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- Anne Francine was best known for her stage portrayal of the flamboyant Vera Charles in "Mame". She played the role--her favorite--both on Broadway and in touring productions.
Her long and successful career began in the nightclubs. She made her professional debut in New York at the elegant Coq Rouge, where a one-night booking turned into a celebrated three-year engagement. Early in her career she made a successful transition from nightclubs to the legitimate stage, performing in both drama and musical comedy. She was featured on Broadway with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in "The Great Sebastions", with Shirley Booth in "By The Beautiful Sea" and with Maurice Evans in "Tenderloin". She spent two seasons as a member of Ellis Rabb's acclaimed APA Repertory Company, alternating with Helen Hayes as "Mrs. Candor" in "School For Scandal", joining Rabb and Rosemary Harris in "You Can't Take It With You" as the "Grand Duchess Olga Katrina", and appearing in Jean Anouilh's "The Flies" under the direction of Vinnette Carroll. In regional theatre she had starred in "Mother Courage", "The Importance Of Being Earnest", "The Skin Of Our Teeth", "Twelfth Night" and "Company". She appeared in films including Federico Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Mike Frankovich's Stand Up and Be Counted (1972) and Savages (1972). - Shapely, scintillating, peroxide British blonde Carole Lesley wound up another sexy statistic alongside other vibrant and promising, photogenic stars and starlets who pervaded the film industry with their undeniable photogenic assets only to be left achingly unfulfilled and die unhappily by their own hand. From the larger-tiered star beauties such as Marilyn Monroe, fellow Britisher Virginia Maskell, Lupe Velez, Gia Scala, Jean Seberg, Barbara Bates, Inger Stevens, Marie McDonald, and another famous Carole, Carole Landis, down to the wannabes stars who latched onto brief notoriety (Peggy Shannon, Pina Pellicer, Peg Entwistle and Miroslava), the number of these young beauties who would take their lives became staggering and unfailingly sad.
These were women who seemed to have everything going for them -- looks, appeal, drive, a decent modicum of talent -- yet they couldn't see beyond their own goddess-like celluloid image or a fickle public's adoration in discovering their own true worth. Perhaps many believed too much in their press and spiraled into a deep depression when it was over or craved an insatiable need for attention. Fractured affairs of the heart and lack of self esteem were often the culprits for impulsive suicides like that of Carole Landis and Lupe Velez, but the suicide of Carole Lesley remains more mysterious since she was well out of the public eye and long forgotten by the time her end came. Moreover, in the following decades, precious little has been printed about her and why it happened.
In the case of Ms. Lesley, she was one of a few starlets who briefly rivaled notorious blonde bombshell Diana Dors as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The stunning actress, whose slim face was slightly reminiscent of comedic actress Kay Kendall and the more contemporary Sean Young, willingly exploited her obvious physical endowments in an elusive attempt to drum up public attention. Like so many others before and after her, she wasn't able to sustain interest; middle age crept in and depression took over. Carole's career (which included less than a dozen films) lasted a mere half a decade.
She was born on May 27, 1935 and christened Maureen Lesley Carole Rippingale in Chelmsford, Essex, England. As a child she became interested in the idea of show business and made her film debut at age 12 with the British drama The Silver Darlings (1947) directed by Clarence Elder. Later the naive but very pretty and starry-eyed sixteen-year-old ran away from home in search of fame and success.
With her drop-dead good looks and curvaceous figure Carole eventually found a job as a chorine at London's Cabaret Club wherein she was able to sharpen her dancing skills. From there she trekked to Paris and worked up some notoriety as a nude glamour and pin-up model under the sexier moniker of Leslie Carol(e). Eventually she returned to England.
Following an unbilled role in The Embezzler (1954) at Kenilworth Productions, she managed to obtain a seven-year contract at Associated British Pictures wherein she reverted her marquee name to read "Carole Lesley". From 1957 on, she would appear in a mixed bag of quality drama and comedy programmers. Typical studio protocol had the lovely starlet attending premieres, parties, film festivals, beauty pageants, and various big-time social events in order to build up her name. She was more than game to doing what it took to having her face plastered all over town in such movie magazines (such as Picturegoer) and assorted newspapers.
Carole was seen to good advantage in the Associated film Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) starring Yvonne Mitchell, Anthony Quayle and Sylvia Syms. The film, which won a Golden Globe for "Best English Language Foreign Film," has the actress playing a young neighbor and confidante to dowdy wife Mitchell whose husband (Quayle) is having an affair with his secretary (Syms). Dangerous Youth (1957), which was an early Liverpudian musical dramady built around 29-year-old "teen" pop idol Frankie Vaughan, has Carole and equally gorgeous Jocelyn Lane (billed as "Jackie Lane" here) as provocative distraction who weave in and out of Vaughan and George Baker's lives. Carole plays Vaughan's girl who, interestingly, is forced to slinging hash at a coffee shop when her own dreams of show business stardom falls apart. The star of singer Vaughan, who evolves from a gang leader to a rock-and-roll singing star in this picture, was eclipsed soon after by skyrocketing American sensation Elvis Presley.
It was not for a lack of trying, but Carole did not have the same "wow" factor as such buxom, publicity-starved starlets as Jayne Mansfield, who easily overshadowed her in the eye candy department at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. Carole struggled to get firmly noticed despite her avid attendances in everything from toothpaste pads to charity races to the openings of bowling alley.
The 1950s ended with two more films for Carole. The well-done crime drama No Trees in the Street (1959) again had Carole supporting Sylvia Syms, while she and Barbara Murray played female members of the military (lady privates) in the romantic war comedy Operation Bullshine (1959) which co-starred Donald Sinden and Ronald Shiner. Although it kept her visible, neither helped her longing desire to become a full-fledged star. The beginning of the 1960s had Carole appearing on TV as legendary temptress Helen of Troy. She also showed up in one of British film's most popular slapstick comedy series at the time. This entry was Doctor in Love (1960) and had handsome doctor Michael Craig subbing for a vacating Dirk Bogarde while Carole and Virginia Maskell (who, in real life, died a suicide at age 31 in 1968), played standard love interests.
Playing a sexy, straight foil in light comedy seemed to be a viable platform for Carole and she went on to appear in three more light comedies during the early 1960s. Nothing out of the ordinary, however, came out of her appearances in Three on a Spree (1961), What a Whopper (1961) and The Pot Carriers (1962), and Associated decided to release her from her contract.
The devastated actress pulled a virtual disappearing act following the unhappy news, retreating completely from the limelight. In August of 1964 it was learned that she had married Michael Dalling and that she eventually bore him two sons. Very little was heard of Carole until 1974 when it was revealed that on February 28th she had died by her own hand from an acute overdose of pills at age 38 in New Barnet, England. Although relatives later insisted it was an accident, it was nevertheless a sad, seemingly inescapable fate for this incredibly beautiful woman. Carole's photography from her early days as a nude model and pin-up has more recently served as a source of inspiration for British artist Paul Harvey. - Whitfield Cook was born on 9 April 1909 in Madison, New Jersey, USA. He was a writer, known for Strangers on a Train (1951), Stage Fright (1950) and High Barbaree (1947). He died on 12 November 2003 in New London, Connecticut, USA.
- James O'Neill was born on 15 November 1847 in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, Ireland. He was an actor, known for The Count of Monte Cristo (1913), West Is West (1920) and The Grain of Dust (1918). He was married to Ellen Quinlan. He died on 10 August 1920 in New London, Connecticut, USA.
- The great Broadway stage actress and silent film star Elsie Louise Ferguson was born on August 19, 1883 in New York City, the only child of prominent lawyer Hiram Benson Ferguson and his wife. Due to her father's wealth, hers was a privileged childhood, though she developed a penchant for socialism in her late thirties.
Educated in Manhattan, Elsie made her theatrical debut as a chorus girl in the musical comedy "The Belle of New York" at the Madison Square Theatre in 1900. Her early flirtation with the stage was linked to a friend importuning her to join the chorus, which she did out of curiosity. She also was a chorus girl in "The Liberty Belles" the following year. Allowed to speak one line in "Belles," she made up her mind to become a stage actress. Elsie was quite beautiful, as well as talented, and she worked her way up from the chorus to become a Broadway star for three decades. She made her Broadway debut, proper, at the end of 1903 in the musical The Girl from Kay's at the Herald Square Theatre. In 1904, she then appeared in the play "The Second Fiddle.
Between the time Elsie appeared on Broadway in the musical "Miss Dolly Dollars" and in Arthur Conan Doyle's play "The Brigadier," one of the major scandals that periodical rock America to its core occurred. On June 25, 1906, Pittsburgh millionaire Harry K. Shaw, the husband of Elsie's friend Evelyn Nesbitt, shot and killed renowned architect Stanford White while he was attending a public performance at the Garden Theatre situated atop Madison Square Garden, the penultimate arena bearing that name actually located on New York City's Madison Square. White's Garden, which he had designed, housed the Madison Square Theatre, where Nesbitt had appeared in the 1903 musical "The Girl from Dixie." Though the show was her last appearance in a legitimate Broadway production, she had earlier been appearing in private shows for White, the man whom she called "Stanny," at his spectacular multi-floor apartment snug inside the Garden building's tower, on top of which the rooftop theater sat.
White had first espied the young red-headed woman would become his mistress and Lorelei in 1901, when she was in the chorus of the musical "Florodora" at Broadway's Casino Theatre, in a time when girls from the leg-line were as famous as supermodels are today. The Pittsburgh native was 16 years old. Before taking to the stage, she had made her living as a model for artists and photographers. After an introduction, White played sugar daddy to her and her family, eventually purloining Nesbitt's maidenhead in an act she variously described as a rape and seduction.
Many men, including the young John Barrymore, who proposed to her, wooed Evelyn. But White intervened, and she became involved with fellow Pittsburgh native Thaw, an emotionally unstable man addicted to cocaine and morphine, who had hated White for years, due to some snub involving showgirls that had transpired before either man had made the fiery young redhead's acquaintance. White, something of a Humbert Humbert, gradually cooled towards the maturing Evelyn, though he still played sugar daddy to her. Gradually, he took up with other, younger chorines, and Evelyn, who had revealed the details of her affair to her other suitor, made a "reluctant" marriage to Thaw. She did so despite her fear of the man, who had a violent and bizarre streak that had expressed itself once in his beating her with a dog whip during a sojourn in Europe.
Evelyn moved to Pittsburgh, but she was ostracized from society due to her reputation as a showgirl. Theatrical people simply were not respectable in those halcyon days of Victorian morals and mores. She grew her bored and lonely, ad was wary of her husband, who was prone to tantrums and fits or rage. During a planned1906 trip to Europe, she and her husband stopped off in New York, where they, by chance, met up with Evelyn's former lover. It was just a matter of time before Thaw stalked White to the sybaritic aerie atop his Garden and put three bullets into his face. Adam had slain his Eve's snake, all in the name of "the unwritten law" that held a man had the moral right to slay his wife's seducer.
The press had a field day. Nesbitt became known as "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing" when the news of her private whoopee-making with White became public knowledge. The press revealed the double-life of the respected architect, who was unmasked as a libertine and voluptuary who shared the taste for showgirls with the Gilded Age plutocrats with whom he hobnobbed. They mass-circulation rags ran tearful, hand-wringing and utterly salacious articles about the other showgirls whom White had corrupted, all the while inveighing against the immorality of show people while doing their utmost best to profit by it by. Anthony Comstock, for 30 years the Lord General Cromwell in America's campaign against smut in the mails, praised Thaw for avenging his wife's honor, claiming that America would be better off with more Thaws taking the law into their own hands and executing "the unwritten law." President Theodore Roosevelt reportedly closely followed the case in the press.
Unfortunately, the press dragged Elsie into the scandal revolving around the murder, an affair immortalized in the book, motion picture and Broadway musical "Ragtime." A journalist revealed that Elsie had known about her friend Evelyn's affair with White, which brought unwanted attention. The two Thaw murder trials (the first one having ended with a hung jury) constituted the first "Trial of the Century" in that new century, and Elsie was anxious to avoid being subpoenaed as a witness as it might generate more bad publicity. To be tarred as one of the loose showbiz girls the press was reveling in, boosting its circulation while sanctimoniously condemning their immorality while covering their yellow pages with the skinny on their antics, could prove fatal to a career in those more-outwardly Puritanical times. Elsie accepted an offer to appear in "The Earl of Pawtucket" at the London Playhouse in England, which proved to be a hit.
Returning to her home country, she appeared in melodramas on Broadway, such as Edgar Selwyn's "Pierre of the Plains" in 1908. The next year, she was hailed for her performance in the title role of "Such a Little Queen." In the following decade, she became the 'Toast of Broadway' and earned the reputation as 'the most beautiful woman on the spoken stage.' Elsie rejected offers from movie producers as she considered the primitive photoplays of her time to be inferior to the stage. She continued to act on Broadway, appearing in a string of successes, including the revival of "Arizona."
She distinguished herself playing Portia opposite Shylock of the great English tragedian Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree in a 1916 production of "The Merchant of Venice." Elsie next appeared as the eponymous heroine of "Shirley Kaye." At this time, she surrendered to the blandishments of Paramount-Artcraft sachem Adolph Zukor, who had offered her a very lucrative three-year contract that would pay her $5,000 per week to appear in 18 pictures.
Maurice Tourneur helmed her fist picture for Paramount, "Barbary Sheep" (1917), which also featured the movie debut of George M. Cohan, later immortalized on film in James Cagney's Oscar-winning turn as the master showman in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942). Initially, Elsie hated the experience, but she had a good working relationship with Tourneur, who became her favorite director during her relatively brief movie career. She later told an interviewer, "I shall never forget my state of mind during the making of `Barbary Sheep.' My experience before the camera was the most painful thing I have ever known in life. It seemed to me that the little black box became a monster that was leering and scoffing at my feeble efforts to register an emotion before it. I went home in tears. But the next morning I returned.... It is so different and not at all as I expected.... I am fortunate in being under Mr. Maurice Tourneur's direction and presume I shall soon look upon the work as blandly as those to whom it has become a habit, though now it is quite strange."
Maurice Tourneur relayed a story about Elsie's debut in films in an interview in a Paramount media guide. "Downstairs the studio manager declared 'Miss Ferguson is a wonder. When she came over here the first day, she candidly said, 'I don't know film work, but I'm willing to learn.' Other stars and stage folk dash in with that 'I-know-it-all-need-no-director-look-who-I-am' air, and their first screen work shows how little they actually know." Tourneur predicted that Elsie would become a major star due to her beauty and talent.
"Barbary Sheep" was a hit with critics and audiences, and Tourneur directed her next two pictures, "The Rise of Jenny Cushing" (1917) and "Rose of the World" (1918), the latter of which Elsie declared was her favorite among her first batch of movies. In 1918, Tourneur also directed her with less stellar results as Nora Helmer in a cinematic adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece "A Doll's House." It was the third movie version of the play, which had also been filmed in 1911 and 1917, the latter with Dorothy Phillips as Nora and Lon Chaney as Nora's nemesis, Nils Krogstad.
Ibsen's masterpiece had been frequently revived on Broadway since its New York debut in 1889, starring the likes of the great Ethel Barrymore and Alla Nazimova, who portrayed the tragic heroine three times on Broadway between and 1907 and 1918. (The flamboyant Nazimova would play the role in her own adaptation of the play in Charles Bryant's 1922 film version, co-starring Alan Hale, the father of The Skipper from "Gilligan's Island," as her Torvald.) Elsie had not yet played in anything with the gravity of Ibsen, on stage or screen. The photoplay, which was changed from the play but retained the basic story, displeased both the director and his star, and it flopped at the box office. As the `Moving Picture World' had written about the failure of the 1917 version to live up to Ibsen's play, "[T]he fine shades of meaning in the dialogue without the aid of speech render the task of the actors in the cast doubly hard...." If the great pantomimist Chaney could not put the meaning across, it is doubtful that Elsie and her less stellar supporting cast could, which likely abetted the failure of her picture..
Marshall Neilan directed her in a remake of her old stage hit "Pierre of the Plains," which had first been filmed in 1914 by the Selwyn brothers, called "Heart of the Wilds" (1918), while George Fitzmaurice directed her in four films. A fashion maven, Elsie earned the sobriquet "The Aristocrat of the Screen" for her many portrayals of aristocrats and high society women in her pictures.
Elsie refused Paramount's offer for a new, more lucrative contract, and returned to the Broadway stage with the play "Sacred and Profane Love" (1920), which was a huge hit. In this period, she admitted to an interest in socialism in an October 1921 `Motion Picture Magazine' interview. "All the while, the middle classes and the lower classes, people are struggling and worrying and fretting their lives away over questions of food and education for their children and the wherewithal for the essentials of life. When a man has accumulated more than, say, a million, the moneys made should revert back to those who have contributed to the amassment." The statement is surprising, not because of her wealthy background and lifestyle, but because the United States had been in the grip of its first "Red Scare' for two years.
Paramount managed to sign Elsie to a two-year, four-picture contract in late 1921, and she filmed a movie version of her stage success, "Sacred and Profane Love" (1921), with director by William Desmond Taylor, a man who himself would fall victim to a bullet at the beginning of 1921, as had Stanford White almost two decades earlier. Supporting player Maxine Elliott Hicks, who described her leading lady in "Love" as `ritzy' in a 1990 interview, said, "She wouldn't allow anyone on the set, including Momma, but she was a darling to me."
George Fitzmaurice directed her in a screen adaptation of George du Maurier's novel "Peter Ibbetson" called "Forever" (1921), co-starring Wallace Reid, the silent movie superstar addicted to morphine who would die in an asylum in January 1923 while withdrawing from narcotics. Containing her best screen performance, this third film of her two-year Paramount contract was a big hit, as was her last, "Outcast" (1922). She then returned to the Broadway stage in the 1923 hit "The Wheel of Life," but she refused Paramount's offer of a new contract, which would have included filming her latest success. She instead appeared in "The Grand Duchess and The Waiter" on Broadway.
Elsie would later take her "Wheel" and "Duchess" co-star, British stage actor Frederick Worlock, as her third husband. Earlier, she had been married to businessman and Adams Express Co. heir Frederick C. Hoey, then married bank executive Thomas Clarke, Jr. in the mid-1910s. Elsie divorced Clarke in the late 1920s, married Warlock, and then shortly divorced him in 1930. But that lay in the future.
After appearing in a supporting role to Adolphe Menjou and Norma Shearer in the Monta Bell-directed movie "Broadway After Dark" for Warner Bros., she made one more silent flicker, Vitagraph's "The Unknown Lover" (1925), a film she detested and would never discuss. Elsie continued her stage career with great success throughout the decade, but retired at the end of the Roaring `20s. Five years later, she appeared in First National Pictures' "Scarlet Pages" (1930). The movie, a talkie, was based on the play of the same name that Elsie had appeared in on Broadway in 1929. The 47-year-old actress played a lawyer defending a young woman accused of murder. Elsie's speaking voice on film was lower-pitched than her fans expected, but she had clear and precise diction, as did man of the stage actors dragooned into the talkies in that period. Her first talkie would prove to be her last appearance on film.
Elsie's friend Lowell Sherman, who was developing a cinematic version of William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" at R.K.O. for David O. Selznik's friend and future business partner, multi-millionaire John Hay "Jock" Whitney, cast her as the Duchess of Richmond. The movie, "Becky Sharp" (1935), made cinematic history as the first feature film shot in three-strip Technicolor. It was not directed by Sherman, however, as he died before filming began and was replaced by Rouben Mamoulian. With her friend gone, Elsie dropped out of the film, and Billie Burke played the Duchess instead.
On March 17, 1934, the 51-year-old Elsie married wealthy Irishman Victor Augustus Seymour Egan. They bought a farm in Connecticut that same year, where she spent her retirement. They also maintained a home in France. Elsie came out of retirement to appear on Broadway in the 1943 production of "Outrageous Fortune," which was a hit with the critics, but a flop at the box office, playing only 77 performances. She retired from acting for good, splitting her time between Connecticut and France.
Elsie's husband, Victor Egan, died in France in 1956. Widowed for five years, Elsie died at the age of 78 on November 15, 1961. With no surviving heirs, she left $1,000,000 to New York City's Animal Medical Center.
None of Elsie Ferguson's silent films are known to exist, although a 35mm print of "Forever" (1922) that had been owned by Dorothy Davenport Reid, Wallace Reid's widow, may have made it into the hands of a private collector. Her sole talkie, "Scarlet Pages," does exist and is part of the Time-Warner library of films. It occasionally is shown by the cable movie network Turner Classic Movies and remains the sole legacy of this great actress' spectacular career in the first part of the last century. - Writer
- Additional Crew
- Director
James Houston was born on 12 June 1921 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a writer and director, known for The White Dawn (1974), Legend of the Raven (1957) and The Living Stone (1959). He was married to Alice Houston. He died on 17 April 2005 in New London, Connecticut, USA.- Bert French was born on 29 September 1883 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Vampire (1913). He was married to Alice Eis. He died on 27 January 1924 in New London, Connecticut, USA.
- Animation Department
Theron Collier was born on 31 March 1912 in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Theron died on 13 March 1995 in New London, Connecticut, USA.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Arthur A. Penn was born on 13 February 1875 in London, England, UK. He was a composer, known for Smilin' Through (1922), Lorna Doone (1922) and Young Eagles (1930). He died on 6 February 1941 in New London, Connecticut, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Visual Effects
Rufus Rose was born on 24 March 1904 in Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for The Blue Fairy (1958), The Ruff & Reddy Show (1957) and The Howdy Doody Show (1947). He was married to Margo. He died on 29 May 1975 in New London, Connecticut, USA.- Babe Sargent was born on 24 February 1929 in Littleton, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for American Playhouse (1980) and Henry Phipps Goes Skiing (1976). He died on 9 June 2011 in New London, New Hampshire, USA.
- Art Department
- Additional Crew
David Stone Martin was born on 13 June 1913 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. David Stone is known for Paint Your Wagon (1969), The Cobweb (1955) and Studio One (1948). David Stone was married to Cheri Mae Landry, Gloria Stone and Thelma Marguerite Durkin. David Stone died on 6 March 1992 in New London, Connecticut, USA.- Claude Jones was born on 1 December 1904 in West Ham, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Cover Girl Killer (1959), At Your Service, Ltd. (1951) and Court of Mystery (1961). He died on 13 November 1965 in The New Theatre, West End, London, England, UK.
- Richard Mealand was born on 2 September 1904 in Greenfield, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer, known for Always Leave Them Laughing (1949) and Studio One (1948). He died on 20 February 1958 in New London, Connecticut, USA.
- Animation Department
Bill Hilliker was born on 25 May 1891 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is known for Topsy TV (1957), Gaston's Baby (1958) and A Bum Steer (1957). He died on 4 April 1986 in New London, Connecticut, USA.- Writer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Lyricist ("Song of the Vagabonds", "Only a Rose"), author and educator, educated at Yale University (BA, MA), and who became the assistant professor of English at Columbia University between 1903 and 1905, a rhetoric instructor at Yale University between 1905 and 1909, and a lecturer at the Columbia extension. He was literary editor at the New York Sun in 1917. His Broadway stage scores include "The Vagabond King", "June Love", and "Marjolaine", and he was the librettist for "Through the Years". He was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Joining ASCAP in 1923, his chief musical collaborators included Rudolf Friml and Hugo Felix, and his other popular-song compositions include "Give Me One Hour", "Huguette Waltz", "Love Me Tonight", "Regimental Song", "Some Day", and "Tomorrow".- Martin Branner was born on 28 December 1888 in New York City, New York, USA. Martin was a writer, known for Winnie Steps Out (1927), Winnie's Winning Ways (1928) and Winnie's Birthday (1926). Martin died on 19 May 1970 in New London, Connecticut, USA.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Writer
Hastings Mann was born on 18 January 1908 in Leicester, England, UK. He was a composer and writer, known for After Dinner (1938), Puss in Boots (1962) and Dick Whittington (1957). He was married to Doris Jenkins. He died on 6 May 1964 in New Bond Street, London, England, UK.- Music Department
Bob Brookmeyer was born on 19 December 1929 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He is known for Help! My Snowman's Burning Down (1965), The Sam Levenson Show (1951) and Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959). He was married to Janet and Margo Guryan. He died on 15 December 2011 in New London, New Hampshire, USA.- Andrew Byrne was born on 5 June 1866 in Norwich, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for Eight Bells (1918). He died in 1938 in New London, Connecticut, USA.
- Jordon was a graduate of Hazleton High School class of 1948. He went on to earn his A.B. degree from Cornell University and a master's degree from University of Iowa. Jordon was also awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for study at the University of Florence, Italy.
Jordon was commissioned an officer in the United States Navy, where his service took him on missions to Antarctica, the Mediterranean, the Far East and the South Pacific. Jordon was an officer-instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy; a Fellow of comparative literature at Princeton University; an assistant professor at the University of Iowa; a Fulbright lecturer at University d'Aix-Marseilles, France; assistant professor at Mount Holyoke College; associate professor at Trinity College, and professor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. - Sigmund Strochlitz was born on 1 February 1917 in Bedzin, Poland, Russian Empire [now Bedzin, Slaskie, Poland]. He died on 16 October 2006 in New London, Connecticut, USA.
- Victor Raffo died on 22 February 1957 in New London, Connecticut, USA.
- Additional Crew
Mrs. Richard Mansfield was born on 20 December 1868 in Troy, New York, USA. Mrs. Richard is known for Beau Brummel (1924). Mrs. Richard was married to Richard Mansfield and George R.P. Phoebus (newspaper man). Mrs. Richard died on 12 July 1940 in New London, Connecticut, USA.- Ales Jermár was born on 13 June 1929 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. Ales was a composer, known for Klícová zálezitost (1963), Vajícko (1964) and Fantazie pro levou ruku a lidske svedomi (1961). Ales died on 13 February 2004 in New London, Connecticut, USA.