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44-520: Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft was founded in 1898 by German-born United States citizen Emile Berliner as the German branch of his Berliner Gramophone Company. Berliner sent his nephew Joseph Sanders from America to set up operations. Based in the city of Hanover (the founder's birthplace), the company became a fully owned subsidiary of the Gramophone Company Ltd. in 1900 and an affiliate of

88-528: A " Valentino type". He was often cast in similar, exotic roles. Towards the end of the silent era, Colman was teamed with Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky under Samuel Goldwyn ; the two were a popular film team, rivalling Greta Garbo and John Gilbert . Although he was a huge success in silent films, he was unable to capitalise on one of his chief assets until the advent of the talking picture – "his beautifully modulated and cultured voice" also described as "a bewitching, finely modulated, resonant voice". Colman

132-675: A helicopter for the United States Army . Henry became disillusioned with helicopters in 1925, and the company shut down. In 1926, Henry Berliner founded the Berliner Aircraft Company, which merged to become Berliner-Joyce Aircraft in 1929. Berliner's other inventions include a new type of loom for mass-production of cloth and an acoustic tile . Berliner, who suffered a nervous breakdown in 1914, also advocated for improvements in public health and sanitation . He also advocated for women's equality and, in 1908, established

176-551: A lightweight rotary engine. Berliner obtained automobile engines from the Adams Company in Dubuque, Iowa, whose Adams-Farwell automobile used air-cooled three- or five-cylinder rotary engines developed in-house by Fay Oliver Farwell (1859–1935). Berliner, his assistant R.S. Moore, and Farwell developed a 36-hp rotary engine for use in helicopters, an innovation on the heavier inline engines then in use. In 1909, Berliner founded

220-597: A lung infection, and suffered from ill health afterwards. He was hospitalized and died on 19 May 1958, aged 67, from acute emphysema in Santa Barbara, California , and was interred in the Santa Barbara Cemetery . He had a daughter, Juliet Benita (born 1944), with his second wife, Benita Hume. Colman was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actor. At the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony he received

264-600: A merchant, as was family tradition. While his real hobby was invention, he worked as an accountant to make ends meet. To avoid being drafted in the Franco-Prussian War , Berliner migrated to the United States of America in 1870 with a friend of his father's, in whose shop he worked in Washington, D.C. He moved to New York and, living off temporary work such a paper route and cleaning bottles, he studied physics at night at

308-576: A private researcher. Berliner also developed a rotary engine and an early version of the helicopter . According to a July 1, 1909, report in The New York Times , a helicopter built by Berliner and J. Newton Williams of Derby, Connecticut , had Williams "from the ground on three occasions" at Berliner's laboratory in the Brightwood neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Between 1907 and 1926, Berliner worked on technologies for vertical flight, including

352-447: A rare turn giving the evening's credits at the show's conclusion. The Halls of Ivy ran on NBC radio from 1950 to 1952; an adaptation of the same name was on CBS television for the 1954–55 season. Colman was also the host and occasional star of the syndicated anthology Favorite Story (1946–49). Of note was his narration and portrayal of Scrooge in a 1948 adaptation of A Christmas Carol . In 1957, Colman had surgery for

396-487: A reputation for high-quality recording in the classical field as well as a notable roster of contracted singers, musicians, and conductors. Through its subsidiary label Archiv Produktion it also stimulated interest in Western medieval and renaissance music, 15th – 16th century choral polyphony, Gregorian chant , and pioneering use of "historical instruments" and performance practices in recordings. DGG/ Polydor 's entrance into

440-818: A scholarship program, the Sarah Berliner Research Fellowship , in honor of his mother. On August 3, 1929, Berliner died of a heart attack at his home at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., at the age of 78. He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., alongside his wife and a son, Herbert Samuel Berliner . Patent images in Tag Image File Format Ronald Colman Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958)

484-479: A single nomination for his work in two films; Bulldog Drummond (1929) and Condemned (1929). He was nominated again for Random Harvest (1942), before winning for A Double Life (1947), in which he played the role of Anthony John, an actor playing Othello who comes to identify with the character. He also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in 1947 for A Double Life . In 2002, Colman's Oscar statuette

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528-517: A third of each recording's cover, first appeared in 1957 and was a staple of the majority of its full-price recordings until the early years of the 21st century, when it all but disappeared from new releases. It has since enjoyed something of a revival in newer recordings. In 1962, Siemens formed a joint venture with Netherlands-based Philips to create the DGG/PPI Record Group, which became PolyGram Records in 1972. By this time, DGG had built

572-471: The Berlin Philharmonic for sale in the new medium in 1983, the first recording being Richard Strauss's Eine Alpensinfonie . Deutsche Grammophon has a huge back catalogue of notable recordings. The company was reissuing a portion of it in its Originals series; compact disc releases are noted for their vinyl record stylized design. It is also releasing some of American Decca Records ' albums from

616-1103: The Booth Theatre in New York City in January 1921, he played the Temple Priest in William Archer 's play The Green Goddess . With George Arliss at the 39th Street Theatre in August 1921, he appeared as Charles in The Nightcap . In September 1922, he had great success as Alain Sergyll at the Empire Theatre in New York City in La Tendresse , which was to be his final stage work. Colman had first appeared in films in Britain in 1917 and 1919 for director Cecil Hepworth . He subsequently acted for

660-1282: The CBS radio network over La Cadena de las Americas (The Network of the Americas) under the supervision of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs chaired by Nelson Rockefeller . In the process, he contributed substantially to the implementation of President Franklin Roosevelt 's cultural diplomacy initiatives throughout South America during World War II. Colman's vocal talents contributed to National Broadcasting Company programming on D-Day , 6 June 1944. On that day, Colman read "Poem and Prayer for an Invading Army" written by Edna St. Vincent Millay for exclusive radio use by NBC. Beginning in 1945, Colman made many guest appearances on The Jack Benny Program on radio, alongside his second wife, stage and screen actress Benita Hume, whom he married in 1938. Their comedy work as Benny's perpetually exasperated next-door neighbors led to their own radio comedy The Halls of Ivy from 1950 to 1952, created by Fibber McGee & Molly mastermind Don Quinn , on which

704-554: The Cooper Union Institute . After some time working in a livery stable, Berliner became interested in the new audio technology of the telephone and phonograph . He invented an improved telephone transmitter, one of the first types of microphones . The patent was acquired by the Bell Telephone Company (see The Telephone Cases ), but contested, in a long legal battle, by Thomas Edison . On February 27, 1901,

748-651: The Gyro Motor Company in Washington, D.C. The company's principals included Berliner, president; Moore, designer and engineer; and Joseph Sanders (1877–1944), inventor, engineer, and manufacturer. The manager of the company was Spencer Heath (1876–1963), a mechanical engineer who was connected with the American Propeller Manufacturing Company , a manufacturer of aeronautical related mechanisms and products in Baltimore, Maryland. By 1910, Berliner

792-549: The United States Court of Appeals would declare Berliner's patent void and awarded Edison full rights to the invention. "Edison preceded Berliner in the transmission of speech," the court would write. "The use of carbon in a transmitter is, beyond controversy, the invention of Edison". Berliner moved to Boston in 1877, where he became a United States citizen four years later. He worked for Bell Telephone until 1883, when he returned to Washington and established himself as

836-589: The 1940s and 1950s, such as those that Leonard Bernstein made for Decca in 1953, and the classic Christmas album that features Ronald Colman 's starring in A Christmas Carol and Charles Laughton 's narrating Mr. Pickwick's Christmas . Along with the American Decca Records classical music catalogue, Deutsche Grammophon also manages the classical music catalogue of ABC Records , including Westminster Records which, along with American Decca, were part of MCA Records . Although Deutsche Grammophon acquired

880-514: The Colmans played the literate, charming president of a middle American college and his former-actress wife. Listeners were surprised to discover that the episode of 24 January 1951, "The Goya Bequest" – a story examining the bequest of a Goya painting that was suspected of being a fraud hyped by its late owner to avoid paying customs duties when bringing it to the United States – was written by Colman himself, who poked fun at his accomplishment while taking

924-574: The Gramophone Company and Victor. In 1941, Deutsche Grammophon was purchased by Siemens & Halske . In 1949, Deutsche Grammophon sold the German rights of the His Master's Voice trademark to the Electrola unit of EMI . The dog and gramophone were replaced by the crown of tulips, designed by Siemens advertising consultant Hans Domizlaff. The distinctive yellow cartouche banner, occupying almost

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968-805: The Town in 1942. He won the Best Actor Oscar in 1948 for A Double Life . He next starred in a screwball comedy, 1950's Champagne for Caesar . At the time of his death, Colman was contracted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the lead role in Village of the Damned . After Colman's death, however, the film transferred production from MGM Studios in Culver City, California to MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood , England. George Sanders , who married Colman's widow, Benita Hume ,

1012-583: The US Victor Talking Machine Company . After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the company seceded from the Gramophone Company. Though no longer affiliated with Gramophone Company and Victor, Deutsche Grammophon retained the " His Master's Voice " trademark featuring Nipper the dog for use in Germany until the late 1940s; for several years following its secession, the company even continued selling recordings made from pre-war matrices owned by

1056-770: The US market in 1969 (DGG had previous been distributed in the US by Decca and MGM Records ) came at a time when the leading US classical music labels RCA Victor Red Seal and Columbia Masterworks were dropping most of their unlucrative classical artists and pressing inferior quality records. DGG's high quality recordings and pressings attracted artists such as Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra (who had recorded for RCA Victor since 1935) and Leonard Bernstein (after several years with Columbia) to DGG/Polydor. In 1987, Siemens sold off its interest in PolyGram, and Philips became

1100-897: The following year he appeared in Eugène Brieux 's Damaged Goods . At the Ambassadors Theatre in February 1918, he played George Lubin in The Little Brother . In 1918, he toured the UK as David Goldsmith in The Bubble . In 1920, Colman went to America and toured with Robert Warwick in The Dauntless Three and subsequently toured with Fay Bainter in East Is West . He married his first wife, Thelma Raye, in 1920; they divorced in 1934. At

1144-695: The label is Herbert von Karajan . Other conductors under contract included Ferenc Fricsay , Carlos Kleiber , Karl Böhm , Karl Richter , Eugen Jochum , Rafael Kubelík , Leonard Bernstein , Pierre Boulez , Claudio Abbado , and Christian Thielemann . Recent signings include Long Yu , Yannick Nézet-Séguin , Gustavo Dudamel , Hera Hyesang Park , and Myung-whun Chung . The label's Recomposed series features electronic adaptations of classical works. 52°29′52″N 13°27′43″E  /  52.49785°N 13.4619°E  / 52.49785; 13.4619 Emile Berliner Emile Berliner (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929) originally Emil Berliner ,

1188-511: The majority shareholder. In 1998, the Seagram company of Canada purchased Deutsche Grammophon and PolyGram on behalf of its Universal Music Group subsidiary. Since then, UMG was sold and became a division of Vivendi until its IPO in September 2021. Deutsche Grammophon pioneered the introduction of the compact disc to the mass market, debuting classical music performed by Herbert von Karajan and

1232-795: The old Broadwest Film Company in Snow in the Desert . While he was on stage in New York City in La Tendresse , director Henry King saw him and engaged him as the leading man in the 1923 film The White Sister , opposite Lillian Gish . He was an immediate success. Thereafter, Colman virtually abandoned the stage for film. He became a very popular silent film star in both romantic and adventure films, among them The Dark Angel (1925), Stella Dallas (1926), Beau Geste (1926), and The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926). His dark hair and eyes and his athletic and riding ability (he did most of his own stunts until late in his career ) led reviewers to describe him as

1276-687: The professional stage in 1914. While working as a clerk with Watts, Watts & Co., Ltd. (managers of the Britain Steamship Company) in the City of London , he joined the London Scottish Regiment in 1909 as a Territorial Force soldier. At the outbreak of the First World War , he was mobilised, and sent to France in September 1914. On 31 October 1914, at the Battle of Messines , Colman

1320-539: The recordings and re-released them on his own label. Other German composers associated with the label included Paul Hindemith and Hans Werner Henze . Contemporary composers whose works were released by Deutsche Grammophon include Hildur Guðnadóttir , Sofia Gubaidulina , Oliver Knussen , Mark-Anthony Turnage , Mohammed Fairouz , Péter Eötvös , Luigi Nono , Sven Helbig , Jonny Greenwood , Bryce Dessner , Witold Lutosławski , Philip Glass , Vangelis , Tori Amos and Max Richter . The conductor most associated with

1364-455: The reputation of releasing mainstream classical recordings, from the 1960s onwards it released an increasing number of avant-garde recordings (initially under the Avant-Garde imprint), including Bruno Maderna , David Bedford , Cornelius Cardew , Luigi Nono and improvisations. It also released the majority of the compositions of Karlheinz Stockhausen until the composer bought the rights to

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1408-556: The starring role in the Technicolor classic Kismet (1944), with Marlene Dietrich , which was nominated for four Academy Awards . In 1947, he won an Academy Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for the film A Double Life . Colman was an inaugural recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in motion pictures. He was awarded a second star for his television work. Ronald Charles Colman

1452-834: The war. Colman had sufficiently recovered from his wartime injuries to appear at the London Coliseum on 19 June 1916 as Rahmat Sheikh in The Maharani of Arakan , with Lena Ashwell , at the Playhouse in December that year as Stephen Weatherbee in the Charles Goddard / Paul Dickey play The Misleading Lady , and at the Court Theatre in March 1917 as Webber in Partnership . At the same theatre,

1496-590: Was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record (called a "gramophone record" in British and American English) used with a gramophone . He founded the United States Gramophone Company in 1894. Berliner was born in Hanover , Germany, in 1851 into a Jewish merchant family. Though Jewish, he eventually became agnostic. He completed an apprenticeship to become

1540-632: Was an English-born actor, starting his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then emigrating to the United States where he had a highly successful Hollywood film career. He starred in silent films and successfully transitioned to sound, aided by a distinctive, pleasing voice. He was most popular during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. He received Oscar nominations for Bulldog Drummond (1929), Condemned (1929) and Random Harvest (1942). Colman starred in several classic films, including A Tale of Two Cities (1935), Lost Horizon (1937) and The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). He also played

1584-553: Was an aristocratic figure, without being aloof." His first major talkie success was in 1930, when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for two roles – Condemned and Bulldog Drummond . He thereafter appeared in a number of notable films: Raffles in 1930, Clive of India and A Tale of Two Cities in 1935, Under Two Flags in 1936, The Prisoner of Zenda and Lost Horizon in 1937, If I Were King in 1938, and Random Harvest and The Talk of

1628-647: Was born in Richmond , Surrey , England, the third son (his eldest brother died in infancy in 1882) and fifth child of Charles Colman, a silk merchant and mantle manufacturer, and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His surviving siblings were Gladys, Edith, Eric and Freda. He was a cousin of the Labour politician Grace Colman . He attended Rolandseck School in Ealing under the German-born headmaster Ernst Felix Marx (1858-1942). Later he

1672-457: Was cast in the role intended for Colman. Colman has been mentioned in many novels, but he is specifically mentioned in Ralph Ellison 's Invisible Man because of his charming, well-known voice. The main character of this novel says that he wishes he could have a voice like Colman's because it is charming, and relates the voice to that of a gentleman or a man from Esquire magazine. Colman

1716-538: Was educated at Hadleigh House School in Littlehampton , where he discovered that he enjoyed acting, despite his shyness. He intended to study engineering at Cambridge , but his father's sudden death from pneumonia in 1907 made it financially impossible. He became a well-known amateur actor, and was a member of the West Middlesex Dramatic Society in 1908–09. He made his first appearance on

1760-399: Was experimenting with the use of a vertically mounted tail rotor to counteract torque on his single-main-rotor design, a configuration that led to practical helicopters of the 1940s. The building used for these operations exists at 774 Girard Street NW, Washington, D.C., where its principal facade is in the Fairmont-Girard alleyway. On June 16, 1922, Berliner and his son, Henry , demonstrated

1804-415: Was indeed very well known for his voice. Encyclopædia Britannica says that Colman had a "resonant, mellifluous speaking voice with a unique, pleasing timbre". Along with his charming voice, Colman had a very confident performing manner that helped make him a major star of sound films. As early as 1942, Colman joined forces with several other Hollywood luminaries to inaugurate international broadcasts by

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1848-401: Was often viewed as a suave English gentleman, whose voice embodied chivalry and mirrored the image of a "stereotypical English gentleman". Commenting on Colman's appeal, English film critic David Shipman stated that Colman was "the dream lover – calm, dignified, trustworthy. Although he was a lithe figure in adventure stories, his glamour – which was genuine – came from his respectability; he

1892-415: Was seriously wounded by shrapnel in his ankle, which gave him a limp that he would attempt to hide throughout his acting career. As a consequence, he was honourably discharged in 1915, and received the Silver War Badge due to the wounds received in the war. His fellow Hollywood actors Claude Rains , Herbert Marshall , Cedric Hardwicke , and Basil Rathbone all saw service with the London Scottish in

1936-538: Was sold at auction by Christie's for US$ 174,500. Colman was a recipient of the George Eastman Award , given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film. Colman has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, one for motion pictures at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard and one for television at 1623 Vine Street. He is the subject of a biography written by his daughter Juliet Benita Colman in 1975: Ronald Colman: A Very Private Person . The Dublin slang term "ronnie", referring to

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