley Stafford played Daddy, with Reed instead appearing as Daddys employer, Stafford eventually became the longest-running actor to portray the Daddy character. Brice was so meticulous about the program and the character that she was known to perform in costume as a toddler girl even though seen only by the radio studio audience. She was 45 years old when the character began her long radio life and she was completely devoted to the character, as she told biographer Norman Katkov, Snooks is just the kid I used to be
12.
Eddie Cantor
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Eddie Cantor, born Edward Israel Iskowitz, was an American illustrated song performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor, and songwriter. Some of his hits include Makin Whoopee, Ida, Yes and we Have No Bananas, If You Knew Susie, Ma. Hes Makin Eyes at Me, Baby, Margie, and How Ya Gonna Keep em Down on the Farm and he also wrote a few songs, including Merrily We Roll Along, the Merrie Melodies Warner Bros. cartoon theme. His eye-rolling song-and-dance routines eventually led to his nickname, Banjo Eyes, in 1933, artist Frederick J. Garner caricatured Cantor with large round eyes resembling the drum-like pot of a banjo. Cantors eyes became his trademark, often exaggerated in illustrations, and his charity and humanitarian work was extensive, and he is credited with coining the phrase, and helping to develop the March of Dimes. He was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 1956 for distinguished service to the film industry, Cantor was born in New York City, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Meta and Mechel Itzkowitz. The precise date of his birth is unknown and his mother died in childbirth one year after his birth, and his father died of pneumonia when Eddie was two, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother, Esther Kantrowitz. As a child, he attended Surprise Lake Camp, a misunderstanding when his grandmother signed him into school gave him her last name of Kantrowitz. Esther died on January 29,1917, two days before Cantor signed a contract with Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. to appear in his Follies. Cantor had adopted the first name Eddie when he met his future wife Ida Tobias in 1913, Cantor and Ida were married in 1914. They had five daughters, Marjorie, Natalie, Edna, Marilyn, and Janet, several radio historians, including Gerald Nachman, have said that this gag did not always sit well with the girls. Natalies second husband was the actor Robert Clary and Janet married the actor Roberto Gari, Cantor was the second president of the Screen Actors Guild, serving from 1933 to 1935. He invented the title The March of Dimes for the campaigns of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. It was a play on the The March of Time newsreels popular at the time and he began the first campaign on his radio show in January 1938, asking listeners to mail a dime to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. At that time, Roosevelt was the most notable American victim of polio, other entertainers joined in the appeal via their own shows, and the White House mail room was deluged with 2,680,000 dimes—a large sum at the time. Following the death of their daughter Marjorie at the age of 44, Ida died in August 1962 of cardiac insufficiency, and Eddie died on October 10,1964, in Beverly Hills, California, after suffering his second heart attack at age 72. He is interred in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, by his early teens, Cantor began winning talent contests at local theaters and started appearing on stage. One of his earliest paying jobs was doubling as a waiter and performer, singing for tips at Carey Walshs Coney Island saloon and he made his first public appearance in Vaudeville in 1907 at New Yorks Clinton Music Hall
