Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 91

After spending the past 15 years of my life with Ann Dvorak, I have ended up with a handful of items relating to her. Some things I bought with the intention of using them in the Ann-D book, while others I picked up just because I liked them. These two portraits of Sammy Lee are a little bit of both.

Sammy Lee was the head choreographer at MGM from 1929-1931, during the early craze of talkie-movie-musicals. The studio had recruited him from Broadway to oversee the dance numbers on  The Hollywood Revue of 1929, and he stuck around to work on shorts and features, including Chasing Rainbows, It’s a Great Life, and Lord Byron of Broadway.

He came on board at MGM right around the same time as a 17-year-old Ann Dvorak, who fought her way into the chorus on Hollywood Revue. It did not take Sammy Lee long to notice Ann’s gumption and strong work ethic, and she was eventually signed to a contract,  becoming Lee’s assistant choreographer. Once the public grew bored of these early musicals, Lee briefly returned to the stage and Ann started getting cast as an extra, and not much else.

The top photo was issued by MGM which I bought with the idea of using it in the book. Since I have a few photos of Ann and Sammy working together, I went with one of those instead. The second image is an 11″x14″ print from his Broadway days that I bought for dirt cheap just because he was an important figure in Ann’s early life, and it’s pretty.

Lee eventually came back to Hollywood and worked as a director and choreographer for a number of years. The last film he worked on was 1946’s Abilene Town starring – you guessed it – Ann Dvorak. I don’t know for sure that she had anything to do with his being employed on the movie, but I like to think they always remained friends.