The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Performers

  • Stanley Smith

    Joseph Stanley Smith (1903-74) started acting in stock theatre as a juvenile and worked steadily before making his first screen appearance in 1929. He was part of the influx of stage actors following the introduction of sound.

    Smith worked mostly for Paramount, including playing the lead opposite Clara Bow in Love Among the Millionaires (1930). Immediately afterwards, he went to MGM to perform the same function for Mary Lawlor in Good News. 

    It was reported in 1932 that Smith was supplementing acting as the conductor of his own orchestra

    By the end of his film career in 1943, Smith was taking small parts, often uncredited. 

  • Mary Lawlor

    Mary Lawlor (1907-77) was a musical comedy star who made her Broadway debut in 1922.

    Lawlor created the role of Connie in Good News (1927), and travelled to Hollywood to play the character in MGM’s first film version.

    After making one further film, a non-musical drama, Lawlor married Lyn ‘Broadway’ Lary, a major league baseball star, and retired from acting.

  • Good News (1930)

    The Cast

    Mary LawlorConnie Lane
    Stanley SmithTom Marlowe
    Bessie LoveBabe O’Day
    Cliff Edwards‘Pooch’ Kearney
    Gus ShyBobbie
    Lola LanePat
    Thomas JacksonCoach
    Delmer DavesBeef
    Billy TaftFreshman
    Frank McGlynnProfessor Kenyon
    Penny SingletonFlo (as Dorothy McNulty)
    Helyn VirgilGirl
    Vera MarsheGirl
    Abe LymanAbe Lyman (and his Band)
    Buster CrabbeStudent (uncredited)
    Ann DvorakStudent (uncredited)
    Harry EarlesSmall Person in Trash Basket (uncredited)
    Al NormanEccentric Dancer (uncredited)
    Dave O’BrienStudent (uncredited)
    Kane RichmondStudent (uncredited)
    Ann SothernStudent (uncredited)

  • Paul Lamkoff

    Composer Paul Lambkovitz (1888-1953) was born either in Poland or Russia, and trained at the Petrograd Conservatory before working as both a conductor and cantor. He emigrated to America in 1922.

    Lamkoff was qualified by both his professions to work as a vocal coach and choral arranger for the ‘Kol Nidre’ sequence of The Jazz Singer (1927), roles he also carried out for the 1952 remake.

    He then had a sporadic career in the film industry, working as composer, orchestrator and vocal coach on a dozen or so pictures. These included Call of the Flesh, Here Comes the Band, A Night at the Opera, Rose-Marie and San Francisco.  Alongside this he pursued his work as a cantor and expert on Jewish music.

  • Call of the Flesh

    The Cast

    Ramon NovarroJuan de Dios
    Dorothy JordanMaria Consuelo Vargas
    Ernest TorrenceEsteban
    Nance O’NeilMother Superior
    Renée AdoréeLola
    Mathilde ComontLa Rumbarita
    Russell HoptonCaptain Enrique Vargas
    Sidney D’AlbrookPolice Officer (uncredited)
    Julia GriffithDowager Empress Opera Spectator (uncredited)
    Fred HuestonOpera Spectator (uncredited)
    Lillian LawrenceNun (uncredited)
    Lillian LeightonShawl Vendor (uncredited)
    Adolph MilarPolice Officer (uncredited)
    Rolfe SedanActor in Opera (uncredited)
    Leo WhiteImpressario’s Assistant (uncredited)
    Frank YaconelliFruit Vendor (uncredited)

  • Frank Yaconelli

    No one would claim that Italian-born Francesco Yaconelli (1898-1965) had a distinguished film career, yet after his death a Senate resolution described him as “devoting a lifetime to unselfish service and entertainment to people all over the world”. 

    Yaconelli could most often be seen in cheap westerns, frequently as a Mexican, and sometimes playing the accordion, at which he was proficient. In the mid-twenties he and his brother set up their own studio, for which he both produced and directed a handful of pictures before it was wiped out by the Depression.

    Yaconelli had served in a US aero squadron during the First World War. In the Second World War, he worked as a USO tour director, also performing his vaudeville act. He did the same during the Korean War. It was these activities that secured the citation from the Senate.

    Yaconelli was in four 1930s MGM musicals: Call of the Flesh, A Lady’s Morals, A Night at the Opera and The Firefly. 

  • Fred Hueston

    Fred Hueston (1879-1961) was a British-born actor who appears to have made just sixteen screen appearances in 24 years. 

    Hueston was an opera spectator in Call of the Flesh, and rounded off his screen career playing a critic in Till the Clouds Roll By.

  • Julia Griffith

    Julia Griffith (1880-1961) started out in the theatre, but became a perennial bit-part player in Hollywood, from her debut as ‘town gossip’ in 1923 to her last appearance as ‘committee woman’ twenty years later. She was usually uncredited.

    Griffith can be spotted in four MGM musicals. She was an audience member at the opera in Call of the Flesh, and then a party guest in Hollywood Party. She was back in the audience for A Night at the Opera and later played a committee woman in Girl Crazy.

  • Sidney D’Albrook

    Sidney D’Albrook (1886-1948) notched up over 170 film appearances. He started making shorts in 1914, but his first feature was The Gilded Cage (1916). (I draw the last-named film to attention only because it features a character called Lesbia the Goose Girl.) He also appeared as Ambrose, the brother-in-law, in Hal Roach’s series of shorts about the Spat family.

    When the silent period came to a close, most of D’Albrook’s appearances were uncredited. These included five Metro musicals: Call of the Flesh, A Night at the Opera, The Great Waltz, I Married an Angel and The Unfinished Dance.

  • Russell Hopton

    Harry Russell Hopton (1900-45) was an actor who managed to accumulate over 100 screen appearances in less than twenty years, though his parts had declined to mostly uncredited bits by the time he took his own life in 1945.

    Hopton was in two MGM musicals, most prominently as Dorothy Jordan’s brother in Call of the Flesh. Strangely, in the same year he appeared without credit in New Moon.

    Online sources also cite Russell Hopton as the director of two Poverty Row  ‘B’ films for Conn Pictures in 1936. He certainly did acting work for that studio, so it may well be the same person. If so, and given that he acted in ten films released in 1936, it was a busy year.  

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