Category: Performers
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Louis John Bartels
Louis John Bartels (1895-1932) was at the tail end of his short film career when he made two MGM musicals, The Florodora Girl and The Prodigal.
Bartels was a New York stage manager turned actor who Paramount cast in a few features and shorts, most notably in The Canary Murder Case (1929).
Bartels was found dead at home, aged 36. An autopsy concluded he died from a stomach ailment brought on by acute alcoholism.
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Walter Catlett
For lovers of screwball comedy, Walter Leland Catlett (1889-1960) will always be the befuddled Constable Slocum who throws almost the entire cast of Bringing Up Baby (1937) into his jail. He also has immortality as the voice of J Worthington Foulfellow, the villainous fox, in Pinocchio (1940).
But Catlett had a successful career on the stage in musical comedies before making Second Youth in 1924, the first of over 160 screen credits. He was a comic performer of exceptional ability. Howard Hawks asked him to coach Katharine Hepburn in playing comedy, contributing in no small part to her outstanding performance in Bringing Up Baby. But Catlett’s brief appearance in the closing minutes of A Tale of Two Cities (1935) shows that, like all great comic actors, he could play straight when he needed to.
Catlett only appeared in one MGM musical, when he played the hero’s friend De Boer in The Florodora Girl.
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The Florodora Girl
The Cast
Marion Davies Daisy Dell Lawrence Gray Jack Vibart Walter Catlett De Boer Louis John Bartels Oliver Hemingway Ilka Chase Fanny Vivien Oakland Maud Jed Prouty Old Man Dell Claud Allister Lord Rumblesham Sam Hardy Harry Fontaine Nance O’Neil Mrs. Vibart Robert Bolder Commodore – Stage Doorman Jane Keithley Constance Caraway Maude Turner Gordon Mrs. Caraway George Chandler Georgie Smith Anita Louise Younger Vibart Daughter Mary Jane Irving Older Vibart Daughter Jack Baxley Carriage Driver (uncredited) Lenore Bushman Florordora Sextette Member (uncredited) Patricia Caron Florordora Sextette Member (uncredited) Lee Phelps Bartender (uncredited) Ethel Sykes Florordora Sextette Member (uncredited) Leo White Mr. Crownshield (uncredited) -
Xavier Cugat
Francesc d’Assís Xavier Cugat Mingall de Bru i Deulofeu (or Xavier Cugat i Mingall for short, 1900-1990), was one of the more idiosyncratic performers to work on musicals at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, reliably introducing an element of camp to every film he appeared in.
Born in Catalonia, Cugat and his family emigrated first to Cuba, and then to the United States in 1915. His beginnings in show business were as a classical violinist. He took time out to work as a cartoonist, and then formed his own band, which ended up performing at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles. Specializing in Latin music, Cugat, clutching his signature chihuahua while conducting or performing, became known as the ‘King of Rumba’.
Cugat’s first involvement in a Metro musical was behind the scenes, working with Herbert Stothart and Clifford Grey on a couple of numbers for In Gay Madrid. Fourteen years later he made his debut on screen for Metro (having made a few musicals at Paramount), in Two Girls and a Sailor. Here, as on every other occasion, he played a fictionalized version of the band leader Xavier Cugat.
Cugat appeared in four Esther Williams vehicles: Bathing Beauty, On an Island with You, This Time for Keeps and Neptune’s Daughter. He also supported Jane Powell in Holiday in Mexico, A Date with Judy and Luxury Liner, and showed up in No Leave, No Love.
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In Gay Madrid
Cast
Ramon Novarro Ricardo Dorothy Jordan Carmina Lottice Howell Goyita Claude King Marques de Castelar Eugenie Besserer Doña Generosa (as Eugenia Besserer) William V. Mong Rivas Beryl Mercer Doña Concha Nanci Price Jacinta Herbert Clark Octavio David Scott Ernesto George Chandler Enrique Bruce Coleman Corpulento Nicholas Caruso Carlos Tom Costello Man at Duel (uncredited) John Miljan Armada – the Torero (uncredited) Oscar Rudolph Student Trading Coat for Banquet (uncredited) Philip Sleeman Cantina Patron (uncredited) -
Philip Sleeman
Although born in Camberwell, Philip Sleeman (1891-1953) spent much of his film career playing Arabs and other eastern characters with names like Sheik Abdullah Pasha.
Sleeman made two appearances in Metro musicals, on both occasions having a good time. He was a patron in a cantina in In Gay Madrid and partying on the zeppelin in Madam Satan.
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Beryl Mercer
British-born Beryl Mercer (1882-1939) was a successful stage actor who had small roles in more than fifty pictures. Her place in film history depends on two maternal roles: as the mother of Lew Ayres’s character in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) and as the mother of James Cagnet in Public Enemy (1931).
In Gay Madrid was Mercer’s only appearance in an MGM musical.
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Claude King
British actor Claude Ewart King appeared on stage and in silent films in the UK, making his screen debut in 1912. After serving in the First World War, he emigrated to America, successfully continuing to work in both fields.
King’s most significant American credit was probably as Roger Balfour, whose murder and resurrection were the focus of Tod Browning’s lost film London After Midnight (1927).
King played Ramon Novarro’s disapproving father in In Gay Madrid, and followed this with uncredited appearances in Maytime and Broadway Serenade. His final MGM musical was the 1940 version of New Moon, where he played Monsieur Dubois.
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Frankie Genardi
Frankie Genardi (1922-2010) was a child actor who made his debut, aged five, in Frank Borzage’s 7th Heaven (1927). He retired at seventeen.
Genardi’s two Metro musicals were The Rogue Song and New Moon.
