1942 - Theater, Film

Theater, Film

Theater: Uncle Harry by Welsh-born playwright Thomas Job, 40, 5/20 at New York's Broadhurst Theater (to Hudson Theater 9/12), with Eva La Gallienne, Joseph Schildkraut, Chicago-born actor Karl Malden (originally Malden Sekulovich), 28, 430 perfs.; The Apollo of Bellac (L'Apollon de Bellac) by Jean Genet 6/16 at Rio de Janeiro; Janie by Josephine Bentham and Herschel Williams 9/10 at New York's Henry Miller Theater, with Gwen Anderson, Clare Foley, Herbert Evers, Nancy Cushman, 321 perfs.; The Eve of St. Mark by Maxwell Anderson 10/7 at New York's Cort Theater, with Aline MacMahon, Nichols, N.Y.-born actor William Prince, 29, Matt Crowley, Martin Ritt, 291 perfs.; Without Love by Philip Barry 11/10 at New York's St. James Theater, with Katharine Hepburn, Elliott Nugent, Audrey Christie, 113 perfs.; The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder 11/18 at New York's Plymouth Theater, with E. G. Marshall, Florence Eldridge, Fredric March, Florence Reed, Tallulah Bankhead, Montgomery Clift, 359 perfs.; Queen after Death (La Reine morte; ou Comment on tue les femmes) by Henri de Montherlant 12/8 at the Comédie-Française in occupied Paris.

Actor Otis Skinner dies at his New York home January 4 at age 83; actor-playwright J. Harry Benrimo at New York March 26 at age 67; playwright Rudolph Besier at Elmhurst, England, June 13 at age 63; actor-playwright John Willard at Los Angeles August 30 at age 56; producer Harrison Grey Fiske at New York September 3 at age 81; actress Helen Westley at Middlebush, N.J., December 12 at age 67.

Radio: Suspense 6/16 on CBS with stories played by leading actors (to 1962); It Pays to Be Ignorant 6/25 on New York's WOR-Mutual station with vaudeville veteran Tom Howard, 56, as quiz master in a spoof on Information Please. Howard's daughter Ruth and her husband, Robert Howell, came up with the idea while working on an out-of-town station, and the panelists (George Shelton, Lulu McConnell, and Harry McNaughton) have trouble answering questions such as "What color was George Washington's White Horse?" and "Which player on a baseball team wears a catcher's mask?" The show will move to WABC and then to the CBS network (to 1949; it will air under the name Ignorance Is Bliss in Britain); The Abbott and Costello Show 10/8 on NBC with Asbury Park, N.J.-born comedian William "Bud" Abbott, 47, and his Paterson, N.J.-born partner Lou Costello (originally Louis Cristillo), 36. Both are vaudeville veterans and will gain fame for their "Who's on first?" routine.

The USO that has been entertaining servicemen since last year begins sending performers overseas to boost morale as the Axis powers threaten to take over the world. Comedians Bob Hope, Jerry Colonna, Jack Benny, Joe E. Brown, Danny Kaye, and vaudeville veterans will make the troops laugh; the Andrews Sisters will be among those who sing for them; Bing Crosby, Betty Grable, Dorothy Lamour, Lana Turner, Edward G. Robinson, and Frances Langford are among the screen stars who will rub shoulders with the men; and thousands of young women on the home front will dance with draftees and enlistees at USO clubs throughout the war (by June of next year the USO will have 739,000 volunteers, and by March 1944 it will have 3,035 recreational clubs). German, Italian, and Japanese soldiers and sailors will have no such morale builders.

Films: David Hand's Bambi with Walt Disney animation; Michael Curtiz's Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart ("Here's looking at you, sweetheart"), Swedish-born actress Ingrid Bergman, 27 ("Play it, Sam"), Paul Henreid, Claude Rains ("Round up the usual suspects"), Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Dooley Wilson, screenplay by Howard Koch, Julius Epstein, 34, and Epstein's brother Philip (Julius receives $15,208 and no residuals); Lucas Demare's The Gaucho War (La Guerra Gaucha); Noël Coward and David Lean's In Which We Serve with Coward, John Mills, 34, Celia Johnson, 34, Michael Wilding, 30 (score by Coward); Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons with Joseph Cotten, Beverly Hills, Calif.-born actor Tim Holt (Charles John Holt Jr.), 24, Indiana-born actress Anne Baxter, 19, Dolores Costello, Agnes Moorehead; George Stevens's The Talk of the Town with Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, Cary Grant. Also: Raoul Walsh's Gentleman Jim with Errol Flynn, Canadian-born actress (Margaret) Alexis (Fitzsimmons) Smith, 21; Stuart Heisler's The Glass Key with Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, Hot Springs, Ark.-born actor Alan (Walbridge) Ladd, 28; Robert Stevenson's Joan of Paris with Michelle Morgan (Simone Roussel), 22, Trieste-born actor Paul Henreid (originally von Hernreid), 34; Lloyd Bacon's Larceny, Inc. with Edward G. Robinson, St. Joseph, Mo.-born actress Jane Wyman (originally Sarah Jane Fulks), 28, Broderick Crawford, Jack Carson; Billy Wilder's The Major and the Minor with Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland; Elliott Nugent's The Male Animal with Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland; William Wyler's Mrs. Miniver with Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon; Irving Rapper's Now, Voyager with Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Gladys Cooper; Luchino Visconti's Ossessione with Massimo Girotti, Clara Calamia; Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's One of Our Aircraft Is Missing with Godfrey Tearle, Eric Portman; Preston Sturges's The Palm Beach Story with Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrae, Rudy Vallée; Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest with Ronald Colman, Greer Garson; Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not To Be with Jack Benny, Carole Lombard; George Stevens's Woman of the Year with Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy.

German authorities in occupied France forbid showing of English-language films; the last one shown is Frank Capra's 1939 masterpiece Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Carole Lombard dies at age 32 along with her mother and 20 other passengers in a TWA plane crash at Las Vegas January 16 as she flies home to her husband, Clark Gable, from a USO engagement; John Barrymore collapses during a rehearsal for a radio show and dies of pneumonia at Hollywood May 29 at age 63; director James Cruze dies of a heart ailment at Hollywood September 3 at age 58; May Robson at her Beverly Hills home October 20 at age 84; Edna May Oliver of an intestinal disorder at Hollywood November 9 at age 59; playwright Carl Sternheim at German-occupied Brussels November 3 at age 64.

The Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News syndicate acquires Hedda Hopper's Hollywood gossip column and gives it wide distribution (see 1936). Hopper feuds with Louella Parsons and other rivals.