Only one fact is known about composer Maurice Scott (1878-1933). In 1917 he composed a song that forty-something years later would lend its title to an internationally-acclaimed stage musical and an award-winning film: ‘Oh, It’s a Lovely War’ was written by Scott and John P Long for the music hall entertainer Ella Shields.
It was another music hall artiste, Chummie La Mara, who sang Scott’s ‘Swing Me Higher, Obadiah,’ later performed by Marion Davies in The Florodora Girl.
The comedian Michael Nolan was born in Ireland but raised in Bradford in Yorkshire, where he got his start as a music hall performer. Known as ‘the Prince of Irish Comedians,’ he combined comedy patter with songs, many of which he composed himself.
One of these songs was ‘Little Annie Rooney,’ as featured in The Florodora Girl.
Theodore August Metz (1848-1936) was born in the Hanover of King Ernest Augustus and died in FDR’s America. Having trained as a violinist, Metz emigrated and eventually found work as conductor for a touring minstrel show.
Metz’s claim to cultural immortality rests on his composition, in 1897, of a tune that has achieved anthemic status in the United States: ‘There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight’. This song, with lyrics by Joe Hayden, was featured in The Florodora Girl.
Ren Shields (1868-1913) was a folk musician and vaudeville performer who also worked as a lyricist, in which capacity he wrote ‘Make a Noise Like a Hula Hoop and Roll Away (Whoop,Whoop, Whoop)’.
More memorably, Shields provided the lyrics for ‘In the Good Old Summer Time,’ written with George Evans. The number featured in The Florodora Girl and In the Good Old Summertime.
George ‘Honey Boy’ Evans (1870-1915) was a Welsh music hall performer, songwriter and producer who toured the United States with a minstrel show he bought called the Honey Boy Minstrels.
Evans’s best-known contribution to the Great American Songbook was ‘In the Good Old Summer Time,’ written with lyricist Ren Shields in 1902. The number was featured in the Edwardian-set musical The Florodora Girl, and was later the title song of In the Good Old Summertime.
Joseph W Stern (1870-1934) was a tie salesman and amateur musician who became a composer of popular songs and, finally, a music publisher.
One of the numbers written by Stern and his partner, Edward B Marks, was ‘My Mother Was a Lady,’ which featured in The Florodora Girl.
Edward Bennett Marks (1865-1945) was a minor Victorian songwriter who became a prestigious music publisher.
One of the more popular songs written by Marks and his partner Joseph Stern was ‘My Mother Was a Lady,’ which featured in The Florodora Girl.
Ralph Spence (1890-1949) became a scenarist in 1912, working for the Selig Company, and went on to contribute to over 130 films. His 1925 Broadway play The Gorilla was filmed several times.
Spence worked on three of Metro’s musicals. He provided additional dialogue for The Florodora Girl, and co-wrote the screenplays for Student Tour and Here Comes the Band.
Eugene Willford Markey (1895-1980) was a journalist and novelist who turned screenwriter with the coming of sound, and was occasionally credited as a producer. He also found time to marry not one, not two, but three top Hollywood actors: Joan Bennett, Hedy Lamarr and Myrna Loy. And he had the honour of being described as “a skunk” by actor Louise Beavers.
Markey served with distinction in the Second World War, unlike his close friends John Wayne and Ward Bond, and despite being older than both of them. He rose to the level of admiral, and reputedly demanded to be addressed as such for the remainder of his long life.
Markey’s most enduring screen credit is as co-writer of the infamous Barbara Stanwyck vehicle Baby Face (1933), probably contributing the references Nietzsche. He also contributed, less memorably, to The Florodora Girl, devising the story and writing dialogue.
In later life, Markey settled down as a horse breeder and Southern gentleman.
Born in Germany, raised in the UK, Leo Weiss (1873-1948) made at least 500 screen appearances in a career lasting a little over thirty years.
After working in British music halls, White travelled to America and was working in films by 1911. He eventually settled at Essanay Studios, working regularly with Charles Chaplin. He also featured in Wallace Beery’s Sweedie shorts. By 1920, he had already made over 120 films.
Despite his background in comedy, White ventured into more serious fare during the 1920s, with appearances in Blood and Sand (1922), Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927).
White was in eight MGM musicals (all uncredited). He started out in The Florodora Girl, followed by Call of the Flesh, The Devil’s Brother, Broadway to Hollywood, Stage Mother and The Cat and the Fiddle. He was one of the hirsute Russian aviators in A Night at the Opera, and bowed out with Broadway Melody of 1938.
Later, White played the barber in Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) and Emile the waiter in Casablanca (1942).
