Ray BolgerFilmography

That's Dancing!

Actors: Gene Kelly, Sammy Davis, Jr., Mikhail Baryshnikov, Liza Minnelli, Ray Bolger

Synopsis: Nine years after his last compilation of musical-movie highlights (That's Entertainment, Part II), producer Jack Haley Jr. offers another enjoyable nostalgia-fest, That's Dancing. Unlike his earlier films, which were confined to the output of MGM, That's Dancing offers vignettes from the best of Read More

Peter and the Wolf and Other Tales

Synopsis: This film is comprised of several live-action versions of popular children's stories and poems. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Peter & the Magic Egg

Peter & the Wolf

Battlestar Galactica: Greetings from Earth, Part 1

Actors: Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, Lorne Greene, Herbert Jefferson, Jr., John Colicos

Synopsis: In Part One of "Greetings from Earth", the Galactica encounters an "ancient" space shuttle that has seemingly originated on the elusive 13th Colony--namely, the Earth. On board the shuttle, six people are in a state of suspended animation. Once awakened, the six strangers hold out hope to the Read More

Just You and Me, Kid

Actors: George Burns, Brooke Shields, Burl Ives, Lorraine Gary, Nicolas Coster

Synopsis: In this comedy, an elderly ex-vaudevillian is surprised to find a naked young woman in the trunk of his car. He soon discovers that she is a runaway fleeing from both the police and an enraged drug dealer she cheated out of $20,000. Meanwhile, the codger's daughter continually attempts to get him Read More

Little House on the Prairie: Dance With Me

Actors: Michael Landon, Karen Grassle, Melissa Gilbert, Melissa Sue Anderson, Matthew Laborteaux

Synopsis: Ray Bolger guest stars in this special 90-minute episode as Toby Noe, a hard-drinking drifter whom the Ingalls befriended while living in Winoka. Shambling into Walnut Grove just before a much-anticipated community dance, Toby immediately sets his cap for prudish spinster Amanda Jane Cooper (Eileen Heckart Read More

The Runner Stumbles

Actors: Dick Van Dyke, Kathleen Quinlan, Maureen Stapleton, Ray Bolger, Tammy Grimes

Synopsis: Director Stanley Kramer ended his career with this absorbing drama, adapted from the play by Milan Stitt and based on a real-life event from 1927. Dick Van Dyke stars as Father Rivard, an intellectual priest in a small, impoverished mining town in the state of Washington. A lonely man with low Read More

For Heaven's Sake

Synopsis: An angel helps a struggling basketball team and especially one player who wishes to regain his former glory in order to earn the respect of his 9-year-old son. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Battlestar Galactica: Greetings from Earth, Part 2

Actors: Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, Lorne Greene, Herbert Jefferson, Jr., John Colicos

Synopsis: In the conclusion of "Greetings from Earth", six Terrans from the 13th Colony (formerly known as Earth) are released from suspended animation when their drifting space station is discovered. Upon awakening, the six become obsessed with the notion that the Galactica is part of the hated Eastern Read More

Three on a Date

Synopsis: In this comedy, four couples go on a dating game show and end up winning a fabulous Hawaiian vacation. Unfortunately, they are accompanied by a stern chaperone. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Little House on the Prairie: There's No Place Like Home, Part 1

Actors: Michael Landon, Karen Grassle, Melissa Gilbert, Melissa Sue Anderson, Matthew Laborteaux

Synopsis: In the first episode of a two-part story, Charles Ingalls (Michael Landon) refuses to withstand one more humiliation from his new employer Standish (Leon Charles) after the hateful man cheats a heavy-drinking oldster (Ray Bolger) out of a lottery prize. With his family in tow, Charles leaves Read More

Captains and the Kings

Synopsis: One of four dramatic miniseries carried by NBC under the blanket title Best Sellers, Captains and the Kings was adapted from a novel by Taylor Caldwell. Covering a time span from 1857 to 1912, this was the saga of the Irish-immigrant Armagh clan, with emphasis on the rags-to-riches career of Read More

The Entertainer

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Ray Bolger, Sada Thompson, Tyne Daly, Michael Cristofer

Synopsis: This Americanized remake of John Osborne's play changes the locale from a seedy British amusement pier to an equally seedy burlesque house in Santa Cruz, California. Jack Lemmon assumes the Laurence Olivier role as Archie Rice, a third-rate entertainer who's a failure but won't admit it. Selfishly Read More

The Partridge Family: The Mod Father

Synopsis: Ray Bolger and Rosemary DeCamp return in the roles of Fred and Amanda Renfrew, the parents of Shirley Partridge (Shirley Jones). This time around, Grandpa Fred and Grandma Amanda have gleaned some rather strange ideas at an encounter group, and are going overboard in the efforts to embrace the Read More

The Partridge Family: The 40-Year Itch

Synopsis: The family faces yet another crisis when Shirley's dad Fred (Ray Bolger) shows up at her doorstep, announcing that he has separated from her mom Amanda (Rosemary DeCamp). Before long, Grandma Amanda also shows up, and it becomes crystal clear that the bone of contention is Grandpa Fred's strenuous Read More

The Partridge Family: Whatever Happened to the Old Songs?

Synopsis: Ray Bolger and Rosemary DeCamp make their first series appearances as Shirley Partridge's septuagenarian parents Fred and Amanda Renfrew. The Partridge kids are aghast when their mandolin-playing Grandpa decks himself out in the latest "mod" clothes and insists upon singing rock-and-roll tunes in Read More

Hollywood Palace, Vol. 2

The Daydreamer

Actors: Cyril Ritchard, Paul O'Keefe, Jack Gilford, Ray Bolger, Margaret Hamilton, Hayley Mills, Burl Ives, Terry-Thomas, Victor Borge, Ed Wynn, Boris Karloff, Sessue Hayakawa

Synopsis: Four stories from Hans Christian Andersen appear in The Daydreamer, a feature using the Animagic process that uses live action combined with stop-motion puppets. Included are "The Little Mermaid," "The Emperor's New Clothes," "Thumbelina," and "The Garden Of Paradise." Songs and dances compliment Read More

Babes in Toyland

Actors: Ray Bolger, Tommy Sands, Annette Funicello, Ed Wynn, Tommy Kirk

Synopsis: This second film adaptation of the Victor Herbert operetta Babes in Toyland was producer Walt Disney's Christmas offering for 1961. The 1903 Herbert original had very little in the way of a plot, so screenwriters Joe Rinaldi, Lowell S. Hawley, and Ward Kimball lifted elements from the 1934 Read More

The All-Star Christmas Show

Actors: Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, George Burns, Milton Berle, Jack Benny

Synopsis: Produced for the Armed Forces overseas, this is a holiday spectacular created for Christmas. Fifty of the top stars of Hollywood in the 1950s turned out to be a part of this special. Some of these included: Bob Hope, George Burns, Bing Crosby, Danny Thomas, Dinah Shore, Shirley MacLaine, and Jane Russell Read More

Washington Square [TV Series]

Actors: Ray Bolger, Elaine Stritch

Synopsis: Actor-dancer Ray Bolger and Elaine Stritch co-starred in this 1956-57 NBC-TV musical comedy variety series, set in lower Manhattan. Bolger portrayed himself as the manager of the Greenwich Village Inn. Other regulars in the hour-long episodes included Arnold Stang, Daniza Ilitsch, the Bil and Cora Read More

Where's Charley?

Actors: Ray Bolger, Allyn Ann McLerie, Robert Shackleton, Mary Germaine, Horace Cooper

Synopsis: Where's Charley?, Frank Loesser's hit Broadway musical version of Brandon Thomas' evergreen stage farce Charley's Aunt, was brought to the screen in 1952 with most of its original cast intact -- including, thank heaven, star Ray Bolger. In the original Brandon Thomas version, Oxford undergrad Lord Read More

April in Paris

Actors: Doris Day, Ray Bolger, Claude Dauphin, Eve Miller, George Givot

Synopsis: Thanks to a bureaucratic blunder, the US State Department invites brassy showgirl Doris Day to attend a chi-chi arts festival in Paris. En route to the City of Light, Day falls in love with diplomat corps flunkey Ray Bolger (who's responsible for the error), even though he's married to witchy Eve Miller Read More

Look for the Silver Lining

Actors: June Haver, Ray Bolger, Gordon MacRae, Charlie Ruggles, Rosemary de Camp

Synopsis: The short but colorful life of American musical comedy star Marilyn Miller is given the standard prettified Hollywood treatment in Look for the Silver Lining. June Haver, an accomplished dancer-singer in her own right, is well-cast as Miller, who rises from an appendage in her parents' vaudeville Read More

Make Mine Laughs

Actors: Ray Bolger, Joan Davis

Synopsis: Make Mine Laughs was the second of three RKO Radio "pastiche" films, largely comprised of musical and comedy highlights from previous RKO productions. Comedian Gil Lamb hosts the proceedings, finding time to make satirical comments about the opening credits and to perform his "swallowing the Read More

The Harvey Girls

Actors: Judy Garland, John Hodiak, Ray Bolger, Angela Lansbury, Marjorie Main, Preston S. Foster

Synopsis: This glorified Technicolor commercial for the Fred Harvey restaurants stars Judy Garland as a 19th-century mail-order bride. Upon arriving in New Mexico, Garland discovers that her husband-to-be is the town drunk. She cuts her losses and takes a job at the local Harvey restaurant, an establishment Read More

Forever and a Day

Actors: Brian Aherne, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino, Gladys Cooper, C. Aubrey Smith, Claude Rains, Robert Cummings, Anna Neagle, Roland Young

Synopsis: The 80-star cast of Forever and a Day would certainly not have been feasible had not most of the actors and production people turned over their salaries to British war relief -- a point driven home during the lengthy opening credits by an unseen narrator. The true star of the film is a stately old Read More

Stage Door Canteen

Actors: Cheryl Walker, William Terry, Marjorie Riordan, Lon McCallister, Margaret Early

Synopsis: This star-studded musical drama was largely financed by Theatre Guild, with all proceeds going to various wartime fundraising concerns. Most of the story takes place at the Stage Door Canteen, a Manhattan-based home away from home for soldiers, sailors and marines (the real-life Canteen on 44th Read More

Four Jacks and a Jill

Actors: Ray Bolger, Anne Shirley, June Havoc, Desi Arnaz, Jack Durant

Synopsis: This quickie RKO musical is the second retread of Street Girl (1929); the 1937 musical That Girl from Paris was the first remake. This time around, the four jacks are musicians Nifty (Ray Bolger), Happy (Eddie Foy Jr.), Nat (Jack Briggs), and Eddie (William Blees). Their singer Opal (June Havoc) Read More

Sunny

Actors: Anna Neagle, Ray Bolger, John Carroll, Edward Everett Horton, Grace Hartman

Synopsis: Sunny was one of three RKO Radio Broadway-musical adaptations tailored to the talents of British favorite Anna Neagle by her soon-to-be-husband Herbert Wilcox (the other two were No No Nanette and Irene). The story has been updated a bit and transposed to New Orleans' Mardi Gras, but remains at Read More

Sweethearts

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Florence Rice

Synopsis: Contrary to popular belief, the Nelson Eddy-Jeanette MacDonald Technicolor confection Sweethearts is not based on the 1913 Victor Herbert operetta of the same name (though most of Herbert's songs remain intact), but a Dorothy Parker-Alan Campbell brainstorm about a popular Broadway singing duo Read More

Rosalie

Actors: Nelson Eddy, Eleanor Powell, Frank Morgan, Edna May Oliver, Ray Bolger

Synopsis: More burdened with leaden production numbers than plot, Rosalie took Sigmund Romberg and George Gershwin's 1928 Broadway hit, threw out most of the songs, including "How Long Has This Been Going On?," but retained the spindly story of the incognito Princess Rosalie of Romanza (Eleanor Powell), who Read More

The Great Ziegfeld

Actors: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer, Frank Morgan, Fanny Brice

Synopsis: In MGM's three-hour-plus The Great Ziegfeld, William Powell stars as the titular theatrical impresario, whose show business empire begins when he stage-manages a tour for legendary strongman Sandow (Nat Pendleton). With nary a penny in the bank, he charms European stage star Anna Held (Luise Rainer Read More