1.
Dorchester, Boston
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Dorchester is a historic neighborhood comprising over 6 square miles in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Originally, Dorchester was a town, founded by Puritans who emigrated in 1630 from Dorchester, Dorset. Founded in 1630, just a few months before the founding of the city of Boston and it was still a primarily rural town and had a population of 12,000 when it was annexed to Boston in 1870. Railroad and streetcar lines brought rapid growth, increasing the population to 150,000 by 1920, in the 2010 United States Census, the population was 92,115. Dorchester as a municipality would rank among the top five Massachusetts cities. Most of the people over the age of 25 have completed high school or obtained a GED, nearly 60% of the population earns less than $40,000 per year and a majority of them live in rental units. Currently, there is a crisis occurring and, as a result. The original settlement founded in 1630 was at what is now the intersection of Columbia Road and Massachusetts Avenue. Most of the early Dorchester settlers came from the West Country of England, and some from Dorchester, Dorset, on October 8,1633, the first Town Meeting in America was held in Dorchester. Today, each October 8 is celebrated as Town Meeting Day in Massachusetts, Dorchester is the birthplace of the first public elementary school in America, the Mather School, established in 1639. The school still stands as the oldest elementary school in America, the Blake House was constructed in 1661, as was confirmed by dendrochronology in 2007. In 1695, a party was dispatched to found the town of Dorchester, South Carolina and they soon after opened Americas first chocolate mill and factory in the Lower Mills section of Dorchester. The Walter Baker Chocolate Factory, part of Walter Baker & Company, before the American Revolution, The Sons of Liberty met in August 1769 at the Lemuel Robinson Tavern, which stood on the east side of the upper road near the present Fuller Street. Lemuel Robinson was a representative of the town during the Revolution and was appointed a colonel in the Revolutionary army, Dorchester was also the site of the Battle of Dorchester Heights in 1776, which eventually resulted in the British evacuating Boston. In Victorian times, Dorchester became a country retreat for Boston elite. The mother and grandparents of John F. Kennedy lived in the Ashmont Hill neighborhood while John F, honey Fitz Fitzgerald was mayor of Boston. In 1845, the Old Colony Railroad ran through the area and connected Boston and Plymouth, the station was originally called Crescent Avenue or Crescent Avenue Depot as an Old Colony Railroad station, then called Columbia until December 1,1982, and then again changed to JFK/UMASS. It is a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority rail line station for both the Red subway and the Plymouth/Kingston, Middleborough/Lakeville and Greenbush commuter rail lines
2.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital
3.
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
4.
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
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The film stars Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale. Notable for its use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score and it was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but lost to Gone with the Wind. It did win in two categories, including Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow and Best Original Score by Herbert Stothart. However, the film was a box office disappointment on its release, earning only $3,017,000 on a $2,777,000 budget. It was MGMs most expensive production at that time, and did not completely recoup the studios investment and turn a profit until theatrical re-releases starting in 1949. The film was named the most-viewed motion picture on television syndication by the Library of Congress, designation on the registry calls for efforts to preserve it for being culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant. It is also one of the few films on UNESCOs Memory of the World Register, the Wizard of Oz is often ranked on best-movie lists in critics and public polls. It is the source of many quotes referenced in popular culture. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming, noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but uncredited contributions were made by others. The songs were written by Edgar Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen, the musical score and the incidental music were composed by Stothart. The film begins in Kansas, which is depicted in a sepia tone, Dorothy Gale lives with her dog Toto on the farm of her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Dorothys dog gets in trouble with a neighbor, Miss Almira Gulch. However, Dorothys family and the farmhands are all too busy to pay attention to her, Miss Gulch arrives with permission from the sheriff to have Toto euthanized. She takes him away, but he escapes and returns to Dorothy and they meet Professor Marvel, a phony but kindly fortune teller, who realizes Dorothy has run away and tricks her via his crystal ball into believing that Aunt Em is ill so that she must return home. She races home just as a tornado strikes. Unable to get into her familys storm cellar, she seeks safety in her bedroom, a wind-blown window sash hits her in the head, knocking her out. The house is picked up and sent spinning in the air by the twister, the farmhouse crashes in Munchkinland in the Land of Oz, where the film changes to Technicolor. Glinda the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins welcome her as their heroine, as the house has landed on and killed the Wicked Witch of the East, leaving only her stocking feet exposed
5.
Tap dance
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Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist, rhythm tap and Broadway tap, Broadway tap focuses on dance, it is widely performed in musical theater. Rhythm tap focuses on musicality, and practitioners consider themselves to be a part of the jazz tradition, the sound is made by shoes that have a metal tap on the heel and toe. There are different brands of shoes which sometimes differ in the way they sound and it preceded what is currently considered to be modern tap, but has since declined in popularity. Tap dance is believed to have begun in the mid-1800s during the rise of minstrel shows, as the minstrel shows began to decline in popularity, tap dance moved to the increasingly popular Vaudeville stage. Due to the rule, which forbade blacks from performing solo. This gave rise to the famous pair Buck and Bubbles, which consisted of John Bubbles Sublett tap dancing, the duo perfected the Class Act, a routine in which the performers wore impeccable tuxedos, which has since become a common theme in tap dance. The move is seen by some as a rebuttal to the minstrel show idea of the tap dancer as a grinning-and-dancing clown. John Bubbles Sublett is also known famously for popularizing rhythm tap which incorporates more percussive heel drops, another notable figure to emerge during this period is Bill Bojangles Robinson who was a protégé of Alice Whitman of The Whitman Sisters around 1904. Well versed in both Buck and Wing dancing and Irish Step dancing, Bill Robinson joined the Vaudeville circuit in 1902, the act quickly became famous, headlining events across the country, and touring England as well. In 1908, however, the two had an altercation, and the partnership was ended, gambling on his popularity, Robinson decided to form a solo act, which was extremely rare for a black man at that time. Despite this, he had success and soon became a world-famous celebrity. He went on to have a role in many films. Shortly thereafter, the Nicholas Brothers came on the scene, during the 1930s tap dance mixed with Lindy Hop. Flying swing outs and flying circles are Lindy Hop moves with tap footwork, in the mid- to late 1950s, the style of entertainment changed. Jazz music and tap dance declined, while rock and roll, what is now called jazz dance evolved out of tap dance, so both dances have many moves in common. But jazz evolved separately from tap dance to become a new form in its own right, well-known dancers during the 1960s and 1970s included Arthur Duncan and Tommy Tune. No Maps on My Taps, the Emmy award winning PBS documentary of 1979, the outstanding success of the animated film, Happy Feet, has further reinforced the popular appeal
6.
Walt Disney
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Walter Elias Walt Disney was an American entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons, as a film producer, Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards earned by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors, several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney developed an early interest in drawing and he took art classes as a boy and got a job as a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. He moved to California in the early 1920s and set up the Disney Brothers Studio with his brother Roy, with Ub Iwerks, Walt developed the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, his first highly popular success, he also provided the voice for his creation in the early years. As the studio grew, Disney became more adventurous, introducing synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons, the results, seen in features such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi, furthered the development of animated film. New animated and live-action films followed after World War II, including the critically successful Cinderella and Mary Poppins, in the 1950s, Disney expanded into the amusement park industry, and in 1955 he opened Disneyland. In 1965, he began development of theme park, Disney World, the heart of which was to be a new type of city. Disney was a smoker throughout his life, and died of lung cancer in December 1966 before either the park or the EPCOT project were completed. Disney was a shy, self-deprecating and insecure man in private and he had high standards and high expectations of those with whom he worked. Although there have been accusations that he was racist or anti-semitic and his reputation changed in the years after his death, from a purveyor of homely patriotic values to a representative of American imperialism. Nevertheless, Disney is considered an icon, particularly in the United States. Walt Disney was born on December 5,1901, at 1249 Tripp Avenue and he was the fourth son of Elias Disney—born in the Province of Canada, to Irish parents—and Flora, an American of German and English descent. Aside from Disney, Elias and Calls sons were Herbert, Raymond and Roy, in 1906, when Disney was four, the family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, where his uncle Robert had just purchased land. In Marceline, Disney developed his interest in drawing when he was paid to draw the horse of a neighborhood doctor. Elias was a subscriber to the Appeal to Reason newspaper, Disney also began to develop an ability to work with watercolors and crayons. He lived near the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line and he and his younger sister Ruth started school at the same time at the Park School in Marceline in late 1909. In 1911, the Disneys moved to Kansas City, Missouri, before long, he was spending more time at the Pfeiffers house than at home
7.
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
8.
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
9.
The Great Ziegfeld
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The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 American musical drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Hunt Stromberg. It stars William Powell as the theatrical impresario Florenz Flo Ziegfeld, Jr. Luise Rainer as Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as Billie Burke. Many of the performers of the theatrical Ziegfeld Follies were cast in the film as themselves, including Fanny Brice and Harriet Hoctor, and Billie Burke acted as a supervisor for the film. The A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody set alone was reported to have cost US$220,000, featuring a towering rotating volute of 70 ft diameter with 175 spiral steps, weighing 100 tons. The music to the film was provided by Walter Donaldson, Irving Berlin, the extravagant costumes were designed by Adrian, taking some 250 tailors and seamstresses six months to prepare them using 50 pounds of silver sequins and 12 yards of white ostrich plumes. Over a thousand people were employed in the production of the film and it won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture for producer Hunt Stromberg, Best Actress for Luise Rainer, and Best Dance Direction for Seymour Felix, and was nominated for four others. In 1951, they produced their Technicolor remake of Show Boat, the son of a highly respected music professor, Florenz Flo Ziegfeld, Jr. yearns to make his mark in show business. Flo travels to England on a liner, where he runs into Billings again who is laughing at a newspaper article denouncing him as a fraud. Flo discovers that Billings is on his way to sign a contract with beautiful French star, despite losing all his money gambling at Monte Carlo, Flo charms Anna into signing with him instead, pretending that he doesnt know Billings. Anna twice almost sends him away for his rudeness and for being broke, Ziegfeld promises to give her more publicity than she ever dreams of and to feature her alongside Americas most prominent theatrical performers. At first, Annas performance at the Herald Square Theatre is not a success, however, Flo manages to generate publicity by sending 20 gallons of milk to Anna every day for a fictitious milk bath beauty treatment, then refusing to pay the bill. The newspaper stories soon bring the curious to pack his theater, audience members comment on how the milk must make her skin beautiful and the show is a major success. Flo sends Anna flowers and jewelry and a note saying you were magnificent my wife, however, one success is not enough for the showman. He has an idea for a new kind of show featuring a bevy of blondes and brunettes. The new show, the Ziegfeld Follies, an opulent production filled with women and highly extravagant costumes and sets, is a smash hit. Ziegfeld tries to make an out of Audrey Dane, who is plagued with alcoholism. He gives stagehand Ray Bolger his break as well, mary Lou, now a young woman, visits Ziegfeld, who doesnt recognize her initially, and hires her as a dancer. The new production upsets Anna, who realizes that Flos world does not revolve around just her and she divorces him after walking in on Flo and a drunk Audrey at the wrong moment
10.
Technicolor
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Technicolor is the name applied to a series of color motion picture processes, the first version dating from 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. It was the major color process, after Britains Kinemacolor. As the technology matured it was used for less spectacular dramas. Occasionally, even a film noir—such as Leave Her to Heaven or Niagara —was filmed in Technicolor, Technicolor is the trademark for a series of color motion picture processes pioneered by Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, now a division of the French company Technicolor SA. The Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation was founded in Boston in 1914 by Herbert Kalmus, Daniel Frost Comstock, the Tech in the companys name was inspired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where both Kalmus and Comstock received their undergraduate degrees and were later instructors. Technicolor, Inc. was chartered in Delaware in 1921, most of Technicolors early patents were taken out by Comstock and Wescott, while Kalmus served primarily as the companys president and chief executive officer. The term Technicolor historically has been used to describe at least five concepts, Technicolor, Technicolor process or format, several custom image origination systems used in film production, culminating in the three-strip process in 1932. Technicolor IB printing, a process for making color motion picture prints that allows the use of dyes which are more stable, originally used for printing from color separation negatives photographed on black-and-white film in a special Technicolor camera. This meaning of the name applies to nearly all Wikipedia articles about films made from 1954 onward in which Technicolor is named in the credits, Technicolor originally existed in a two-color system. Because two frames were being exposed at the time, the film had to be photographed and projected at twice the normal speed. Exhibition required a special projector with two apertures, two lenses, and a prism that aligned the two images on the screen. The results were first demonstrated to members of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in New York on February 21,1917, the near-constant need for a technician to adjust the projection alignment doomed this additive color process. Only a few frames of The Gulf Between, showing star Grace Darmond, are known to exist today, convinced that there was no future in additive color processes, Comstock, Wescott, and Kalmus focused their attention on subtractive color processes. This culminated in what would eventually be known as Process 2, the difference was that the two-component negative was now used to produce a subtractive color print. Because the colors were present in the print, no special projection equipment was required. The frames exposed behind the filter were printed on one strip of black-and-white film. After development, each print was toned to a color nearly complementary to that of the filter, orange-red for the green-filtered images, the two prints, made on film stock half the thickness of regular film, were then cemented together back to back to create a projection print. The Toll of the Sea, which debuted on November 26,1922, the second all-color feature in Process 2 Technicolor, Wanderer of the Wasteland, was released in 1924
11.
Nelson Eddy
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Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred with soprano Jeanette MacDonald. He was one of the first crossover stars, a superstar appealing both to shrieking bobby soxers and opera purists, and in his heyday, he was the highest paid singer in the world. S, president Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. He also introduced millions of young Americans to classical music and inspired many of them to pursue a musical career, Eddy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the only child of Caroline Isabel and William Darius Eddy. His father was a machinist and toolmaker whose work required him to move from town to town, Nelson grew up in Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and in New Bedford, Massachusetts. As a boy, he was a redhead and quickly acquired the nickname Bricktop, as an adult, his red hair was streaked with silver, so his hair photographed as blond. He came from a musical family and his Atlanta-born mother was a church soloist, and his grandmother, Caroline Netta Ackerman Kendrick, was a distinguished oratorio singer. His father occasionally moonlighted as a stagehand at the Providence Opera House, sang in the choir, played the drums. His parents divorced when he was 14, living in near poverty, Eddy was forced to drop out of school and moved with his mother to Philadelphia, where her brother, Clark Kendrick, lived. His uncle helped Eddy secure a job at the Mott Iron Works. He later worked as a reporter with the Philadelphia Press, the Evening Public Ledger, and he also worked briefly as a copywriter at N. W. Ayer Advertising, but was dismissed for constantly singing on the job, Eddy never returned to school, but educated himself with correspondence courses. He was bitter that his father refused to provide support after the divorce. Eddy developed his talent as a boy soprano in church choirs, throughout his teens, Eddy studied voice and imitated the recordings of baritones such as Titta Ruffo, Antonio Scotti, Pasquale Amato, Giuseppe Campanari, and Reinald Werrenrath. He gave recitals for womens groups and appeared in society theatricals, having had a job in an iron works factory, he then spent ten years as a newspaper reporter, but was fired for paying more attention to music than to journalism. His first professional break came in 1922, when he was singled out by the press after an appearance in a society theatrical, The Marriage Tax, in 1924, Eddy won the top prize in a competition that included a chance to appear with the Philadelphia Opera Society. With Savoy, Eddy sang the role of Strephon in Iolanthe at the Broad Street Theatre in Philadelphia in 1922. The next year, he played the role of Major-General Stanley in Savoys production of The Pirates of Penzance and he reprised the role of Strephon with Savoy in 1927, when the theater group moved their performances to the famed Academy of Music
12.
Jeanette MacDonald
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Jeanette Anna MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy. During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars and she later appeared in opera, concerts, radio, and television. MacDonald was one of the most influential sopranos of the 20th century, introducing opera to movie-going audiences, MacDonald was born June 18,1903, at her familys Philadelphia home at 5123 Arch Street. She was the youngest of the three daughters of Anna Mae and Daniel MacDonald and she had Scottish, English, and Dutch ancestry. Starting at an age, she took dancing lessons with Al White, imitated her mothers opera records. She performed at church and school functions and began touring in kiddie shows and she was the younger sister of character actress Blossom Rock who is most famous as Grandmama on the TV show Addams Family. In 1920 she appeared in two musicals, Jerome Kerns Night Boat as a replacement, and Irene on the road as the second female lead. Shipman once remarked that MacDonald did not have the legs for a chorus girl. In 1921 MacDonald played in Tangerine, as one of the Six Wives, in 1922 MacDonald was a featured singer in a Greenwich Village revue, Fantastic Fricassee. Good press notices brought her a role in The Magic Ring, MacDonald played the second female lead in this long-running musical which starred Mitzi Hajos. In 1925 MacDonald again had the female lead opposite Queenie Smith in Tip Toes. The following year found her still in a female lead in Bubblin Over. MacDonald finally landed the role in Yes, Yes, Yvette. Planned as a sequel to producer H. H. Frazees No, No, Nanette, MacDonald also played the lead in her next two plays, Sunny Days, her first show for producers Lee and J. J. Shubert, for which she received rave reviews, and Angela and her last play was Boom Boom, with her name above the title. While MacDonald was appearing in Angela, film star Richard Dix spotted her and had her screen-tested for his film Nothing, the Shuberts wouldn’t let her out of her contract to appear in the film, which starred Dix and Helen Kane, the Boop-boop-a-doop girl. In 1929, famed film director Ernst Lubitsch was looking through old screen tests of Broadway performers and he cast her as the leading lady in his first sound film, The Love Parade, which starred the Continental sensation Maurice Chevalier. In the first rush of sound films, 1929–30, MacDonald starred in six films and her first, The Love Parade, directed by Lubitsch and co-starring Chevalier, was a landmark of early sound films and received a Best Picture nomination
