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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Nina Mae McKinney (1913-67) was one of the many Black performers–talented and beautiful–whose careers were stifled by Hollywood racism.
After relocating from South Carolina to New York, McKinney was only 15 when she was cast in the all-Black Broadway musical revue Blackbirds of 1928. Her performance was noted by King Vidor, who subsequently cast her as the female lead in Hallelujah. She replaced his original choice, who was rejected by Irving Thalberg as lacking sex appeal.
McKinney received glowing reviews for her performance as Chick and it secured her a five-year contract with MGM, but no further roles of substance. She made an uncredited appearance as a singer in They Learned About Women, and eventually walked out on MGM. Richard Watts of The New York Herald Tribune wrote at the time that her “exile from the cinema is the result entirely of narrow and intolerant racial matters.”
She made only a few films thereafter, perhaps most notably as Paul Robeson’s queen in Sanders of the River (1935) and as Rozelia in Pinky (1949).
Daniel M Haynes (1894-1954) was a successful stage actor working as Jules Bledsoe’s understudy in Show Boat when he was offered the lead role of Zeke in Hallelujah. The part had been intended for Paul Robeson, but he was unavailable.
Inevitably, given the times, Haynes’s powerful performance did not open the door to a film career. King Vidor used him again in So Red the Rose, but further down the cast list. Other than that, Haynes’s film work was mostly uncredited bits, and he eventually gave up acting to become a Baptist minister.
