Virginia Sale (1899-1992) was a trained character who maintained a career on stage and screen for almost fifty years. Her first film role was as Fifi in French Leave (1927), but she soon began to specialize in playing older women, though still in her twenties. She played many mothers, aunts and spinsters.
Sale cropped up in three MGM musicals: Lord Byron of Broadway, the 1930 New Moon and Strike Up the Band.
At the height of his career, Gordon Nance (1904-65) was generally billed as Wild Bill Elliott. So named, he featured in dozens of B westerns, mostly produced at Republic and Monogram, the upper end of Poverty Row. Elliott concluded his career playing Lieutenant Andy Doyle in a series of crime pictures for Allied Artists.
In the thirties, Elliott made uncredited appearances in five MGM musicals: Lord Byron of Broadway, Stage Mother, Dancing Lady, Hollywood Party and Reckless.
Iris Adrian Hostetter (1912-84) was at the very beginning of her career when she played an uncredited audience member in Lord Byron of Broadway. She did not go on to stardom of any kind, but maintained a steady career as a reliable and recognizable supporting player, usually as down-to-earth broads. Fourth-billed in Bob Hope’s The Paleface indicates the best amongst her credits. In the 1960s and 70s Adrian became a regular part of the Disney Studio’s live-action stock company.
Iris Adrian only featured in one other metro musical, uncredited as Mary Lou in Go West.
Italian-born Gino Corrado Liserani (1893-1982) had the occasional featured role during the silent period, such as Aramis in Douglas Fairbanks’s The Iron Mask (1929). He also made appearances in Intolerance (1916) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). In talking pictures, however, Corrado rarely strayed beyond restaurants and cafés, playing uncredited diners, chefs and no fewer than 86 waiters. He even served at table in Rick’s Café Américain in Casablanca (1942).
Corrado appeared in fifteen Metro musicals, starting with a credited role in Lord Byron of Broadway. He was then uncredited as a waiter in The Merry Widow, followed by A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Broadway Melody of 1938, New Moon, Bitter Sweet (a waiter), I Married an Angel, I Dood It (another waiter), Yolanda and the Thief (yet another waiter), Two Sisters from Boston (credited as Ossifish), Holiday in Mexico, Fiesta, Words and Music (a final waiter) and An American in Paris.
After retiring from acting, Corrado opened a restaurant.
Like Sally Blane, Polly Ann Young (1908-97) was the less-successful sister of Loretta Young. She acted in around 40 films, mostly in uncredited parts.
Young’s three Metro musicals were made in a cluster in 1930: They Learned About Women, Children of Pleasure and Love in the Rough.
George Henry Reed (1866-1952) got a strong start in films when he played Jim in the 1920 version of Huckleberry Finn. But the opportunities for Black actors were few at that time and, apart from his appearance as Aaron in the all-Black Green Pastures (1936), Reed was thereafter restricted to a very narrow range of small parts.
The restrictions and stereotyping faced by Black performers are demonstrated in Reed’s three 1930 Metro musicals, They Learned About Women, Montana Moon and Love in the Rough. He played a train porter in all three of them.
John F Kelly (1901-47) was an actor whose film appearances fluctuated between small featured roles and walk ons. For instance, he went from playing an uncredited henchman in Everybody’s Doing It to being the not-so-bright Elmer in Bringing Up Baby (both 1938).
Kelly’s MGM musical appearances were all uncredited: They Learned About Women, San Francisco and Born to Dance.
Louise Brooks lookalike Rosalind Loretta Mooney (1904-1989) had worked as an extra on hundreds of silent films, when she was given her first small role in Flaming Youth (1923). Unfortunately, her career did not flourish and she never progressed beyond bit parts.
Byrne’s final two appearances before retiring in 1930 were in They Learned About Women and Children of Pleasure.
Harry Bernard (1878-1940) was a member of the Mack Sennett comedy stable and a regular collaborator with Laurel and Hardy for Hal Roach. It was in this capacity that he made appearances in The Rogue Song, The Devil’s Brother and The Bohemian Girl. Bernard can also be spotted as a baseball spectator in They Learned About Women.
