3,005 HITS and other stuff

You know when I started this blog I never thought anyone would be all that interested in what I had to say and today I was proved wrong with 3,005 hits by you my faithful readers. I hope you find what you are looking for, I hope I let you in my life, I hope you and I can become friends. Thank you for visting the site and reading and maybe in the process learn something to.

Well this incredible old photograph is of Broadway Star of the 1902-1903 Wizard of Oz Fred Stone.

Fred Andrew Stone born August 19,1873- March 6,1959 was an American actor. Stone began his career as a performer in circuses and Minstrel shows he went on to act on vaudeville, and became a star on Broadway

Biography
He was particularly famous for appearing opposite David C. Montgomery , a 22-year partnership, in shows such as The Wizard of Oz, premiering in 1902, and the Victor Herbert Operetta The Red Mill in 1906. In 1939, he appeared in a radio program promoting the new MGM film of The Wizard Of Oz, in which he got to meet the actor who played the Scarecrow, Ray Bolger, who was a great admirer of Stone's work, and although Bolger was too young to have seen Stone play the Scarecrow in the stage play, he did see Stone in The Red Mill.

His feature film career began in comedy westerns, his first The Goat was filmed in 1918. He starred in 19 feature films. In 1926 after the death of Annie Oakley he was given her unfinished autobiography.


His wife, Allene Crater, who he met in the company of The Wizard of Oz , have three daughters, Dorothy, Paula and Carol. As an adult, Dorothy becomes Stone’s stage partner. In 1929 Stone, was critically injured in an airplane crash. He had been attempting a stunt. In addition to many other broken bones, his legs are crushed and he is told he’ll never again dance. His good friend Will Rogers filled in for Fred in Three Cheers, a stage show written for Fred and his daughter, Dorothy. Rogers is a hit, and Stone works at therapy relentlessly until his proves his doctors wrong and returns to the stage. (The Fred Stone as the Scarecrow is not in my collection but was on the internet)

Stone received an honorary degree from Robins College, a small liberal arts college located in Winter Park, Florida , in 1939. At this time a small theatre was named in his honor. The original Fred Stone Theatre—a smaller flexible space sitting adjacent to the College's larger principal venue, the Annie Russell Theatre, named after another great American Actor and benefactor—was a wooden bungalow that was razed in the early 1970s. A nearby wood and brick-faced Greek revival styled hall, converted into a 90-seat black-box performance space, was re-dedicated as The Fred Stone Theatre during this period, and although it has been moved to another location on campus, it still stands and is active as a performance venue for smaller experimental productions as well as student directed and choreographed works.

The Rollins Archives have extensive information on the career of Stone, including numerous photographs, and is chief among private institutions in the U.S. continuing to educate young actors about the history of this great American thespian. . He is buried in Forest LAwn Cemetary, Hollywood Hills.