Shirley Ross
Nascimento : 1913-01-07, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
Morte : 1975-03-09
História
Blonde, vivacious and obviously talented, Shirley Ross had the promisings of a big musical film star, but her career remained strictly second-string throughout her fairly short career. She is best remembered through her pairing with an entertainment legend: Shirley was afforded the opportunity of duetting with Bob Hope on the song "Thanks for the Memory" in the splashy musical The Big Broadcast of 1938. The song, of course, became Bob's beloved signature tune.
Shirley was born Bernice Gaunt in Omaha, Nebraska in 1913. Her family moved west and she attended Hollywood High School, later studying at UCLA. Blessed with a gorgeous musical instrument, and an adept piano player as well, Shirley went on to sing with Gus Arnheim's band on the west coast, appearing at all the swanky clubs of the day, including the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, while making a decent name for herself on radio. She also appeared in a west coast production of "Anything Goes".
MGM initially scooped her up, making her unbilled debut in the Jean Harlow starrer Blonde Bombshell (1933). She continued on just as obscurely in the films Hollywood Party (1934), Manhattan Melodrama (1934), The Girl from Missouri (1934), The Merry Widow (1934), and Age of Indiscretion (1935), but was finally promoted to a minor featured role in the classic earthquake epic San Francisco (1936) with Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald, in which Shirley sang "Happy New Year".
In 1936, she found more visible work over at Paramount and spent the next few years there paired up vocally and romantically with either Bing Crosby or Bob Hope in their popular vehicles - The Big Broadcast of 1937 (1936), Waikiki Wedding (1937), Thanks for the Memory (1938), Paris Honeymoon (1939), and Some Like It Hot (1939). Though most were trifling, insignificant time fillers, she was a diverting beauty and quite serviceable in them. She was even given the chance to topline a few of her own movies such as Prison Farm (1938), Sailors on Leave (1941), and A Song for Miss Julie (1945), which was her swan song.
After leaving pictures, Shirley Ross was little heard or seen. Married first to agent John Kenneth 'Ken' Dolan, then to Everett S. 'Eddie' Blum, she had three children - two sons and a daughter. She died in Menlo Park, California of cancer in 1975.
Valerie Kimbro
Two playwrights and a former burlesque queen travel to Louisiana to research a musical they're planning on a local Southern hero.
Hedda Hopper plays hostess at a party for her (grown) son William (DeWolfe Jr.). Hopper, attends the dedication of the Motion Picture Relief Fund's country home and goes to the Mocambo. There is also a sequence dedicated to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin world premiere of the first short in this series attended by more that a few film stars.
Linda Hall
If a shy sailor marries before his next birthday, he will inherit a fortune.
Juliet Marsden
A newlywed develops amnesia and can't remember his wife.
Dianna Donovan
Jimmy Hanley learns that his former dancing partner has been killed, leaving a baby boy Sandy, so he takes the baby to live with him and his roommate Boris Bebenko. Theatre manager Allen Rand threatens to fire Jimmy for neglecting his work, but Jimmy's girlfriend Diana squares things by going to dinner with Rand over Jimmy's objections. Sandy catches measles and the quarantine causes Jimmy and Boris to miss a big audition.
Lily Racquel
Nicky Nelson is a fast-talking sideshow barker with a wax-and-alive concession on Atlantic City's boardwalk. Even with the band of his friend, struggling musician Gene Krupa, playing on the sidewalk to attract the customers, "The Living Corpse" and other low-rent acts aren't enough to lure the seen-it-all boardwalk strollers, and the landlord closes the show in lieu of never-paid rent. Nicky, always promoting, goes to Stephen Hanratty, head of the pier's Dance Pavilion, to plug Krupa's band as an attraction, but Hanratty won't even listen to them. But, while there, he meets singer Lily Racquel, who knows he is a phoney but might have the ability to to talk a radio-station manager into giving her an audition. She gives him a ring to help finance the project; he promptly loses it in a crap-game.
Bells Browne
A pampered heiress (Madeleine Carroll) elopes with a shipboard reporter (Fred MacMurray) just to get her name in a society column.
Barbara Wayne
A Texas millionaire travels to Europe to meet his girlfriend, a European countess. He stops in a rustic mountain village and meets a beautiful peasant girl. He falls in love with her, then must decide if he wants her or the rich countess.
Anne Merrick
Steve Merrick is an out of work writer who stays home and plays house husband while his wife goes to work for her former fiancé and Merrick's publisher who is still carrying a torch for her.
Jean Forest
Shirley Ross plays an innocent young girl convicted for complicity in a crime committed by her boy friend (Lloyd Nolan). The male crook is sentence to six months on a prison farm populated by both men and women (segregated, of course). Ross is also incarcerated, suffering the cruelties of the sadistic male and female guards (including J. Carroll Naish and future "Ma Kettle" Marjorie Main!)
Cleo Fielding
The Bellows family causes comic confusion on an ocean liner, with time out for radio-style musical acts.
Sally Shea
A young singer hopes to become a success on Broadway.
Georgia Smith
Tony Marvin is a laid back but incredibly successful promoter and fair-haired boy for J. P. Todhunter's pineapple company located in beautiful Hawaii. He gets the company to sponsor a contest in which the winner gets a Hawaiian vacation and is obligated to write articles on the islands which, when published, will constitute a publicity coup for the company. Unfortunately, Georgia Smith, the winner, feels lonely and isolated in the Islands and wants to return to the States. With help from buddy Shad Buggle Tony tries to romantically divert Georgia without letting her know his true motivation.
Toni Ainsworth
An unfortunate marriage and a bogus Count are the ingredients for this musical.
Gwen Holmes
A cream-of-the-crop gathering of 1930's radio stars, who lend themselves to a storyline about a failing radio station which needs to put on a huge ratings winner to have any chance of continued operation. An interesting mixture of the stars whose fame continued to grow, those who became bit players in show business history, and those who have been forgotten entirely, except at the Internet Movie Database of course!
Trixie
Um Leão-de-Chácara da Costa Barbary e um empresário de Nob Hill são rivais pelos afetos de uma bela cantora, tanto pessoal quanto profissionalmente, na São Francisco de 1906.
Eunice
In this action film, a courageous test pilot works with experimental aircraft for the US Armed Forces. When an important airplane manufacturer dies, his daughter is left to run the company. The company seems to be producing dangerous prototypes, so the woman decides to close the company.
Cigar Stand Clerk (uncredited)
Con men Calvin Churchill and Clip McGurk know how to fix a horse-race or boxing match. Calvin wants to go straight and win back his estranged wife, but first the men must dodge a dogged IRS agent and bilk a bunch of aviation investors out of the backing boodle for a balloon excursion into the stratosphere.
Vi (Uncredited)
A society girl tries to make a go of her marriage to an archaeologist.
Ruth Rockwell
A recently-fired advertising executive starts his own company, Confidential Services, to help clients solve their unusual and problematic situations.
Dotty
A book publisher finds his business floundering, which prompts his socially ambitious wife to desert him for a society millionaire, leaving him with their young son. The publisher's fortunes improve dramatically, however, when a best-selling romance novelist decides to publish her new book with his firm. In the meantime, his ex-wife has married the millionaire, and she and her new mother-in-law come up with a plan to sue her ex-husband for custody of the boy.
Mannequin Shirley (uncredited)
In this MGM Colortone Musical short, a department store custodian who overindulges in drink sees the mannequins in the store's display windows come to life.
Girl in Apartment (uncredited)
An embezzler who expects to serve his time in prison and then pick up his buried loot is in for a surprise.
Singer
In rhyme, a soapbox preacher, Mr. Blue Laws, enlists Mr. Public Opinion in the efforts of the Society for the Prevention of Jazz. Armed with an ax and a buckshot-shooting pistol, the two of them interrupt Ted Fiorito and his jazz orchestra (and showgirls). The lads head for the woods, where Ted convinces them to stand their ground. They're joined by their songstress who says it may be their last day on earth, so sing the blues for all they're worth. Then the dancers arrive to report they barely got away, and it's time for a final strut. Public Opinion brings a death sentence. Is there no appeal?
Singer in Cotton Club
Jim Wade (William Powell) e Edward "Blackie" Gallagher (Clark Gable) são amigos de infância que seguem caminhos distintos. Gallagher se torna um jogador e gângster, enquanto Wade é eleito promotor, devido à sua integridade, e se candidata a governador. Eleanor Packer (Myrna Loy), que tivera uma forte relação com Blackie, se casa com Wade. Neste período Wade se vê obrigado a pedir a pena de morte ao amigo, que foi acusado de assassinato, sem imaginar que Blackie cometeu o crime para ajudá-lo a se eleger governador.
Herself
While the warden is away, his daughter attempts to turn prison into 'Paradise" Considered a Lost Film.
Singer (uncredited)
A glamorous film star rebels against the studio, her pushy press agent and a family of hangers-on.
