Meglin Kiddies

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The Meglin Kiddies was a prestigious performance troupe. (acting, music and dance). The troupe was composed of child actors up to the age of 16. (AKA: The Meglin Professional Children's School, The Meglin Dance Studio, Meglin's Dance School and Meglin's Wonderous Hollywood Kiddies, as well as other variations.)

The troupe was started by Ethel Meglin in 1928. Meglin was a Ziegfeld girl in feature films. [7] Director/actor and Slapstick Keystone King Mack Sennett was supportive to the formation of the troupe's studio. Sennett donated a Meglin Kiddie studio building sign and assisted in securing an operations location on his lot.[1] The Johnny Grant Building[2] at 7018-7024 Hollywood Blvd was once the Meglin Dance Studio. One of the most successful child stars of all time, Shirley Temple, was discovered when she was a Meglin Kiddie dancer. Producers from Educational Studios recruited her from the Meglin Kiddie studio.[3] "Charles Lamont, a director from Educational Studios visited the “Meglin Kiddies” and chose Shirley, hiding under the piano, for a part in a movie that the studio was about to make."[4]

Superstar, Judy Garland, was a Meglin Kiddie too.[5] Garland's mother, Mrs. Gumm, played the piano at the Meglin Kiddie studio to help pay for Garland's singing and dancing lessons there. (Cary 1978:202) The film debut of Judy Garland was in Meglin Kiddie short films.[6] Garland also performed with the Meglin Kiddies over the radio, and live at theaters such as: Shrine Auditorium, Pantages Theatre (Hollywood), and Loew's State Theater in Los Angeles, California.[7]

In the 1950s, the Meglin Kiddies had a television show.

Ethyl Meglin retired in 1962, along with the studio and dance troupe. [8]

Contents

[edit] Trivia

Types of dances that Shirley Temple learned at the Meglin Kiddie Studio: not only tap dancing, but also the strut, hornpipe, shuffle-off-to-Buffalo, waltz, clog, buck-and-wing, the Charleston, tango, and rhumba, as well as basic ballet positions.[8]

[edit] Movies

  • Reg'lar Fellers (1941) --Billy Lee's Band --Associate Producer: Ethel Meglin
  • The Wizard of Oz (1939) --Munchkin child actors and dancers
  • Maytime (1937) --Children In Maypole Number
  • Roarin' Lead (1936) --Dancers
  • Too Many Parents (1936) (uncredited) --Themselves
  • In Love with Life (1934) --Floor show performers at the Kiddie Kabaret
  • Show Kids (1934)
  • The Land of Oz, a Sequel to the 'Wizard of Oz' (1932) --Production Company and actors
  • The Big Revue (1929) --AKA "The Meglin Kiddie Revue" & AKA "The Starlet Revue" --with Judy Garland (Francis Gumm & Sisters)[9]

[edit] Meglin Kiddies

[edit] References

Meglin Kiddies on IMDB --Internet Movie Database
Meglin Kiddies Production of "Land of Oz" on IMDB

  1. ^ Cary, Diana Serra. (1978) Hollywood's Children. Texas: Southern Metholist University Press. ISBN 0870744240
  2. ^ Johnny Grant Building
  3. ^ Official Shirley Temple Web Site
  4. ^ [1]
  5. ^ [2]
  6. ^ [3]
  7. ^ [4]
  8. ^ [5]
  9. ^ [6]
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