Who Was the Biggest Broadway Star No Not Appear In Film?

~~~~

Sort of Alfred Drake? (He appeared in one movie - Tars & Spars)

Mary Martin.

Barbara Cook.

There's a bunch of them who only appeared marginally (maybe in one or two films) Lunt & Fontanne in The Guardsman, Katherine Cornell playing herself in Stage Door Canteen, Alfred Drake in Tars & Spars, John Raitt in The Pajama Game and a few very minor roles earlier. Hmm... (I'm thinking)

R3, Mary Martin appeared in quite a few films.

R3 & R4 Mary Martin appeared in about 10 films. Barbara Cook is a good answer.

Also very rarely used in films -- Uta Hagen (isn't THE OTHER her only onscreen "lead"?).

OP, you need to give us a clue.

[quote] [R3] & [R4] Mary Martin appeared in about 10 films.

[quote] In any major way.

Which of the 10 or so movies qualify Mary Martin as appearing "in any major way"?

Mary Martin was a leading player though not a star in many films before whe went back to Braodway to do ONE TOUCH OF VENUS. She does not fit the brief at all. I'll go with Paula Lawrence, with a face that was made for radio.

The Biggest Broadway Star who didn't Appear on Film is George Lee Andrews.

^ We have never heard of this person.

Lucille Lortel

I was actually kidding about Paula Lawrence, though she didn't have a film career. The biggest star not to appear in film would be Maude Adams, who did audition for a film but didn't really have any interest in movies. Katherine Cornell would be next, having appeared in a cameo playing herself but not in a actual part. (MGM wanted her so badly to play her part in BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET that they offered to destroy the print if she didn't like it, but she still declined.) And third would be Laurette Taylor, who did do a silent film or two, but no talkies.

R10. All right, settle down; I didn't notice the "in any major way" qualification. She had a major part in Kiss the Boys Goodbye. It looks like maybe one or two others, but I couldn't say for sure.

OP, you have given us a frustrating question.

We're knowledgeable about movie stars but obviously ignorant about genuine actors from the legitimate theatre.

Mary Martin was the leading lady in 8 films in the late 30's and early 40's. Drop it.

Ms. LuPone. Ms. Chenowith. Ms. Ebersole...

[quote] Drop it.

Well, since my last post on the topic was 44 minutes ago, you might've guessed I did drop it.

I think a point to be made about Mary Martin is that she didn't appear in any films once she became an established Broadway star/leading lady in One Touch of Venus. One might think that her Broadway acclaim might have caused Hollywood to call her back but it just didn't happen.

I thought Mary Martin didn't appear in films because her nose was too big.

Gertrude Lawrence's star quality was never captured in the few films she made. Not even in STAR! which was purportedly all about her star quality.

I suspect Gertrude Lawrence's 'star quality' only worked on stage.

She obviously had good diction and Noël did insist that good diction was the paramount requirement for anyone on stage.

Unless I'm missing something, Chita had a good sized supporting role in Sweet Charity and a cameo in Chicago, but that's really about it.

Yeah, Rita Moreno got her movie career.

[quote] Ms. LuPone. Ms. Chenowith. Ms. Ebersole..

Fuck you! How DARE you! My movie career is legendary. I played sister to the superstar Harrison Ford in Witness. And my topless scene in Spike Lee's movie inspired an entire generation of MILF-lovin' guys. I offered to do full frontal and even took my panties off, but Spike ran off to vomit, told us he was sick and we couldn't shoot the rest of the scene.

And Rita Moreno did not have much of a movie career. Just Anita and 3 minutes of giving Jack Nicholson an erection.

I wish I could tear out of my brain the image of LuPone topless.

[quote]Barbara Cook, Maude Adams, Katharine Cornell

So what you all are saying is Dorothy Kilogallon would approve

IT'S LAURETTE TAYLOR

Did Barbra Cook not get to be in films because of her alcoholism and weight problems?

[quote]I thought Mary Martin didn't appear in films because her nose was too big.She co-starred with Bing Crosby andothers, she was a Paramount star. Once she went on the stage again and became a huge stage star after South Pacidic, she had no reason to go back to movies where she never really clicked. Saying she didn't appear in film is like saying EthelMerman didn't appear in film. Or Ezio Pinza -- even he made a few films.

The first person I thought of was Katherine Cornell, because, unlike the Lunts, she never starred in an acting role in a talking picture.

[quote]I thought Mary Martin didn't appear in films because her nose was too big.

She co-starred with Bing Crosby and others, she was a Paramount star. Once she went on the stage again and became a huge stage star after South Pacidic, she had no reason to go back to movies where she never really clicked. Saying she didn't appear in film is like saying EthelMerman didn't appear in film. Or Ezio Pinza -- even he made a few films.

The first person I thought of was Katherine Cornell, because, unlike the Lunts, she never starred in an acting role in a talking picture.

Helen Hayes' film resume is negligible, two Oscars notwithstanding. She did do quite a bit of TV work.

Dorothy Loudon, sadly

Don't forget Broadway's tragic legend, MARGARET SULLIVAN. Always up against the more bankable Margaret Sullavan, yet , her Hedda Gabler was the stuff of legend, her Lady M. still held as a definitive version of the part. Always dismissed in favor of her nemesis, after her swan song "glass menagerie" performance in Baltimore, she took her own life, writing in her suicide not "Margaret Sullavan, you bitch, it's all your fault"

Did Sullivan need to be dubbed, r37? Sullavan did...

If Broadway stars clicked in Hollywood they sometimes never returned except to flex their acting muscles like K Hepburn and Fonda. If Martin and Merman had become movie stars I doubt they would have returned to Broadway to do big musicals.

Then there's Judith Tuvim. Stage to big Hollywood career (Oscar!) and back to stage. So sad she had to go out with this stinker instead of Dolly.

If Broadway stars clicked in Hollywood they sometimes never returned except to flex their acting muscles like K Hepburn and Fonda.

Fonda was in 11 Broadways plays after becoming a Hollywood star so that's a mite more than just flexing his muscles.

Not the biggest star, but Russell Nype (Call Me Madam) was aninteresting case, since he was supposed to be in Pat And Mike, with Tracy and Hepburn - according to Garson Kanin's book about them, anyway. Apparently his agent held out for more money, negotiations with MGM dragged on, until the studio said forget it, and hired a different actor. Nype won 2 Tonys, but only ended up doing 4 films, not in major roles.

Did Margot Channing ever do Hollywood, do you think? Do you think Eve would have thrown the girl a bone?

Jeanne Eagels who created the iconic role of Sadie Thompson in 1921's Rain made around a dozen films, the last two with sound. Most are lost to fire and nitrate, but a working print of "The Letter" remains as does about a hour or so of silent scattered over two or three films. The World and the Woman from 1916 being the longest and most complete.

Eagels was the Marilyn Monroe of Broadway from 1916-1927 in terms of publcity and newspaper column space.

She died of a drug overdose at the age of 40 in 1929. She might....might have pulled off the 1932 sound version of Sadie Thompson instead of Joan Crawford.

Only a couple of books on her. One from 1930 and another from just a few years ago.

Julia Marlowe

Even Sarah Bernhardt and Eleanora Duse made a flicker or two.

Dorothy Loudon is a really great example for this thread. Even after her big Broadway successes, ANNIE and NOISES OFF she saw them both recreated on film by Carol Burnett (who was never known for toning it down). The only film work I'm aware of that Loudon did was a small but poignant (and hilarious) cameo in Sidney Lumet's GARBO TALKS. Were there other films?

It's a shame that Barbara Harris didn't appear in more films. She was truly a performer whose talent soared in both mediums. I saw her on stage in On a Clear Day... and in The Apple Tree. She was brilliant. But equally impressive (and photogenic) in Freaky Friday, Nashville, A Thousand Clowns and Hitchcock's The Family Plot.

Easy way to find out, r47...

After seeing Louden on stage in Annie Burnett was a major embarrassment. Louden was very funny but Burnett was just a grotesque.

Adele Astaire

[quote] Burnett was just a grotesque.

I agree.

In earlier decades Broadway stars like Helen Hayes, Katherine Cornell and Lunt & Fontanne would do a new play virtually every season or two. They looked forward to moving into a theater and making it a comfortable nest where they could open a show and then actually enjoy the repetition of performing the same script with the same company every day. And then the following season they would often take that play and company on a long tour throughout America. It was a way of life for those actors who had no desire to sit on a Hollywood set and wait for it to be lit to recite a few mere pages of dialogue each day.

Miss Loudon's only other film credit, IIRC, was a small part in MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL. (Also weirdly resuscitated for that picture -- Oscar winner Kim Hunter.)

CHITA RIVERA OWNS THIS THREAD, YOU BITCHES!!!

And she really didn't have much TV, either.

[quote] I thought Mary Martin didn't appear in films because her nose was too big.

Only when she didn't have it buried in my snatch.

Kim Hunter worked steadily, she wasn't resusitated for that film.

R56 That's interesting, that sketch features Russell Nype, who I mentioned upthread was a sensation in CallMe Madam on Broadway but couldn't get started at MGM.

Considering how unphotogenic and difficult she was, it's amazing ELAINE STRITCH made any films at all.

^ I saw her in that awful 1957 version of A Farewell to Arms and the director seemed most interested in her brassiere.

David O. Selznick hired her for her first film, A Farewell To Arms (1957). She looked pretty good in that.

R61 jinx

Patti topless

R64, R29 is going to be eternally grateful to you ;-)

I shudder to think what the actor is doing in the last screencap. Was he about to suck Patti's nipples?

R23, R24, Similarly, Broadway legend John Raitt was surprisingly wooden and lacking in screen presence in his only feature film role in "The Pajama Game," a role he originated on Broadway. His star quality just did not translate well on screen.

Day needed a co-star of equal power in TPG. Gordon MacRae would have been great. I'd like to know why he didn't do it. Even Howard Keel would have been better and neither man was going to get what Day got. And Shirley should have replaced Carol. Though becoming well known she was not yet a star when it was filmed in 56/57. Still it's very enjoyable in the bluray. The ubiquitous in this period Harvey Evans is one of the dancers as well as the fabulous Bob Banas straight from the film of Carousel as one of Louise's playmates.

One of my prized possessions...

R60 = Maureen O'sullivan

R58, I didn't mean to imply that Kim Hunter hadn't been working . . . just that it was surprising to see her on a big screen in a major studio picture. Skimming her IMDB credits, one finds a pretty "steady" diet of TV movies and cheap horror. (To be clear, I'm a fan -- I consider her work in STREETCAR the all-too-secret weapon of the film's success.)

How about Gwen Verdon?

Other than the film of Damn Yankees….

R5 John Raitt was wooden and creepy in Pajama Game. He's hard to watch.

I feel like a bad, bad gay but I've never heard of Katharine Cornell before. Looking at her photos makes me realize why she never did film - that asymmetrical face (as interesting as it looked) was NOT made for the movie cameras.

Some eldergay under the youtube video of her Stage Door Canteen clip had this to say about it:

[quote] What a surprise and delight to find this clip on YouTube! I was a guest many times in Miss Cornell's Manhattan townhouse in the East 50's where she lived with writer Nancy Hamilton in the 1960's. I asked her once why she never made any movies. The answer was blunt, honest and straightforward: "Because I was terrible on screen!" She had apparently done a screen test many years before and was not happy with it.

Alfred Drake; his one big role was in the all-but-forgotten musical Tars and Spars.

Boyd Gaines?

Brian Stokes Mitchell

Audra McDonald

They have done tv, but not too much in the way of starring in films. ("Lady Day" was for cable).

Marin Mazzie (RIP)

Noël Coward's Rare Home Movie Footage

"Tars and Spars" in on YouTube.

The very talented Janet Blair is also in "Tars and Spars". She's terrific in the tv version of "One Touch of Venus" opposite very rather unsexy Russell Nype, who perhaps may have inspired singer Nana Mouskouri with the glasses.

R71 Gwen Verdon had a pretty good run as a mostly uncredited "specialty dancer" before hitting it big on Broadway. Then did a number of decent character parts late in life in films like Cocoon, Marvin's Room, etc.

Betty loved her.

Surprised to see no one mention Ethel Merman yet. She only ever had a few small roles, and never got to play any of her many amazing broadway roles on the screen.

Yeah if only she had done Call Me Madam!

The other night on Dick Cavett, Gwen mentioned the various screen dancers she and Miss Haney provided the taps for.

And if only Ethel had played Reno Sweeney in the 1936 film of Anything Goes.

R67 They were thinking of Dean Martin, I believe, if they hadn't cast Doris. They wanted one Hollywwod star plus the rest of the Broadway cast. They were thinking of casting Janis Paige (the original B'way Star of the show) plus Martin, or I think Sinatra was another possibility. Or Raitt plus a Hollywood star in the female lead.

Gwen Verdon had roles in films when she was older, such as Cocoon.

David O. Selznick wanted Katherine Cornell to play the lead in Since You Went Away but she refused all his offers, and he went with Claudette Colbert. So people were definitely willing to cast her, it was her choice never to do films.

Frank Sinatra was pursued for the film of "Pajama Game". It was going to be either John Raitt or Janis Paige opposite an established name, plus the original Broadway cast. Janis would have gotten to reprise her stage role if Frank wanted to do it, but he didn't. Maybe he didn't want to go shirtless at the end?

Gwen & Harvey

Sutton Foster. I mean technically she's done a movie bit never a big movie or a big role.

The brief glimpses we get of Gwen in things like The Merry Widow and On the Riviera are pretty spectacular.

Neither Sutton Foster nor Kelli O'Hara has done any substantial film work. (Foster of course has scored in television.)

I'm particularly struck by Kelli O'Hara's avoidance of the big screen, given her physical beauty and understated acting style.

Kelli O'Hara was the cool blonde in the Scorsese short "Key to Reserva", a wine commercial/Hitchcock homage.

Appears that in Jekyll and Hyde: the Musical (2001), Kelli was..."a Cockle Seller". I remember her getting bumped off at the beginning of her Numbers episode.

What made the movie studio(s) who produced The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees want to cast so much of the original Broadway casts I find that all very curious. Not that I'm saying thiose stage actors weren't wonderfully talented, but that had never been a priority before or after those 2 films that I can recall.

Was it about the power of George Abbott who I believe directed both shows....did he contractually have some control over the film versions?

They only needed one *name*, r95. Casting the rest from the original cast makes sense as they're a well-oiled machine by that point.

^ and to add, they were smash hits, so to say they're from the OBC has a certain cachet.

Marti Webb who was the original lead in Song and Dance ('Tell Me on a Sunday') in the West End, doesn't have any film or TV acting credits (other than 'Singer'). Bernadette Peters played the same role on Broadway, winning a Tony in 1986

I don't think she ever looked for an acting career away from the stage. She still seems to be working at 77.

r97, thanks for responding. But why do you think Pajama Game and Damn Yankees were the ONLY TWO film musicals that used the original casts to that extent? Why hasn't that been done more often?

R99 Too Many Girls (also directed by Abbott, both stage and screen) had a lot of the original Broadway cast, even the chorus (including Van Johnson) -- so did Best Foor Forward (1943) (an Abbott show, though he didn't direct the film). Nancy Walker and June Allyson performed The Three Bs on Broadway and on screen.

*foot

That's Stanley Donen (who was also in the Broadway show) dancing with June.

[quote]But why do you think Pajama Game and Damn Yankees were the ONLY TWO film musicals that used the original casts to that extent? Why hasn't that been done more often?

Maybe because many stage performers are only attractive from 25 feet. On a movie screen 30' tall and 90' wide they aren't so photogenic.

How did someone as bland, boring and gormless as Sutton Foster ever become a star?

She was very good in "Millie" but I thought her Reno Sweeney rather paled in comparison to that of Patti LuPone's.

The film of L'IL ABNER used many cast members from the Broadway production.

I don't know why they didn't use Edie Adams though. She also didn't get a chance to appear opposite Rosalind Russell on the tv version of "Wonderful Town". By the time, Adams had become a tv star after appearing on many of her husband Ernie Kovac's shows. I think Russell didn't want to be shown up by someone who had become famous in that medium. Jacqueline McKeever is fine (she's terrific on the OCR of "Oh Captain!") and Sydney Chaplin is eye-candy if not necessarily ear-candy.

Roz was such a game gal...getting thrown around like this 8 shows a week!

Edie Adams was pregnant at the time of the filming of LI'L ABNER.

I wasn't!!!

Raitt was also wooden on TV.

Just strip off Raitt's top like he did at the end of "Pajama Game" and look at his masculine chest and listen to his wonderful voice!

That bit of stage business does tend to limit who one casts, r112...

But didn't Michael Ball have a shirtless scene in Aspects of Love when he lacked the physique?

I'm so sorry that Hal Linden was out of "Pajama Game" when I saw the revival with Barbara McNair and Cab Calloway years ago. The understudy was very good, but I remember seeing Linden shirtless on one of those "Battle of the Network Stars" and Linden was a nice fairly hairy daddy.

R113 Plus the song "I'm Not at All in Love" in "Pajama Game" refers to the Raitt character, Sid Sorokin" as a "hunk of a man".

Hal was close enough, r116!

Thanks for that! Mr. Lipshitz was pretty damn hot!

Carol Channing made fewer films than even Martin or Merman, and never played the lead in any, afaik.

I guess these people made some movies but not extensively and were not seen as movie stars, usually (not talking about TV at all): Jim Dale, Dolores Gray (supporting roles in 4 MGM films 1955-57), Tom Bosley (star of Fiorello), Ann Reinking, Robert Morse, Charles Nelson Reilly. Helen Mencken, Norma Terris.

Damn! I wish there were locker room scenes on "Barney Miller" with Hal Linden and Max Gail shirtless! Or taking it further, showing their butts when it was almost de rigeur if they had guested on "NYPD Blue"!

Ann Reinking was above the title in Micki and Maude, right?

Robert Morse did get to repeat his biggest success "How to Succeed in Business", etc. on film, plus he starred in "A Guide for the Married Man" and a few others. He was an adorable Barnaby in the Shirley Booth-led film of "The Matchmaker", too. But yes, he is thought of more as a stage star.

I've never seen a Joel Grey movie besides CABARET.

Did George M Cohan headline in the movies?

Joel Grey was in "Buffalo Bill and the Indians" with Paul Newman, and there was another one where he played a clairvoyant, but I don't remember the name of it.

That was Whoopi Goldberg.

Grey was also supporting in "Come September" with Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida from like the early 60s, and he may have been in a Bobby Darin-Sandra Dee movie back then too. But nothing very showy as "Cabaret".

The play was just a natural to be musicalized. The songs were easy to put in without losing anything.

R128 It's a really fun film, but when you see Dolly arrive at the restaurant, she's hardly given anything resembling the greeting of the big number in "Hello, Dolly!" though. Jerry Herman and Gower Champion really found gold at that song placement and staging.

I don't find Sutton Foster the least bit bland or boring. When I saw her in the original MILLIE previews, she immediately caught my attention with her quirky charm and powerhouse vocals, and during "Gimme Gimme" I had the very rare feeling of "A Star Is Born." I've seen most everything else she's done in NYC, and even when miscast (as she most definitely was in THE WILD PARTY, God help us) she's had energy and star power to burn.

Then again, I really don't get the love for Patti LuPone in a lot of things, including Reno Sweeney (in which she sounds hard and charmless to me).

Patti was very charming in person as Reno. She seemed to be let loose and enjoying herself.

R129, it's a great theatrical moment in the musical and all, but all the fuss over a nosy, middle-aged biddy returning to a restaurant never made any sense to me. Even when I watched the film as a kid I wondered why there was such a big song and dance over Dolly coming back to the restaurant. That entire segment always seemed too fake.

In the film of The Matchmaker, the opening title sets the action 1884. During the Harmonia Gardens scene, the restaurant's orchestra plays selections from The Mikado in the background. The Mikado wasn't written until 1885.

R124 He was in a Rodgers-Hart msuical film, in the early 30s, and I think he was in some silent films.

[quote] But didn't Michael Ball have a shirtless scene in Aspects of Love when he lacked the physique?

You bitch! I'm going to complain to Mummy about you. His physique at the time was good enough for a PRINCE, you filthy commoner.

"That entire segment always seemed too fake."

It's a musical, r132. The form itself is fake. Plus the source material is pure whimsy, so why bother analyzing?

Ruth Gordon headlined the successful revivial of The Matchmaker in 1954 (which was called The Merchant Of Yonkers in its first version, in the 1930s, with Jane Cowell as Dolly and Tom Ewell as Cornelius). I think Gordon would have been a better movie Dolly than Shirley Booth.

If you want to analyze a Thornton Wilder show, "Our Town" or "The Skin of Our Teeth" would be better fodder than "The Matchmaker". It's not that deep of a show.

Ruth/Dolly

Did Ruth do an Irish brogue?

Well, r140, could be Tovah...or Yvonne.

[quote]And Rita Moreno did not have much of a movie career. Just Anita and 3 minutes of giving Jack Nicholson an erection.

That's so not true, R28. Rita Moreno was also in "Ma and Pa Kettle on Vacation."

She was zany, ok bitchy Zelda Zanders, too!

Rita was co-starring when Chita was still in the chorus.

Rita played Tuptim in the film of the The King and I. Tuptim is Thai, Rita played the part in yellowface. Not a good thing.

But you're not complaining about Yul because you dream of his dick.

Yul certainly took photos when nude. Very hot.

Rita also played Indian (from India) in some film. How this bitch hasn't been canceled yet for yellowface and brownface is mystifying.

Because she was pigeonholed as a minority who could only play minorities. Duh.

RITA WAS A VICTIM!

R148 That was what someone different-looking but pretty did back then; they took what the you could get, especially in prestige pictures like "The King & I". Try as you might to impose today's woke thinking on the past, it's already happened.

WE SEE YOU RIO RITA!

WE SEE YOU RITA RIO!!!

[quote]Surprised to see no one mention Ethel Merman yet. She only ever had a few small roles,

True but she was in the second best remembered scene of one very popular movie

And...

"It was reported 20th Century-Fox wanted Broadway actor/dancer Harold Lang for the role of Vera-Ellen’s boyfriend Mike but he had to refuse because of stage commitments. A great loss because he would have introduced the now-classic song "You Make Me Feel So Young". His replacement was non-singer/dancer, minor-player Charles Smith (actor). Although Lang appeared on television in the early 1950s, he made no commercial films."

A real pity, as THREE LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE is a delight. Celeste Holm's first film. Bosley Crowther who was particularly pleased that it included Broadway stars Holm and Vdera-Ellen (even though the latter had already made films for Goldwyn). "Another ray of sunshine in the musical picture line—this one all the more gratifying because it comes from Twentieth Century-Fox, which has heretofore favored such splurges as "Coney Island" and the like—is that studio's innocent and playful "Three Little Girls in Blue," which came yesterday to the Roxy as a pleasant and hopeful surprise. And, to add to its cheerful distinctions, it gives prominence to Vera-Ellen and Celeste Holm, two talented young ladies from Broadway, who have more charm than half a dozen Hollywood dolls."

Strange that after I mentioned Gwen Verdon above, this clip came up in my suggested videos on YouTube. It features a 16 year old Gwen. She comes in about a third into it.

Given that she was 16 and the guy singing is much older, it has a creepy vibe. I mean the whole thing is kind of bizarre. Still, check it out….

[quote]Strange that after I mentioned Gwen Verdon above, this clip came up in my suggested videos on YouTube.

Not strange at all. Half the suggestions I get on youtube don't reflect what I've watched previously but the threads I've been active in here at DL. Youtube and parent company Google use cookies and other trackers to follow everything you do on the net.

A remember a few years ago, I was walking in Hollywood. I thought it made sense that Mary Martin's Star was next to Larry Hagman's. But why was Janet Jackson's next to Jinx Falkenberg's? Were they related or ever work together?

^ I remember

Dolly Loudon

Because Janet Jackson is remembered about as well as Jinx Falkenburg

I wish Beatrice Lillie had made more films.

And Lotte Lenya! Of course, she was captured on film in THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE but her musical talents were not in evidence in either.

Speaking of Lotte Lenya, why didn't Jill Haworth make more films. She was so brilliant in CABARET on Broadway, the best Sally Bowles I ever saw.

EILEEN BRENNAN!

On the NY stage she created two of the most memorable ingenues in the history of musical theater: the title character of Little Mary Sunshine and Irene Molloy in Hello, Dolly!

But Hollywood mostly offered her worn out slatterns and tough dykes.

[quote]But Hollywood mostly offered her worn out slatterns and tough dykes.

But plenty of them. She was a much bigger success in film than on the stage.

Ribbons

Didn't Janet appear on an early episode of the "Tex and Jinx" show?

Did Janet make a special request to be placed next to Jinx?

Eileen Brennan also got an Oscar nomination (for PRIVATE BENJAMIN) and made memorable appearances in hits like THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE STING and MURDER BY DEATH. She also won at least 1 Emmy and 1 Golden Globe.

Other than cult favorite CLUE, most of her post-BENJAMIN work wasn't so memorable. I was glad that she resurfaced several times on WILL AND GRACE as (Jack's acting teacher) Zondra, where she was hilarious and got at least 1 more Emmy nod.

Very little is left of Cohan on film and what I saw he was in blackface and in no way represented any of his fabled talents. He did Rodger's and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right on stage at the Alvin and he supposedly was a royal prick.

R172 In The Phantom President (1932), he was in blackface for one number, not a whole film, not sure what your point was.

That's all I saw. I didn't know the whole film existed. My point was I didn't think(I thought that was all that survived) there was enough of him on film to get a sense of what made him so great as a performer. Have you seen the entire film? What did you think?

R174 I did see it, I don't remember it too well but something I remember was that he danced in it, and I thought Cagney's style was a pretty good imitation of him. Claudette Colbert and Jimmy Durante were the costars.

R28 you need to turn in your Gay Card. This is Rita's finest film role :

Since this thread has devolved from biggest Broadway star not to appear on film to Broadway stars that didn't have much of on impact on film - I would go with Marilyn Miller, one of the biggest Broadway stars of the 20's She has a statue on a building in Times Square and Marilyn Monroe was named after her, but she is mostly forgotten today. Whatever made her "dazzling" on stage did not translate to film and she only made 3 movies. Here she is in what remains of the technicolor footage from "Sally" based on her Broadway hit. I find her singing grating and her dancing uninspired but you decide.

She has a lot of energy and charm, and I think people still sung live on film in 1929 (withoute-recording) so her singing and dancing is difficult and impressive. Voices weren't miked on the stage back then either so she needed a strong voice on the stage and we can hear that in this film.

*without pre-recording

She had a lovely, strong singing voice, great energy in her dancing and a whole bunch of charm. It was said that there were better dancers, singers, etc., but in combination she was really something special to see. No wonder she was a big star on Broadway. She died very young after an operation, unfortunately in 1936.