John Chancellor Olcott (1858?-1932) was a stage actor, singer and songwriter. He started out performing in minstrel shows, but eventually became a regular on Broadway.
Olcott was of Irish descent, and many of his songs took the form of Irish ballads. Three have become standards: ‘Mother Machree’, ‘My Wild Irish Rose’ and, most particularly, ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling’.
The last of these has been heard in many pictures through the years, and was used twice in MGM musicals. Olcott died in 1932, so did not live to hear Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer’s painfully off-key rendition in Stage Mother. A few years later, Nelson Eddy treated it with a little more respect in Let Freedom Ring.
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