Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes. The soundtrack was not printed on the actual film, but was issued separately on 16 inch (40 cm) and, later, 12 inch (30cm) phonograph discs recorded at 33 1/3 rpm, a speed first used for this process. The discs would be played on a turntable indirectly coupled to the projector motor while the film was being projected. Many early talkies, such as ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927), used the Vitaphone process. The name "Vitaphone" was created from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound". It was later associated with cartoons and other short subjects that had optical soundtracks and did not use discs.

Early history

In the early 1920s, Western Electric researched both sound-on-film and sound-on-disc systems, aided by the purchase of Lee De Forest's Audion amplifier tube in 1913, and the development of the public address system and the condenser microphone in 1915. DeForest himself debuted his Phonofilm sound-on-film system on April 15, 1923 in New York City. However, due to the relatively poor sound quality of Phonofilm, Warners decided to go forward with the disc system as the more familiar technology.

The business was established at Western Electric's Bell Laboratories in Manhattan, New York, and acquired by Warner Bros. in April 1925. Warner Bros. introduced Vitaphone on August 6, 1926, with the release of the silent feature ''Don Juan'' starring John Barrymore with music score and sound effects only (no dialogue). The feature was accompanied by several talkie short subjects featuring mostly opera stars and classical musicians of the day (the only "pop music" artist was guitarist Roy Smeck), and a greeting from motion picture industry spokesman Will Hays.

''Don Juan'' was able to draw huge sums of money at the box office, but was not able to match the expensive budget Warner Bros. put into the film's production. In the wake of the failure of ''Don Juan'', Paramount head Adolph Zukor offered Sam Warner a deal as an executive producer for the company if he brought Vitaphone with him. Sam, not wanting to take any more of Harry Warner's refusal to move forward with using sound in future Warner films, agreed to accept Zukor's offer, but the deal died after Paramount lost money in the wake of Rudolph Valentino's death. Harry eventually agreed to accept Sam's demands, and Sam pushed ahead with a new Vitaphone feature, based on a Broadway play starring Al Jolson, who had just starred in a musical short for the company, ''A Plantation Act''. On October 6, 1927, ''The Jazz Singer'' premiered at the Warners Theater in New York City, broke box-office records, established Warner Bros. as a major player in Hollywood, and single-handedly launched the talkie revolution.

Orchestra leader Henry Halstead is given credit for starring in the first Warner Brothers Vitaphone short subject filmed in Hollywood instead of New York. "Carnival Night in Paris" (1927) featured Halstead's band and a cast of hundreds of costumed dancers in a Carnival atmosphere.

Process

A Vitaphone-equipped theater used normal projectors equipped with a special turntable and reproducer, a fader, an amplifier, and loudspeaker system. The projectors operated as normal motorized silent projectors would, but also provided a mechanical interlock with an attached phonograph turntable. When the projector was threaded, the projectionist would align a start mark on the film with the picture gate, and would at the same time place a phonograph record on the turntable, being careful to align the phonograph needle with an arrow scribed on the record's surface. While the projector rolled, it rotated the linked turntable and (in theory) automatically kept the record "in sync" (correctly synchronized) with the projected image.

The Vitaphone process made several improvements over previous systems:

Amplification - The Vitaphone system was one of the first to use electronic amplification, using Lee De Forest's Audion tube. This allowed the sound of the phonograph to be played to a large audience at a comfortable volume.

Fidelity - In the early days, Vitaphone had superior fidelity to sound-on-film processes, particularly at both low and high frequencies. Phonographs also had superior dynamic range, on the first few playings.

These innovations notwithstanding, the Vitaphone process lost the early format war with sound-on-film processes for many reasons:

Distribution - Vitaphone records had to be distributed along with film prints, and shipping the records required a whole infrastructure apart from the already-existing film distribution system. The records would start to suffer from audible wear after an estimated 20 screenings (a check box system on the label kept track of the number of plays) and were then supposed to be replaced with a fresh set. Damage and breakage were inherent dangers and could stop the show cold for the day, so a spare set of discs was usually kept on hand. This consumed even more distribution overhead.

Synchronization - Vitaphone was vulnerable to severe synchronization problems, some of which were spoofed in a few hilarious scenes in MGM's ''Singin' in the Rain'' starring Gene Kelly. If a record was improperly cued up, it would start out of sync with the picture and the projectionist would have to try to manually acquire sync. If the wrong record had been cued up (the cause of much audience hilarity on occasion) there was no realistic option but to pause the show for a few minutes while swapping in the right record, resetting everything and trying again. If the film print became damaged and was not precisely repaired, the relationship between the record and the print would be thrown off, also causing a loss of sync. The Vitaphone projectors had special levers and linkages to advance and retard sync, but only within certain limits. Scrupulous care and attention were demanded from the projectionist, which, if amply supplied, left only the equipment itself to occasionally go awry.

Editing - A phonograph record cannot be physically edited, and this significantly limited the creative potential of Vitaphone films. Warner Brothers went to great expense to develop a highly complex phonograph-based dubbing system, using synchronous motors and Strowger switch-triggered playback phonographs. Multiple source discs would be carefully cued up, then parts of each in turn were dubbed to a new master disc. The cutting of the new wax master could not be paused, so each playback turntable had to be started at just the right moment and each signal switched to the recorder at just the right moment. The system actually worked, but imprecisely enough that the reel of film typically required some adjustment by adding a few frames here and removing a few there in order to conform it to the disc of edited sound. This discouraged frequent changes of scene in the film and the lively pace that they created. Not only was editing sound on disc a nightmare for the editor, but it was increasingly obvious to everyone that while the system sufficed for musical shorts and a synchronized musical accompaniment for otherwise silent films, it was no way to make a feature-length film with "live" sound. By the middle of 1931, Warner Brothers-First National had thrown in the towel and was recording and editing optical sound on film, like all the other studios, and only then dubbing the completed soundtrack to discs for use with the Vitaphone projection system.

Fidelity versus Sound-on-Film - The fidelity of sound-on-film processes improved considerably after the early work by Lee DeForest on his Phonofilm process, and the introduction by the Fox Film Corporation of Fox Movietone in 1927. The DeForest and Fox systems were variable-density, but were superseded by RCA's variable-area sound-on-film process RCA Photophone, introduced in 1928.

With improvements in competing sound-on-film processes, Vitaphone's technical imperfections led to its retirement early in the sound era. Warner Bros. and First National stopped recording directly to disc, and switched to the Photophone sound-on-film recording. The Warner studio had to publicly concede that Vitaphone was being retired, but put a positive spin on it by announcing that Warner films would now be available in ''both'' sound-on-film and sound-on-disc versions. Thus, instead of making a grudging admission that its technology was flawed, Warner appeared to be doing the entire movie industry a favor.

Theater owners, who had invested heavily in Vitaphone equipment only a short time before, were unwilling (or financially unable) to abandon the sound-on-disc process so quickly. Sound on film was now standard, but demand for sound on discs continued, compelling the Hollywood studios to offer disc sets for new films, although in ever-dwindling numbers, on into the mid-1930s. (This is analogous to today's movie studios continuing to issue new films on VHS videotape after the DVD format had eclipsed it.)

Warner Bros. kept the "Vitaphone" name alive as the name of its short subjects division, The Vitaphone Corporation (officially dissolved at the end of 1959), most famous for releasing Leon Schlesinger's ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'', later produced by Warner in-house from 1944 on. The Vitaphone name was adopted in the 1950s by Warner Bros.' record label, as a trade name for "Vitaphonic" high-fidelity recording. Later still, in the 1960s, end titles of Merrie Melodies cartoons carried the legend "A Vitaphone Release", while Looney Tunes of the same period were listed as "A Vitagraph Release".

Vitaphone soundtrack discs

In 1924-1925, when Western Electric established the format of the system which would eventually be named Vitaphone, they settled on a 16 inch (40 cm) diameter disc rotating at 33 1/3 rpm as a good practical compromise of disc size and speed. The slow speed permitted the 11 minute playing time needed to match the maximum running time of a standard reel of film projected at 24 fps, yet the increased diameter preserved the average effective groove velocity, and therefore the sound quality, of a smaller, shorter-playing record rotating at the then-standard speed of circa 78 rpm.

Like most ordinary records, Vitaphone discs were made of a shellac compound rendered lightly abrasive by its major constituent, finely pulverized rock. They were designed to be played with a very inexpensive, imprecisely mass-produced steel needle with a point that quickly wore to fit the contour of the groove, but then went on to wear out in the course of playing one disc side, after which it was meant to be discarded and replaced. Unlike ordinary records, Vitaphone discs were recorded inside out, so that the groove started near the scribed synchronization arrow and proceeded outward. As one consequence, the needle would be fresh where the groove's undulations were most closely packed and needed the most accurate tracing, and suffering from wear only as the much more widely spaced and easily traced undulations toward the edge of the disc were encountered.

Initially, Vitaphone discs had a recording on one side only, each reel of film having its own disc. As the sound-on-disc method was slowly relegated to second-class status, economies were effected, first by making use of both sides of each disc for non-consecutive reels of film, then by reducing the discs to 12 inches (30 cm) in diameter. The use of RCA Victor's new "Victrolac", a lightweight, flexible and less abrasive vinyl-based compound, made it possible to downsize the discs while actually improving their sound quality.

The Vitaphone Project

Today there is a group of hobbyists known as "The Vitaphone Project", whose mission is to restore long-unseen Vitaphone productions. The members track down mute picture elements and their corresponding Vitaphone discs, and produce new, synchronized 35mm versions using the latest motion picture and sound technology. (Today's technicians have found that the original Vitaphone discs have superior sound fidelity, and are often preferable to the identical tracks in archival, sound-on-film copies.) To date the Project has restored more than 50 Vitaphone shorts from the dawn of sound, featuring many stars of 1920s vaudeville, radio, and the concert stage.

Though operating on principles so different as to make it unrecognizable to a Vitaphone engineer, Digital Theater Sound is a sound-on-disc system, the first to gain wide adoption since the abandonment of Vitaphone.

Legacy

The Vitaphone process was among the first 25 inductees into the TECnology Hall of Fame at its establishment in 2004, an honor given to "products and innovations that have had an enduring impact on the development of audio technology." The award notes that Vitaphone, though short-lived, helped in popularizing theater sound and was critical in stimulating the development of the modern sound reinforcement system.

See also

List of film formats

Movietone

Phonofilm

Photokinema

RCA Photophone

Sound film

sound-on-film

References

Further reading

Barrios, Richard (1995), ''A Song in the Dark'', Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195088115. Examination of early sound musicals, with extensive coverage of Vitaphone.

Bradley, Edwin M. (2005), ''The First Hollywood Sound Shorts, 1926-1931'', McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786410302

Crafton, Donald (1997), ''The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931'', Charles Scribner's Sons ISBN 0-684-19585-2

Liebman, Roy (2003), ''Vitaphone Films: A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts'', McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-1279-8

Warner-Sperling, Cass; Millner, Cork; Jack Warner (1999). ''Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story'', University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-813-10958-2

External links

Blog describing the history of the Vitaphone Process in detail

Vitaphone Project dedicated to the restoration of Vitaphone films

List of Early Sound Films at Silent Era website

Category:History of film Category:Film sound production Category:Film and video technology Category:Movie film formats

ca:Vitaphone de:Vitaphone es:Vitaphone fr:Vitaphone ja:ヴァイタフォン

Anna Case (1888 October 29 – 1984 January 7) was an American soprano. She recorded with Thomas Alva Edison, who used her voice extensively in "tone tests" of whether a live audience could tell the difference between the actual singer and a recording. She also made recordings for Diamond Records, RCA Victor, Vitaphone, and Columbia Records.

Biography

She was born on October 29, 1888 in Clinton, New Jersey.

She sang in the American premiere of Boris Gudonov in 1913 at the Metropolitan Opera.

In 1930, before retiring in the same year, she recorded "Just Awearyin' for You" by Frank Lebby Stanton and Carrie Jacobs-Bond.

In 1931 she married ITT Corporation executive Clarence Mackay.

She died on January 7, 1984 in New York City and left her 167.97-carat (33.59 g) Colombian emerald ring and Boucheron necklace to the Smithsonian Institution.

Reference

Category:1888 births Category:1984 deaths Category:American female singers Category:American sopranos Category:People from Hunterdon County, New Jersey Category:Thomas Edison

John Charles Thomas (September 6, 1891December 13, 1960) was a popular American opera, operetta and concert baritone.

Birth, schooling and stage debut

John Charles Thomas was born in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a Methodist minister of Welsh descent while his mother, of German immigrant stock, had been an amateur singer. After studying initially for a medical career, Thomas won a scholarship to the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in 1910. He remained there for two years, receiving vocal tuition from Adelin Fermin.

In 1912, Thomas left the Peabody and toured briefly with a musical troupe. He then went to live in New York City, where he performed with a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta company before being contracted by the Shubert Brothers to perform in the show ''The Peasant Girl'', which opened in March 1913. For the next nine years, he starred in a series of hit Broadway musicals including ''Her Soldier Boy'', ''Maytime'', ''Naughty Marietta'', and ''Apple Blossoms'' (with Fred and Adele Astaire).

Operatic, recital and radio career

Thomas sang in a concert performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera ''Sadko'' at New York's Carnegie Hall in December 1924. His debut in a fully staged opera occurred in March 1925, as Amonasro in a production of Verdi's ''Aida'', presented by the semi-professional Washington National Opera.

Thomas was earning a great deal of money singing on Broadway but he wanted to gain more experience in opera. During the 1922-1928 period, he spent part of each year in Europe, polishing his singing technique and appearing under contract at La Monnaie opera house in Brussels for the seasons of 1925-1927. He would return to La Monnaie for 25 more performances in 1928, eight in 1930 and four in 1931. Even more importantly, he appeared with the famous Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin in productions of ''Faust'' at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in July 1928.

He continued to give recitals in the United States during this period and, in 1923, acted in a silent film, ''Under the Red Robe'', directed by Alan Crosland. He made recordings, too, for the Vocalion label (1920–1924) and Brunswick Records (1924–1929), before signing with RCA Victor in 1931. Thomas also became a pioneer of radio broadcasts, in both New York and Florida. From 1929-1932 he was a member of the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company, and in 1930 made one appearance with the Philadelphia Civic Opera Company.

He accepted engagements with the Washington National, San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia opera companies, and in 1934, to satisfy a public demand, he was signed by the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. He would remain at the Met until 1943, performing opposite such stars as the soprano Rosa Ponselle.

In the tough Great Depression years of the 1930s, he established himself as one of the most sought-after singers in America, with both a classical-music following and a considerable popular audience. His concerts normally offered selections from both repertoires: classical and operatic to begin, and American art songs and humorous "character" songs to close. He also appeared regularly on commercial radio programs. These included ''Five-Star Theater'' (in 1932-1933 with the Joseph Bonime Orchestra), the Vince Radio Program (1934–1936), the Ford, General Motors and The Magic Key of RCA shows (1937–1940) and the Coca Cola show (1940–1941).

In 1938, he helped Edwin Lester launch the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, appearing in the company's very first production in ''Blossom Time''. This work was derived from a Viennese operetta ''Das Dreimäderlhaus'', with music arranged from that of Schubert and adapted for American audiences by Dorothy Donnelly and Sigmund Romberg. Thomas sang regularly in operettas with the LACLO until 1942, starring in productions of ''The Gypsy Baron'', ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', ''The Chocolate Soldier'' and ''Music in the Air''.

He now divided his private time between residences in Easton, Maryland, and Palm Beach, Florida, pursuing an active life as a sportsman. Golfing, yachting, racing speedboats and deep-sea fishing counted among his favourite pastimes.

The Second World War made concert touring inconvenient, and very high taxes made it non-remunerative. Thomas was duly engaged to star on the Westinghouse Radio Program in 1943-1946, accompanied by the Victor Young Orchestra. He probably reached his widest audience during this period, although his practice of performing songs exclusively in English has perhaps left him less well-remembered by today's musical "purists" than he should be. Nevertheless many songs tailored for him to sing have gone on to become standards, such as the version of "The Lord's Prayer" by Albert Hay Malotte and the arrangement of "Home on the Range" by David Guion.

In 1947-48, Thomas undertook a long and demanding tour of Australia and New Zealand, where he played to crowded theatres. He retired bit by bit from the concert stage after 1950, and settled in Apple Valley, California in 1955 with his wife Dorothy. He died there in December 1960 from cancer. Owing to his high-spending lifestyle, the fortune that he had earned through singing was largely dissipated at the time of his death.

Recordings

John Charles Thomas left a large pool of audio recordings, many of which sold extremely well in their day and have been transferred in recent times to compact disc. Only a handful of these recordings, however, are devoted to opera arias. His operatic voice is probably best appreciated in commercial offerings such as "Nemico della patria" from ''Andrea Chénier'', and "C’en est fait… Salomé demande" from ''Hérodiade''. However, live broadcast recordings of "Per me giunto" from ''Don Carlos'', "Vien Leonora" from ''La favorite'' and "Il balen" from ''Il trovatore'' display his brilliant top notes and bel canto capabilities.

He sang hymns, art songs, ballads, cowboy tunes, introspective German lieder, and shanties.

Voice

Thomas belonged to a remarkable sequence of exceptionally gifted American operatic baritones whose neatly overlapping careers stretched in an unbroken line from the 1920s through to the 1960s. They included Richard Bonelli, Lawrence Tibbett, Arthur Endrèze (who was based in Paris), Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill.

His was an essentially lyric voice, which, while not "light", was more notable for its free top register than for its lower range. It was particularly suited to the French operatic repertoire, in which he was seldom heard in the United States apart from his Athanael in Massenet's ''Thais''. It had remarkable flexibility, which was enhanced by Thomas's energy and expressiveness, particularly in his repertoire of popular material. In operatic work, however, this skill could be shown to good effect in trills and runs. Notable examples of his technical expertise are displayed his versions of "Il balen" from ''Il trovatore'', and the "Drinking Song" from ''Hamlet''.

In common with a lot of singers of his inter-war generation, Thomas's voice was highly distinctive. In part, this may have been due to his early career on Broadway. He knew how to "sell" a song—to build a stirring aria to a climax that would bring audiences to their feet. While the voice was always unmistakably his, it changed noticeably in character over time. His early recordings display a darker tonal hue, and the voice is stiffer, as though he were imitating the stentorian Italian baritone of a previous generation, Titta Ruffo. By 1931, and certainly by 1934, he had found the more fluid, natural vocal style for which he is best remembered. From the late 1940s into the '50s, his vibrato began to widen, though it never became an unpardonable flaw in his singing technique, and the voice grew somewhat thicker and heavier in tone.

Honors

He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.

He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8th, 1960.

External links

[ John Charles Thomas at Allmusic.com]

References

''Thomas, John Charles'' by Richard LeSueur and Elizabeth Forbes, in 'The New Grove Dictionary of Opera', edited by Stanley Sadie (London, 1992) ISBN 0-333-73432-7

''John Charles Thomas, Beloved Baritone of American Opera and Popular Music'' by Michael J. Maher, McFarland Press, 2006 ISBN 0-7864-2668-3

''Singers to Remember'' by Harold Simpson, Oakwood Press, Great Britain (circa 1971).

Category:1891 births Category:1960 deaths Category:American opera singers Category:Operatic baritones Category:Peabody Institute alumni

playername	John Charles
fullname	William John Charles, CBE
height
dateofbirth	December 27, 1931
cityofbirth	Swansea
countryofbirth	Wales
dateofdeath	February 21, 2004
cityofdeath	Wakefield
countryofdeath	England
position	Centre Half, Centre Forward
youthyears1	1946–1948
youthclubs1	Swansea Town
years1	1948–1957
years2	1957–1962
years3	1962
years4	1962–1963
years5	1963–1966
years6	1966–1971
years7	1972–1974
clubs1	Leeds United
clubs2	Juventus
clubs3	Leeds United
clubs4	Roma
clubs5	Cardiff City
clubs6	Hereford United
clubs7	Merthyr Tydfil
caps1	297
caps2	150
caps3	11
caps4	10
caps5	69
caps6	173
goals1	150
goals2	93
goals3	3
goals4	4
goals5	18
goals6	80
nationalyears1	1950–1965
nationalteam1	Wales
nationalcaps1	38
nationalgoals1	15
manageryears1	1967–1971
manageryears2	1972–1974
manageryears3	1987
managerclubs1	Hereford United (player-manager)
managerclubs2	Merthyr Tydfil (player-manager)
managerclubs3	Hamilton Steelers }}

William John Charles, CBE (27 December 1931 – 21 February 2004), commonly known as John Charles, was a Welsh international footballer best remembered for spells with Leeds United and Juventus. Rated by many as the greatest all-round footballer ever to come from Wales, he was equally adept at centre-forward or centre-back. He has since been included in the Football League 100 Legends and was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame.

He was never cautioned or sent off during his entire career, due to his philosophy of never kicking or intentionally hurting opposing players. Standing at 6 feet 2 inches, he was nicknamed ''Il Gigante Buono'' – The Gentle Giant.

Biography

Charles was born in the Cwmbwrla district of Swansea during late 1931. Charles would play football as a child, with younger brother Mel Charles who also went on to become a professional, later playing alongside each other for the Welsh national team.

While still at school, Charles joined the boys section of the local team Swansea Town, who later became Swansea City. When he left school at age 14, he was taken onto the groundstaff at Vetch Field, yet because of his young age; Third Division Swansea never gave him a first-team call up. His only senior appearances came for the reserve side in the Welsh Football League.

Leeds United first spell

While playing for Gendros, a local youth club, he was scouted by Leeds United and given a trial in September 1948. At his trial he impressed and duly signed for them at the age of 17, relocating to Yorkshire.

Major Buckley, then manager of Leeds, selected Charles in a variety of positions including right-back, centre-half and left-half for Leeds Reserves.

Charles made his first team debut as a centre back for Leeds United in a friendly versus Dumfries club Queen of the South on 19 April 1949. Charles was tasked with marking the Scotland centre forward who in winning 3–1 ten days before at Wembley had run the England defence ragged, Billy Houliston. The score was 0–0. After the game Houliston said 17 year old Charles was "the best centre-half I've ever played against".

Charles made his league debut against Blackburn Rovers also in April 1949, playing at centre-half. Two seasons later he played a couple of matches at centre-forward, scoring twice in the second match. This prompted a debate as to where Charles should play in the team, but he remained at centre-half until the 1952–53 season. He scored 150 league goals in eight years for Leeds, including 42 goals in the 1953–54 season.

He also played for the Army during his two years of National Service between 1950 and 1952, also dabbling in boxing, cricket, running and basketball. It was during this period that he suffered a serious cartilage injury, causing him to miss most of the 1951–52 season.

Playing in Italy with Juventus

In 1957 he joined the Italian club Juventus F.C. for a then-British-record £65,000 transfer fee. The transfer was notable as Charles became one of the first British professional players to be signed for an overseas team after John Fox Watson led the way moving from Fulham to Real Madrid in 1948. In his five years at Juventus he scored 93 goals in 155 matches, winning the scudetto (Italian league championship) three times, and the Italian Cup twice.

The respect Charles earned from Juventus fans was shown when, on the occasion of the club's centenary in 1997 they voted him to be the best-ever foreign player to play for their team.

Returning to Britain

Following his time at Juventus F.C., he returned to Leeds United but his second spell at Elland Road was less successful. After five years in Italy he found it difficult to adjust to life back in England. He returned to Italy to play for A.S. Roma, initially with success. However he then began to suffer from injuries and personal problems and left to join Cardiff City where he was to finish his league career.

He later became manager of Hereford United and Merthyr Tydfil, and technical director of the Canadian team Hamilton Steelers, who he became coach of midway through the 1987 season.

International career with Wales

Charles first played for the Wales national team shortly after his 18th birthday.

He was the heart of the side which made it to the quarter finals of the 1958 Football World Cup (the country's only appearance in the World Cup), but was defeated 1–0 by eventual winners Brazil (a goal by the emerging Pelé) in his absence due to injury. In total for Wales, Charles made 38 appearances and scored 15 goals.

Charles played for the Great Britain team against Ireland in 1955.

Life after football

Following his retirement from football, Charles became the landlord of the New Inn public house on Elland Road, Churwell, Leeds which later was also managed by another Leeds United and Wales international legend Byron Stevenson. Charles was awarded a CBE in 2001, and until shortly before his death he still attended every Leeds United home game. In 2002 he was made a vice-president of the Football Association of Wales, and in 2003, he was granted the freedom of the city of Swansea. There was a campaign to knight John Charles, but, in the end, this never happened resulting only in a CBE. Charles became an Inaugural Inductee to the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002. The West Stand of the Elland Road Stadium is named "The John Charles Stand" in his honour for the great service he provided to Leeds United and a bust has been created, financed by Leeds United Chairman Ken Bates, to be displayed in the entrance to the banqueting suite (attached to the back of The John Charles Stand) in his remembrance. The South Leeds Stadium, used by Leeds United for reserve matches, was renamed the John Charles Stadium in his honour. There is also a street named "John Charles Way" Close to the Elland Road Stadium

In January 2004 he suffered a heart attack shortly before an interview for Italian television, and required the partial amputation of one foot for circulation reasons before he was returned to Britain. He died in Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, early on 21 February 2004.

John had a brother, Mel Charles and a nephew Jeremy Charles, who also represented Wales.

In 1998, the Football League, as part of its centenary season celebrations, included Charles on its list of 100 League Legends.

On 29 November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Wales by the Football Association of Wales as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years.

In 2004, Charles was voted at number 19 in the ''100 Welsh Heroes'' poll.

Ability

In the foreword for Charles' autobiography, Sir Bobby Robson described him as "incomparable" and classed him among the all-time footballing greats such as Pelé, Diego Maradona and George Best. He also notes that Charles is the only footballing great to be world class in two very different positions.

Jimmy Greaves once stated that "if I were picking my all-time great British team, or even a world eleven, John Charles would be in it". Other footballers have also named him as one of the best, including Jack Charlton, Nat Lofthouse and Billy Wright.

Charles' accomplishments with Juventus led to him being voted 'the greatest foreign player ever in Serie A', ahead of Maradona, Michel Platini, Marco Van Basten and Zinedine Zidane – this in 1997, 34 years after his last appearance in the league. In 2001 he became the first non-Italian inducted to the Azzurri Hall of Fame.

Honours

Serie A: Champions (1958, 1960, 1961)

Coppa Italia: Winners (1959, 1960)

Welsh Cup: Winners (1964, 1965)

Italian Player of the Year: 1958

The John Charles Centre for Sport in Leeds is named after Charles.

The West stand at Elland Road is named "The John Charles Stand" and the entrance lobby to the Banqueting Suite attached to the back of the stand contains a bust of Charles, in memory of all he did for the club.

A street near Elland Road in the Lower Wortley area of Leeds is named "John Charles Way"

The John Charles Lounge in Aberystwyth Town Football Club's ground is named after Charles

Career statistics

''These statistics are incomplete, missing figures indicated by –'' {|border=1 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=2 style="background: ivory; font-size: 95%; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; clear:center" |+ Club performance |- !rowspan="2"|Club !rowspan="2"|Division !rowspan="2"|Season !colspan="2"|League !colspan="2"|Cup !colspan="2"|Other !colspan="2"|Total |- !Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals |- |rowspan="9" align=center valign=top|Leeds United |Second Division |1948–49 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |- |Second Division |1949–50 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|5 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|47 |align="center"|1 |- |Second Division |1950–51 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|36 |align="center"|3 |- |Second Division |1951–52 |align="center"|18 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|5 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|23 |align="center"|0 |- |Second Division |1952–53 |align="center"|40 |align="center"|26 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|41 |align="center"|27 |- |Second Division |1953–54 |align="center"|39 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|41 |align="center"|43 |- |Second Division |1954–55 |align="center"|40 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|12 |- |Second Division |1955–56 |align="center"|41 |align="center"|29 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|29 |- |First Division |1956–57 |align="center"|40 |align="center"|38 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|41 |align="center"|39 |- |rowspan="5" align=center valign=top|Juventus |Serie A |1957–58 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|28 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|38 |align="center"|29 |- |Serie A |1958–59 |align="center"|29 |align="center"|19 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|5 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|35 |align="center"|24 |- |Serie A |1959–60 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|23 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|37 |align="center"|26 |- |Serie A |1960–61 |align="center"|32 |align="center"|15 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|37 |align="center"|16 |- |Serie A |1961–62 |align="center"|21 |align="center"|8 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|2 |align="center"|10 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|35 |align="center"|10 |- |rowspan="1" align=center valign=top|Leeds United |Second Division |1962–63 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|3 |- |rowspan="1" align=center valign=top|A.S. Roma |Serie A |1962–63 |align="center"|10 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|10 |align="center"|4 |- |rowspan="3" align=center valign=top|Cardiff City |Second Division |1963–64 |align="center"|33 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|35 |align="center"|11 |- |Second Division |1964–65 |align="center"|28 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|6 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|3 |- |Second Division |1965–66 |align="center"|7 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|3 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|10 |align="center"|4 |- |rowspan="5" align=center valign=top|Hereford United |Southern Premier |1966–67 |align="center"|42 |align="center"|26 |align="center"|9 |align="center"|11 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |align="center"|51 |align="center"|37 |- |Southern Premier |1967–68 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |- |Southern Premier |1968–69 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |- |Southern Premier |1969–70 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |- |Southern Premier |1970–71 |align="center"|24 |align="center"|10 |align="center"|4 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|6 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|34 |align="center"|12 |- |rowspan="1" align=center valign=top|Merthyr Tydfil |Southern Premier |1971–72 |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|– |align="center"|0 |align="center"|0 |- |colspan=3|Career totals |align="center"|602 |align="center"|304 |align="center"|51 |align="center"|28 |align="center"|30 |align="center"|1 |align="center"|683 |align="center"|333 |- |}

References

Further reading

Richard Coomber, ''King John, the true story of John Charles, Leeds United Legend'', Leeds United Publishing, 2000, ISBN 978-1903415009

External links

English Football Hall of Fame Profile

UEFA.com – Wales' Golden Player

John Charles – A True Leeds United Legend – LeedsUnited.com

Leeds United Fan Club – John Charles

John Charles at the Wales Video Gallery

Category:UEFA Golden Players Category:1931 births Category:2004 deaths Category:Wales international footballers Category:Welsh football managers Category:Welsh footballers Category:The Football League players Category:First Division/Premier League topscorers Category:Welsh expatriate footballers Category:Serie A footballers Category:Serie A topscorers Category:Leeds United A.F.C. players Category:Juventus F.C. players Category:A.S. Roma players Category:Cardiff City F.C. players Category:Swansea City A.F.C. players Category:Hereford United F.C. players Category:Hereford United F.C. managers Category:Merthyr Tydfil F.C. players Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Swansea Category:1958 FIFA World Cup players Category:Expatriate footballers in Italy Category:Association football utility players Category:English Football Hall of Fame inductees

bg:Джон Чарлс ca:William John Charles cy:John Charles de:John Charles es:John Charles fr:John Charles ko:존 찰스 id:John Charles it:John Charles he:ג'ון צ'ארלס ja:ジョン・チャールズ no:John Charles pl:John Charles pt:John Charles ro:John Charles ru:Чарльз, Джон simple:John Charles fi:John Charles sv:John Charles tr:John Charles zh:约翰·查尔斯

name	Eleanor Powell
birth name	Eleanor Torrey Powell
birth date	November 21, 1912
birth place	Springfield, Massachusetts, United States
death date	February 11, 1982
death place	Beverly Hills, California, United States
occupation	Actress/Dancer
years active	1928–1953
spouse	Glenn Ford (1943–1959)
website	http://classicmoviefavorites.com/powell/ }}

Eleanor Torrey Powell (November 21, 1912 – February 11, 1982) was an American film actress and dancer of the 1930s and 1940s, known for her exuberant solo tap dancing.

Early life

Powell was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. A dancer since childhood, she was discovered at the age of 11 by the head of the Vaudeville Kiddie revue, Gus Edwards. When she was 17, she brought her graceful, athletic style to Broadway, where she starred in various revues and musicals. During this time, she was dubbed "the world's greatest tap dancer" due to her machine-gun footwork, and in the early 1930s appeared as a chorus girl in a couple of early, inconsequential musical films.

Road to Hollywood

In 1935, the leggy, fresh-faced Powell made the move to Hollywood and did a specialty number in her first major film, ''George White's 1935 Scandals'' which she later described as a disaster because she was accidentally made up to look like an Egyptian. The experience left her unimpressed with Hollywood and when she was courted by MGM, she initially refused their offers of a contract. Reportedly, Powell attempted to dissuade the studio by making what she felt were unreasonable salary demands, but MGM agreed to them and she finally accepted. The studio groomed her for stardom, making minimal changes in her makeup and conduct.

Film stardom

She was well-received in her first starring role in 1935's ''Broadway Melody of 1936'' (in which she was supported by Jack Benny and Frances Langford), and delighted 1930s audiences with her endless energy and enthusiasm, not to mention her stunning dancing. According to dancer Ann Miller, quoted in the "making-of" documentary ''That's Entertainment! III'', MGM was headed for bankruptcy in the late 1930s, but the films of Eleanor Powell, particularly ''Broadway Melody of 1936'', were so popular they made the company profitable again. Miller also credits Powell for inspiring her own dancing career, which would lead her to become an MGM musical star a decade later.

Powell would go on to star opposite many of the decade's top leading men, including James Stewart, Robert Taylor, Fred Astaire, George Murphy, Nelson Eddy, and Robert Young. Among the films she made during the height of her career in the mid-to-late 1930s were ''Born to Dance'' (1936), ''Rosalie'' (1937), ''Broadway Melody of 1938'' (1937), ''Honolulu'' (1939), and ''Broadway Melody of 1940'' (1940). All of these movies featured her amazing solo tapping, although her increasingly huge production numbers began to draw criticism. Her characters also sang, but Powell's singing voice was usually (but not always) dubbed. (This would also happen to one of Powell's successors, Cyd Charisse). ''Broadway Melody of 1940'', in which Powell starred opposite Fred Astaire, featured an acclaimed musical score by Cole Porter. Together, Astaire and Powell danced to Porter's "Begin the Beguine", which is considered by many to be one of the greatest tap sequences in film history. According to accounts of the making of this film, including a documentary included on the DVD release, Astaire was somewhat intimidated by Powell, who was considered the only female dancer ever capable of out-dancing Astaire. In his autobiography ''Steps in Time'', Astaire remarked, "She 'put 'em down like a man', no ricky-ticky-sissy stuff with Ellie. She really knocked out a tap dance in a class by herself."

Decline in popularity

Following ''Broadway Melody of 1940'' Powell was sidelined for many months following a gall stone operation and things changed somewhat for the worse, at least as far as Powell's movie career was concerned. 1941's ''Lady Be Good'' gave Powell top billing and a classic dance routine to "Fascinatin' Rhythm", but Robert Young and Ann Sothern were the actual stars of the film. The same happened with Red Skelton in ''Ship Ahoy'' (1942) and ''I Dood It'' (1943), although in ''Ship Ahoy'' her character nonetheless played a central role in the story, and Powell's dance skills were put to practical use when she manages to tap out a morse code message to a secret agent in the middle of a dance routine.

She was signed to play opposite Dan Dailey in ''For Me and My Gal'' in 1942, but the two actors were removed from the picture during rehearsals and replaced by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. Later, production of a new ''Broadway Melody'' film that would have paired Powell with Kelly was also cancelled.

She parted ways with MGM in 1943 after her next film, ''Thousands Cheer'', in which she appeared only for a few minutes to perform a specialty number (as part of an all-star cast), and the same year married Canadian-born lead actor Glenn Ford. She danced in a giant pinball machine in ''Sensations of 1945'' (1944) for United Artists, but this picture was a critical and commercial disappointment, Powell's performance overshadowed by what was to be the final film appearance of W. C. Fields. Powell retired from the cinema afterwards to concentrate on raising her son, actor Peter Ford, who was born that year (although she did appear in a couple of documentary-style short subjects about celebrities in the late 1940s). Overseas audiences did get to see one additional Powell dance performance in 1946, however, when the compilation ''The Great Morgan'' was released, which included a number that had been cut from ''Honolulu''.

In 1950, Powell returned to MGM one last time for a cameo in ''Duchess of Idaho'', starring Esther Williams. Appearing as herself in a nightclub scene, a hesitant Powell is invited to dance by Van Johnson's character, and she begins with a staid, almost balletic performance until she is chided by Johnson for being lazy. She then strips off her skirt, revealing her famous legs, and proceeds to perform a "boogie-woogie"-style specialty number very similar to the one she performed in ''Thousands Cheer'' seven years earlier. Williams, in her autobiography ''The Million Dollar Mermaid'', writes of being touched, watching Powell rehearsing until her feet bled, in order to make her brief cameo as perfect as possible.

Later career: TV and stage

After ''Duchess of Idaho'', Powell returned to private life. In May 1952, she emerged as a guest star on an episode of ''Four Star Revue'' with Danny Thomas and June Havoc. Around this time, she was ordained a minister of the Unity Church and later hosted an Emmy Award-winning Sunday morning TV program for youth entitled ''The Faith of Our Children'' (1953–1955). Her son, Peter Ford, was a regular on this show and would later find his own success as a rock and roll singer and as an actor. In 1955, Powell made her last-ever film appearance when she appeared in ''Have Faith in Our Children'', a three-minute short film produced for the Variety Club of Northern California in which Powell asked viewers to donate to the charity. The short, which other than its title had no relation to the TV series, marked the only time Powell appeared on screen with Glenn Ford.

Powell divorced Ford in 1959, and that year, encouraged by Peter, launched a highly-publicized nightclub career, maintaining her good figure and looks well into middle age. Her live performances continued well into the 1960s. During the early 1960s she made several guest appearances on variety TV programs, including ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' and ''The Hollywood Palace''.

She made her final public appearance in 1981 at a televised American Film Institute tribute to Fred Astaire, where she received a standing ovation.

Quote

"What we are is God's gift to us, what we become is our gift to God"

Death

Eleanor Powell died February 11, 1982 of cancer at the age of 69, and was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood.

Reintroduction

Powell was reintroduced to audiences in the popular ''That's Entertainment!'' documentary in 1974, and its sequels ''That's Entertainment Part II'' (1976) and ''That's Entertainment! III'' (1994) and the related film ''That's Dancing!'' (1985) which spotlight her dancing from films such as ''Broadway Melody of 1940'', ''Lady Be Good'', and ''Born to Dance''. She is one of only a few performers to be the subject of spotlight segments (as opposed to being included in a montage with other performers) in all four films. ''That's Entertainment! III'' is notable for including behind-the-scenes footage of her "Fascinatin' Rhythm" routine from ''Lady Be Good''.

Powell's films continue to be broadcast on television regularly by Turner Classic Movies, with most released in the VHS video format in 1980s and 1990s. North American DVD release of her work has been slower in coming. Aside from clips from her films being included in the aforementioned ''That's Entertainment!'' trilogy, plus clips that were featured in other releases such as the 2002 special edition DVD release of ''Singin' in the Rain'', it wasn't until the 2003 DVD release of ''Broadway Melody of 1940'' that a complete Powell film was released in the format. In February 2007, Warner Home Video announced plans to release a boxed DVD set of Eleanor Powell's musical films by year end. This did not occur; instead, on April 8, 2008 Warner released a third boxed set in the ''Classic Musicals from the Dream Factory'' series, with nine films, four of which star Powell: ''Broadway Melody of 1936'', ''Born to Dance'', ''Broadway Melody of 1938'', and ''Lady Be Good''. The films are expected to be released in individual two film sets (the two ''Broadway Melody'' films in one set, ''Born to Dance''/''Lady Be Good'' on the other) later in the year.

Filmography

Features

''Queen High'' (1930)

''George White's 1935 Scandals'' (1935)

''Broadway Melody of 1936'' (1935)

''Born to Dance'' (1936)

''Broadway Melody of 1938'' (1937)

''Rosalie'' (1937)

''Honolulu'' (1939)

''Broadway Melody of 1940'' (1940)

''Lady Be Good'' (1941)

''Ship Ahoy'' (1942)

''Thousands Cheer'' (1943)

''I Dood It'' (1943)

''Sensations of 1945'' (1944)

''Duchess of Idaho'' (1950)

Short Subjects

''No Contest!'' (1934)

''Screen Shapshots Series 15, No. 12'' (1936)

''Screen Snapshots: Famous Hollywood Mothers'' (1947)

''Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Holiday'' (1948)

''Have Faith in Our Children'' (1955)

Notes

References

Margie Schultz: ''Eleanor Powell: A Bio-Bibliography,'' Greenwood Press, 1994, ISBN 0-313-28110-6

External links

Official site

Photographs and literature

Category:1912 births Category:1982 deaths Category:Actors from Massachusetts Category:American film actors Category:American tap dancers Category:Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:People from Springfield, Massachusetts Category:Vaudeville performers Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:20th-century actors

de:Eleanor Powell es:Eleanor Powell fr:Eleanor Powell it:Eleanor Powell nl:Eleanor Powell ja:エレノア・パウエル pl:Eleanor Powell pt:Eleanor Powell sv:Eleanor Powell ru:Пауэлл, Элинор