The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Stars and Supporting Players

  • Una Merkel

    Joan Bennett, Mae Clarke, Jean Harlow, Eleanor Powell, Carole Lombard, Dorothy Lamour, Jane Powell: just a few of the stars who had the delightful Una Merkel (1903-86) as a best friend during Hollywood’s Golden Age. With an unmistakeable Kentucky twang, Merkel was rarely the star of her pictures, but was also rarely unmemorable in them.

    Aged 17, Merkel worked as a stand-in for Lillian Gish on Way Down East (1920), which means it is sometimes her you see in the famous ice floe sequence. After plying the acting trade in the legitimate theatre and in vaudeville, she worked for D W Griffith again when he cast her as Ann Rutledge in Abraham Lincoln (1930).

    A hard-working supporting player, Merkel appeared in forty pictures released in the five-year period 1930 to 1934, perhaps most famously partnered with Ginger Rogers in the ‘Shuffle off to Buffalo’ number in 42nd Street (1933).

    Una Merkel’s most famous scene is unquestionably her fight with Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again (1939). Both actors eschewed stunt doubles and ended up heavily bruised, as well as soaking wet from James Stewart’s bucket of water.

    In the 1950s, Merkel was a successful and Tony award-winning stage actor, and was nominated for the Supporting Actress Oscar for Summer and Smoke (1961). 

    Merkel’s nine MGM musicals took her from Alice Brady in 1933 (Broadway to Hollywood) to Elvis Presley in 1966 (Spinout). In between came The Merry Widow, The Night is Young, The Merry Widow, Broadway Melody of 1936, Born to Dance, Rich Young and Pretty, The Merry Widow (again) and I Love Melvin.

  • Edwin Maxwell

    Irish-born Edwin Maxwell (1886-1948) emigrated to America as a child and made his first stage appearance aged seven. This led to a long career in the theatre and on screen. He made one silent film, but began to concentrate on films in 1929. He never abandoned the stage, however, and toured the country in the 1940s in the road show version of Life With Father.

    Maxwell was a character actor, often credited, sometimes not. Some of his most notable roles included: the Chief of Detectives in Scarface (1932), the chief villain in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), the first Secretary of War in Duck Soup (1933), corrupt Will Vickery in Fury (1936), John T Stuart in Young Mr Lincoln (1939), the jeweller in Ninotchka (1939) and the inept state psychiatrist in His Girl Friday (1940).

    Edwin Maxwell appeared in four Metro musicals: Broadway to Hollywood, Hollywood Party, The Great Ziegfeld and the 1940 version of New Moon, his only credited role.

  • Frank Jenks

    Francis William Albert Jenks (1902-62) had one of those faces that made him stand out in all of his 140-plus films.

    Jenks started out as a teenager, playing the trombone in a band and, after attending university, became a song and dance man in vaudeville. He went to Hollywood in 1933, and his first three screen appearances were as band leaders. Over the next thirty years, Jenks moved smoothly between small, uncredited parts, usually as working men (mailmen, carnies, furniture removers, taxi drivers), and bigger roles fairly high up the credits. Examples of the latter would include the Paramount musical Dancing on a Dime (1940) and the male lead in PRC’s Shake Hands with Murder (1944). He had a small but key role in Barbara Stanwyck’s Christmas in Connecticut (1945).

    Later in life, Jenks worked extensively in television, notably partnered with Alan Mowbray in Colonel Humphrey Flack (1953-59).

    Jenks appeared in four MGM musicals, commencing with Broadway to Hollywood. His most prominent, and only credited, role was in Thousands Cheer. He also acted in Two Girls and a Sailor and was one of Danny Kaye’s fellow clowns in Merry Andrew.

  • Moe Howard

    Moses Harry Horwitz (1897-1975) was the senior stooge in the Three Stooges, at least after the split with Ted Healy, with whom they had performed as, well, Ted Healy and his Stooges. Moe was always a little less stupid than his two comrades, and meted out punishment when it was (and also when it was not) needed.

    Moe made his earliest films, for Vitagraph, as a teenager in the 1900s, but these were apparently destroyed in a fire. He and his brother Shemp then undertook a variety of show business jobs, until they teamed up with Healy in the early 1920s. This partnership was on and off over the years, and eventually Shemp was replaced by brother Curly. 

    Healy and the stooges appeared in several MGM pictures before Healy struck out on his own again and Larry, Moe and Curly became the Three Stooges. Moe Howard, along with Larry Fine, appeared in all 190 of the Three Stooges’ shorts and all twelve features.

    Moe was in three MGM musicals: Broadway to Hollywood, Dancing Lady and Hollywood Party.

  • Curly Howard

    Jerome Lester Horwitz (1903-52) was, by general consent, the greatest of the six performers who, at various times, comprised the Three Stooges. His brother Moe and vaudeville performer Larry Fine were permanent presences in the trio, but Curly, somewhat reluctantly, took over when  original member Shemp Howard decided to leave. 

    Curly Howard had been a watcher-on of his brothers’ performances when they were a part of the act called Ted Healy and his Three Stooges, and was drafted in when Shemp grew tired of working with the difficult Healy. He was required to cut his hair down to the scalp, something he hated for the rest of his life.

    But Curly was considered the most naturally gifted comedian in the act, and introduced many of its best-loved bits of business: the mock-Brooklyng pronunciation (“Soitanly!), the manic laugh (“Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk”) and much of the physical buffoonery, which he could improvise at will.

    Curly appeared in almost 100 Three Stooges shorts between 1933 and 1947, when ill-health, culminating in a stroke, ended his career.

    The Three Stooges never made their own feature film during Curly’s tenure, but he did make brief appearances in three MGM musicals: Broadway to Hollywood, Dancing Lady and Hollywood Party.

  • Nelson Eddy

    Nelson Ackerman Eddy (1901-67) was one of MGM’s first great musical stars. An operatic baritone, he appeared in fifteen musicals, playing the lead in all but the first three. In eight of them, he was partnered with Jeanette MacDonald.

    From a poor background, Eddy was a boy soprano who went on to have various jobs while indulging his love of music. He engaged in amateur productions, was noticed by the press and, by the age of 23, was working for the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company, and also sang with the Savoy Company. 

    Eddy spent some time in Europe, acquiring voice training, then returned to the USA and concentrated on concert performances. He was appearing in Los Angeles when Hollywood knocked on his door. He signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but the studio did not initially know what to do with him. He made his debut in Handlebars (1933), a musical short, and sang without credit in Broadway to Hollywood. In the same year he appeared as himself in Dancing Lady and Student Tour.

    Then MGM struck gold.Just before his option with Metro ran out, he was teamed with MacDonald in Naughty Marietta. The picture made a sizeable profit and an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. This led to their re-teaming in Rose-Marie, Maytime, Girl of the Golden West, Sweethearts, New Moon, Bitter Sweet and I Married an Angel.

    In addition, Eddy starred in Rosalie, Let Freedom Ring, Balalaika and The Chocolate Soldier. He only appeared in a handful of films after leaving MGM, most notably The Phantom of the Opera (1943) at Universal. His last film was Northwest Frontier (1947), made at Republic and partnering him again with his Balalaika co-star, Ilona Massey. He continued to give live performances for the rest of his life, dying after a stroke experienced while on stage.

    Not even his best friends would pretend that Nelson Eddy could act; he was stiff, with a very limited range of line readings. But there is always something engaging about his performances, which always seem good-humoured and lacking in self-importance. This is especially the case in his films with Jeanette MacDonald, which constituted the Golden Age of MGM’s operetta cycle.

  • May Robson

    Australian-born Mary Jeanette Robison (1858-1942) grew up in London and emigrated to New York in 1877. She went on to become one of the ‘great ladies’ of the American stage and, later in life, pursued a successful screen career.

    Robson developed her craft in comedic and character roles on the stage from 1883, and by 1911 had established her own touring company. She made some film appearances in the 1900s, and in 1920 was in John Barrymore’s New-York-made version of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

    But in 1927, after being widowed for the second time, Robson moved to Hollywood and devoted herself to film acting. She played the Matron in Chicago (1927) and, in 1933, was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for playing Apple Annie in Capra’s Lady for a Day. She was Aunt Polly in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), but her most frequently revived role was as Aunt Elizabeth in Bringing Up Baby (1938). 

    May Robson acted in three MGM musicals: Broadway to Hollywood, Dancing Lady and Reckless. 

  • Fay Templeton

    Fay Templeton (1865-1939) was a singer, songwriters, actor and Broadway star for over forty years. She first appeared on stage aged 3, with her parents, and five years later played Puck at New York’s Grand Opera House.

    From 1885, Templeton appeared regularly on Broadway, and also began writing songs. In 1906, George M Cohan cast her in the lead in Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway. Templeton’s final Broadway triumph was as Aunt Minnie in Roberta in 1933.

    Templeton appeared in a few short films in the early 1900s, including Edwin S Porter’s Gathering Evidence (1906), but she never had a serious screen career. Her only substantial appearance is in Broadway to Hollywood, which used footage Templeton had filmed for the abandoned musical The March of Time.  

  • Eddie Quillan

    Edward Quillan (1907-90) was a kind of cutprice forerunner to Mickey Rooney. As a child, he also performed in vaudeville with his parents. He was still a child when he signed a contract to make comedy shorts for Mack Sennett. He was a leading man throughout the 1930s, and moved down to ‘B’ pictures later. His film career lasted a respectable 58 years.

    Quliian’s career took off in 1929, when he starred in The Godless Girl for Cecil B DeMille. He featured prominently in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and was one of Alice Brady’s sons in John Ford’s Young Mr Lincoln (1939). He worked again for Ford in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), as treacherous Connie Rivers.

    Quillan always worked steadily, making his last feature film in 1979, and also making many television appearances. But his last film role of note was as Sandy in Brigadoon.

    He was in two MGM musicals during his 1930s heyday, Broadway to Hollywood and Hollywood Party.

  • Mickey Rooney

    A film career that lasted 88 years. About 285 pictures. The biggest box office draw in the United States in 1939. 1940 and 1941, from age 19 to 21. Ninnian Joseph Yule Jr (1920-2014) was no ordinary film star: he was a phenomenon, utterly unique. He was not, by most accounts, a particularly pleasant person; there are plenty of horror stories about his behaviour and attitudes. But I cannot find that this detracts greatly from his achievements on the screen.

    Rooney claimed that he first appeared as part of his parents’ vaudeville act aged 17 months. After they divorced, he went with his mother to Hollywood and made his first film appearance in 1926, and from 1927 to 1934 was the star of over sixty comedy shorts, as a character named Mickey McGuire. He became associated with the name, but was prevented from taking the name as his own, so chose Rooney instead.

    Aged 14, Rooney played Puck in Max Reinhardt’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), one of the film’s brighter spots, a fact all the more remarkable when you know he gave much of his performance with a plaster cast on a broken leg.

    He played the younger son in an adaptation of Ah, Wilderness (1935), and then was cast as the older son in a rehash of the plot, 1937’s A Family Affair. His character was named Andy Hardy, and Rooney played him in 13 sequels, most of which put plenty of cash into MGM’s coffers (he was by now contracted to the studio)

    Rooney starred opposite Spencer Tracy in Boy’s Town (1938), and went on to receive a special Oscar known as the Academy Juvenile Award. He was later nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for The Human Comedy (1943).

    Rooney did not look like a leading man, and when it became impossible for him to continue playing teenagers, his career went into decline. But, in Jeanine Basinger’s words, he “kept on working and growing, the mark of a professional”. Even as late as 1979, he achieved critical recognition, and another Academy nomination, for Coppola’s The Black Stallion. And he regularly took part in successful Broadway productions. He even tried his hand, without great success, as a producer and director.

    Mickey Rooney was in twelve MGM musicals, appearing with Judy Garland in seven of them. They were: Broadway to Hollywood, Reckless, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Love Finds Andy Hardy, Babes in Arms, Strike Up the Band, Babes on Broadway, Thousands Cheer, Girl Crazy, Summer Holiday, Words and Music and The Strip.

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