20th October 2007 was the 50th anniversary of the death of Jack Buchanan (1891-1957); star of largely musical stage and screen, on both sides of the Atlantic. Tall and debonair, with a quiet, unassuming charm, he neither danced as well as Fred Astaire nor sang as well as Bing Crosby but Bing Crosby (one of the most successful recording artists of all time) once generously confessed that, when he stood next to Jack Buchanan, Crosby felt like a cab driver. Buchanan starred in a clutch of Andre Charlot Revues on Broadway in the 1920s as well as making several films in Hollywood; recording, along the way, songs notable for their gentle wistfulness and irony, such as: ‘A Cup of Coffee a Sandwich and You’; ‘By Myself’, ‘Good Night Vienna’, ‘They Didn’t Believe Me’; ‘That’s Entertainment’ and ‘Her Mother Came Too’.
There was also much stage work and many films back in Britain, in which he acted, often with Elsie Randolph, his partner, on and off stage, for several years; sometimes also producing and directing. JB and Elsie Randolph often stopped the show, dancing together, at fashionable nightclubs such as Ciro's.
He built and ran the Leicester Square Theatre (more recently home to the Odeon West End), even living for a while in a flat on the top of it. There used to be some photographs in there of Buchanan and Maurice Chevalier, which might be threatened by the scheduled demolition of this building but, try as I might, I can get no sense out of Odeon Cinemas in relation to their fate.
Later, he was actor-manager of the Garrick Theatre, in the Foyer of which, for many years after his death, hung a photographic portrait of him by Baron (reproduced earlier in this thread). Sadly, this picture is now tucked away in the royal retiring room.
This is highly regrettable; especially since Cary Grant once said that he had created his own screen persona out of a combination of: ‘Jack Buchanan, Noel Coward and Rex Harrison. I imagined someone I wanted to be and eventually I became that person. Or he became me’.
However, Jack Buchanan deserves to be remembered for more than just his career and influence: not least for his generosity and foresight in providing financial backing for his childhood friend and fellow Scott, John Logie Baird, who became an important pioneer of television; working at first from his workshop in Vicarage Lane, Ilford and then in the Crystal Palace, south London.
All sources of information about Jack Buchanan remark on his individual charm, his generosity to others in the profession and the fact that ‘no one ever threw any dirt at Jack Buchanan - because there wasn’t any to throw’.
Now Jack Buchanan is largely remembered for his role as Jeffrey Cordova, an egotistical stage director in one of his last films, Vincente Minnelli’s 'The Band Wagon'; ranked, along with ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, as one of MGM’s finest musicals. In this film, he co-starred with Fred Astaire, Nanette Fabray, Oscar Levant and Cyd Charise. He performed the numbers: ‘I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plan’ (a ‘top-hat-and-tails’ song and dance routine with Fred Astaire);’Triplets’ (a comic song performed with Fred Astaire and Nanette Fabray) Both Jack Buchanan and Nanette Fabray, suffered from severe back problems but, just like the stars and troupers that they were, turned in faultless performances, dressed as babies - and dancing on their knees. The finale to the film is the famous number ‘That’s Entertainment’, in which Jack Buchanan sang the first verse.
Despite vicissitudes in his career and an early death from spinal cancer, Jack Buchanan went out on a high note, dying during the hugely successful run of ‘La Plume de Ma Tante’, at the Garrick Theatre.
JB was married to a Russian ballerina, called Saffo Arnau, in 1915 and that lasted until 1920. After that, he was involved with several of his leading ladies; chiefly, Elsie Randolph, until he married again, in 1949, Susanah Bassett, who remianed his wife until he died. As he was carried out of his flat, in Mount Street, off to the Middlesex Hospital, where he died, he called a halt, so that his signature, Herbert Johnson, pearl grey, trilby could be brought! English Heritage, in an extraordinary display of ignorance and ill-feeling, expressly declined an application for an official, blue, commemorative plaque on his last home; although they acceded to a request for one to Jimi Hendrix, celebrating his brief stay, at lodgings, in London. Regardless of this outrage, a privately-funded, blue enamel plaque was erected to him, on his flat in Mount Street, Mayfair: one of the very few of its kind; raise your hat as you pass by! But, perhaps his best memorial is demonstrated by two old Garrick Theatre cleaners who were still putting clove carnations in a vase on a table beneath the Baron portrait, in the foyer of the Garrick Theatre, a couple of decades after he died; when they were interviewed by his biographer, Michael Marshall, they said: "Aw, bless 'im; there'll never be another one like 'im". A sentment reflected in his Times Obituary, which also described him as 'the last of the Knuts' [ie a fashionable, young man about Town] - who had time for everybody. Anyone listening to, or watching, his recordings - audio and visual (go to YouTube and see), would be hard-pressed to disagree.
The photograph is of JB and Elsie Randolph in a tango scene from the performance on 5th June 1928, of the show 'That's A Good Girl', at the London Hippodrome.