Lena Horne was a jazz and popular singer who appeared with popular bands, in films, nightclubs and on Broadway. She did many cameo appearances in well-known musicals such as "Ziegfeld Follies", "Till the Clouds Roll By" and "Thousands Cheer". She also had starring roles in the two most famous all-black musicals - "Cabin in the Sky" and "Stormy Weather" (the title song also became her signature song!). Click here to read an in-depth bio and obituary from The Guardian.
Yesterday, 9 May 2010 , singer Lena Horne died at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She was 92 years old.
Lena Horne was a jazz and popular singer who appeared with popular bands, in films, nightclubs and on Broadway. She did many cameo appearances in well-known musicals such as "Ziegfeld Follies", "Till the Clouds Roll By" and "Thousands Cheer". She also had starring roles in the two most famous all-black musicals - "Cabin in the Sky" and "Stormy Weather" (the title song also became her signature song!). Click here to read an in-depth bio and obituary from The Guardian.
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While filming the dramatic scene at the end of Dark Victory (the part where you know that she's going upstairs to die), Bette Davis stopped and asked the director, "Who's scoring this film? Max Steiner?" The director said he thought so. "Well," Bette declared, "either I am going up those stairs or Max Steiner is going up those stairs, but not the two of us together." The great actors in Hollywood understood that a good music score was as important a part of each film as their own presence on screen, and that often looked like competition. While Max did go up the stairs with Bette (to the delight of fans everywhere), she wouldn't have seen it all put together until she saw the finished film. She wasn't going through her lines with the music softly playing in the background. From this side of the screen, they were an unstoppable duo. Twenty-one of Bette Davis' films, including some of her greatest roles, were scored by Max Steiner. Together, they made movie history. Max Steiner (1888-1971) was one of the greatest film score composers in Hollywood, scoring hundreds of films from 1930-1965. He composed scores for films that are now considered classics, such as Gone with the Wind (1939), Casablanca (1942), and King Kong (1933). A musical genius since childhood, Steiner studied under legendary composers Gustav Mahler and Johannes Brahms. Moving to the US as a young man, he began orchestrating and conducting on Broadway. With the advent of talking pictures, he was quickly brought in by the movie studios to help transistion from silents to talkies. Steiner was one of the first film orchestrators/composers to create a musical score that was specific to the content of a scene and to give certain characters their own themes. Throughout his long and remarkable career he composed hundreds of film scores, some which are still recognizable today. Nominated eighteen times, he won Academy Awards for his scores for The Informer (1935), Now, Voyager (1942), and Since You Went Away (1944). Bette Davis (1908-1989) was one of the great actresses to emerge during the golden era of cinema. Called by many "The First Lady of Film", she appeared in over 50 films between 1931 and 1987. She was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award 11 times, winning twice (Dangerous, 1935; Jezebel, 1938). With fellow actor John Garfield, she co-founded the Hollywood Canteen for service men during World War II. She continued acting throughout her whole life, guest appearing on many TV shows. Films such as Now, Voyager, Dark Victory, The Letter, and The Little Foxes are classics and still shown today. Here is a list of Bette Davis / Max Steiner films:
Way Back Home (1931) Of Human Bondage (1934) Kid Galahad (1937) That Certain Woman (1937) Jezebel (1938) The Sisters (1938) Dark Victory (1939) The Old Maid (1939) All This, and Heaven Too (1940) The Letter (1940) The Great Lie (1941) Shining Victory (1941) The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) In This Our Life (1942) Now, Voyager (1942) Watch On the Rhine (1943) The Corn is Green (1945) A Stolen Life (1946) Winter Meeting (1948) Beyond The Forest (1949) John Paul Jones (1959) Singer and actress Kathryn Grayson died at home, Wednesday, February 17, at the age of 88. Longtime secretary and companion Sally Sherman stated that "She just went to sleep and didn't wake up". Kathryn Grayson graced the MGM musical screen through the 1940s and '50s. Appearing with cinema stars such as Howard Keel, Gene Kelly, and Mario Lanza, Some of her best remembered films include Anchors Aweigh (with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra), Show Boat and Kiss Me Kate (both co-starring Howard Keel). Personally, I think her best two numbers were "Let Them Have Music" from Thousands Cheer and "Time After Time" from It Happened in Brooklyn. Read The Los Angeles Times Obituary. Read The Morning Call Obituary. This year, 1930s screen legend LUISE RAINER celebrated her 100th birthday. Co-star William Powell described her as "one of the most natural persons I have ever known. Moreover, she is generous, patient and possesses a magnificent sense of humor. . . She has judgment and an abiding understanding which make it possible for her to portray human emotion poignantly and truly. . . Everything she does has been subjected to painstaking analysis. She thinks over every shade of emotion to make it ring true. " Born January 12, 1910 in Germany, she went on the stage at the age of sixteen. She became a well-known German and Austrian stage actress before entering into Austrian films. In 1935, she came to Hollywood and was cast in "Escapade", opposite William Powell, who was so impressed with her that he insisted she be billed with him above the title and even introduced his co-star at the end of the film. The next year, Producer Irving Thalberg lobbied for her to play the role of Anna Held, insisting that Luise Rainer was the only actress who could play the part. She was cast (again opposite William Powell) and her heartfelt performance, particularly in her final scene where she telephones Ziegfeld to say 'goodbye', was praised by audiences and critics alike. On March 4, 1937, she was awarded the Best Actress Academy Award. Her next film, "The Good Earth" (based on Pearl S. Buck's best-selling novel), where she plays the wife of a Chinese farmer whose land is threatened by famine, earned her another Best Actress Academy Award, becoming the first actress to win consecutive Oscars, a record unmatched until thirty years later by Katherine Hepburn. Unhappy in Hollywood, and feeling emotionally drained, Rainer left Hollywood in 1938 for Europe, where she studied medicine and returned to the stage, occasionally appearing on television. Today she celebrates her 100th birthday, making her the oldest surviving Oscar winner. She will be appearing in April as a special guest at the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival to introduce a new restored version of "The Good Earth". She currently resides in England. |
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