The Fabulous Dorseys

Tommy Dorsey (Actor) .. Himself

Born: November 19, 1905
Died: November 26, 1956

Trivia: A trombonist and orchestra leader who appeared in several films, Tommy Dorsey is the brother of musician Jimmy Dorsey.

Jimmy Dorsey (Actor) .. Himself

Born: February 29, 1904
Died: June 12, 1957

Trivia: A saxophonist and orchestra leader who appeared in several films, Jimmy Dorsey is the brother of musician Tommy Dorsey.

Janet Blair (Actor) .. Jane Howard

Born: April 23, 1921
Died: February 19, 2007

Trivia: When redheaded band vocalist Martha Jean Lafferty was casting about for a professional name, she chose Janet Blair, claiming that she named herself after her county of birth, Blair County, Pennsylvania. Janet was signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1941, appearing in such programmers as Blondie Goes to College (1941) before graduating to the "dish" title role in My Sister Eileen (1942). Her last assignments at Columbia were nondescript leading-lady stints in Red Skelton's The Fuller Brush Man (1948) and the swashbuckling The Black Arrow (1948). She left Hollywood for Broadway in 1950, then toured for many years in the road company of South Pacific, eventually playing the leading role of Nellie Forbush more often than any other actress. She returned to moviemaking in 1957; the best of her later film roles was the suspected sorceress in the British Burn, Witch, Burn (1962). Janet Blair's TV activities included several musical specials of the 1950s and 1960s, one of them based on the exploits of globetrotting journalist Nellie Bly; she also played Sid Caesar's wife in many of the comedian's TV appearances of the 1956-57 season, co-hosted 1959's The Chevy Show with singer John Raitt, and portrayed the wife of detective Henry Fonda on the 1971 "drammedy" The Smith Family.

Paul Whiteman (Actor) .. Himself - Bandleader

William Lundigan (Actor) .. Bob Burton

Born: June 12, 1914
Died: December 20, 1975

Trivia: American actor William Lundigan launched his show business career working as an adolescent announcer for a Syracuse radio station, which was housed in a building owned by his father. Abandoning a planned law career, Lundigan spent thirteen years as an announcer before being discovered by a Universal film executive in 1937. Appearing as a lightweight leading man in such films as Armored Car (1937) and Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1938), and in featured roles in the bigger-budgeted Dodge City and The Old Maid (both 1939), Lundigan worked steadily in the major studios before being drafted into the Marines for World War II service in 1942. Like many other second-echelon Hollywood actors, Lundigan found the going rough after the war, though as a Fox contractee he managed to land occasional good parts in such pictures as Pinky (1949) and I'll Get By (1950). When prospects dried up for Lundigan in the mid-1950s, he returned to announcing as the host of the popular CBS dramatic anthology Climax. Science fiction fans will remember Lundigan for his role in Riders to the Stars (1954), and for his portrayal of TV's first true astronaut, Col. MacCauley, in the 1959 weekly adventure series Men Into Space.

Sara Allgood (Actor) .. Mrs. Dorsey

Born: October 31, 1883
Died: September 13, 1950

Trivia: Born to a middle-class Irish family and educated at the Marlborough Street Training College, 19-year-old Sara Allgood joined the Irish National Theatre Society, obtaining her first speaking role in a 1903 production of W.B. Yeats' The King's Threshold. She became a member of Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1904; within a few years she was lauded as Ireland's foremost actress. While touring Australia in 1918, she made her film bow in Just Peggy. She didn't like the experience, and it would be eleven years before she would face the cameras again, this time in the role of Anna Ondra's mother in Blackmail (1929), Alfred Hitchcock's (and the British film industry's) first talkie. One year later, Hitchcock cast Sara in the demanding title role in the cinematic adaptation of Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, a role she had created on stage with the Abbey Players in 1924. After a decade of worthwhile stage assignments and forgettable film roles, Sara came to Hollywood in 1940, where she was cast by John Ford in a strong role in the Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley (1941). This led to a long-term contract with 20th Century-Fox, which was financially satisfying but dramatically unrewarding; after years of incisive, commanding stage roles, Sara was compelled to play cliched Irish mothers and servants. Sara Allgood's final screen appearance was in Fox's Cheaper By the Dozen (1950), in which she received prominent billing--and approximately five lines of dialogue.

Arthur Shields (Actor) .. Mr.Dorsey

Born: February 15, 1896
Died: April 27, 1970

Trivia: The younger brother of Irish actor Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields joined Fitzgerald at Dublin's famed Abbey as a Player in 1914, where he directed as well as acted. Though in films fitfully since 1910, Shield's formal movie career didn't begin until he joined several other Abbey veterans in the cast of John Ford's Plough and the Stars (1936). He went on to appear in several other Ford films, generally cast in more introverted roles than those offered his brother. Unlike his sibling, Shields was not confined to Irish parts; he often as not played Americans, and in 1943's Dr. Renault's Secret, he was seen as a French police inspector. Never as prominent a film personality as his brother, Arthur Shields nonetheless remained a dependable second-echelon character player into the 1960s.

James Flavin (Actor) .. Gorman

Born: May 14, 1906
Died: April 23, 1976

Trivia: American actor James Flavin was groomed as a leading man when he first arrived in Hollywood in 1932, but he balked at the glamour treatment and was demonstrably resistant to being buried under tons of makeup. Though Flavin would occasionally enjoy a leading role--notably in the 1932 serial The Airmail Mystery, co-starring Flavin's wife Lucille Browne--the actor would devote most of his film career to bit parts. If a film featured a cop, process server, Marine sergeant, circus roustabout, deckhand or political stooge, chances are Jimmy Flavin was playing the role. His distinctive sarcastic line delivery and chiselled Irish features made him instantly recognizable, even if he missed being listed in the cast credits. Larger roles came Flavin's way in King Kong (1933) as Second Mate Briggs; Nightmare Alley (1947), as the circus owner who hires Tyrone Power; and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949), as a long-suffering homicide detective. Since he worked with practically everyone, James Flavin was invaluable in later years as a source of on-set anecdotes for film historians; and because he evidently never stopped working, Flavin and his wife Lucille were able to spend their retirement years in comfort in their lavish, sprawling Hollywood homestead.

William Bakewell (Actor) .. Eddie

Born: May 02, 1908
Died: April 15, 1993

Trivia: William Bakewell began playing film juveniles at the age of 17. Bakewell enjoyed a flurry of activity in the early talkie era, with substantial roles in such major films as All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). By the end of the 1930s, his career had by-and-large diminished to minor roles, such as the chivalrous mounted officer in the evacuation scenes in Gone With the Wind (1939). During the next decade, Bakewell fluctuated between one-scene bits and stuffed-shirt character parts, notably James Stewart's rival for the affections of Lana Turner in You Gotta Stay Happy (1948). The baby-boomer generation will always remember Bakewell as Tobias Norton in Disney's ratings-grabbing Davy Crockett episodes of the 1950s; he also played the condescending stage manager on the prime-time version of The Pinky Lee Show (1950). William Bakewell spent most of the last half of his life as a successful California Realtor.

Dave Willock (Actor) .. Foggy

Born: August 13, 1909

Bobby Warde (Actor) .. Young Tommy

Buz Buckley (Actor) .. Young Jimmy

Ann Carter (Actor) .. Young Jane

Born: June 16, 1936
Died: January 27, 2014

Trivia: Ann Carter was a child actress and young ingénue of the 1940s, who first came to the attention of producers and the movie press because of her startling resemblance to Veronica Lake. After making her debut in an uncredited role in The Last of the Duanes (1941), she played a small role in Commandos Strike at Dawn the same year, and then portrayed the daughter of Lake's character in I Married a Witch (1942). Her biggest and best role, however, was in the Val Lewton-produced Curse of the Cat People (1944), in which she played the sweet, impressionable daughter of Kent Smith and Jane Randolph (whose characters had previously appeared in Lewton's Cat People), who is beset by images of ghosts and the machinations of a disturbed adult (Elizabeth Russell) in a huge, dark, old neighboring house. Carter played the young Texas Guinan (portrayed by Betty Hutton as an adult) in Incendiary Blonde, but all of her scenes were deleted. She was in a few more notable films, including The Two Mrs. Carrolls, for which she won an award for her portrayal of the preteen daughter, and The Boy With Green Hair, but somehow didn't manage to regularly get roles that were as good as her talent. She portrayed a large supporting role in Blondie Hits the Jackpot (1949), a very late entry in Columbia Pictures' "Blondie" series, at age 13. Carter contracted polio in 1948 and spent years recovering; she wasn't seen again until her appearance in Fred Zinnemann's superb Member of the Wedding (1952), which was her last acting role. She died in 2014 at age 77.

Tom Dugan (Actor) .. Waiter

Born: January 01, 1884

Jackie Searl (Actor) .. Joe

Born: July 07, 1920

Trivia: Juvenile actor Jackie Searl began performing on local Los Angeles radio at the age of 3. Jackie came to film prominence in the early-talkie era, nearly always playing a nasty, phlegmatic brat, none more nasty or phlegmatic than Sidney Sawyer in 1930's Tom Sawyer and 1931's Huckleberry Finn. In response to overwhelming demand from his fans, Searl was teamed with his female counterpart, hoydenish young Jane Withers, in three mid-1930s films. However, the anticipated sparks never flew on screen, possibly because Searl and Withers, both pleasant and well-behaved in real life, got along too well offscreen. Even at the height of his popularity, Searl (and his family) never pocketed more than $4000 a year; thus, he sought out other forms of employment after serving in World War II. He made a brief comeback as a film character actor in 1948 before disappearing for nearly a decade into the "civilian" world. In the early 1960s, Jack Searl (Jackie no more), his trademarked weaselly facial features augmented by a stubbly chin and bald dome, enjoyed a flurry of activity as a supporting villain on TV westerns, cop shows and situation comedies.

James Taggart (Actor) .. Phil

Hal K. Dawson (Actor) .. Artie

Born: January 01, 1896
Died: February 17, 1987

Trivia: Sad-eyed, mustachioed actor Hal K. Dawson appeared in several Broadway productions of the 1920s. During the run of Machinal, Dawson was the roommate of fellow actor Clark Gable; throughout his later Hollywood career, Gable saw to it that Dawson was given parts in such films as Libeled Lady (1936) and To Please a Lady (1951). Even without Gable's help, Dawson enjoyed a long and productive movie and TV career, usually playing long-suffering personal secretaries and officious desk clerks. Hal K. Dawson was a lifelong member of the Masquers Club, and, in the twilight of his life, was made an honorary member of the Pioneers of Radio Club.

Sherry Sherwood (Actor) .. Herself

Edward Clark (Actor) .. Hotel Clerk

Born: May 06, 1878

Andrew Tombes (Actor) .. De Witt

Born: January 01, 1889
Died: January 01, 1976

Trivia: Excelling in baseball while at Phillips-Exeter academy, American comic actor Andrew Tombes determined he'd make a better living as an actor than as a ballplayer. By the time he became a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies, Tombes had performed in everything from Shakespeare to musical comedy. He received star billing in five editions of the Follies in the '20s, during which time he befriended fellow Ziegfeldite Will Rogers. It was Rogers who invited Tombes to Hollywood for the 1935 Fox production Doubting Thomas. An endearingly nutty farceur in his stage roles, Tombes' screen persona was that of an eternally befuddled, easily aggravated business executive. The baldheaded, popeyed actor remained at Fox for several years after Doubting Thomas, playing an overabundance of police commissioners, movie executives, college deans, and Broadway "angels." Tombes' problem was that he arrived in talkies too late in the game: most of the larger roles in which he specialized usually went to such long-established character men as Walter Catlett and Berton Churchill, obliging Tombes to settle for parts of diminishing importance in the '40s. Most of his later screen appearances were unbilled, even such sizeable assignments as the would-be musical backer in Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin' (1941) and the royal undertaker's assistant in Hope and Crosby's Road to Morocco (1942). Still, Tombes was given ample opportunity to shine, especially as the secretive, suicidal bartender in the 1944 "film noir" Phantom Lady. Andrew Tombes last picture was How to Be Very Very Popular (1955), which starred a colleague from his busier days at 20th Century-Fox, Betty Grable.

Jack Roper (Actor) .. Radio Station Attendant

Born: March 25, 1904
Died: November 28, 1966

Trivia: A real-life prize fighter, mustachioed, tough-looking Jack Roper began turning up in films shortly before sound. His busiest period, however, proved to be 1938-1950, where he portrayed various thugs, mugs, and fighters and can be seen in nearly all the Joe Palooka programmers from Monogram. His final screen appearance seems to have been in John Wayne's The Quiet Man (1952), in which he once again played a prize fighter. Roper spent his declining years as a resident of the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital. He died from throat cancer.

Charlie Barnet (Actor) .. Himself - Bandleader

Born: October 26, 1913
Died: September 04, 1991

Trivia: A bandleader from age 16 until his death 62 years later, Charlie Barnet was at his peak in the late '30s and early '40s. Of his many recordings, Barnet is best remembered for his smash hit single "Cherokee;" his arrangement, in fact, has been followed note by note by virtually every band and orchestra since. Among the first white bandleaders to hire blacks (one of his discoveries was Lena Horne), he was refreshingly casual about it, refusing in later years to posture as a Civil Rights pioneer. Compared to other bandleaders of his stature, Charlie Barnet's film appearances were sparse, consisting of a mere four feature films: Music in Manhattan (1944), Jam Session (1944), Idea Girl (1946), and A Song Is Born (1948).

Henry Busse (Actor) .. Himself

Mike Pingatore (Actor) .. Himself

Ziggy Elman (Actor) .. Himself - Musician

Born: January 01, 1913
Died: January 01, 1968

Bob Eberly (Actor) .. Himself - Band Vocalist

Born: January 01, 1915
Died: January 01, 1981

Helen O'Connell (Actor) .. Herself - Band Vocalist

Born: May 23, 1920
Died: September 09, 1993

Art Tatum (Actor) .. Himself

Born: October 13, 1909
Died: November 05, 1956

Stuart Foster (Actor) .. Himself

Ray Bauduc (Actor) .. Himself

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