Drew Demorest (1893-1949) was a small-part player who on occasion wore costumes designed by his wife, Henrietta Frazer.
Demorest made appearances in The Broadway Melody (uncredited, but fittingly playing Turpe the costumer), Marianne (as a doughboy), They Learned About Women (with onsceen credit as Edwards), Free and Easy (as Robert Montgomery’s valet), Children of Pleasure (as a songwriter) and as a French officer in The Firefly. All of these were uncredited.
The Biltmore Trio actually began as a quartet in The Broadway Melody and comprised Eddie Bush (1911-69), Paul Gibbons (1904-87), Ches Kirkpatrick (19??-19??) and Bill Seckler (1905-83). They performed ‘Truthful Parson Brown,’ the only song not written by Freed-Brown.
They appeared again, as the Biltmore Quartet, in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and also in a musical by Fox, Words and Music (1929). After that, Kirkpatrick seems to have disappeared and they became the Biltmore Trio, featuring in Chasing Rainbows, Children of Pleasure and Love in the Rough. They were also the eponymous stars of a Metro musical short.
Ray Cooke (1905-63) was a go-to player in the 1930s if you needed a bellhop, or a messenger, or a cabbie. His career peaked when he starred in a series of comedy shorts from Poverty Row as a character named Torchy (not to be confused with the Glenda Farrell character of the same name).
Cooke was a bellhop in The Broadway Melody, a messenger in The Hollywood Revue of 1929,a student (like pretty much everyone else) in So This Is College, another bellhop in Love in the Rough and a cinema-goer in Hollywood Party.
James Burroughs (????-19??) had a brief career not appearing in MGM musicals.
In 1929 Burroughs sang ‘Wedding of the Painted Doll’ offscreen in The Broadway Melody and ‘Tableau of the Jewels’ in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. He followed these non-appearances the next year by singing ‘Blue Daughter of Heaven’ in Lord Byron of Broadway.
Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle (1909-2014) was minor Hollywood royalty, being the niece of Universal founder Carl Laemmle (one of the relatives who did not entirely rely on Uncle Carl for employment). In an extremely long life, she spent a few years as a dancer and actor. In this capacity she featured, uncredited, in The Broadway Melody, as a speciality dancer, and The Hollywood Revue of 1929, as the scantily-clad Pearl Dancer.
She was also, apparently, an uncredited swimmer in Bathing Beauty.
Charles Kenneth Thomson (1899-1967) was a featured player in silent and early sound films, notable for hosting the meetings that led to the formation of the Screen Actors Guild.
Thomson played the wolf Jacques Warriner in The Broadway Melody and Pat’s on-again-off-again fiancé in Children of Pleasure.
Eddie Kane (1899-1989) was a bit player with around 250 appearances who featured, albeit uncredited, as the loosely-disguised Ziegfeld character in The Broadway Melody. He later turned up uncredited in Ice Follies of 1939, Two Girls and a Sailor and Bathing Beauty.
Little seems to be known about David Cox (1906-19??), who designed costumes at MGM before moving to work with Dolly Tree at Fox in 1932. He is, nonetheless, a featured artist at the Victoria & Albert Museum, where a costume designed for Bessie Love to wear in The Broadway Melody is among the exhibits.
Cox also designed for The Hollywood Revue of 1929, It’s a Great Life, Chasing Rainbows, Call of the Flesh, Good News and Love in the Rough.
Sammy Lee (1890-1968), born Samuel Levy, was the first in a line of important choreographers at MGM, though he arguably achieved greater success on Broadway and at Twentieth Century-Fox.
Lee is uncredited on The Broadway Melody, which he might have been quite happy about, given the rudimentary nature of the dance numbers. He had worked on Ziegfeld’s Follies in 1927, but this is not reflected in the style of the fictional Zanfield’s show. Lee and director Harry Beaumont could not, in this first-ever film musical, determine how to make a stage performance cinematic. Nor were the chorines of the quality Lee would have been used to on Broadway.
Lee’s first onscreen credit was for ‘Dances and Ensemble’ in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, where he did his best with non-professional dancers Joan Crawford and Marion Davies. He also essayed a pre-Berkeley overhead shot of the chorus.
Lee went on to stage dances for It’s a Great Life, Chasing Rainbows, Lord Byron of Broadway, They Learned About Women, Free and Easy, Children of Pleasure, Good News, Love in the Rough (which includes an al fresco number performed at a real golf club), A Lady’s Morals, Broadway to Hollywood and Dancing Lady.
A move to Twentieth Century-Fox earned Lee Academy Award nominations for King of Burlesque (1936) and Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937). He was back at Metro for Honolulu, Hullabaloo, Cairo, Born to Sing, Meet the People and Two Girls and a Sailor.
Lee had a parallel career as the director of a series of undistinguished shorts.
Songs
| The Broadway Melody | Arthur Freed Nacio Herb Brown | Charles King |
| Harmony Babies | Arthur Freed Nacio Herb Brown | Bessie Love Anita Page |
| Love Boat | Arthur Freed Nacio Herb Brown | James Burroughs |
| You Were Meant for Me | Arthur Freed Nacio Herb Brown | Charles King |
| Truthful Parson Brown | Willard Robison | The Biltmore Trio |
| The Wedding of the Painted Doll | Arthur Freed Nacio Herb Brown | Chorus |
| The Boy Friend | Arthur Freed Nacio Herb Brown | Bessie Love Anita Page |
