Percy Wenrich (1880-1952) began writing melodies for fun as a teenager and had his first work self-published at the age of 17. Later on, others were moved to publish his compositions, which supplemented his income as a for-hire pianist. His first really successful song came in 1908/9, and within a few years had written the male quartet standard ‘Moonlight Bay’.
Wenrich did not write much directly for films, though ‘Moonlight Bay’ is frequently used as incidental music. Abe Lyman and his Orchestra perform ‘Where Do We Go from Here?’ in Madam Satan (marching doughboys had sung it briefly in Marianne) and Mickey Rooney dances to ‘Moonlight Bay’ in Babes in Arms.
John Howard Lawson (1894-1977) is usually discussed today as one of the Hollywood Ten, the group of Hollywood professionals, mostly writers, who were imprisoned for contempt of congress. Newsreel footage of Lawson’s appearance before HUAC, with J Parnell Thomas pounding the gavel and shouting “That is not the question, that is not the question” is the one most frequently played when the McCarthy Era is under discussion. And, unlike his nine colleagues, Lawson’s career never recovered from the blacklist; as he said, “I’m much more notorious, and extremely proud of that”.
Before HUAC, however, Lawson was a celebrated playwright and screenwriter, and one of the original organizers of the Screen Writers Guild. It was shortly after signing a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that Lawson worked, without credit, on the screenplay for Madam Satan.
It is difficult to attach a label to Elsie Jane Bierbower (1889-1956). She was, amongst other things, a stage and screen actor, a singer, a screenwriter, a lyricist, NBC’s first female announcer, an author, and one of the first people to entertain troops on the frontline, when she became known as ‘the sweetheart of the American Expeditionary Force’.
As ‘Baby Elsie’, Janis started singing at church aged two and a half. She made her stage debut aged six, in a professional production of East Lynne. Next came vaudeville, where she demonstrated her skill at impersonating celebrities. In 1906, she appeared on Broadway for the first time. By 1914, Janis was writing songs for herself and for other performers, including Vernon and Irene Castle.
After the United States joined in the First World War, Janis and a small troupe toured the battle zones; she even learned some French so she could entertain French troops.
She wrote a memoir in 1925, and by 1930 was writing for the cinema. She worked on the screenplay for Madam Satan, as well as contributing songs written in collaboration with Jack King.
During the Second World War, Janis toured for the troops again, even performing with Bob Hope, who was following where she had led.
Show business glamour was maintained to the very end. When Janis died in 1956, her friend Mary Pickford was at her bedside.
Abbie Jean MacPherson (1886-1946) acted in over 140 silent films and directed a couple, but is remembered for her work as a screenwriter, and in particular for writing 30 of Cecil B DeMille’s pictures.
MacPherson made her debut in 1908 in D W Griffith’s The Fatal Hour, and amassed all-but-one of her acting credits between then and 1917. In 1913, at the age of only 27, she wrote, directed and starred in The Tarantula, playing a Mexican young woman with a psychopathic bent.
After joining the Lasky Studio and acting in a couple of films for DeMille, he persuaded her to concentrate on writing. This led to, amongst other titles, Old Wives for New (1918), Male and Female (1919), The Ten Commandments (1923), The Plainsman (1936) and Union Pacific (1939).
One of the DeMille pictures worked on by MacPherson was Madam Satan. Not her finest hour, but possibly her craziest.
Albert King (1903-43) was a child prodigy, giving concert performances on the piano at a very young age. He later became a singing instructor and performed in vaudeville.
As a songwriter, normally in partnership with Elsie Janis, King produced songs for a number of early sound musicals, including MGM’s Madam Satan and Reckless.
King also made an appearance in Madam Satan as Herman, Lillian Roth’s pianist.
James Francis McHugh (1894-1969), like many other contributors to the Great American Songbook, had worked as a song plugger before producing his own hits.
He worked in partnership with many lyricists, but perhaps most fruitfully with Dorothy Fields. Amongst the many standards they produced were ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’ and ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’.
Fields and McHugh numbers were used by MGM in Love in the Rough, and later contributed to Flying High, The Cuban Love Song, Dancing Lady, Till the Clouds Roll By, Big City, The Strip and Lovely to Look At. Songs written with other lyricists are featured in Two Girls and a Sailor, A Date With Judy (notably ‘It’s a Most Unusual Day’) and Looking for Love.
Born into a showbiz family, Dorothy Fields (1904-74) worked on the stage for a few years before finding her true vocation as a songwriter. She was one of the few women to find success on Tin Pan Alley, and undoubtedly the greatest of them. She wrote the songs for Roberta in 1933 and for Sweet Charity in 1966, and it is astonishing to consider that ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ and ‘The Rhythm of Life’ came from the pen of the same writer. Few songwriters had the same ability to adapt to changing musical styles.
Fields’s early work found little success, but she came into her own after partnering with composer Jimmy McHugh. Together, they wrote a string of popular hits, including ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’ and ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’.
Fields and McHugh wrote the songs used by MGM in Love in the Rough, and later contributed to Flying High, The Cuban Love Song, Dancing Lady, Till the Clouds Roll By, Big City, The Strip and Lovely to Look At, the studio’s updated version of Roberta, on which she worked with Jerome Kern.
Numbers by Fields working in collaboration with other composers also featured in Mr Imperium, Excuse My Dust and Texas Carnival.
Fields co-wrote the book for the stage show adapted into Annie Get Your Gun.
Carl Roup (1915-2002) had a long career with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, briefly as a child actor, and then in various production capacities.
Roup was discovered and cast in his first film, The Red Mill (1925), by Marion Davies, who saw him selling newspapers on the studio lot. She paid for his education at a military school, leading Lon Chaney to nickname him ‘Major’.
Roup made a number of other appearances in silent pictures, and played a young baseball fan in They Learned About Women.
Roupe later became a script clerk, including on A Day at the Races and At the Circus. In 1946, he started working as a second assistant director on Till the Clouds Roll By, and also carried out that role on On an Island With You, Easter Parade, The Kissing Bandit, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Pagan Love Song, Show Boat, Lili, Dangerous When Wet, Rose Marie, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Jupiter’s Darling, Silk Stockings and Billy Rose’s Jumbo.
The Los Angeles Times obituary described Roup as “as much a part of MGM as Leo the Lion”.
Ernest Belcher (1882-1973) is almost totally forgotten, but was a very significant figure in the presentation of dance in early Hollywood. One of the few writers on his work described him as “a figure of national importance”.
Belcher studied ballet in the UK and worked in the music halls and as a principal danseur before travelling to the United States with a dance troupe in 1914. After various dancing jobs, he established himself as a teacher in Los Angeles.
His career in film choreography began in 1918 he was hired by D W Griffith to stage dances for Broken Blossoms (1918). Working as a dance director, he taught, amongst others, Pola Negri, Betty Grable, Cyd Charisse, Rita Hayworth, Gwen Verdon and Gower Champion, as well as his own daughter, Marge Champion.
Belcher provided dance direction in many silent films, including The Phantom of the Opera (1925), almost always without onscreen credit. But in 1928 the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers dubbed him ‘Dance Director of Movieland’.
He was there at the beginning of the sound era, arranging dance in The Jazz Singer (1927), and he trained Shirley Temple, staging the ballet in The Little Princess (1939).
It is ironic, given the size of Belcher’s contribution to dance on film, that his only known involvement in MGM musicals was the appearance of Ernest Belcher’s Dancing Tots in The Hollywood Revue of 1929.
