Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. (March 21, 1867 - July 22, 1932), (sometimes also called "Flo" Ziegfeld), was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931), inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat. He was known as the "glorifier of the American girl".

Ziegfeld was born in Chicago in 1867. (Some sources, including his obituary, give the year of birth as 1869.) His mother, Rosalie (née de Hez), who was born in Belgium, was the grand niece of General Count Étienne Maurice Gérard. His father, Florenz Ziegfeld, Sr., was a German immigrant whose father was the mayor of Jever in Friesland. Ziegfeld, Jr., was baptized in his mother's Catholic church (his father was Lutheran). Ziegfeld, Jr.'s father ran the Chicago Musical College and later opened a nightclub, the Trocadero, to obtain business from the 1893 World's Fair. To help his father's unsuccessful nightclub, Ziegfeld, Jr., hired and managed the strongman, Eugen Sandow.

Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE (née Wells; born 1 October 1935) is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honours.

Andrews is a former child actress and singer who made her Broadway debut in a 1954 production of The Boy Friend, and rose to prominence starring in musicals such as My Fair Lady and Camelot, both of which earned her Tony Award nominations. In 1957, she made her television debut with the title role in Cinderella, which was seen by over 100 million viewers.

Andrews made her feature film debut in Mary Poppins (1964), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She received her second Academy Award nomination for The Sound of Music (1965). Adjusted for inflation, these two films are the 25th and 3rd highest grossing films of all time, respectively. From 1964 to 1967, Andrews was the biggest film star in the world, with the additional box office successes of her films The Americanization of Emily, Hawaii, Torn Curtain, and Thoroughly Modern Millie.

Mary William Ethelbert Appleton "Billie" Burke (August 7, 1884 – May 14, 1970) was an American actress. She is primarily known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the musical film The Wizard of Oz. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live. Burke was also the wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., of Ziegfeld Follies fame, from 1914 until his death.

Known as Billie Burke, she toured the United States and Europe with her father, a singer. Her family ultimately settled in London where she was fortunate to see plays in London's West End. In 1903, she began acting on stage, making her debut in London in The School Girl. She eventually returned to America to become the toast of Broadway as a musical comedy star.

Burke went on to play leads on Broadway in Mrs. Dot, Suzanne, The Runaway, The "Mind-the-Paint" Girl, and The Land of Promise from 1910 to 1913, along with a supporting role in the revival of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's The Amazons. There she caught the eye of producer Florenz Ziegfeld, marrying him in 1914. In 1916, they had one daughter, Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson (1916–2008). Burke was quickly signed for the movies, making her film debut in the title role of Peggy (1916). She continued to appear on the stage, and sometimes she starred on the screen. She loved the stage more than movie-business, not only because it was her first love, but also because it allowed her to have speaking parts (impossible in silent movies). But when the family's savings were wiped out in the Crash of 1929, she had no choice but to return to the screen.^{[citation needed]}

Regis Francis Xavier Philbin (pronounced /ˈriːdʒɨs ˈfɪlbɨn/; born August 25, 1931) is an American media personality, actor and singer, known for hosting talk and game shows since the 1960s. Philbin is often called (somewhat tongue-in-cheek and alternately attributed to James Brown) "the hardest working man in show business" and holds the Guinness World Record for the most time spent in front of a television camera. His trademarks include his excited manner, his New York Bronx accent, his wit, and irreverent ad-libs. He is most widely known for Live with Regis and Kelly (which rose to fame as Live with Regis and Kathie Lee),Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,Million Dollar Password, and for hosting the first season of America's Got Talent.

On January 18, 2011, Philbin announced plans to leave Live with Regis and Kelly at the end of his contract. His final episode of Live aired on November 18, 2011.

Philbin was born in New York City. His father, Francis "Frank" Philbin, a U.S. Marine who served in the Pacific, was of Irish heritage. His mother, Filomena "Florence" (née Boscia), was of Arbëreshë (an Albanian minority population from southern Italy) heritage. They lived at 1990 Cruger Avenue in the Van Nest section of The Bronx. Philbin was raised Roman Catholic. He was supposedly named "Regis" because his father wished him to attend the prestigious Regis High School. It was long believed that Philbin was an only child, but on the February 1, 2007, broadcast of Live with Regis and Kelly, Philbin announced that he did have a brother, Frank M. Philbin (March 1, 1951 – January 27, 2007), who had died from non-Hodgkin lymphoma several days earlier. He said that his brother, 20 years younger than he, had asked him to not speak of him on television or in the press.

Helene Anna Held (19 March 1872 - 12 August 1918) was a Polish-born stage performer, most often associated with impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, her common-law husband.

Born in Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire she was the daughter of a Jewish glove maker, Shimmle (aka Maurice) Held, and his French-Jewish wife,^{[citation needed]} Yvonne Pierre. Sources of her year of birth range from 1865 to 1873. In 1881, antisemitic pogroms forced the family to flee to Paris, France. When her father's glovemaking business failed, he found work as a janitor, while her mother operated a kosher restaurant. Held began working in the garment industry, then found work as a singer in Jewish theatres in Paris and, later, after her father's death, London, where her roles included the title role in a production by Jacob Adler of Abraham Goldfaden's Shulamith; she was also in Goldfaden's ill-fated Paris troupe, whose cashier stole their money before they ever played publicly.

Her vivacious and animated personality proved popular, and her career as a stage performer began to gain momentum. She was soon known for her risqué songs, flirtatious nature and willingness to show her legs on stage. Around this time, she became the wife of a much-older Uruguayan playboy, Maximo Carrera, with whom she had a daughter, Liane (1895–1988), shortly after their 1894 marriage, and who became an actress and producer, sometimes billed as Anna Held, Jr.