Here are 10 things you should know about Roscoe Karns, born 131 years ago today. The prolific character actor enjoyed a stage, screen and television career that spanned more than 50 years.
Tag: The Jazz Singer
Remembering Rose Marie: 90 Years a Trouper
Few entertainers in history enjoyed as long a career as did Rose Marie, born 100 years ago today. Her career began when she was just four years old (known then as Baby Rose Marie, she had a weekly radio program that was broadcast nationally before Shirley Temple was even born), and she went on to enjoy success in vaudeville, radio, records, motion pictures, Broadway, and television.
In 2017, a delightful documentary, Wait for Your Laugh, was released that told the story of her amazing life and career, and we’re delighted to share a very lightly edited transcript of a telephone conversation we had with her shortly after the film’s release. Buckle your seat belts; it’s a delightfully wild ride. As you’ll soon see, even at 94, Rose Marie was as sharp and as funny as ever.
Cladrite Radio: I have a lot of things I’d like to talk to you about.
Rose Marie: First of all, let me ask you a question.
Cladrite Radio: Sure.
Rose Marie: Did you see the movie [Wait for Your Laugh]?
Cladrite Radio: I did!
Rose Marie: What’d you think of it?
Cladrite Radio: I loved it. I thought it was great.
Rose Marie: What’d you like about it?
Cladrite Radio: I’m very interested in the popular culture of the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s, in addition to …
Rose Marie: That’s my era.
Cladrite Radio: It sure is. I am involved with an online radio station that features music of that era. We play some of your records on the station.
Rose Marie: Oh, nice.
Cladrite Radio: When I got the chance to interview you, I was so excited. I’m a fan of your music, and I grew up with you on TV as well.
Rose Marie: I know, everybody says that. It makes me feel so old.
Cladrite Radio: Oh, well, I’m not so young myself.
Rose Marie: I’m 94, wanna bet?
Cladrite Radio: You’re doing great. You’re probably doing better at 94 than I am at 59.
Rose Marie: Okay.
Cladrite Radio: I wanted to ask you about the documentary. Whose idea…
Rose Marie: I’m very happy to tell you. I’m very proud of it. I love it. I’m so proud of [director] Jason Wise, I can’t stand it. I think he’s a genius. I think he’s going to be one of the biggest men in the business in a couple years. I think this will introduce him to everybody. I think he’ll even be bigger than Steven Spielberg.
Cladrite Radio: I’ll bet he wouldn’t mind that a bit.
Rose Marie: Oh, he’s wonderful. You have no idea. You don’t know how particular he is. When we decided to do this thing, I kept everything from the time I was three years old. Postcards, pictures, film, anything I had, I kept. When he talked about doing the documentary, he says, “Let’s talk.” I said, “I have everything in scrapbooks. Why don’t you just go through everything?” I emptied out my house, and I mean he cleaned me out of everything. He put it in that documentary. Just a genius.
Cladrite Radio: All the materials that we see in the documentary, the film clips we see and some of the programs and promotional materials and various things that are included in it…
Rose Marie: All mine. All mine that he dug up out of my house.
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10 Things You Should Know About William Demarest
Here are 10 things you should know about William Demarest, born 130 years ago today. After 20 years in vaudeville and a few Broadway shows, he worked in pictures and on television for a half-century.
10 Things You Should Know About Warner Oland
Here are 10 things you should know about Warner Oland, born 141 years ago today. He was a talented actor, but his career was very much of its time and likely wouldn’t happen today.
Happy 125th Birthday, William Demarest!
The gruff but lovable William Demarest was born 125 years ago today in St. Paul, Minnesota. Here are 10 WD Did-You-Knows:
- If Demarest doesn’t strike one as the typical Minnesotan, that’s probably because his family moved to New Jersey when he was a baby, a state that better gibes with his irascible persona. His father was a second-hand furniture dealer.
- Demarest was a veteran of World War I, serving as a sergeant in the United States Army.
- Demarest’s performing career began when he was a very young; he played cello in an act with his two older brothers that played resort hotels in New Jersey. He then work as a dancer and comedian in cabarets and worked two seasons with the Alcazar Theatre Stock Company in Stockton, California.
- Demarest had a brief boxing career, fighting under the name “Battling McGovern,” but he preferred not to discuss that period in his life in his later years.
- Demarest later played vaudeville, first as a solo act and later teaming with his first wife, Estelle Collette (her real name was Esther Zychlin).
- Demarest received his first screen test for Warner Brothers in 1926. “We filmed in L.A.,” he later said, “and you could have smelled it in New York. It was just awful.” Nonetheless, he signed a five-year contract with Warners the next year, appearing in a dozen silent pictures.
- Though he went uncredited, Demarest can be spotted in the role of Buster Billings opposite Al Jolson in the first talking feature, The Jazz Singer.
- Demarest was a member of Preston Sturges‘ stock company. His facility with physical comedy suited the director’s style particularly well.
- Demarest made over 100 pictures and received one Oscar nomination, for his supporting role in the 1946 biopic The Jolson Story.
- Demarest is best remembered today for his work on television, particularly for the role of Uncle Charley O’Casey on My Three Sons. He replaced William Frawley, who was in frail health, on tha popular sitcom. Demarest received one Emmy nomination for his work on the show, on which he appeared from 1965 to 1972.
Happy birthday, William Demarest, wherever you may be!
