Robert Paige Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Robert Paige
Acting
Biography
Robert Paige (born John Arthur Page December 2, 1911 in Indianapolis, Indiana, died Dec 21,1987) was a TV star and Universal Pictures leading man who made 65 films in his lifetime and was the only actor ever allowed to sing on film with Deanna Durbin (in 1944's Can't Help Singing). He was a graduate of West Point and was related to Admiral David Beatty, hero of the World War I Battle of Jutland. Paige began his screen career in 1934. His handsome features and assured speaking voice earned him prominent roles in motion pictures, such as Cain and Mabel with Clark Gable and Marion Davies. In 1936, to avoid confusion with another rising leading man, John Payne, Paige briefly adopted the screen name "David Carlyle." He worked primarily for Warner Brothers and Republic Pictures during this period. In 1938 he signed a contract with Columbia Pictures, which changed his screen name to Robert Paige. Columbia cast him in "B" features and starred him in one serial, Flying G-Men. When the Columbia contract lapsed, Paige moved to Paramount Pictures and finally found a home in 1941 at Universal Pictures. Robert Paige quickly became one of Universal's reliable stars, playing romantic leads. He is prominent in many of Universal's comedies and musicals, including those of Abbott and Costello, Olsen and Johnson, Gloria Jean, and Hugh Herbert. He had a good singing voice and a flair for comedy, and the studio capitalized on these talents. Beginning in 1943 Universal gave Paige important roles in its biggest productions, but by then he was so established as a B-picture lead that he never quite graduated to mega-stardom. Paige, along with other contract players, left Universal after a corporate shakeup in 1946. He became an independent film producer in 1947 and entered the new field of television. He was the last permanent host of NBC's variety series The Colgate Comedy Hour, and won an Emmy in 1955 for "Best Male Personality" (a category that no longer exists). In the 1960s he became a TV newscaster in Los Angeles. Paige continued to work in occasional films through 1963; his last two films were The Marriage-Go-Round (1961) and Bye Bye Birdie (1963). From 1966 to 1970 Paige was a newscaster and political correspondent for ABC News in Los Angeles. He left the news desk to become Deputy Supervisor of Los Angeles under Baxter Ward, and then moved into the public relations field. He retired in the late 1970s. Robert Paige died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm in 1987.
Filmography Movies
Acting
Son of Dracula
Carpathian Count Alucard is invited to the U.S. by a young heiress. Her boyfriend and local officials are suspicious of the newcomer, who is interested in the "virile" soil of the new world.
Bye Bye Birdie
A singer goes to a small town for a performance before he is drafted.
Split Second
Escaped convicts hold hostages in a ghost town targeted for a nuclear bomb test.
Abbott and Costello Go to Mars
Lester and Orville accidentally launch a rocket which is supposed to fly to Mars. Instead it goes to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. They are then forced by bank robber Mugsy and his pal Harry to fly to Venus where they find a civilization made up entirely of women, men having been banished.
Blonde Ice
A golddigging femme fatale leaves a trail of men behind her, rich and poor, alive and dead.
The Flame
George McAllister, the black sheep of a wealthy family who has squandered his share of the family inheritance, lives in constant jealousy, hatred and resentment of his half-brother Barry, who has been supporting him. George gets his girlfriend, Carlotta Duval, a job as Barry's nurse, with the idea being to marry him, kill him, and inherit his money—and marrying George.
Flying G-Men
Four flying G-Men protect America against enemy spies; one of the four assumes the identity of The Black Falcon, to befuddle the saboteurs even further.
Can't Help Singing
With the California Gold Rush beginning, Senator Frost's singing daughter Caroline loves a young army officer; the Senator can't stand him, and has him sent to California. Headstrong Caroline follows him by train, riverboat, and covered wagon, gaining companions en route: a vagrant Russian prince and gambler Johnny Lawlor, who just might take her mind off the army.
Hellzapoppin'
Olsen and Johnson, a pair of stage comedians, try to turn their play into a movie and bring together a young couple in love, while breaking the fourth wall every step of the way.
San Antonio Rose
San Antonio Rose is an amiably wacky mini-musical evenly divided between its "official" stars, The Merry Macs, and a strong cast of supporting clowns. Robert Paige plays roadhouse operator Con Conway, whose establishment is in danger of being squeezed out by its competition. Stranded entertainers Hope Holloway (Jane Frazee) and Gabby Trent (Eve Arden) decide to revivify Conway's establishment by staging an energetic floor show built around the talented Merry Macs. A rival club owner dispatches his two top hooligans Jigsaw Kennedy (Lon Chaney Jr.) and Benny the Bounce (Shemp Howard) to wreck Conway's club by posing as waiters, but the two stupes are easily cowed into submission--by the leading ladies!
Gallery
