Samuel S Zimbalist (1901-58) is the only producer to posthumously receive the Oscar for Best Picture, when it was awarded to Ben Hur (1959). This made him, at that time, the producer of the second and third highest-grossing pictures in history. The film placed third was Zimbalist’s Quo Vadis (1951), while first place was, of course, held by Gone With the Wind (1939).
This was a long way from Zimbalist’s beginnings in the industry, as an office boy at Metro Studios. He took up editing, becoming a full-fledged editor in 1925 with MGM’s first version of The Wizard of Oz.
In 1929, Zimbalist had his first brush with the Academy Awards when he edited The Broadway Melody.
Harry Rapf (1880-1949) joined MGM on its formation in 1924 and worked as one of the studio’s three production supervisors, under the direction of Irving Thalberg. His son Maurice claimed that Thalberg and his father disliked each other, but then Rapf seemed to struggle to be liked by anyone, especially writers. He is also credited with more Goldwynisms than Sam Goldwyn himself: “I woke up last night with a terrific idea for a movie–but I didn’t like it”. Nonetheless, he was one of the powerful inner circle at Metro.
Rapf did some uncredited work on The Broadway Melody and The Hollywood Revue of 1929, but his first credit on a feature musical was Broadway to Hollywood; it might have been The March of Time if it had not been abandoned. He was uncredited again on Hollywood Party and Student Tour, and next produced Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry and Everybody Sing.
Let Freedom Ring followed, and then Rapf inflicted The Ice Follies of 1939 on Joan Crawford, whom he had brought to Hollywood years earlier and had a relationship with.
Rapf’s final musical effort was on Swing Fever, uncredited.
Alice Weaver was a genuine New York show girl who had featured in the Ziegfeld Follies before making brief appearances as chorus girls in The Broadway Melody and Reckless.
Dorothea Christine Arens (1875-1970) was a hard-working small-part actor who made four Metro musical appearances: The Broadway Melody, Madam Satan, Bitter Sweet and Presenting Lily Mars.
Blanche Payson (1881-1964) was a bit-part player who started out in silence in 1916. Her two roles in Metro musicals were satisfyingly distinct: a wardrobe lady in The Broadway Melody and a jail matron in Dancing Lady.
Joyce Murray (1911?-68) was just 17 (possibly younger) when she filmed her speciality dance for The Broadway Melody. She provided the same service in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 . After a gap, she reappeared in Du Barry Was a Lady and, finally, Ziegfeld Follies.
The Mawby Triplets were famous triplets who were not really triplets. Claudette (1922-42) and Claudine (1922-2012) were twins, but their sister Angella (1921-2000) was born a year earlier. They were British child actors who were marketed as triplets by MGM and made brief appearances in The Broadway Melody and The Hollywood Revue of 1929.
Carleton Mortimer LeViness (1884-1964) first appeared as the Tragedian in a silent version of Nicholas Nickleby in 1912 and his last appearance was an uncredited bit as a man in the hallway of a newspaper office in The Great Race in 1963. He was in hundreds of films, mostly uncredited, and even spent the period 1914-16 as a director. It was an unobtrusively spectacular career.
Leviness’s MGM musical appearances were The Broadway Melody, Hollywood Party, Reckless (in all three he played a guest at a party), Nobody’s Baby (for a change of pace, he played an elevator passenger), A Day at the Races (another party guest), Ship Ahoy (as a passenger), Presenting Lily Mars (as a tired man–must have been all the partying), Two Girls and a Sailor (nightclub patron), Music for Millions (theatregoer), Thrill of a Romance (hotel guest), Yolanda and the Thief (as a man who says tally-ho), On an Island With You (desk clerk), The Barkeleys of Broadway (guest at a country house), In the Good Old Summertime (patronizing a supper club), The Toast of New Orleans (eating in a restaurant this time), The Great Caruso (opera-goer, naturally), Small Town Girl (back to being a party guest), The Band Wagon (an investor), Easy to Love (maiitre d’), The Student Prince (churchgoer), Athena (another party guest) and Ten Thousand Bedrooms (another nightclub patron).
Twenty-two films: Carl M Leviness definitely did his bit for the MGM musical.
Beatrice Hagen (1917-99) claimed a minor place in film history by providing the voice of Snow White in the French version of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). As well as being a Disney voice actor (she played Mickey’s nephews), she was a ubiquitous chorus girl in musicals from a number of studios.
For MGM, Hagen made uncredited appearances in The Broadway Melody, Hollywood Party, The Merry Widow, Naughty Marietta, Broadway Melody of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, Born to Dance, Maytime, Broadway Melody of 1938, Rosalie, Ziegfeld Girl, Babes on Broadway, Thousands Cheer, The Harvey Girls and Texas Carnival.
Florence Arnot (1910-95) had a strange career arc, which is epitomized by her roles in MGM musicals. She was uncredited as Flo in The Broadway Melody, then played the second female lead (below Bessie Love) in They Learned About Women. After that, there were just uncredited appearances as a jilted lover in Lord Byron of Broadway and as a Casquette girl in Naughty Marietta.
It is ironic that Doran’s career never really took off, given that she was married for a time to Joseph Sherman, a senior member of Metro’s publicity department.
