To save their music publishing firm from bankruptcy, Bill "Brains' Watson creates a colorful life-story about his partner, Danny Lee, representing him as a descendant of Louisiana's famous Josh Lee family and rightful poet laureate of Dixieland.
06-23-1944
1h 1m
THIS
HELLA
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David Bruce (born Marden Andrew McBroom; January 6, 1914 – May 3, 1976) was an American film actor, known for his chilling performance as Ted Allison in The Mad Ghoul. He was a company member of Peninsula Players Theatre in Fish Creek, Wisconsin in 1939.
Born in Kankakee, Illinois, he signed a movie contract with Warner Brothers in 1940. The Northwestern University graduate appeared in many movies from the 1940s until 1955 when Bruce decided to give up acting. The 6' 1" (1.85 m) actor appeared in over 60 movies including Flying Tigers (1942), Christmas Holiday (1944) and Lady on a Train (1945).
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Joe Sawyer (born Joseph Sauers, August 29, 1906 – April 21, 1982) was a Canadian film actor. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1927 and 1962, and was sometimes billed under his birth name. He was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Sawyer gained acting experience in the Pasadena Playhouse. Popular roles that he portrayed included Sergeant Biff O'Hara in the Rin Tin Tin television program, a film, and on radio. On Stories of the Century in 1954, he portrayed Butch Cassidy, a role which he repeated in the 1958 episode "The Outlaw Legion" of the syndicated western series Frontier Doctor starring Rex Allen, with Doris Singleton and Michael Ansara as fellow guest stars. Sawyer also appeared on ABC's, Maverick, Sugarfoot, Peter Gunn, and Surfside 6 as well as NBC's Bat Masterson.
Sawyer died April 21, 1982, in Ashland, Oregon from liver cancer. He was 75. His interment was in Oregon.
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Samuel Southey Hinds (April 4, 1875 – October 13, 1948) was an American actor and former lawyer. He was often cast as kindly authoritarian figures and appeared in over 200 films until his death.
Hinds was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Joseph E. Hinds and Mary A. Beetham Hinds.
He was a graduate of Phillips Andover Academy and Harvard Law School and worked for over 32 years as a lawyer before becoming a professional actor. After he lost most of his money in the financial crisis of 1929, Hinds retired as a lawyer and joined the Pasadena Community Playhouse. He started acting in Broadway shows at age 54.
Hinds is perhaps best remembered for playing Peter Bailey, the father of James Stewart and founder of the Bailey Building and Loan, in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and for his part as Paul Sycamore in You Can't Take It With You (1938), both films directed by Frank Capra. Hinds was also known for his roles in the Abbott & Costello films such as Buck Privates (1941), Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942) and Pardon My Sarong (1942). He also portrayed Lew Ayres' father in the Dr. Kildare film series during the early 1940s. Hinds mostly played supporting roles, often kind and dignified authority figures; often lawyers, doctors, mayors, judges or the father of the main figure.
Hinds' first film was If I Had a Million (1932); his second film was The Road Is Open Again (1933) where he portrayed President Woodrow Wilson. His earlier career was reflected in the role of Judge Thatcher, tortured by the mad Dr. Richard Vollin (Bela Lugosi) in The Raven (1935).
Hinds acted in a total of 214 films. His last film was The Bribe, released in 1949, after his death.
Hinds died of pneumonia in Pasadena, California, on October 13, 1948 at age 73. He was married to Dorothy Cruickshack, they had two children.
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Eddie Acuff (June 3, 1908 – December 17, 1956) was an American actor. His best-known recurring role is that of Mr. Beasley, the postman, in the Blondie movie series that starred Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake.
Acuff was born Edward DeKalb Acuff in Caruthersville, Missouri. His maternal uncle was a performer on 19th century showboats along the Mississippi River.
Before beginning his Hollywood film career in 1934, Acuff performed in Broadway theatre in the early-1930s. His Broadway credits include Jayhawker (1934), Yellow Jack (1934), John Brown (1934), Growing Pains (1933), Heat Lightning (1933), and The Dark Hours (1932).
He was seen in three film serials — as Curly in Jungle Girl, as Red Kelly, in Daredevils of the West, and as Spud Warner in Chick Carter Detective.
On December 17, 1956, Acuff died of a heart attack in Hollywood, California. He is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery.
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Louise Beavers (March 8, 1902 – October 26, 1962) was an American film and television actress. Beavers appeared in dozens of films and two hit television shows from the 1920s until 1960, most often cast in the role of a maid, servant, or slave. She was a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, and a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, one of the four African-American sororities.
Beavers was a breakthrough actress for black women and became known as a symbol of a "mammy" on the screen. A mammy archetype "is the portrayal within a narrative framework or other imagery of a black domestic servant, generally good-natured, often overweight, and loud".
Louise Beavers started her career in the 1920s. At the time, black people in films were limited to acting in only very few roles, usually as slaves or domestic help. She played the "mammy" in many of the movies she acted in. She started to gain more attention in the acting world after she played the role of Julia in Coquette, which starred Mary Pickford. In this film she played the black maid and mother figure to a young white woman.
She once received a review which stated: "Personally, Miss Beavers is just splendid, just as fine as she appears on screen, but she also has a charm all her own, which needs no screen role for recognition. She has a very pleasing personality, one that draws people to her instantly and makes them feel that they are meeting a friend instead of a Hollywood Star."
Beavers had an attractive personality, and often played roles in which she helps a white protagonist mature in the course of the movie.
In 1934, Beavers played Delilah in Imitation of Life in a dramatic role. Her character again plays a black maid, but instead of the usual stereotypical comedic or purely functional role, Delilah's story line is a secondary parallel plot. The public reacted positively to Beavers' performance. It was not only a breakthrough for Beavers, but was also "the first time in American cinema history that a black woman's problems were given major emotional weight in a major Hollywood motion picture". Some in the media recognized the unfairness of Hollywood's double standard regarding race. For example, California Graphic Magazine wrote, "the Academy could not recognize Miss Beavers. She is black!"
As Beavers' career grew, some criticized her for the roles she accepted, alleging that such roles institutionalized the view that blacks were subservient to whites. Beavers dismissed the criticism. She acknowledged the limited opportunities available, but said: "I am only playing the parts. I don't live them." As she became more famous, Beavers began to speak against Hollywood's portrayal and treatment of black Americans, both during production and after promoting the films. Beavers became active in public life, seeking to help support African Americans.
In later life, Beavers was plagued by health issues, including diabetes. She died on October 26, 1962, at the age of 60, following a heart attack.
Beavers was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1976.
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Pierre Frank Watkin (December 29, 1889 – February 3, 1960) was an American character actor in many films, serials, and television series from the 1930s through the 1950s, especially westerns. He is perhaps best remembered for being the father of Eleanor Twitchell, the lady who captures Lou Gehrig's heart in Pride of the Yankees (1942)
Watkin was born in Sioux City, Iowa. In the 1920s, he had his own theatrical troupe, the Pierre Watkin Players. In 1927, the group moved its headquarters from Sioux Falls to Lincoln, Nebraska.
Watkin portrayed Perry White in both of the Superman serials of the late 1940s, which starred Kirk Alyn as the title character and Noel Neill as Lois Lane.
Watkin played a few different characters in the television series Adventures of Superman, in which John Hamilton played Perry White. He was set to reprise his role as the editor of The Daily Planet in a revival of the series in 1959, as Hamilton had died in the interim since the cancellation of the original series. However, series star George Reeves also died in the summer of 1959, and those plans ended. Watkin himself died six months later.
He also cast in 1955 in the episode "Joey and the Gypsies" of the NBC children's western series Fury. Watkin guest starred in the CBS western series Brave Eagle. He was cast twice each on the ABC/Warner Brothers series, Cheyenne (as Harvey Sinclair in "The Law Man") and Annie Oakley (as the Reverend Mills in the 1956 episode "The Reckless Press"). In 1958, Watkin portrayed Dr. Breen of Samaritan Hospital in the episode "San Francisco Story" of Rex Allen's syndicated western series, Frontier Doctor.
During the first season of CBS's Perry Mason from 1957 to 1958, Watkin appeared in three episodes as Judge Keetley. He was also cast during the 1950s on The Range Rider, Tales of the Texas Rangers, in three episodes of the western aviation adventure series Sky King, and five times on The Jack Benny Program.
Watkin played the part of Colonel Duncan in the 1958 episode "Decoy" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series Colt .45.
Marie Blake (born Edith Marie Blossom MacDonald) was an American stage, film and television actress. Her younger sister was singing screen star Jeanette MacDonald.
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Edward Keane (May 28, 1884 – October 12, 1959) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 300 films between 1921 and 1955.
Although his brand of humor has been reviled for decades, Negro character actor Mantan Moreland parlayed his cocky but jittery character into a recognizable presence in the late 1930s and early 1940s, appearing in a long string of comedy thrillers . . . and was considered quite funny at the time!
Born just after the turn of the century in Louisiana, Mantan began running away from home at age 12 to join circuses and medicine shows, only to be brought back time and again. During these times he sharpened his comic skills and developed routines and acts that eventually became popular on the vaudeville stage, or what was then called the "chitlin' circuit." A solo performer by nature, he often teamed up with other famous comics (such as Ben Carter) to keep working, and became a deft performer of "indefinite talk" routines, where two quicksilver comics continually topped each other in mid-sentence, as if reading each other's mind (i.e., "Say, did you see...?" "Saw him just yesterday...didn't look so good"). Mantan's focus gradually shifted his trade toward film, where he initially appeared in servile bits (shoeshine men, porters, waiters). However, his talent for making people laugh couldn't be overlooked and he soon earned featured status in Harlem-styled western parodies and grade "A" comedy films playing the superstitious, ever-terrified manservant running from any kind of impending doom.
Moreland's peak in movies came with his recurring role as Birmingham, the skittish chauffeur, in the "Charlie Chan" series, where he was forever forewarning his boss to stay away from an obviously dangerous case or situation. Though haunted mansions were an ideal place for setting off his stereotyped character, Mantan would be haunted in a different way by this Hollywood success in years to follow. By the 1950s, racial attitudes began to change and, with the rise of the civil rights movement, what was once considered hilarious was now interpreted as demeaning and offensive to both blacks and whites. Mantan and others, such as Stepin Fetchit, were ostracized and ridiculed by Hollywood for their past negative portrayals. It took decades for audiences to forgive and newer generations to forget the Depression-era comedy of Mantan Moreland in order for the actor to come back.
In the late 1960s he managed a modest resurgence on TV and in commercials and occasional films, allowing him to work again with such comic heavyweights as Bill Cosby, Godfrey Cambridge and director Carl Reiner. It was all too brief, however, for Mantan, long suffering from ill health, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1973, just as he was settling in to his renewed popularity. Today, audiences tend to be kinder and more understanding of Moreland, remembering him as a highly talented comic who, in the only way he knew, broke major barriers and opened the doors for others black actors to follow.
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Jack Mulhall, born John Joseph Francis Mulhall, (October 7, 1887 in Wappingers Falls, New York – June 1, 1979 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California) was a movie actor since the silent film era and appeared in over 430 films. Reputedly, he was one of a number of male models(Fredric March & Reed Howes were two others) for the Arrow Collar Man in the Arrow collar ads illustrated by J. C. Leyendecker for the Cluett Peabody shirt company. Died from congestive heart failure.
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Ray Walker was born on August 10, 1904 in Newark, New Jersey, USA as Warren Reyholds Walker. He was an actor, known for It's a Wonderful Life (1946), The Dark Hour (1936) and Baby Take a Bow (1934). He died on October 6, 1980 in Los Angeles, California, USA
