The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Performers

  • Earl ‘Snakehips’ Tucker

    Earl Tucker (1906-37) was a popular dancer who took his name from the eccentric style of dancing he performed at, among other top venues, the Cotton Club.

    Tucker did not invent the dance style, as is often claimed, but he was certainly its leading practitioner in the early 20th century. It involved the ability to sway from the hips rhythmically, creating the impression of a snake’s movements. A Black folk dance style, it was one of many aspects of Black culture purloined by Elvis Presley.

    Tucker died very young and only appeared in a couple of musical shorts and, most significantly, performing the first solo dance in an MGM musical, uncredited as a bellboy in Love in the Rough. He is also believed to have filmed a routine for the uncompleted The March of Time.

  • Jack Raymond

    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.

  • Broderick O’Farrell

    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.

  • Donald Novis

    The family of Donald George Novis (1906-66) emigrated from the UK to the USA when he was a very small child. Aged 22, Novis won a national singing competition, after which he pursued a career in singing and acting.

    After securing a small role in Bulldog Drummond (1929), Novis appeared in around 30 pictures, frequently as a singer. One such appearance was in Love in the Rough. He later sang ‘Love is a Song’ in Bambi. (1941).

    Novis also worked on Broadway, but was probably most active as a singer with big bands, both in live performances and on radio. From 1932-34 he led his own orchestra.

  • Wilbur Mack

    George Frear Runyon (1873-1964) made his stage debut aged 16 and achieved success in vaudeville doing comedy double acts with both his first and second wives. The act can be seen in a Vitaphone short called An Everyday Occurrence (1929).

    Mack made his first film in 1925 and racked up well over 400 appearances. He started out in featured supporting roles, but the quality of his parts declined in the talking era. 

    Nonetheless, Mack made uncredited appearances in no fewer than twenty-two MGM musicals between 1930 and 1956: Love in the Rough, Going Hollywood, A Night at the Opera, San Francisco, A Day at the Races, Broadway Melody of 1938, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Rio Rita, Thousands Cheer, Broadway Rhythm, Two Girls and a Sailor, Thrill of a Romance, Ziegfeld Follies, The Barkeleys of Broadway, Nancy Goes to Rio, The Great Caruso, The Band Wagon, Kiss Me Kate, Easy to Love, Athena, The Glass Slipper and The Opposite Sex. 

  • Clarence Wilson

    Clarence Hummel Wilson (1876-1941) had been acting on the stage for a quarter of a century when he made his film debut in 1920. He spent the next twenty years playing a variety of bailiffs, landlords and old grumps, often in featured roles, at other times without credit, totalling around 200 appearances.

    Notable films featuring Wilson include: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), as the money lender; The Front Page (1931), as the sheriff; and You Can’t Take It with You (1938), as the property developer.

    Wilson appeared in four MGM musicals: Love in the Rough and, uncredited, Flying High, Hollywood Party and Maytime.

  • Roscoe Ates

    Roscoe Blevel Ates (1895-1962) was working in vaudeville as a comedian when he made his screen debut in 1929’s South Sea Rose.

    The following year, after an uncredited appearance in Marianne and a small part in Love in the Rough, Ates had a strong supporting role in King Vidor’s Billy the Kid (1930). He appeared in many further westerns, including a run as a character named Soapy Jones for PRC.

    Ates had a speech impediment as a child, which he revived to good effect in a number of pictures playing stuttering characters.

    Roscoe Ates’s other Metro musicals were Ziegfeld Girl and Meet Me in Las Vegas.

  • Edwards Davis

    Cader Edwards Davis (1867?-1936) was an ordained minister who enjoyed the showmanship of pulpit oratory so much that he gave up the church and became an actor. (Although arrests for drunkenness and associating with loose characters may have been contributing factors.)

    Davis wrote and performed in both vaudeville sketches and full-length plays. He wrote a tragedy which one newspaper described as “simply gross”, but which he performed around one thousand times.

    Davis worked on Broadway and was respected enough by his colleagues to be elected president of the National Vaudeville Artists Association in 1919.

    Edwards Davis made about 70 film appearances from 1915 to 1936, always in character parts. In 1926, he was third-billed to Harry Langdon and Joan Crawford in Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.

    Davis’s parts in the 1930s were mostly uncredited, including in Love in the Rough and as Henry VIII in Madam Satan.

  • Catherine Moylan

    The International Pageant of Pulchritude was held annually in Galveston, Texas from 1920 to 1931, and took upon itself the responsibility for choosing ‘the Beauty Queen of the Universe’. Or Miss Universe, for short.

    The winner in 1926 was Catherine May Moylan (1904-69), and this led to her being invited to be part of the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927, and then to a role in the original stage production of Whoopee! in 1928.

    Moylan made half a dozen brief film appearances before returning to obscurity. One of these was a credited role in Love in the Rough.

  • Allan Lane

    Readers of a certain (advanced) age will recall the voice, though not the stage name, of Harry Leonard Albershardt (1909-73) as that of the talking horse in Mr Ed (1961-66).

    Before that, he had spent many years on top of horse in dozens of ‘B’ westerns, including 39 pictures in which he played Sheriff (or Marshal, or Lieutenant) Rocky Lane. He also gave flesh to the comic strip character Red Ryder in seven films.

    Lane had made his debut in a leading man role for Fox in 1929, but his career quickly foundered, which led to him doing small parts in Love in the Rough and Madam Satan. Fortunately, a career in oaters lay ahead.

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