Who's Who in Musicals: G
by John Kenrick
(Copyright 1997-2003)

Gallagher, Helen
Actress, singer, dancer
b. July 19, 1926 (Brooklyn, NY)
This trim, gutsy, dark haired performer made her Broadway debut as a dancer in Seven Lively Arts (1944), followed by appearances in the dance ensembles of Billion Dollar Baby (1945) and Brigadoon (1948). She proved her acting ability as "Nancy" in High Button Shoes (1947), and won further attention in the New York and London productions of Touch and Go (1949-50). After playing the nightclub dancer "Poupette" in Make a Wish (1951), she was cast as the comic chorine "Gladys" in a revival of Pal Joey (1952), earning a Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Gallagher created the title role in the short-lived Hazel Flagg (1953). After playing a racing driver in the painful failure of Portofino (1958), she took an extended leave from the stage, returning as the cynical "Nicky" in Sweet Charity (1966). She played "Bessie Legg" in the ill-fated Cry for Us All (1970) before her Tony-winning performance as "Lucille" in the hit revival of No, No, Nanette (1971) – she stopped the show with her torchy rendition of the "Where Has My Hubby Gone Blues." Gallagher went on to star in network soap operas, returning to the stage as "Tallulah Bankhead" in several different productions, including an Off-Broadway musical.

Garland, Judy
(b. Frances Gumm)
Singer, actress
b. June 10, 1922 (Grand Rapids, Minn.) - d. June 22, 1969 (London, UK)
Garland was Hollywood's greatest female musical star. Starting in a vaudeville singing act with her sisters, her vibrant voice and tangible vulnerability landed her an MGM contract at age 13. She caught the eye of producer Arthur Freed and musical supervisor Roger Edens, who both worked to shape Garland's talents. After her enchanting rendition of "Dear Mr. Gable" in Broadway Melody of 1938, she starred as "Dorothy" in The Wizard of Oz (1939), where she introduced the Harold Arlen- E.Y. "Yip" Harburg song that became her theme – "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." MGM teamed Garland with Mickey Rooney for a popular series of "let's put on a show" musicals, including Babes in Arms (1939), Strike Up the Band (1940) and Girl Crazy (1943).

Garland was MGM's top musical star in the 1940s, appearing in For Me And My Gal (1942) – introducing the hit title tune with newcomer Gene Kelly, Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) – in which she introduced "The Boy Next Door" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," The Harvey Girls (1946) – in which she sang "On the Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe," and Easter Parade (1948), among many other hit films. Ruthlessly overworked, Garland's physical and emotional health became unreliable, and her sometimes temperamental behavior forced many projects to go over budget. When she suffered a total collapse during the filming of Annie Get Your Gun in 1950, MGM dropped her contract. After reviving her concert career, Garland filmed what is arguably her best musical, A Star Is Born (1954), for Warner Brothers. She made several more musical films, but none were in the same league. From the early 1950s onwards, Garland made numerous concert tours – her 1961 Carnegie Hall appearance has remained a popular recording for four decades. That same year, she gave a knockout dramatic performance as a concentration camp survivor in the all-star Judgment at Nuremberg. She starred in a classy but short-lived 1963 variety series for CBS-TV that was so well made that it is still prized by fans on home video. Jerry Herman composed Mame with Garland in mind for the title role, but her mental and physical health was so fragile that no producer would risk casting her for a Broadway run.

Garland suffered a string of ill-fated marriages. Her husbands included the bisexual director Vincent Minnelli and the self-serving producer Sid Luft. Garland's emotional problems and crippling dependence on drugs and alcohol did nothing to dissuade her fanatical admirers, even when her concert performances bordered on self-parody. By the time of her death from a supposedly accidental overdose, she looked almost twice her actual age. Her eldest daughter Liza Minnelli followed in her mother's footsteps to fame, chemical dependency and marital misfortune. Garland's other daughter, Lorna Luft, unsuccessfully tried to compensate for her own mediocrity by writing a book and TV movie that subjected her mother's memory to rehashed abuse. Despite those efforts, Ms. Luft remains as subsidiary as her father, and Garland remains a show business legend.

Gaxton, William
(b. Arturo Antonio Gaxiola)
Actor, singer
b. Dec. 2, 1893 (San Francisco, CA) - d. Feb. 12, 1963 (New York City)
Gaxton's sophisticated, cynical stage persona made him one of Broadway's most popular leading men in the musical comedies of the 1930s and 40s. He considered a career in law before amateur theatricals drew him into vaudeville. After serving in the Navy during World War I, Gaxton returned to vaudeville and later made his Broadway debut in Irving Berlin's Music Box Revue (1922). He starred in Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart's A Connecticut Yankee (1927), introducing "Thou Swell" -- instantly becoming one of Broadway's favorite leading men. A stocky five foot ten, it was not his physique, but his breezy, suave stage persona that audiences took a shine to.

In Cole Porter's Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929), Gaxton sang "You Do Something to Me." As "President John P. Wintergreen," he teamed with Victor Moore in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gershwin hit Of Thee I Sing (1931) and its short-lived sequel Let 'Em Eat Cake (1933). Gaxton cajoled and Moore bumbled, cementing an onstage partnership that continued in the classic Porter hit Anything Goes (1934), where Gaxton introduced "All Through the Night" and shared "You're the Top" with his other costar, Ethel Merman. Gaxton appeared in the operetta White Horse Inn (1936), then reunited with Moore for Leave It To Me (1938), Louisiana Purchase (1940) and Hollywood Pinafore (1945). He appeared in several Hollywood musicals, including Best Foot Forward (1943) and Diamond Horseshoe (1945), but he did not come across well on the big screen. After the disappointing stage musical Nelly Bly (1946), Gaxton retired. A line from that show may give some sense of their comic stage chemistry –

GAXTON: You nincompoop!
MOORE: Don't speak to me that way. We nincompoops are organized now.

Gaynor, Mitzi
(b. Francesca Mitzi Gerber)
Actress, singer, dancer
b. Sept. 4, 1931 (Chicago, IL)
Long-legged, energetic and appealing, Gaynor rose to stardom in ten 1950s musical films, beginning with a small role in My Blue Heaven (1950). She played vaudeville legend Eva Tanguay in The 'I Don't Care' Girl (1953) before co-starring with Dan Dailey, Ethel Merman, Donald O'Connor and Marilyn Monroe in Irving Berlin's There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). She co-starred with O'Connor and Bing Crosby in a weak remake of Anything Goes (1956), and vied for Gene Kelly's fickle affections in Cole Porter's MGM charmer Les Girls (1957). Gaynor won the coveted role of "Nellie Forbush" in the screen version of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's South Pacific (1958). Although this was Gaynor's finest film performance, the decline of screen musicals also made it her last. She appeared in several big screen comedies, but soon concentrated her efforts on nightclub tours and television variety specials. She toured in Anything Goes, and continued winning rave reviews for concert and TV appearances through the 1990s.

Gershwin, George
Composer
b. Sept. 26, 1898 (Brooklyn, NY) - d. July 11, 1937 (Beverly Hills, Cal.)
The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, George left school in 1913 to become a Tin Pan Alley "song plugger." He also worked as a rehearsal pianist on Broadway, and had several songs published early on. Gershwin's first hit tune was "Swanee," which Al Jolson popularized in 1919. Gershwin's jaunty rhythms and plaintive melodies reflected his solid training in both jazz and classical music – a unique combination at that time. His orchestral works, including "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924) and "An American in Paris" (1928), brought together the best of classical form and the innovative spirit of jazz.

George wrote the scores for 25 Broadway shows and five musical films. While he collaborated with numerous lyricists, he is best remembered for the songs he wrote with his brother Ira. Their stage hits include Lady Be Good (1924), Funny Face (1927), Girl Crazy (1929), and Of Thee I Sing (1931) – the first Pulitzer Prize-winning musical. Their final Broadway project was the "folk opera" Porgy and Bess (1935), which did not receive its full critical due for half a century. The Gershwins were working on the film score for The Goldwyn Follies (1937) when George's life was cut short by a malignant cystic brain tumor at age 33. At the time of his death, he was working on the melody for "Our Love Was Here to Stay."

Since George Gershwin's passing, the treasure trove of songs he wrote with Ira have been the basis for several films (American In Paris, Rhapsody In Blue) and stage musicals (My One And Only, Crazy For You, Fascinating Rhythm). "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Love Walked In," "Embraceable You," "I Got Rhythm," "By Strauss," "They Can't Take That Away From Me" and so many others remain jewels in the great American songbook.

Gershwin, Ira
(b. Israel Gershvin)
Lyricist
b. Dec. 6, 1896 (New York City) - d. August 17, 1983 (Beverly Hills, CA)
When people speak of "a Gershwin song" they all too often forget that Ira provided the incomparable words for his brother George's best songs. (When asked what I think of 'Gershwin,' I usually say, "He was one of the greats, and his brother George wasn't bad either.") After publishing articles and vaudeville reviews, Ira started to write lyrics. He began collaborating with his brother in 1918. Ira's lyrics were inventive, whether playing gleeful games with the English language ("S'Wonderful") or searing through to the inner darkness of the human soul ("The Man That Got Away"). Ira was such a painstaking craftsman that colleagues called him "The Jeweler."

The Gershwin brothers' stage hits include Lady Be Good (1924), Funny Face (1927), Girl Crazy (1929), and Of Thee I Sing (1931) – the first Pulitzer Prize-winning musical. Ira's witty wordplay was the perfect match for George's innovative rhythms and melodies. Their final stage project was Porgy and Bess (1935), which still remains the greatest American opera. They wrote several film scores, including Shall We Dance (1937) and Damsel in Distress (1937).

After George's untimely death, Ira worked on a few select stage and screen projects. He collaborated with Kurt Weill on the Broadway hit Lady in the Dark (1941), in which Gertrude Lawrence introduced "Jenny" and "My Ship," and Danny Kaye introduced the lightning patter song "Tschaikowsky." For the musical screen remake of A Star Is Born (1954), Ira and composer Harold Arlen penned "The Man That Got Away," a lasting hit introduced by Judy Garland. After his retirement in 1954, Ira continued efforts to promote and preserve his brother's legacy. He lived to see Broadway's cavernous Uris Theater renamed The Gershwin in honor of both brothers.

Gilbert, William Schwenck
Lyricist, librettist, director, producer
b. Nov. 18, 1836 (London, UK) - d. May 29, 1911 (Grim's Dyke, UK)
Almost every important theatrical lyricist has deferred to Gilbert as the father of their art form, the first to elevate the craft. An unsuccessful attorney, he first won attention writing humorous verses for popular magazines under the nickname "Bab." After building a reputation as a comic playwright, Gilbert collaborated with composer Arthur Sullivan on the flop operetta Thespis (1871). When producer Richard D'Oyly Carte brought them back together for the one-act charmer Trial by Jury (1875), London audiences were delighted. This initiated one of the greatest creative partnerships in theatrical history.

Gilbert and Sullivan turned out over a dozen works that they described as "comic operas," but which are clearly recognizable as musicals. Their international hits included H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance(1880), Iolanthe (1882), The Mikado (1885), Yeoman of the Guard (1888) and The Gondoliers (1889), all of which continue to be performed today. Gilbert's well-crafted lyrics are often hilarious, and his intricate patter songs set a standard few have rivaled. His plots take a "topsy-turvy" view of reality that spoofs everything from governmental stupidity to social pretension, topics that are as relevant now as they were to his fellow Victorians.

Gilbert directed and produced every show with painstaking attention to detail. Demanding the best of everyone involved (including himself), his no-nonsense approach struck fear in the heart of many a performer. Gilbert's contentious personality cost him dearly when it led to a silly quarrel over new lobby carpeting for The Savoy Theatre, shattering his partnership with Sullivan after more than a decade. Of course, the carpet was just an excuse. Each felt his talents had been made subservient those of the other. But time and financial reality healed the rift, and they reunited to write two more not-so-successful shows before Sullivan's death in 1900. Gilbert remained professionally active, writing new plays and musical librettos. Knighted in 1907, he had the rare pleasure of living long enough to see himself acclaimed as what he was – a national treasure. Robust to the end, Gilbert died while saving a young woman from drowning in a lake on his estate.

Gilford, Jack
(b. Jacob Gellman)
Actor, singer, comedian
b. July 25, 1908 (New York, NY) - d. June 2, 1990 (NYC)
This beloved comic and onetime vaudevillian first made it to Broadway in revues, including Meet the People (1940), Alive and Kicking (1950), The World of Sholom Aleichem (1953) and Once Over Lightly (1955). Because Gilford and his wife Madeline Lee supported progressive social change, they were blacklisted by Hollywood during the political witch hunts of the 1950s. Jack continued to work on stage and in nightclubs. His gift for physical comedy (including a hilarious visual impersonation of a hot bowl of pea soup) made him the perfect choice to create the mute King Sextimus in Once Upon a Mattress (1959), a role he repeated in two television versions. Gilford originated the role of the nervous Roman slave Hysterium in both the stage and screen versions of Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), co-starring with longtime friend Zero Mostel.