Music To My Ears 12

The happy couple.  Ann Parker and her accompanist husband between gigs.  Or perhaps, before the show.  Click on Music to My Ears in labels to see more.

Music To My Ears 11

I guess I should have put this one up before the last one.  Same couple, same domestic scene, but clearly older.  From the fifties I'd guess, but who knows.  I think the quality might be a little off.  I did an update from Windows 10 and the control panel for my Epson scanner disappeared.  Apparently my older, perfectly acceptable scanner is no longer supported.  I'm able to make it work, but it looks like between Windows and Epson I'll have to buy a new one and like most housebound people my income is reduced.  Anyway, enough of my complaints.  Click on Music To My Ears in labels to see more.

Music To My Ears 9

Dressed up for a night out or for a night on stage?  As a former professional printer I'm insulted that the printer couldn't be bothered to clean the negative.  I'll be taking a break before putting more up from this collection. Click on Music To My Ears in labels to see more. 

Music To My Ears 8

 

This is the only photograph I have of Mary Reagan, or Ann Parker or whatever stage name she was using, while actually performing.  The guys at the bar are drinking beers rather than cocktails.  A low rent dive or do the drinkers just prefer beer? 

As usual, click on Music To My Ears to see more. 

Music To My Ears 7

I had hoped to use the name of the act to hunt down some actual information about this duo but the best I could find was the location of The Hotel Penn Alto.  Philadelphia? Pittsburgh?  Nope, Altoona, home of the horse shoe curve rail tracks.  I've been to Altoona though it's been so long that I don't really have any memories of the place.  I figured that this picture was probably from the 1950's so I did look up some census numbers.  In 1950, 77,177.  In 1960, 69,407.  Basically, Altoona is one of those medium sized American cities that has been in a state of decline for a very long time.  The fact that the act was playing the hotel lounge in a small city hotel helps explain why this duo left almost no record of their careers.  Acts that headline in Altoona don't get a lot of recognition.  Still, it's almost impossible to make it in show business.  For every job, there are hundreds of talented performers capable of getting up on stage and entertaining people.  It's why so many of them quite and get a regular job.  Mary Reagan, or Ann Parker or whatever professional name she was using when this picture was taken actually made a living as a singer.  That's admirable.

Click on Music To My Ears in labels to see more.

Music To My Ears 5

Stamped on the back, "PLEASE CREDIT Kerr 43 west 51st street new york, n. y. eldoarado 5-3178."  And yes, they did use lower case letters as I've typed them.  Well, I did find a bit about The Kerr Studio.  It was opened in 1951 by husband and wife team, Justin and Barbara Kerr.  Originally they specialized in theatrical portraits, but by the late 1950's they began restoring and photographing pre-Colombian artifacts from Mexico and Central America.  I dug up a bit on Barbara, but nothing about Justin.  Barbara went to the Pratt Institute and died in 2014.  As I wrote, a bit.  This collection isn't finished yet, but I'm going to shelve things for awhile and move on to other photos.

Once again click on Music To My Ears to see other posts from this series.

Music To My Ears 4

This one's a bit of a mystery.  Another picture of the same woman, at least I think so, with yet another name.  So, is it Mary Reagan, Ann Parker or Penny?  In any case she loves Bill.  Stamped on the back, "MAX MUNN AUTREY, M. Ph.  Photographic Artist 7009 Sunset Blvd.-Hollywood 28, Calif."  There's also the stamp on the lower left corner of the print.  I was able  to find a bit about Autrey on line.  He was a successful photographer, both at his own studio and as the official photographer for Fox Studios in the 1920's.  I'm about to put some of Autrey's portraits on my Fair Use blog.

Click on Music To My Ears in labels to see more.

Music To My Ears 3

A studio portrait but from her Mary Reagan or Ann Parker period?  Stamped on the back, "Photo by ATLANTIC STUDIOS 1901 ON THE BOARDWALK ATLANTIC CITY, N.J."  Very likely she was performing at an Atlantic City nightclub.  Atlantic City, the lungs of Philadelphia. Click on Music To My Ears in labels to see more.

Music To My Ears 2

Well, Ann Parker sure looks a lot like Mary Reagan from the last post.  It also looks like Leverne Reagan has made an exit from the act.  Once again, I've dated this clipping from the movie ads on the back.  Mr. Skeffington, starring Betty Davis, was released in 1944.

Again, click on Music To My Ears to see more from this collection.  I'll be taking a break from this and going to other things for awhile before returning with some studio portraits.

Music To My Ears 1

Time to start another collection. But who is it about?  Well, that's a bit of a mystery since I have pictures of the same woman though she seems to have taken a stage name.  Leverne and Mary Reagan and Jerry Hilliard are featured in the photograph from this story from the entertainment pages of the Los Angeles Examiner.  A sister act, most likely, appearing in "Music To My Ears" which looks to have been a successful show at the Troopers Theater on Las Palmas in downtown Hollywood, L.A., California.  There are still lots of venues in that area, but I'll have to actually head over to Las Palmas to double check the address, and to be honest, it's not something I'm planning on in the near future.

Mary is the sister that shows up in other photos which is not surprising since her name is underlined.  Some of the captions on latter photographs mention "Mommy & Daddy"  and I'm moderately certain the Dad is Jerry Hilliard.  Anyway, I scanned the back of this clipping because it's how I dated the article.  Ride 'Em Cowboy, Sleepytime Gal, The Male Animal and Ghost of Frankenstein were all released  in 1942.  The Vogue Theater mentioned in the one article is still there, though no longer in use.  With all the development going on in Hollywood, I suspect it's days are numbered.

Obviously Musics To My Ears will be the tag in the labels section at the bottom of the post that eventually will pull up the whole collection.  For the time being, I'll be starting with a couple of press clippings before taking a break when I'll be posting other things.   And before I forget, I did run Leverne and Mary Reagan through IMBD as well as some of the other names used by Mary.  Nothing for the sisters though there are two credits for Jerry Hilliard.  The Red Skelton Hour form 1953 credited as supporting character and Jimmy Wakely's Jamboree from 1954 credited as himself.  It was a musical short so that makes sense. I have no idea if it's the same Jerry Hilliard.

English Theater, The Kiltie Show

Ah, those Brits.  It's always a leg show.

Anyway, like yesterdays' post, there's lots of info on the back, including hand written stuff that looks a lot like the writing on, well, yesterday's post.  So, starting on the stamped info, "KIN 5638 ORDER No.  PHOTOCRAFT OF KINGSTON, 3 & 4 EMPIRE CHAMBERS RICHMOND ROAD, KINGSTON-ON THAMES."  And the hand written entry, "Laughing Room Only, Comin' Thru' the Rye.  Finale of Kiltie Show.  Oct. 1951." 

So, if it the same handwriting, rather than an example of a rigid school system that made sure everyone's handwriting looks exactly the same, was it the photographer or a cast member? 

May You Live In Interesting Times, Lilian Harvey

I'm sure most people have heard the old Chinese curse about living in interesting times.  Well, I'm not sure such a curse ever existed or if it's the invention of some B-movie writer, or if it's all that bad to live in such eras.  In any case, Lilian Harvey lived in interesting times.

Lilian Harvey was born Helene Lilian Muriel Pape in 1906, in London.  Her mother was English, her father was a German businessman.  Not a good combination for the twentieth century. At the beginning of World War 1, Lilian and her parents were living in Magdeburg, Germany.  Unable, or perhaps unwilling to leave, Lilian's parents stayed in Germany, but fearing for their daughter's safety, they sent young Lilian to live with relatives in Switzerland, where she learned to speak French, along with the German and English she already knew.

After the war, she returned to Germany to be with her parents.  After graduating form the German version of high school, she began studying voice and dance at the Berlin State Opera, while also pursuing theatrical work.  She also changed her name to Lilian Harvey.  She danced in revues, sang on stage, acted in plays, and also began working in silent movies.

One of the things about silent movies was that they were an international art form.  A silent movie made in Germany, with translated inter-titles, could play anywhere in the world.  When sound came along, suddenly, there were national cinemas.  Movies made in the large market of the United States, with an audience in other English language markets, continued apace, but  a country like Germany, with a much smaller population, had to adapt.  What the German, as well as other European film industries did, was to film the same movie, in multiple languages, all at the same time.  A situation made for Lilian Harvey.  Thanks to her training, she could sing and dance, her stage experience had given her a  good voice for talkies, and she could speak fluent, unaccented, German, English, and French.  And while these were all advantages, she was also a charming performer, with a gift for light comedy, as well as enough range to handle a dramatic role.  Far more important for a movie actor.

So, with the advent of sound movies, Lilian Harvey became an international star.  Not all of the German actors could work in multiple languages, so Lilian often found herself filming a scene with a German costar, then doing the same scene again with an English, or French actor.  Laurence Olivier's first film role was opposite Lilian in an English version of Hokuspokus.  In the mid thirties, Lilian Harvey accepted an invitation to work at Fox Studios in Hollywood.  She made a few films, none as popular as her European films, so she walked away from George White's Scandals.  The film was a major hit, and her replacement, Alice Faye became a big star.

While Harvey was still popular with German audiences, she had fallen out of favor with the German, Nazi government.  Despite the Nuremberg Laws that made it impossible for Jews to work in film, she continued her friendship with many of her Jewish colleagues.  In 1937, she bailed out her friend, choreographer Jens Keith, who had been arrested for violating Paragraph 175, a Nazi era law criminalizing homosexuality.  While out on bail, Keith fled to Paris.  Lilian Harvey was arrested by the Gestapo, but  released several days latter.  In 1939, Lilian Harvey herself fled Germany, moving to France.  Eventually she was stripped of her German citizenship for entertaining French troops.  Her large real estate holdings and bank accounts were also seized.

In 1942, Lilian Harvey, once again, moved to the United States.  This time there would be no film work.  (Her last films were shot, in France, in 1940.)  She did work on stage, and was also a nurse in Los Angeles.  After the war, she moved to France, where she worked as a singer.  It wasn't until 1949 that she returned to Germany to give a series of concerts.  Her career petered out after that.  Eventually she retired to Antibes on the French Riviera, where she supported herself running a souvenir shop.  She died in 1968, at the age of 62.

The photo is a German tobacco card, from the 1930s.