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New York circa 1922. "Purcell." The stage actor Charles Purcell and his Cadillac. 5x7 inch glass negative, Bain News Service / George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.
Charles Purcell and Helen Ford introduced the song "Here in My Arms" in "Dearest Enemy."
The song was later recorded by Doris Day, Ella Fitzgerald, and (surprising) the Mamas and the Papas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6PiknJ9stg
This appears to be a Type-61, which would have set Mr. Purcell back about $4,000 (the horn was probably extra)
This ad, clipped from a Kansas City newspaper, is interesting not just for the product but also who ran it: Greenlease ... Kansas City ... would become a household name some three decades later.
He seems to have been coming off a mediocre production, "The Rose Girl", which opened February 21, 1921, and closed after 99 performances. His character was Victor Marquis de la Roche, and it looks like he kept up the swagger.
His next Broadway role was more than three years later, but a bigger deal: the first Rodgers and Hart musical, "Dearest Enemy', which ran for 286 performances. Between roles, he kept up his Cadillac with production jobs. In the 1940s and later, he worked occasionally in movies and television. Died at 77 in 1962.
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