The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Stars and Supporting Players

  • Thomas Jackson

    Thomas E Jackson (1886-1967) had a thirty-year career on the stage before even setting foot in Hollywood. He went west in 1929 to act in the film of Broadway (1927), in which he had played a cop. 

    This was the start of a long screen career, in which cynical cops were a recurring theme. He was Sergeant Flaherty in Little Caesar (1931), an unnamed detective in Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) and a lieutenant in Dead End (1937). But was an assistant district attorney when he was gunned down by Clark Gable in Manhattan Melodrama (1934), watched by John Dillinger immediately before he suffered the same fate.

    In a very long list of credits, Thomas Jackson played in only one MGM musical, as the Coach in the original Good News. 

  • Lola Lane

    Dorothy Mullican (1906-81) was one of the four Lane sisters, and the one who chose the most exotic stage name (the others were Rosemary, Priscilla and, running Lola a close second, Leota). 

    Three of the sisters (Leota was allegedly rejected by director Michael Curtiz), had their breakthrough in Four Daughters (1938) and its sequels, but only Priscilla went on to a successful career.

    Lola Lane had previously played a series of supporting roles, one of which was Pat in Good News.

  • Gus Shy

    Augustus Scheu (1893-1945) was a song-and-dance man in vaudeville and on Broadway, noted as an ‘eccentric’ dancer like Ray Bolger and Buddy Ebsen.

    Shy made his Broadway debut in 1915 and worked regularly throughout the 1920s. His biggest show was Good News (1927), in which he played Bobbie. He and the leading lady, Mary Lawlor, recreated their roles in the 1930 film version. 

    Unlike Lawlor, Shy stuck around in Hollywood, and featured in two further Metro musicals: A Lady’s Morals and New Moon. He had been in the original production of The New Moon (1927), but playing a different role.

    Gus Shy also worked as a dialogue director on a number of films before retiring from acting to become a Hollywood agent.

  • Stanley Smith

    Joseph Stanley Smith (1903-74) started acting in stock theatre as a juvenile and worked steadily before making his first screen appearance in 1929. He was part of the influx of stage actors following the introduction of sound.

    Smith worked mostly for Paramount, including playing the lead opposite Clara Bow in Love Among the Millionaires (1930). Immediately afterwards, he went to MGM to perform the same function for Mary Lawlor in Good News. 

    It was reported in 1932 that Smith was supplementing acting as the conductor of his own orchestra

    By the end of his film career in 1943, Smith was taking small parts, often uncredited. 

  • Mary Lawlor

    Mary Lawlor (1907-77) was a musical comedy star who made her Broadway debut in 1922.

    Lawlor created the role of Connie in Good News (1927), and travelled to Hollywood to play the character in MGM’s first film version.

    After making one further film, a non-musical drama, Lawlor married Lyn ‘Broadway’ Lary, a major league baseball star, and retired from acting.

  • Russell Hopton

    Harry Russell Hopton (1900-45) was an actor who managed to accumulate over 100 screen appearances in less than twenty years, though his parts had declined to mostly uncredited bits by the time he took his own life in 1945.

    Hopton was in two MGM musicals, most prominently as Dorothy Jordan’s brother in Call of the Flesh. Strangely, in the same year he appeared without credit in New Moon.

    Online sources also cite Russell Hopton as the director of two Poverty Row  ‘B’ films for Conn Pictures in 1936. He certainly did acting work for that studio, so it may well be the same person. If so, and given that he acted in ten films released in 1936, it was a busy year.  

  • Mathilde Comont

    Mathilde Comont (1886-1938) started working in French films for the Gaumont studio in 1908, later working for Max Linder.

    After moving to Hollywood, Comont found regular work, most notably playing the Prince [sic] of Persia in The Thief of Bagdad (1924). She notched up around sixty supporting roles for various studios, including two appearances in Metro musicals, Call of the Flesh and The Cuban Love Song.

  • Renée Adorée

    French actor Jeanne de la Fonte (1898-1933) began performing as a child when she joined her parents in their circus act. As a teenager, she toured as a dancer, making her first film in Australia while on tour there in 1918.

    Adorée arrived in America in 1919 and worked both in vaudeville and the legitimate stage, performing in musical comedies. In 1920 she starred in Raoul Walsh’s The Strongest, based on a novel by French politician Georges Clemenceau.

    A Hollywood star, Adorée appeared opposite John Gilbert in nine films, including The Big Parade (1925), and made four with Ramon Novarro. 

    In spite of her French accent, Adorée made a successful transition to talking pictures, but her career ended abruptly after she contracted tuberculosis. She was cast in Call of the Flesh at Ramon Novarro’s insistence, but was extremely ill throughout production. She died shortly afterwards at the tragically early age of 35. 

  • Ernest Torrence

    Ernest Torrance-Thomson (1878-1933) was born in Scotland and trained at the Royal College of Music, being a highly-gifted pianist and baritone singer. He toured with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company until developing an untreatable problem with his vocal cords.

    Torrence emigrated to America in 1911 and worked successfully on the stage, including on Broadway. He made his first film in 1914, working steadily thereafter as a character actor, with occasional leads. He is most often seen today playing Buster Keaton’s father in Steamboat Bill Jr (1928).

    Torrence’s sole MGM musical was Call of the Flesh, in which he played the hero’s mentor.

  • Claud Allister

    British actor William Claud Michael Palmer (1888-1970) made a career largely out of playing what Bertie Wooster would have called a silly ass. He was the quintessential Algy in a number of Bulldog Drummond films, having first played the character in the West End. He also appeared as the surprisingly English Duke Otto von Liebenheim in Lubitsch’s Monte Carlo(193

    Immediately before working with Lubitsch, Allister was Lord Rumblesham, the unlikely friend of Lawrence Gray in The Florodora. He then waited twenty-three years for his second appearance in an MGM musical, as Paul in Kiss Me Kate.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial
RSS
Facebook
X (Twitter)
WhatsApp
Copy link
URL has been copied successfully!