Category: Performers

Benny Rubin

Benny Rubin (1899-1986), like Cliff Edwards, was a recurring presence in Metro’s earliest musicals. A talented dialect comedian, he was limited in most of his musical appearances to a Jewish characterization; it has been suggested that his career was hampered by the idea that he looked “too Jewish”.

Rubin’s first appearance was alongside Edwards in Marianne, and he followed this up as vaudeville booker Benny Friedman in It’s a Great Life. He is the Jewish half of a double act with Irish Tom Dugan in They Learned About Women, and an agent in Lord Byron of Broadway.

Rubin plays a doctor from the Bronx who finds himself amongst the cowboys in Montana Moon, while he is back in New York’s show biz as a pianist in Children of Pleasure. In Love in the Rough he is a fish-out-of-water Russian immigrant masquerading as Robert Montgomery’s valet.

The 1932 moratorium followed and Rubin was absent from MGM’s musicals until 1953’s Torch Song. He then had, mostly uncredited, roles in Easy to Love, Meet Me in Las Vegas, Ten Thousand Bedrooms and Looking for Love.

Benny Rubin’s final appearance was as another Jewish agent in Orson Welles’s film maudit The Other Side of the Wind (filmed in the 70s, released 2018).

January 24, 2026
George Baxter

George Baxter (1905-76) made a steady living for over thirty years, often uncredited, in films, television and radio. Marianne was his first film role, as the noble André. He appeared without credit in Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow, and reappeared in the Golden Age with a part in Lili.

January 24, 2026
Cliff Edwards

The man who contributed greatly to the 20s’ ukelele craze. The performer who performed ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ in its feature film debut. The voice of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio (1940). Just three of the reasons why Clifton Avon Edwards (1895-1971), or ‘Ukelele Ike,’ ought not to be quite as forgotten as he is.

Edwards was a successful vaudeville and café performer, allegedly dubbed ‘Ukelele Ike’ by a waiter who could never remember his name. He became a ubiquitous figure in the early Metro musicals, appearing in over a third of the studio’s productions in 1929-31.

Edwards’s rendition of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, though lacking Gene Kelly’s familiar phrasing, was good enough to earn the song a reprise in the hastily-devised finale, in which also appeared.

His first acting role was as Soapy, one of the doughboys in Marianne. He then added musical support in So This is College and performed a speciality number in They Learned About Women. Lord Byron of Broadway saw him in the, not really challenging, role of a vaudeville singer, after which he was way out west as one of the hero’s buddies in Montana Moon.

Edwards made an uncredited appearance as himself in Children of Pleasure and has a featured role as the Coach’s assistant, Pooch Kearney, in the 1930 version of Good News. He was then one of Lawrence Tibbett’s hobo pals in The Prodigal.

The film musical hiatus of 1932 soon followed, and Edwards only appeared in one further musical for Metro, as Minstrel Joe in The Girl of the Golden West.

At his height, in the late 1920s, Cliff Edwards was earning $4000 a week. By the time of his death, he was an indigent charity patient in a Hollywood hospital; his body was unclaimed for several days because no one knew who he was.

January 23, 2026
Lawrence Gray

Lawrence Gray (1898-1970) was a jobbing actor who began in silent pictures and whose good looks made him an amenable leading man for, amongst others, Gloria Swanson, Colleen Moore and Norma Shearer. His singing voice was also good enough to win him parts in four early MGM musicals: Marianne, It’s a Great Life, Children of Pleasure and, opposite Marian Davies for the second time, in The Florodora Girl.

The parts on offer started to decline and Gray retired in 1936. He and his wife moved to her native Mexico, where he worked in the distribution side of the film industry.

January 22, 2026

The Hollywood Revue of 1929

Cast

Conrad Nagel	Conrad Nagel – Mr Interlocutor
Jack Benny	Jack Benny – Master of Ceremonies
John Gilbert	John Gilbert / Romeo
Norma Shearer	Norma Shearer / Juliet
Joan Crawford	Joan Crawford
Bessie Love	Bessie Love
Cliff Edwards	Cliff Edwards / Ukulele Ike (as Ukulele Ike)
Stan Laurel	Stan Laurel
Oliver Hardy	Oliver Hardy
Anita Page	Anita Page
Nils Asther	Nils Asther (scenes deleted)
Natacha Nattova Dance Company	Natova and Company
Marion Davies	Marion Davies
William Haines	William Haines
Buster Keaton	Buster Keaton / Princess Raja
Marie Dressler	Marie Dressler
Charles King	Charles King
Polly Moran	Polly Moran
Gus Edwards	Gus Edwards
Karl Dane	Karl Dane (as Dane)
George K. Arthur	George K. Arthur (as Arthur)
Gwen Lee	Gwen Lee
Albertina Rasch Dancers	Ballet Dancers (as Albertina Rasch Ballet)
The Rounders	The Rounders – Vocal Quintet
Arthur Lange	Arthur Lange – Orchestra Leader
Lionel Barrymore	Lionel Barrymore – Director of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (uncredited)
Nacio Herb Brown	Herb Nacio Brown (uncredited)
Bobbe Brox	Bobbe – One of the Brox Sisters (uncredited)
Kathlyn Brox	Kathlyn – One of the Brox Sisters (uncredited)
Lorayne Brox	Lorayne – One of the Brox Sisters (uncredited)
Eddie Bush	Eddie Bush – Member of Biltmore Quartet (uncredited)
Ray Cooke	Ray Cooke / Messenger (uncredited)
Ann Dvorak	Ann Dvorak – Chorus Girl (uncredited)
Ernest Belcher’s Dancing Tots	Dancing Tots (uncredited)
Paul Gibbons	Paul Gibbons – Member of Biltmore Quartet (uncredited)
Ches Kirkpatrick	Ches KIrkpatrick – Member of Biltmore Quartet (uncredited)
Carla Laemmle	Carla Laemmle / Pearl Dancer (uncredited)
Angella Mawby	Angella Mawby – Title Card Trio (uncredited)
Claudette Mawby	Claudette Mawby – Title Card Trio (uncredited)
Claudine Mawby	Claudine Marby – Title Card Trio (uncredited)
Myrtle McLaughlin	Myrtle McLaughlin (uncredited)
Eddie Nugent	Chorus Boy (uncredited)
June Pursell	Vocalist in ‘Low Down Rhythm’ (uncredited)
Albertina Rasch	Alberterni Rasch – Leader of Albertina Rasch Ballet (uncredited)
Bill Seckler	Bill Seckler – Member of Biltmore Quartet (uncredited)
James Burroughs	Singer (uncredited)
Joyce Murray	Speciality dancer (uncredited)

January 17, 2026

Marion Davies

It is a regrettable side effect of Citizen Kane’s success that the name of Marion Davies (1897-1961) has become linked with that of Susan Alexander, the second-rate singer and mistress of the newspaper magnate. The second of these is undeniably a similarity: Davies was the long-term companion of William Randolph Hearst, the main inspiration for the character of Kane, and Hearst certainly made some inappropriate decisions about her career. But Marion Davies was far from being a second-rate performer. In David Thomson’s words, she was “a genuinely funny actress who did good work”. Davies’s most successful period was in silent films, but she made a successful transition to sound, overcoming the obstacle of a stammer.

Davies’s appearance in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 was a less than triumphant start to her musical career, singing and dancing furiously to two songs, dressed in the type of military uniform Hearst loved to see her in.

She is seen to better effect as the eponymous Marianne (which she co-produced), though the musical demands made on her are admittedly far less than in the earlier appearance. Davies’s strengths are seen in the light comedy aspects of her role. Davies was an equally-fetching protagonist in The Florodora Girl (which she produced) and, in particular, opposite Bing Crosby in Going Hollywood.

Some commentators list Blondie of the Follies (1932) as a musical, but is actually a romantic comedy featuring an attractive performance by Davies.

January 17, 2026

Marianne

Cast

Marion Davies	Marianne
George Baxter	André
Lawrence Gray	Stagg
Cliff Edwards	Soapy
Benny Rubin	Sam
Scott Kolk	Lieut. Frane
Robert Edeson	The General
Emile Chautard	Père Joseph
Ernie Alexander	One of the Doughboys (uncredited)
Oscar Apfel	Maj. Russart (uncredited)
John Carroll	Doughboy (uncredited)
Drew Demorest	Doughboy (uncredited)
Sherry Hall	Soldier in Russart’s Office (uncredited)
Seymour Kupper	Teen-Age Boy (uncredited)
George Magrill	Military Policeman (uncredited)
Douglas Scott	Sylvestre (uncredited)
Harry Tenbrook	Doughboy (uncredited)
Dick Winslow	Teen-age boy playing accordion for soldiers’ marching song (uncredited)

January 16, 2026

Victoria Spivey

It is typical of the unfathomable decisions sometimes made by MGM in its early musicals that it cast Victoria Spivey (1906-76) in a non-singing role in Hallelujah!. In her day job Spivey was a notable blues singer and songwriter who went on to work with artists ranging from John Lee Hooker to Bob Dylan, and whose personality bore no resemblance to Missy Rose. Hallelujah! was her only acting credit.

January 5, 2026
Harry Gray

Very little is known about Harry Gray. It is probable he was born in the 1840s and lived the first decades of his life as an enslaved person. He was apparently working as a porter when he was cast as the patriarch in Hallelujah, joining a number of other non-professional actors. Gray has two subsequent credits, but remains something of a mystery.

January 5, 2026
William Fountaine

Hallelujah was the last of the handful of films made by William Fountaine (1897-1945), starting with the lead in Oscar Micheaux’s Uncle Jasper’s Will (1922). He was forthright about his refusal, along with other performers, to speak the racist language originally included in Hallelujah!‘s screenplay.

January 4, 2026