Biographies of People Involved with Dr. T
Roy Rowland,the Director
Like many other studio directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, Roy Rowland (1910-1995) learned his craft by working his way through the ranks. He spent the bulk of his career at MGM, where he made his feature debut as a director with the drama A Stranger in Town (1943). Moving easily from genre to genre, he directed several Westerns, including the Civil War adventure The Outriders (1950), starring Joel McCrea. Comedy was the order of the day for Rowland in Excuse My Dust (1951), featuring Red Skelton as the wacky inventor of an automobile.
Rowland created one of Hollywood's most affecting fantasies in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953), a Dr. Seuss story about a nightmarish piano teacher. Barbara Stanwyck starred in three Rowland films, including the taut thriller Witness to Murder (1954) and the sentimental drama These Wilder Years (1956), which co-starred James Cagney.
Rowland blended comedy with outdoor adventure in Many Rivers to Cross (1955), with Eleanor Parker in a delightful turn as a backwoods gal out to get her man (Robert Taylor). Rowland, who ended his directing career in Spain in the 1960s, was the husband of Laura Cummings (a niece of MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer) and the father of actor Steve Rowland.
Tony Butala, a founding member of THE LETTERMEN, was also the singing voice of Tommy Rettig
I was there from the very beginning. I was one of five Mitchell Choirboys to answer the call to go to Columbia Studios to audition to be the voice of Tommy Rettig in the movie. Evidently he was a very good child actor, but he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. A year earlier I had recorded a Happy Birthday song for him. They knew from that experience that my voice was a match for Tommy, but I guess that they wanted to make sure that in the space of one year my voice hadn't changed. It did change but right along with Tommy's that had also changed a little in that one year. My voice was still the closest match out of about 200 kids they auditioned to be his singing voice in this film. After choosing me, they had me spend a lot of time, while on salary, with Tommy on the set. Getting reacquainted with him, studying his inflections and voice patterns so when it came time for me to record the three songs, I'd be able to match his voice exactly. I have a lot of stories of the times at the studio and the friendship that was established between Tommy and myself. We kept up our friendship somewhat until just before he passed away.
Actually no one has ever seemed interested in hearing any of these stories. My family back in the early 50's was interested but when I did this movie my family was back in our hometown of Sharon PA. and after telling them about some of the experiences long distance, and the fact that I was a very busy professional boy vocalist in Hollywood singing in other motion pictures, recordings, television shows, commercials,radio shows, and singing around the world on concert tours with the Mitchell Choirboys, the particular 5000 Finger experience faded into my memory. Since I recorded the duet "Dream Stuff" with Peter Lind Hayes I also have some very nice memories of that very dear man. I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
I checked out your adventures and it is so fascinating I think you just converted me to a "HAPPY FINGER" follower. I remember being given a beanie by one of the studio production assistants that was assigned to supervise me on the sets. I can't recall what happened to it. I do recall someone had contacted Bob Mitchell asking him if I would give up having my name on the record album credits when it was released. Not only did Mr. Mitchell tell them to fly a kite, he told them if he found out they were going to release an album using any of the songs I sang without giving me some sort of a royalty they'd be hearing from his lawyers. I really don't know if they ever officially released one.
His choirboys have been in numerous motion pictures since he originated the choir in 1933. Some of the films the choir was in are Going My Way, The Bishop’s Wife. The Jolson Story, Paleface, Angels with Dirty Faces and The Jazz Singer (the first one). All of these were made prior to my being old enough to be in the choir. While I was in the choir I was in White Christmas, On Moonlight Bay, War of the Worlds, Giant and Walt Disney's Peter Pan where I was the voice of one of the Lost Boys, and a few other little critters. As I sit here writing to you I'm really starting to get stirred about my past history with this film.
Again it was great reading your adventures in 5000 Finger Land. Until I hear from you again I remain The Little Unknown Happy Finger Boy Voice Tony
Tom Rettig (IMDB)
Mr. Rettig was the first boy who tagged after Lassie during the famous collie's 20 years on the CBS television network. An already established child star, he was chosen from over 500 other boys to play the 11 year old midwestern farm boy, Jeff Miller, when "Lassie" (1954) premiered on September 12, 1954. He stayed with the series until 1958. He made his stage debut at age 6 in the touring company of "Annie Get Your Gun", with 'Mary Martin'. His screen debut was at age 9 and he made 17 films. His most memorable screen performance was as the boy with the vivid imagination in 'The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.'
Following 'Lassie' came a troubled life filled with failure to land major adult roles, arrests and convictions for growing marijuana, divorce, and a string of jobs including photographer, tool salesman, computer programmer, and health club manager.
For the last ten or so years of his life (starting 1984, maybe earlier), Tom was a very successful software developer working on office applications. He was regarded as one of the experts in the area of Ashton-Tate's dBASE product line and related products. Several products are still named after Mr. Rettig.
HENRY (Stroogo) KULKY
11 August 1911 - 12 February 1965
Heney Kulky
Born 11 August 1911, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, USA, Henry became a boxer in his teens and soon turned to wrestling under the name 'Bomber' Kulkovich. He became a champion wrestler in the 1940s. Turning to acting, he appeared in many major movies such as A Star is Born and Compulsion (which also featured Terry Becker), and Fixed Bayonets (which starred Richard Basehart). Henry appeared in thetelevision series The Life of
The real life husband and wife team
who became “The Plumber, Zabladowski” and Mrs. Collins
Peter Lind Hayes
Peter Lind Hayes was the son of entertainer/nightclub entrepreneur Grace Hayes (1896-1989). Hayes was nine years old when he joined his mother's vaudeville act, doing an impression of Hollywood child star Jackie Coogan. He then spent several years as the star attraction of the Grace Hayes Lodge in the San Fernando Valley. In 1938, he made the first of his sporadic film appearances, and in 1940, he married his future stage and screen partner, singer/actress Mary Healy. While serving with distinction in the Army Air Force, Hayes was featured in the 1944 20th Century-Fox feature Winged Victory. From 1946 onward, the songs-and-snappy-patter team of Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healey was a top New York nightclub and theatrical attraction. They extended their activities to TV in 1949, starring in such variety series as Inside the USA With Chevrolet (1949-50), The Stork Club (1950), The Peter Lind Hayes Show (1950-51, with Mary--originally titled Peter and Mary) and Star of the Family (1951). Their last regular TV gig was the semi autobiographical 1960 sitcom Peter Loves Mary (1960). In addition, Hayes and Healey starred in the 1958 Broadway play Who Was That Lady I Saw You With?, while Hayes soloed as Arthur Godfrey's TV and radio summer replacement and as one of the post-Paar, pre-Carson hosts of The Tonight Show. While his film career never attained the heights of his activities elsewhere, Hayes enjoyed at least one truly memorable screen role: Mr. Zabladowski in the cult musical fantasy 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, co-starring wife Mary and Hans Conried. Active in a number of entertainment fields, Peter Lind Hayes was the author of three books and several magazine and newspaper articles, and served as producer-host of the 1975 anthology series When Television Was Live. -- Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Mary Healy
American variety entertainer Mary Healy was still in her teens when she sang with various dance bands at New Orleans' Roosevelt Hotel. Signed to a 20th Century-Fox film contract in 1939, she was sent on a nationwide vaudeville tour of studio contractees in 1940. During this junket she met and married nightclub comedian Peter Lynd Hayes, joining her husband's cabaret act shortly afterward. Except for a handful of film appearances and a costarring assignment in Orson Welles' Broadway production of Around the World in 80 Days, Healy worked exclusively with her husband from the mid-1940s onward. The team of Peter Lynd Hayes and Mary Healy starred in several TV shows, including the 1960 sitcom Peter Loves Mary; they were also teamed in the "cult" movie musical fantasy The 5000 Fingers of Dr.T (1953) and in the original 1958 Broadway production of Harry Kurnitz' Who Was That Lady?. -- Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Riley and Hennesey. He is fondly remembered as Chief Curley Jones in television's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He died 12 February 1965, in Oceanside, California, USA, of a heart attack.
Friedrich Hollaender - Composer
18 October 1896 - 18 Janruary 1976
Friedrich Hollaender
Frederick Hollander was the son of the composer Victor Hollaender, who composed shows in Berlin in the 1890s to 1910s. Frederick received early musical training as a student of opera composer Engelbert Humperdinck(who composed Hänsel und Gretel). He started as repetitor at a theater in Prague, and became - in spite of his classical training, that should have led to a career as classical composer - an important composer of shows and cabaret songs in Berlin in the 20s. In 1931, Hollaender opened his own cabaret,
the Tingeltangel. People flocked to this popular club, where satirizing fascism was the order of the day. A pianist and prolific composer, poet, actor, and director, Hollaender is acknowledged as the creator of the distinctive melancholy in the satire of the Weimar Republic. In 1930, he started working for the UFA when, per chance, an actress wanted him as pianist for her audition for the movie Die Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel). He was given the job as the composer for the film and the lead role went to Marlene Dietrich.
The film gave us the now famous song, Falling in Love Again and created a partnership that lasted throughout both of their careers. He even directed the Lillian Harvey movie Ich und die Kaiserin in all three versions (German/French/English). After the Nazis came to power he immigrated via France Hnd England to Hollywood, where he got a three months contract. There, he wrote songs and scores for various movies (Sometimes he collaborated with Leo Robin, Frank Loesser or Sam Coslow. In 1939, he again made a major contribution to the Marlene Dietrich mystique, collaborating with Frank Loesser on the lively ditty "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have" for the Dietrich-Jimmy Stewart western spoof Destry Rides Again. During his 23 years in the Hollywood studio system, he earned four Academy Award nominations, for Artists and Models (1937), Talk of the Town (1942) That Lady in Ermine (1947) and The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953). He returned to Germany in 1956, where he wrote the music for one more film, Das Spukschloss im Spessart (1959).
In 1961, director Billy Wilder, whose 1948 feature Berlin Affair had been scored by Frederick Hollander, nostalgically cast Hollander in One Two Three (1961) as the singer/bandleader of an East Berlin nightclub. He returned to Germany, where he continued working for shows and cabaret, this time in Munich. As composer/lyricist. He retired in the 60s, but he kept writing books till the 70s.