Nicholas Benton Alexander III (1911-69) became a child actor in 1916. By the age of 15 he had appeared in forty-three pictures.
Alexander’s breakthrough as an adult came with All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), playing the tragic soldier Kemmerich. Unfortunately, none of his subsequent roles were as prestigious, and in the 1940s he largely turned to radio acting and announcing.
His return to high-profile screen acting occurred in 1952 after Jack Webb invited him to play Officer Frank Smith in Dragnet, first on radio and then transferring to television. Alexander played the part for seven years. After that, he acted occasionally, but had a sideline running car dealerships, which in turn sponsored his own local television series, The Ben Alexander Show.
Alexander’s sole Metro musical performance was as would-be womanizer Francis Nolan in Stage Mother.
The New York Times obituary of Alan Edwards (1892-1954) stated that he made his first screen appearance in 1912. Over seventy years later, it seems impossible to find any evidence of that; his earliest IMDb citation is Rose of the Alley in 1916. It is necessary to remember, however, that in the early 1910s it was rare for films to have onscreen credits and studios saw little reason to retain paperwork. So Edwards’s screen appearances could well have been in excess of the 38 listed in IMDb.
Most of Edwards’s pictures were made in the sound era. They were mostly programmers, though he had a featured role in If You Could only Cook (1935), with Jean Arthur.
Edwards’s only role in an MGM musical was the politician Al Dexter in Stage Mother.
Wikipedia tells us that the character actor Henry Racke (1883-1940) owned a silver mine in Mexico before he took to the stage. No source is cited and it is difficult to see where the information could have come from. Gordon certainly did not mention it in an interview he gave to Picture Play Magazine in February 1935.
According to Gordon, he returned as a young man from being educated in Europe to find that his sister was now acting. This led to actor/producer William Elliott casting him in a play. He spent many years performing on the stage until Hollywood opened its arms to actors who could speak in 1929.
His breakthrough screen role came in Mata Hari (1931), as the detective who tracks down Greta Garbo. The following year he played Paul Muni’s nemesis in Scarface (1932).
Gordon was more likely to be cast as a villain than a hero, a notable example being his brownface Surat Khan in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936).
Gordon’s only appearance in an MGM musical was as Ricco, the unscrupulous political agent in Stage Mother.
He died suddenly as the result of complications following the emergency amputation of his leg.
Ernest Lea Nash (1896-1937) is best-known today as the co-founder of the act ‘Ted Healy and his Three Stooges’, but he also had a successful acting career in both comic and dramatic roles.
After working for some years in vaudeville, Healy teamed with schoolfriend Moe Howard, Moe’s brother Shemp (subsequently replaced by Curly) and comic Larry Fine. There were tensions in the act, largely owing to Healy’s heavy drinking, and the three stooges eventually signed with Columbia to make a series of shorts.
Healy signed a contract with MGM, who occasionally loaned him to other studios. He played Jean Harlow’s freeloading brother in Blonde Bombshell (1933) and Reagan the reporter in Mad Love (1935).
Ted Healy acted in six MGM musicals. Probably his best role was as the vaudeville performer Ralph Martin in Stage Mother. He appeared with the Stooges in Dancing Lady and did an uncredited bit in the all-star Hollywood Party. He was also in Reckless, Here Comes the Band and San Francisco.
Healy died from symptoms related to his drinking that were triggered by a serious and mysterious beating sustained outside a nightclub.
Phillips Raymond Holmes (1907-42) never achieved the Hollywood career to which he aspired, and his potential was ended by his early death as a flyer in the Second World War.
Holmes was talent spotted while still a student and offered a screen test. (IMDb suggests he was an extra in Her Market Value in 1925, but this seems unlikely, given it was shot in California while he was at Princeton on the East Coast.)
His first verifiable appearance was in Varsity (1928). After a variety of supporting roles at Paramount, he starred alongside Walter Huston in The Criminal Code (1931). Other notable lead roles were in Josef von Sternberg’s An American Tragedy (1931) and Ernst Lubtisch’s Broken Lullaby (1932).
Holmes made the mistake of moving to MGM, where he was never given the same quality of roles. After making a couple of pictures in the UK in 1938, he worked on the stage until joining the Royal Canadian Air Force at the start of the war.
Holmes’s sole MGM musical was as Lord Aylesworth in Stage Mother.
Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone (1905-68) became an actor after graduating from Cornell in 1927. After gaining extensive experience on the New York stage, he joined the influential Group Theatre, where he became a proponent of Stanislavsyan techniques. Tone made his first film, The Wiser Sex (1932) at New York’s Astoria Studios.
In 1933, Tone signed with MGM and moved to Hollywood. He gained early prominence playing the romantic lead in Gabriel Over the Whitehouse (1933). Metro often loaned him to other studios, where he made some of his most interesting films, including John Ford’s The World Moves On (1934) at Fox and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) at Paramount. In 1937, he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in RKO’s Quality Street.
When his contract ended in 1939, Tone went back to work on Broadway for a year or so. During the war, he appeared in two outstanding pictures, Billy Wilder’s Five Graves to Cairo (1943) and the seminal film noir Phantom Lady (1944).
In 1949, Tone produced, co-directed and starred in RKO’s The Man on the Eiffel Tower. He performed the same functions in an independent film of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in 1957. One of Tone’s last major films was Arthur Penn’s Mickey One (1965).
Franchot Tone acted in three MGM musicals during his 1930s contract: Stage Mother, Dancing Lady (with future wife Joan Crawford) and Reckless.
Maureen Paula O’Sullivan (1911-98) is immortal, to those in the know, as Jane to Johnny Weismuller’s Tarzan in the earliest and best of MGM’s series. She is also known, less excitingly, as Mia Farrow’s mother.
Like the wild colonial boy, O’Sullivan was born and raised in Ireland. Shortly after leaving school, she was spotted in Dublin by Frank Borzage, who was there shooting footage for Song O’ My Heart (1930). He cast her in a substantial role.
She moved to Hollywood to complete the picture, and made further films for Fox, including the bizarre sci-fi musical comedy Just Imagine (1930), before signing with MGM in 1932. By the time she retired in 1994, she had notched up about seventy film credits, plus considerable work on television.
In addition to six Tarzan films, O’Sullivan had featured roles in The Thin Man (1934), The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), David Copperfield (1935, as Dora), Pride and Prejudice (1940), The Big Clock (1943, directed by her husband, John Farrow) and The Tall T (1957). Late in life she acted in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986, playing the mother of her daughter Mia).
O’Sullivan appeared in two MGM musicals: Stage Mother and A Day at the Races.
Ralph Martin is performing a patter song, which is interrupted by banging from backstage. Good naturedly, he explains to the audience that it is the Lorraines.
Kitty Lorraine and her husband Fred are preparing for his trapeze act, and inform a stagehand that next year there will be three of them visiting the theatre. Kitty has had to give up performing in the act.
Ralph introduces Fred and informs the audience that Kitty is pregnant. Kitty and Ralph watch Fred perform from the side of the stage. A blonde performer reminds Kitty the doctor told her not to come into the theatre, but Kitty says Fred could not do the act without her. Suddenly, Fred falls. He dies in Kitty’s arms.
Kitty Lorraine (Alice Brady) and her unnamed friend watch her husband Fred, who is about to fall to his death
Later, Ralph and the blonde visit Kitty and her new baby daughter. Kitty tells them she is going to live in Boston with Fred’s people. When they are alone, Ralph asks Kitty to join his act and go on a tour of Australia. He hints they might marry. Kitty is grateful, but declines. On the way out, Ralph gives the landlady money to pass on to Kitty.
Kitty and the baby, Shirley. arrive at the house of Fred’s parents. She meets them and his sister Ida for the first time. The parents are kind, while Ida seems stern, and Kitty admits to being nervous. The family explains that Fred’s stage career was a great sorrow to them. Kitty hopes to be able to make it as a single act if they will look after the baby. Mrs Lorraine tells her she can stay with them, if she will give up the stage. Kitty says she is not sure she could stand being idle and dependent. Mr Lorraine responds that she could get some other kind of job. Kitty is upset, telling them they are taking out their grudge on Fred against her, but she gives in.
Four years later, Kitty is working in the music section of a department store. [Any Little Girl, That’s a Nice Little Girl, Is the Right Little Girl for Me]. She is spotted performing by Ralph, who joins her in the song. Ralph tells her again she should join his act. The store manager fires Kitty, and Ralph invites her to dinner.
Outside the Lorraines’ house, Ralph tells Kitty he loves her, and kisses her. Ida opens the door and orders Kitty inside. They quarrel and Ida tells Kitty she must leave the house. Kitty wakes up Shirley and starts to dress her. Mrs Lorraine tells her touring theatres will be no life for Shirley. Kitty is persuaded to leave her daughter behind. She says a tearful goodbye to Shirley, asking that she never forget her.
Four years later, Kitty is putting on her makeup in a dressing room when a drunken Ralph is thrown through the door by an angry husband. Kitty makes it clear this is not the first time this has happened. Ralph attempts to put on his makeup, telling her the girl he is seeing is better than an old battleaxe. Ralph collapses, incapable of going on. The manager tells Kitty it is three times and out.
A Variety headline states that Kitty had divorced Ralph. She talks to her agent, who says it is unlikely he can find her any work, as she does not have what it takes to be a solo act. He tentatively offers her a job in his office, and she says she will do it for $30. She can save up to bring Shirley down.
Some years later, Kitty meets teenage Shirley at a New York railway station. Shirley is wearing glasses and dowdily dressed, so that Kitty barely recognizes her.
Teenage Shirley Lorraine (Margaret O’Sullivan) is welcome to New York by her mother
Later, Kitty is fitting a frilly new dress for a protesting Shirley. Kitty assures her mother knows best, and announces that she will be starting dancing lessons the next day, because she is going to be a big star. Shirley protests, but is soon attending a ballet class, while Kitty sits with the other mothers. The instructor, Mr Sterling, assures her Shirley will be ready for professional appearances in a few months.
Kitty quits her job, explaining that her daughter is 16 now and needs to find work. The agent protests that Shirley is too young and tells Kitty that she will not be thanked when Shirley realizes she is missing out on her childhood. Kitty tells him she plans to take her daughter to see Mark Thorne, whose variety act is the best training school for you dancers. She has huge ambitions for Shirley, “with no funny business en route”.
Next day, Kitty and Shirley arrive at the auditions, where every type of young variety performer is represented, with plenty of stage mothers present. Thorne is bored by the bad singers [When Irish Eyes are Smiling], contortionists and dancers [How’m I Doin’?], but sits up when Shirley dances [The Wedding of the Painted Doll]. He asks to see her in his office the next day.
The Thorne show goes on tour. Backstage one day, Kitty sees Francis Nolan hitting on Shirley, but her stare is enough to get rid of him. Later, however, he finds Shirley dressing. Initially resisting, Shirey gives in to his kissing. Kitty walks in on them and beats Francis out of the room with a stick. Behind the closed door, she is clearly beating Shirley.
The tour ends at the Palace in New York. Kitty gives tickets to her friends, on the condition they show loud appreciation for Shirley.
Shirley dances in the opening [Beautiful Girl], and gets enthusiastic applause. In the dressing room, Kitty tells her she is going to be the biggest hit in town. Shirley gets a telegram from New York’s biggest theatrical agent, offering her a part in a big new show. Mark Thorne refuses to let her out of her five-year contract, until Kitty tells him she has pictures of him with another performer which he would not want to get into the hands of the press. Thorne gives in to the blackmail.
Kitty paints Shirley’s toenails on the train to Boston
Variety announces Shirley has joined the new show. Kitty and Shirley are on a train for a Boston try-out, after five weeks’ rehearsal. Kitty cannot understand why Shirley wants to visit the house she grew up in; her grandma and Aunt Ida are dead. Kitty tells Shirley not to try too hard at the dress rehearsal, but to save it for opening night.
Shirley goes to the old house and meets Warren Foster, the new owner. He is a painter and has made it bright and cheerful. He finagles a lunch date for the next day. Back at the theatre, Shirley is told her mother is in hospital.
At the hospital, Shirley learns Kitty has to have her appendix removed, though her mother disputes it. She will be there for a couple of weeks. When Shirley leaves, Kitty is suspicious.
Next day, Shirley is on a picnic with Warren. She tells him that, for the first time in her life, she is completely free. Warren talks about love, and kisses her.
In the hospital, Kitty is sending Shirley instructions even as she wheeled to the operating theatre; only the anaesthetic makes her shut up.
One evening, in Warren’s garden, he tells Shirley he loves her. She reminds him the show leaves for New York in the morning.
Some time later, Kitty finds a letter for Shirley at the theatre. She reads it, bribes the doorman not to give any further letters to Shirley, and leaves for Boston.
Later, during a performance, Shirley finds Warren in her dressing room. He is angry, and tells her he has paid $10,000 for her. Shirley is confused, but Warren explains that Kitty has extorted the money from his mother. He will not believe that Shirley knew nothing about it. She throws him out and is distraught when called to the stage. [I’m Dancing on a Rainbow]. At the end of the number, Shirley accepts her applause through tears. In the dressing room, Kitty congratulates her on being a big hit. Shirley tells her mother what Warren had said. Kitty admits what she did, claiming Mrs Foster, like everyone in Boston, despised stage people. She only took the money to end the situation and says she will send it back. She could not let Shirley ruin her career. Kitty insists Warren would never have married her, saying that if he really cared for her, he would not have walked out. Kitty repeats that Shirley’s career is all that matters, and asks her to give it a year, promising to accept the result if Shirley remains unconvinced. Kitty wants Shirley to go to a party being given by Al Dexter, a local politician who may back her career.
Shirley and Kitty are welcomed to his party by Al Dexter (Alan Edwards)
At the party, Rico, Dexter’s campaign manager, discusses his campaign to get Shirley, and wishes he would back off until the real campaign is over. Kitty and Shirley arrive and Dexter toasts Shirley. When they are alone, Dexter tells Shirley she has the greatest city in the world at her feet. He is surprised that she is uninterested in success. They kiss.
Later, Rico reads a press report to Dexter’s backers, stating that the candidate is about to become a theatrical angel. The news is damaging his chances, so they decide to talk to Kitty.
Rico gives Kitty boat tickets, saying his show is more important than hers. He backs it up with threats about Shirley’s safety. If Kitty and Shirley get on the boat, she can have all the money she wants. The alternative will be tougher. Kitty demands $25,000.
After boarding the ship, Shirley is surrounded by reporters. She accidentally bumps into Lord Aylesworth, and the press decide to make a story of it. Kitty is impressed by the sight of a Lord.
Shirley tells Kitty she wants $10,000 of the money she ‘earned’ by running around with Dexter, so she can be independent for a while. Kitty agrees, then urges her to get acquainted with Aylesworth, who could do a lot for her in London. She leaves the two of them together.
Some time later, Kitty is on a beach in Antibes, watching Shirley swing over the water on a trapeze. She has a flashback of Fred falling.
Aylesworth tells Shirley he is mad about her. He asks if she could live the type of life his family lives, and she says yes. He then asks how her mother might fit into the picture, intimating that she would not fit . She explains that a stage mother is not a real mother, and she will not need a stage mother if she leaves the stage. She agrees to marry him.
Back at the hotel, Shirley tells Kitty she is marrying Aylesworth and that Kitty herself will have no further part to play. She tells her that Warren represented her one chance for happiness and she smashed it up. Aylesworth knows about her past and does not care, but he does not want Kitty around. Shirley tells Kitty that she has denied having a real mother. Distraught, Kitty says she has sacrificed everything for Shirley. Her mother’s tears break down Shirley’s hard veneer and she tells Kitty she loves her; she had thought Kitty was tougher and would be able to take the unvarnished truth. She begs for forgiveness. Kitty asks Shirley if she likes Aylesworth as much as Warren, and Shirley admits she does not. Kitty realizes her ambition for Shirley was selfish, but now wants only her happiness. In her room, she takes out letters to Shirley from Warren in which he apologizes for his behaviour. Then she hears Shirley on the phone, telling Aylesworth that Kitty is her mother and that she loves her and cannot go through with the marriage. Kitty gives her the letters, saying they were opened by some snooping old battleaxe.
