Julia Griffith (1880-1961) started out in the theatre, but became a perennial bit-part player in Hollywood, from her debut as ‘town gossip’ in 1923 to her last appearance as ‘committee woman’ twenty years later. She was usually uncredited.
Griffith can be spotted in four MGM musicals. She was an audience member at the opera in Call of the Flesh, and then a party guest in Hollywood Party. She was back in the audience for A Night at the Opera and later played a committee woman in Girl Crazy.
Sidney D’Albrook (1886-1948) notched up over 170 film appearances. He started making shorts in 1914, but his first feature was The Gilded Cage (1916). (I draw the last-named film to attention only because it features a character called Lesbia the Goose Girl.) He also appeared as Ambrose, the brother-in-law, in Hal Roach’s series of shorts about the Spat family.
When the silent period came to a close, most of D’Albrook’s appearances were uncredited. These included five Metro musicals: Call of the Flesh, A Night at the Opera, The Great Waltz, I Married an Angel and The Unfinished Dance.
Born in Germany, raised in the UK, Leo Weiss (1873-1948) made at least 500 screen appearances in a career lasting a little over thirty years.
After working in British music halls, White travelled to America and was working in films by 1911. He eventually settled at Essanay Studios, working regularly with Charles Chaplin. He also featured in Wallace Beery’s Sweedie shorts. By 1920, he had already made over 120 films.
Despite his background in comedy, White ventured into more serious fare during the 1920s, with appearances in Blood and Sand (1922), Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927).
White was in eight MGM musicals (all uncredited). He started out in The Florodora Girl, followed by Call of the Flesh, The Devil’s Brother, Broadway to Hollywood, Stage Mother and The Cat and the Fiddle. He was one of the hirsute Russian aviators in A Night at the Opera, and bowed out with Broadway Melody of 1938.
Later, White played the barber in Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) and Emile the waiter in Casablanca (1942).
Lyricist Howard Johnson (1887-1941) both served in the First World War and wrote popular songs about it, including the immortal ‘I’d Like to See the Kaiser with a Lily in his Hand’:
I’d like to see all mothers free from sorrow,
I’d like to see poor Belgium free from pain;
I’d like to see this cruel conflict ended,
I’d like to see my daddy once again.
I’d like to see the Yankees win this battle,
I’d like to see France get back her promised land;
I’d like to see this whole big world United,
And I’d like to see the Kaiser with a lily in his hand!
Johnson was capable of better than this, and his best-known song is probably ‘What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?,’ written in 1916 and made a UK chart hit by Shakin’ Stevens 70 years later.
Johnson co-wrote numbers for Children of Pleasure and the abandoned March of Time. His songs are also featured in Madam Satan, A Night at the Opera, For Me and My Gal and Hit the Deck.
Harry Franklin Price (1886-1964) was a stage actor who made uncredited appearances in around 300 pictures, including scores of low-budget westerns.
Price was in two MGM musicals: Children of Pleasure and A Night at the Opera.
William H O’Brien (1891-1981) made his first film in Australia in 1918, and in a Hollywood career lasting over fifty years he appeared in around 650 films, almost always without credit. These included Scarface (1931), The Thin Man (1934), Rebecca (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Ace in the Hole (1951), High Noon (1952), Some Like It Hot (1959) and, finally, Bedknobs and Brooksticks (1971).
With a filmography that long, it is little wonder O’Brien was in thirteen Metro musicals across a 36-year period, starting with Children of Pleasure in 1930 and ending with Made in Paris in 1966. In between came New Moon, A Night at the Opera, San Francisco, Nobody’s Baby, The Firefly, Two Girls on Broadway, Thousands Cheer, Two Sisters from Boston, The Glass Slipper, It’s Always Fair Weather and Merry Andrew.
Jay Eaton (1899-1970) had a featured role in his first picture, Her First Elopement (1920), directed by Sam Wood. He went on to act in upwards of 240 films, working for some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, but mostly making small, uncredited appearances.
Nine of these were in MGM musicals, starting with Children of Pleasure, followed by Stage Mother, Hollywood Party and A Night at the Opera (reunited him with Sam Wood). Eaton was in The Great Ziegfeld, Broadway Serenade, Ship Ahoy, Swing Fever and Easy to Wed.
William LeVanway (1896-1957) was an editor who spent his entire career at Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, latterly as head of the editing department. Unlike Douglas Shearer and Cedric Gibbons, he was not credited on every film.
While still undertaking editing assignments, LeVanway worked on the silent version of The Broadway Melody (1929), and was the cutter on Free and Easy, Good News and A Night at the Opera. He was the supervising editor for An American in Paris and Singin’ in the Rain.
Italian-born Gino Corrado Liserani (1893-1982) had the occasional featured role during the silent period, such as Aramis in Douglas Fairbanks’s The Iron Mask (1929). He also made appearances in Intolerance (1916) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). In talking pictures, however, Corrado rarely strayed beyond restaurants and cafés, playing uncredited diners, chefs and no fewer than 86 waiters. He even served at table in Rick’s Café Américain in Casablanca (1942).
Corrado appeared in fifteen Metro musicals, starting with a credited role in Lord Byron of Broadway. He was then uncredited as a waiter in The Merry Widow, followed by A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Broadway Melody of 1938, New Moon, Bitter Sweet (a waiter), I Married an Angel, I Dood It (another waiter), Yolanda and the Thief (yet another waiter), Two Sisters from Boston (credited as Ossifish), Holiday in Mexico, Fiesta, Words and Music (a final waiter) and An American in Paris.
After retiring from acting, Corrado opened a restaurant.
Napoleon Bonaparte Kubuck (1893-1953) notched up over 660 film and TV appearances, most of them uncredited.
Phelps was in twenty MGM musicals: They Learned About Women, The Florodora Girl, A Lady’s Morals, Flying High, Dancing Lady, Reckless, A Night at the Opera, Rose-Marie, The Bohemian Girl, The Great Ziegfeld, Sweethearts, Balalaika, Little Nellie Kelly, Born to Sing (a rare onscreen credit), Music for Millions, Anchors Aweigh, The Harvey Girls, Till the Clouds Roll By, Take Me Out to the Ball Game and That Midnight Kiss.
