Word: jolson
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...Jolson Story. A big, loud, colorful show, with sound track by the Jazz Singer himself (TIME...
...Jolson Story is the first production job of an amateur: bantam-sized (5 ft. 2 in.) Hollywood gossip columnist Sidney Skolsky. While insisting that journalism is his profession, Skolsky has dabbled in picture-making for years, occasionally walking through bit parts as a gag or tossing out a helpful suggestion to studio executives...
After a six-month tryout as a Warner assistant producer, Skolsky was asked if he had any picture ideas. "Yes," said Skolsky, "the life of Al Jolson." Jack Warner, not believing his ears, cried, "The life of Al Jolson? We've done that." (Warner's 1927 The Jazz Singer, starring Jolson in the first talkie, was a thinly disguised Jolson biography.) "Nobody," Warner decided, "wants to see or hear Jolson any more...
Skolsky, in his stubborn, amateur way, explained his idea to Columbia: "I want to use the Jolson voice, but I want it to come out of a young man's face." The result is as clever a synchronization job as Hollywood ever turned out. Jolson himself sang the sound track, but the camera watched a 30-year-old actor named Larry Parks, who pored over old Jolson records and films until he could reproduce every gesture, genuflection and grimace...
...plot gave Skolsky some trouble. The logical love interest for a sweetened-up biography was Jolson's third wife, Ruby Keeler, ex-cinemactress and Ziegfeld star who long since divorced him, remarried and retired from show business. Skolsky admits, "It was tough. We had to please Al, Ruby and ourselves. In a mild way, we tried to psychoanalyze Al and Ruby . . . and make ourselves believe it could have happened." Ruby was cooperative, accepted $25,000 but insisted that her name be kept...