George Jessel

Acting

George Jessel

Born 1898-04-03 · The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA

George Albert "Georgie" Jessel (April 3, 1898 – May 23, 1981) was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and film producer. He was famous in his lifetime as a multitalented comedic entertainer, achieving a level of recognition that transcended his limited roles in movies. He was widely known by his nickname, the "Toastmaster General of the United States," for his frequent role as the master of ceremonies at political and entertainment gatherings. Jessel originated the title role in the stage production of The Jazz Singer. Description above from the Wikipedia article George Jessel (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Valley of the Dolls poster
6.0

Lured by their dreams of fame and fortune, three ambitious young women enter the world of show business and discover how easy it is to sink into a celebrity nightmare of ego, alcohol and pills — the beloved "dolls."

Valley of the Dolls

1967

Reds poster
6.9

An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed, who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical commitment to the socialist revolution in Russia, his dream of spreading its principles among the members of the American working class, and his troubled romantic relationship with the writer Louise Bryant.

Reds

1981

The Other Side of the Wind poster
6.7

At a media-swamped party to celebrate his seventieth birthday and screen his avant-garde film-in-progress, a legendary but jaded Hollywood director is faced both with voracious fans and unsettling questions about what became of his lead actor.

The Other Side of the Wind

2018

Four Jills in a Jeep poster
6.8

Reenactments of actual USO experiences of its female stars entertaining troops overseas.

Four Jills in a Jeep

1944

Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood poster
4.4

A would-be filmmaker and actress shake up the industry with a trick dog who gets discovered by a studio bus driver in the 1920s.

Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood

1976

Stage Door Canteen poster
6.3

A young soldier on a pass in New York City visits the famed Stage Door Canteen, where famous stars of theatre and film appear and host a recreational center for servicemen during the war. The soldier meets a pretty young hostess and they enjoy the many entertainers and a growing romance.

Stage Door Canteen

1943

Love, Live & Laugh poster
9.0

Any movie that starts Jewish entertainer George Jessel as an Italian accordionist named Luigi can't be all bad. In love with the beautiful Margharita (Lila Lee), Luigi lands a job in the music store owned by the girl's uncle. Ultimately, however, our hero does the Pagliacci act when Margharita evinces a preference for handsome Pasquale (David Rollins). The film's best scene takes place in a nursery full of talented tots, a sequence that undoubtedly reminded Jessel of his days with Gus Edwards' "Schoolroom" act. Exercising his droit du seigneur, Georgie Jessel sings the title tune.

Love, Live & Laugh

1929

Sid & Judy poster
7.4

Explore the dramatic career and personal struggles of the talented and tragically short-lived entertainer Judy Garland through rare concert footage, never-heard-before voice recordings and personal photos.

Sid & Judy

2019

Happy Days poster
6.3

In Fox's contribution to the all-star revue cycle of early talkies, showboat singer Margie, hearing that the show is in arrears, goes to New York to gather all of the former stars to stage a minstrel show as a benefit.

Happy Days

1929

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage poster
7.0

Out-takes (mostly from Warner Bros.), promotional shorts, movie premieres, public service pleas, wardrobe tests, documentary material, and archival footage make up this star-studded voyeuristic look at the Golden age of Hollywood during the 30s, 40, and 50.

Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage

1983

Sailor Izzy Murphy poster
7.0

Izzy Murphy is a street vendor of scents that falls in love with the beautiful woman (Audrey Ferris) whose picture adorns the perfume bottle he sells. After resourcefully tracing the beauty (whose father(Warner Oland) manufactures the perfume to a luxury yacht, he finds himself in the company of an escaped lunatic John Miljan) who has vowed to murder the perfume manufacturer in retaliation for all the flowers that have been lost in the making of the perfume.

Sailor Izzy Murphy

1927

The Phynx poster
3.6

A rock band is invented by the government as a cover to find hostages in a remote castle in Albania held by communist enemies of the USA.

The Phynx

1970

The Busy Body poster
7.2

Sid Caesar is a bumbling gopher to a mob boss who must recover a fortune in cash stowed in the suit of a corpse.

The Busy Body

1967

Frank Capra's American Dream poster
6.3

A documentary looking at the life and career of film director Frank Capra. Hosted by Ron Howard.

Frank Capra's American Dream

1997

Yesterday and Today poster
7.0

A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the movie industry as a salute to Hollywood's Golden Year, so proclaimed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce as 1953.

Yesterday and Today

1953

Private Izzy Murphy poster
8.0

Isadore "Izzy" Goldberg changes his name to I. Patrick Murphy because his store is in an Irish-neighborhood in New York City. He meets Eileen Cohannigan, the daughter of a meat-packer, and he tells her he is Irish and a romance begins. When America enters World War I, "Izzy" enlists, is sent to France, and is wounded while engaged in a heroic rescue during a big battle. While recovering in an overseas hospital, he writes Eileen and tells her he is Jewish and not Irish. Returning home, he is parading with his regiment and he sees Eileen with Robert O'Malley, his old rival. He thinks she has thrown him over because he is Jewish. An Irish lodge comes to bestow an honor on the man they think is Patrick Murphy, an Irish hero. But O'Malley tells them his real name is Goldberg. But Eileen tels him it is he she loves, and they head for the marriage-license bureau.

Private Izzy Murphy

1926

Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? poster
4.8

Heironymus Merkin is an internationally successful singer approaching middle age who retells his life story in a series of production numbers on a seashore in front of his two toddlers and aged mother. Merkin's promiscuous relationships with women are explored, particularly Polyester Poontang and the adolescent Mercy Humppe. Merkin is constantly surrounded by a Satan-like procurer, Goodtime Eddie Filth, and an angelic 'Presence' who interrupts Merkin's biography with cryptic Borscht Belt-level jokes to denote births and deaths in Merkin's life. Newley periodically steps out of character to complain about his 'Merkin' role with an unseen director, two screenwriters, the film's producers and a trio of blasé movie critics who are turned off by the story's eroticism and lack of plot.

Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?

1969

Beau James poster
5.4

The story of Jimmy Walker who became mayor of New York in the '20s.

Beau James

1957

The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians poster
6.0

The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians is a 1970 American animated television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. After the Christmas special Frosty the Snowman (1969), it was Rankin/Bass' second hand-drawn animated work to be outsourced to Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production in Tokyo, Japan. The show aired on ABC on April 7, 1970 before the airing of that year's Oscars. It was a tribute to early vaudeville, and featured animated reworkings of various famous comedians' acts.

The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians

1970

It Might Be Worse poster
5.4

George convinces his friend John that suicide isn't the answer.

It Might Be Worse

1931

No artwork available
9.0

George Washington Cohen, a naïve young man discovers a wallet in the street and returns it to its owner, the wealthy Wall Street banker, Mr. Gorman. Impressed with his honesty, Mr. Gorman gives George a job. However, things take a complicated turn when George discovers Mr. Gorman's wife is having an affair.

George Washington Cohen

1928

Lucky Boy poster
5.3

A young Jewish man works in his father's jewelry business, but he doesn't like it at all--he wants to be an entertainer, something he knows that his father would never approve of. He comes up with a scheme to put on his own show in a theater and show his father that he can be a success, but things don't work out quite as well as he planned.

Lucky Boy

1929

Diary of a Young Comic poster
7.0

A time capsule of the L.A. comedy scene in the 1970s, "Diary of a Young Comic" casts Richard Lewis as a fictionalized version of himself - a young New York comic who comes out to Los Angeles to seek his fame and fortune.

Diary of a Young Comic

1979

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Wonders of Puerto Rico

1958

Behind the camera

Nightmare Alley poster
7.2

A roustabout joins a traveling carny and schemes to figure out the mind-reading act of Mademoiselle Zeena and her alcoholic husband.

Nightmare Alley

1947

I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now poster
7.5

A biopic of the career of Joe Howard (12 Feb.,1878 - 19 May, 1961), famous songwriter of the early 20th Century. Howard wrote the title song, Goodbye, My Lady Love; and Hello, My Baby among many others. Mark Stevens was dubbed by Buddy Clark, well known singer of the 30's and 40's

I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now

1947

Anne of the Indies poster
6.4

After buccaneer captain Anne Providence spares Pierre LaRochelle and recruits him into her pirate crew, their growing attraction is tested when Captain Blackbeard reveals LaRochelle's true identity as a former French navy officer.

Anne of the Indies

1951

Golden Girl poster
6.4

Against the background of the Civil War, sixteen-year-old song-and-dance artiste Lotta Crabtree works her way across America, becoming ever more popular.

Golden Girl

1951

Yesterday and Today poster
7.0

A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the movie industry as a salute to Hollywood's Golden Year, so proclaimed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce as 1953.

Yesterday and Today

1953

Dancing in the Dark poster
6.0

Emery Slade was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood in 1932, but by 1949 his career has hit the skids. Fortunately, he is able to convince studio head Melville Crossman to cast him in the adaptation of a hit Broadway show. Crossman has one condition: Slade must travel to New York and convince the female star of the stage production to join the film. Slade goes, but, when he eyes the winsome Julie Clarke, he hatches a different scheme.

Dancing in the Dark

1949

Oh, You Beautiful Doll poster
5.5

Period musical about a song plugger who vows to turn an opera composer's music into popular hits.

Oh, You Beautiful Doll

1949

The I Don't Care Girl poster
7.3

This semi-film within a film opens in the office of producer George Jessel, who never saw a camera he couldn't get in front of, who is holding a story conference to determine the screen treatment for the life of Eva Tanguay, and Jessel is unhappy with what the writers present him.He tells them to look up Eddie McCoy, Eva's one-time partner, for the real inside story on the lusty and vital Eva. Eddie's version is that he discovered her working as a waitress in an Indianapolis restaurant in 1912, wherein singer Larry Woods and his partner Charles Bennett get into a fight over her and both land in the hospital, and McCoy convinces the manager to put Eva on as a single to fill their spot. She flopped, but McCoy arranges for Bennett to be her accompanist, and she went out of his life. The writers look up Bennett, now head of a music publishing company, who says McCoy's story is phony, and it was Flo Zigfeld who discovered Eva for his Follies.

The I Don't Care Girl

1953

Do You Love Me poster
4.7

Katharine Hilliard, mousy dean of a stuffy music school, meets and is insulted by swing band leader Barry Clayton on a train. To "show" him she takes a friend's advice, removes her glasses, and puts on a designer gown. Naturally, she becomes gorgeous. Soon, both Barry and crooner Jimmy Hale are after her, and she finds herself in the midst of triangles and misunderstandings.

Do You Love Me

1946

When My Baby Smiles at Me poster
5.5

Bonny Kane and 'Skid' Johnson are vaudeville performers in the 1920s. The two of them suffer marital difficulties when Skid gets an offer to appear on Broadway while Bonny gets left behind on the road. Things get worse with Skid's increasing drinking problem and the fact that the press has reported him to be spending a lot of time with his pretty co-star.

When My Baby Smiles at Me

1948

Lucky Boy poster
5.3

A young Jewish man works in his father's jewelry business, but he doesn't like it at all--he wants to be an entertainer, something he knows that his father would never approve of. He comes up with a scheme to put on his own show in a theater and show his father that he can be a success, but things don't work out quite as well as he planned.

Lucky Boy

1929

Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie poster
5.8

At the fiftieth anniversary of his town's founding, the town's first barber recalls his long-dead, spirited bride and the flaw in his own character that helped bring about her loss and several others.

Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie

1952

Tonight We Sing poster
9.5

The life story of legendary impresario Sol Hurok. A lover of the arts, young immigrant Hurok despairs when he realizes he has no musical or artistic talents. Thus it is that, despite great personal and financial sacrifice, Hurok devotes his life to discovering and nurturing other performers and bringing them to Broadway.

Tonight We Sing

1953