Great Song & Dance Actors/Actresses

Bing Crosby was born Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr. in Tacoma, Washington, the fourth of seven children of Catherine (Harrigan) and Harry Lincoln Crosby, a brewery bookkeeper. He was of English and Irish descent. Crosby studied law at Gonzaga University in Spokane but was more interested in playing the drums and singing with a local band. Bing and the band's piano player, Al Rinker, left Spokane for Los Angeles in 1925. In the early 1930s Bing's brother Everett sent a record of Bing singing "I Surrender, Dear" to the president of CBS. His live performances from New York were carried over the national radio network for 20 consecutive weeks in 1932. His radio success led Paramount Pictures to include him in The Big Broadcast (1932), a film featuring radio favorites. His songs about not needing a bundle of money to make life happy was the right message for the decade of the Great Depression. His relaxed, low-key style carried over into the series of "Road" comedies he made with pal Bob Hope. He won the best actor Oscar for playing an easygoing priest in Going My Way (1944). He showed that he was indeed an actor as well as a performer when he played an alcoholic actor down on his luck opposite Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954). Playing golf was what he liked to do best. He died at age 74 playing golf at a course outside Madrid, Spain, after completing a tour of England that had included a sold-out engagement at the London Palladium.

Danny Kaye left school at the age of 13 to work in the so-called Borscht Belt of Jewish resorts in the Catskill Mountains. It was there he learned the basics of show biz. From there he went through a series of jobs in and out of the business. In 1939, he made his Broadway debut in "Straw Hat Revue," but it was the stage production of the musical "Lady in the Dark" in 1940 that brought him acclaim and notice from agents. Also in 1940, he married Sylvia Fine, who went on to manage his career. She helped create the routines and gags, and wrote most of the songs that he performed. Danny could sing and dance like many others, but his specialty was reciting those tongue-twisting songs and monologues.

Samuel Goldwyn had been trying to sign Kaye to a movie contract for two years before he eventually agreed. Goldwyn put him in a series of Technicolor musicals, starting with Up in Arms (1944). His debut was successful, and he continued to make hit movies such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and The Inspector General (1949). In 1954, he appeared with Bing Crosby in White Christmas (1954), which was based on the Irving Berlin song of the same name. In 1955, he made what many consider his best comedy, The Court Jester (1955), with the brilliant Pellet with the Poison routine. Like all things, however, the lifespan of a comedian is limited and his movie career waned. In 1960, he began doing specials on television and this led to his own TV series, The Danny Kaye Show (1963), which ran from 1963 to 1967.

Some of his last roles were also his most memorable, such as an intense Holocaust survivor in Skokie (1981) and as a kind but goofy dentist in an episode of The Cosby Show (1984). He also worked tirelessly for UNICEF.

Vera-Ellen began dancing at the age of 10, and a few years later became one of the youngest Rockettes. She appeared in several Broadway musicals until she was spotted by film producer Samuel Goldwyn in 1945. She was only 24 years old when Goldwyn cast her opposite Danny Kaye in Wonder Man (1945). She danced with Fred Astaire in Three Little Words (1950) and with Gene Kelly in On the Town (1949). Blonde, slim of build, and a dancing sensation, she appeared in a string of light-hearted but successful films. Vera-Ellen retired from acting in the late 1950s.

She was the daughter of Andrew and Frances Clooney and grew up in Maysville, Kentucky, where she and her sister Betty Clooney used to sing in her grandfather's mayoral election campaigns, which he won three times. She made her singing debut on Cincinnati radio station WLW in 1941 at 13. On WLW she worked with band leader Barney Rapp, who had also worked with Doris Day and Andy Williams at the same station. She attended high school at Our Lady of Mercy in Cincinnati. In 1946 she appeared with her sister in Atlantic City, New Jersey, at the Steel Pier with Tony Pastor's band. In 1949 she went solo and later appeared in White Christmas (1954), co-starring opposite Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. Her first big hit was "Come On A My House" in 1951. She married José Ferrer in 1953 and they had five children between 1955 and 1960. Her marriage to Ferrer was a tempestuous one and she had a nervous breakdown in 1968, but went on to resume her career in 1976. Her life was dramatized in a 1982 made-for-television movie starring Sondra Locke, who was actually just 16 years Rosemary's junior but constantly lied about her age.

Her son Gabriel is married to singer Debby Boone, daughter of 1950s pop singer Pat Boone. Her brother, Nick Clooney, was an ABC news anchor in Cincinnati, and her nephew George Clooney has developed into one of the biggest movie stars of the 21st century. In 1968 she was standing in the Ambassdor Hotel in Los Angeles with Roosevelt Grier when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in the hotel kitchen after she had participated in his campaign rally. Her top hits include "Hey There" in 1954, "Tenderly", "This Ole House" and "Half As Much" in 1952.

Award-winning songwriter ("Stardust", "Ole Buttermilk Sky", "Georgia on My Mind"), composer, pianist, actor and singer, educated at Indiana University (LL.B). He played piano in the college bands, and later gave up a law practice for a career in songwriting. He joined ASCAP in 1931, and his chief musical collaborators included Mitchell Parish, Stuart Gorrell, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Lerner, Stanley Adams, Edward Heyman, Paul Francis Webster, Jack Brooks, Ned Washington, and Jo Trent.

His autobiographies are "The Stardust Road" and "Sometimes I Wonder". His other popular-song compositions include "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" (Academy Award, 1951), "Washboard Blues", "Riverboat Shuffle", "Little Old Lady", "Lazybones", "Rockin' Chair", "One Morning in May", "Snowball", "Lazy River", "Thanksgivin'", "Judy", "Moonburn", , "Small Fry", "Ooh, What You Said", "The Rhumba Jumps", "Two Sleepy People", "Heart and Soul", "Skylark", "The Nearness of You", "When Love Walks By", "Daybreak", "Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief", "Ivy", "Memphis in June", "Hong Kong Blues", "I Get Along Without You Very Well", "Blue Orchids", "The Old Music Master", "How Little We Know", "The Lamplighter's Serenade", "I Walk With Music", "Come Easy Go Easy Love", "Can't Get Indiana Off My Mind", "I Should Have Known You Years Ago", "Baltimore Oriole", "Rogue River Valley", "Who Killed 'Er (Who Killed the Black Widder?)", "Moon Country", "When Love Goes Wrong", "Mediterranean Love", "Music, Always Music", "There Goes Another Pal of Mine", "Just For Tonight" and "My Resistance is Low".

Bob Fosse was born into a show business family in Chicago and by the time he was 13 he was a professional drawing the attention of critics in 1953 when he was signed by MGM as their new dancing discovery in the tradition of Astaire but after making Kiss Me Kate MGM decided that musicals were too costly so Bob left Hollywood for Broadway and launched his career with Pyjama Game receiving top reviews and winning the first of five Tony Awards for outstanding choreography. More importantly he met Gwen Vernon who became his wife and who he choreographed in New Girl in Town, Redhead, Sweet Charity and appeared with her in Damn Yankees

The only career Nelson Eddy ever considered was singing. His parents, Isabel (Kendrick) and William Darius Eddy, were singers, his grandparents were musicians. Unable to afford a teacher, he learned by imitating opera recordings. At age 14 he worked as a telephone operator in a Philadelphia iron foundry. He sold newspaper advertising and performed in amateur musicals. Dr. Edouard Lippe coached him and loaned him the money to study in Dresden and Paris. He gave his first concert recital in 1928 in Philadelphia. In 1933 he did 18 encores for an audience that included an assistant to MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer, who signed him to a seven-year contract. After MGM acting lessons and initial trials, his first real success came as the Yankee scout to Jeanette MacDonald's French princess in Naughty Marietta (1935), a huge box-office success made on a small budget. Eddy and MacDonald were paired twice more (Rose-Marie (1936), Maytime (1937)) when metropolitan Opera star Grace Moore was unavailable; they became an institution. Their last work together was in 1942. Critics nearly always panned his acting. He did have a large radio following (his theme song: "Short'nin Bread"). In 1959 Eddy and MacDonald issued a recording of their movie hits which sold well. In 1953 he had a fairly successful nightclub routine with Gale Sherwood which ran until his death in 1967. He and his wife Anne Denitz had no children.

Rudy Vallee started his career as a saxophone player and singer and later became a bandleader. In the 1920s and early '30s he had a hit radio program, The Fleishmann's Yeast Hour (although his explosive, ego-driven personality made his cast and crew hate him). In the early 1930s he was ranked with the likes of Bing Crosby and the tragic Russ Columbo in the Hit Parade. A huge hit on radio in 1933 with his program, initially known as 'The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour,' Vallee was considered a slavedriver by his staff. He was known to instigate fist fights with virtually anyone who got on his nerves. During his show's run he slugged photographers, threw sheet music at pianists' heads, and socked hecklers in their noses. While audiences loved him, most of his staff hated him. As a very popular star in nightclubs, on records, and in movies, he helped other singers, such as Alice Faye--who was his band singer for a while--and Frances Langford to start their careers. In his early movies he often played the romantic lead, but later he switched to stuffy and comic parts. He also appeared on Broadway. The mid-'60s Broadway hit "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" was filmed in 1967 with him in his original Broadway role.

A career of seven decades of snappy, irreverent one-liners put Henry "Henny" Youngman at the top of most comedians' list of favorite showmen. Born in London, England, and moving to the United States when he was a baby, Youngman started his professional career as a printer in a small store. Naturally funny, he moonlighted in show business as the leader of a band called the "Swanee Syncopaters." One night, the regular comedian didn't show up, and Youngman, who had tickled crowds with his jokes between musical sets, was asked to fill in. Some time later, established comedian Milton Berle stumbled upon Youngman's store and saw his "Comedy Cards," a series of one-line gags that he had printed and were sold in his store. Berle liked what he read, and a lifelong friendship developed. Youngman, despite all the jokes about his wife, had a happy marriage that only ended when Sadie died in 1987. She supported him for years during the lean times, and he was always quick to let others know of his gratitude and devotion to her. Youngman's big break came when he was booked on the popular Kate Smith radio show in 1937. Never really making it in films, his nightclub career soared. His trademark, rapid-fire one-liners, with violin in hand, put him in a league of his own. In the 1960s, he enjoyed renewed popularity after appearances on the hip Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967). Youngman wrote a number of books comprised of his short jokes. The comedic legend died in 1998 at the age of 92 of complications from the flu.

Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the third son of Harriet Catherine (Curran) and James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman. His father was of Irish descent and his mother was of Irish and German ancestry.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the largest and most powerful studio in Hollywood when Gene Kelly arrived in town in 1941. He came direct from the hit 1940 original Broadway production of "Pal Joey" and planned to return to the Broadway stage after making the one film required by his contract. His first picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was For Me and My Gal (1942) with Judy Garland. What kept Kelly in Hollywood were "the kindred creative spirits" he found behind the scenes at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The talent pool was especially large during World War II, when Hollywood was a refuge for many musicians and others in the performing arts of Europe who were forced to flee the Nazis. After the war, a new generation was coming of age. Those who saw An American in Paris (1951) would try to make real life as romantic as the reel life they saw portrayed in that musical, and the first time they saw Paris, they were seeing again in memory the seventeen-minute ballet sequence set to the title song written by George Gershwin and choreographed by Kelly. The sequence cost a half million dollars (U.S.) to make in 1951 dollars. Another Kelly musical of the era, Singin' in the Rain (1952), was one of the first 25 films selected by the Library of Congress for its National Film Registry. Kelly was in the same league as Fred Astaire, but instead of a top hat and tails Kelly wore work clothes that went with his masculine, athletic dance style.

Gene Kelly died at age 83 of complications from two strokes on February 2, 1996 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California.

French ballet dancer Leslie Caron was discovered by the legendary MGM star Gene Kelly during his search for a co-star in one of the finest musicals ever filmed, the Oscar-winning An American in Paris (1951), which was inspired by and based on the music of George Gershwin. Leslie's gamine looks and pixie-like appeal would be ideal for Cinderella-type rags-to-riches stories, and Hollywood made fine use of it. Combined with her fluid dancing skills, she became one of the top foreign musical artists of the 1950s, while her triple-threat talents as a singer, dancer and actress sustained her long after musical film's "Golden Age" had passed.

Leslie Claire Margaret Caron was born in France on July 1, 1931. Her father, Claude Caron, was a French chemist, and her American-born mother, Margaret Petit, had been a ballet dancer back in the States during the 1920s. Leslie herself began taking dance lessons at age 11. She was on holidays at her grandparents' estate near Grasse when the Allies landed on the 15th of August 1944. After the German rendition, she and her family went to Paris to live. There she attended the Convent of the Assumption and started ballet training. While studying at the National Conservatory of Dance, she appeared at age 14 in "The Pearl Diver," a show for children where she danced and played a little boy. At age 16, she was hired by the renowned Roland Petit to join the Ballet des Champs-Elysees, where she was immediately given solo parts.

Leslie's talent and reputation as a dancer had already been recognized when on opening night of Petit's 1948 ballet "La Rencontre," which was based on the theme of Orpheus and featured the widely-acclaimed dancer 'Jean Babilee', she was seen by then-married Hollywood couple Gene Kelly and Betsy Blair. Leslie did not meet the famed pair at the end of the show that night as the 17-year-old went home dutifully right after her performance, but one year later Kelly remembered Leslie's performance when he returned to Paris in search for a partner for his upcoming movie musical An American in Paris (1951). The rest is history.

Kelly and newcomer Caron's touching performances and elegant and exuberant footwork (especially in the "Our Love Is Here to Stay" and "Embraceable You" numbers, as well as the dazzling 17-minute ballet to the title song) had critics and audiences simply enthralled. The film, directed by Vincente Minnelli, won a total of six Oscar awards, including "Best Picture," plus a Golden Globe for "Best Picture in a Musical or Comedy". Leslie was put under a seven-year MGM contract where her luminous skills would also be featured in non-musical showcases.

While Leslie's dramatic mettle was tested as a New Orleans nightclub entertainer opposite Ralph Meeker's boxer in Glory Alley (1952) and as a French governess in The Story of Three Loves (1953), it was as the child-like urchin who falls for a cruel carnival puppeteer (Mel Ferrer) in Lili (1953) that finally lifted Leslie to Academy Award attention. The film, which went on to inspire the Tony-winning Broadway musical "Carnival," earned Leslie not only an Oscar nomination, but the British Film Award for "Best Actress" as well. At her waif-like best once again in the musical Daddy Long Legs (1955), Leslie was paired this time with the "other" MGM male dancing legend Fred Astaire. The story, which unfolded in an appealing Henry Higgins/Eliza Dolittle style, was partly choreographed by Roland Petit, who founded the Ballet des Champs-Elysees, Leslie's former dance company.

While the actress gave poignant life to the ugly-duckling-turned-swan tale, The Glass Slipper (1955), choreographed by Petit and co-starring Britisher Michael Wilding as Prince Charming, Leslie also played a ballerina in love with WWII soldier John Kerr in Gaby (1956), a lukewarm remake of the superior Waterloo Bridge (1940). It took another plush musical classic, Gigi (1958), to remind audiences once again of Leslie's unique, international appeal. Audrey Hepburn, who had played the title part on Broadway, was keen on doing the film, but producer Arthur Freed wrote the part expressly for Leslie. It was also Freed who called up Fred Astaire to suggest her as his leading lady in Gigi (1958). Leslie tried the role out on the London stage prior to doing the film version. The musical wound up receiving nine Academy Awards, including "Best Picture," and Leslie herself was nominated for a Golden Globe as "Best Musical/Comedy Actress".

A few more forgettable film roles came and went until she returned triumphantly in a non-musical adaptation of a highly successful 1954 Broadway musical. The film version of Fanny (1961) was more adult in nature for Leslie and was blessed with gorgeous cinematography, a touching script and the continental flavor of veterans, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, and Horst Buchholz. At the movie's centerpiece is a child-like Leslie (at age 30!) who is mesmerizing as a young girl with child who is deserted by her sailor/boyfriend. Even more adult in scope was the shattering British drama The L-Shaped Room (1962) wherein the actress plays a pregnant French refugee who is abandoned yet again. She earned her a second British Academy Award and a second Oscar nomination for this superb performance.

On stage in London with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Leslie earned applause in another Audrey Hepburn Broadway vehicle, "Ondine," in 1961. While the mid-1960s and 1970s saw her film career take a Hollywood detour into breezy comedy with a number of lightweight fare opposite the likes of Rock Hudson, Cary Grant and Warren Beatty, she managed to shine with a complex working class mother role in the remarkable Italian film Il padre di famiglia (1967) starring Nino Manfredi and Ugo Tognazzi, and was spotted in the popular crossover film Valentino (1977) starring iconic Russian ballet star Rudolf Nureyev.

In the 1980s, Leslie appeared in stage productions of "Can-Can", "On Your Toes" and "One for the Tango". She also was invited and accepted to appear on American TV. At the age of 75, the actress won her first Emmy Award with her very moving portrayal of an elderly woman and closeted rape victim in a 2006 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999). More recent filming have included Damage (1992) by Louis Malle, Chocolat (2000) by Lasse Hallström, and the Merchant Ivory romantic comedy/drama The Divorce (2003).

Leslie's private life has been more turbulent than expected. She is divorced from the late meat packing heir and musician Geordie Hormel; from avant-garde Royal Shakespeare director Peter Hall, by whom she has two children, Christopher and Jennifer (both of whom have careers in the entertainment field); and from her Chandler (1971) movie producer Michael Laughlin.

One of the few MGM post-musical stars to enjoy a long, lasting and formidable dramatic career, Leslie Caron is still continuing today though on a much more limited basis. In 2008, the actress published her memoirs, "Thank Heaven," later translated to French as "Une Francaise à Hollywood". In 2010, she triumphed on the Chatelet Theater stage in Paris with her portrayal of Madame Armfeldt in Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music. More recently the still mesmerizing octogenarian had a recurring role as a countess in the British TV series The Durrells (2016). Over the years, she has received a number of "Life Achievement" awards for her contributions to both film and dance.

Oscar Levant's own versatility may have helped to cloud his memory as a sort of Hollywood utility man, perhaps in the worst sense; people tended to see him as one among many personalities, but he was so much more. It is unfortunately forgotten that he was first and foremost, a brilliant musician and very competent composer. He was from an Orthodox Jewish Russian family, growing up in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. Like his siblings, he started music lessons at an early age and on various instruments, first taking piano lessons from his older brother Benjamin. At seven he continued piano under Martin Miessler, originally of the Leipzig Conservatory. Levant was giving public recitals within a year. He attended music lessons at the Fifth Avenue High School, where he was exposed to classical performance by his instructor, Oscar Demmler. This included going to recitals of the great Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski and concerts conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Demmler invited Levant to accompany him in violin and piano repertoire, which was Levant's first public playing - he was only twelve.

Levant dropped out of high school (Fifth Avenue) in 1922 when his mother decided to take him to New York to continue music instruction. There he studied with Zygmunt Stojowski, a compatriot and disciple of Paderewski and a student trained by Wladyslaw Zelenski, Louis-Joseph Diemer and Clement Philibert Léo Delibes. By early adulthood, Levant had evolved an engaging and opinionated personality that was attracted to the social life of the city. One great influence on him was the glamor and allure of Broadway, which he saw firsthand while hiring out as a pianist for the stage pit and the many nightclubs in the area. He was in the musical play "Burlesque" (1927) and had his first stint at Broadway composing as co-composer for "Ripples" (1930). Though he gave a private recital in early December 1922 for Paderewski and kept up a schedule of attending mainstream classical musical events, he was also becoming something of a bon vivant in popular music circles, and became attracted to the seamier side of New York society, developing acquaintanceships with a variety of the city's mobsters. His mobility in social circles was, to say the least, surprising. Later Levant became a member of the Algonquin Round Table, the exclusive circle of New York wits and writers that met regularly at the Algonquin Hotel and included such luminaries as Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott.

It would seem natural that Levant would eventually be attracted to the glitter of Hollywood. He had a taste of "the movies" in 1923 when he appeared with popular orchestra leader Ben Bernie and his band, All the Lads, in a little-known experimental sound effort by DeForest Phonofilm in New York City. Touring in cabaret in London from 1926, Levant heard about New York composers and musicians going west to Hollywood, where music was coming into big demand. He left for the coast in 1928. He quickly secured employment as a composer, and from that year to 1929 his compositions appearing in 21 films. From 1929 to 1937 he composed regularly for films, and a bit more sporadically from 1939 to 1948, for a total of 19 films. His mingling with the musical elite in town resulted in his developing a close friendship with legendary composer George Gershwin. The association resulted in a profound musical relationship. He was still keeping a foot in the New York music scene, mainly in Broadway and on Tin Pan Alley (he co-wrote many pop songs). He also returned to some concertizing (1930 and 1931) at two large venues: the Hollywood Bowl and Lewisohn Stadium in New York.

By 1932 Levant was turning his attention to classical composing and limiting his concertizing. His "Sonatina for Piano" caught the ear of composer Aaron Copland, who persuaded him to premiere it in April 1932 at Copland's festival for contemporary American music. Gershwin asked him to play second piano in a duet version of the "Second Rhapsody" under conductor Arturo Toscanini. He also played - almost as his own - Gershwin's signature "Concerto in F" in 1932. Although Levant launched into a crowded schedule of radio performances of popular and easy listening classical music, he did no more public concerts for some five years. He did take Gershwin's advice and refreshed his theory skills with Joseph Schillinger, a Russian who was a resident Hollywood theorist/composer. Levant was not alone in using Schillinger's music school services; at that time some of the Big-Band era's most famous names appearing on the silver screen, including Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller, were also using the Russian. This was in 1934, the same year Levant's "Sinfonietta" (in three movements) premiered with Bernard Herrmann conducting in New York.

Levant was back in Hollywood in 1935 for more film composing, but part of the time was spent studying under one of the great musical minds to arrive in Southern California, Arnold Schönberg. Schoenberg's time was already crowded with local academia commitments and studying with some of Hollywood's brightest composers, including Alfred Newman and Franz Waxman. Levant's study ranged from 1935 to 1937. Part of the result was the inspiration for completing his "Piano Concerto", his first of several string quartets (among other pieces he composed, including a woodwind trio), and the "Nocturne for Orchestra" (premiered in L.A. in 1937). The latter was released by New Music Editions in 1936 - this was his only orchestral score to be published. In the meantime Levant was doing music for Hollywood. His "Crayon est sur la Table", ("The Pencil is on the Table") was a sort of parody of French opera in the style of Claude Debussy. It was a centerpiece (though transformed as "Carnaval" with an Italian libretto) for the 20th Century-Fox film Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936).

In July of 1937 Gershwin passed away. This opened a new period of recognition for Levant, for he was immediately crowned sole interpreter and virtuoso performer of Gershwin's music, the beginning of a quixotic 20-year reign. That same year Levant started his "Suite for Orchestra" and finished its orchestration by early 1938. In October of that year he returned to the east to debut as a Broadway conductor while replacing his brother Harry for 65 performances of George S. Kaufman and Lorenz Hart's "The Fabulous Invalid". He augmented that by seeing to the Broadway stage as composer and conductor a new Kaufman and Hart work, "The American Way" in January of 1939.

By the middle of that year Levant had returned to concertizing in all the big American cities, showcasing not only such Gershwin works as "Concerto in F" and the "Rhapsody in Blue", but also a whole repertoire including an occasional work of his own, including his two 1940 pieces "Caprice for Orchestra" and "A New Overture and Polka for 'Oscar Homolka'" (the actor). "Caprice" was particularly showcased by British conductor Thomas Beecham. But these were his last major concert works. Nevertheless, this marked a decade of concertizing, radio broadcasts and recording significantly with Columbia Records and great conductors such as Reiner, Eugene Ormandy, Andre Kostelanetz, Wallenstein, Efrem Kurtz and Morton Gould.

Occasionally Levant appeared on film in a showcase piano piece, but there are only a handful of film roles where he showed his substantial skill as an actor. He played himself in the highly fictionalized Gershwin bio Rhapsody in Blue (1945), highlighted by his playing of the piece. He was still himself but convincingly in character in one of his best dramatic roles as wisecracking (he often wrote his own lines for his film characters) concert pianist Sid Jeffers in Humoresque (1946) with John Garfield and Joan Crawford. He went into the studio to record a set of excerpts from Richard Wagner's "Tristan" arranged for piano, violin, and orchestra with violinist Isaac Stern, and conductor Franz Waxman as part of the sound track for the film. He was able to play two of his favorite pieces (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No. 1" and Aram Khachaturyan's "Sabre Dance") when he got around to doing the sophisticated comedy The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). A few years later he did his last two films. In An American in Paris (1951) the focus is on Gene Kelly, but a close second was Gershwin's music, the title of the movie taken from his extraordinary montage of movements visualizing Paris. Levant was his usual carefree pianist character, but during a fantasy concerto sequence, he is spotlighted as playing the piano soloist, the conductor, and representative musicians for each orchestra instrument, a great sight gag tour de force of his musical know-how. In his final film Levant is a caricature of himself mixed with the film's co-screenwriter, Adolph Green. This was the comedy musical The Band Wagon (1953) in which friend Fred Astaire was also a caricature of himself as a legendary but essentially washed-up song and dance man who has a stellar comeback.

Levant seemed to have fun with this film and its bright script that poked fun at entertainment in general, but his dialog, obviously more of his own input, included hints at his progressive decline, including his accumulative neuroses and accompanying hypochondria. His extraordinarily glib and incisive tongue had evolved from earlier life-of-the-party witty repartee to increasingly self-critical and acerbic patter which showed up sometimes most inappropriately in his recitals from the late 1930s. His spontaneous remarks bordered, and often flowed over into, downright rudeness and sometimes only slightly veiled invective. He seemed unable to resist putting down his own musical efforts, a compulsion to parody himself, revealing his insecurities and a rather knee-jerk need to be funny and play the clown at his own expense. He had renamed his "Poeme for Piano", "Insult for the Piano" or "The Lone Ranger in Vienna." In answer to friend/musical promoter Robert Russell Bennett's radio interview with Levant (1940) asking what he thought about the reception of his first string quarter, he replied: "Violently. It not only brought me obscurity but many enemies." Such was typical of his sometimes inextricably extreme one-liners. During the height of his concertizing, Levant was the highest paid concert performer, but after 1951 he canceled many commitments, which finally brought a temporary banning by the American Federation of Musicians. There were still occasional concerts in the 1950s, one of the most memorable being Royce Hall at UCLA (1958) when he launched into the first movement of the second piano concerto of Dmitri Shostakovich only to forget his place and stop, turning to the audience and quipping,"I don't even know where I am. I'm going to start all over again". He did, and with great triumph. His final public effort that same year was the "Concerto in F" in which it took all the urging of conductor Andre Kostelanetz to keep Levant from simply stopping mid-course and walking off stage. Levant prefaced his encores with the quip that he was "playing under the auspices of Mt. Sinai" (the high-profile Los Angeles hospital often patronized by the stars).

That statement was rather pathetically true. Along with real and imagined illnesses, Levant's mental state, always fragile at best, developed into classic stage fright. By this time he was long-addicted to prescription drugs and was in and out of the hospital on a regular basis. His faithful second wife of 33 years, actress/singer June Gale, had to commit him to mental institutions on several occasions. Yet Levant continued onward. There was a series of album recordings in the late 1950s. He made the rounds of a few prime-time game shows and late-night TV talk shows, particularly that of friend Jack Parr. Between 1958 and 1960 he had his own prime-time local Los Angeles TV show called "The Oscar Levant Show", which sometimes offered a rather subdued and intimate look at the restive mind of Levant. As a talk show with guests and Levant, usually ringed in a cloud from his chain smoking, playing impromptu pieces on the piano, it was inevitably canceled because of Levant's controversial monologues and off-color, inflammatory remarks about personalities. He wrote three memoirs: "A Smattering of Ignorance" (1940), "Memoirs of an Amnesiac" (1965) and "The Unimportance of Being Oscar" (1968), each incisive as well as outlandish in the context of Levant's lifelong self-analysis and skewed view of humanity. He increasingly retired from any sort of public exposure over the last decade of his life. A composer of vital and original music and an extraordinary individual in whatever interpretation one might use, Oscar Levant was one of the most intriguing entertainment enigmas of the 20th century.

When we hear songs like "Rambino" and " Ciao Ciao Bambino" the name of Georges Guétary cames to one's mind. But also as a producer of " Bless the bride", "Latin Quartier" in London and "Arms and the girl" on Broadway, he added light and charm to show business. The last show to celebrate 50 years of perfomances was staged at the Robino's in Paris. He returns to ashes in an orthodox church at Cannes where he was cremated.

Born in the Astoria section of Queens, New York City, Ethel Merman surely is the pre-eminent star of 'Broadway' musical comedy. Though untrained in singing, she could belt out a song like quite no one else, and was sought after by major songwriters such as Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Having debuted in 1930 in "Girl Crazy, " she is yet remembered for her marvelous starring appearances in so many great musicals that were later adapted to the silver screen. Among the film versions, Merman herself starred in Anything Goes (1936) and Call Me Madam (1953). That wonderfully boisterous blonde, Betty Hutton, had the Merman lead in both Red, Hot and Blue (1949) and Annie Get Your Gun (1950). Besides Betty Hutton, other Merman screen stand-in roles include Lucille Ball, (in Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)), Ann Sothern, (in Panama Hattie (1942)), Vivian Blaine (in Something for the Boys (1944)) and Rosalind Russell (in Gypsy (1962)). (Russell could never render Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne's "Everything's Coming Up Roses" the way the immortal Merman did, over and over again.) Ethel Merman's lifetime facts: her dare of birth, was on Thursday, January 16th, 1908 & her life expired on Wednesday, February 15th, 1984. Thursday, January 16th, 1908 & Wednesday, February 15th, 1984, differ 27,789 days, equaling 3,969 weeks & 6 days.

Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances but is best remembered as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show. Thirteen years after her death, she was portrayed on the Broadway stage by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl. The show was made into a musical film in 1968. Born Fania Borach, in New York City, she was the third child of Rose (Stern) and Charles Borach, relatively well-off saloon owners of Hungarian Jewish descent. In 1908, she dropped out of school to work in a burlesque revue, and two years later she began her association with Florenz Ziegfeld, headlining his Ziegfeld Follies from 1910 into the 1930s. In the 1921 Follies, she was featured singing "My Man" which became both a big hit and her signature song. She made a popular recording of it for Victor Records. The second song most associated with her is "Second Hand Rose". She recorded nearly two dozen record sides for Victor and also cut several for Columbia. She is a posthumous recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for her 1921 recording of "My Man". Her films include My Man (1928), Be Yourself! (1930) and Everybody Sing (1938) with Judy Garland. Brice, Ray Bolger and Harriet Hoctor were the only original Ziegfeld performers to portray themselves in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Ziegfeld Follies (1946). For her contribution to the motion picture industry, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at MP 6415 Hollywood Boulevard.

Anthony Newley was born in Hackney, London, England, to Frances Grace Newley and George Kirby, a shipping clerk. He was attracted to acting, after seeing an ad for a child actor in a Fleet Street window. He attended the Italia Conti Stage School from the age of 14 and, two years later, played the Artful Dodger in David Lean's film, Oliver Twist (1948). Newley was called up to the Army for his National Service and, by the late 1950s, had a hit song Idol on Parade (1959), while in the movie of the same name. He married his first wife, Tiller Girl Ann Lynn in 1956 but it was a rocky marriage and they divorced in 1963. He was in the pop charts seven times in 1960, twice at Number One with "Why?" and "Do You Mind?" written by Lionel Bart. In 1961, he collaborated with Leslie Bricusse on the hit stage show, Stop the World: I Want to Get Off (1966). After long runs in London and on Broadway, it was made into a film, starring Millicent Martin, with the hit song "What Kind of Fool Am I?". In 1963, he married Rank starlet Joan Collins. She described him at the time as "A half-Jewish Cockney git" and herself as a "half-Jewish princess from Bayswater via Sunset Boulevard". Newley's film career thrived, most notably with acting roles in Doctor Dolittle (1967) and The Cockleshell Heroes (1955), and as a writer and composer. His partnership with Bricusse continued with "The Roar of the Greasepaint: The Smell of the Crowd" and many other Oscar, Grammy and Ivor Novello award-winning collaborations. They had hit songs such as "The Candy Man" and "Goldfinger". His marriage to Joan Collins broke up in 1971. He had two of his four children with her. Tony was married a third time, to former air hostess Dareth Rich, only to divorce again. He once said "My only regret is that, in a show business career, you can have no private life". Alone and facing a battle against cancer, Newley moved in with his mother Gracie - now in her 90s - at her home in Esher, Surrey. The stage performances continued but were nothing to match his heyday. His last TV appearance was in "The Lakes" in February 1999. Anthony Newley died in April of that year.

One of the brightest, most tragic movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, Judy Garland was a much-loved character whose warmth and spirit, along with her rich and exuberant voice, kept theatre-goers entertained with an array of delightful musicals.

She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in Minnesota, the youngest daughter of vaudevillians Ethel Marian (Milne) and Francis Avent "Frank" Gumm. She was of English, along with some Scottish and Irish, descent. Her mother, an ambitious woman gifted in playing various musical instruments, saw the potential in her daughter at the tender age of just 2 years old when Baby Frances repeatedly sang "Jingle Bells" until she was dragged from the stage kicking and screaming during one of their Christmas shows and immediately drafted her into a dance act, entitled "The Gumm Sisters," along with her older sisters Mary Jane Gumm and Virginia Gumm. However, knowing that her youngest daughter would eventually become the biggest star, Ethel soon took Frances out of the act and together they traveled across America where she would perform in nightclubs, cabarets, hotels and theaters solo.

Her family life was not a happy one, largely because of her mother's drive for her to succeed as a performer and also her father's closeted homosexuality. The Gumm family would regularly be forced to leave town owing to her father's illicit affairs with other men, and from time to time they would be reduced to living out of their automobile. However, in September 1935 the Gumms', in particular Ethel's, prayers were answered when Frances was signed by Louis B. Mayer, mogul of leading film studio MGM, after hearing her sing. It was then that her name was changed from Frances Gumm to Judy Garland, after a popular '30s song "Judy" and film critic Robert Garland.

Tragedy soon followed, however, in the form of her father's death of meningitis in November 1935. Having been given no assignments with the exception of singing on radio, Judy faced the threat of losing her job following the arrival of Deanna Durbin. Knowing that they couldn't keep both of the teenage singers, MGM devised a short entitled Every Sunday (1936) which would be the girls' screen test. However, despite being the outright winner and being kept on by MGM, Judy's career did not officially kick off until she sang one of her most famous songs, "You Made Me Love You," at Clark Gable's birthday party in February 1937, during which Louis B. Mayer finally paid attention to the talented songstress.

Prior to this her film debut in Pigskin Parade (1936), in which she played a teenage hillbilly, had left her career hanging in the balance. However, following her rendition of "You Made Me Love You," MGM set to work preparing various musicals with which to keep Judy busy. All this had its toll on the young teenager, and she was given numerous pills by the studio doctors in order to combat her tiredness on set. Another problem was her weight fluctuation, but she was soon given amphetamines in order to give her the desired streamlined figure. This soon produced the downward spiral that resulted in her lifelong drug addiction.

In 1939, Judy shot immediately to stardom with The Wizard of Oz (1939), in which she portrayed Dorothy, an orphaned girl living on a farm in the dry plains of Kansas who gets whisked off into the magical world of Oz on the other end of the rainbow. Her poignant performance and sweet delivery of her signature song, 'Over The Rainbow,' earned Judy a special juvenile Oscar statuette on 29 February 1940 for Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor. Now growing up, Judy began to yearn for meatier adult roles instead of the virginal characters she had been playing since she was 14. She was now taking an interest in men, and after starring in her final juvenile performance in Ziegfeld Girl (1941) alongside glamorous beauties Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarr, Judy got engaged to bandleader David Rose in May 1941, just two months after his divorce from Martha Raye. Despite planning a big wedding, the couple eloped to Las Vegas and married during the early hours of the morning on July 28, 1941 with just her mother Ethel and her stepfather Will Gilmore present. However, their marriage went downhill as, after discovering that she was pregnant in November 1942, David and MGM persuaded her to abort the baby in order to keep her good-girl image up. She did so and, as a result, was haunted for the rest of her life by her 'inhumane actions.' The couple separated in January 1943.

By this time, Judy had starred in her first adult role as a vaudevillian during WWI in For Me and My Gal (1942). Within weeks of separation, Judy was soon having an affair with actor Tyrone Power, who was married to French actress Annabella. Their affair ended in May 1943, which was when her affair with producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz kicked off. He introduced her to psychoanalysis and she soon began to make decisions about her career on her own instead of being influenced by her domineering mother and MGM. Their affair ended in November 1943, and soon afterward Judy reluctantly began filming Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), which proved to be a big success. The director Vincente Minnelli highlighted Judy's beauty for the first time on screen, having made the period musical in color, her first color film since The Wizard of Oz (1939). He showed off her large brandy-brown eyes and her full, thick lips and after filming ended in April 1944, a love affair resulted between director and actress and they were soon living together.

Vincente began to mold Judy and her career, making her more beautiful and more popular with audiences worldwide. He directed her in The Clock (1945), and it was during the filming of this movie that the couple announced their engagement on set on January 9, 1945. Judy's divorce from David Rose had been finalized on June 8, 1944 after almost three years of marriage, and despite her brief fling with Orson Welles, who at the time was married to screen sex goddess Rita Hayworth, on June 15, 1945 Judy made Vincente her second husband, tying the knot with him that afternoon at her mother's home with her boss Louis B. Mayer giving her away and her best friend Betty Asher serving as bridesmaid. They spent three months on honeymoon in New York and afterwards Judy discovered that she was pregnant.

On March 12, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, Judy gave birth to their daughter, Liza Minnelli, via cesarean section. It was a joyous time for the couple, but Judy was out of commission for weeks due to the cesarean and her postnatal depression, so she spent much of her time recuperating in bed. She soon returned to work, but married life was never the same for Vincente and Judy after they filmed The Pirate (1948) together in 1947. Judy's mental health was fast deteriorating and she began hallucinating things and making false accusations toward people, especially her husband, making the filming a nightmare. She also began an affair with aspiring Russian actor Yul Brynner, but after the affair ended, Judy soon regained health and tried to salvage her failing marriage. She then teamed up with dancing legend Fred Astaire for the delightful musical Easter Parade (1948), which resulted in a successful comeback despite having Vincente fired from directing the musical. Afterwards, Judy's health deteriorated and she began the first of several suicide attempts. In May 1949, she was checked into a rehabilitation center, which caused her much distress.

She soon regained strength and was visited frequently by her lover Frank Sinatra, but never saw much of Vincente or Liza. On returning, Judy made In the Good Old Summertime (1949), which was also Liza's film debut, albeit via an uncredited cameo. She had already been suspended by MGM for her lack of cooperation on the set of The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), which also resulted in her getting replaced by Ginger Rogers. After being replaced by Betty Hutton on Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Judy was suspended yet again before making her final film for MGM, entitled Summer Stock (1950). At 28, Judy received her third suspension and was fired by MGM, and her second marriage was soon dissolved.

Having taken up with Sidney Luft, Judy traveled to London to star at the legendary Palladium. She was an instant success and after her divorce from Vincente Minnelli was finalized on March 29, 1951 after almost six years of marriage, Judy traveled with Sid to New York to make an appearance on Broadway. With her newfound fame on stage, Judy was stopped in her tracks in February 1952 when she became pregnant by her new lover, Sid. At the age of 30, she made him her third husband on June 8, 1952; the wedding was held at a friend's ranch in Pasadena. Her relationship with her mother had long since been dissolved by this point, and after the birth of her second daughter, Lorna Luft, on November 21, 1952, she refused to allow her mother to see her granddaughter. Ethel then died in January 1953 of a heart attack, leaving Judy devastated and feeling guilty about not reconciling with her mother before her untimely demise.

After the funeral, Judy signed a film contract with Warner Bros. to star in the musical remake of A Star Is Born (1937), which had starred Janet Gaynor, who had won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress in 1929. Filming soon began, resulting in an affair between Judy and her leading man, British star James Mason. She also picked up on her affair with Frank Sinatra, and after filming was complete Judy was yet again lauded as a great film star. She won a Golden Globe for her brilliant and truly outstanding performance as Esther Blodgett, nightclub singer turned movie star, but when it came to the Academy Awards, a distraught Judy lost out on the Best Actress Oscar to Grace Kelly for her portrayal of the wife of an alcoholic star in The Country Girl (1954). Many still argue that Judy should have won the Oscar over Grace Kelly. Continuing her work on stage, Judy gave birth to her beloved son, Joey Luft, on March 29, 1955. She soon began to lose her millions of dollars as a result of her husband's strong gambling addiction, and with hundreds of debts to pay, Judy and Sid began a volatile, on-off relationship resulting in numerous divorce filings.

In 1961, at the age of 39, Judy returned to her ailing film career, this time to star in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but this time she lost out to Rita Moreno for her performance in West Side Story (1961). Her battles with alcoholism and drugs led to Judy's making numerous headlines in newspapers, but she soldiered on, forming a close friendship with President John F. Kennedy. In 1963, Judy and Sid finally separated permanently, and on May 19, 1965 their divorce was finalized after almost 13 years of marriage. By this time, Judy, now 41, had made her final performance on film alongside Dirk Bogarde in I Could Go on Singing (1963). She married her fourth husband, Mark Herron, on November 14, 1965 in Las Vegas, but they separated in April 1966 after five months of marriage owing to his homosexuality. It was also that year that she began an affair with young journalist Tom Green. She then settled down in London after their affair ended, and she began dating disk jockey Mickey Deans in December 1968. They became engaged once her divorce from Mark Herron was finalized on January 9, 1969 after three years of marriage. She married Mickey, her fifth and final husband, in a register office in Chelsea, London, England on March 15, 1969.

She continued working on stage, appearing several times with her daughter Liza. It was during a concert in Chelsea, London, England that Judy stumbled into her bathroom late one night and died of an overdose of barbiturates, the drug that had dominated her much of her life, on June 22, 1969 at the age of 47. Her daughter Liza Minnelli paid for her funeral, and her former lover James Mason delivered her touching eulogy. She is still an icon to this day with her famous performances in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), and A Star Is Born (1954).

Meat Loaf was born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Texas, to Wilma Artie (Hukel), a teacher and gospel singer, and Orvis Wesley Aday, a police officer. He moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to play in local bands. In 1970, he moved to New York and appeared in the Broadway musicals "Hair", "Rockabye Hamlet" and "The Rocky Horror Show," and Off Broadway in "Rainbow", "More Than You Deserve", "National Lampoon Show" and the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of "As You Like it;" as well as other productions at the famed New York Public Theatre. He made his film debut with a memorable role in the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).

In 1977, he and lyricist Jim Steinman released an operatic rock album called "Bat Out Of Hell"; the record was huge and has sold 50,000,000 copies worldwide and is tied with AC/DC for the 2nd best selling record of all time. The tour and promoting the album took a toll on Meat Loaf's voice and left him unable to sing for 2 years, but with months of rehabilitation, he was able to get back in the studio and record the album "Dead Ringer". Meat Loaf stayed in the dark through the 1980s in the US, recording 4 records which got very little airplay or high chart positions in the US but continued to have major chart success in Europe and Australia. The 1981 Single "Dead Ringer for Love", a duet with Cher, was a top 10 single in many countries outside the US, but which American radio refused to play.

Meat Loaf had many film and TV roles, including the lead character Travis Redfish in Roadie (1980); a pilot in Out of Bounds (1986); in The Squeeze (1987) with Michael Keaton; and Fred in Focus (2001) (based on the Arthur Miller book by the same name), with Laura Dern and William H. Macy. When Meat Loaf and Steinman got back together in 1993, they delivered a powerful sequel, "Bat Out Of Hell II", which went to #1 in the US and UK and 26 other countries. Bat II sold over 22,000,000 copies.

He appeared in many films, including Crazy in Alabama (1999), Formula 51 (2001) (with Samuel L. Jackson), and Fight Club (1999) (with Brad Pitt). TV credits included guest starring roles as a soldier being held prisoner in Vietnam in Lightning Force (1991), a newspaper reporter in the hit series Glee (2009), a slick landlord of a restaurant who ends up on the menu in HBO series Tales from the Crypt (1989) a blacksmith on Showtime's Dead Man's Gun (1997), as fur trader Jake in Masters of Horror (2005) episode Pelts (2006), in House (2004) as caring husband Eddie, and, most recently, in the supporting role of Doug in the SYFY series Ghost Wars (2017). Hugh Laurie (star of "House") played piano on the song "If I Can't Have You" on Meat Loaf's album "Hang Cool Teddy Bear", which was produced by award-winning music producer Rob Cavallo. (Jack Black also sang on the album.)

Marvin Lee Aday died on January 20, 2022 in Austin, Texas from COVID-19 complications.