Dancer Jessie K Bailey (1913-??) and her husband, Ernest Benjamin Harris Rubins (1905-84), were what Variety called a “class adagio routine” under the name Rita and Rubin.
They married in 1929, when Rita was sixteen, and appeared in a number of films during the 1930s and early 40s. Two of these were Madam Satan, in which they were part of the ‘Ballet Mécanique’, and A Night at the Opera.
Louis F Natho (1894-1942) frenchified his surname and started his film career in 1919. He went on to make over 150 appearances, including as one of the (many) reporters in Citizen Kane (1941). In the sound era, Natheaux was usually uncredited.
Louis Natheaux made three musicals at MGM: Madam Satan, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry and Bitter Sweet.
Lorimer Johnston (1858-1941) was an actor, writer and director from around 1913.
Johnston directed the last of around 70 films in 1923 (The Cricket on the Hearth, in which he also acted), and concentrated solely on performing, with and without credit. By 1930, when he played a butler in Madam Satan, it was mostly the latter. Johnston’s final appearance was in The Great McGinty (1940).
Elizabeth Barton (1900-50), despite her chosen stage name, was from Little Rock, Arkansas. Her actor sisters, Margaret and Evelyn, also went by Francisco professionally.
She started out as a child actor on the stage, and was a busy screen performer throughout the 1920s, almost always in credited supporting roles.
In 1930, Francisco was one of the costumed party-goers in Madam Satan.
Maria Romano (1907-97) was an actor who appears to have made three screen appearances in the early 1930s. The first of these was at the zeppelin ball in Madam Satan.
George Frederick Benge (1875-1955) was an English actor who made a living in Hollywood mostly playing butlers, valets, footmen and assorted dogsbodies and lackies. Perhaps his finest hour was as Ronald Colman’s slightly-intrepid valet Danny in Bulldog Drummond (1929).
It’s not clear when Benge relocated to America, but he made the first of his over-200 screen appearances in 1922, as one of Prince John’s henchmen in Robin Hood. He then played his first butler in The Ten Commandments (1923) (in the modern section, not running the Pharaoh’s household).
Benge was in six Metro musicals: Madam Satan, (as the butler on a zeppelin) Rosalie, Sweethearts, Living in a Big Way, Royal Wedding and Million Dollar Mermaid.
Julanne Johnston (1900-88) was a dancer who appeared in her first film in 1917. Her big chance came when Douglas Fairbanks cast her as the Princess in The Thief of Bagdad (1924).
Unfortunately, after a few years, including one film in Germany, her career fizzled out and by 1929 she was doing small supporting roles, one of which was as Miss Conning Tower in Madam Satan.
Johnston retired in 1934.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Kozlov ((1882-1956) was a Russian ballet dancer who, from 1901, toured with the Diaghilev company.
After touring internationally for some years, Kosloff settled in the United States in 1912, staging ballets in New York and providing choreography for Broadway musicals.
In 1917, Agnes DeMille encouraged her uncle Cecil to use Kosloff’s talents in one of his films. He made his acting debut in The Woman God Forgot (1917), and combined a film career with stage acting and ballet. He also opened a school of dance.Meanwhile, his private life became increasingly chaotic and, at times violent, as he maintained relationships with multiple women, some of them underage.
Kosloff acted in films throughout the 1920s, usually in ‘Latin lover’ roles, and mostly for DeMille. He more or less stopped acting after the introduction of sound, his last significant appearance being as Electricity in the ‘Ballet Mécanique’ in Madam Satan, to which it is also believe he contributed choreography (LeRoy Prinz being the credited dance director). His final screen appearance was as a dance instructor in Stage Door (1937).
Kosloff continued to work as a dance director, and his final contribution to cinema was work on DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956).
Early in his career, George Feder (1901-51) had some good supporting roles in silent pictures, most notably Josef Von Sternberg’s The Last Command (1928).
From 1930 onwards, however, virtually all of Raymond’s 130+ appearances were without credit.
Four of these were in MGM musicals. He started in Love in the Rough, as Benny Rubin’s friend from the old country. Following that, he was in Babes in Toyland (as a bogeyman), Here Comes the Band and Broadway Serenade.
Jack Raymond should not be confused with the British actor and director of the same name, who was his contemporary.
George William Broderick O’Farrell (1882-1955) had the rare privilege of making his first film in his hometown (Angelenos excluded, of course). Portland in Oregon was home to the American Lifeograph Company, the brainchild of some local filmmakers. It only produced about five pictures in as many years (1915-20), but still gave O’Farrell his break in The Golden Trail (1920), which was co-directed by Jean Hersholt. The company’s facilities were also used by other filmmakers.
O’Farrell eventually relocated to Los Angeles, and by 1949 had appeared in more than 200 films. He was in some very good features, but always uncredited.
He turned up in seven MGM musicals. Love in the Rough was followed by Flying High, Nobody’s Baby, Born to Sing, Ship Ahoy, Music for Millions and Two Sisters from Boston.
