The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Stars and Supporting Players

  • Brox Sisters

    The Brock sisters–Eunice (1901-93), Josephine (1902-99) and Kathleen (1904-88)–became the singing Brox Sisters as children, and were touring the vaudeville circuit when barely in their teens. 

    By the early twenties they were singing in Broadway revues, and recorded a number of songs which they debuted for their friend Irving Berlin, notably ‘Everybody Step’. They performed in The Cocoanuts (1925) with the Marx Brothers and were featured performers with Eddie Cantor in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. 

    The Brox Sisters’ first screen appearances were in some of the very earliest Vitaphone shorts made by Warner Bros. Photoplay wrote at the time: “Low voices register most successfully on the Vitaphone, so the performance of the Brox sisters, with their mezzo-soprano and contralto, is flawless.”

    Later, they sang a couple of numbers, including ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. 

    The Brox Sisters became radio stars, but disbanded after Josephine (known professionally as Bobbe) got married. They reunited once, in 1939, for a radio tribute to Irving Berlin.

  • Ann Sothern

    Harriette Arlene Lake (1909-2001) was described as “the greatest comedienne” by Lucille Ball, who was probably a good judge.

    In a career of almost sixty years, Ann Sothern was successful on stage, film, television and radio. In Hollywood, she moved from studio to studio before settling at MGM, where she was cast as Maisie Ravier in Maisie (1939). The film’s success gave a boost to her moderately successful career, as well as resulting in nine sequels and a radio series.

    When she stopped getting lead roles, Southern moved predominantly to television. But her last great big screen performance, in The Whales of August (1987) earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

    Ann Sothern was in seven Metro musicals. Early on, she made blink-and-you’ll-miss-them appearances in Good News and Madam Satan. Ten years later, she was back with the lead  in Lady Be Good (Eleanor Powell’s top billing being contractual rather than deserved). She next took the title role in Panama Hattie, then played herself in Thousands Cheer. She was Broadway star Joyce Harmon in Words and Music, and finished off playing Jane Powell’s mother in Nancy Goes to Rio. 

  • Dave O’Brien

    For someone who died aged 57, David Poole Fronabarger (1912-69) produced an astonishing body of work; he must have been one of the hardest-working people in Hollywood. He appeared in around 240 feature films and shorts. He contributed to at least 50 screenplays and won an Emmy in 1961 for writing for The Red Skelton Show. And he directed about 65 shorts. He even did some stunt work at the beginning of his career.

    O’Brien is probably best known as the lead performer in many Pete Smith Specialties, the series of comedy shorts produced by Pete Smith for MGM from 1935 to 1955. He also directed some of them as David Barclay. The acting in the Pete Smith films was always silent, with Smith himself providing narration. O’Brien was one of the last great adepts at silent cinema, with a particular skill at falls. 

    Dave O’Brien was in five Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals. In the 1930s he was uncredited in Good News, Madam Satan, Flying High and Student Tour. Two decades later he was Ralph the stage manager in Kiss Me Kate.

  • Penny Singleton

    Mariana Dorothy McNulty (1908-2003) found fame at a very young age. As ‘Little Dorothy’, she sang in silent picture houses, then toured in vaudeville as part of the Kiddie Kabaret.

    Later in life she became a labour activist, twice elected resident of the American Guild of Variety Artists and, in 1967, leading a successful month-long strike by performers at the Radio City Music Hall.

    In between all this was an acting career irrevocably associated with the Blondie and Dagwood films produced by Columbia. She and Arthur Lake appeared in all 28 pictures between 1938 and 1950. 

    Earlier in her career, when she was still known as Dorothy McNulty, she performed the first screen version of ‘The Varsity Drag’ in Good News, and immediately afterward had a featured role in Love in the Rough.

  • Frank McGlynn

    Frank McGlynn (1866-1951) played Abraham Lincoln in at least twelve feature films and shorts. And in the Sonja Henie musical Second Fiddle, and in a picture called Are We Civilized?, he played actors playing Abraham Lincoln. It was always useful in Hollywood to have a speciality.

    McGlynn had trained for the bar, but took up acting in 1896, playing supporting roles with a variety of stock companies. He appeared in a short film as early as 1910, and played Lincoln for the first time in 1915. This led to him being cast in the lead in the Broadway production of Abraham Lincoln (1918).

    McGlynn amassed over 140 screen credits, three of which were MGM musicals. After the featured role of Professor Kenyon in Good News, he appeared without credit in Broadway Melody of 1938 and Girl of the Golden West.

  • Billy Taft

    Information is scarce about the actor Billy Taft (1908-95). His film career appears to have lasted from 1929 to 1940, and to have consisted of around fourteen credits. Two of these were MGM musicals: Good News and Swiss Miss. 

    Billy Taft’s most enduring performance was probably duetting with Ruby Keeler in the ‘Sittin’ on the Backyard Fence’ number in Footlight Parade (1933).

  • 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. 

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