James Burroughs (????-19??) had a brief career not appearing in MGM musicals.
In 1929 Burroughs sang ‘Wedding of the Painted Doll’ offscreen in The Broadway Melody and ‘Tableau of the Jewels’ in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. He followed these non-appearances the next year by singing ‘Blue Daughter of Heaven’ in Lord Byron of Broadway.
Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle (1909-2014) was minor Hollywood royalty, being the niece of Universal founder Carl Laemmle (one of the relatives who did not entirely rely on Uncle Carl for employment). In an extremely long life, she spent a few years as a dancer and actor. In this capacity she featured, uncredited, in The Broadway Melody, as a speciality dancer, and The Hollywood Revue of 1929, as the scantily-clad Pearl Dancer.
She was also, apparently, an uncredited swimmer in Bathing Beauty.
Charles Kenneth Thomson (1899-1967) was a featured player in silent and early sound films, notable for hosting the meetings that led to the formation of the Screen Actors Guild.
Thomson played the wolf Jacques Warriner in The Broadway Melody and Pat’s on-again-off-again fiancé in Children of Pleasure.
Eddie Kane (1899-1989) was a bit player with around 250 appearances who featured, albeit uncredited, as the loosely-disguised Ziegfeld character in The Broadway Melody. He later turned up uncredited in Ice Follies of 1939, Two Girls and a Sailor and Bathing Beauty.
Grady Harwell Sutton (1906-95) was a hard-working supporting player for 60 years, often in codified gay roles. He is probably best-known today for his four films with W C Fields.
Sutton’s first uncredited appearance in a Metro musical was as a football spectator in So This Is College. He then waited sixteen years for his most substantial part, as Kathryn Grayson’s would-be suitor in Anchors Aweigh.
This was followed by uncredited appearances in Ziegfeld Follies, Two Sisters from Boston, Holiday in Mexico, No Leave, No Love and, after another sixteen years, Billy Rose’s Jumbo.
The three MGM-musical roles of Dorothy Dehn (1908-98) represent a downward spiral. From the wholesomeness of the campus in So This Is College, via the part of Quicksilver in Madam Satan, she ended up as a Maxim’s girl in Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow,
Supporting player Phyllis Crane (1914-82) was just 15 when she played a college student in So This Is College and definitely too young to have been involved in the craziness of Madam Satan. She made her last appearance at the grand old age of 23.
Oscar Rudolph (1911-91) was a bit-part actor who went on to a career as a prolific director of television episodes.
After appearing as a freshman who loses his trousers in So This Is College, he played another student in In Gay Madrid, a cook in It’s a Great Life and a peasant in Maytime.
Arthur Lange (1889-1956) was a prolific composer of songs, scores and incidental music for dozens of films at a variety of studios.
At MGM Lange began by composing and arranging music for the Buster Keaton ‘underwater’ sequence in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, where he also appeared onscreen conducting the orchestra. Lange also made an appearance as himself in Free and Easy. He was subsequently the musical arranger onSo This Is College, and composed and arranged forThe Great Ziegfeld and Let Freedom Ring.
Frances Charlotte Greenwood (1890-1977) had aspirations to be a serious actor, but found that her destiny was to make people laugh. This was, in part, owing to her very long legs and the things she could do with them while dancing; as she said herself, “I’m the only woman alive who can kick a giraffe in the eye”.
Greenwood appeared in many film musicals, though only three at MGM. In 1931 she was Pansy Potts, Bert Lahr’s love interest, in Flying High. There followed a gap of 22 years until Dangerous When Wet, and then, just three years later, The Opposite Sex.
Charlotte Greenwood also notched up one entry as a Metro songwriter when she and her husband Martin Broones contributed ‘Campus Capers’ to So This Is College.
