Rhapsody in Blue

First scene for Robert Alda as grown-up Bronxite George Gershwin, with brother Ira (Herbert Rudley) and parents (Rosemary DeCamp, Morris Carnovsky), when a message from Chico Marx leads to a meeting with an insulting Vaudevillian (Andrew Tombes), in Warner Bros.’ bio-pic Rhapsody In Blue, 1945.

Working in Tin Pan Alley, Robert Alda as George Gershwin (who would have been a teenager at the time) receives the improbably charming and fictional Julie Adams (Joan Leslie), samples his own famous tune, then gets fired by Charles Halton, in the Warner Bros.’ bio-pic Rhapsody In Blue, 1945.

Agent Max Dreyfus (Charles Coburn) is so impressed with new client George Gershwin (Robert Alda) that he introduces him to Al Jolson (as himself, in dreaded black-face) over the phone in Rhapsody In Blue, 1945.

Oscar Levant carries this Hollywood version of his real-life first meeting with George Gershwin (played by Robert Alda) in director Irving Rapper's Warner Bros. bio-pic Rhapsody In Blue, 1945.

Bandleader Paul Whiteman and impresario George White play themselves after the failure of a Blues number by George Gershwin (Robert Alda), who commiserates with brother Ira (Herbert Rudley) and Professor Frank (Albert Basserman), as a new idea emerges, in the bio-pic Rhapsody In Blue, 1945.

The real Hazel Scott (seen here) likely never met George Gershwin (played by Robert Alda), but she was known for great performances of his songs, imagined here in the Warner Bros.’ bio-pic, in a Paris nightclub, where he’ll also meet Alexis Smith as fictional Christine, in Rhapsody In Blue, 1945.

Robert Alda stars in Rhapsody in Blue (1945), a fictionalized biography of composer George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway.