Al Jolson

On stage 12 productions, 20 years

Each row is a staging this name appears in the cast list of, read from the production record rather than from the person record. The person record names works instead, and a work cannot say which run somebody was in — that is how Elaine Stritch ends up filed under Show Boat 1927 when she was in the 1994 revival. No row here says what part was played, because no cast list records it.

Worked with more than once12 names

Both names in the same cast list, more than once. It is not evidence of a partnership — a long-running company puts the same forty people together every night — but it is where one would start looking. 11 of these names are not links because we hold no record behind them; the name is set from the identifier and its punctuation may be wrong.

Also credited on2 works

Fosse
A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical

These come off the person record, which names a work and not a production. So we can say this name is attached to the work and we cannot say which staging, or in what capacity. For a composer or a writer that is the whole career we hold; there is no cast list to find them in.

In the literature8 passages

• One of his sons, my grandfather Willie, booked people like Al Jolson and W. C. Fields. He came up with the comic routine of throwing a pie in someone’s face. They dimmed the lights on Broadway when he died.ebooks/Frommer, Myrna Katz & Frommer, Harvey/It Happened on Broadway_ An Oral History of the Great White Way - Myrna Katz Frommer & Harvey Frommer.txt
• Cast: Al Jolson, Kitty Doner, Mabel Withee, Forrest Huff, Grace Washburn, Alexis Kosloffebooks/Green, Stanley/Broadway Musicals, Show By Show - Seventh Edition - Stanley Green & Cary Ginell.txt
• Curiously, the singers of the period whose sound Ethel’s most resembled were men. There was a strong hint of Al Jolson in her stentorian delivery, and she sounded even more like the popular Harry Richman, whose whole point was to project, loud and clear; Richman’s recording of Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields’s “On the Sunny Side of the St…ebooks/Kellow, Brian/Ethel Merman_ A Life - Brian Kellow.txt
• At Panama Hattie ’s sold-out Broadway opening night on October 30, Ethel’s dressing room was flooded with telegrams from Joan Crawford, Al Jolson, Helen Hayes, Victor Moore, and many others. The show ran like a well-oiled machine, and the audience received it rapturously, as did the critics: the New York Journal ranked it “among the best…ebooks/Kellow, Brian/Ethel Merman_ A Life - Brian Kellow.txt
• The title was a reference to Larry Parks, the actor who was made famous first by playing Al Jolson and then by being the first Friendly Witness to betray his friends publicly. He was a sweet, much-liked man until he testified. It wasn't merely informing that destroyed him and his career-Sterling Hayden chirped with impunity-but his craven…ebooks/Laurents, Arthur/Original Story By_ A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood - Arthur Laurents.txt
• EBB: I told the audience, “Imagine standing here where Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson once stood!” I had never sung before without you.ebooks/Lawrence, Greg/Colored Lights_ Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz - Greg Lawrence & John Kander & Fred Ebb.txt

Passages naming this person, found by keyword across 178 books. A keyword match is not a biography, and a common name will pull in the wrong one.

What this page does not know

• What this person played. No cast list we hold records a character against a performer.
• Which of the credits above the roles on this record — actor — apply to. The roles sit on the person and never on a credit, so a director who also acted looks the same here as one who did not.