On Stage Everybody
Cast & Crew
Jean Yarbrough
Jack Oakie
Peggy Ryan
Johnny Coy
Otto Kruger
Esther Dale
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
As private detective Fitzgerald is riding in a taxicab listening to the Tim Sullivan radio program, he reminisces to his fellow passenger about a time years before when he knew the hotheaded Tim and his daughter Molly: The two struggle as a vaudeville team, unaware that Fitzgerald has been hired by an unknown patron to act as their watchdog and ensure them high salaries and pay their debts. After Fitzgerald covertly helps them procure a job with Fulton's Follies, Tim promptly loses the position by refusing to perform on the radio, which he violently denounces as the destroyer of vaudeville. When the pair return to their hotel, they find that their property has been seized because of their unpaid bill, and they are forced to return to their home at Ma Cassidy's Boarding House. At Ma's, Tim and Molly reunite with their fellow vaudevillians, Emmet Rogers and his son Danny, both of whom now work prosperously at a local department store. Although Tim at first blanches at the thought of giving up show business, poverty soon convinces him to accept work with Emmet. As soon as the store manager places him in the radio department, however, Tim furiously destroys the merchandize and is jailed. When Tim's father-in-law, the radio broadcasting executive businessman James Carlton, bails him out of jail, Tim realizes that James has been helping him all along, through Fitzgerald, out of concern for Molly. Tim is angry, but allows James to convince him that Molly would be better off living with the Carltons, and soon persuades Molly to visit them, telling her that it will be temporary. After Ma bombards Molly with lessons on how to act like a socialite, Molly arrives at the Carltons' estate sporting a stiff upper-crust attitude and a fake patrician accent, which disappoints her lively cousin Vivian and Vivian's group of friends. It is not until Vivian lures Danny to the estate for a visit that Molly reveals her true, bawdy talents as an entertainer, thus charming the group. Meanwhile, Tim retires to the Actors' Home, where he plays horseshoes with other ex-vaudevillians. When the World Series airs on the radio, Tim is slowly seduced by the excitement of the live broadcast, and becomes a radio fanatic. A few weeks later, Molly visits him in time to appear in a big variety show. Although he misses Molly, Tim tries to convince her to stay at the Carltons', believing that she will be happier there. Molly, however, desperately misses him, and talks him into developing a new radio show, which will feature different vaudeville performers each week. Soon after, Tim pitches the idea to James, controlling his temper long enough to sell his ideas. During a test broadcast of their "On Stage Everybody" show, which Tim hosts, James introduces Molly to potential sponsors. Molly despairs when the sponsors decide that they must have a star as the host, and tearfully informs her father of this decision. In the present, Fitzgerald finishes his story, telling his cabmate that after hundreds of letters poured in supporting Tim, he began his long and successful career as the host of the show.
Director
Jean Yarbrough
Cast
Jack Oakie
Peggy Ryan
Johnny Coy
Otto Kruger
Esther Dale
Milburn Stone
Wallace Ford
Julie London
The King Sisters
Billy Usher
Georgiana Bannister
Ilene Woods
Bob Hopkins
June Brady
Cyril Smith
Ronnie Gibson
Jean Hamilton
Beatrice Fung Oye
Ed "strawberry" Russell
Charles Teske
Eddie Cutler
Ruth Lee
Warren Jackson
Tom Daly
Donald Kerr
Syd Saylor
Cy Ring
Rex Lease
Grady Sutton
Carey Harrison
Margaret Bert
Sherry Hall
Ernest Hilliard
John Hamilton
Chester Clute
Pat Gleason
Ralph Peters
Felice Richmond
Charles Hall
Billy Newell
Marion Martin
Dorothy Granger
Arthur Loft
Eddie Acuff
Audley Anderson
Emmett Vogan
Sidney Miller
Earl Keen
Crew
Oscar Brodney
Bernard B. Brown
Philip Cahn
Charles Carroll
Everett Carter
Dorcas Cochran
Mann Curtis
Jimmy Eaton
Ray Evans
Dorothy Fields
Stephen Foster
Russell A. Gausman
Lou Goldberg
John B. Goodman
Al Hoffman
Inez James
Isham Jones
Gus Kahn
Bobby Kroll
Mickey Leader
Jerry Livingston
Fred Markush
Jimmy Mchugh
Sidney Miller
Paul Neal
Martin Obzina
Mitchell Parish
Ronald K. Pierce
Milton Rosen
Franz Schubert
William Shakespeare
Terry Shand
Harold I. Smith
Charles Van Enger
Seward Webb
Vera West
Warren Wilson
Warren Wilson
Charles Wyrick
Film Details
Technical Specs
Articles
Peggy Ryan (1924-2004)
Born Margaret O'Rene Ryan on August 28, 1924, in Long Beach, California, Ryan began dancing professionally as a toddler in her parents' vaudeville act, the Dancing Ryans, and was discovered by George Murphy when she was 12. Murphy arranged for young Peggy to dance with him in the Universal musical Top of the Town (1937). She would go on to make a few more film appearances over the next few years - the most striking of which as a starving, homeless girl in John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940) - yet for the most part, she was hardly noticeable apart from a few dance numbers.
Her luck changed when Universal cast her opposite another teenage hoofer, Donald O'Connor in What's Cookin'? (1942). From then on, they teamed in a series of innocuous musicals that were low on production values, but high on youthful pluck. Just check out some of their titles: Private Buckaroo, Give Out, Sisters!, Get Hep to Love (all 1942); Top Man, Mr. Big (both 1943); Chip Off the Old Block, This Is the Life, and Bowery to Broadway (all 1944). They may have not been high art, but jitterbuggin' kids loved it, and given the low investment Universal put into these pictures, they turned quite the profit.
Her career slowed down after the war. In 1945, she married songwriter James Cross, and didn't return to films until 1949, when she made two minor musicals that year: Shamrock Hill, There's a Girl in My Heart. She divorced Cross in 1952 and met her second husband, dancer Ray McDonald, in her final film appearance, a forgettable musical with Mickey Rooney, All Ashore (1953). Tragically, McDonald died in 1957 after a food choking incident, and the following year, Ryan moved to Honolulu after marrying her third husband, Honolulu Advertiser columnist Eddie Sherman. She kept herself busy teaching dance classes at the University of Hawaii, but in 1969, she found herself back in front of the camera as Jenny Sherman, secretary to Detective Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) on the long-running show Hawaii Five-O,. She played the role for seven years, remaining until 1976.
Eventually, Ryan relocated with her husband to Las Vegas, where for the last few years, she was teaching tap dancing to a whole new generation of hoofers. She is survived by her son, Shawn; daughter Kerry; and five grandchildren.
by Michael T. Toole
Peggy Ryan (1924-2004)
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This film was inspired by the short-lived ABC radio program the same name, which aired in January 1945. Up-and-coming talents competed on the show for a chance to appear in films. The ten performers who play themselves in the film were culled from the radio show. Although a September 1944 Los Angeles Times article mentions Dorcas Cochran as a writer for the film, the extent of her contribution to the final film has not been determined.