Sadly, the interwebs today are abuzz with the passing of Marilyn Knowlden, the free-lancing child actor of many Hollywood films of the 1930s. She was 99.
She may be best remembered as playing Kim in the Convent Scene in the 1936 film version of Show Boat.
While she did not work directly with Helen Morgan in the making of that film, she graciously granted me an interview some years back, and for that I am grateful.
Her passing today, I believe, marks the end of an era. Not only was she the last surviving principal in the 1936 Show Boat, but she was also, likely, the last surviving actor to have been directed by James Whale and the last to have worked at Universal during the Laemmle years.
… 1930, Helen Morgan recorded “Body and Soul” and “Something to Remember You By,” the two big numbers from the stage revue Three’s a Crowd.
She didn’t introduce the numbers … exactly … nor is it entirely correct to call these waxing merely covers of popular sings.
Johnny Green, Robert Sour, Edward Heyman and Frank Eyton originally wrote “Body and Soul” in 1929 as material for Gertude Lawrence, but the number failed to click. Regardless, Lawrence liked the number and took it back to England with her, where Jack Hylton’s jazz band played it well enough that it became popular in the UK.
While abroad in the summer of 1930, Morgan heard the song, liked it, and brought it back home with her, and put it into her act.
One problem: Producer Max Gordon also liked the song and acquired it as supplemental material for the new Dietz and Schwartz stage revue, About Town – later retitled Three’s a Crowd.
Gordon knew the song would be popular, especially when sung by his torcher, Libby Holman. He, and Harms (the music publisher) went so far as to run an advert (really, a warning) in the August 6, 1930 issue of Variety.
Evidently, Helen never got the memo. She sang the song without incident over the airwaves on September 5 and laid down three versions of the track the following day at the Victor studio. The label rejected her efforts, as well as the three takes she made of “Something to Remember You By.” Victor printed the waxings she made the following week.
Libby Holman made good with both of her Three’s a Crowd numbers, both on stage and on record, but Morgan’s version, if not definitive, remains her best vocal performance on record. It rose to number 16 on the charts.
Morgan’s performance of “Body and Soul” so impressed Max Gordon that he fancied taking Morgan along to lead a proposed London company of Three’s a Crowd. Sadly, the production never came about, perhaps because Morgan continued to sing the song while not under contract to Gordon. When she played the Palace in early 1931, she got around Gordon’s decree that the song could not be sung on any other Broadway stage while Three’s a Crowd played the Selwyn. She simply sat on the steps of Palace heading into the audience and crooned her tune.
It is unclear whether she included the gong heard in her Victor recording.
As for “Something to Remember You By,” Morgan’s recording remained popular, but always took a back seat to “Body and Soul.”
Her waxing of “Something to Remember You By” would not raise eyebrows until after her death … but more on that next month.
… 1932, Helen Morgan recorded her Show Boat numbers for the second time. This time on the Brunswick label.
On the surface, Morgan had returned to square one, playing Julie in the first Broadway revival of the seminal musical, a mere three years after the original mounting closed.
But much had changed.
The most lasting change was the death of producer (and Morgan’s father figure) Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. two and a half weeks before she entered the recording studio.
It was a loss from which Helen would never recover, neither emotionally nor professionally, and her grief is all too apparent in the tracks she laid down that day.
Also apparent is the passage of time. As she matured, her voice dropped, which added to the somber tone of the recordings. The change is most apparent during the start of “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” when she offers (again) a brief quote of the cut “Mis’ry’s Comin’ Aroun'”.
Assisting Morgan is Louis Alter, who added his own rococo piano flourishes when accompanying her. Alter was a songsmith as well as an accompanist, and Morgan remained loyal to him for years. She included many of his songs – notably “What a Life (Trying to Live Without You)” – in her act. Later on, she commercially recorded Alter’s “(I’ve Got) Sand in My Shoes” and “I Was Taken By Storm.”
Here are both sides of her Show Boat disc:
Helen did not record her numbers alone.
Brunswick also brought in Paul Robeson to record his peerless version of “Ol’ Man River” – and then did something extraordinary: the label packaged the four discs they recorded into a single album:
There are some caveats to the above statement that should be mentioned.
Morgan and Robeson were the only members of the 1932 revival cast featured, and they only took three of the eight sides.
Rounding out the “cast” were popular radio and recording artists. Frank Munn and Countess Olga Albani duet on “Why Do I Love You” and James Melton handles “Make Believe” and “You Are Love” as solos.
Another caveat is that no one sings to Robert Russell Bennett’s original stage orchestrations. Instead, composer and conductor Victor Young provided his own, bookending the set with an original Overture and Finale culled from melodies from Jerome Kern’s epic score.
James Melton – 2/A – You Are Love” …
… and 2/B – “Make Believe”
Disc #4 – “Why Do I Love You”/Finale
The history of Brunswick is convoluted, so suffice it to say that Columbia gained control of the label and its back catalog in 1939 and phased out the label in 1940.
A year later, Columbia re-released the 1932 album, with new artwork.
To say that the re-issue was successful would be a understatement. In 1991, the album was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame. In 2005, the collection was added to the National Registry.
Allowing for various media (78rpm, 33rpm, cassette, compact disc, iTunes, etc.), the album has rarely, if ever, gone out of print during the past 84 years. This happy occurrence proved a great boon to Helen Morgan. When Victor re-released – and re-re-released – Helen’s recordings following her death, their prior contracts did not require the payment of any royalties.
But Columbia’s (if not Brunswick’s) contract did. And while it took ten years of sales to do it, residuals from the Show Boat album paid off the debts Helen left at the time of her death in 1941 and, ultimately, settled her estate.
Six months later, Brunswick recorded a set for Blackbirds of 1928 again with veterans from the 1928 production (Adelaide Hall and Bill Robinson) and those new to the material (Ethel Waters, Mills Brothers, Cab Calloway). Decca took up the gauntlet with two sets for Porgy and Bess (1940 and 1942) and one for This is the Army (1942) – but it was not until Decca waxed Oklahoma! in 1943 that the Broadway cast album became a regular occurrence. ↩︎
Happy heavenly birthday to Helen Morgan, who was born 123 years ago today!
Yes, on August 2, 1902, not 1900. For more on this, see last year’s birthday post.
August 2, 1902 was not a happy natal day.
Her parents, Lulu Lang and Frank Riggin, married on September 3, 1899, under an unlucky star. Lulu Lang came from hardy farmer stock, but Frank took ill while serving in the Spanish-American War. Not during any battle, but while at boot camp. He was discharged long before his unit went to the front lines. He battled multiple medical issues throughout the remainder of his life.
Disaster struck on June 21, 1901, when Lulu gave birth, prematurely, to a stillborn son.
Ten months later, while Lulu was pregnant a second time, the couple separated, on April 14, 1902.
The birth of a daughter, Helen, did not foster a reconciliation between the estranged couple. Instead, on September 16, 1902, Frank sued Lulu for divorce.
Despite his protracted military service, Frank benefited from a military pension and medical (financial) assistance for his various illnesses. He divorced not so much to deny any survivor’s benefits to his estranged wife, but to do likewise to his infant daughter.
To do so, he denied paternity by accusing Lulu of multiple accounts of adultery.
In his complaint, he accused Lulu of adultery nine months prior to the birth of her stillborn sun. Curiously, the incident is crossed out on the document, presumably because the death certificate of the infant clearly states that birth was premature.
Other alleged incidents remained in the complaint, including one dated November 4, 1901.
Maybe these alleged events occurred as documented, but one fact is not included in the complaint: Helen was also born premature.
Many thanks – again – to the Columbus Moving Picture Show – a vintage film festival and memorabilia show held annually over Memorial Day weekend in … Columbus (Ohio).
They very kindly had me as a guest, where I presented my talk on the films of Helen Morgan.
On top of their warm hospitality during the event, they invited me onto their podcast this week.
… 1926, Helen Morgan played the Silver Slipper in Atlantic City.
Fans of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire will remember Steve Buscemi’s turn as Nucky Thompson, a character that bore more than a passing resemblance to Enoch Lewis “Nucky” Johnson, the Atlantic County Republic boss and sheriff, who, on the side but never out of view, oversaw bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling in Atlantic City.
Nucky ruled Atlantic City and the Silver Slipper with an iron hand.
Morgan’s tenure proved mercifully brief.
Although she had just come into her own as a cabaret chanteuse at New York’s 54th Street Club, in July 1926, Atlantic City only knew her from her turn in the George White’s Scandals, which held its world premiere the previous summer in the shore town.
And so, Johnson billed her as a dancer. While the content of her act at the Silver Slipper was not noted at length in any review of that week’s show, if safe to assume she did more singing than dancing.
In the end, Morgan’s billing made little difference. The summer of 1926 was one of the wettest on record at the Jersey resort, and business was down across the board. It did not help that Johnson continued to give Hilda Ferguson top billing despite that fact that Morgan had in fact replaced the Ziegfeld dancer as the leading act in the floorshow.
Morgan, at this point, was not a draw in any cabaret outside New York or Chicago, especially under such adverse conditions. Regardless of the size of the house, Helen sang four shows a night, from ten until almost dawn. More demoralizing than the lack of an audience was the request from the management to go out and conspicuously romp on the beach all day after a late night at the club – to drum up business.
Nothing helped, not even the addition of the reigning queen of the nightclubs, Texas Guinan, who brought her entire New York floorshow with her for the Independence Day weekend. That’s right, for two nights, guests were treated to two complete floorshows for the price of one.
And the rain kept the customers away.
Morgan endured this career setback for just one week, when George Raft and his Charleston dancing took over the floorshow.
Helen went immediately into another Broadway review, Americana, although it is unlikely she stepped into the production the following Monday when it debuted out of town, also at the Jersey shore, in Long Branch.
In any event, she was in Americana when it bowed on Broadway on July 26.
More to the point, before Labor Day, she was leading the floorshow at the Playground, the Broadway nightclub run by Texas Guinan’s brother Tommy.
In November, Morgan had her name above the door of her first nightclub.
TCM has cheekily named Mae West its star of the month for May 2025.
In honor of Mae’s days, here is a bit of ephemera:
In 1928, Texas Guinan wrote a wryly comic poem about the three raid-prone queens of New York. Morgan and Guinan were among those raided an arrested in the June 1928 prohibition raids. Mae ran into trouble on October 2, 1928, when her latest play, Pleasure Man, was raided and shut down by police following its second performance on Broadway. Mae’s previous scandalous plays, Sex and The Drag were also raided and shut down to protect the morals of New Yorkers. Mae’s depiction of gay men in general, and a drag ball in particular, in The Drag and its reworked iteration, Pleasure Man particularly incensed the morality police.
Some time in the fall of 1928, Walter Winchell gave his daily column in the New York Evening Graphic over to Texas. The Graphic was known for its sensational tabloid content and was often derided as the Pornographic.
… 1934, Helen Morgan recorded her songs for the independent feature Frankie and Johnnie.
The two selections marked the end of her association with Victor Records.
Frankie and Johnnie ran afoul of Joseph Breen and the censors and was not released in its original cut. Victor went ahead and issued Helen’s recordings anyway.
One of Breen’s primary beefs with the film was the old folk song, which he deemed salacious.
Helen’s second song, “Give Me a Heart to Sing To” …
… also vexed the enforcers of the Production Code due to the risqué set on which Helen sang it.
Ben Goetz took control of the project from director Chester Erskine and arranged a meeting with Joe Breen in September 1934, wherein Breen declared, shot by shot and line by line what footage was permitted and not permitted under the Production Code. Helen’s two vocals were excised.
Retakes, to a revised screenplay by Lou Goldberg, commenced in March 1935. To replace “Give Me a Heart to Sing To,” J. Russel Robinson and Bill Livingston provided “It’s You I Adore.”
When editor William P. Thompson discovered enough original 1934 footage to cut around the offending set, “Give Me a Heart to Sing To” was put back into the film, and Helen’s work on “It’s You I Adore” was discarded, although the tune remained in the film’s underscoring.
Morgan never issued a commercial recoding of “It’s You I Adore,” but others, including Morton Downey and Russ Morgan, took the song and ran with it.
Russel and Livingston’s two other songs ended up in the released version of Frankie and Johnnie.
Helen’s replacement for the title tune was “If You Want My Heart (It Belongs to You)” – but her vocal was cut by half before Frankie and Johnnie was eventually released. Freddy Martin recorded the whole thing.
In the film, Helen watches, but does not sing the final Russel and Livingston offering, “Get Rhythm in Your Feet” (And Music in Your Soul). In the film, the song is sung as a spiritual at an African-American wedding.
Commercial covers, especially this one by Benny Goodman, took a more upbeat approach.
Having obtained permission, if not a blessing, from Joe Breen, Frankie and Johnnie hit theatres in May 1936 – days after the release of the Universal film version of Show Boat. Reviews of Frankie and Johnnie were unanimously bad, and while it did decent box office business, the film marked the end of Helen Morgan’s film career.
One final irony: in the two years between Helen’s F&J waxings, many artists, including Bing Crosby, recorded “Give Me a Heart to Sing To,” with the result that when people finally got to see Helen sing it on film, they hummed along – it might as well have been an old folk song … like “Frankie and Johnnie.”
… 1925, one hundred years ago today, Helen Morgan played her final performance as a chorine.
Morgan auditioned – and worked – for Ziegfeld twice before he cast her in Show Boat.
The first time was in 1923. Helen auditioned for that year’s Follies, and Ziegfeld cast her in the chorus … of Sally … set to start its third year as a touring production.
The second time was in late January or early February 1925. Helen auditioned for that year’s Follies, and Flo cast her in the chorus of … Louie the 14th.
Helen was grateful for the work in 1923, but eighteen months later, things were different. By this time, Helen had achieved success as a cabaret soloist in Chicago, and fully intended to make her mark on Broadway as a singer. But, work was work, so she took the job and accompanied Louie on his pre-Broadway tour … while she looked for something better back in Gotham.
Louie the 14th was the star vehicle reward for rubber-legged comic Leon Errol in thanks for leading the company of Sally after Marilyn Miller quit the show – and Ziegfeld – cold. Louie told of American soldiers who stayed in France after WWI. Errol is invited to a ritzy dinner party as an “extra man” to even the table and avoid an unlucky total of thirteen guests. Hilarity ensues.
Sigmund Romberg, just 90 days after the opening of The Student Prince, supplied the music to Arthur Wimperis’ book and lyrics.
Joining Helen in the chorus were Louise Brooks and Peggy Fears. All were at the start of their careers and all were just about have their break-out success.
And all the ladies participated in the show’s big number, “Little Peach.”
The soldiers also had a stirring anthem, “Homeland.”
Louie the 13th premiered at Ford’s theatre in Baltimore on February 17, 1925. The following week, it played the National in Washington D.C., where Helen played her final performance on February 28, by her own choice: she had found work, as a soloist, in a new York cabaret.
Louie premiered in New York on March 3 at the Cosmopolitan Theatre (Ziegfeld’s Follies continued to have pride of place at the New Amsterdam). The production enjoyed a respectable nine-month run, but that was half of the tally for Romberg’s The Student Prince. The Cosmopolitan’s address – 59th and Columbus Circle – more than fifteen blocks away from Times Square – likely dampened business.
The Helen Morgan Page 