1924: 100 Years Ago in Hollywood

One hundred years ago it was 1924. I always like to open with that kind of surprising fact. But seriously, it was a dramatic year in history and in movies. Fascism was rising around the world, the first state execution in the United States took place in Nevada, and countries were still recovering from the First World War. Still, there was excitement in the air with innovations and milestones aplenty that year. Women in particular made strides and the flapper was her best representative. A young woman who pushed societal constraints starting in 1920, the flapper was central to the era. The flapper’s dresses were shorter, she bobbed her hair, she listened to jazz, she was loud, and she danced the Charleston under the noses of disapproving prudes.

Speaking of bobbed hair – as the 1920s progressed, stories about whether to bob or not bob were seen frequently in fan magazines. A bit scared by judging eyes in religious circles, the most popular, serious stars resisted flapperdom as long as they could. By 1924, however, they were on the bobbed hair bandwagon. Still, it was a battle. Husbands divorced their wives, shocked husbands shot themselves, and the price of bobbing hair made headlines. Upkeep for Norma Talmadge’s bob cost her $15 a day. Lucky Gloria Swanson paid only about $5 a month because she chose the straight bob look. Other stars spoke out about their bobs too because bobbed hair was a phenomenon. Hair salons opened across the country in droves because of this hair style. In 1920, there were 5,000 hairdressing shops in the United States. At the end of 1924, 21,000 shops had been established—and that didn’t account for barbershops, many of which did “a rushing business with bobbing.” (Smithsonian Magazine) Bobbed hair was all over the news. There was even a Bobbed Hair Bandit, a 20-year-old laundry worker from Brooklyn who went on a spree of armed robberies along with her husband. You can see some of the bobbed Hollywood stories in this video, The Battle of Bobbed Hair from Photoplay in 1924. Glamour Daze also dedicated this article to the fascinating bobbed hair trend.

U.S. News, Tidbits, and Happenings

President Calvin Coolidge, who received word that he was president on August 3 right after the death of President Harding, became the first president to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House. In 1924 Coolidge ushered in the period of prosperity that came to be known as the roaring twenties during which inhibitions faded and the youth wanted freedom to express themselves. Remember those flappers? Prosperity lasted until the stock market crash ushered in The Great Depression.

That same year Coolidge declared the Statue of Liberty a national monument and Chrysler, which was founded in 1925, introduced its first car, the Chrysler Six Model B-70 sedan in January. That car went for about $1,500, a bit steep for Americans making an average salary of $2,196 a year. They could better afford a Chevrolet Roadster with a sticker price of about $480. Every day items were more affordable: a gallon of gas cost eleven cents, a loaf of bread 9 cents, and a gallon of milk 54 cents.

The Chera-Cola company added Nehi Cola to its line of sodas in 1924 to offer a broader variety of flavors. Nehi, the creation of businessman Claud A. Hatcher now offered orange, grape, root beer, peach, and other flavors. Stewart’s Fountain Classics also originated in 1924 from a chain of root beer stands by Frank Stewart in Mansfield, Ohio.

The Caesar salad was created in July 1924 by Caesar Cardini, an Italian chef who owned a restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico. Cardini moved to Mexico to avoid prohibition. (McCray’s Tavern)

Construction began in 1922 for Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship New York store, but it opened on historic Fifth Avenue in September 1924.

Harry Culver, who founded Culver City, California and played an important role in making the city central to the movies, opened the Culver Hotel (originally the Hotel Hunt), in 1924. Thomas Ince, Hal Roach, Cecil B. DeMille, David O. Selznick, RKO, Desilu and Culver Studios as well as MGM were its neighbors. The Los Angeles Conservancy has some interesting stories to tell about the Culver Hotel, including a list of famous guests as does this article.

A 1924 luncheon was held at the Hotel Astor in New York City to honor Louella O. Parson who was hired by William Randolph Hearst as the picture reviewer and screen editor for the New York American. Parsons was already well known by movie people on both coasts, but she would become even more important and consequential in years to come.

Also in 1924, W. R. Hearst launched the morning tabloid, the New York Daily Mirror, to compete with the New York Daily News. The Mirror ran until 1957.

November 27, 1924, saw the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade celebration in New York City. Originally called the Macy’s Christmas Parade, employees of the popular store dressed in costumes and marched with animals from the Central Park Zoo. Balloons were still a few years away from making their debut.

One of the year’s saddest stories happened when the 16-year-old son of President Calvin Coolidge, Calvin Coolidge, Jr. died of blood poisoning. The infection began when the boy got a simple blister on his toe while playing tennis without socks on a sweltering day. He died a week after the tennis game, in July 1924.

Full time airmail service began in the United States between New York and San Francisco in July 1924 with a fleet of airplanes transporting mail day and night.

In the year’s most horrific tale, Nathan Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb who were 19 and 18 respectively, confessed to the kidnapping and murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks. They said they murdered Bobby “for the experience, through a spirit of adventure.” The murderers were indicted on eleven counts of murder and 16 counts of kidnapping. Their defense lawyer Clarence Darrow told the Illinois court during the trial that his clients were entering pleas of guilty. The two got life in prison instead of the death penalty the state had sought. Several movies have been loosely based on the Leopold and Loeb story including Richard Fleischer’s Compulsion starring Orson Welles and Dean Stockwell, and more famously Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948).

In May 1924, 29-year-old lawyer, J. Edgar Hoover became Acting Director of the Bureau of Investigation (late the FBI). Hoover became the permanent director later, a position he held and abused for 48 years.

1924 saw two historic Olympic Games. The first ever Winter Olympics opened on January 25 and were held in Chamonix, France. Sonja Henie of Norway competed in figure skating at eleven years old. It proved good training as it went on to make her a fan favorite and a gold medalist at the next three Winter Olympics. Starting in 1936-1937, Henie starred in a series of popular pictures becoming one of Hollywood’s highest paid stars.

The 1924 Summer Olympics took place in Paris. For our purposes, the most notable happening there were the three gold wins of American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller who went on to star as Tarzan in a dozen movies. In his 1984 AP obituary Weissmuller was quoted as saying of his start in movies, “I went to the back lot at MGM, they gave me a G-string and said, ‘Can you climb a tree? Can you pick up that girl?’ I could do all that, and I did all my own swinging because I had been a YMCA champion on the rings.”

Centennials

There are so many centennial celebrations to be had in 2024 that it makes my head spin. To begin, two historic picture studios turn one hundred.

Columbia Pictures

On January 10, 1024, those who headed the former C.B.C. Film Sales Corporation (Cohn-Brandt-Cohn) renamed their fledgling studio, Columbia Pictures. One of my favorites, Columbia, has a rich and interesting story. Of the eight studios that ‘owned’ the movie business by the end of the 1920s, Columbia Pictures had the worst reputation and smallest budgets. Prominent members of the industry expected nothing from it. The company struggles at the onset, but it survived and survived in a way no one could have foreseen – even its leadership.

I dedicated a two-part entry to the history of Columbia Pictures, which you can look at in Part 1 and Part 2. Also, Turner Classic Movies is honoring Columbia’s 100 years with special tributes every Wednesday this month, each focusing on different decades. You can never have enough of the players at Columbia Pictures. Or of the lady with the torch.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Columbia Pictures was one of the ‘little three’ studios along with Universal and United Artists. Conversely, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) became the colossus of the ‘big five,’ which included Paramount Pictures, 20^th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and RKO.

In April 1924, Loew’s theater circuit, which owned Metro Pictures, merged with Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Productions to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Under Louis B. Mayer’s management and Irving Thalberg’s tight reign on production (through 1936), MGM became the biggest and best studio as far as pre-production investment, its stable of stars (more than in the heavens), and its spectacle. MGM was run so successfully that it made money even through the Depression. One can get a clue as to what the merger of MGM meant in the film colony when Louis B. Mayer arrived at the former Goldwyn studios with his staff following the merger. From Photoplay….

Movies released in 1924

We care about what was happening in those movie studios, what those moguls and movie stars were doing because we love their movies.

Frank Lloyd’s The Sea Hawk, which premiered in New York City in June, was the top grossing film of 1924.

Other notables I enjoy:

F. W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh

Victor Seastrom’s He Who Gets Slapped

Erich von Stroheim’s Greed

Raoul Walsh’s The Thief of Bagdad

And Buster Keaton released two greats that year, Sherlock Jr. and The Navigator

Read what the BFI considers the ten best films of 1924.

Movies Silently discusses the best films of 1924 according to the critics of the time.

Born in 1924

First, much appreciation and many good wishes go to the great Eva Marie Saint who celebrates her 100th birthday on July 4th this year.

And now to those who are no longer with us, but were born in 1924. Enjoy the relative few in the gallery.

In Hollywood – East & West – Gossip, News & Scandals

For years after the movies moved West, Hollywood and its people made a bi-coastal business. The set up of most film studios had the money men in New York and production heads in the California. Movies were still being made in New York in 1924 with many studios in and about the City vibrant with the excitement of movies through the 1920s. Stars like Gloria Swanson, who never liked Hollywood, Rudolph Valentino, Lillian Gish, Roscoe Arbuckle, Richard Barthelmess, Buster Keaton, and Erich von Stroheim worked regularly in New York. Famous-Players Lasky built their studio in Astoria Queens in 1920, D. W. Griffith and William Randolph Hearst also built studios in New York City. As late as 1929, 24 percent of all American films were still being made in the New York metropolitan area. (NYT) By the way, among the fabulous film history books written by professor and historian Richard Koszarski is The Astoria Studio and its fabulous films. I searched for my copy to peruse for this entry and realized it must have been lost in a move. The book depicts an important pictorial history of a time and place in film history that is not often discussed.

The movie colony was trying to recover from the scandals that plagued it the last few years as 1924 opened, but some held onto them as a means of vilifying the movies and their players.

Reported in newspapers on January 1, 1924, “The Arbuckles Divorce Amid Scandal.” Minta Arbuckle, wife of embattled actor/director Roscoe Arbuckle, had the marriage legally dissolved on December 30, 1923, citing desertion. Minta had supported Roscoe throughout his trials, when he was accused of the murder of actress Virginia Rappe in 1921. Post trial the marriage became strained.

Another extraordinary talent mired by scandal in the years preceding 1924 was Mable Normand and the opening of 1924 promised more troubles for the Queen of Silent Slapstick. During a New Year’s Day party at the home of millionaire oil broker Courtland S. Dines, Normand’s chauffeur shot and wounded Dines in the abdomen with her gun.

When the police arrived, they found Normand and fellow actor Edna Purviance in the kitchen, insisting they did not know how Dines came to be shot. The alcohol found on the premises did not help as it was illegal under Prohibition at the time. The whole episode caused a scandal which caused some exhibitors to pull Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris from theaters because it starred Edna Purviance and Normand’s films were pulled and banned in some states. Normand made no pictures in 1924 or 1925. Considered box office poison for all intents and purposes, Mabel Normand did some work on stage, but her career never recovered.

Despite those news remembrances of dark days in the film colony, it did not seem picture players were too worried about it. Audiences across the world were fascinated by them. Especially the movie stars. The star system was in full glory, and it would flourish for some time to come. In fact, in 1924 powerbrokers in the industry were saying the stars had too much power. Producers were making stump speeches about the need to cut actors’ salaries, but when actors heard them, they demanded more money and got it. Except Rudolph Valentino it seems. Valentino sued Famous-Players and lost. He stayed the entire year of 1923 away from pictures and audiences wanted him back. Valentino returned to work in 1924.

Overall movie stars were full of themselves (and I love it). Did you know the origin of “ham as it refers to actors came to be in 1924? Well, according to gossip columns it did. The story goes that the subject came up in the Director’s Club one day and Fred Niblo mentioned that the term came from “ham-fatter” because actors in early English theater used to remove their make-up with ham fat. The ‘fat’ was removed later.

Speaking of hams John Barrymore was an enormous success with Hamlet on stage, but he was done with it in 1924 when Warner Bros signed him as the lead in Harry Beaumont’s Beau Brummel. Barrymore was married to his third wife at the time, writer and poet Blanche Oelrichs with whom John shared daughter Diana. Anyway, although Barrymore and Oelrichs were together until 1928 it was not a happy union. It did not take long for John Barrymore to have an affair with his 17-year-old Beau Brummel co-star, Mary Astor who got her big break with this picture.

1924 was the year when stardom finally came to John Gilbert with a leading role in King Vidor’s romance, His Hour. Gilbert signed with MGM that year, the studio which would make him a major star in the1920s and famously destroyed his career a few years later.

Also in 1924, as important an event as any in the annals of filmdon, Greta Garbo became Greta Garbo. Greta made The Saga of Gösta Berling directed by Mauritz Stiller in 1924. The story is that Stiller, who became Greta’s mentor, changed her name to Garbo and the following year secured her a contract with MGM when Louis B. Mayer offered him a contract.

After nine years working together, Harold Lloyd and Hal Roach parted ways in 1924 and Lloyd formed his own independent film production company, the Harold Lloyd Film Corporation.

In hopes of getting some of the juicy stories circulating the industry in 1924, I consulted every issue of Photoplay magazine released that year. Photoplay began in 1916 and by 1918 it had a circulation of over 200, 000 readers. It was the dominant fan magazine of the 1920s and 1930s. (Media History Digital Library) I admit that while reading those magazines I went down the rabbit hole, enjoying every tidbit about the movie players of the time. What I include here are a few of my favorites.

There was lots of talk when 1924 opened about over-production and the heavy expenditures of the industry. Expensive pictures took time to reap rewards and the complaint from distributors was that all the pictures were too big. They needed program pictures to boost attendance, which the bigger studios were not making. Famous-Players Lasky closed production for ten weeks and Universal also announced a stall as the year opened. In February a notice in Variety stated that the West Coast studios were working part time with nothing in production except The Sea Hawk at First National. Photoplay called it the worst slump in the history of motion pictures. Well, there was no mention as to when the studios went back to work, but there were many movies released in 1924 and movie stars were legion.

Florence Vidor, wife of director King Vidor who divorced him in 1924, was the toast of Hollywood and the hostess with the moistest. A great beauty, Florence had a solid career in silent Hollywood and 1924 was a banner year directed by Ernst Lubitsch in The Marriage Circle, which started a string of sophisticated comedies she excelled at. Once movies started talking though Florence’s career was over.

Cat parties got a notice as the latest fad in the film colony. Everyone was having them, and everyone was talked about at these evening affairs where movie women gathered for hot chocolate, cake, and gossip. Norma Talmadge came up with the name and hosted them for a small circle of confidantes including her sister Constance, her mother Peg, Frances Marion, and several of the wives of popular players like Mrs. Tom Ince, Mrs. Wallace Reid, and Mrs. William S. Hart. Another set included Bebe Daniels, Betty Compson, Leatrice Joy, Lila Lee, and Anna Q. Nilsson. Don’t they sound like fun?

Glamorous Gloria Swanson, who embodied sophistication, got an eye infection from the lights while filming Sidney Olcott’s 1924 release, The Humming Bird. Gloria was out for a week, but Olcott worked around her until her return.

You just gotta love Gloria Swanson. She was a real MOVIE STAR in every sense of the word. According to Photoplay Gloria was earning more than a million dollars by 1924. And she deserved it. A serious actor with a unique style, she gave moviegoers what they wanted to see out there in the dark. Gloria treated herself well too spending $500,000 on jewelry, $50,000 on gowns, $25,000 on furs, $10,000 a year on lingerie, $9,600 on silk stockings, bought expensive perfumes, purses, and what have you. She was fabulous. But she had had numerous sensational headlines and people were watching. When her second husband, Herbert K. Somborn filed for divorce in 1923 he cited her infidelity with thirteen men, including deMille, Valentino and director Marshall Neilan. Famous-Players soon added a morals clause to her studio contract.

The movie stars mentioned regularly throughout all of 1924 included Norma Talmadge, Anna Q. Nilsson, Barbara La Mar, Pola Negri, canine actor Strongheart, Baby Peggy, Jackie Coogan, Ernst Lubitsch, CB DeMille, Bebe Daniels, Ramon Novarro, Nita Naldi, Rex Ingram, and bobbed hair and girdles. Worries about weight were outshined only by concerns about skin.

And this is an enjoyable tidbit…

Mary Pickford was extremely popular in 1924 as she had been for years. Still America’s sweetheart, the sweetheart who married her prince charming in the popular and hardworking Douglas Fairbanks. To emphasize the impact that little Mary had on audiences is a sweet story about when she and Doug visited Germany in 1924. Despite all of Fairbanks’ efforts as king of adventure, Berlin greeted them as “Frau and Herr Pickford.”

Italian stage actor Eleanora Duse died in April 1924. Considered the greatest actor of her generation, Duse also had the distinction of being the first woman to grace the cover of Time magazine in July 1923.

Hedda Hopper, during her acting career and well before she had become notorious for spilling the secrets of movie stars, was granted a divorce from DeWolf Hopper Sr on January 29, 1924. She was also granted custody of their son William.

In November 1924, Charlie Chaplin married his second wife, Lita Grey secretly in Mexico. Some sources say 16-year-old Lita was pregnant and Chaplin married her to stave off a scandal. They had two sons, Charles Jr., and Sidney, but the union was never a happy one, ending bitterly in 1927.

Also in November was 1924’s biggest scandal, the death of producer/filmmaker Thomas Ince, known as the “Father of the Western.” Although Ince’s official cause of death was heart failure and he died in his home, speculation and rumors abounded about what may have happened at the gathering he attended prior to his death. Ince was the guest of honor at the gathering, which took place aboard William Randolph Heart’s private yacht with Hearst, Marion Davies, Charlie Chaplin, and Elinor Glynn in attendance. I think Louella Parsons was also there. Anyway, stories of cover-ups surfaced almost immediately after the news of Ince’s death hit the wires. I wasn’t convinced about the happenings either way until I read Lara Gabrielle’s meticulously researched biography of Marion Davies, Captain of Her Soul: The Life of Marion Davies. It is clear now that the only cover-up had to do with Thomas Ince’s poor health. There is no mystery despite the stories that still circulate. Another reason to read Gabrielle’s book is Marion Davies herself as she was a hugely popular star at the top in 1924.

Two different but just as interesting scandals happened in March and April 1924. In the first, cabaret singer Belva Gaertner was arrested in Chicago for killing her abusive lover, Walter Law. Walter’s body was found in Belva’s car. He’d been shot. Following a trial, Belva was acquitted of murder because it could not be determined if Law’s gunshot wound was the result of suicide.

On April 3, 1924, also in Chicago, Mrs. Beulah Annan was charged with the murder of Harry Kalstedt, whose body was found in Beulah’s bedroom. Mrs. Annan insisted that she had shot Kalstedt to save her honor following his unwanted advances. “They both went for the gun,” but she’d been faster. Beulah Annan was found not guilty of murder.

The stories of Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan inspired the play Chicago written by Maurine Dallas Watkins as a class assignment at Yale Drama School. Watkin’s play inspired a 1926 Broadway production directed by George Abbot and numerous other successful productions on stage and screen.

Naturally, Rudy (as they referred to him in print) Valentino was all over the 1924 gossip columns. First because he was forced to return to work after losing his suit against Paramount, and then for all else they could get their claws into. There was one interesting tidbit about Valentino having to go to court in Brooklyn to pay for half of a statue that was damaged. The story revolved about the number of women that packed the inside and outside of the courtroom when Valentino paid $165.

Valentino was unhappy with the way his career was being managed by Paramount on the West Coast. In July 1923 he signed a new contract to make pictures in New York. However, he only made two films at the Astoria studio before he returned to the West Coast, Monsieur Beaucaire directed by Sidney Olcott with Bebe Daniels, and Joseph Henabery’s A Sainted Devil, both in 1924. (Look at the final word in the bobbed hair controversy)

In other headlines we learn that D.W. Griffith. who co-founded United Artists, left the company in 1924 and producer Joseph Schenck stepped in as Chairman. Loews acquired the 4,000 seat Capitol Theatre in New York City becoming the flagship of the theatre chain and site of many future MGM premieres. Finally, news hit that Universal chief Carl Laemmle paid ex-world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey a million dollars to go into movies.

Dempsey had tried pictures in 1920, but he was still fighting at the time. Dempsey starred in several films, including a dozen action and adventure movies about the boxer Tiger Jack O’Day in 1924.

Theda Bara, who had not made a picture since 1921 returned to the colony and was all the buzz in 1924. Unfortunately, this second attempt at a career went nowhere. I think Theda was seen as too sensual for the 1924 moralists.

Censorship

If you are not familiar with the story of film censorship, look at this entry for a brief overview. Otherwise, we get right to it. That is, that not surprisingly censorship was all over the news and entertainment pages in 1924. The movies and their players pushed the decency envelope and puritans pushed back and threatened. It was a lively affair. The following are just a few examples of the censorship temperature that year.

Photoplay mentioned censorship issues and czar Will Hays sporadically and often making fun of extremist in this regard…

I understand that Ernst Lubitsch’s The Marriage Circle is being stopped in several states because it shows a man talking to his wife in bed.

Moral: Conferences should be confined to office hours.

Variety took the matter seriously. There was mention of various bills slated for NY to walk back censorship in 1924. D.W. Griffith’s America, which opened in February of that year, had the full cooperation of the Hays office, news which took precedence even over the picture itself. That’s saying a lot.

Another interesting story in Variety was a full-scale movement by the Hays office, producers and independent exhibitors against church groups that were showing movies in their churches across the country, obtaining pictures without paying licensing fees and editing them at their whim. This practice ensured their flock were not going to movie theaters where sex was free and easy. Various groups started talking about producing their own movies with a Methodist group employing fifty cameramen to shoot short subjects across the country, short subjects that were appropriate for young people. The Presbyterian church wanted to have a convention in Washington to convince Congress that movies should come under federal control to “clean up the movies.” Saving the morals of the public was a full-time job and they all took it very seriously. Preachers even blamed the movies for a rise in divorce across the country. Obviously, all of this incensed the film colony who wanted to fight, but how do you fight and not turn the religious people who still went to the movies against you? It was a challenging time with one side making much more noise than the other. In the middle was Will Hays who found himself under attack by some of his religious friends.

The straws that broke the camel’s back and caused several moralist groups to break from Hays was Hollywood’s attempt to rehabilitate the career of Roscoe Arbuckle and the release of Rollin S. Sturgeon’s West of the Water Tower in 1923. That movie put down small town life in America and negatively depicted the clergy. Will Hays felt he had to act and did things like a “Sex Film Title Clean-Up” mentioned in Variety in July 1924. Hays held a secret meeting with Famous-Players making sure that a few of the details leaked. At that meeting Famous-Players was told that sixteen of its upcoming pictures would be banned by the Hays office and another 50 or so pictures had to change their titles before release. Offending titles included Changing Husbands, Unguarded Women, The Enemy Sex, The Golden Bed, A Woman of Fire, and…you get the picture. Also in dispute were the ads producers used that empathized bodies in disreputable stages on undress.

Nineteen twenty-four was just one of the years in the long fight against censorship, which finally won over pictures in 1934 with the full adoption of the Production Code.

Debuts & First Timers

Future King of Hollywood, Clark Gable, made his feature debut in 1924 in Louis J. Gasnier’s White Man. That year he also appeared in Ernst Lubitsch’s Forbidden Paradise starring Pola Negri.

Janet Gaynor also made her film debut in 1924 with three uncredited roles: Frances Ford’s Cupid’s Rustler, Robert Hill’s Young Ideas, and All Wet, a Hal Roch Comedy directed by Leo McCarey.

John Gielgud appeared in his first film in 1924, Who Is the Man? directed by Walter Summers. Gielgud did not make another picture for five years. I am guessing he dedicated himself to the stage during that time.

Victor Sjöström’s He Who Gets Slapped was previously mentioned as an important 1924 release. However, it also has the distinction of being the first film to feature Slats the Lion roaring as MGM’s logo. Slats was born at the Dublin Zoo and had previously appeared in bumpers for Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. Of course, audiences could not hear Slats roar because these were silent pictures.

Musical Milestones

George Gershwin’s composition, Rhapsody in Blue was performed for the first time in February 1924. A packed house at New York City’s Aeolian Hall was there to watch “An Experiment in Modern Music” performed by Paul Whiteman and his Palais Royal Orchestra.

The influential Ma Rainey, known as the “Mother of the Blues,” first recorded the blues standard, “See See Rider” in 1924.

In November 1924, Duke Ellington made his first recordings as leader of the Washingtonians. (Syncopated Times)

On or about 1924, Louis Armstrong moved to New York City to work with Fletcher Henderson.

Listen to this terrific collection of that collaboration.

The list of top songs of 1924 varies slightly by site. Look at this information by A Look Thru Time.

“Happy Birthday to You” has ties to 1924. Look at its story in Billboard.

On Stage

In May of 1924, Eugene O’Neill’s play All God’s Chillun Got Wings, a drama about interracial marriage, premiered in New York with Paul Robeson as the male lead opposite Mary Blair. Even before its premiere, the play made headlines. A white actress appearing alongside a Black actor was bad enough, but that she would kiss his hand offended many. Newspapers warned of race riots. Read more at PBS.org.

In October 1924, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne had their first considerable success with The Guardsman. The couple went on to stage superstardom and in 1957 had a Broadway theater named after them.

On December 26, 1924, Judy Garland made her show business debut at two-and-a-half years old singing “Jingle Bells” at one of her vaudevillist parents’ Christmas shows. Judy, billed as Baby Gumm, soon began performing with her two older sisters as the Gumm Sisters.

Finally, also in December 1924, Adele and Fred Astaire opened in George and Ira Gershwin’s Lady Be Good at the Liberty Theatre on Broadway.

Here’s to 1924! Until next time.