Connection
Zelma O'Neal is a Actor American born on 29 may 1903 at Rock Falls (USA)
Zelma O'Neal (May 29, 1903 - November 3, 1989) was an actress, singer, and dancer in the 1920s and 1930s. She appeared on Broadway and in early sound films, including the Paramount Pictures films Paramount on Parade and Follow Thru (both 1930).
She was born in Rock Falls, Illinois, on May 29, 1903, and moved to Chicago at the age of two. She attended public schools until she was fourteen, when she went to work in a factory and later took office jobs. She worked occasionally in vaudeville, at first without pay and later professionally as a vaudeville act with her sister Berenice and a piano player. Her touring brought her to the East Coast, where she was cast in Good News. Of her appearance in that musical comedy set on a college campus, Brooks Atkinson wrote in the New York Times in 1927: "one pert young freshman, Zelma O'Neal, dances herself into willing exhaustion to the snapping tune of 'The Varsity Drag'." In a profile, the paper referred to "her personality, which experts say resembles that of a caged cyclone".
She was part of the cast that took Good News to London in 1928. There she met British actor Anthony Bushell.
She returned to New York for a role in the musical Follow Thru. She married Bushell in New York on November 22, 1928. He was appearing on Broadway in Maugham's The Sacred Flame. Follow Thru opened in January 1929 and proved a hit. It ran almost a full year. In it she and Jack Haley sang "Button Up Your Overcoat". Atkinson wrote:
That merry brat, Zelma O'Neal, who stomped her way into fame in Good News, has now moved up several rungs of the ladder to one of the leading parts. In company with Jack Haley, an excellent dancer and comedian, Miss O'Neal dances with every joint in her body, makes impertinent faces, sings loud enough to be heard, and in general makes herself invaluable throughout the evening. One of their best numbers in the second act, "I Could Give Up Anything But You", this pair of active buffoons fills out into a marvelously diversified escapade. None of the commoner repressions of the day confine Miss O'Neal's gauche and racy antics. She has such a good time cutting up in public that the audience has a better [one].
She appeared in the West Coast production of the show in Los Angeles in October 1929, and she stayed there to make her first films.
In the spring of 1930, she and her husband took a delayed honeymoon trip to German, France, and England. She appeared in a vaudeville in November, where her performance was well received: "In appearance the buoyant Miss O'Neal has become quite ladylike after a sojourn in, of all places to acquire that, Hollywood. Naturally she has lost some of her gamin quality, but she is sufficiently old-style in her renditions of "Button Up Your Overcoat" and "Varsity Drag", and delights her audience with an excellent act." She opened in The Gang's All Here in February 1931, but the show received poor notices–"Seldom has a lavish musical stage production struggled so clumsily to reconcile a satiric book with the antics of clowns who ask for nothing so much as space and freedom on the stage."– and closed after three weeks.
O'Neal and Bushell relocated to London in 1932, where she established a second stage career. When the New York Times reported in December 1934 that she was announced for the cast of Jack O'Diamonds that would tour England before opening in London, it commented: "That should relieve a lot of people who haven't been able to locate Miss O'Neal since the days of The Gang's All Here in 1931". The play opened to good notices in London in February 1935, and the Telegraph wrote of O'Neal: "She's that very rare thing–an attractive woman who doesn't mind making a fool of herself."
They divorced in 1935. Following their divorce, they appeared in the same show at least once, though they did not appear together on stage. O'Neal appeared in Swing Along in Manchester and London in 1936. She returned to New York on the Hamburg in June 1937.
She retired in 1938. Dorothy Lee, her co-star in Peach O'Reno explained: "Zelma was great on stage, but like a lot of stage performers, something was lost when she stepped in front of the camera.... She sure had talent but it didn't always register on film."
She published her reminiscences in 1984: Memoirs from Scotts Hill.
She died in Largo, Florida, on November 3, 1989.
Source : Wikidata
Zelma O'Neal
Birth name Zelma Schrader
Nationality USA
Birth 29 may 1903 at Rock Falls (USA)
Death 3 november 1989 (at 86 years) at Largo (USA)
Nationality USA
Birth 29 may 1903 at Rock Falls (USA)
Death 3 november 1989 (at 86 years) at Largo (USA)
She was born in Rock Falls, Illinois, on May 29, 1903, and moved to Chicago at the age of two. She attended public schools until she was fourteen, when she went to work in a factory and later took office jobs. She worked occasionally in vaudeville, at first without pay and later professionally as a vaudeville act with her sister Berenice and a piano player. Her touring brought her to the East Coast, where she was cast in Good News. Of her appearance in that musical comedy set on a college campus, Brooks Atkinson wrote in the New York Times in 1927: "one pert young freshman, Zelma O'Neal, dances herself into willing exhaustion to the snapping tune of 'The Varsity Drag'." In a profile, the paper referred to "her personality, which experts say resembles that of a caged cyclone".
She was part of the cast that took Good News to London in 1928. There she met British actor Anthony Bushell.
She returned to New York for a role in the musical Follow Thru. She married Bushell in New York on November 22, 1928. He was appearing on Broadway in Maugham's The Sacred Flame. Follow Thru opened in January 1929 and proved a hit. It ran almost a full year. In it she and Jack Haley sang "Button Up Your Overcoat". Atkinson wrote:
That merry brat, Zelma O'Neal, who stomped her way into fame in Good News, has now moved up several rungs of the ladder to one of the leading parts. In company with Jack Haley, an excellent dancer and comedian, Miss O'Neal dances with every joint in her body, makes impertinent faces, sings loud enough to be heard, and in general makes herself invaluable throughout the evening. One of their best numbers in the second act, "I Could Give Up Anything But You", this pair of active buffoons fills out into a marvelously diversified escapade. None of the commoner repressions of the day confine Miss O'Neal's gauche and racy antics. She has such a good time cutting up in public that the audience has a better [one].
She appeared in the West Coast production of the show in Los Angeles in October 1929, and she stayed there to make her first films.
In the spring of 1930, she and her husband took a delayed honeymoon trip to German, France, and England. She appeared in a vaudeville in November, where her performance was well received: "In appearance the buoyant Miss O'Neal has become quite ladylike after a sojourn in, of all places to acquire that, Hollywood. Naturally she has lost some of her gamin quality, but she is sufficiently old-style in her renditions of "Button Up Your Overcoat" and "Varsity Drag", and delights her audience with an excellent act." She opened in The Gang's All Here in February 1931, but the show received poor notices–"Seldom has a lavish musical stage production struggled so clumsily to reconcile a satiric book with the antics of clowns who ask for nothing so much as space and freedom on the stage."– and closed after three weeks.
O'Neal and Bushell relocated to London in 1932, where she established a second stage career. When the New York Times reported in December 1934 that she was announced for the cast of Jack O'Diamonds that would tour England before opening in London, it commented: "That should relieve a lot of people who haven't been able to locate Miss O'Neal since the days of The Gang's All Here in 1931". The play opened to good notices in London in February 1935, and the Telegraph wrote of O'Neal: "She's that very rare thing–an attractive woman who doesn't mind making a fool of herself."
They divorced in 1935. Following their divorce, they appeared in the same show at least once, though they did not appear together on stage. O'Neal appeared in Swing Along in Manchester and London in 1936. She returned to New York on the Hamburg in June 1937.
She retired in 1938. Dorothy Lee, her co-star in Peach O'Reno explained: "Zelma was great on stage, but like a lot of stage performers, something was lost when she stepped in front of the camera.... She sure had talent but it didn't always register on film."
She published her reminiscences in 1984: Memoirs from Scotts Hill.
She died in Largo, Florida, on November 3, 1989.
Usually with
Filmography of Zelma O'Neal (9 films)
Actress
Add to a movie list
Let's Make a Night of It (1937)
Directed by Graham Cuts
Genres Musical
Themes Musical films, Films based on plays
Actors Buddy Rogers, June Clyde, Claire Luce, Fred Emney, Iris Hoey, Jack Melford
Roles Kitty
Rating61%
Joy Ride (1935)
, 1h18Origin United-kingdom
Actors Gene Gerrard, Zelma O'Neal, Betty Ann Davies, Amy Veness, Vernon Harris, Ian Wilson
Roles Virgy Maxwell
Rating53%
Give Her a Ring (1934)
, 1h19Directed by Arthur B. Woods
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Comedy, Musical
Themes Musical films
Actors Wendy Barrie, Clifford Mollison, Zelma O'Neal, Bertha Belmore, Erik Rhodes, Olive Blakeney
Roles Trude Olsen
Rating65%
A worker in a telephone exchange falls in love with her employer.
Freedom of the Seas (1934)
Directed by Marcel Varnel
Genres Drama
Themes Seafaring films, Transport films, Political films, Films based on plays
Actors Clifford Mollison, Wendy Barrie, Zelma O'Neal, Tyrell Davis, James Carew, Cecil Beresford Ramage
Roles Jennie
Rating53%
Smith, a mild-mannered clerk, unexpectedly becomes one of the first among his colleagues to sign up on the declaration of World War I. Undashing but courageous, he foils a German sabotage plot.
There Goes Susie (1934)
Actors Gene Gerrard, Wendy Barrie, Zelma O'Neal, Gus McNaughton, Gibb McLaughlin, Bobbie Comber
Roles Bunny
An artist is hired by a major soap company for an advertisement. He paints a model in a revealing pose, only to discover she is the boss' daughter.
Spring in the Air (1934)
, 1h14Directed by Norman Lee
Origin United-kingdom
Actors Edmund Gwenn, Zelma O'Neal, Theo Shall
Roles Ila
Peach-o-Reno (1931)
, 1h3Directed by William A. Seiter
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Romantic comedy, Musical, Romance
Themes Musical films
Actors Robert Woolsey, Bert Wheeler, Dorothy Lee, Zelma O'Neal, Joseph Cawthorn, Cora Witherspoon
Roles Pansy Bruno
Rating63%
Aggie Bruno (Cora Witherspoon) has had enough of her husband, Joe (Joseph Cawthorn), and decides to get a divorce in Reno. She meets with lawyers Wattles and Swift (Wheeler and Woolsey), the latter of the two agreeing to represent Aggie in court. Swift suggests that Aggie be "caught" with another man. Meanwhile, Joe Bruno has also headed to Reno, and is being represented in court by Wattles. Wattles suggests that Joe be "caught" with another woman.
Follow Thru (1930)
, 1h32Directed by Lloyd Corrigan
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Musical
Themes Musical films, Films based on plays
Actors Buddy Rogers, Nancy Carroll, Zelma O'Neal, Jack Haley, Eugene Pallette, Thelma Todd
Roles Angie Howard
Rating66%
Paramount on Parade (1930)
, 1h42Directed by Ernst Lubitsch, Otto Brower, Rowland V. Lee, Dorothy Arzner, Victor Schertzinger, Frank Tuttle, A. Edward Sutherland, Edmund Goulding, Victor Heerman, Lothar Mendes
Origin USA
Genres Comedy, Musical
Themes Films about music and musicians, Musical films
Actors Jean Arthur, Richard Arlen, Clara Bow, Evelyn Brent, Mary Brian, Nancy Carroll
Roles Gym Sweetheart (In a Girls' Gym)
Rating58%
Plusieurs épisodes de music-hall mis en scène par 11 réalisateurs hollywoodiens.