George ‘Honey Boy’ Evans (1870-1915) was a Welsh music hall performer, songwriter and producer who toured the United States with a minstrel show he bought called the Honey Boy Minstrels.
Evans’s best-known contribution to the Great American Songbook was ‘In the Good Old Summer Time,’ written with lyricist Ren Shields in 1902. The number was featured in the Edwardian-set musical The Florodora Girl, and was later the title song of In the Good Old Summertime.
Joseph W Stern (1870-1934) was a tie salesman and amateur musician who became a composer of popular songs and, finally, a music publisher.
One of the numbers written by Stern and his partner, Edward B Marks, was ‘My Mother Was a Lady,’ which featured in The Florodora Girl.
Edward Bennett Marks (1865-1945) was a minor Victorian songwriter who became a prestigious music publisher.
One of the more popular songs written by Marks and his partner Joseph Stern was ‘My Mother Was a Lady,’ which featured in The Florodora Girl.
Ralph Spence (1890-1949) became a scenarist in 1912, working for the Selig Company, and went on to contribute to over 130 films. His 1925 Broadway play The Gorilla was filmed several times.
Spence worked on three of Metro’s musicals. He provided additional dialogue for The Florodora Girl, and co-wrote the screenplays for Student Tour and Here Comes the Band.
Eugene Willford Markey (1895-1980) was a journalist and novelist who turned screenwriter with the coming of sound, and was occasionally credited as a producer. He also found time to marry not one, not two, but three top Hollywood actors: Joan Bennett, Hedy Lamarr and Myrna Loy. And he had the honour of being described as “a skunk” by actor Louise Beavers.
Markey served with distinction in the Second World War, unlike his close friends John Wayne and Ward Bond, and despite being older than both of them. He rose to the level of admiral, and reputedly demanded to be addressed as such for the remainder of his long life.
Markey’s most enduring screen credit is as co-writer of the infamous Barbara Stanwyck vehicle Baby Face (1933), probably contributing the references Nietzsche. He also contributed, less memorably, to The Florodora Girl, devising the story and writing dialogue.
In later life, Markey settled down as a horse breeder and Southern gentleman.
The Crew
| Harry Beaumont | Director |
| Gene Markey | Story and Dialogue |
| Ralph Spence | Additional Dialogue |
| Al Boasberg | Additional Dialogue |
| Robert E Hopkins | Additional Dialogue |
| Herbert Stothart | Composer |
| Clifford Grey | Lyricist |
| Andy Rice | Lyricist |
| Edward B Marks | Lyricist (uncredited) |
| Joseph W Stern | Composer (uncredited) |
| George Evans | Composer (uncredited) |
| Ren Shields | Lyricist (uncredited) |
| Theodore A Metz | Composer (uncredited) |
| Joe Hayden | Lyricist (uncredited) |
| Michael Nolan | Songwriter (uncredited) |
| Maurice Scott | Songwriter (uncredited) |
| Alfred E Rick | Songwriter (uncredited) |
| Paul Dresser | Songwriter (uncredited) |
| Leslie Stuart | Composer (uncredited) |
| Owen Hall | Lyricist (uncredited) |
| Marion Davies | Producer |
| Oliver T Marsh | Cinematographer |
| Carl Pierson | Editor |
| Cedric Gibbons | Art Director |
| Douglas Shearer | Sound Recording Director |
| Paul Neal | Sound Recording Engineer |
| Adrian | Costume Designer |
Leo Herbert White (1873-1948) was born in Germany, raised in England and emigrated to America. His stage career had begun in the UK, but he made his first screen appearance in 1911.
White worked as an actor and occasional director in silent comedy, including many collaborations with Charles Chaplin, with whom he worked for the last time on The Great Dictator (1940).
By the end of his career White had contributed to almost 500 films, eight of which were 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.
Mary Jane Irving (1913-83) made over sixty screen appearances, despite retiring when she was 25. This was owing to the fact that she made her debut at the age of 3 and had a busy career as a child actor. In her twenties, she also worked as Janet Gaynor’s stand-in.
Irving was 16 when she played Lawrence Gray’s sister in The Florodora Girl. A year or so later, she was one of the students in Student Tour.
British actor William Claud Michael Palmer (1888-1970) made a career largely out of playing what Bertie Wooster would have called a silly ass. He was the quintessential Algy in a number of Bulldog Drummond films, having first played the character in the West End. He also appeared as the surprisingly English Duke Otto von Liebenheim in Lubitsch’s Monte Carlo(193
Immediately before working with Lubitsch, Allister was Lord Rumblesham, the unlikely friend of Lawrence Gray in The Florodora. He then waited twenty-three years for his second appearance in an MGM musical, as Paul in Kiss Me Kate.
In a varied career, Ilka Chase (1905-72) acted on stage and screen, presented radio and television shows, and found time to write a novel, two volumes of autobiography and several travel books.
Chase’s film career was not prestigious in itself, but involved some high-quality films. For example, she played Bette Davis’s sister-in-law in Now Voyager (1942), the catalyst for the Davis character’s transformation.
Ilka Chase’s only Metro musical was The Florodora Girl, playing Fanny, one of the central character’s cynical but loyal friends.
