Marion Ellen Harris (1896-1944) was a popular jazz and blues singer from 1916 onwards, one of the first white women to record in those genres. She was the first artist to record ‘After You’ve Gone’, ‘I Ain’t Got Nobody’ and ‘It Had to Be You’. Harris also performed in vaudeville and on Broadway.
Harris starred in Devil-May-Care, but made only a couple of other minor film appearances.
W C Fields’s fans will know George Chandler (1898-1985) as Chester Snavely, the unfortunate youth who drank The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933).
In his fifty-year career Chandler kept very busy, right up to a final appearance in the Lou Grant TV series. He made credited appearances in two MGM musicals–In Gay Madrid and The Florodora Girl–and also showed up uncredited in Devil-May-Care, Love in the Rough, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Broadway Melody of 1940, Swing Fever and The Pirate.
Lionel Belmore (1867-1953) was 46 when he made his first film, following a successful stage career in his native England. Yet he still managed almost 200 screen appearances, including as the Burgomaster in Frankenstein (1931).
Belmore was in three MGM musicals: Devil-May-Care (as the innkeeper), The Rogue Song and Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry.
John Miljan (1892-1960) was a supporting actor who appeared in over 200 films during his thirty-four-year career. He made regular appearances in Cecil B DeMille pictures, notably as General Custer in The Plainsman (1936).
Miljan’s four MGM musicals began with Devil-May-Care, as Ramon Novarro’s nemesis. He played himself in the Hollywood-set Free and Easy, and was with Novarro again in In Gay Madrid. His final appearance was as Pierre Brugnon in the remake of New Moon.
Dorothy Jordan (1906-88) made her film debut in Black Magic (1929), one of the many trained stage actors to find employment in Hollywood with the advent of sound. After playing Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew (1929), she starred opposite Ramon Novarro in his talking debut in Devil-May-Care.
Jordan and Novarro were teamed again in two more musicals, In Gay Madrid and Call of the Flesh. She was also female lead to Robert Montgomery in Love in the Rough.
Jordan retired in 1933 after marrying producer Merian C Cooper, returning later only in occasional supporting roles. She made notable appearances in two of John Ford’s greatest films: The Sun Shines Bright (1953), where she was the sex worker whose life and death are central to two plot lines; and as John Wayne’s sister-in-law, who meets a tragic end, in The Searchers (1956)
José Ramón Gil Samaniego (1899-1968) was a Mexican actor who became a top star of silent cinema after playing the lead in Scaramouche (1923) and a phenomenon when he starred in the first version of Ben-Hur (1925). Handsome, or even beautiful in an androgynous way, he combined the roles of swashbuckler with the tag of ‘Latin Lover,’ especially following the death of Rudolph Valentino.
Novarro has a light but effective speaking voice and his transition to talking pictures was straightforward. Much earlier, he had worked as a singer, and MGM came up with the idea of having him record a theme song (‘Pagan Love Song’) for The Pagan (1929). The public liked it, so it was no great leap to cast Novarro in a musical feature, Devil-May-Care, where he was able to combine his newly-revealed skill with some of his practised swordplay.
Novarro went on to star in four more musicals: In Gay Madrid, Call of the Flesh, The Cat and the Fiddle (partnered with Jeanette MacDonald, and the best of his musical outings) and The Night is Young.
Homophobia brought Novarro’s MGM stardom to an end. His sexuality was no secret in the business and the subject of public speculation. His contract was terminated when he refused to enter into a ‘lavender marriage’. He continued to work elsewhere as a supporting player, until his tragic and violent death during a robbery.
Charles Willard McLaughlin (1873-1934) worked as an actor, director and playwright before he took up screenwriting in 1916, carrying this out alongside work on Broadway.
Mack contributed to the scenarios of It’s a Great Life and Lord Byron of Broadway. He also co-wrote and directed Broadway to Hollywood, the film in which producer Harry Rapf recycled content from the abandoned The March of Time.
Despite being minor Hollywood royalty, and unlike her younger sister K T Stevens, Jeane Wood (1909-1987) never progressed as an actor beyond small, usually uncredited roles. As a young woman she appeared in three films directed by her father, Sam Wood. These included the musical It’s a Great Life.
After a long break, Wood resumed film acting in the 1950s, making an appearance as a maid in The Glass Slipper.
Crane Wilbur (1886-1973) acted in his first film in 1910 and found fame opposite Pearl White in The Perils of Pauline (1913). He also became a scenarist, and directed his first picture in 1916. His final film as writer-director was House of Women in 1962.
In 1929 Wilbur wrote a play, Children of Pleasure, which he helped adapt into a musical the following year. He also wrote Lord Byron of Broadway and made an uncredited appearance in It’s a Great Life.
Edward Sedan (1896-1982) had a fifty-eight-year career as a Hollywood bit player, notching up over 300 appearances, including many Ernst Lubitsch pictures. He also worked regularly in the theatre and on radio.
Sedan’s MGM musicals were It’s a Great Life, They Learned About Women, Call of the Flesh, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Merry Widow, A Night at the Opera, Rose Marie, The Firefly, The Wizard of Oz and Silk Stockings.
