January, 1930 - With a combination of his Parisian accent, charming demeanor, and mischievous smile, Maurice Chevalier captured the hearts of American movie-goers. His popularity gaining him two Best Actor Academy Award nominations for the films The Love Parade (1929) and The Big Pond (1930). 

With his trademark straw hat and cane, he became one of the most loved musical comedy stars of his time. Signing a contract with Paramount Pictures in 1928, Chevalier played his first American movie role in Innocents of Paris.

Despite an apparent lack of interest by the general public regarding musicals in the early 1930s, the Paramount musical classic One Hour With You starring Chevalier opposite Jeanette MacDonald became a box-office smash. This proved to be one of Hollywood's most instrumental films in it's effort to help make musicals popular with the public again.  

Tags: jeanette macdonald, maurice chevalier, musical comedy, Musicals

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 1:05 pm and is filed under News Clips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.