The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Performers

  • Jed Prouty

    Jed Prouty (1879-1956) began his film career in the silent period, but established himself as a comic supporting player with the coming of sound. In The Broadway Melody he plays Uncle Jed, Hank and Queenie’s vaudeville booker. 

    Hank and Queenie are a fictionalized version of The Duncan Sisters, and a few months later Prouty supported the Duncans themselves in It’s a Great Life. 

    He played Marion Davies’s father in The Florodora Girl and rounded off his Metro musical career as the theatre owner who critiques the Schnarzan pictures in Hollywood Party. 

  • James Gleason

    James Gleason (1882-1959) became an easily-recognized supporting player specializing in hard-nosed, fast-talking types. But early in his career Gleason was a moderately-successful playwright, which explains his dual contribution to The Broadway Melody as both co-scenarist (dialogue) and bit player. (In what has been called a meta-touch, he plays a music publisher named James Gleason.)

    Gleason’s only other Metro musical was Babes on Broadway, as the actor-hating producer whose bacon is saved by Mickey Rooney and his troupe.

  • Anita Page

    Anita Page (1910-2008) was only 18 when she was cast in The Broadway Melody, having come to notice alongside Joan Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928). She announced her retirement in 1934, having apparently secured Mussolini as her number one fan, and only returned to film-making occasionally during a very long life. When she died, Page was discussed as the last of the silent Hollywood stars.

    Page made only one further musical for Metro, playing Buster Keaton’s love interest in Free and Easy. 

  • The Broadway Melody

    Actors

    Charles KingEddie Kearns
    Anita PageQueenie Mahoney
    Bessie LoveHarriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney
    The Angeles TwinsChorus Girls (uncredited)
    Betty ArthurChorus Dancer (uncredited)
    J. Emmett BeckBabe Hatrick (uncredited)
    Nacio Herb BrownPianist (uncredited)
    James BurroughsSinger (uncredited)
    Eddie BushQuartet Guitarist and Singer (uncredited)
    Ray CookeBellhop (uncredited)
    Drew DemorestTurpe – Costumer (uncredited)
    Edward DillonDillon – Stage Manager (uncredited)
    Mary DoranFlo (uncredited)
    Arthur FreedBystander in Rehearsal Room (uncredited)
    Paul GibbonsQuartet Guitarist and Singer (uncredited)
    James GleasonMusic Publisher (uncredited)
    Eddie KaneFrancis Zanfield (uncredited)
    Ches KirkpatrickQuartet Guitarist and Singer (uncredited)
    Carla LaemmleSpecialty Dancer (uncredited)
    Eddie LangGuitar Player in Band (uncredited)
    Carl M LevinessParty Guest (uncredited)
    Angella MawbyOne of the Mawby Triplets (uncredited)
    Claudette MawbyOne of the Mawby Triplets (uncredited)
    Claudine MawbyOne of the Mawby Triplets (uncredited)
    Charlotte MerriamFlapper in Pearl Necklace (uncredited)
    Joyce MurraySpecialty Dancer (uncredited)
    Blanche PaysonWardrobe Lady (uncredited)
    Alice PitmanChorus Girl (uncredited)
    Jed ProutyUncle Jed (uncredited)
    Marshall RuthStew – Mr. Zanfield’s Assistant (uncredited)
    Bill SecklerQuartet Guitarist and Singer (uncredited)
    Kenneth ThomsonJacques Warriner (uncredited)
    Diana VerneChorus Girl (uncredited)
    Dorothy VernonHotel Housekeeper (uncredited)
    Alice WeaverChorus Girl (uncredited)
    Dorothy Coonan WellmanChorus Girl (uncredited)
    Beatrice HagenChorus Girl (uncredited)
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