Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, entrepreneur and lecturer. His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the latter called "The Great American Novel". Twain was raised in Hannibal, which provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, he served an apprenticeship with a printer and worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. He became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada, he referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. His humorous story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", was published in 1865, based on a story that he heard at Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, where he had spent some time as a miner; the short story brought international attention and was translated into French. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, he was a friend to presidents, artists and European royalty.
Twain earned a great deal of money from his writings and lectures, but he invested in ventures that lost most of it—such as the Paige Compositor, a mechanical typesetter that failed because of its complexity and imprecision. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of these financial setbacks, but he overcame his financial troubles with the help of Henry Huttleston Rogers, he chose to pay all his pre-bankruptcy creditors in full after he had no legal responsibility to do so. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet, he predicted that he would "go out with it" as well, he was lauded as the "greatest humorist this country has produced", William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature". Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born on November 30, 1835, in Florida, the sixth of seven children born to Jane, a native of Kentucky, John Marshall Clemens, a native of Virginia, his parents met when his father moved to Missouri, they were married in 1823. Twain was of Cornish and Scots-Irish descent.
Only three of his siblings survived childhood: Orion and Pamela. His sister Margaret died when Twain was three, his brother Benjamin died three years later, his brother Pleasant Hannibal died at three weeks of age. When he was four, Twain's family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a port town on the Mississippi River that inspired the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Slavery was legal in Missouri at the time, it became a theme in these writings, his father was an attorney and judge, who died of pneumonia in 1847, when Twain was 11. The next year, Twain left school after the fifth grade to become a printer's apprentice. In 1851 he began working as a typesetter, contributing articles and humorous sketches to the Hannibal Journal, a newspaper that Orion owned; when he was 18, he left Hannibal and worked as a printer in New York City, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cincinnati, joining the newly formed International Typographical Union, the printers trade union.
He educated himself in public libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. Twain describes his boyhood in Life on the Mississippi, stating that "there was but one permanent ambition" among his comrades: to be a steamboatman. Pilot was the grandest position of all; the pilot in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary – from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, no board to pay. As Twain describes it, the pilot's prestige exceeded that of the captain; the pilot had to:...get up a warm personal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cottonwood and every obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve hundred miles. Twain studied the Mississippi, learning its landmarks, how to navigate its currents and how to read the river and its shifting channels, submerged snags, rocks that would "tear the life out of the strongest vessel that floated", it was. Piloting gave him his pen name from "mark twain", the leadsman's cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms, safe water for a steamboat.
As a young pilot, Clemens served on the steamer A. B. Chambers with Grant Marsh, who became famous for his exploits as a steamboat captain on the Missouri River; the two liked each other, admired one another, maintained a correspondence for many years after Clemens left the river. While training, Samuel convinced his younger brother Henry to work with him, arranged a post of mud clerk for him on the steamboat Pennsylvania. On June 13, 1858, the steamboat's boiler exploded. Twain claimed to have foreseen this death in a dream a month earlier, which inspired his interest in parapsychology. Twain held himself responsible for the rest of his life, he continued to work on the river and was a river pilot until the Civil War broke out in 1861, when traffic was curta
Time (magazine)
Time is an American weekly news magazine and news website published in New York City. It was founded in 1923 and run by Henry Luce. A European edition is published in London and covers the Middle East, and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong; the South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney. In December 2008, Time discontinued publishing a Canadian advertiser edition. Time has the world's largest circulation for a weekly news magazine; the print edition has a readership of 26 million. In mid-2012, its circulation was over three million, which had lowered to two million by late 2017. Richard Stengel was the managing editor from May 2006 to October 2013, when he joined the U. S. State Department. Nancy Gibbs was the managing editor from September 2013 until September 2017, she was succeeded by Edward Felsenthal, Time's digital editor. Time magazine was created in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, making it the first weekly news magazine in the United States.
The two had worked together as chairman and managing editor of the Yale Daily News. They first called the proposed magazine Facts, they wanted to emphasize brevity. They changed the name to Time and used the slogan "Take Time–It's Brief". Hadden was liked to tease Luce, he saw Time as important, but fun, which accounted for its heavy coverage of celebrities, the entertainment industry, pop culture—criticized as too light for serious news. It set out to tell the news through people, for many decades, the magazine's cover depicted a single person. More Time has incorporated "People of the Year" issues which grew in popularity over the years. Notable mentions of them were Steve Jobs, etc.. The first issue of Time was published on March 3, 1923, featuring Joseph G. Cannon, the retired Speaker of the House of Representatives, on its cover. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the February 28, 1938 issue as a commemoration of the magazine's 15th anniversary.
The cover price was 15¢ On Hadden's death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at Time and a major figure in the history of 20th-century media. According to Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1972–2004 by Robert Elson, "Roy Edward Larsen was to play a role second only to Luce's in the development of Time Inc". In his book, The March of Time, 1935–1951, Raymond Fielding noted that Larsen was "originally circulation manager and general manager of Time publisher of Life, for many years president of Time Inc. and in the long history of the corporation the most influential and important figure after Luce". Around the time they were raising $100,000 from wealthy Yale alumni such as Henry P. Davison, partner of J. P. Morgan & Co. publicity man Martin Egan and J. P. Morgan & Co. banker Dwight Morrow, Henry Luce, Briton Hadden hired Larsen in 1922 – although Larsen was a Harvard graduate and Luce and Hadden were Yale graduates. After Hadden died in 1929, Larsen purchased 550 shares of Time Inc. using money he obtained from selling RKO stock which he had inherited from his father, the head of the Benjamin Franklin Keith theatre chain in New England.
However, after Briton Hadden's death, the largest Time, Inc. stockholder was Henry Luce, who ruled the media conglomerate in an autocratic fashion, "at his right hand was Larsen", Time's second-largest stockholder, according to Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941. In 1929, Roy Larsen was named a Time Inc. director and vice president. J. P. Morgan retained a certain control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over Time and Fortune. Other shareholders were the New York Trust Company; the Time Inc. stock owned by Luce at the time of his death was worth about $109 million, it had been yielding him a yearly dividend of more than $2.4 million, according to Curtis Prendergast's The World of Time Inc.: The Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise 1957–1983. The Larsen family's Time stock was worth around $80 million during the 1960s, Roy Larsen was both a Time Inc. director and the chairman of its executive committee serving as Time's vice chairman of the board until the middle of 1979.
According to the September 10, 1979, issue of The New York Times, "Mr. Larsen was the only employee in the company's history given an exemption from its policy of mandatory retirement at age 65." After Time magazine began publishing its weekly issues in March 1923, Roy Larsen was able to increase its circulation by using U. S. radio and movie theaters around the world. It promoted both Time magazine and U. S. political and corporate interests. According to The March of Time, as early as 1924, Larsen had brought Time into the infant radio business with the broadcast of a 15-minute sustaining quiz show entitled Pop Question which survived until 1925". In 1928, Larsen "undertook the weekly broadcast of a 10-minute programme series of brief news summaries, drawn from current issues of Time magazine, broadcast over 33 stations throughout the United States". Larsen next arranged for a 30-minute radio program, The March of Time, to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on March 6, 1931; each week, the program presented a dramatisation of the week's news for its listeners, thus Time magazine itself was brought "to the attention of millions unaware
Present Arms (musical)
Present Arms is a Broadway musical comedy that opened April 26, 1928, with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart. It is based on the book by Herbert Fields, it was produced by Lew Fields with musical numbers stage by Busby Berkeley. It ran for 155 performances at the Lew Fields' Mansfield Theatre, which today is known as the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Present Arms was filmed in 1930 with its title changed to Leathernecking; the film is presumed lost. The show starred Flora Le Breton, Joyce Barbour and Busby Berkeley. A man from Brooklyn is serving as a buck private in Pearl Harbor, he flirts with an English Peer’s daughter. The Brooklynite pretends to be a Captain in order to make an impression, but he is found out, booted out, loses out on the girl, until he proves himself in a shipwreck. Act One "Tell It to the Marines" "You Took Advantage of Me" "Do I Hear You?" "A Kiss for Cinderella" "Is It the Uniform?" "Crazy Elbows"Act Two "Down By the Sea" "I'm a Fool for You" "Blue Ocean Blues" "Hawaii" "Kohala, Welcome" Present Arms at the Internet Broadway Database Overview of show
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A Fine Romance", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song Is You", "All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight", "Long Ago" and "Who?". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr. Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and E. Y. Harburg. A native New Yorker, Kern created dozens of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films in a career that lasted for more than four decades, his musical innovations, such as 4/4 dance rhythms and the employment of syncopation and jazz progressions, built on, rather than rejected, earlier musical theatre tradition. He and his collaborators employed his melodies to further the action or develop characterization to a greater extent than in the other musicals of his day, creating the model for musicals.
Although dozens of Kern's musicals and musical films were hits, only Show Boat is now revived. Songs from his other shows, are still performed and adapted. Many of Kern's songs have been adapted by jazz musicians to become standard tunes. Kern was born in New York City, on Sutton Place, in what was the city's brewery district, his parents were Henry Kern, a Jewish German immigrant, Fannie Kern née Kakeles, an American Jew of Bohemian parentage. At the time of Kern's birth, his father ran a stable. Kern grew up on East 56th Street in Manhattan, he showed an early aptitude for music and was taught to play the piano and organ by his mother, an accomplished player and teacher. In 1897, the family moved to New Jersey, where Kern attended Newark High School, he wrote songs for the school's first musical, a minstrel show, in 1901, for an amateur musical adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin put on at the Newark Yacht Club in January 1902. Kern left high school before graduation in the spring of his senior year in 1902.
In response, Kern's father insisted that his son work with him instead of composing. Kern, failed miserably in one of his earliest tasks: he was supposed to purchase two pianos for the store, but instead he ordered 200, his father relented, in 1902, Kern became a student at the New York College of Music, studying the piano under Alexander Lambert and Paolo Gallico, harmony under Dr. Austin Pierce, his first published composition, a piano piece, At the Casino, appeared in the same year. Between 1903 and 1905, he continued his musical training under private tutors in Heidelberg, returning to New York via London. For a time, Kern worked as a rehearsal pianist in Broadway theatres and as a song-plugger for Tin Pan Alley music publishers. While in London, he secured a contract from the American impresario Charles Frohman to provide songs for interpolation in Broadway versions of London shows, he began to provide these additions in 1904 to British scores for An English Daisy, by Seymour Hicks and Walter Slaughter, Mr. Wix of Wickham, for which he wrote most of the songs.
In 1905, Kern contributed the song "How'd you like to spoon with me?" to Ivan Caryll's hit musical The Earl and the Girl when the show transferred to Chicago and New York in 1905. He contributed to the New York production of The Catch of the Season, The Little Cherub and The Orchid, among other shows. From 1905 on, he spent long periods of time in London, contributing songs to West End shows like The Beauty of Bath and making valuable contacts, including George Grossmith Jr. and Seymour Hicks, who were the first to introduce Kern's songs to the London stage. In 1909 during one of his stays in England, Kern took a boat trip on the River Thames with some friends, when the boat stopped at Walton-on-Thames, they went to an inn called the Swan for a drink. Kern was much taken with the proprietor's daughter, Eva Leale, working behind the bar, he wooed her, they were married at the Anglican church of St. Mary's in Walton on October 25, 1910; the couple lived at the Swan when Kern was in England. Kern is believed to have composed music for silent films as early as 1912, but the earliest documented film music which he is known to have written was for a twenty-part serial, Gloria's Romance in 1916.
This was one of the first starring vehicles for Billie Burke, for whom Kern had earlier written the song "Mind the Paint", with lyrics by A. W. Pinero; the film is now considered lost. Another score for the silent movies, followed in 1919. Kern was one of the founding members of ASCAP. Kern's first complete score was Broadway's The Red Petticoat, one of the first musical-comedy Westerns; the libretto was by Rida Johnson Young. By World War I, more than a hundred of Kern's songs had been used in about thirty productions Broadway adaptations of West End and European shows. Kern contributed two songs to To-Night's another Rubens musical, it went on to become a hit in London. The best known of Kern's songs from this period is "They Didn't Believe Me", a hit in the New York version of the Paul Rubens and Sidney Jones musical, The Girl from Utah, for which Kern wrote five songs. Kern's song, with four beats to a bar, departed from the customary waltz-rhythms of E
Richard Rodgers
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer of music, with over 900 songs and 43 Broadway musicals, leaving a legacy as one of the most significant composers of 20th century American music. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, his compositions have had a significant impact on popular music. Rodgers was the first person to win what are considered the top American entertainment awards in television, recording and Broadway – an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, a Tony Award — now known collectively as an EGOT. In addition, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, making him one of only two people to receive all five awards. Born into a prosperous German Jewish family in Arverne, New York City, Rodgers was the son of Mamie and Dr. William Abrahams Rodgers, a prominent physician who had changed the family name from Abrahams. Richard began playing the piano at age six, he attended P. S. 166, Townsend Harris Hall and DeWitt Clinton High School.
Rodgers spent his early teenage summers in Camp Wigwam. Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II all attended Columbia University. At Columbia, Rodgers joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. In 1921, Rodgers shifted his studies to the Institute of Musical Art. Rodgers was influenced by composers such as Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern, as well as by the operettas his parents took him to see on Broadway when he was a child. In 1919, Richard met Lorenz Hart, thanks to a friend of Richard's older brother. Rodgers and Hart struggled for years in the field of musical comedy, they made their professional debut with the song "Any Old Place With You", featured in the 1919 Broadway musical comedy A Lonely Romeo. Their first professional production was the 1920 Poor Little Ritz Girl, which had music by Sigmund Romberg, their next professional show, The Melody Man, did not premiere until 1924. When he was just out of college Rodgers worked as musical director for Lew Fields. Among the stars he accompanied.
Rodgers was considering quitting show business altogether to sell children's underwear, when he and Hart broke through in 1925. They wrote the songs for a benefit show presented by the prestigious Theatre Guild, called The Garrick Gaieties, the critics found the show fresh and delightful. Only meant to run one day, the Guild knew they allowed it to re-open later; the show's biggest hit — the song that Rodgers believed "made" Rodgers and Hart — was "Manhattan". The two were now a Broadway songwriting force. Throughout the rest of the decade, the duo wrote several hit shows for both Broadway and London, including Dearest Enemy, The Girl Friend, Peggy-Ann, A Connecticut Yankee, Present Arms, their 1920s shows produced standards such as "Here in My Arms", "Mountain Greenery", "Blue Room", "My Heart Stood Still" and "You Took Advantage of Me". With the Depression in full swing during the first half of the 1930s, the team sought greener pastures in Hollywood; the hardworking Rodgers regretted these fallow years, but he and Hart did write some classic songs and film scores while out west, including Love Me Tonight, which introduced three standards: "Lover", "Mimi", "Isn't It Romantic?".
Rodgers wrote a melody for which Hart wrote three consecutive lyrics which either were cut, not recorded or not a hit. The fourth lyric resulted in one of their most famous songs, "Blue Moon". Other film work includes the scores to The Phantom President, starring George M. Cohan, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum, starring Al Jolson, and, in a quick return after having left Hollywood, starring Bing Crosby and W. C. Fields. In 1935, they returned to Broadway and wrote an unbroken string of hit shows that ended only with Hart's death in 1943. Among the most notable are Jumbo, On Your Toes, Babes in Arms, I Married an Angel, The Boys from Syracuse, Pal Joey, their last original work, By Jupiter. Rodgers contributed to the book on several of these shows. Many of the songs from these shows are still sung and remembered, including "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", "My Romance", "Little Girl Blue", "I'll Tell the Man in the Street", "There's a Small Hotel", "Where or When", "My Funny Valentine", "The Lady Is a Tramp", "Falling in Love with Love", "Bewitched and Bewildered", "Wait till You See Her".
In 1939, he wrote the ballet Ghost Town for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, with choreography by Marc Platoff. Rodgers' partnership with Hart began having problems because of the lyricist's unreliability and declining health. Rodgers began working with Oscar Hammerstein II, with whom he had written songs, their first musical, the groundbreaking hit Oklahoma!, marked the beginning of the most successful partnership in American musical theatre history. Their work revolutionized the musical form. What was once a collection of songs and comic turns held together by a tenuous plot became a integrated piece; the team went on to create four more hits. Each was made into a successful film: Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, The Sound of Music. Other shows include the minor hit Flower Dru
Chee-Chee (musical)
Chee-Chee is a musical by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart based on the 1927 book, The Son of the Grand Eunuch, by Charles Pettit. Chee-Chee opened on Broadway September 25, 1928, the show closed after 31 performances. In 1963 vocalist Betty Comden released an album. In 1928 Herbert Fields wrote a libretto based on Pettit's book in which the son of the Grand Eunuch, Li-Pi, his wife, Chee-Chee, are forced into exile when the Grand Eunuch announces his plan for Li-Pi to become a eunuch and take his father's place as the Grand Eunuch. Chee-Chee is captured and rescued, Li-Pi is captured and rescued, the musical ends happily. Two acts, seven scenes. Act I We're Men of Brains I Am a Prince In a Great Big Way The Most Majestic of Domestic Officials Holy of Holies Her Hair Is Black as Licorice Dear, Oh Dear Await Your Love Joy Is Mine I Wake at Morning I Grovel to Earth Just a Little Thing You Are Both Agreed Owl Song I Must Love You I Bow a Glad Good Day Better Be Good to Me The Tartar Song Chee-Chee's Second Entrance Finale Act II Khonghouse Song Sleep, Weary Head Singing a Love Song Monastery Opening Chinese Dance Living Buddha Moon of My Delight Rodgers and Hart Dominic Symonds, We’ll Have Manhattan: The Early Work of Rodgers & Hart, chapter 8 Chee-Chee Theatre Program, New York Public Library Digital Collections Geoffrey Block, The Richard Rodgers Reader, pp 45-47 Gerald Bordman, American Musical Theater: A Chronicle, pp 492-493
On Your Toes
On Your Toes is a musical with a book by Richard Rodgers, George Abbott, Lorenz Hart, music by Rodgers, lyrics by Hart. It was adapted into a film in 1939. While teaching music at Knickerbocker University, Phil "Junior" Dolan III tries to persuade Sergei Alexandrovich, the director of the Russian Ballet, to stage the jazz ballet "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue". After becoming involved with the company's prima ballerina, Vera Barnova, Junior is forced to assume the male lead in "Slaughter". Trouble ensues when he becomes the target of two thugs hired by Vera’s lover and dance partner to kill him. On Your Toes marked the first time a Broadway musical made dramatic use of classical dance and incorporated jazz into its score. On Your Toes was conceived as a film, as a vehicle for Fred Astaire, his refusal of the part, because he thought that the role clashed with his debonair image developed in his contemporary films, caused it to be presented as a stage production. Richard Rodgers wrote: "Astaire at that point in his career was a pretty chic fellow who wore white ties and tails, the producers felt that there was no chance in our script for him to appear that way."
Astaire thought. Ray Bolger was given the stage role. Eddie Albert, not known as a dancer in his career, gave a remarkable performance opposite Vera Zorina in the 1939 film; the first Broadway production, directed by C. Worthington Miner and choreographed by George Balanchine, opened on April 11, 1936, at the Imperial Theatre, where it ran for seven months before transferring to the Majestic, for a total run of 315 performances; the cast included Ray Bolger, Tamara Geva, Monty Woolley. The London West End production opened on 5 February 1937, at the Palace Theatre, with Jack Whiting and Vera Zorina as the dancers; the first Broadway revival, directed by Abbott and choreographed by Balanchine, opened on October 11, 1954 at the 46th Street Theatre, where it ran for 64 performances. The cast included Vera Zorina, Bobby Van, Elaine Stritch; the original score was embellished with "You Took Advantage of Me."The second revival, directed by Abbott and choreographed by Donald Saddler, started in 1982 with national previews.
One of the original cast members, Natalia Makarova, was injured during the preview at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D. C. Valentina Kozlova filled in the role and her former husband, Leonid Kozlov, replaced George de la Peña to complete the previews. After seven previews, the revival opened on March 6, 1983 at the Virginia Theatre with the original cast, where it ran for 505 performances; the cast included Natalia Makarova, Christine Andreas, George de la Peña, George S. Irving, Dina Merrill, Philip Arthur Ross, Betty Ann Grove and Lara Teeter. Act IOn a vaudeville stage, Phil Dolan II, his wife Lili, his son Junior perform their nightly routine, but afterwards in the dressing-room, the parents tell Junior that he must go to school. Fifteen years as predicted, Junior is a music teacher at Knickerbocker University, he has two talented students: Frankie Frayne. Sidney has written a promising jazz ballet which Frankie catches Junior dancing to alone in the classroom, she trades an introduction to the Russian Ballet's manager in return for his listening to her song.
In the apartment of Vera Baranova, star of the Russian Ballet, the manager, enthusiastically tells Sergei, the company's director, about the new jazz ballet. He is not interested in anything new - he doesn't recognise that the Revolution has happened! Junior arrives as co-star/unfaithful lover Morrisone are having a Russian screaming match; the others leave, so that Vera and Junior can discuss the new ballet, but that leads to a new entanglement. Back in the classroom, Frankie is jealous of Junior's stories about Vera and the Russians, they both wish they were away from it all. At the opening of the ballet, La Princesse Zenobia, Junior is told that one of the dancers is in jail and he must take his place, but onstage he gets all his steps and positions cock-eyed and makes a laughing-stock of the ballet, but the audience loves it, nevertheless. Act IISergei, Vera and Junior have listened to the jazz ballet. Opinions are mixed, Vera and Morrosine are still arguing, as he becomes jealous of Junior.
Poor Junior has got love problems, too: he upsets Frankie by going to lunch with Vera instead of her, but she is "Glad to be Unhappy". Peggy and some of the company visit Junior's school. Sergei has come to break the bad news that he will not be doing the jazz ballet, but Peggy persuades him by threatening to pull out the million dollars she has put into the company. After Sergei's announcement that the next production will be Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, the class stages the title number "On Your Toes", in which the students' jazz and the company's classical routines are deftly combined. At a rehearsal, Morrosine's jealousy of Junior escalates, he fights with Sergei and is knocked–out making Junior the new star; the humiliated Morrosine plots with his gangster friend, Louie, to shoot Junior at the end of the performance. Joe, the stage doorman and warns Frankie. On-stage, Junior is tipped–off and signals to the conductor to avoid the final loud climax which would cover the shot, so he keeps the orchestra playing the last few bars of the music over and over as Junior dances frantically to keep the shooter from firing until the police arrest him.
After the curtain call, Frankie embraces Junior and is startled to see his parents waiting to
