Hollywood Canteen
Encyclopedia
The Hollywood Canteen operated at 1451 Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, California between October 3, 1942 and November 22, 1945 (Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...

) as a club offering food, dancing and entertainment for servicemen
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

, usually on their way overseas. Even though the majority of visitors were U.S servicemen, the Canteen was open to servicemen of allied countries
Allies
In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...

 as well as women in all branches of service. The serviceman's ticket for admission was his uniform
Military uniform
Military uniforms comprises standardised dress worn by members of the armed forces and paramilitaries of various nations. Military dress and military styles have gone through great changes over the centuries from colourful and elaborate to extremely utilitarian...

 and everything at the Canteen was free of charge.
The driving forces behind its creation were Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

 and John Garfield
John Garfield
John Garfield was an American actor adept at playing brooding, rebellious, working-class character roles. He grew up in poverty in Depression-era New York City and in the early 1930s became an important member of the Group Theater. In 1937 he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner...

, along with Jules Stein, President of Music Corporation of America
Music Corporation of America
MCA, Inc. was an American talent agency. Initially starting in the music business, they would next become a dominant force in the film business, and later expanded into the television business...

, who headed up the finance committee. Bette Davis devoted an enormous amount of time and energy to the project and served as its president. The various guild
Guild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...

s and unions
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

 of the entertainment industry donated the labor and money for the building renovations. The Canteen was operated and staffed completely by volunteers from the entertainment industry. By the time the Canteen opened its doors, over 3000 stars, players, directors, producers, grips, dancers, musicians, singers, writers, technicians, wardrobe attendants, hair stylists, agents, stand-ins, publicists, secretaries, and allied craftsmen of radio and screen had registered as volunteers.

Glamorous stars volunteered to wait on tables, cook in the kitchen
Chef
A chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who cooks for a living, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspects of food preparation.-Etymology:The word "chef" is borrowed ...

 and clean up
Dishwashing
Dish-washing is the process of cleaning cooking utensils, dishes, cutlery and other items. This is either achieved by hand in a sink or using dishwasher and may take place in a kitchen, utility room, scullery or elsewhere...

. One of the highlights of a serviceman was to dance with gorgeous celebrities as Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, Bunny Waters and Faye McKinzie. The other highlight was the entertainment provided by some of Hollywood's most popular stars. Bob Hope, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, Bill Robinson, Lena Horne, Red Skelton were just a few of the hundreds of celebrities who entertained the servicemen every night. On September 15, 1943 the one millionth guest walked through the door of the Hollywood Canteen. The lucky soldier, Sgt. Carl Bell, received a kiss from Betty Grable
Betty Grable
Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...

 and was escorted in by another beautiful star, including Marlene Dietrich.

A Hall of Honor at the Hollywood Canteen had a wall of photos which honored the film actors who served in the military.

By 1944, the Canteen had become so popular that Warner Bros. made a movie titled "The Hollywood Canteen." Starring Joan Leslie and Robert Hutton, the film had scores of stars playing themselves. It was directed by Delmar Daves who, also, wrote the screenplay. At the time the Canteen closed its doors, it had been host to almost three million servicemen.

Canteen site today

Today, the site of the Original Hollywood Canteen is occupied by Amoeba Music
Amoeba Music
Amoeba Music is an independent music chain with stores in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Founded by former employees of nearby Rasputin Records, it opened on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley in 1990. The stores are unusually large given their independent status...

.

Reuse of the name

Fifty years after the closure of the Hollywood Canteen, a private business reopened under the same name as a private restaurant and night club. It does not cater to military servicemen and women.

Canteen Volunteers

Among the many celebrities who donated their services at the Hollywood Canteen were:
  • Bud Abbott
    Bud Abbott
    William Alexander "Bud" Abbott was an American actor, producer and comedian. He is best remembered as the straight man of the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, with Lou Costello.-Early life:...

     & Lou Costello
    Lou Costello
    Louis Francis "Lou" Costello was an American actor and comedian best known as half of the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, with Bud Abbott...

  • June Allyson
    June Allyson
    June Allyson was an American film and television actress, popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was a major MGM contract star. Allyson won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in Too Young to Kiss . From 1959–1961, she hosted and occasionally starred in her own CBS anthology...

  • Don Ameche
    Don Ameche
    Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...

  • Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson
    Eddie Anderson (comedian)
    Edmund Lincoln Anderson , also known as Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, was an American comedian and actor. His most famous role was that of Rochester van Jones, valet of Jack Benny, on his radio and television shows.-Early life:Anderson was born in Oakland, California...

  • The Andrews Sisters
    The Andrews Sisters
    The Andrews Sisters were a highly successful close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews , soprano Maxene Angelyn Andrews , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" Andrews...

  • Dana Andrews
    Dana Andrews
    Dana Andrews was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's major stars of the 1940s, and continued acting, though generally in less prestigious roles, into the 1980s.-Early life:...

  • Eve Arden
    Eve Arden
    Eve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in...

  • Louis Armstrong
    Louis Armstrong
    Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

  • Fred Astaire
    Fred Astaire
    Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...

  • Lauren Bacall
    Lauren Bacall
    Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...

  • Lucille Ball
    Lucille Ball
    Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...

  • Tallulah Bankhead
    Tallulah Bankhead
    Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an award-winning American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante...

  • Theda Bara
    Theda Bara
    Theda Bara , born Theodosia Burr Goodman, was an American silent film actress – one of the most popular of her era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname "The Vamp" . The term "vamp" soon became a popular slang term for a sexually predatory woman...

  • Lynn Bari
    Lynn Bari
    Lynn Bari , born Margaret Schuyler Fisher, was a movie actress who specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers in over one hundred 20th Century Fox films from the early 1930s through the 1940s.-Career:Bari was born in Roanoke, Virginia...

  • Diana Barrymore
    Diana Barrymore
    Diana Barrymore was an American film and stage actress.-Early life:Born Diana Blanche Barrymore Blythe in New York City, New York, she was the daughter of renowned actor John Barrymore and his second wife, poet Blanche Oelrichs...

  • Ethel Barrymore
    Ethel Barrymore
    Ethel Barrymore was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.-Early life:Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew...

  • Lionel Barrymore
    Lionel Barrymore
    Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...

  • Anne Baxter
    Anne Baxter
    Anne Baxter was an American actress known for her performances in films such as The Magnificent Ambersons , The Razor's Edge , All About Eve and The Ten Commandments .-Early life:...

  • Wallace Beery
    Wallace Beery
    Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...

  • William Bendix
    William Bendix
    William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...

  • Joan Bennett
    Joan Bennett
    Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies well into the sound era...

  • Jack Benny
    Jack Benny
    Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...

  • Edgar Bergen
    Edgar Bergen
    Edgar John Bergen was an American actor and radio performer, best known as a ventriloquist.-Early life:...

  • Milton Berle
    Milton Berle
    Milton Berlinger , better known as Milton Berle, was an American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , in 1948 he was the first major star of U.S. television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr...

  • Mel Blanc
    Mel Blanc
    Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...

  • Ann Blyth
    Ann Blyth
    Ann Marie Blyth is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Life and career:Blyth was born in Mount Kisco,...

  • Humphrey Bogart
    Humphrey Bogart
    Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

  • Ray Bolger
    Ray Bolger
    Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...

  • Beulah Bondi
    Beulah Bondi
    Beulah Bondi was an American actress.Bondi began her acting career as a young child in theater, and after establishing herself as a stage actress, she reprised her role in Street Scene for the 1931 film version...

  • Walter Brennan
    Walter Brennan
    Walter Brennan was an American actor. Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on three separate occasions, which is currently the record for most wins.-Early life:...

  • Fanny Brice
    Fanny Brice
    Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American illustrated song "model," comedienne, singer, theatre and film actress, who made many stage, radio and film appearances and is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show...

  • Joe E. Brown
    Joe E. Brown (comedian)
    Joseph Evans Brown was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. In 1902 at the age of nine, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons which toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville...

  • George Burns
    George Burns
    George Burns , born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.He was one of the few entertainers whose career successfully spanned vaudeville, film, radio, television and movies, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became...

     & Gracie Allen
    Gracie Allen
    Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen , known as Gracie Allen, was an American comedian who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns...

  • Spring Byington
    Spring Byington
    Spring Byington was an American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a key MGM contract player appearing in films from the 1930s through the 1960s.-Early life:Byington was born Spring Dell Byington in Colorado Springs,...

  • James Cagney
    James Cagney
    James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...

  • Cab Calloway
    Cab Calloway
    Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....

  • Rod Cameron
    Rod Cameron
    Rod Cameron was a Canadian-born movie actor whose career extended from the 1930s to the 1970s. He appeared in horror, war, action and science fiction movies, but is best remembered for his many Westerns....

  • Eddie Cantor
    Eddie Cantor
    Eddie Cantor was an American "illustrated song" performer, comedian, dancer, singer, actor and songwriter...

  • Judy Canova
    Judy Canova
    Judy Canova , born Juliette Canova, was an American comedienne, actress, singer and radio personality. She appeared on Broadway and in films...

  • Kitty Carlisle
  • Jack Carson
    Jack Carson
    John Elmer "Jack" Carson was a Canadian-born U.S.-based film actor.Jack Carson was one of the most popular character actors during the 'golden age of Hollywood', with a film career spanning the 1930s, '40s and '50s...

  • Marguerite Chapman
    Marguerite Chapman
    Marguerite Chapman was an American actress.Born in Chatham, New York, she was working as a telephone switchboard operator in White Plains, New York when her good looks brought about the opportunity to pursue a career in modeling...

  • Charles Coburn
    Charles Coburn
    Charles Douville Coburn was an American film and theater actor.-Biography:Coburn was born in Macon, Georgia, the son of Scots-Irish Americans Emma Louise Sprigman and Moses Douville Coburn. Growing up in Savannah, he started out doing odd jobs at the local Savannah Theater, handing out programs,...

  • Claudette Colbert
    Claudette Colbert
    Claudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...

  • Jerry Colonna
  • Ronald Colman
    Ronald Colman
    Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...

  • Perry Como
    Perry Como
    Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...

  • Gary Cooper
    Gary Cooper
    Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...

  • Bing Crosby
    Bing Crosby
    Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

  • Joan Crawford
    Joan Crawford
    Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....

  • George Cukor
    George Cukor
    George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...

  • Xavier Cugat
    Xavier Cugat
    Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...

  • Cass Daley
    Cass Daley
    Cass Daley was an American radio, television and film actress, singer, and comedienne. The daughter of an Irish streetcar conductor, Daley started to perform at nightclubs and on the radio as a band vocalist in the 1940s....

  • Dorothy Dandridge
    Dorothy Dandridge
    Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress...

  • Linda Darnell
    Linda Darnell
    Linda Darnell was an American film actress.Darnell was a model as a child, and progressed to theater and film acting as an adolescent. At the encouragement of her mother, she made her first film in 1939, and appeared in supporting roles in big budget films for 20th Century Fox throughout the 1940s...

  • Bette Davis
    Bette Davis
    Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

  • Yvonne De Carlo
    Yvonne De Carlo
    Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced ; Anna in Criss Cross ; Sephora the...

  • Gloria DeHaven
    Gloria DeHaven
    Gloria Mildred DeHaven is an American actress and a former contract star for MGM.-Early life and career:DeHaven was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actor-director Carter DeHaven and actress Flora Parker DeHaven, both former vaudeville performers.She began her career as a child...

  • Dolores Del Rio
    Dolores del Río
    Dolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...

  • William Demarest
    William Demarest
    Carl William Demarest was an American character actor. He frequently played crusty but good-hearted roles.-Early life and career:...


  • Olivia de Havilland
    Olivia de Havilland
    Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...

  • Cecil B. DeMille
    Cecil B. DeMille
    Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...

  • Marlene Dietrich
    Marlene Dietrich
    Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

  • Jimmy Dorsey
    Jimmy Dorsey
    James "Jimmy" Dorsey was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He was known as "JD"...

  • Tommy Dorsey
    Tommy Dorsey
    Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...

  • Irene Dunne
    Irene Dunne
    Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...

  • Jimmy Durante
    Jimmy Durante
    James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...

  • Deanna Durbin
    Deanna Durbin
    Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias....

  • Nelson Eddy
    Nelson Eddy
    Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...

  • Duke Ellington
    Duke Ellington
    Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

  • Faye Emerson
    Faye Emerson
    Faye Margaret Emerson was an American film actress and television interviewer, known as "The First Lady of Television". She acted in many Warner Brothers films beginning in 1941...

  • Dale Evans
    Dale Evans
    Dale Evans, was an American writer, movie star, and singer-songwriter. She was the third wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers.-Early life:...

  • Jinx Falkenburg
    Jinx Falkenburg
    Jinx Falkenburg was an actress, expert swimmer and tennis star, and one of the highest-paid and most ubiquitous cover-girl models in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, one of the first supermodels. She married journalist and influential publicist Tex McCrary in 1945...

  • Alice Faye
    Alice Faye
    Alice Faye was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian...

  • Gracie Fields
    Gracie Fields
    Dame Gracie Fields, DBE , was an English-born, later Italian-based actress, singer and comedienne and star of both cinema and music hall.-Early life:...

  • Errol Flynn
    Errol Flynn
    Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...

  • Kay Francis
    Kay Francis
    Kay Francis was an American stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio, and the highest paid American film actress...

  • Joan Fontaine
    Joan Fontaine
    Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....

  • Eva Gabor
    Eva Gabor
    Eva Gabor was a Hungarian-born socialite and actress. She was widely known for her role on Green Acres as Lisa Douglas, the wife of Eddie Albert's character, Oliver Wendell Douglas, Duchess in the 1970 Disney film The Aristocats, and Miss Bianca in Disney's The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under...

  • Ava Gardner
    Ava Gardner
    Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...

  • Judy Garland
    Judy Garland
    Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...

  • Greer Garson
    Greer Garson
    Greer Garson, CBE was a British-born actress who was very popular during World War II, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top ten box office draws in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946. As one of MGM's major stars of the 1940s, Garson received seven Academy Award...

  • Betty Grable
    Betty Grable
    Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, dancer and singer.Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the LIFE magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World"...

  • Cary Grant
    Cary Grant
    Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...

  • Kathryn Grayson
    Kathryn Grayson
    Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and operatic soprano singer.From the age of twelve, Grayson trained as an opera singer. She was under contract to MGM by the early 1940s, soon establishing a career principally through her work in musicals...

  • Sydney Greenstreet
    Sydney Greenstreet
    Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was an English actor. He is best known for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca .-Biography:...

  • Paulette Goddard
    Paulette Goddard
    Paulette Goddard was an American film and theatre actress. A former child fashion model and in several Broadway productions as Ziegfeld Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. She was married to several notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich...

  • Benny Goodman
    Benny Goodman
    Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

  • Jack Haley
    Jack Haley
    John Joseph "Jack" Haley was an American stage, radio, and film actor best known for his portrayal of the Tin Man and Kansas farmworker Hickory in The Wizard of Oz.-Career:...

  • Phil Harris
    Phil Harris
    Harris and Faye married in 1941; it was a second marriage for both and lasted 54 years, until Harris's death. Harris engaged in a fistfight at the Trocadero nightclub in 1938 with RKO studio mogul Bob Stevens; the cause was reported to be over Faye after Stevens and Faye had ended a romantic...

  • Moss Hart
    Moss Hart
    Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...

  • Dick Haymes
    Dick Haymes
    Richard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes was an Argentine actor and one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, who was an actor, television host, and songwriter....

  • Susan Hayward
    Susan Hayward
    Susan Hayward was an American actress.After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward travelled to Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in Gone with the Wind . Although she was not selected, she secured a film contract, and played several small supporting...

  • Rita Hayworth
    Rita Hayworth
    Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...

  • Paul Henreid
  • Katharine Hepburn
    Katharine Hepburn
    Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

  • Bob Hope
    Bob Hope
    Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...

  • Hedda Hopper
    Hedda Hopper
    Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...

  • Lena Horne
    Lena Horne
    Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

  • Edward Everett Horton
    Edward Everett Horton
    Edward Everett Horton was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television and voice work for animated cartoons. He is especially known for his work in the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.-Early life:Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Isabella...

  • Ruth Hussey
    Ruth Hussey
    Ruth Carol Hussey was an American actress best known for her Academy Award-nominated role as photographer Elizabeth Imbrie in The Philadelphia Story.-Early life:...

  • Betty Hutton
    Betty Hutton
    Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...

  • Harry James
    Harry James
    Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...

  • Gloria Jean
    Gloria Jean
    Gloria Jean is an American singer and actress who starred or co-starred in 26 feature films between 1939 and 1959. She also made radio, television, stage, and nightclub appearances.-Career:...

  • Van Johnson
    Van Johnson
    Van Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....

  • Al Jolson
    Al Jolson
    Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....

  • Jennifer Jones
  • Boris Karloff
    Boris Karloff
    William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...

  • Danny Kaye
    Danny Kaye
    Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...

  • Buster Keaton
    Buster Keaton
    Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...

  • Ruby Keeler
    Ruby Keeler
    Ruby Keeler, born Ethel Hilda Keeler, was an actress, singer, and dancer most famous for her on-screen coupling with Dick Powell in a string of successful early musicals at Warner Brothers, particularly 42nd Street . From 1928 to 1940, she was married to singer Al Jolson...

  • Gene Kelly
    Gene Kelly
    Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...

  • Evelyn Keyes
    Evelyn Keyes
    Evelyn Louise Keyes was an American film actress. She is best-known for her role as Suellen O'Hara in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind.-Early life:...

  • Andrea King
    Andrea King
    Andrea King was an American film and stage actress. She was sometimes billed as Georgette McKee.-Early life:Andrea King was born Georgette André Barry in Paris, France...

  • Kay Kyser
    Kay Kyser
    James Kern Kyser was a popular bandleader and radio personality of the 1930s and 1940s.-Early years:He was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, the son of pharmacists Paul Bynum Kyser and Emily Royster Kyser. Editor Vermont C. Royster was his cousin...


  • Alan Ladd
    Alan Ladd
    -Early life:Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter...

  • Bert Lahr
    Bert Lahr
    Bert Lahr was an American actor and comedian. Lahr is remembered today for his roles as the Cowardly Lion and Kansas farmworker Zeke in The Wizard of Oz, but was also well-known for work in burlesque, vaudeville, and on Broadway.-Early life:Lahr was born in New York City, of German-Jewish heritage...

  • Angela Lansbury
    Angela Lansbury
    Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...

  • Veronica Lake
    Veronica Lake
    Veronica Lake was an American film actress and pin-up model. She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan's Travels and her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s, and was well-known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle...

  • Hedy Lamarr
    Hedy Lamarr
    Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...

  • Dorothy Lamour
    Dorothy Lamour
    Dorothy Lamour was an American film actress. She is best remembered for appearing in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope .-Early life:Lamour was born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Carmen Louise Dorothy...

  • Carole Landis
    Carole Landis
    Carole Landis was an American film and stage actress whose break-through role was as the female lead in the 1940 film One Million B.C.. Landis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1765 Vine Street....

  • Frances Langford
    Frances Langford
    Julia Frances Langford was an American singer and entertainer who was popular during the Golden Age of Radio and also made film appearances over two decades.-Birth:...

  • Pinky Lee
    Pinky Lee
    Pincus Leff , better known as Pinky Lee, was an American burlesque comic and host of a children's television program, The Pinky Lee Show, in the early 1950s.-Biography:...

  • Mervyn LeRoy
    Mervyn LeRoy
    Mervyn LeRoy was an American film director, producer and sometime actor.-Early life:Born to Jewish parents in San Francisco, California, his family was financially ruined by the 1906 earthquake...

  • Vivien Leigh
    Vivien Leigh
    Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...

  • Joan Leslie
    Joan Leslie
    Joan Leslie is a retired American film and television actress.-Early life:Leslie was born Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodel in Detroit, Michigan, and raised Roman Catholic. She began performing as a singer at the age of nine as part of a vaudeville act with her two sisters; Betty and Mae Brodel...

  • Ted Lewis
    Ted Lewis (musician)
    Theodore Leopold Friedman, better known as Ted Lewis , was an American entertainer, bandleader, singer, and musician. He led a band presenting a combination of jazz, hokey comedy, and schmaltzy sentimentality that was a hit with the American public. He was known by the moniker "Mr...

  • Beatrice Lillie
    Beatrice Lillie
    Beatrice Gladys "Bea" Lillie was an actress and comedic performer. Following her 1920 marriage to Sir Robert Peel in England, she was known in private life as Lady Peel.-Early career:...

  • June Lockhart
    June Lockhart
    June Lockhart is an American actress, primarily in 1950s and 1960s television, but with memorable performances on stage and in film too. She is remembered as the mother in two TV series, Lassie and Lost in Space. She also portrayed Dr...

  • Anita Loos
    Anita Loos
    Anita Loos was an American screenwriter, playwright and author.-Early life:Born Corinne Anita Loos in Sisson, California , where her father, R. Beers Loos, had opened a tabloid newspaper for which her mother, Minerva "Minnie" Smith did most of the work of a newspaper publisher...

  • Peter Lorre
    Peter Lorre
    Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...

  • Myrna Loy
    Myrna Loy
    Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...

  • Bela Lugosi
    Béla Lugosi
    Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...

  • Ida Lupino
    Ida Lupino
    Ida Lupino was an English-born film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States. She appeared in serial television programmes 58 times and directed 50 other episodes...

  • Diana Lynn
    Diana Lynn
    Diana Lynn was an American actress.Born Dolores Marie Loehr in Los Angeles, California, Lynn was considered a child prodigy because of her exceptional abilities as a pianist at an early age, and by the age of 12 was playing with the Los Angeles Junior Symphony Orchestra.-Film career:Dolores Loehr...

  • Marie McDonald
    Marie McDonald
    Marie McDonald was an American singer and actress known as "The Body Beautiful" and later nicknamed "The Body".- Early life :...

  • Jeanette MacDonald
    Jeanette MacDonald
    Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...

  • Irene Manning
    Irene Manning
    Irene Manning was an actress/singer.She was born Inez Harvuot in Cincinnati, Ohio in a family of five siblings. Her family loved to go on outdoor picnics where the featured activity was group singing. This family environment helped Irene to develop a keen interest in singing at a very early age...

  • The Marx Brothers
  • Herbert Marshall
    Herbert Marshall
    Herbert Marshall , born Herbert Brough Falcon Marshall, was an English actor.His parents were Percy F. Marshall and Ethel May Turner. He graduated from St. Mary's College in Old Harlow, Essex and worked for a time as an accounting clerk...

  • Victor Mature
    Victor Mature
    Victor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky to an Italian-speaking father from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol , Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, a cutler,...

  • Elsa Maxwell
    Elsa Maxwell
    Elsa Maxwell was an American gossip columnist and author, songwriter, and professional hostess renowned for her parties for royalty and high society figures of her day....

  • Hattie McDaniel
    Hattie McDaniel
    Hattie McDaniel was the first African-American actress to win an Academy Award. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind ....

  • Roddy McDowall
    Roddy McDowall
    Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English actor and photographer. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes film series...

  • Butterfly McQueen
    Butterfly McQueen
    Thelma "Butterfly" McQueen was an American actress. Originally a dancer, the 28-year-old McQueen first appeared as Prissy, Scarlett O'Hara's maid in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, then continued as an actress in film in the 1940s, then moving to television acting in the 1950s .-Early life:Born...

  • Ray Milland
    Ray Milland
    Ray Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting...

  • Ann Miller
    Ann Miller
    Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...

  • Glenn Miller
    Glenn Miller
    Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...

  • Carmen Miranda
    Carmen Miranda
    Carmen Miranda, GCIH was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the highest-earning woman in the United States and noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang's...

  • Maria Montez
    María Montez
    María Montez was a Dominican-born motion picture actress who gained fame and popularity in the 1940s as an exotic beauty starring in a series of filmed-in-Technicolor costume adventure films. Her screen image was that of a hot-blooded Latin seductress, dressed in fanciful costumes and sparkling...

  • Dennis Morgan
    Dennis Morgan
    Dennis Morgan was an American actor-singer. Born as Earl Stanley Morner, he used the acting pseudonym Richard Stanley before adopting his professional name....

  • Ken Murray
    Ken Murray (entertainer)
    Ken Murray was an American entertainer and author.-Vaudeville:Murray was born Kenneth Doncourt in New York City to a family of vaudeville performers. According to Murray's autobiography , he changed his name because he did not want to ride the coattails of his father's success; he wanted to make a...

  • The Nicholas Brothers
  • Jack Oakie
    Jack Oakie
    Jack Oakie was an American actor, starring mostly in films, but also working on stage, radio and television.-Early life:...

  • Margaret O'Brien
    Margaret O'Brien
    Margaret O'Brien is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history...

  • Virginia O'Brien
    Virginia O'Brien
    Virginia Lee O'Brien was a popular American actress, singer, and radio personality known for her comedic roles in MGM musicals of the 1940s.-Life and career:...

  • Maureen O'Hara
    Maureen O'Hara
    Maureen O'Hara is an Irish film actress and singer. The famously red-headed O'Hara has been noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne...

  • Donald O'Connor
    Donald O'Connor
    Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor was an American dancer, singer, and actor who came to fame in a series of movies in which he co-starred alternately with Gloria Jean, Peggy Ryan, and Francis the Talking Mule...

  • Maureen O'Sullivan
    Maureen O'Sullivan
    Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was an Irish actress.-Early life:O'Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents Mary Lovatt and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in The Connaught Rangers who served in The Great War...

  • Merle Oberon
    Merle Oberon
    Merle Oberon was an Indian-born British actress best known for her screen performances in The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Cowboy and the Lady . She began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII . She travelled to the United States to make films for Samuel...

  • Eleanor Parker
    Eleanor Parker
    Eleanor Jean Parker is an American screen actress. Her versatility led to her being dubbed Woman of a Thousand Faces, the title of her biography by Doug McClelland.- Early life :...

  • Louella Parsons
    Louella Parsons
    Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...

  • Gregory Peck
    Gregory Peck
    Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...

  • Mary Pickford
    Mary Pickford
    Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

  • Walter Pidgeon
    Walter Pidgeon
    Walter Davis Pidgeon was a Canadian actor, who starred in many motion pictures, including Mrs...

  • Dick Powell
    Dick Powell
    Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...

  • Eleanor Powell
    Eleanor Powell
    Eleanor Torrey Powell was an American film actress and dancer of the 1930s and 1940s, known for her exuberant solo tap dancing.-Early life:...

  • Jane Powell
    Jane Powell
    Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens...

  • William Powell
    William Powell
    William Horatio Powell was an American actor.A major star at MGM, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the popular Thin Man series in which Powell and Loy played Nick and Nora Charles...

  • Anthony Quinn
    Anthony Quinn
    Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

  • George Raft
    George Raft
    George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s...

  • Claude Rains
    Claude Rains
    Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...


  • Basil Rathbone
    Basil Rathbone
    Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...

  • Martha Raye
    Martha Raye
    Martha Raye was an American comic actress and standards singer who performed in movies, and later on television....

  • Donna Reed
    Donna Reed
    Donna Reed was an American film and television actress.With appearances in over 40 films, Reed received the 1953 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the tramp Lorene in the war drama From Here to Eternity. She is also noted for her role in the perennial Christmas...

  • Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
    Bill Robinson
    Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was an American tap dancer and actor of stage and film. Audiences enjoyed his understated style, which eschewed the frenetic manner of the jitterbug in favor of cool and reserve; rarely did he use his upper body, relying instead on busy, inventive feet, and an expressive...

  • Edward G. Robinson
    Edward G. Robinson
    Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...

  • Ginger Rogers
    Ginger Rogers
    Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....

  • Roy Rogers
    Roy Rogers
    Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye , was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain...

  • Cesar Romero
    Cesar Romero
    Cesar Julio Romero, Jr. was an American film and television actor who was active in film, radio, and television for almost sixty years...

  • Mickey Rooney
    Mickey Rooney
    Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...

  • Jane Russell
    Jane Russell
    Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....

  • Rosalind Russell
    Rosalind Russell
    Rosalind Russell was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame...

  • Ann Rutherford
    Ann Rutherford
    Ann Rutherford is a Canadian-American actress in film, radio, and television. She has had a long career starring and co-starring in films, playing Polly Benedict on the big screen of the 1930s and 1940s in the Andy Hardy series, and on The Bob Newhart Show as Newhart's character's...

  • Peggy Ryan
    Peggy Ryan
    Margaret O'Rene "Peggy" Ryan was an American dancer, best known for starring in a series of movie musicals at Universal Pictures with Donald O'Connor and Gloria Jean....

  • S.Z. Sakall
    S.Z. Sakall
    Szőke Szakáll , known as S.Z. Sakall, was a Hungarian film character actor. He was in many films including In the Good Old Summertime, Lullaby of Broadway, Christmas in Connecticut and Casablanca in which he played Carl, the head waiter.Chubby-jowled Sakall played numerous supporting roles in...

  • Ann Savage
  • Randolph Scott
    Randolph Scott
    Randolph Scott was an American film actor whose career spanned from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals , adventure tales, war films, and even a few...

  • Toni Seven
    Toni Seven
    Toni Seven was an American cover girl and actress. She was blonde.-Youth:Born June Elizabeth Millarde on July 6, 1922 in New York City, she was the only child of actress June Caprice and film director Harry F. Millarde....

  • Norma Shearer
    Norma Shearer
    Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...

  • Ann Sheridan
    Ann Sheridan
    -Life and career:Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a student at the University of North Texas when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a...

  • Dinah Shore
    Dinah Shore
    Dinah Shore was an American singer, actress, and television personality...

  • Sylvia Sidney
    Sylvia Sidney
    Sylvia Sidney was an American actress who rose to prominence in the 1930s appearing in numerous crime dramas.-Early life:...

  • Phil Silvers
    Phil Silvers
    Phil Silvers was an American entertainer and comedy actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah." He is best known for starring in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S...

  • Ginny Simms
    Ginny Simms
    Ginny Simms was an American Popular Singer and film actress. She labeled with Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Jo Stafford and others. Born in San Antonio, Texas, she sang with big bands and worked as MGM contract player film actress.She appeared in 11 movies from 1939 to 1951, when she...

  • Frank Sinatra
    Frank Sinatra
    Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

  • Red Skelton
    Red Skelton
    Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton was an American comedian who is best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, night clubs and casinos, all while pursuing...

  • Alexis Smith
    Alexis Smith
    Alexis Smith was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress. She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972.-Life and career:...

  • Kate Smith
    Kate Smith
    Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...

  • Ann Sothern
    Ann Sothern
    Ann Sothern was an American film and television actress whose career spanned six decades.-Early life and career:...

  • Jo Stafford
    Jo Stafford
    Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American singer of traditional pop music and jazz standards and occasional actress whose career ran from the late 1930s to the early 1960s...

  • Barbara Stanwyck
    Barbara Stanwyck
    Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...

  • Craig Stevens
    Craig Stevens (actor)
    Craig Stevens was an American motion picture and television actor.-Early and personal life:Born Gail Shikles, Jr., in Liberty, Missouri, his father was a high school teacher....

  • Leopold Stokowski
    Leopold Stokowski
    Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

  • Lewis Stone
    Lewis Stone
    Lewis Shepard Stone was an American actor.Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, son of Bertrand Stone and Philena Heald Ball. Stone's hair grew gray by the time he was twenty. He fought in the Spanish-American War, then returned to a career as a writer. He soon began acting...

  • Gloria Swanson
    Gloria Swanson
    Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...

  • Shirley Temple
    Shirley Temple
    Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...

  • Danny Thomas
    Danny Thomas
    Danny Thomas was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor, best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy . He was also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital...

  • Gene Tierney
    Gene Tierney
    Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven .Other notable roles include...

  • Martha Tilton
    Martha Tilton
    Martha Tilton was an American popular singer, best-known for her 1939 recording of "And the Angels Sing" with Benny Goodman. She was sometimes introduced as The Liltin' Miss Tilton.Tilton and her family lived in Texas and Kansas, relocating to Los Angeles when she was seven years old...

  • Claire Trevor
    Claire Trevor
    Claire Trevor was an Academy Award-winning American actress. She was nicknamed the "Queen of Film Noir" because of her many appearances in "bad girl” roles in film noir and other black-and-white thrillers...

  • Lana Turner
    Lana Turner
    Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...

  • Spencer Tracy
    Spencer Tracy
    Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...

  • Gloria Vanderbilt
    Gloria Vanderbilt
    Gloria Laura Vanderbilt is an American artist, author, actress, heiress, and socialite most noted as an early developer of designer blue jeans...

  • Beryl Wallace
    Beryl Wallace
    Beryl Wallace was an American singer, dancer and actress.Born Beryl Heischuber in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York, she was the eldest of nine children of working class Jewish immigrants from Austria...

  • Nancy Walker
    Nancy Walker
    Nancy Walker was an American actress and comedienne of stage, screen, and television. She was also a film and television director...

  • Ethel Waters
    Ethel Waters
    Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...

  • John Wayne
    John Wayne
    Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...

  • Clifton Webb
    Clifton Webb
    Clifton Webb was an American actor, dancer, and singer known for his Oscar-nominated roles in such films as Laura, The Razor's Edge, and Sitting Pretty...

  • Johnny Weissmuller
    Johnny Weissmuller
    Johnny Weissmuller was an Austro-Hungarian-born American swimmer and actor best known for playing Tarzan in movies. Weissmuller was one of the world's best swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals and one bronze medal. He won fifty-two US National Championships and set sixty-seven...

  • Orson Welles
    Orson Welles
    George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

  • Mae West
    Mae West
    Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....

  • Paul Whiteman
    Paul Whiteman
    Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...

  • Chill Wills
    Chill Wills
    Chill Theodore Wills was an American film actor, and a singer in the Avalon Boys Quartet.-Biography:Wills was born in Seagoville, Texas in 1902. He was a performer from early childhood, forming and leading the Avalon Boys singing group in the 1930s...

  • Marie Wilson
    Marie Wilson (American actress)
    Katherine Elisabeth Wilson , better known by her stage name, Marie Wilson, was an American radio, film, and television actress. She may be best remembered as the title character in My Friend Irma.-Career:...

  • Jane Withers
    Jane Withers
    Jane Withers is an American actress best known for being one of the most popular child film stars of the 1930s and early 1940s, as well as for her portrayal of "Josephine the Plumber" in a series of TV commercials for Comet cleanser in the 1960s and early 1970s.-Biography:Withers began her career...

  • Anna May Wong
    Anna May Wong
    Anna May Wong was an American actress, the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American to become an international star...

  • Jane Wyman
    Jane Wyman
    Jane Wyman was an American singer, dancer, and character actress of film and television. She began her film career in the 1930s, and was a prolific performer for two decades...

  • Rudy Vallee
    Rudy Vallée
    Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...

  • Lupe Vélez
    Lupe Vélez
    Lupe Vélez was a Mexican film actress. Vélez began her career in Mexico as a dancer, before moving to the U.S. where she worked in vaudeville. She was seen by Fanny Brice who promoted her, and Vélez soon entered films, making her first appearance in 1924. By the end of the decade she had...

  • Loretta Young
    Loretta Young
    Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...

  • Vera Zorina
    Vera Zorina
    Vera Zorina was a Norwegian ballerina, musical theatre actress and choreographer.-Background:Vera Zorina was born Eva Brigitta Hartwig in Berlin, Germany. Her father Fritz was a German and her mother Billie Hartwig was Norwegian. Both were professional singers...

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