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10 unusual facts about Show Boat


Ann Mandrella

Ann, who was working on Show Boat in Switzerland, joined her husband in New York in February 2006.

Gaylord Ravenal

Gaylord Ravenal is the leading male character in Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat, in the famous Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II musical play of the same name based on the novel, and in the films made from it.

High, Wide, and Handsome

In a deliberate nod to Kern and Hammerstein's classic musical Show Boat, which had been filmed with Irene Dunne the year before, Dunne's lovable father Raymond Walburn is the owner of a traveling musical medicine show (much like Cap'n Andy), and Dunne is its star; in addition, Dorothy Lamour sings a torch song, much as Helen Morgan did in Show Boat.

Jan Hunt

Her later career included playing Ellie May in Show Boat (Adelphi Theatre London 1971) in which she first performed her trademark "spoons" routine.

Julie Dozier

In Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's classic musical version of it, which opened on Broadway on December 27, 1927, her stage name (or alias) is Julie La Verne.

Marilyn McCoo

She has appeared on stage in productions of Anything Goes, A...My Name is Alice, Man of La Mancha, and the Broadway production of Show Boat in 1995 through 1996.

Mark Jacoby

He has achieved fame from his leading roles on Broadway in Show Boat, The Phantom of the Opera and Ragtime, among others.

Martin Levan

His other credits include Little Shop of Horrors, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Blondel, Carrie, The Baker's Wife, Show Boat and Lautrec.

Rebecca Jackson Mendoza

Her stage roles include Australian and German productions of Miss Saigon, Australian productions of Show Boat and Hair, Australian and Japanese productions of We Will Rock You, and Lady Galadriel in the Toronto production of The Lord of the Rings.

Till the Clouds Roll By

The first 15 minutes of the film consist of a condensed adaptation of Act I of Show Boat, with the order of some of the songs shifted - "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" is sung after "Life upon the Wicked Stage", and "Ol' Man River" was used as an Act I Finale, dissimilar to the show.


Ana María Polo

Later, they moved to Puerto Rico where she participated in different musicals including Godspell, Jubilee and Show Boat in addition to singing with the chorus of Jubilee, which was invited by Pope Paul VI to sing at St. Peter’s Basilica as part of the celebration of the 1975 Holy Year.

Anita Darian

She has also performed and recorded several roles from musicals during her career, including Julie in excerpts from Show Boat, a recording she made for Columbia Masterworks in 1962 with John Raitt, Barbara Cook, and William Warfield.

Cape Town Opera

Notable international productions include performances for the opening of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, Puccini's Turandot with NorrlandsOperan, a 2005 European tour of Jerome Kern's and Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat, and performances of Porgy and Bess with both the Welsh National Opera and NorrlandsOperan in 2006, and Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2008.

Daniel Lewis Williams

After his voice changed, he appeared frequently in musicals and won the International Kiwanis Talent Contest in New York City at 17 for his performance of "Ol' Man River" from Show Boat.

David Burt

Burt recently starred as the flamboyant Count Fosco opposite Yvette Robinson in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White at the Palace Theatre and was featured as Captain Andy Hawks in Show Boat at the Royal Albert Hall.

Helen Dowdy

Helen Dowdy was a Broadway actress and singer who played the role of Queenie in the 1946 revival of Kern & Hammerstein's Show Boat (a role originally played by Tess Gardella in 1927).

Hope and Keen

This was a ten-week ‘fill-in’- put on by impresario Harold Fielding after Charlie Girl closed at short notice and he was getting together a production of Show Boat.

Howard Marsh

Marsh also played Gaylord Ravenal in the original 1927 Broadway production of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Show Boat.

Despite appearing in three musical theatre smash hits over a span of seven years, Marsh made his last appearance in a new show in 1930, The Well of Romance, opposite his Show Boat co-star, Norma Terris.

In Dahomey

Having learned of the use of people in exhibits at the fairs, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote a song, "In Dahomey," for their 1927 musical, Show Boat.

Julie Dozier

In the musical, the character of Julie is given two of Show Boat's most memorable songs, Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man and Bill.

Lucille Carroll

Movies made at MGM while Lucille Carroll ran its training department included Singin' in the Rain, Show Boat, Gaslight and Meet Me in St. Louis.

Mabel Mercer

In 1928, she was an unknown member of the black chorus in the London production of Show Boat, but she had become the toast of Paris by the 1930s, with admirers who included Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Cole Porter.

Rita Gardner

Gardner's regional theatre credits include Show Boat and The Impossible Years at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania (1983), Lucky in the Rain at the Goodspeed Opera House (1997), and Eleanor: A Love Story at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. (1999).

Sue Casey

Some of her more famous films include The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), Neptune's Daughter (1949), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Show Boat (1951), Rear Window (1954), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Camelot (1967) and Paint Your Wagon (1969).

Toronto Centre for the Arts

Prior to Jersey Boys, the facility was the home of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Sunset Boulevard and a 1993 production of Show Boat that transferred to Broadway.

Virginia O'Brien

She continued to perform well into the 1990s with both her one-woman show and a production of Show Boat co-starring Alan Young, and also headlined The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies.