1.
Irving Cummings
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Irving Camisky was an American movie actor, director, producer and writer. Cummings was born in New York City and he is the father of the screenwriter and producer Irving Cummings, Jr. Cummings started his acting career in his late teens on Broadway stage, and appeared with the legendary Lillian Russell. He entered into movies in 1909 and quickly became a leading man. Both films are available on home video, as well as The Round-Up. Around that time, he started to direct action movies and occasional comedies, in 1934, Cummings directed Grand Canary, and in 1929, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his direction of In Old Arizona. Cummings was known for the big splashy 1930s Technicolor musicals with popular leading ladies such as Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, in 1943, as part of the 50th anniversary of the birth of the motion picture industry, Cummings was awarded the Thomas A. Edison Foundation Gold Medal for outstanding achievement in the arts and sciences, Irving Cummings at the Internet Movie Database Irving Cummings at the Internet Broadway Database
2.
Darryl F. Zanuck
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Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American film producer and studio executive, he earlier contributed stories for films starting in the silent era. He played a part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors. He earned three Academy Awards as producer for Best Picture during his tenure, but was responsible for many more, Zanuck was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, the son of Louise and Frank Zanuck, who owned and operated a hotel in Wahoo. Zanuck was of part Swiss descent and was raised a Protestant, at age six, Zanuck and his mother moved to Los Angeles, where the better climate could improve her poor health. At age eight, he found his first movie job as an extra, in 1918, despite being sixteen, he deceived a recruiter, joined the United States Army, and served in France with the Nebraska National Guard. Upon returning to the US, he worked in many jobs while seeking work as a writer. He found work producing movie plots, and sold his first story in 1922 to William Russell and he moved into management in 1929, and became head of production in 1931. In 1933, Zanuck left Warners over a dispute with studio head Jack L. Warner. A few days later, he partnered with Joseph Schenck to form 20th Century Pictures, Inc. with financial help from Josephs brother Nicholas Schenck, mayer, President and Studio head of Loews, Inc and its subsidiary Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, along with William Goetz and Raymond Griffith. 20th Century released its material through United Artists, after a dispute with United Artists over stock ownership, Schenck and Zanuck negotiated and bought out the bankrupt Fox studios in 1935 to form Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. Zanuck was Vice President of Production of this new studio and took an approach, closely involving himself in scripts. When the U. S. who was chauffeured by limousine to Long Island each morning from a luxury Manhattan hotel. Appalled by such privileged cosseting, Zanuck stormed down to Washington, D. C. and into the War Department, demanding a riskier assignment from Chief of Staff and he even persuaded Lord Mountbatten to allow him along on a secret coastal raid across the Channel to occupied France. The daring nighttime attack on a German radar site was a success, navy even before the U. S. entered the war, and he was horrified to discover himself drafted into Zanucks Africa unit. Cant I ever get away from you, I bet if I die and go to heaven, youll be waiting for me under a sign reading Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. Unlike Col. Warner, most colonels from the studio system—Col, Frank Capra, Col. Anatole Litvak, Col. Hal Roach—were actually doing their cinematic jobs, often, like Zanuck, under enemy fire. Nonetheless, when Col. Zanuck was named in this investigation in 1944, whatever the reason, despite having published his own first-person account of his wartime adventures he resigned. Zanuck returned to Twentieth Century-Fox in 1944 and he avoided the studio and instead read books at home, surrounded by his growing family, and caught up on all the films he had missed while overseas in his private screening room
3.
George Seaton
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George Seaton was an American screenwriter, playwright, film director and producer, and theatre director. Seaton was born George Stenius in South Bend, Indiana, of Swedish descent and he grew up in a Detroit Jewish neighborhood, and described himself as a Shabas goy. So he went on to learn Hebrew in an Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva and was bar mitzvahed. Seaton moved to Detroit after graduating from college to work as an actor on radio station WXYZ. John L. Barrett played The Lone Ranger on test broadcasts of the series in early January 1933, in later years he claimed to have devised the cry Hi-yo, Silver because he couldnt whistle for his horse as the script required. Seaton, along with writer and friend Robert Pirosh, joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a contract writer in 1933. His first major credit was the Marx Brothers comedy A Day at the Races in 1937. But Not Goodbye, Seatons 1944 Broadway debut as a playwright, closed after only 23 performances, in 1967 he returned to Broadway to direct the Norman Krasna play Love in E Flat, which was a critical and commercial flop. The musical Heres Love, adapted from his screenplay for Miracle on 34th Street by Meredith Willson, Seaton won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay twice, for Miracle on 34th Street and The Country Girl, and was nominated for Oscars three additional times. He received The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1961 and he directed 1970s blockbuster hit Airport, which earned 10 Oscar nominations, including one for Seatons screenplay. Seaton died of cancer in Beverly Hills, California in 1979, Airport Showdown George Seaton at the Internet Movie Database George Seaton Papers at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
4.
Bess Meredyth
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Bess Meredyth was a film writer and silent film actress. The wife of film director Michael Curtiz, Meredyth wrote The Affairs of Cellini and she was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Meredyth began her involvement in performing and writing from an early age and her father was the manager at a local theatre, and she studied piano throughout her childhood. After encouragement from her English teacher, Meredyth also pursued fiction writing, at the age of 13, she approached the local newspaper editor about writing a fiction column. Each story she wrote for the paper earned her a dollar, Meredyth began her career in show business in vaudeville as a comedian. She most often sang or performed monologues while accompanying herself on the piano, Meredyth began her screen career as an extra at D. W. Griffiths Biograph Studios in New York, before moving to Los Angeles in 1911. Meredyth worked as an actress for five years, supplanting her income with screenwriting, while most of this work was as an extra, her most prominent role was the titular character in the 4-reel Bess the Detectress serials. Meredyth met Wilfred Lucas in 1911 when he encouraged her to screen acting. The year after, the two worked together on the film A Sailors Heart, the first of many artistic collaborations and they were eventually given their production unit at Universal Studios, in which they produced the 30-reel long Trey of Hearts serials. Meredyth and Lucas had one child together, television writer John Meredyth Lucas and they divorced in 1927, following her return from supervising Ben Hur In 1918, Meredyth and Lucas traveled to Australia to work with Australian sportsman Snowy Baker. They made three films together, The Man from Kangaroo, The Jackeroo of Coolabong and The Shadow of Lightning Ridge and she was arguably the first professional screenwriter to work in Australia. Meredyth and director Michael Curtiz met soon after his arrival in the United States and they were married in 1929 and unsuccessfully attempted to start a production unit at MGM studios in 1946. Though often uncredited, Meredyth contributed to several of Curtizs projects, most notably, Curtiz reportedly called Meredyth for input several times a day while working on his most successful film, Casablanca. Meredyth and Curtiz separated twice, once in 1941, and again in 1960, however, they remained in contact after this separation, and Curtiz included Meredyth in his will upon his death in 1962. Throughout her time at MGM studios, Meredyth had mainly worked under Irving Thalberg, upon his death in 1936, the new MGM executives dropped Meredyths contract. Rather than re-entering as a writer, as the new executives offered. Despite this announcement, she has three credits after her retirement, The Mark of Zorro, That Night in Rio. Bess Meredyth at the Internet Movie Database Bess Meredyth at the Women Film Pioneers Project
5.
Don Ameche
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Don Ameche was an American actor and voice artist. After touring in vaudeville, he featured in many biographical films and he continued to appear on Broadway, as well as on radio and TV, where he was host and commentator for International Showtime, covering circus and ice-shows all over Europe. Ameche was married to his wife Honore for 54 years, Ameche won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cocoon. Ameche was born Dominic Felix Amici in Kenosha, Wisconsin on May 31,1908 and his father, Felice Amici, was a bartender from Italy from Montemonaco, Ascoli Piceno, Marche. His mother, Barbara Etta Hertel, was of Scottish, Irish and he had three brothers, Umberto, James, and Louis, and four sisters, Elizabeth, Catherine, Mary and Anna. Ameche attended Marquette University, Loras College, and the University of Wisconsin, Ameche had intended to study law, but he found theatricals more interesting and decided on a stage career. He was instrumental in forming and leading the group the year before play began. Ameche was married to Honore Prendergast from 1932 until her death in 1986, one, Ron Ameche, owned a restaurant, Ameches Pumpernickel in Coralville, Iowa. He had two daughters, Connie and Bonnie, Ameches younger brother, Jim Ameche, was also a well-known actor. His brother Bert was an architect who worked for the U. S. Navy in Port Hueneme, California, and then the U. S. Postal Service in Los Angeles, California. He enjoyed the experience and got a lead in Jerry For Short in New York, followed by a tour in vaudeville with Texas Guinan until she dropped him from the act. He made his debut in 1935, and by the late 1930s, had established himself as a major actor in Hollywood. He appeared in films as Alexanders Ragtime Band, and as the title character in The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. In the 1940 film Go West, Groucho Marx proclaims, Telephone and this is 1870, Don Ameche hasnt invented the telephone yet. While in the 1941 film Ball of Fire, Barbara Stanwycks character discusses the ameche slang usage, Do you know what this means, another highlight was co-starring with Gene Tierney in Ernst Lubitschs Heaven Can Wait in 1943, a film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1940, he was voted the 21st-most-popular star in Hollywood, in 1944 he reportedly earned $247,677 for 1943, making him the second highest earner at 20th Century Fox after Spyros Skouras. Ameche played so many roles based on people that on one of his radio broadcasts, Fred Allen joked. Soon afterwards, in Its in the Bag. which starred Allen, Ameche and fellow veteran actor Ralph Bellamy were eventually cast in John Landis Trading Places in 1983, playing rich brothers intent on ruining an innocent man for the sake of a one-dollar bet
6.
Alice Faye
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Alice Faye was an American actress and singer, described by the The New York Times as one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career. She is often associated with the Academy Award–winning standard Youll Never Know, born Alice Jeane Leppert in New York City, she was the daughter of a New York police officer of German descent, Charles Leppert, and his Irish-American wife, Alice Leppert. Fayes entertainment career began in vaudeville as a girl before she moved to Broadway. By this time, she had adopted her name and first reached a radio audience on Rudy Vallées The Fleischmanns Yeast Hour. Faye got her first major break in 1934, when Lilian Harvey abandoned the lead role in a film version of George Whites 1935 Scandals. Hired first to perform a number with Vallee, Faye ended up as the female lead. She became a hit with audiences of the 1930s, particularly when Fox production head Darryl F. Zanuck made her his protégée. He softened Faye from a show girl to a youthful, yet somewhat motherly, figure. Faye also received a makeover, going from a version of Jean Harlow to a wholesome appearance, in which her platinum hair. In 1938, Faye was cast as the lead in In Old Chicago. Zanuck initially resisted casting Faye, as the role had been written for Jean Harlow. The film was memorable for its twenty-minute ending, a recreation of the Great Chicago Fire. Her co-stars in that film were Tyrone Power and Don Ameche, Faye, Power, and Ameche were reunited for the 1938 release Alexanders Ragtime Band, which was designed to showcase more than twenty Irving Berlin songs, Faye again received strong reviews. One of the most expensive films of its time, it became one of the most successful musicals of the 1930s. By 1939, Faye was named one of the top ten box office draws in Hollywood and that year, she made Rose of Washington Square with Tyrone Power. Although a big hit, the film was based on the real life of comedian Fanny Brice and Brice sued Fox for stealing her story. Because of her status, Fox occasionally placed Faye in films that were put together more for the sake of making money than showcasing Fayes talents. Films like Tail Spin and Barricade were more dramatic in nature than regular Faye films, but, due to her immense popularity, none of the films that she made in the 1930s and 1940s lost money
7.
Carmen Miranda
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Carmen Miranda, GCIH • OMC was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress, and film star who was popular from the 1930s to the 1950s. Nicknamed The Brazilian Bombshell, Carmen Miranda is noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in her American films, as a young woman, Miranda worked in a boutique designing hats before ultimately recording her first album with composer Josué de Barros in 1929. Throughout the 1930s, Miranda performed on Brazilian radio stations and appeared in five Brazilian sound films known as chanchadas, which celebrated Brazilian music, dance, and carnival culture. In 1939, Lee Shubert, a Broadway businessman, offered Carmen Miranda an eight-week contract to perform in The Streets of Paris on Broadway after seeing her at Cassino da Urca, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1940, she made her first Hollywood film, Down Argentine Way, with Don Ameche and Betty Grable, her exotic clothing and Latin accent became her trademark. In the same year, she was voted the third most popular personality in the United States and was invited to sing and dance for President Franklin Roosevelt, along with her group, Bando da Lua. In 1943, Miranda starred in Busby Berkleys The Gangs All Here, by 1945, she was the highest paid woman in the United States. Miranda made a total of fourteen Hollywood films between 1940 and 1953, though hailed as a talented performer, her popularity waned by the end of World War II. She later grew to resent the stereotypical Brazilian Bombshell image she cultivated and attempted to free of it with limited success. Carmen Miranda was the first Latin American star to be invited to imprint her hands and feet in the courtyard of Graumans Chinese Theatre and she became the first South American to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She is considered the precursor of Brazils Tropicalismo cultural movement of the 1960s, a museum was later constructed in Rio de Janeiro in her honor, and in 1995 she was the subject of the acclaimed documentary Carmen Miranda, Bananas is My Business. Carmen Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha in Várzea da Ovelha e Aliviada and she was the second daughter of José Maria Pinto da Cunha and Maria Emília Miranda. In 1909 when she was ten months old, her father emigrated alone to Brazil and settled in Rio de Janeiro and her mother followed in 1910 with their daughters Olinda and Maria do Carmo. Maria do Carmo, later Carmen, never returned to Portugal, in Brazil, her parents had four more children, Amaro, Cecília, Aurora and Óscar. She was christened Carmen by her father because of his love for the opera comique and this passion for opera influenced his children, and Mirandas love for singing and dancing at an early age. She went to school at the Convent of Saint Therese of Lisieux and her father did not approve of her plans to enter show business. However, her mother supported her and was beaten when her husband discovered Miranda had auditioned for a radio show and she had previously sung at parties and festivals in Rio. Her older sister Olinda contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Portugal for treatment, Miranda went to work in a tie shop at age 14 to help pay her sisters medical bills
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