The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Bit Players

  • Carl Stockdale

    William Carlton Stockdale (1874-1953) accumulated over 300 screen appearances in a thirty-year career that began in 1913 with Broncho Billy’s Last Deed. The title was misleading, because Stockdale went on to appear in more than thirty of Broncho Billy Anderson’s popular shorts, always playing a different character.

    Prior to his film career, Stockdale was a stage actor and vaudeville performer. In pictures, he came to specialize in villains and heavies, though his first appearance in an MGM musical was on the right side of the law, playing the New York Chief of Police in A Lady’s Morals.

    Stockdale made four additional contributions, in Stage Mother, Student Tour, San Francisco and Babes in Arms (though it would appear his scenes were not used).

    Stockdale became a footnote in Hollywood history when he provided actor Charlotte Selby with an alibi when she was under suspicion for the 1922 murder of William Desmond Taylor. Persistant rumours maintain that the alibi was bought and paid for. 

  • Frank Reicher

    Franz Reichert (1875-1965) was a German actor and director who found his greatest success in the United States. 

    Reicher first appeared on Broadway in 1899, and made his screen debut in 1915, the same year in which he directed his first picture .He then concentrated on directing until 1921, after which he mostly acted in character parts. His most notable role was as Captain Englehorn in King Kong, a role he repeated in Son of Kong (both 1933).

    Reicher acted in three MGM musicals: A Lady’s Morals, I Married an Angel and Song of Love. He was also one of the directors of Wir schalten um auf Hollywood (1931), an alternative, German-language version of The Hollywood Revue of 1929.

  • Linda Parker

    Linda Parker (1915-69) was the younger sister of Cecilia Parker, the actor best-remembered for playing Marian Hardy in the Andy Hardy series.

    In 1930, Linda ‘joined’ her sister to play Siamese twins in Lon Chaney’s sound remake of The Unholy Three. They were immediately asked to repeat the trick in A Lady’s Morals. 

    Linda Parker had uncredited  parts in four other Metro musicals: Dancing Lady, Hollywood Party, Student Tour and Naughty Marietta (which also featured Cecilia).

  • Alphonse Martell

    French-born Alphonse Martell (1890-1976) had a forty-year career as a character actor in Hollywood, making over 250 films and many television appearances.

    In 1933, Martell became a Poverty Row auteur when he wrote and directed Tarnished Youth (also known as Gigolettes of Paris). 

    Martell played a variety of parts, but his speciality was waiters, in which role he made at least 80 appearances, as well as cropping up many times as a maitre d’. 

    Alphonse acted in twelve Metro musicals across three decades. A Lady’s Morals was followed by Student Tour, A Night at the Opera, Everybody Sing, Broadway Melody of 1940, I Married an Angel, Bathing Beauty, The Barkeleys of Broadway, Rich, Young and Pretty, Show Boat, Lovely To Look At and I’ll Cry Tomorrow.

  • Agostino Borgato

    Agostino Borgato (1871-1939) was a theatre actor in Italy and the UK prior to emigrating to America in 1925. He had also appeared in a number of Italian films from 1910 onwards, and directed five in the period 1918-21.

    Borgato made his American screen debut in 1925, eventually appearing in around sixty films. After the introduction of sound, he played a variety of foreigners, though obviously with an emphasis on Italians. He was also cast in foreign-language versions of Hollywood films.

    Borgato acted in seven MGM musicals: A Lady’s Morals, The Cuban Love Song, Broadway Melody of 1936, Rose-Marie, Maytime, The Firefly and Swiss Miss.

  • Nathalie Visart

    The film career of Natalie Visart (1910-86) is inextricably linked to Cecil B DeMille. She was a friend of his daughter Katharine, joining her in uncredited revelry in the zeppelin in Madam Satan.

    Visart later began a relationship with the future director Mitchell Leisen, who designed costumes for DeMille’s films, working with him on The Sign of the Cross (1932). He secured for her the role of costume designer on The Plainsman (1936), and she went on to carry out that function on five more of DeMille’s pictures. She also worked for Frank Capra, designing for Barbara Stanwyck’s character in Meet John Doe (1941).

    Visart’s work was highly-respected, but she gave up her career after marrying in 1946.

  • Kasha Haroldi

    Kasha Haroldi (1907-92) was an actor who arguably received the most publicity for being, for a few years, the sister-in-law of Joan Crawford.

    Haroldi made her first appearance on screen in 1923 and the last in 1938. With the possible exception of Wesley Ruggles’s version of The Age of Innocence (1924), the only film she was associated with to feature in the history books is Madam Satan, in which, like so many others, she played one of the wives of Henry VIII.

  • Elvira Lucianti

    Like Natalie Storm, Elvira Lucianti (dates unknown) is a mysterious figure who walked onto the zeppelin as one of Henry VIII’s wives in Madam Satan.

  • Mary McAllister

    Mary McAlister [sic] (1908-91) was ‘Little Mary McAlister’, one of America’s first child stars.

    She made her first appearance in 1915 for Essanay, and starred in Sadie Goes to Heaven (1917) two years later.

    McAllister worked regularly up until 1928, when talking pictures slowed down her adult career. She retired following an uncredited appearance in Madam Satan.

  • June Nash

    June Nash (1911-79) had a very brief film career, comprising nine appearances.

    The high point was playing the female lead in Strange Cargo (1929).

    The low point may have been an uncredited appearance in Madam Satan.

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