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- Music Department
- Actor
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Leon Redbone was born on 26 August 1949 in Nicosia, Cyprus. He was an actor and composer, known for Elf (2003), 50 First Dates (2004) and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010). He was married to Beryl Handler,. He died on 30 May 2019 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, USA.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Andrew Sinclair was born on 21 January 1935. He was a writer and director, known for The Breaking of Bumbo (1970), Tuxedo Warrior (1982) and Under Milk Wood (1971). He died on 30 May 2019.- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Cacho Tirao was born on 5 April 1941 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was an actor and composer, known for La ñata contra el vidrio (1972), Vallejos (1972) and Trapito (1975). He died on 30 May 2007 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Charles Hutchison was born on 3 December 1879 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Lightning Hutch (1926), The Judgement Book (1935) and Bachelor Mother (1932). He was married to Edith Thornton. He died on 30 May 1949 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Clarice Taylor was born on 20 September 1917 in Buckingham County, Virginia, USA. She was an actress, known for Play Misty for Me (1971), The Cosby Show (1984) and Smoke (1995). She was married to Maxwell Glanville. She died on 30 May 2011 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
William Claude Rains, born in the Clapham area of London, was the son of the British stage actor Frederick Rains. The younger Rains followed, making his stage debut at the age of eleven in "Nell of Old Drury." Growing up in the world of theater, he saw not only acting up close but the down-to-earth business end as well, progressing from a page boy to a stage manager during his well-rounded learning experience. Rains decided to come to America in 1913 and the New York theater, but with the outbreak of World War I the next year, he returned to serve with a Scottish regiment in Europe. He remained in England, honing his acting talents, bolstered with instruction patronized by the founder of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Herbert Beerbohm Tree. It was not long before his talent garnered him acknowledgment as one of the leading stage actors on the London scene. His one and only silent film venture was British with a small part for him, the forgettable -- Build Thy House (1920).
In the meantime, Rains was in demand as acting teacher as well, and he taught at the Royal Academy. Young and eager Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud were perhaps his best known students. Rains did return to New York in 1927 to begin what would be nearly 20 Broadway roles. While working for the Theater Guild, he was offered a screen test with Universal Pictures in 1932. Rains had a unique and solid British voice-deep, slightly rasping -- but richly dynamic. And as a man of small stature, the combination was immediately intriguing. Universal was embarking on its new-found role as horror film factory, and they were looking for someone unique for their next outing, The Invisible Man (1933). Rains was the very man. He took the role by the ears, churning up a rasping malice and volume in his voice to achieve a bone chilling persona of the disembodied mad doctor. He could also throw out a high-pitched maniac laugh that would make you leave the lights on before going to bed. True to Universal's formula mentality, it cast him in similar roles through 1934 with some respite in more diverse film roles -- and further relieved by Broadway roles (1933, 1934) for the remainder of his contract. By 1936, he was at Warner Bros. with its ambitious laundry list of literary epics in full swing. His acting was superb, and his eyes could say as much as his voice. And his mouth could take on both a forbidding scowl and the warmest of smiles in an instant. His malicious, gouty Don Luis in Anthony Adverse (1936) was inspired. After a shear lucky opportunity to dispatch his young wife's lover, Louis Hayward, in a duel, he triumphs over her in a scene with derisive, bulging eyes and that high pitched laugh -- with appropriate shadow and light backdrop -- that is unforgettable.
He was kept very busy through the remainder of the 1930s with a mix of benign and devious historical, literary, and contemporary characters always adapting a different nuance -- from murmur to growl -- of that voice to become the person. He culminated the decade with his complex, ethics-tortured Senator "Joe" Paine in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). That year he became an American citizen. Into the 1940s, Rains had risen to perhaps unique stature: a supporting actor who had achieved A-list stardom -- almost in a category by himself. His some 40 films during that period ranged from subtle comedy to psychological drama with a bit of horror revisited; many would be golden era classics. He was the firm but thoroughly sympathetic Dr. Jaquith in Now, Voyager (1942) and the smoothly sardonic but engaging Capt. Louis Renault -- perhaps his best known role -- in Casablanca (1942). He was the surreptitiously nervous and malignant Alexander Sebastian in Notorious (1946) and the egotistical and domineering conductor Alexander Hollenius in Deception (1946). He was the disfigured Phantom of the Opera (1943) as well. He played opposite the challenging Bette Davis in three movies through the decade and came out her equal in acting virtuosity. He was nominated four times for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar -- but incredibly never won. With the 1950s the few movies left to an older Rains were countered by venturing into new acting territory -- television. His haunted, suicidal writer Paul DeLambre in the mountaineering adventure The White Tower (1950), though a modest part, was perhaps the most vigorously memorable film role of his last years. He made a triumphant Broadway return in 1951's "Darkness at Noon."
Rains embraced the innovative TV playhouse circuit with nearly 20 roles. As a favored 'Alfred Hitchcock' alumnus, he starred in five Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) suspense dramas into the 1960s. And he did not shy away from episodic TV either with some memorable roles that still reflected the power of Claude Rains as consummate actor -- for many, first among peers with that hallowed title.- Actor
- Soundtrack
"You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh; the fundamental things apply, as time goes by...". . The gentleman who crooned this now legendary tune for the morose Humphrey Bogart and moist-eyed Ingrid Bergman at Rick's Cafe Americain amid the bleak WWII backdrop was none other than 56-year-old Arthur "Dooley" Wilson, an African-American actor and singer who earned a comfortable niche for himself in film history with this simple, dramatic, piano-playing scene.
Dooley was born Arthur Wilson in Tyler, Texas. His exact year of birth was debated for years, listed in reference books as either 1886 or 1894. His grave marker, however, at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles gives the year 1886. At age 12 he performed in minstrel shows and later became a fixture in black theater in both Chicago and New York (circa 1908). He received the nickname "Dooley" while working in the Pekin Theatre in Chicago, because of his then-signature Irish song "Mr. Dooley," which he usually performed in whiteface as an Irishman. In subsequent years Dooley displayed his musical skills in various forms. As a vaudevillian, drummer and jazz band leader, he entertained both here and in 1920s European tours (Paris, London, etc). From the 1930s to the 1950s he focused on theatrical musicals and occasional films.
Appearing in such diverse Broadway plays as the comedy "Conjur Man Dies (1936) and the melodrama "The Strangler Fig" (1940), along with various Federal Theater productions for Orson Welles and John Houseman. This exposure led directly to his signing on as a contract player with Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. He unfortunately began things off in era stereotypes as porters, chauffeurs and the like. Unhappy with his movie roles he was about to abandon Hollywood altogether when Paramount lent him out to Warner Bros. for the piano-playing role of Sam and the rest is history. In Casablanca (1942), Dooley immortalized the song "As Time Goes By" as boss and nightclub owner Rick Blaine (Bogart) and lost true love Ilsa Lund (Bergman) briefly rekindled an old romantic flame. While paid only $350 a week for his services, Dooley achieved his own immortality as well. However, he was not a pianist in real life and was dubbed while fingering the keyboard. In addition to "As Time Goes By," Dooley's character did warm renditions of "It Had To Be You," "Shine," "Knock On Wood" and "Parlez-moi d'amour."
Back on the live stage Dooley portrayed an escaped slave in the musical "Bloomer Girl" (1946) and, as a result, made another song famous, "The Eagle and Me," which went on for inclusion in the Smithsonian recordings compilation "American Musical Theatre." He graced approximately twenty other motion pictures in all, including the war-era musicals Stormy Weather (1943) and Higher and Higher (1943).
In his final season of performing (1952-1953) Dooley was a regular on the TV sitcom Beulah (1950) which starred Ethel Waters. He played the title maid's boyfriend Bill Jackson and Dooley was the second of three actors who would play the role during its three-season run. Dooley died of natural causes on May 30, 1953, and was survived by wife, Estelle, who subsequently passed away in 1971.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Most baby-boomers remember actress Elena Verdugo from her pleasant, plain but rather dowdy Emmy-nominated role as "Consuelo Lopez", the altruistic assistant and sometime aide-de-camp to Robert Young's general practitioner for several seasons on the popular Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) dramatic series. However, decades before donning her drab white nurse's hat, she was an alluring 40s Universal player who displayed her best assets in their "B" adventure yarns and horror opuses. One who was probably wise to keep a set of hoop earrings nearby at all times, Elena reliably hauled out a reliable number of gypsies, harem dancers, peasant girls, Indian maidens and senoritas over the years before TV instigated the second stretch of her career.
Elena was born April 20, 1925, in Paso Robles, California, and began putting on dance shoes as a kindergartener. At age 6, she made her movie debut in the western Cavalier of the West (1931) starring Harry Carey, but didn't come back to films until her teen years. She nominally provided exotic footwork for such movies as Down Argentine Way (1940) with Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda, the Tyrone Power starrer Blood and Sand (1941), and the war picture To the Shores of Tripoli (1942), among others. She received her first big break featured as the object of desire of George Sanders's impressionist painter Paul Gauguin in The Moon and Sixpence (1942).
Universal used her consistently in the mid- to late-40s, starting her off as the touching and vulnerable gypsy girl "Ilonka" in the multiple monster bash House of Frankenstein (1944) which featured the holy horror trinity of Dracula, the Werewolf and Frankenstein's Monster. A natural blonde who got plenty of wear out of the dark wigs handed to her for these kinds of roles, her best scenes in the movie were with the doomed lycanthropic "Larry Talbot", played by Lon Chaney Jr.. She went on to appear with Chaney again in The Frozen Ghost (1945). While filming the Abbott and Costello comedy Little Giant (1946), she met and married movie writer Charles R. Marion, who also wrote for the comedy duo's radio show. The couple had one son, Richard Marion, who later became an actor/director in his own right. A real trooper despite her stereotype, Elena forged on in nothing-special "easterns" (i.e., Song of Scheherazade (1947); Thief of Damascus (1952)) and westerns (i.e., El Dorado Pass (1948); The Big Sombrero (1949)) playing whatever ethnic the script called for.
Television became a reality in the early 1950s. She found herself in a major sitcom hit playing a Brooklyn-born secretary for four seasons on Meet Millie (1952), initially replacing Audrey Totter in the lead role on radio. Elena retired for a time after this but eventually returned to perform on the occasional musical stage and on the small screen. After her big success as the nurse/receptionist on the "Welby" series, she slowed down considerably, but she and Young did reunite on The Return of Marcus Welby, M.D. (1984), sans the other series' star, James Brolin, a decade later.
Verdugo, who later married psychiatrist Charles Rosey Rosewall after her divorce from writer Marion, has since appeared occasionally at nostalgia-based film/TV conventions. In 1999, she suffered the loss of her only child, actor/director Richard Marion, to a heart attack. He was only 50. She survived her second husband, who died in 2012, by five years, dying at age 92 on May 30, 2017, in Los Angeles.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ella Raines was born in Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, in 1920. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the University of Washington as a drama student and participated in many plays. Following graduation, she traveled to New York and the lights of Broadway. She was eventually signed by Howard Hawks and played in Corvette K-225 (1943) as the love interest of Randolph Scott. She appeared in many A pictures very quickly, including Tall in the Saddle (1944) opposite John Wayne. She co-starred in many other films opposite such stars as Vincent Price, William Powell and Brian Donlevy (turning in a good performance as a spunky garage owner in director Arthur Lubin's underrated Impact (1949)). In the early 1950s she had her own TV series, Janet Dean, Registered Nurse (1954), and also had a short-lived recording career during that period. She died in 1988.- Actor
- Composer
Elpidio Herrera was born on 23 December 1947 in Atamisqui, Santiago del Estero, Argentina. He was an actor and composer, known for La savia del algarrobo (2000), 7 Salamancas (2013) and Aire de chacarera (2012). He died on 30 May 2019 in Santiago del Estero, Argentina.- Additional Crew
Frank Lucas was born on 9 September 1930 in La Grange, North Carolina, USA. He is known for America's Book of Secrets (2012), Mobsters (1997) and Gangland (2007). He was married to Julianna Farrait. He died on 30 May 2019 in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, USA.- Gabriel Gascon was born on 8 January 1927 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was an actor, known for Les belles histoires des pays d'en haut (1956), Possible Worlds (2000) and Mars and April (2012). He was married to Gisèle Mauricet. He died on 30 May 2018 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Giorgio Tozzi was born on 8 January 1923 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1971), South Pacific (1958) and Amahl and the Night Visitors (1978). He was married to Monte Amundsen and Catherine Dieringer. He died on 30 May 2011 in Bloomington, Indiana, USA.- Actress
Helen Hanft was born in The Bronx in New York City in 1934. She began her career on the stage in the late 1950s in theatre productions after studying drama at The Performing Arts High School. She transferred to Off-Off-Broadway productions, starring in a series of plays written by Tom Eyen. One of the plays was to make Hanft a star of both Off-Off-Broadway and the avant-garde underground, bringing her a cult following in the years to come. This was the groundbreaking "Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down" in which she portrayed Hanna O'Brien, a cinema ticket kiosk employee who spent her nights standing over a breezehole in Coney Island for sexual thrills. She is well-documented in many books and writings for having made theatre history with her performances and being at the center of such renowned companies as Theatre of The Eye and an integral part of the La Mama E.T.C. and Caffe Cino families. She continued to appear in plays for both Tom Eyen and other various New York playwrights throughout the 1960's and 1970's but later went on to develop a considerable film career. She still frequents the New York stage in mostly Off-Broadway productions there playing everything from distressed mothers to eccentric dying matriarchs to monstrously wicked society women. Occasionally Hanft appears in such popular television fare as Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001). She is perhaps best known for her roles in Used People (1992) as the ever-endearing "Aunt Ruthie" (opposite Shirley MacLaine) and as the almost villainous Department of Motor Vehicles employee, "Miss Hellberg" (originally the character was named "Miss Heilman" in the script), in License to Drive (1988) (opposite former teen heartthrob Corey Haim). Hanft also left indelible marks in such films as Stardust Memories (1980), (directed by Woody Allen), Honky Tonk Freeway (1981) (directed by the late John Schlesinger), Arthur (1981), (opposite Dudley Moore), and Moonstruck (1987), (opposite Cher) as the liquor store owner, Lotte. A marvelous actress of many facets and great depth, Hanft still delights and thrills audiences today with her film and stage characterizations.- Horacio García Blanco died on 30 May 2002 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jack Raine was born on 18 May 1897 in Willesden, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Julius Caesar (1953), The Middle Watch (1930) and Not as a Stranger (1955). He was married to Theodora Moreau Wilson, Sonia Somers and Binnie Hale. He died on 30 May 1979 in South Laguna, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
One of the most popular and respected actors to come from the French "New Wave" film movement, Jean-Claude Brialy was born to a military family, which included one brother, in French colonial Algeria on March 30, 1933. Residing in various places while his father, a colonel with the French Army, went through the paces of his career, Brialy attended military school in 1946 and also worked in the theatre as a youth. He studied dramatics at a conservatory in Strasbourg, France, the Saint-Etienne Episcopal College.
Following time spent in the theatre, he moved to Paris in 1954 to pursue his career, without the support of his family, and worked various odd jobs before entering military service in Germany. Mixing in with a revolutionary group of artists that included Claude Chabrol and Jean-Luc Godard, he appeared as an extra in Jean Renoir's Elena and Her Men (1956) [Paris Does Strange things] and befriended other such rising film radicals as Éric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette while appearing in their short films. He grew in stature with featured roles in Girl in His Pocket (1957) [Girl in His Pocket] and L'ami de la famille (1957) [A Friend of the Family], but it was his friend Chabrol who provided him the leap to stardom with Le Beau Serge (1958), which is (arguably) considered the forerunner in "New Wave" filming. Co-starring Gérard Blain in the title role, Brialy played a city boy sophisticate returning to his simplified home village just to find that everything had changed and that his once promising friend (Blain) had become a chronic drunkard. He and Blain furthered their stars next playing each other's kin in Chabrol's The Cousins (1959), with Blain the innocent and Bialy the darkly disillusioned cousin. Bialy's association with other French avant-garde directors, including Godard, 'Francois Truffaut' and Louis Malle, placed him in excellent "New Wave" company alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Léaud and the afore-mentioned Blain, as strong, influential leading men.
Known for his lightness, passion, charm and subtlety of performance, Bialy's versatility in films ranged from stark melodrama to comedy farce. While essaying the elegant boulevardier with great sophistication and sympathy, he could just as easily slip into a character's dark and deep cynicism and/or contempt. He starred opposite a fantasia of Europe's loveliest leading ladies including Rosanna Schiaffino, Danielle Darrieux, Nadja Tiller, Elsa Martinelli, Françoise Dorléac, Geneviève Page and Dawn Addams. He ended the 60s notably paired with the enigmatic Jeanne Moreau in Truffaut's stylish Hitchockian thriller The Bride Wore Black (1968) [The Bride Wore Black].
In the 1970s Brialy extended his talents to include writing and directing, which included his debut film, the award-winning Églantine (1972). Most of the works he helmed were delightfully nostalgic and family-oriented in fashion. He also entered a newer phase of supporting character roles that also went on to court awards. After beginning the decade in one of his best film leads with Claire's Knee (1970) [Claire's Knee] for director/friend Rohmer, he earned a supporting César nomination for The Judge and the Assassin (1976) and then won the trophy a decade later for his secondary work in Les innocents (1987). During this time he also organized or supported several film and theatre festivals. He was the director of both the Théâtre Hébertot (1977) and the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens (1986). A long time artistic director of the Festival of Anjou (1985-2001), he was also the creator and artistic director of the Festival of Ramatuelle from 1985. His work also included radio and extensive TV.
Off stage Brialy was a witty raconteur and bon vivant. He was also one of the select few French stars to be openly gay. It was most fitting that two of his more notable roles came late in life -- as the gay uncle in Chabrol's Inspector Lavardin (1986), and as the poet Max Jacob in Monsieur Max (2007), a homosexual Jew who converted to Catholicism before perishing in a Gestapo prison camp.
An occasional yet prolific writer on film, Brialy penned his autobiography Le ruisseau des singes (auto) in 2000 and his memoir, J'ai oublié de vous dire, in 2004. He owned a restaurant, L'Orangerie, in the Saint Louis Island of Paris and died on May 30, 2007, after a extended bout with cancer. Among his many honors: The Commander of the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jessie Ralph was a sailor's daughter, who first came to the stage at the age of 16, performing with a stock company in either Boston, Massachusetts, or Providence, Rhode Island (accounts differ). The year was 1880, and it took Jessie another 26 years to make her debut on the Great White Way in "The Kreutzer Sonata". Already a seasoned actress, she enjoying third billing. Her screen career started with one and two reelers as early as 1915, but her proper entry into Hollywood did not come about until 1933.
For more than 20 years, plump, down-to-earth Jessie made her reputation as a character actress on Broadway playing an assortment of nurses, maids and aunts. She was used in musicals by George M. Cohan and acted in Shakespearean roles, from "Twelfth Night" to "Romeo and Juliet". She was nurse to Jane Cowl's Juliet in the 1923 play which ran for an unprecedented 174 performances and co-starred Eva Le Gallienne and Katharine Cornell (amazing, when considering that the star was already 39 years old!). Like other successful actresses of the stage, Jessie was brought to Hollywood to reprise a Broadway hit role, in this case her Aunt Minnie in Child of Manhattan (1933).
After half a lifetime in the theatre, Jessie's sojourn in Hollywood was relatively brief but marked by a series of memorable performances. She was the definitive incarnation of the endearing nurse Peggotty in David Copperfield (1935) and played Greta Garbo's loyal maid Nanine in Camille (1936). She was the matriarch of the Whiteoaks of Jalna (1935), an adaptable society matron in San Francisco (1936) and harridan of a mother-in-law to W.C. Fields, Hermisillo Brunch, in The Bank Dick (1940). Whether in comedy or drama, as a Chinese aunt in both stage and screen versions of The Good Earth (1937), or a kindly sorceress in The Blue Bird (1940), Jessie gave consistently good value for money. The New York Times review of October 12, 1935, wrote of her performance in I Live My Life (1935): "Jessie Ralph as the tyrannical head of the family, proves again that she is the best of the screen grandmothers".
Jessie retired from acting in 1941 after having a leg amputated and died three years later.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jim Bailey started out in the 1950s in the Nationally Syndicated show The Children's hour. By the early 1960s he turned to Theater on and Off Broadway and in Summer Stock acting and singing. His first break was being cast in the 1962 Off Broadway musical Fly Blackbird, co-starring Robert Guillaume . It was nominated for two Obie Awards. He went on to perform in other plays and musicals such as The Diary of Anne Frank, The Boyfriend, Wildcat, The Bells are Ringing and Calamity Jane with Ginger Rogers.
He would go onto a career in Television, Movies and theater and headline some of the Worlds major concert venues. He had several appearances at New York's Carnegie Hall (which was recorded and released in 1973) London's Palladium, Los Angeles' Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, Shubert Theater and Hollywood Bowl , Toronto's O'Keefe Center and Boston's Symphony Hall and most of the main showrooms in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. He has also performed in Europe, Australia, Canada, South America and South Africa.
Among the high points of his career are televised performances for the The Queen of England and Prince Phillip in 1973 and Princess Diana and Prince Charles in 1992. He also did performances for American Presidents. He appeared at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid in 1981 and Super Night at the Super-bowl in New Orleans in 1978. Both of these performances had a worldwide audience. Most of these performances are online.
In 1970 Army Archerd said in his column " Jim Bailey is responsible for bringing the art of female impersonation onto mainstream television." His appearance as Judy Garland on the Ed Sullivan Show was such a phenomenon he was asked back In January 1971 to perform again and was booked onto The Carol Burnett Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. In 1972 Here's Lucy and What's my line followed and then went onto some of the hottest Variety shows of the 1970s' such as The Dean Martin Show, The Merv Griffin Show and The Mike Douglas Show. In the United Kingdom he performed on David Frosts show and Russell Hartys show. .
In his nationally syndicated newspaper column Earl Wilson said 'Jim bailey is the hottest thing in show business.." By the mid 1970s he turned to acting roles on such shows as Switch, The Rockford Files and Vegas. By the 1980s he was in the Emmy nominated episode of Night Court playing the Transexual Chip/ Charlene.
A character actor, singer and comedian, he has long specialized in bringing to life some of America's most revered female performers, including Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand Phyllis Diller and Peggy Lee. An accomplished singer in his own right with an operatic background and a degree from the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music, Jim also performs as himself and has several recordings.
Among his other career highlights was performing with Judy Garland in Los Angeles in 1964. The recreation with Liza Minnelli of the famous " Judy and Liza at the London Palladium" in Las Vegas in 1972 . He also performed a concert for Barbra Streisand and other Hollywood heavyweights like Clint Eastwood and Warren Beatty in Los Angeles in 1995.
Later theater credits included "Tallulah and Tennessee" co-starring screen icon Bette Garett, "Mae West at the club El Fey" , "Me and Jezebel". "Fragile Fire", (directed by the late Paul Winfield), "Nightclub Confidential" and his last acting role was Ally Mcbeal playing Harold Dale in 2001. By the time of his death in 2015 his varied career had lasted 60 years.
He also had The Jim Bailey Theater in Palm Springs, CA.- Actress
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Joan Lorring was born Madeline Ellis on April 17, 1926, in Hong Kong. She and her mother, Ania Fred, a Russian Jewish immigrant, left Hong Kong after the outbreak of WWII to pursue an acting career, settling in California in the late 1930s. After finding radio work in Los Angeles, Lorring worked her way into films making a minor debut at age 18 in the romantic war drama Song of Russia (1944) and subsequently played the small part of Pepita in the ensemble suspense The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944).
The following year Joan won the coveted role of the scheming, trampy Bessie opposite Bette Davis in The Corn Is Green (1945), earning a Academy Award nomination for "best supporting actress" in the process. She may have lost the Oscar trophy that year to Anne Revere for National Velvet (1944) but Warner Brothers Studio was more than impressed with the up-and-comer and eagerly signed her up. Joan proved quite able in a number of juicy film noir parts, including Three Strangers (1946) and The Verdict (1946), both opposite the malevolent pairing of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.
Inexplicably her film career went into a rapid decline by the end of the decade. As a result she sought work elsewhere and maintained with stage, radio and small screen endeavors into the next decade. On Broadway she made her debut in the prime role of budding college student Marie who sets off the explosive dramatic action in "Come Back, Little Sheba" (1950) starring Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer. She continued with strong roles in "The Autumn Garden" (1951), "Dead Pigeon" (1953) and "A Clearing in the Woods" (1957).
Among Joan's many 1950s dramatic showcases on TV was her portrayal of suspected ax-murderess Lizzie Borden's sister Emma on an Alfred Hitchcock episode. In the 1970s, Joan made a mini comeback in the Burt Lancaster movie The Midnight Man (1974) as Cameron Mitchell's wife. She also performed on radio soap operas and appeared for a season on the TV soap Ryan's Hope (1975) before phasing out her career once again.
Long married to New York endocrinologist Dr. Martin Sonenberg, who died in 2011, Joan passed away on May 30, 2014, in Sleepy Hollow, New York, survived by two daughters.- John Tidmarsh was born on 13 August 1928 in Camberwell, South London, England, UK. He was a writer, known for Germany 1870-1970 (1969), Young Scientists of the Year (1968) and Let Me Tell You (1967). He was married to Pat Pleasance. He died on 30 May 2019 in the UK.
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Juan Carlos Onetti was born on 1 July 1909 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was a writer, known for El infierno tan temido (1975), El infierno tan temido (1980) and Mal día para pescar (2009). He was married to Dorothea "Dolly" Muhr, Elizabeth Maria Pekelharing, Maria Julia Onetti and Maria Amalia Onetti. He died on 30 May 1994 in Madrid, Spain.- Additional Crew
Mel Weinberg was born on 4 December 1924 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. Mel is known for American Hustle (2013). Mel was married to Cynthia Marie Regan, Mary O'Connor and Evelyn Knight. Mel died on 30 May 2018 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA.- Michael Noakes was born on 28 October 1933 in Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK. Michael was married to Vivien Langley. Michael died on 30 May 2018 in the UK.
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The son of a sausage-maker, Michel Simon was conscripted into the Swiss Army at the start of World War I, but was thrown out through a combination of tuberculosis and general insubordination. He was variously a boxer, photographer, general handyman and right-wing anarchist, finally becoming a stage actor in Geneva in 1920. His reputation soon grew, and he moved to Paris in 1923, appearing in his first film in 1925 (the same year he played Boudu for the first time on stage). With the coming of sound, Simon became firmly established as one of France's outstanding character actors, doing unforgettable work for Jean Renoir (La Chienne (1931), Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)), Jean Vigo (L'Atalante (1934)) and Marcel Carné (Port of Shadows (1938), Bizarre, Bizarre (1937)). In the 1950s he worked less frequently, partly thanks to an accident involving makeup dye that paralyzed part of his body and face. Despite this, he still managed to appear in films right up to his death in 1975.- Animation Department
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Milan Blazekovic was born on 6 July 1940 in Zagreb, Croatia, Yugoslavia [now Croatia]. He was a director and writer, known for Ouverture 2012 (1976), Cudnovate zgode segrta Hlapica (1997) and Kolekcionar (1972). He died on 30 May 2019 in Zagreb, Croatia.- Molly Peters was a gorgeous and voluptuous British blonde bombshell actress and model who alas only appeared in a handful of films and TV shows during her regrettably fleeting acting career in the mid 60s. Molly was born in 1942 in Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk, England. Peters started out as a model; among the men's magazines she graced the covers of and/or posed in pictorials for are "Playboy," "Modern Man," "Calvalcade," "Beau," "Ace," "Parade," "Best for Men," "Dapper," and "Escapade." Molly achieved her greatest enduring cult cinema popularity with her memorably sensuous portrayal of Patricia Fearing, the fetching masseuse who gets seduced by James Bond at the Shrubland health club in "Thunderball." She was discovered by director Terence Young and has the distinction of being the first Bond girl to be seen taking her clothes off on screen. In the wake of her 007 stint Peters acted in two more movies and popped up on episodes of the TV shows "Armchair Theatre" and "Baker's Half-Dozen." Molly Peters had her acting career abruptly cut short after reportedly having a falling out with her agent.
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- Music Department
- Additional Crew
Born in El Paso, Texas, Natividad Vacio grew up in Pasadena, California. In high school he became friends with future actor George Reeves, who encouraged Vacio to join him at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. Vacio appeared in several plays there as an actor and musician. After military service in World War II he worked as a teacher, but with the encouragement of his best friend Reeves, appeared frequently in films and television. An accomplished guitarist and singer, he made recordings with such greats as Laurindo Almeida and toured the country with Reeves in a music-&-action stage show publicizing Reeves' Adventures of Superman (1952) TV series. Vacio was the director of the Commedia del Artistes stage company of Padua Hills, California.- Nick Ramus was born on 9 September 1929 in Seattle, Washington, USA. He was an actor, known for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Centennial (1978) and Son of the Morning Star (1991). He was married to Harriet Mary Howard. He died on 30 May 2007 in Benson, Arizona, USA.
- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
Paul Desmond was born on 25 November 1924 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Rushmore (1998), Say Anything (1989) and Constantine (2005). He died on 30 May 1977 in New York City, New York, USA.- Ricky Bruch was born on 2 July 1946 in Örgryte, Gothenburg, Västra Götalands län, Sweden. He was an actor, known for Ronia: The Robber's Daughter (1984) and Dante - Akta're för hajen! (1978). He died on 30 May 2011 in Ystad, Skåne län, Sweden.
- Robert Michael Morris' Hollywood career began in just 2005. His most famous role is playing Mickey in the short-lived but critically acclaimed 'The Comeback' with Lisa Kudrow. He also played Will Arnett's nanny on Fox's 'Running Wilde.' With memorable guests spots on 'Will & Grace,' 'Arrested Development,' 'How I Met Your Mother,' 'Community Service,' 'The Class,' 'Brothers & Sisters,' 'Warren the Ape' and 'Two Broke Girls,' he most recently created the role of Truman DuBois in 'Lez Be Friends.'
The path to Hollywood was an unusual one for Morris. Born and raised in Kentucky, Morris joined a religious order called The Society of Mary, received a Bachelor of Arts in English and art from the University of Dayton and an MFA in playwriting from the Catholic University of America, where he received a Shubert Fellowship in Playwriting. He twice toured America with a classical theatre group ('A Midsummer Night's Dream,' 'The Bacchae,' 'Taming of the Shrew,' 'The Miser' and 'The Trial') and also taught high school in Pittsburgh, Memphis, Toronto, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., Downey and San Gabriel, Calif., and taught college in Erie, Penn., and Urbana, Ohio.
Along the way he did summer stock (Kenley Players, Apple Hill Playhouse), musical theatre (Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera), community and academic theatre (Erie, PA, Washington, D.C.); television (Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles), and movies (Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles). To stay alive he worked as a party decorator in NYC, file clerk at Radio City Music Hall, stage manager of Broadway's 'Cloud Nine,' and as a secretary to the brilliant producer Sydney Glazier. During all this time, he was writing plays; he has completed more than 91 scripts, some of which have even had productions and won awards. He has no favorite style and enjoys writing comedies as well as dramas. His last plays were about a pedophile, a musical about Sarah Bernhardt, dreaming of Sal Mineo, Michelangelo's creation of the David, the Chapel of the Holy Rosary at Venice by Matisse, the 1981 murder of a transsexual in NY, and two one woman shows: Anna Magnani and Alice Roosevelt Longworth. He most recently received an award for his 10-minute play, 'Blood from a Stone,' about a former Nazi camp guard and his daughter. There are now more than 90 plays, 14 of which can be found in 'Anthology 1: Plays from the Mind of Robert Michael Morris,' published by Incarnate Word Press; three more anthologies will be published, along with his memoir 'I Had Breakfast with Yakima Canute.' - Actor
- Soundtrack
Born William John Hart in 1917, the Pennsylvania-born actor was the son of a professional ballplayer. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, then worked as a clothing salesman before deciding to give acting a try. He certainly had the requisite dreamboat looks as Columbia signed this blue-eyed, black-haired, extraordinary-looking specimen in 1939. Billed as Robert Sterling as not to confuse anyone with the silent screen legend William S. Hart, he was groomed in two-reeled shorts and bit parts in minor features but nothing much happened.
In 1941, MGM took him on as a possible replacement for another gorgeous Robert - Robert Taylor - who was about to join the Navy. Sterling married actress Ann Sothern in 1943 after meeting her on the set of Ringside Maisie (1941), one of several programmers in Sothern's "Maisie" series. They had a daughter, Patricia, who later became the actress Tisha Sterling. While at MGM he appeared in slick, "nice guy" second leads in such "A" films as Greta Garbo's swan song Two-Faced Woman (1941), Johnny Eager (1941) and Somewhere I'll Find You (1942), the last two starring Lana Turner, while starring in "B" rankers that included The Getaway (1941) and This Time for Keeps (1942). Sterling himself would serve during WWII with the Army Air Force as a pilot instructor and was stationed at one point in London.
His movie persona suggested more than a trace of the dapper playboy, and his carefree style and tone easily had Gig Young coming to mind. Robert's film career, however, lost major momentum in post-war years with rather pat, colorless parts in such action dramas as Bunco Squad (1950) and Column South (1953), and even in the splashy musical Show Boat (1951). Divorced from Ms. Sothern in 1949, he was introduced to actress Anne Jeffreys while making his Broadway debut in "Gramercy Ghost" down the block from where she was starring in the musical "Kiss Me Kate." The couple wed in 1951 and produced three sons. Robert and Anne (who was also having a down time in films by this point) decided to revive their faltering careers with a singing club act. Not only was their pairing a success, it led directly to their starring roles in the classic Topper (1953) comedy series on TV. As wry, debonair ghost George Kirby, he and Anne (playing his equally "spirited" wife Marion) expertly took over the jet-setting roles established on film by Cary Grant and Constance Bennett. The couple soon became household names engaging audiences week after week with their delightfully capricious antics and disappearing acts, much to the chagrin of bemused mortal Leo G. Carroll in the title role. Robert and Anne continued to perform together on stage ("Bells Are Ringing") and even top-lined another sitcom Love That Jill (1958) which lasted only a few months. After another failed series Ichabod and Me (1961), which was a solo effort, and a couple of pedestrian parts in the movies Return to Peyton Place (1961) (as Dr. Michael Rossi) (1961), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) and A Global Affair (1964), Robert slacked off considerably. He made only one return to Broadway with the 1961 light comedy "Roman Candle" co-starring Inger Stevens and Julia Meade. The show folded quickly. By the late 1960s, Sterling was pretty much out of the picture.
He entered into what would become a lucrative computer business, and kept a decidedly low profile, prompting many fans to think that the ever-busy Anne Jeffreys was a widow! In truth, the couple made sporadic appearances together in the 70s and 80s in episodes of "Murder, She Wrote" and "Hotel," among others. During the last decade of his life, Sterling suffered greatly from shingles, which kept him confined to a bed for the most part. The man who was once deemed "the ghost with the most" died in his Brentwood home of natural causes at the age of 88.- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Roberto Yanés was born on 25 April 1932 in Villa de María, Córdoba, Argentina. He was an actor and composer, known for Under Flag (1997), La patota (1960) and Musicalísimo (1970). He died on 30 May 2019 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Roderic (Rodd) Redwing claimed to be a Chickasaw Indian, although recent data raises questions about his heritage. He was born on August 24, 1904 in New York City, New York, USA. His father, Ulysses Redwing, was a stage actor. He traveled with his family to England and attended London's Westminster Grammar School while they toured with a circus. His mother left the Chickasaw reservation in Oklahoma to study hair styling in New York City. She and her four sisters built up a chain of twenty-two beauty parlors from New York City to Miami. When they returned to New York he attended Herron High School in Hell's Kitchen, then graduated from New York University. He was a gifted athlete, excelling in football at both levels.
Redwing had stage credits in the 1920's on Broadway, i.e., "Bad Man" with Holbrook Blynn and "Queen of Sheba with Greta Wilson. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army as a lieutenant. All during his acting, stunt double, and technical advisor years to the movie and television industries he was a gunsmith with Stembridge Gun Rentals, the largest and best known firearms rental company in Hollywood. Realistic shooting scenes were pioneered by Redwing. He first showed the violent impact of a .45 Colt cartridge. While filming Shane (1953), Redwing attached wires to a chest harness worn by Elisha Cook Jr., jerking him violently backward when he was shot down in the street by Jack Palance. He is known for his work on The Ten Commandments (1956), The Mole People (1956), and Shalako (1968). He had a publicity appearance at the Los Angeles Coliseum in the late 1950's as part of the first Los Angeles Dodgers baseball season. In 1961 he required abdominal surgery and half of his stomach was removed.
In 1959 he married German-born Ericka Rosa (Nicki) Wagner. He was only married once. His mother died on the Cherokee Reservation in Oklahoma, USA in 1953. He died on May 30, 1971 in Los Angeles, California, USA as he was returning from Spain to the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). After being stricken with a heart attack in flight he succumbed thirty-five minutes later.- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan. Reacting against the studio system, and particularly against the style of Yasujirô Ozu, the director he first assisted, Imamura moved away from the subtlety and understated nature of the classical masters to a celebration of the primitive and spontaneous aspects of Japanese life. To explore this level of Japanese consciousness, Imamura focuses on the lower classes, with characters who range from bovine housewives to shamans, and from producers of blue movies to troupes of third-rate traveling actors. He has proven himself unafraid to explore themes usually considered taboo, particularly those of incest and superstition. Imamura himself was not born into the kind of lower-class society he depicts. The college-educated son of a physician, he was drawn toward film, and particularly toward the kinds of films he would eventually make, by his love of the avant-garde theater. Imamura has worked as a documentarist, recording the statements of Japanese who remained in other parts of Asia after the end of WWII, and of the "karayuki-san"--Japanese women sent to accompany the army as prostitutes during the war period. His heroines tend to be remarkably strong and resilient, able to outlast, and even to combat, the exploitative situations in which they find themselves. This is a stance that would have seemed impossible for the long-suffering heroines of classical Japanese films. In 1983, Imamura won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for The Ballad of Narayama (1983), based on a Shichirô Fukazawa novel about a village where the elderly are abandoned on a sacred mountaintop to die. Unlike director Keisuke Kinoshita's earlier version of the same story, Imamura's film, shot on location in a remote mountain village, highlights the more disturbing aspects of the tale through its harsh realism. In his attempt to capture what is real in Japanese society, and what it means to be Japanese, Imamura used an actual 40-year-old former prostitute in his The Insect Woman (1963); a woman who was searching for her missing fiancé in A Man Vanishes (1967); and a non-actress bar hostess as the protagonist of his History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess (1970). Despite this anthropological bent, Imamura has cleverly mixed the real with the fictional, even within what seems to be a documentary. This is most notable in his A Man Vanishes (1967), in which the fiancée becomes more interested in an actor playing in the film than with her missing lover. In a time when the word "Japanese" is often considered synonymous with "coldly efficient," Imamura's vision of a more robust and intuitive Japanese character adds an especially welcome cinematic dimension.- Actor
- Writer
Most impressionable and indelibly remembered as the sensitive, cherubic-faced college student/boyfriend of Liza Minnelli in The Sterile Cuckoo (1969), actor Wendell Burton was born in Texas on July 21, 1947. When he was only five, his father, an Air Force technical sergeant, was killed in a plane crash in Washington state, where the family had relocated. As a result his family returned to Texas in order to be near relatives. While in high school the family moved once again, this time to the San Francisco area. Following graduation, he majored in political science at Somona State College and, after taking some public-speaking classes, joined in a few campus stage productions.
By chance, and at the insistence of a friend, he auditioned for and won the title role in the San Francisco production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." Fully engaged by this early theater success, he continued his education during the run of the show and transferred to San Francisco State where he took classes in acting and directing.
Wendell was "discovered" during the show's run by "Sterile Cuckoo" director Alan J. Pakula and chosen over hundreds of more experienced film actors to play the coveted role of Jerry Payne opposite Minnelli's Pookie Adams in the bittersweet campus romance that became an unqualified hit. Exquisitely paired, he and Minnelli are still identified with the movie's touching Oscar-nominated song "Come Saturday Morning."
In order to avoid a fresh-off-the-bus typecasting, Wendell took on the role of "Smitty" in the controversial screen adaptation of Fortune and Men's Eyes (1971) in which he played a naive young inmate who is raped shortly after entering prison, and, by film's end, has degenerated into a sexual predator himself. He counterbalanced this with a Hallmark TV adaptation of his "Charlie Brown" musical. The small screen proved a viable medium for the young rising actor in the early 70s with above-average roles in the well-received mini-movies Murder Once Removed (1971), Go Ask Alice (1973) and The Red Badge of Courage (1974). He also played Dick Van Dyke and Hope Lange's son for one episode on the comedy star's "new" TV series in the 70s.
A soul-searcher by nature, Wendell questioned the direction of his life and, after much travel and study, fully immersed himself in the Christian religion in 1978. That same year he married and became the father of a daughter, Haven, who is now an actress in New York, and son, Adam, a San Francisco-based musician. Reminiscent of the perennially boyish and now balding Ron Howard in both mild-mannered looks and open, easy-going temperament, his career began to subside after a time due to the lack of quality acting opportunities offered, the importance of turning down roles he deemed morally objectionable, and ever-growing family responsibilities over the uncertainties of gainful TV/movie employment
Wendell eventually taught acting for a time in Hollywood. In 1988, he decided to pursue the business side of television and found work in ad sales, eventually becoming the West Coast Director of Sales for the Family Channel. In 1997 he and his family moved back to his home state of Texas in order to help launch a local independent TV station in Houston. The family eventually settled there.
Wendell served and found spiritual fulfillment as Director of Creative Ministries for a Houston megachurch organization in association with Joel Osteen and the Lakewood Church. He particularly enjoyed overseeing drama, dance and videography services for the various ministries and also pastors adult singles. Diagnosed with brain cancer, he died on May 30, 2017, at age 69.- Wilbur Wright was born on 16 April 1867 in Indiana, USA. He died on 30 May 1912 in Dayton, Ohio, USA.