Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.
Busby Berkeley (November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976) was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berkeley's works used large numbers of showgirls and props as fantasy elements in kaleidoscopic on-screen performances.
Berkeley was born to stage actress Gertrude Berkeley. Among Gertrude's friends were actress Amy Busby and actor William Gillette, then only four years away from playing Sherlock Holmes. Gertrude apparently named her son after both Busby and Gillette after they agreed to be the boy's godparents. The boy was named Busby Berkeley William Enos.
In addition to her stage work, Gertrude played mother roles in silent films while Berkley was still a child. Berkeley made his stage debut at five, acting in the company of his performing family. During World War I, Berkeley served as a field artillery lieutenant. Watching soldiers drill may have inspired his later complex choreography. During the 1920s, Berkeley was a dance director for nearly two dozen Broadway musicals, including such hits as A Connecticut Yankee. As a choreographer, Berkeley was less concerned with the terpsichorean skill of his chorus girls as he was with their ability to form themselves into attractive geometric patterns. His musical numbers were among the largest and best-regimented on Broadway.[citation needed]
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer. One of the highest profile composers writing "classical" music today, he is often said to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. His music is also often controversially described as minimalist, along with the work of the other "major minimalists" La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich.
He has lately distanced himself from the "minimalist" label, describing himself instead as a composer of "music with repetitive structures." Though his early mature music shares much with what is normally called "minimalist", he has since evolved stylistically. Currently, he describes himself as a "Classicist", pointing out that he is trained in harmony and counterpoint and studied such composers as Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with Nadia Boulanger.
Glass is a prolific composer: he has written works for the musical group which he founded, the Philip Glass Ensemble (with which he still performs on keyboards), as well as operas, musical theatre works, ten symphonies, eleven concertos, solo works, chamber music including string quartets and instrumental sonatas, and film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE (December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000) was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was born in New York City as the only child of actor Douglas Fairbanks, and his first wife, Anna Beth Sully. His parents divorced when he was nine years old, and although both remarried, they had no more children. He lived with his mother in New York, California, Paris and London.
Fairbanks' father was one of cinema's first icons, noted for such swashbuckling adventure films as The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood and The Thief of Bagdad. Largely on the basis of his father's name, Fairbanks, Jr. was given a contract with Paramount Pictures at age 14. After making some undistinguished films, he took to the stage, where he impressed his father, his stepmother Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin, who encouraged him to continue with acting.
He began his career during the silent film era. He initially played mainly supporting roles in a range of films featuring many of the leading female players of the day: Belle Bennett in Stella Dallas (1925), Esther Ralston in An American Venus (1926) and Pauline Starke in Women Love Diamonds (1927). In the last years of the silent period, he was upped to star billing opposite Loretta Young in several pre-Code films and Joan Crawford in Our Modern Maidens (1929). He supported John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in Woman of Affairs (1929). Progressing to sound, he played opposite Katharine Hepburn in her Oscar-winning role in the film Morning Glory (1933).
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro.
An astute businessman, Fairbanks was a founding member of United Artists. Fairbanks was also a founding member of The Motion Picture Academy and hosted the first Oscars Ceremony in 1929. With his marriage to Mary Pickford in 1920, the couple became Hollywood royalty and Fairbanks was referred to as "The King of Hollywood", a nickname later passed on to actor Clark Gable. His career rapidly declined with the advent of the "talkies".
Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman (spelled "Ulman" by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in his memoirs) in Denver, Colorado, the son of H. Charles Ullman (born September 15, 1833) and Ella Adelaide Marsh (born 1847). He had a half-brother, John Fairbanks, Jr. (born 1873), and a full brother, Robert Payne Ullman (March 13, 1882 – February 22, 1948).