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Max Everitt Rosenbloom (November 1, 1907 – March 6, 1976) was an American boxer, actor, and television personality. Born in Leonard Bridge, Connecticut, Rosenbloom was nicknamed "Slapsie Maxie" by a journalist due to his open-gloved style of boxing. In 1930, he won the New York light heavyweight title. In 1932, he won the World Light Heavyweight Championship. He held and defended the title until November 1934, when he lost it to Bob Olin. As a professional boxer, Rosenbloom relied on hitting and moving to score points. He was very difficult to hit cleanly with a power punch and his fights often went the full number of required rounds. In his boxing career, he received thousands of punches to the head, which eventually led to the deterioration of his motor functions.
In 1937, he accepted a role in a Hollywood film. He became a character actor, portraying comical "big guys" in movies that included Each Dawn I Die, and Maxie retired from boxing permanently in 1939. Slapsy Maxie's, the first comedy club, opened in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He continued acting on radio, television, and in a number of films, usually playing comedy roles as a big, clumsy, punch-drunk—but lovable—character. He appeared in a number of episodes (playing himself) of The Fred Allen Show—including a skit with Marlene Dietrich. Rosenbloom played an important part in television's first 90-minute drama, Requiem for a Heavyweight, written by Rod Serling, and starring Jack Palance as a boxer at the end of his career. Rosenbloom played an ex-boxer, whose life revolved around retelling old boxing stories night after night to other ex-boxers in a down-and-out bar. It is the fate that looms for Mountain McClintock, Palance's character, if he cannot adjust to a new life outside the ring.
Slapsy Maxie's, his nightclub, is prominently featured in a 2013 crime film, Gangster Squad, which is set in 1949. The club, which actually operated in 1939 at 7165 Beverly Blvd and from 1943 to 1947, was located at 5665 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles.
George Reeves (January 5, 1914 – June 16, 1959) was an American actor best known for his role as Superman in the 1950s television program titled 'Adventures of Superman'. His death at age 45 from a gunshot remains a polarizing issue. The official finding was suicide, but some believe he was murdered or the victim of an accidental shooting.
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Georgia Caine (30 October 1876 – 4 April 1964) was an American actress who performed both on Broadway and in more than 80 films in her 51-year career.
Born in San Francisco, California in 1876, the daughter of two Shakespearean actors, George Caine and the former Jennie Darragh, she travelled with them when they toured the country. Caine left school at the age of 17 to join a Shakespearean repertory company. She made her Broadway debut in 1899 as the star of the musical A Reign of Error. Caine continued to perform continuously on Broadway as a star or featured performer, primarily in musicals, until the mid-1930s, including in George M. Cohan's Little Nellie Kelly, as well as his Mary, and The O'Brien Girls,. She appeared in Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow both on Broadway and in London.
Caine was often written about by theater columnists until the 1930s, when her star had started to fade. She made her last Broadway appearance in 1935, in Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay's A Slight Case of Murder.
With her stage career fading, Caine took advantage of the advent of talking pictures to change her focus and moved to California to work in Hollywood. In 1930, Caine made her first film, Good Intentions, and in the next twenty years appeared in 83 films, mostly playing character roles – mothers, aunts, and older neighbors – although she occasionally played against type, such as when she was a streetwalker in Camille (1936). Many of her parts were small and she did not receive screen credit for them.
In 1940, Caine appeared as Barbara Stanwyck's mother in the film Remember the Night, which was written by Preston Sturges, and she would go on to become part of Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actresses, appearing in seven other films written by Sturges.
Caine made her final film appearance in 1950, at the age of 73, in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.
Caine in the musical Adele (1913)
According to Marie Dressler The Unlikeliest Star by Betty Lee, about Caine's friend Marie Dressler, Caine was married to a prominent man from San Francisco by the 1920s, but the book gives no information on what his name was or when or for how long they were married.
Georgia Caine died in Hollywood, California on 4 April 1964, at the age of 87, and is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, California.
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Frank S. Hagney (March 20, 1884 – June 25, 1973) was an Australian actor. Born in Sydney in 1884, Hagney appeared in more than 350 Hollywood films between 1919 and 1966. Most of his film roles were small and uncredited. Because of his tall and strong appearance, Hagney often played officers or henchmens. He is perhaps best-known as Mr. Potter's wordless wheelchair pusher in Frank Capra's classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Frank Hagney was also a guest star on more than 70 television programs such as The Cisco Kid, The Adventures of Kit Carson, The Lone Ranger, The Rifleman, Perry Mason, and Daniel Boone.
He starred in The Fighting Marine (1926) with Jack Anthony, Joe Bonomo and Walter Miller; The Fighting Sap (1924) with Bob Fleming, Hazel Keener, Wilfred Lucas and Fred Thomson; The Ghost in the Garret (1921), Ghost Town Gold (1936), Go Get 'Em Hutch (1922) with Richard R. Neil; Ride Him Cowboy (1932) with Eddie Gribbon and Charles Sellon; Riders of the Dawn (1939), Valley of the Lawless (1936), and Vultures of the Sea (1928) with Joseph Bennett.
His 42 silent films included The Battler (1919), The Breed of the Border (1924), The Dangerous Coward (1924), Galloping Gallagher (1924), Lighting Romance (1924), The Mask of Lopez (1924), The Silent Stranger (1924), The Wild Bull's Lair (1925), Lone Hand Saunders (1926) and The Two-Gun Man (1926). His 54 sound western film included The Phantom of the West (1931), Fighting Caravans (1931), The Squaw Man (1931), The Golden West (1932), Honor of the Range (1934), Western Frontier, Heroes of the Range (1936), Billy the Kid, The Lone Rider Ambushed (1941), Blazing Frontier (1943) and The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1947). His last two films were McLintock! (1963) and Come Blow Your Horn (1963).
Hagney was married to Edna Shephard. He died in Los Angeles in 1973. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.
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Vera Lewis (June 10, 1873 – February 8, 1956) was an American film and stage actress, beginning in the silent film era. She appeared in 183 films between 1915 and 1947. She was married to actor Ralph Lewis.
She was born in Manhattan, where she began acting in stage productions. Her film career started in 1915 with the film Hypocrites, which starred Myrtle Stedman and Courtenay Foote. From 1915 to 1929 she appeared in 63 silent films, including the film classic Intolerance (1916) where she played the "old maid" Miss Jenkins.
Unlike many silent film stars, she made a smooth transition to "talking films", starting with her 1930 appearance in Wide Open, starring Patsy Ruth Miller and Edward Everett Horton. Though never what is referred to as a "premier star", she appeared in 58 films during the 1930s, and another 60 during the 1940s. She retired after 1947, and resided at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, California at the time of her death on February 8, 1956.
Jack Mower (born Benjamin Allen Mower) was an American screen and television actor. He appeared in hundreds of films between 1914 and 1964. Mower also, during the mid 1920s, produced seven silent films.
