The Jolson Story won three Academy Awards and captured four Oscar nominations. The sequel, Jolson Sings Again, was the highest-grossing film of 1949 and received three Academy Award nominations.
Writer Stephen Hanks at left, a long-time Jolson aficionado and Sedona resident, will offer a lecture before the film showings and lead a question-and-answer session post-film.
Al Jolson, photographed before an interview with Steve Allen. (Courtesy SIFF)
The Jolson Story won three Academy Awards and captured four Oscar nominations. The sequel, Jolson Sings Again, was the highest-grossing film of 1949 and received three Academy Award nominations.
Writer Stephen Hanks at left, a long-time Jolson aficionado and Sedona resident, will offer a lecture before the film showings and lead a question-and-answer session post-film.
Before there was Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, Kanye and Jay-Z, Justin Beiber and Beyonce, Madonna and Michael Jackson, The Boss and Billy Joel, before there was Barbra, Elvis, Frank, or Judy . . . a son of Lithuanian Jews, who immigrated to America with his parents at age five, was arguably the first American pop superstar of the 20th century. And until he died in 1950 at age 64, Al Jolson was acknowledged as “The World’s Greatest Entertainer.”
Although Al Jolson remained relevant during World War II by being one of the first performers to entertain troops overseas, by 1946, his stardom and popularity had greatly diminished. But when Columbia Pictures released a film biography of Jolson’s life, The Jolson Story, it was a huge creative and financial success and it revitalized Jolson’s career.
