Primal Zodiac Sign - Boa Constrictor
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Vic Morrow was born in the Bronx, New York, to Jean (Kress) and Harry Morrow, an electrical engineer. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Morrow dropped out of high school at 17 to join the U.S. Navy. When he left the Navy, he used the G.I. Bill to study pre-law at Florida State. While Morrow was working on his degree in Law, he also took part in a school play and found that he preferred stage acting to courtroom acting. When he went to New York, Morrow enrolled in the Actors' Workshop to improve his skills. After graduating, he was cast in the summer stock production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". His screen debut came when he was signed by MGM to play a tough-talking, surly street punk in Blackboard Jungle (1955). The good news was that he was now in the movies, but the bad news was that he became typecast as a heavy. Disappointed with this situation, Morrow left MGM after a few years and headed back to school to study directing at USC. He made some appearances on television and in 1962 found a role that brought him fame and made him the "hero": the TV series Combat! (1962), in which he played Sgt. Chip Saunders, veteran squad leader. Due to his demands, the show quickly went from an alternating showcase between platoon leader Lt. Hanley (Rick Jason) and Sgt. Saunders to one featuring mainly Saunders. With the success of the show, Morrow put to use what he had learned at USC and directed some episodes. In 1965 he and his wife divorced, and two years later the series ended. These two events put him into a personal and professional slide. By 1969 he began almost a decade of making made-for-TV movies, with an occasional foray into features. Most of his roles, though, put him back as a "heavy", although he did have a good part as a tough L.A. cop going up against out-of-town mobsters in a two-part episode of Police Story (1973) that was later released as a telefeature. While he worked in the theater and looked forward to the big screen, most of his roles were in "B" pictures such as Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974) and Treasure of Matecumbe (1976). He got good reviews playing Walter Matthau's nemesis in the hit comedy The Bad News Bears (1976), but was not involved in any of the following sequels, and he seemed to be stuck in a rut of "B" features and average made-for-TV films. With the failure of his second marriage, the death of his mother and the scarcity of good parts, Morrow hit the bottle, which did his career even less good. In 1982, however, he refocused his drive and made a comeback in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), but was unfortunately killed on the early morning hours of July 23, 1982 in a tragic, freak accident on the set while filming a scene involving a helicopter which crashed right on top of him and two young children.
Vic was the father of Carrie Ann Morrow and actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Acclaimed actress Jessica Walter was born on January 31, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Esther (Groisser), a teacher, and David Walter (his original surname was Warshawsky), a musician who was a member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the NYC Ballet Orchestra. She was of Russian Jewish descent, the sister of screenwriter and Chairman of the UCLA Screenwriting program Richard Walter. Their uncle was stage and screen actor Jerry Jarrett. Raised in Queens, Walter was a graduate of New York's High School of the Performing Arts and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. She first acted in summer stock and her extensive subsequent career on the stage included productions both on- and off-Broadway.
On Broadway, Walter appeared in Peter Ustinov's "Photo Finish" (which earned her the Clarence Derwent Award as Most Promising Newcomer), "A Severed Head", "Advise and Consent", "Night Life" and Neil Simon's "Rumors". Off-Broadway, she acted in a 1986 Los Angeles Theater Center production of "Tartuffe" opposite Ron Leibman (to whom she was married from 1983 until his death in 2019).
After guesting on several TV series in the early and mid-1960s, Walter made her move to feature films where she attracted attention for her role as the brash Libby in Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966). This seemed to set the tone for her next screen personae as bitchy, difficult or dangerously vindictive women, the most memorable of which was Evelyn in Clint Eastwood's directorial debut film, Play Misty for Me (1971). This earned Walter a richly deserved Golden Globe nomination. Another stand-out role was Pat, the bored ex-glamour model wife of one racing driver (Brian Bedford) and troublesome girlfriend of another (James Garner) in Grand Prix (1966). Walter's numerous TV roles included the enchantress Morgan LeFay in the rarely seen telemovie Dr. Strange (1978). Of her many screen villainesses she later said: "those are the fun roles. They're juicy, much better than playing the vanilla ingénues".
By the 1980s, Walter had turned increasingly towards comedy, both on the big screen (The Flamingo Kid (1984)) and the small (Three's a Crowd (1984)). However, she never shied away from other genres, whether playing an EarthGov senator on the cult sci-fi series Babylon 5 (1993) or providing the voice for the leading female character in the animated sitcom Dinosaurs (1991). Walter received an Emmy Award for Best Dramatic Actress in the Ironside (1967) spin-off Amy Prentiss (1974) and was nominated for guest-starring roles in episodes of Trapper John, M.D. (1979) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972). She found a new audience among younger viewers as the devious matriarch Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development (2003).
Jessica Walter died in her sleep on March 24, 2021 from undisclosed causes at the age of 80. Riverside Memorial Chapel and Funeral Home in New York City completed her final arrangements. She was cremated and her ashes are with her daughter.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Joy Philbin was born on 1 February 1941 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous (2005), Malibu Express (1985) and Night and the City (1992). She was previously married to Regis Philbin.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A major little talent, this French-American moppet star of the late '40s and early '50s was able to parlay her precocious popularity into a modest young adult career, but then left it for family. She has nevertheless maintained on its fringe for decades.
Gigi Perreau was born on February 6, 1941, in Los Angeles to a French father, who fled his native country at the onset of WWII, and an American mother. Her beginnings in acting started way back to the tender age of 2-1/2 when her mother was approached by a talent agent who represented child actors and who took an initial interest in her 5-year-old brother Gerald. But Gigi grabbed a little attention for herself. When producer/director Mervyn LeRoy discovered little Gigi could speak French as well as English at such a precious age, he cast her as Greer Garson's daughter in Madame Curie (1943). Gigi went on to play Gloria DeHaven as a toddler in Two Girls and a Sailor (1944) and a child to Bette Davis in the classic soaper Mr. Skeffington (1944).
MGM signed her up and Gigi spent several years there where, among other roles, she played the daughter of Katharine Hepburn in the composer Schumann biopic Song of Love (1947) and a child to Lana Turner in Green Dolphin Street (1947). Gigi earned her best reviews when Universal-International picked up her option. She positively bloomed as a top juvenile player and received an award from the Screen Children's Guild while appeared in top quality films, both light-hearted and tear-stained.
At Universal, Gigi was quite endearing as Claudette Colbert's lively daughter in the domestic comedy Family Honeymoon (1948); quite touching in the melodrama My Foolish Heart (1949) starring Susan Hayward; and quite earnest in the lead role of a child who witnesses a murder in the film noir Shadow on the Wall (1950) starring Ann Sothern. She had a standout role as Piper Laurie's kid sister and a Charleston partner to Charles Coburn in the Roaring 20's comedy Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952) and got to monkey around with a monkey in the comedy Bonzo Goes to College (1952).
In the mid '50s, things started tapering off for the former pigtailed child star as she tried to adjust through the awkward teenage years. Appearances in such lowbudget exploitation as The Cool and the Crazy (1958), Girls Town (1959), and Hell on Wheels (1967) pretty much tell the story.
Developing into a lovely-looking young adult, she also graced the small screen. She co-starred in two short-lived series: the sitcom The Betty Hutton Show (1959) and the detective drama Follow the Sun (1961). She also guested on such shows as "Whirlybirds," "The Donna Reed Show," The Detective," "Hawaiian Eye," "Surfside 6," "Laramie," "Rawhide," "The Rebel," "The Roaring 20s," "The Rifleman," "Perry Mason," "Gunsmoke," "Gomer Pyle," "My Three Sons," "Ironside," "The Brady Bunch," and "Adam-12."
At age 20, Gigi married and had a son and a daughter; a second marriage produced another son and daughter. Rarely seen on film or TV since the late '60s, Gigi has continued on as a stage director and college prep drama teacher. Brother Gerald (aka Peter Miles) equipped himself quite well as a child actor performing in The Red Pony (1949), The Good Humor Man (1950), and Quo Vadis (1951). Gigi appeared with him in the movies Enchantment (1948) and Roseanna McCoy (1949) and played his sister on The Betty Hutton Show (1959). Gigi's two younger sisters, Janine Perreau and Lauren Perreau, also dabbled in film and TV as youngsters, but to a much lesser degree.- Actor
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Nick Nolte was born in Omaha, Nebraska and began his career on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse and in regional theatre productions. His breakthrough role was in the TV miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), playing the role of "Tom/Tommy Jordache". Nick Nolte said that when he played a young man in the early scenes of the project, he weighed about 160 pounds. When he played a middle-aged man in the later scenes, he weighed over 180 pounds.- Actor
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- Producer
A multi-award-winning writer and actor, Bo Svenson was born in Sweden - the only child of a Jewish, Russian-born big band leader mother and a father who was the Swedish King's personal driver and bodyguard. At 17, he emigrated by himself to the US. After serving six years as a US Marine, he was pursuing a Ph.D. in MetaPhysics and paying the rent with odd acting gigs when he was hired to replace Paul Newman as Robert Redford's co-star in "The Great Waldo Pepper".
This led to a starring role in the CBS TV pilot "The Freebooters" - and his being cast as "Big Swede" on the TV series "Here Come the Brides".
His role as "The Creature" in the 3-hour TV movie "Mary Shelley's Original Frankenstein" brought him great acclaim - and was soon followed by other major starring film roles, including, but most notably, as: Sheriff Buford Pusser in "Walking Tall Part II", "Final Chapter: Walking Tall" and the "Walking Tall" TV series, as the fun-loving offensive lineman Joe Bob Priddy in "North Dallas Forty", as the heroic airline pilot in "The Delta Force", and as Clint Eastwood's rival in "Heartbreak Ridge".
During his fifty years in Hollywood, he has worked with over 100 Academy Award winners/nominees. Since appearing in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" and "Inglourious Basterds" (the latter being Tarantino's version of one of his favorite films of all time, "The Inglorious Bastards" in which Bo starred), Bo has focused on his first love - writing. His screenplays have won and/or been selected more than thirty times by major film festivals.
An accomplished athlete, he has competed in world championships in judo and in Olympic selections in yachting. A 5th degree black belt in judo and a black belt holder in karate as well as aikido, he is past Chairman of USA Judo Masters and has been inducted into the Martial Arts Masters Hall of Fame. He is active in community service causes and was Sports Commissioner at the 2015 Special Olympics World Games at his Alma Mater UCLA.
Since 1975, he has been President/CEO of MagicQuest Entertainment, a California motion picture development and production company that also provides consulting services to actors and script advice to writers.
He is also owner and CEO of the British Columbia film and television production company, CanAm Film Corp., and the Norwegian corporation, Den Norske Arv A/S. He was Chairman of the Board/CEO of Motion Picture Group of America (1984-2004).- Actress
- Music Department
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Julia McKenzie was born on 17 February 1941 in Enfield, Middlesex, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Notes on a Scandal (2006), Bright Young Things (2003) and Cranford (2007). She was previously married to Jerry Harte.- Soundtrack
Irma Thomas was born on 18 February 1941 in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, USA. She has been married to Emile Jackson since 1976. She was previously married to Andrew Thomas.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born and raised in Iowa, the middle of six children, Nancy received an MFA in 'Directing for the Theatre' at the University of Georgia, where she worked with internationally renowned theater director, Zygmunt Hubner. She has worked in many regional theater productions, as both director and actor.
Nancy has booked and filmed around 300 TV commercials, including a series directed by the brilliant Bill Persky. She played Heidi in the HEIDI CHRONICLES at the Cleveland Playhouse and was an understudy in BURN THIS on Broadway; where she went on with the wonderful Scott Glenn. She has shot a number of pilots, including MARS: BASE ONE with Dan Ackroyd, and ARLY HANKS MYSTERIES with Ron Perlman and Kate Jackson. Nancy's credits over the past thirty years include Murphy Brown, Shamless, Weeds, The Sheild, Star Trek: DSN, ER, The Wonder Years, Bones, The Fosters, and Absolute Strangers with Henry Winkler and Karl Malden, .
She lives in Los Angeles.- Actress
- Producer
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Becky Ann Baker was born on 17 February 1953 in Fort Knox, Kentucky, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for A Simple Plan (1998), Men in Black (1997) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). She has been married to Dylan Baker since 6 September 1987. They have one child.- Australian actor Neil Melville lives with his designer wife on the famous Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. A graduate of the Flinders University Drama Centre (BA Hons) Neil has enjoyed a diverse range of both comic and dramatic roles in a well regarded career spanning more than 30 years. Neil has performed on stage, film, television and musicals, and as a talented writer and musician has conceived,written, performed and produced in all the disciplines of his craft. As he approaches his 60th year he has now played all seven ages of man.
- As a child Keith lived with his grandparents, Frank and Lois Johnson in Blythewood, South Carolina, where he attended The Bethel School until his grandfather died when Keith was thirteen years old. At the age of fourteen years old moved to Washington, DC. There he attended Taft Jr. High and Roosevelt Senior High. After high School he attended Federal City College aka University of the District of Columbia. He studied at The Theatre School, which is now known as The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, and graduated from Washinton International College with BA in Performing Arts. He is married to Mischelle Fonville the daughter of the legendary Jazz Bass player Benny Fonville. He has two adult sons. Amoung his proudest work is the 2002 World Premier of Zora Neale Hurston's "Polk County" at Arena Stage in Washington, DC in which he played Do Dirty. His work has received rave reviews in the Washington Post and New York times.
- Actress
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- Production Designer
Younger sister of Linus Huffman. Appeared as a child in local Santa Barbara theater, alongside Eric Stoltz and Anthony Edwards. Won 2001 Tony Award for playing "Ulla" in "The Producers". Nominated for an Outer Critics' Circle Award for best featured actress in a play for "The Nance". Nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for "The Will Rogers Follies". Also appeared on Broadway in "La Cage Aux Folles", "Steel Pier", "Dame Edna: The Royal Tour" and "Big Deal", which was the last show directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Kathleen Kinmont Smith was born in Los Angeles, California to actress, Abby Dalton and businessman, Jack Smith. Kathleen is of Swedish, Irish and Welsh descent. She began her acting career in commercials as a young child and then moved on to a short lived modeling career before she started seriously pursuing acting in film and television as a young teen. Kathleen is best known for her roles in horror films, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Meyers (1988) and Bride of Re-Animator (1989) Kathleen also starred in Stephen J. Cannell television series, Renegade (1992-1996) She starred and costarred in numerous feature films and worked with writer/director Nick Vallelonga in The Corporate Ladder (1997) and Tom Hanks writing and directorial debut, That Thing You Do! (1996) Brat's, Zoe Valentine (2019) Hallmark's, A Merry Christmas Match (2019) and feature films, The Silent Natural (2019) and Ernesto's Manifesto (2019) Kathleen has also stepped behind the camera to write, produce and direct short thriller, Mrs. Sweeney (2013) and TV pilot, Fame Game (2014)- Actress
- Producer
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On the viewing horizon since the late 1980s, actress Maura Tierney has been a steady product of independent features, some hits and some misses, for close to a decade and a half. An odd and compelling beauty, she came from an upscale Bostonian family and was raised in the Hyde Park district.
Born February 3, 1965, the eldest child of three of Pat, a real estate agent, and Joseph M. Tierney, a prosperous politician and city councilman, Maura Lynn Tierney initially studied at New York University. She left school prior to graduation when she hooked up with the Circle-in-the-Square theater school. Following some stage plays including "Baby with the Bathwater" and "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea," she moved to the West Coast in the late 1980s finding minor roles here and there in TV-movies and making the rounds on episodic shows such as Growing Pains (1985), Family Ties (1982) and Law & Order (1990). She met actor/husband Billy Morrissette after both were fired from the set of an eventually-scrapped Ralph Macchio series.
After a few other failed pilots and a short-lived TV series, Maura made a minor film debut with The Linguini Incident (1991) and progressed to leading lady status in the B-movie spoof Dead Women in Lingerie (1991), which didn't go over well. She finally hit paydirt on TV when she won a female co-lead as smart but insecure newswriter Lisa Miller on the comedy series NewsRadio (1995). The show sailed along for a number of seasons due to the fine comedy instincts of David Foley, Andy Dick and the late Saturday Night Live (1975) player Phil Hartman. The show lost its oomph, however, as well as its audience after Hartman's tragic 1998 gunshot slaying, despite an assured replacement in fellow Saturday Night Live (1975) alumni Jon Lovitz. The show couldn't escape its bad aura, and it was gone the following year.
Maura's work on the TV sitcom thrust her into the film comedy limelight with prominent roles in such films as the Jim Carrey vehicle Liar Liar (1997). She also showed up as sly, darker-edged femmes in the thriller Primal Fear (1996), Primary Colors (1998) and Instinct (1999).
Into the millennium, Maura received one of her best art-house roles as a heavy in her husband's feature Scotland, Pa. (2001) which he wrote and directed. Following that came a mixture of offbeat parts in such films as the mystery thriller Insomnia (2002) starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams; the romantic comedy Welcome to Mooseport (2004) with Gene Hackman and Ray Romano; the Paul Rudd dramedy Diggers (2006); the sports comedy Semi-Pro (2008) with Will Ferrell and Steve Guttenberg; the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler slapstick comedy Baby Mama (2008); and, more recently, Nature Calls (2012), Anything (2017) and Beautiful Boy (2018) opposite Steve Carell.
She also found steady TV work with the role of Abby, who was first a nurse and then a doctor, in the long-established and critically-acclaimed medical drama series ER (1994), where she remained on the staff until the show left the air in 2009. She also found recurring roles on Rescue Me (2004), The Good Wife (2009) and The Affair (2014), and co-starred in the short-lived legal drama The Whole Truth (2010) with Rob Morrow.- Producer
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Christopher Julius Rock was born in Andrews, South Carolina and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. He is the son of Rosalie (Tingman), a teacher and social worker for the mentally handicapped, and Julius Rock, a truck driver and newspaper deliveryman, whose own father was a preacher.
Rock has been in stand-up comedy for several decades. He made his big screen debut in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) and spent three years on the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975). He does commercials for 1-800 Collect and Nike and covered the presidential campaign for the show Politically Incorrect (1993). He lives in Alpine, New Jersey.- Actress
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Mathilda May (born Karin Haïm) is a French actress and dancer from Paris. She is primarily known to English-speaking audiences for playing the alien vampire Space Girl, the main villain of the cult horror film "Lifeforce" (1985). The role required her to appear naked for most of the film, though her character remained mysterious and menacing. In France, May's breakthrough role was that of Juliette, the suicidal young woman whose love life was at the center of the psychological thriller "The Cry of the Owl" (1987). For this role, May won the "César Award for Most Promising Actress".
In 1965, May was born in Paris. Her father was the playwright Victor Haïm (1935-) . Her paternal ancestors were Sephardic Jews from the city of Thessaloniki in Greek Macedonia. May's mother was the Swedish ballet teacher and choreographer Margareta Hanson. May herself was trained as a dancer in early life. In 1981, May won the "Premier Prix du Conservatoire de Danse de Paris" (First Prize of the Paris Dance Conservatory). At the time, she was only 16-years-old.
May pursued an acting career in the early 1980s. She made her film debut in the fantasy film "Nemo" (1984), where a boy from New York City is transported to an alternate reality. She became known to international audience with "Lifeforce" (1985), and had some success in France during the late 1980s. Following "The Cry of the Owl", May played the romantic lead in the controversial musical "Three Seats for the 26th" (1988). In the film, an aging actor falls in love with Marion de Lambert (played by May), the daughter of his former lover. He is relatively unfazed when he learns that his new love interest is his own illegitimate daughter.
May's first significant film in the 1990s was the biographical drama "Isabelle Eberhardt" (1991), where she had the lead role. May played the Swiss author and explorer Isabelle Eberhardt (1877 - 1904), and also portrayed Eberhardt''s accidental death in a flash flood. The film was nominated for three AACTA Awards, without ever winning. The film was negatively received by critics for overemphasizing Eberhardt's femininity and sexuality, while mostly ignoring the political context of her activities in North Africa, and her status as a social outcast.
That same year, May played the female lead in the erotic drama "Naked Tango". The film depicted the life of an Eastern European young woman who was forced into prostitution in 1920s Buenos Aires. The film was largely inspired by the activities of the Zwi Migdal (1867-1939), an international sex trafficking organization which controlled about 2,000 brothels in Argentina during the interwar period.
May also had the lead role in "Becoming Colette" (1991). The film dramatized the early life of the actress, journalist, and novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954). The real Colette is primarily remembered for her vivid depictions of the French demimonde of elite courtesans, and for her lesbian affairs with the fellow writer Natalie Clifford Barney and the aristocratic artist Mathilde de Morny.
May next had the female lead role in the crime drama "Toutes peines confondues" (1992). She played Jeanne Gardella, the wife of a shady businessman. She genuinely loves her husband, but fails to inform him that she is an Interpol agent who was assigned to spy on him. The film was an adaptation of a novel by Andrew Coburn (1932-2018).
May had the female lead in the romantic comedy "The Tit and the Moon" (1994), playing the beautiful French dancer Estrellita. In the film a preadolescent boy is fascinated with Estrellita and her breasts, but finds himself competing for her attention with Estrellita's husband and with an adolescent singer.
In 1996,. May had her first role in a video game, cast in the space flight simulation "Privateer 2: The Darkening". The main plot featured an amnesiac man who chose a new life as a privateer, while trying to find out why there was no record of his past life. The game was introduced as a spin-off of the space combat series "Wing Commander" (1990-2007), but had little resemblance to its predecessors.
May had her final major role in the 1990s in the action thriller film "The Jackal" (1997). She played Isabella Celia Zancona, a retired member of the Basque terrorist organization ETA. Zancona becomes a key witness for the FBI, as she is thought to be the only person able to identify the wanted assassin "The Jackal" (played by Bruce Willis). The assassin is an old foe of Zancona, who wounded her during a past encounter and caused her to miscarry their unborn child. She agrees to help, partly because she is promised safe haven, and partly because she wants revenge. The film was a minor box office hit.
During the early 2000s, May regularly appeared in television films and television series. Her theatrical roles were few in this period. She was eventually cast in a supporting role in the comedy thriller "A Girl Cut in Two" (2007). The film depicts a love triangle which results in the murder of one suitor by the other one. May's next significant film role was in the anthology film "The Players" (2012), which depicted various tales of male infidelity. The film attracted controversy for the sexually suggestive posters of its release, which were seen as violating France's regulations for advertising.
May continued regularly appearing in television roles throughout the 2010s, and was part of the main cast in the television series "Access" She resumed playing in theatrical films in 2019, initially cast in the World War II-themed drama "An Irrepressible Woman". By 2022, May was 57-years-old. She has never retired, and remains a well-known face in the European film market.- Actor
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Darren Dalton made his screen debut as Randy Anderson, the Soc, in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders (1983), a drama based on the novel by S.E. Hinton.
He has since starred in over 30 films and has also worked as a screenwriter and producer. He has collaborated with C. Thomas Howell on a number of projects including War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave (2008) and The Day the Earth Stopped (2008).
Dalton is probably best known for his starring role in the John Milius World War 3 film Red Dawn (1984) in which he co-starred with Howell, Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, and Lea Thompson.- Actress
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Julie grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Her father, Neil Warner, was a musical arranger, who wrote jingles for products such as Tic-Tacs and Fig Newtons. Her mother, Naomi, is a freelance book agent. A 10-years younger brother, James, works for the New York City Parks Department. At 12, she attended the exclusive Dalton School, where she became friends with Mary Stuart Masterson. While there, an agent urged her to try out for a role in the movie Pretty Baby (1978). She didn't get it, but it did lead to a role on the soap Guiding Light (1952). She majored in theatre arts at Brown University and graduated in 1987. She worked as a waitress in Los Angeles, while seeking her acting break. In 1995, she married writer-director Jonathan Prince.- Actor
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The youngest of seven children, Stephen Gregory was raised in New York. He attended NYU and studied with several noted acting teachers such as Stella Adler, Roy London and Ivana Chubbuck. After acting in numerous television commercials, Stephen appeared on "As the World Turns" (1956)_ as Marisa Tomei's love interest. Then, after the release of the film The Heavenly Kid (1985), he moved to Los Angeles, where he guest-starred on such shows as St. Elsewhere (1982), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), Houston Knights (1987) and NBC's You Can't Take It with You (1987). After a three-year contract on The Young and the Restless (1973), Stephen left acting and began a media consulting business in Los Angeles. A producer on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) remembered him, however, and was able to lure him before the cameras once again. He has a recurring role as Dr. Beresford on "Law and Order: SVU" and splits his time between New York and Los Angeles.- Beth Tegarden was born on 11 February 1965 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. She was an actress, known for The Stuff (1985), News Traveler (1998) and Who Killed Buddy Blue? (1995). She died on 25 February 2014 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Christine Elise McCarthy was born in Boston, Massachusetts - the daughter of artists. She has been acting professionally since 1988 and is recognized primarily for her roles as U4EA-popping bad girl, Emily Valentine, on Beverly Hills, 90210. She returned to the 90210 zip code in the Fox 2019 summer hit BH90210 playing a heightened version of herself in 5 of the 6 episodes. She is also known for Harper Tracy on ER, and as Kyle, the gal who killed Chucky in Child's Play 2. She returned as Kyle in the 7th installment of the franchise - Cult of Chucky and is rumored to be attached to the 2020 SYFY Chucky series, in development. She has also appeared in recurring roles on China Beach, In the Heat of the Night, and Tell Me You Love Me. Among her other film roles are Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers and two films starring Viggo Mortensen: Vanishing Point and Boiling Point. She appeared in the TV movie Vanishing Point with Viggo Mortensen, who requested she play the role. They met on another project, Boiling Point, though her role was largely written out. She had a recurring role on In the Heat of the Night and also appeared in an episode of "Charmed". She was featured in the punk rock documentaries American Hardcore and All Ages: The Boston Hardcore Film.
Bathing & the Single Girl, inspired by the short film, is her debut novel available in paperback on Amazon & digitally on Amazon and I-tunes. (www.bathingbook.com) . Her directorial debut, Bathing & the Single Girl, was accepted into over 100 film festivals and won 20 awards. It can be viewed from the book's site.
She hosts a plant-based cooking channel on Youtube called - Delightful Delicious Delovely & Video Vegan (www.VideoVegan.com). She also maintains an irreverent food porn blog called WWW.DelightfulDeliciousDelovely.com for which she provides recipes, photographs and sometimes shares details of the triumphs and, more frequently, the humiliations of her own life. She has a great passion for photography (http://www.redbubble.com/people/jdempsey/portfolio) and has shown her pin-up and decaying Americana imagery in the United States & Paris. She was on the selection committee of Michigan's Waterfront Film Festival since its inception in 1999, she was co-director of the Victoria Texas Independent Film Festival, programmed for the Self-Medicated Film Festival and The Lady Filmmakers Film Festival, and consults & judges for many others.
She made her directorial debut with an award winning short film she also wrote, produced, and starred in: Bathing and the Single Girl. Since December 2010, Bathing and the Single Girl has been screened at more than 100 festivals and has won 20 awards. Dystel & Goderich Literary Management represents her full-length novel of the same name, Bathing and the Single Girl, released in January 2014.
As a producer, she has worked as a story producer on multiple reality shows including Hellevator with the Soska Twins, Cold Justice & Best Bars in America.
As a writer, she has written three episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 as well as characters and story lines for the series, a pilot that was optioned by Aaron Spelling, and comical true-life essays that she performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade and Naked Angels theaters in LA.
She has a large following on Instagram @ChristineEliseMcCarthy.- Actor
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James Riordan's Broadway credits include "The Elephant Man" "Jerusalem" "Dance of Death", "Noises Off" and "Present Laughter" Off-Broadway he played Victorian art critic and social reformer John Ruskin for over 500 performances in "The Countess" by Gregory Murphy. Additional selected Off Broadway credits include leading roles in the New York revivals of Brian Friel's "Lovers" Jules Romain's "Donagoo" and Howard Brenton's "Christie In Love" Regionally he played leading roles in many regional theaters around the country most recently, the world premiere of "Safe Home" co-authored by Tom Hanks and based on his collection of short stories "Uncommon Type" Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he was a member of the resident company of the Cleveland Play House acting company early in his career. MFA from Temple University.- Actor
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Jonathan Breck was born on 17 February 1965 in Houston, Texas, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Jeepers Creepers (2001), Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011) and Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003).- Producer
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A graduate of Wesleyan University, Michael Bay spent his 20s working on advertisements and music videos. His first projects after film school were in the music video business. He created music videos for Tina Turner, Meat Loaf, Lionel Richie, Wilson Phillips, Donny Osmond and Divinyls. His work won him recognition and a number of MTV award nominations. He also filmed advertisements for Nike, Reebok, Coca-Cola, Budweiser and Miller Lite. He won the Grand Prix Clio for Commercial of the Year for his "Got Milk/Aaron Burr" commercial. At Cannes, he has won the Gold Lion for The Best Beer campaign for Miller Lite, as well as the Silver for "Got Milk". In 1995, Bay was honored by the Directors Guild of America as Commercial Director of the Year. That same year, he also directed his first feature film, Bad Boys (1995), starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, which grossed more than $160 million, worldwide. His follow-up film, The Rock (1996), starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, was also hugely successful, making Bay the director du jour.- Music Artist
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Considered by many to be hip-hop's greatest producer, Dr. Dre (b. André Young, February 18, 1965) pioneered gangsta hip-hop and his own variation of the sound, dubbed G-Funk. His very early albums were violent but cautionary tales of the criminal mind, but Dre's records with NWA celebrated the hedonistic, amoralistic side of gang life. Being around during the birth of west coast hip-hop during the early 1980s, Dre found himself performing at house parties and clubs with the World Class Wreckin' Cru around South-Central Los Angeles. Wearing a Doctor's mask when he performed, he called himself Dr. Dre, Dre being a nickname from André. In 1986, Dre met Ice Cube. Instantly becoming good friends, the two MCs began writing songs for Ruthless Records, a label started by former drug pusher Eazy-E. Initially they were rejected by the record-buying public, but Eazy formed NWA', with Dre, Cube, and newcomers MC Ren and DJ Yella, releasing their first album in 1987. Then, in 1989, with distribution from Bryan Turner and his Priority Records label (now a part of EMI), N.W.A. delivered "Straight Outta Compton," a vicious, violent, and misogynistic record that became an underground hit with virtually no support from radio, the press, or the still hip-hop-free MTV. N.W.A. became notorious for their violent lyrics, which resulted in the FBI sending a warning letter to Ruthless and its distributor, Priority Records, suggesting that the group should watch their step. Dre would have several bad falls with the police during his life. While it seemed that the group was strong, Ice Cube suddenly departed in late 1989 amidst many financial disagreements with Dre. Suddenly the the music was in Dre's hands. Dre left the group the next year to form Death Row Records with Suge Knight. Knight held NWA's manager at gunpoint and threatening to kill him if he refused to let Dre out of his contract. Dre didn't know how he got out, nor did he care, he was making music. Then Dre discovered Snoop Dogg through his stepbrother 'Warren G', and he immediately began working with the brilliantly talented MC. Snoop would become great friends with the Doctor and was on Dre's 1992 debut "The Chronic" as much as Dre himself. But trouble was soon to follow. Dre grew frustrated with Knight's strong-arm techniques. At the time, Death Row was devoting itself to Tupac Shakur's label debut, "All Eyez on Me," and Snoop was busy recovering from his draining murder trial. Dre, fed up, left the label in the summer of 1996 to form Aftermath, declaring gangsta hip-hop was dead. Soon thereafter, both 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. were murdered, putting a sudden end to the East Side/West Side hip-hop war, and Suge was later arrested and sent to prison. It would be at least three years before anything big came out of the great producer. It wasn't until he began working on his 2001 album, and discovering an underground MC by the name of Eminem that Dre would make his comeback.- Actress
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Meredith Ostrom was born on 18 February 1977. She is an actress and producer, known for Love Actually (2003), 9 Miles Down (2009) and Played (2006).- Actor
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Isaac "Ike" Barinholtz, born February 18, 1977, is an American actor, comedian, voice actor and writer, known as a cast member on Mad TV (1995), from 2002-2007, and for his roles on The Mindy Project (2012) and Eastbound & Down (2009). He spent two years in Amsterdam with the famed comedy improve troupe Boom Chicago along with Jordan Peele, Josh Meyers, and Nicole Parker. Barinholtz hosted the Worst of Boom Night during the 10-year anniversary of Boom Chicago, where they performed their worst material from previous shows.- Actress
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Lovi Poe was born in Quezon City, Philippines. She is an actress and writer, known for Seasons (2023), Flower of Evil (2022) and Sleep with Me (2022). She has been married to Montgomery Blencowe since 27 August 2023.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Carly McKillip was born on 13 February 1989 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is an actress, known for Triple Dog (2010), Hot Rod (2007) and Saving Silverman (2001). She has been married to Darren Savard since 10 May 2015. They have two children.- Taylor Beadle-Williams was born on 14 February 1989 in Australia. She is an actress, known for Tricky Business (2012), Mover (2013) and The Lost World (1999).
- Actress
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Bonnie was born in New York City and attended the UN International School and NYU. In addition to guest appearances on NBC's "Law & Order", "Law & Order: SVU", CBS's "The Education of Max Bickford" with Richard Dreyfuss, Sidney Lumet's "100 Centre Street"on A&E and ABC's "Ugly Betty", Bonnie was a member of the cast of NBC's "Third Watch" as well as CBS's "Guiding Light". Her film work has included "Black Irish" with Michael Angarano and "Stake Land" with Connor Paolo, due out in 2010. Off Broadway, Bonnie starred in David Rabe's Hurlyburly and recently made her Broadway debut as Scarlett Johansson's understudy in Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge. Bonnie's sister is photographer Sally Dennison, also a New York native.- Rachel Leigh Werner was born on 15 February 1989 in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA. She is an actress, known for Kush (2007) and Yes, Dear (2000).
- Actress
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Elizabeth Chase "Lizzie" Olsen (born February 16, 1989) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in the films Silent House (2011), Liberal Arts (2012), Godzilla (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and Captain America: Civil War (2016). For her role in the critically-acclaimed Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), she was nominated for numerous awards, including the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She is the younger sister of actresses and fashion designers Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen.
Olsen was born in Sherman Oaks, California to Jarnette "Jarnie", a personal manager, and David "Dave" Olsen, a real estate developer and mortgage banker. She is the younger sister of twins Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen, who became famous as TV and movie stars at an early age. Her oldest brother is named Trent Olsen, and she has two younger half-siblings. In 1996, Olsen's parents divorced. The Olsens have Norwegian and English ancestry.
As a child, Olsen received ballet and singing lessons. She began acting at age 4, and by 11 she'd had small roles in How the West Was Fun and the straight-to-video series The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley. Having appeared in her sisters' videos, when she was in the fourth grade, Olsen began to go on auditions for other projects, auditioning for the film Spy Kids. She almost quit acting in 2004 over the media frenzy surrounding Mary-Kate's eating disorder.
She attended Campbell Hall School in North Hollywood, California from kindergarten through grade 12. After graduation, she enrolled at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. In 2009, Olsen spent a semester studying in Moscow, Russia at the Moscow Art Theatre School through the MATS program at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.
Olsen's breakout role came in 2011, when she appeared in the film Martha Marcy May Marlene. The film, along with Olsen's performance, received critical acclaim. Olsen was nominated for and won numerous critics awards for her portrayal of the titular character Martha, a girl suffering from delusions and paranoia after fleeing her life in a cult and returning to her family. She next appeared in the horror film remake Silent House, in which she played the role of Sarah. The film received mixed reviews, although Olsen's performance was once again praised. Olsen also appeared in the music video "The Queen" by Carlotta. Olsen filmed the movie Red Lights during mid-2011, and it was released in the U.S. on July 13, 2012. She starred in Josh Radnor's film Liberal Arts, which was released on January 22, 2012. She and Dakota Fanning starred in Very Good Girls, a 2013 release.
In January 2013, Olsen was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award. She co-starred in the 2013 American remake of the 2003 South Korean film Oldboy; she played Marie, a young social worker who developed a relationship with the protagonist, played by Josh Brolin. She played Edie Parker, Jack Kerouac's first wife and the author of the Beat Generation memoir You'll Be Okay, in Kill Your Darlings.
In 2014, Olsen starred in Legendary's Godzilla a reboot, opposite Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Olsen joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe by playing the Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the 2015 Avengers sequel. She first appeared as the character in a mid-credits scene of the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, again alongside her Godzilla co-star Taylor-Johnson, who portrayed her brother Quicksilver. She reprised this role as the Scarlet Witch in the 2015 film Avengers: Age of Ultron and the 2016 film Captain America: Civil War.
In September 2014, it was announced that Olsen would portray Audrey Williams, Hank Williams' wife, manager, and duet partner in the upcoming 2015 biopic I Saw the Light directed by Marc Abraham and starring Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams.
In January 2016, it was announced that Olsen would team up with her Avengers: Age of Ultron co-star Jeremy Renner in Taylor Sheridan's directorial feature film debut, Wind River.
Olsen attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the Atlantic Theater Company and graduated in March 2013 after six years of intermittent study. Her sisters' clothing line "Elizabeth and James" was named after her and her older brother.
Olsen started dating fellow actor Boyd Holbrook in September 2012 after meeting him on the film Very Good Girls. They became engaged in March 2014 but called it off in January 2015.- Actor
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Chord Overstreet was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Julie (Miller), a make-up artist, and Paul Overstreet, a country musician and songwriter whose own father was a pastor. Chord and his five siblings were raised in a creative and music-filled environment, with their father highly involved in the music industry. His brother, Nash Overstreet, is in the band Hot Chelle Rae.
After Chord graduated from high school in 2007, he decided to pursue performing as a career from the encouragement and support of his parents, and from his talent of singing, acting, and playing instruments. Unfortunately, the first two to three years after high school were unsuccessful for Chord; only making small guest appearances on various television shows such as iCarly (2007) and Private (2009).
In early 2010, Chord received a call from his manager, urging him to audition for an open casting call for the FOX television series Glee (2009). After several callbacks and audition performances, Chord got the role of quarterback turned glee club member, Sam Evans, for the hit show. Since Chord's debut performance on the season premiere of the 2nd season of Glee (2009), he has received critical and commercial praise and success for his performance on the show, along with a large following of dedicated and loving fans.- Actor
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Griffin Newman was born on 19 February 1989 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Disenchanted (2022), Draft Day (2014) and The Tick (2016).- Luke Pasqualino was born on February 19, 1990, in Peterborough, England, as Luca Giuseppe Pasqualino. His parents are both of Italian descent, from Sicily and Naples. He is an actor, known for Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome (2012), Snowpiercer (2013), and The Apparition (2012). He attended Walton Community School, and the drama classes held by Martin Tempest at Stamford Art Centre. He is also widely famous for his appearance as a series regular on popular British teen drama skins as Freddie McClair.
- Charles Robert Darwin FRS FRGS FLS FZS (12 February 1809 - 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to evolutionary biology.His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now widely accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honored by burial in Westminster Abbey.
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Abraham Lincoln was an American politician from Kentucky. He was the second presidential candidate of the then-new Republican Party, following John Charles Frémont (1813 - 1890). He served as President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. He was assassinated in April 1865, the first of four American presidents to be assassinated during their term in office.
In February 1809, Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin, located on the Sinking Spring Farm . The Farm itself was located near the modern city of Hodgenville, Kentucky, which was incorporated in 1836. Lincoln was the second child born to the illiterate farmer Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851) and his first wife Nancy Hanks (1784-1818). Both of his parents were born in Virginia.
Lincoln was a namesake grandson of Captain Abraham Lincoln (1744 - 1786), a military veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The senior Abraham was born in Pennsylvania, and settled in the areas of modern Kentucky in 1781. He was shot by an unnamed Native American in May 1786, while working in his field. The Lincoln family were descendants of Samuel Lincoln (1622 - 1690), an English weaver who had settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637.
Lincoln's father Thomas bought or leased various farms in Kentucky, but lost most of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the Lincoln family settled in Indiana, which at the time had a more reliable and surveying system. Indiana was a "free-state", having abolished slave-holding in 1816. This suited Thomas' religious beliefs. He had joined the Separate Baptists, a religious group which forbade its members to own slaves.
In October 1818, Lincoln's mother Nancy died due to milk sickness. She had ingested milk cow containing the poison tremetol. She was 34-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln was only 9-years-old at the time. The boy's primary caregiver for a while was his older sister Sarah Lincoln (1807 - 1828), who took over most household duties.
In December 1819, Lincoln's father married his second wife Sarah Bush (1788 - 1869). She was a widow, with three children of her own from a previous marriage. Lincoln grew close to his stepmother, and started calling her mother. By that time, Lincoln was old enough to start working in the farm. He reportedly never liked the physical labor, and his family regarded him as particularly lazy.
Lincoln received little formal schooling, relying on brief tutoring by itinerant teachers. He learned to read at the age of 7, but was not trained to write for several years. However, he became a bibliophile and spend most of his free time "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc" He was largely self-educated, reading on a variety of topics.
As a teenager, Lincoln was "tall, strong, and athletic". He was trained in the "catch-as-catch-can" style of wrestling, a grappling style, and had a career as an amateur wrestler. He earned his reputation in the sport by defeating the leader of "the Clary's Grove Boys", a local gang of troublemakers.
In 1830, the Lincoln family moved to Macon County, Illinois. By that time, Lincoln was 21-years-old, legally entering adulthood. His relationship with his father Thomas became difficult, as young Lincoln craved for financial independence. In 1831, Thomas and most of his family settled in a new homestead, located in Coles County, Illinois. Lincoln decided not to follow them, and started living on his own. He settled for a few years in New Salem, Illinois.
In 1831, Lincoln and his partner Denton Offutt purchased a general store in New Salem. Lincoln gained a reputation of honesty, when he realized that he had accidentally overcharged a customer and voluntarily returned the money to him. By 1832, the general store had failed. The partnership was dissolved.
Also In 1832, Lincoln stood as a candidate for the Illinois General Assembly. He was an unlikely candidate, as he was rather poor and lacked political connections. He received 277 votes, nearly every vote in the village of New Salem. He lost the election as he was unknown outside this village.
In the early 1830s, Lincoln worked as New Salem's postmaster, and then as county surveyor. He aspired to become a lawyer, and read law on his own. He extensively studied legal texts in order to qualify. He later claimed that he was entirely self-taught. In 1834, Lincoln sought election to the Illinois General Assembly again. This time, he stood as a candidate for the powerful Whig Party and won the election. He served four terms in the General Assembly.
Lincoln's first known romantic relationship involved Ann Rutledge (1813 - 1835), a local woman who was reputedly engaged to another man. Rutledge died in August 1835, during a typhoid epidemic. She was only 22-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln became severely depressed following her death. Biographers think that he wrote the poem "The Suicide's Soliloquy"(1838), to record his own suicidal thoughts during this period.
In 1836, Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar, and moved to Springfield Illinois to practice law. He started his career as a lawyer by practicing law under experienced lawyer John Todd Stuart (1807 - 1885), who happened to be a long-time friend of Lincoln. Lincoln gained a reputation as a formidable trial lawyer in cases involving cross-examinations.
In his political career in the 1830s, Lincoln championed the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. He later served as a Canal Commissioner. He voted to expand suffrage to all white males, not only white landowners. He adopted a "free soil" policy, vocally opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He favored the plan of the Whig party leader Henry Clay (1777 - 1852) to use freedmen in the colonization of Liberia.
In 1839, Lincoln became romantically interested in Mary Todd (1818 - 1882), a daughter of the wealthy businessman Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849). They were engaged in 1840, and were married in 1842. They had four sons. Mary had a higher social standing than Lincoln, being part of the gentry in Springfield, Illinois. She had reputedly rejected several suitors. Her most notable suitor before Lincoln was the successful lawyer Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813 -1861).
In 1842, Lincoln's last term in the Illinois General Assembly ended. In 1843, he sought the Whig nomination for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost the nomination to John Jay Hardin (1810 - 1847), but convinced party officials to not renominate Hardin in the next election. Lincoln won the Whig nomination in 1846, and went on to win the election. He served as a congressman from 1847 to 1849. During this time, Lincoln was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation.
During his term in congress, Lincoln proposed a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and to compensate slave owners for the loss of property. The bill failed to gain sufficient support, even from his own party. Lincoln spoke out against the country's involvement in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), warning that the price of glory would be "showers of blood".
Lincoln did not seek renomination to Congress in the 1848 election, honoring a 1846 pledge to serve a single term. He supported Zachary Taylor's campaign to win the Whig nomination for the presidency. When Taylor won the presidential election, Lincoln expected political favors from the new president. Taylor offered to Lincoln an appointment as secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory, which was at that time a stronghold of the Democratic Party. Lincoln declined the offer, as it would require him to abandon his legal career in Illinois. He resumed life as a lawyer.
During the 1850s, Lincoln was one of Illinois' leading lawyers. He appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, and was the sole counsel in 51 of these cases. He solidified his reputation as a defense lawyer in two murder trials. In the trial of Duff Armstrong (1833-1899), Lincoln was able to prove that a key eyewitness was actually lying about what he had seen. Lincoln found that the witness stood at too great a distance in nighttime conditions to have seen anything. In the trial of Simeon Quinn "Peachy" Harrison (a cousin of Lincoln), Lincoln was able to convince a judge that the dying declaration of the murder victim should not be excluded as hearsay, That declaration was that the victim had actively provoked Harrison into attacking, helping the defense's case.
In 1854, Lincoln resumed his active participation in political life by speaking out against the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law that repealing the Missouri Compromise (1820), and would allow for the expansion of slavery to the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The Whig Party split in two due to its factions' different reactions to the new law. The Party's anti-slavery faction helped establish the new Republican Party, which also attracted anti-slavery politicians from the Free Soil Party, the Liberty Party, and the Democratic Party.
In 1854, Lincoln stood as a Whig candidate to the United States Senate. He was not able to secure the election, but managed to convince his supporters to vote for Lyman Trumbull (1813 - 1896), an anti-slavery Democrat with similar views to their own. Trumbull won the election. In 1856, Lincoln formally joined the Republican Party. At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln was one of the candidates for the party's nomination for Vice President of the United States. Lincoln received 110 votes, finishing second among the candidates. The vice-presidential nomination was instead won by William Lewis Dayton (1807 - 1864).
In 1858, Lincoln stood as a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. His opponent was Stephen Arnold Douglas, a leading Democrat politician. The Senate campaign featured seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas, which attracted nationwide attention. The candidates argued extensively over the legal and moral status of slavery in the United States. In this elections, the Republican Party won the popular vote, but the Democratic Party won more seats. The legislature re-appointed Douglas to the Senate. But Lincoln had become nationally famous, and he was often mentioned by the press as a likely presidential candidate.
In 1860, Lincoln received early endorsements as a presidential candidate. In the 1860 Republican National Convention, he secured the party's nomination. His most significant rival for the nomination was William Henry Seward (1801-1872), who finished second among the various candidates. Only Lincoln and Seward received over 50 votes from delegates. The party's nomination for vice president was secured by Hannibal Hamlin (1809 - 1891), a former Democrat who had opposed slavery for most of his career.
In the 1860 United States presidential election, the Democratic Party was split into two rival factions, which nominated different candidates. In the election, Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, or 39.8% of the popular vote. In the electoral college, he received 180 votes, winning the election. Lincoln every one of the free Northern states, plus California and Oregon in the recently annexed Western United States. He received no votes at all in 10 of the 15 slave states.
Lincoln started his presidency in March 1861. By that time, 7 states had already seceded from the Union in reaction to his victory (in chronological order: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas). The American Civil War started in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter, a bombardment of a Union fort located near Charleston, South Carolina. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send a total of 75,000 volunteer troops to recapture forts, protect Washington, and "preserve the Union". In Baltimore rioting crowds started attacking Union forces. Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus in select areas, allowing the government forces to confine people without formal trials. Thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers were confined.
Lincoln soon established his executive control over the Union's war effort, and helped shape its military strategy, He expanded his war powers, and exercising "unprecedented authority" over the country. He had the full support of the Republican-controlled Congress, as well as popular support in states loyal to the Union. His political opposition consisted of two different factions, the Copperheads and the Radical Republicans. The Copperheads were a faction of the Democratic Party which demanded a compromise on the matter of slavery, and a peace settlement with the Confederates. The Radical Republicans were a faction of the Republican Party which demanded the "permanent eradication of slavery", and rejected any ideas concerning compromises with slave-owners.
In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the emancipation of slaves in 10 Confederate states. The Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. By the spring of 1863, Lincoln had started recruiting "black troops" in massive numbers. By the end of the year, 20 regiments of African Americans from the Mississippi Valley had been recruited by the Union.
Lincoln ran for re-election in the 1864 United States presidential election. He united the main factions of the Republican Party and the War Democrats (a pro-Union faction of the Democratic Party) into a coalition known as Union Party. The remaining factions of the Democratic Party made the mistake of nominating retired general George Brinton McClellan (1826 - 1885) as their presidential candidate. McClellan held a grudge against Lincoln, but rejected any ideas concerning peace with the Confederates. Meaning that the Copperheads could see little difference between him and Lincoln.
Lincoln won the presidential election with 2,218,388 votes, representing 55.0% of the popular vote. 78% of Union soldiers. voted fort him, as they did not want a compromise to end the War. Lincoln won 212 electoral votes, and had the support of 22 out of the Union's 25 states. His new vice-president was Andrew Johnson (1808 - 1875), a prominent War Democrat.
In 1865, the Union seemed to be winning the American Civil War. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife attended Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. They wanted to see a performance of the then-popular British play "Our American Cousin" (1858) by Tom Taylor (1817 - 1880). During the performance, Lincoln was assassinated by the well-known actor John Wilkes Booth (1838 - 1865). Booth was a Confederate sympathizer, and hoped to turn the tide of the War. Lincoln was 56-years-old at the time of his death.
Lincoln's corpse was returned for burial to Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived for decades. On May 4, 1865, Lincoln was interred at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. The Lincoln Tomb later became a state historic site. His wife and three of their four sons were later buried there as well.
Historians tend to rank Lincoln among the top Presidents of the United States. Due to his violent death, he came to be regarded as "a national martyr". Several political factions trace their origins to Lincoln's ideas and policies. He has been described as "a classical liberal" of the 19th-century, and is well-regarded for his policies favoring trade and business.- London-born Virginia Woolf came from a wealthy family and, unlike her brothers, received her education at home, an unusual step for the times. Her parents had both had children from previous marriages, so she grew up with a variety of siblings, stepbrothers and stepsisters. Her father was a well-respected editor and author and the former son-in-law of William Makepeace Thackeray. Author James Russell Lowell was her godfather, and Henry James and George Elliott were regular visitors and guests at the family home. As she recalled later in life, her most pleasant childhood memories were of the summers spent at the family home in Cornwall, by Porthminster Bay (the Godrevy Lighthouse there was the basis for her novel "To the Lighthouse").
The sudden death of Virginia's mother in 1895, when she was 13, and the passing of her sister two years later led to the first of Virginia's mental breakdowns. In 1904 her father died, which caused a complete mental and physical collapse and for a while she was sent to a mental institution to recover. Nervous breakdowns and bouts of severe depression tormented Virginia throughout her life, and the fact that as children she and her sister Vanessa were sexually abused by two of their stepbrothers added to her already considerable feelings of guilt and inferiority.
She studied at London's Kings College, where she became acquainted with such literary figures as Lytton Strachey, Saxon Sydney-Turner and Leonard Woolf. She married Woolf in 1912. Virginia was always ashamed of what she termed her "unattractive countenance", and once wrote that "being wanted [was] a pleasure that I have never felt". In 1922 she met Vita Sackville-West, and the two women began a relationship that lasted for almost ten years. She was said to have written her novel "Orlando" as a love letter to West.
After the publication of her novel "Between the Acts" she fell into a deep depression, exacerbated by the destruction of her London home by Nazi planes during the bombing of that city, and the less than enthusiastic critical reaction to her biography of her close friend Roger Fry. Her condition deteriorated to the point where she was unable to write or even read. She finally had a full-blown nervous breakdown. Unable and unwilling to continue, she wrote a note to her husband saying that "I am certain I am going mad again" and "I shan't recover this time . . . I can't fight any longer . . . I can't go on spoiling your life any longer." On March 28, 1941, she left her home, walked to the banks of the nearby River Ouse, loaded heavy stones into her pockets and walked into the water. She was 59 years old. - Writer
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York, to James and Sara Roosevelt. His father was 54 at the time of FDR's birth and already had a grown son, nicknamed "Rosy". Sarah was only 27 when FDR was born. Growing up, FDR had a happy but sheltered childhood. His family was very wealthy and FDR had a very privileged upbringing, with trips to Europe and private tutors. Sara Roosevelt was a loving but domineering and overprotective mother. FDR was a devoted son, but found clever and subtle ways to get around his mother's domination. At 14 he was sent to Groton, an exclusive prep school led by the Rev. Endicott Peabody. FDR did not enjoy his time at Groton, often being teased by the other kids for having a formal and stuffy manner. Since he had a nephew who was older than him, kids at Groton called him "Uncle Frank". He graduated from Groton in 1900 and went to Harvard, where he edited the "Crimson" but failed to be accepted into the Porcellian Social Club. He graduated Harvard in 1903. Soon after that he fell madly in love with his sixth cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt. They married in 1905, with President Theodore Roosevelt giving the bride away. However, from the start Franklin and Eleanor's marriage was not a happy one. She was quiet and shy, whereas he was boisterous and outgoing. The fact that his mother moved into the house next door to theirs, and ran things, did not help. Franklin and Eleanor had six children (one child died in infancy). In 1910 Franklin was elected to the New York State Legislature from Duchess County. There he made a name for himself as a crusading reformer who favored the "average guy" over big business and championed for honest government. In 1913 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy and served under Josephus Daniels and President Woodrow Wilson. In 1918 he began a love affair with his wife's social secretary, Lucy Mercer. When Eleanor discovered the affair, she was understandably devastated and told Franklin she wanted a divorce. At the urging of his mother, Frankilin chose to save the marriage and promised Eleanor that he would never have anything more to do with Lucy. The damage was done, however, and Franklin and Eleanor never again shared the intimacies of marriage, becoming more like political partners. In 1921 FDR was stricken with polio and paralyzed. He permanently lost the use of his legs, but refused to let that thwart his political ambitions. He spoke at the 1924 Democratic Convention for the candidacy of Alfred E. Smith, then the Governor of New York, calling him the "Happy Warrior". In 1928 FDR was elected Governor of New York and was well placed when the stock market crashed in 1929. As governor he took the lead in providing relief and public works projects for the millions of unemployed in the state. His success as New York's governor made him a strong candidate for the Presidency in 1932. He easily beat incumbent President Herbert Hoover.
When Franklin Roosevelt was sworn in as President on March 4, 1933, more than 15 million Americans were unemployed. Millions more had been hard hit by the Depression and the banking system had collapsed. FDR wasted no time in launching a radical economic recovery program, known as the New Deal. He created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which made the federal government the guarantor of people's bank deposits - not the banks themselves - and allowed drought-stricken farmers to refinance their mortgages, He created public works programs including the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)--thus making the government the employer of last resort--as well as setting up the Social Security system, instituting a minimum wage, outlawing child labor--a widespread practice at the time, especially in mines, factories and textile mills--and mandating a 40-hour work week with overtime pay. In responding to the Depression, FDR forever changed the role of the federal government in American life. He was easily reelected in 1936, defeating Republican Alf Landon in a landslide. His second term as president was less successful than his first, however. The Supreme Court had ruled a number of New Deal measures unconstitutional. With an electoral mandate in the bank, FDR proposed "packing" the Supreme Court with justices of his political persuasion for every judge over the age of 70 that did not retire. However, Congress refused to pass the Supreme Court packing plan, and from that point on FDR was unable to get Congress to pass much of his legislation. Also, fascism was rising rapidly throughout Europe and Asia. Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini had both seized power and began to conquer other countries, such as Ethiopia, Austria and Czechoslavakia. FDR was unable to respond to the threats from Europe and Asia, however, because sentiment in the US was strongly isolationist and Congress had passed a series of neutrality laws that gave the President very little power to respond to international aggression. World War II began in September 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. Nine months later all of Western Europe had fallen to Hitler. The UK and its Commonwealth and Empire was standing alone. FDR wanted to help Britain, but had to move carefully and skillfully. He negotiated a deal in which the US gave Britain 50 old destroyers in exchange for bases in the Western Hemisphere. With World War II underway, FDR took the unprecedented move of seeking a third term as president. He won that term in November 1940, defeating Republican Wendell Willkie. Safely re-elected, he proposed a radical new program for helping Britain, known as Lend-Lease, in which Britain could buy armaments and other supplies from the US but not have to pay for them until after the war. FDR used the analogy of borrowing a neighbor's hose to put out a house fire to sell Lend-Lease. It passed and America became the "arsenal of democracy" as it began to build armaments for Britain and then the Soviet Union, when Hitler invaded it in mid-1941. Roosevelt met Britain's Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, for the first time in August 1941 where they drew up the Atlantic Charter. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, destroying much of America's Pacific fleet. The next day,FDR declared war on Japan, calling December 7 "a date that will live in infamy." America was in the war, and not only against Japan, but also against Germany and Italy. Under FDR's leadership, America quickly transformed itself from a decaying nation of idle factories, impoverished families, abandoned farms and masses of hobos roaming the streets to a nation turning out planes, tanks, guns, military vehicles and other armaments on a scale that quickly dwarfed the capability of Nazi Germany to do the same. World War II also changed American life as blacks got better jobs in the war plants and women began working outside the home in unprecedented numbers. Helped by Eleanor, FDR used the war as a vehicle for social progress, securing better treatment for minorities and women, higher wages and better benefits for workers and a GI bill, which guaranteed a free college education for all American soldiers who fought in the war. In so doing, he created the American middle class of today.
After a series of military defeats, the US and its allies began to win the war. Invasions of North Africa and Italy were launched and the US started retaking islands in the South Pacific it had lost to Japan at the beginning of the war, starting with the Battle of Midway in 1942. FDR met with Churchill several times throughout the war and with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at Tehran in 1943 and at Yalta in 1945. The Allied invasion of France, known as D-Day, was launched on June 6, 1944. As the war ended, FDR pushed for his dream of a United Nations and for reforms that would ensure that another World War would never happen. The United Nations did come to pass, as well as new global institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. Also, FDR advocated for decolonization of Africa and Asia, leading to the collapse of the old European empires.
Because of the war, FDR felt he had no right to leave the presidency while Americans under his command were still fighting. So he sought a fourth term in 1944. His opponent was the new governor of New York, Thomas E. Dewey, who ran a campaign of innuendo, hinting that FDR was too ill to lead and that his government had gone stale. FDR retaliated with a speech accusing the Republicans of attacking his dog, Fala. FDR won his fourth term in November 1944. In January 1945 he journeyed to Yalta to confer with Churchill and Stalin for the last time, to settle the postwar world and push for Russian participation in the United Nations. By this time FDR was gravely ill. After the Yalta Conference, he traveled to his resort at Warm Springs, Georgia, where he died suddenly of a massive stroke on April 12, 1945. It was revealed that Lucy Mercer, his one-time lover, was with him when he died and that she had secretly visited him in the White House a number of times during his last year.
There was an elaborate funeral for him, with a train procession from Warm Springs to Washington DC, then to Hyde Park, where he was buried.- Writer
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Joyce was born at 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, Dublin, on 2 February 1882. His father invested unwisely, and the family's fortunes declined steadily. Joyce graduated from University College Dublin (UCD), in 1902. He briefly studied medicine in Paris but his mother's impending death from cancer brought him back to Dublin. In 1904, Joyce began "Stephen Hero", which he later re-worked as "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". He also met Nora Barnacle, a chambermaid, and on 16 June 1904 they went walking at Ringsend, at the Liffey's mouth; Joyce later chose that date for the events recorded in Ulysses.
Having briefly shared a Martello tower at Sandycove, County Dublin, with Oliver St. John Gogarty, he sailed from Dublin with Nora in October 1904. Joyce found work in a language school in Trieste. In 1909, he made two trips to Dublin, to arrange publication of Dubliners, and to open a short-lived cinema. His last visit was in 1912, when he failed to overcome his publisher's doubts about Dubliners. In 1914 the book was published in England, and "A Portrait" was serialised in a London magazine. With the outbreak of World War I, Joyce moved to Zurich in neutral Switzerland, where, in 1917, he underwent the first of many operations for glaucoma. "Ulysses", his masterpiece, was serialised in New York in 1918-20, but eventually halted by a court action.
Joyce returned to Trieste in 1919, then moved to Paris, where, in 1922, "Ulysses" was published by Sylvia Beach, owner of a celebrated bookshop. Its portrait of Dublin, and of the Jewish advertisement canvasser Leopold Bloom, revolutionised the novel with its 'stream of consciousness' technique; it was not published in Britain until 1936. In 1923, Joyce began the almost impenetrable "Finnegans Wake", which was published in 1939. Joyce and Nora finally married in 1931. In 1940, the couple returned to Zurich, where he died on 13 January 1941, aged 58.- Actor
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Ernest Borgnine was born Ermes Effron Borgnino on January 24, 1917 in Hamden, Connecticut. His parents were Anna (Boselli), who had emigrated from Carpi (MO), Italy, and Camillo Borgnino, who had emigrated from Ottiglio (AL), Italy. As an only child, Ernest enjoyed most sports, especially boxing, but took no real interest in acting. At age 18, after graduating from high school in New Haven, and undecided about his future career, he joined the United States Navy, where he stayed for ten years until leaving in 1945. After a few factory jobs, his mother suggested that his forceful personality could make him suitable for a career in acting, and Borgnine promptly enrolled at the Randall School of Drama in Hartford. After completing the course, he joined Robert Porterfield's famous Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, staying there for four years, undertaking odd jobs and playing every type of role imaginable. His big break came in 1949, when he made his acting debut on Broadway playing a male nurse in "Harvey".
In 1951, Borgnine moved to Los Angeles to pursue a movie career, and made his film debut as Bill Street in The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951). His career took off in 1953 when he was cast in the role of Sergeant "Fatso" Judson in From Here to Eternity (1953). This memorable performance led to numerous supporting roles as "heavies" in a steady string of dramas and westerns. He played against type in 1955 by securing the lead role of Marty Piletti, a shy and sensitive butcher, in Marty (1955). He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, despite strong competition from Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, James Dean and James Cagney. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Borgnine performed memorably in such films as The Catered Affair (1956), Ice Station Zebra (1968) and Emperor of the North (1973). Between 1962 and 1966, he played Lt. Commander Quinton McHale in the popular television series McHale's Navy (1962). In early 1984, he returned to television as Dominic Santini in the action series Airwolf (1984) co-starring Jan-Michael Vincent, and in 1995, he was cast in the comedy series The Single Guy (1995) as doorman Manny Cordoba. He also appeared in several made-for-TV movies.
Ernest Borgnine has often stated that acting was his greatest passion. His amazing 61-year career (1951 - 2012) included appearances in well over 100 feature films and as a regular in three television series, as well as voice-overs in animated films such as All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996), Small Soldiers (1998), and a continued role in the series SpongeBob SquarePants (1999). Between 1973 until his death, Ernest was married to Tova Traesnaes, who heads her own cosmetics company. They lived in Beverly Hills, California, where Ernest assisted his wife between film projects. When not acting, Ernest actively supported numerous charities and spoke tirelessly at benefits throughout the country. He has been awarded several honorary doctorates from colleges across the United States as well as numerous Lifetime Achievement Awards. In 1996, Ernest purchased a bus and traveled across the United States to see the country and meet his many fans. On December 17, 1999, he presented the University of North Alabama with a collection of scripts from his film and television career, due to his long friendship with North Alabama alumnus and actor George Lindsey (died May 6, 2012), who was an artist in residence at North Alabama.
Ernest Borgnine passed away aged 95 on July 8, 2012, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, of renal failure. He is survived by his wife Tova, their children and his younger sister Evelyn (1926-2013)- Actress
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Undoubtedly the woman who had come to epitomize what we recognize today as "celebrity," Zsa Zsa Gabor, is better known for her many marriages, personal appearances, her "dahlink" catchphrase, her actions, gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career.
Zsa Zsa was born as Sári Gabor on February 6, 1917 in Budapest, Hungary, to Jolie Gabor (née Janka Tilleman) and Vilmos Gabor (born Farkas Miklós Grün), both of Jewish descent. Her siblings were Eva Gabor and Magda Gabor. Zsa Zsa studied at a Swiss finishing school, was second runner-up in the fifth Miss Hungary pageant, and began her stage career in Vienna in 1934. In 1941, the year she obtained her first divorce, she followed younger sister Eva to Hollywood.
A radiant, beautiful blonde, Zsa Zsa began to appear on television series and occasional films. Her first film was at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Lovely to Look At (1952), co-starring Kathryn Grayson and Red Skelton. She next made a comedy called We're Not Married! (1952) at 20th Century Fox with Ginger Rogers. It was far from a star billing; she appeared several names down the cast as a supporting actress. But in 1952 she broke into films big time with her starring role opposite José Ferrer in Moulin Rouge (1952), although it has been said that throughout filming, director John Huston gave her a very difficult time.
In the following years, Zsa Zsa slipped back into supporting roles in films such as Lili (1953) and 3 Ring Circus (1954). Her main period of film work was in the 1950s, with other roles in Death of a Scoundrel (1956), with Yvonne De Carlo, and The Man Who Wouldn't Talk (1958) with Anna Neagle; again, these were supporting roles. By the 1960s, Zsa Zsa was appearing more as herself in films. She now appeared to follow her own persona around, and cameo appearances were the order of the day in films such as Pepe (1960) and Jack of Diamonds (1967). This continued throughout the 1970s.
She was memorable as herself in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991), in which she humorously poked fun at a 1989 incident where she was convicted of slapping a police officer (Paul Kramer) during a traffic stop. She spent three days in jail and had to do 120 hours of community service. Such infamous incidents contributed to her becoming one of the most all-time recognizable of Hollywood celebrities, and sometimes ridiculed as a result. She was also memorable to British television viewers on The Ruby Wax Show (1997).
In 2002, Gabor was reported to be in a coma in a Los Angeles hospital after a horrifying car accident. The 85-year-old star was injured when the car she was traveling in hit a utility pole in West Hollywood, California. The reports about her coma eventually proved to be inaccurate.
Zsa Zsa's life, spanning two continents, nine husbands, and 11 decades, came to an end on December 18, 2016, when she died of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, California. She was 99.- Writer
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Sheldon was born in Chicago on February 17, 1917. He began writing as a youngster and at the age of ten he made his first sale of a poem for $10. During the Depression, he worked at a variety of jobs and while attending Northwestern University he contributed short plays to drama groups.
At seventeen, he decided to try his luck in Hollywood. The only job he could find was as a reader of prospective film material at Universal Pictures for $22 a week. At night he wrote his own screenplays and was able to sell one called "South of Panama," to the studio for $250 in 1941.
During World War II, he served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps. After the war he established a reputation as being a prolific writer in the New York theater community. At one point during this career he had three musicals on Broadway including a rewritten version of "The Merry Widow," "Jackpot" and "Dream with Music." Eventually he received a Tony award as part of the writing team for the Gwen Verdon hit "Redhead" which brought to the attention of Hollywood.
His first assignment after his return to Hollywood was The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) starring Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple, which won him an Academy Award for best original screenplay of 1947.
In his 1982 interview he described his years under contract with MGM as, "I never stopped working. One day Dore Schary (who was then production head) looked at a list of MGM projects then under production and noted that I had written eight of them, more than three other writers put together. That afternoon, he made me a producer."
In the early 1960s when the movie industry was hurting because of television's popularity, Sheldon decided to make a switch. "I suppose I needed money," he remembered. "I met Patty Duke one day at lunch and stated producing "The Patty Duke Show," (that starred Duke playing two identical cousins). I did something nobody else in TV ever did at that time. For seven years, I wrote almost every single episode of the series."
His next series was "I Dream of Jeannie," which he also created as well as produced, lasted five seasons, 1965-1970. The show concerned an astronaut, Larry Hagman, who lands on a desert island and discovers a bottle containing a beautiful, 2,000-year-old genie, played by Barbara Eden, who accompanies him back to Florida and eventually marries her.
According to Sheldon it was "During the last year of "I Dream of Jeannie," I decided to try a novel. Each morning from 9 until noon, I had a secretary at the studio take all calls. I mean every single call. I wrote each morning or rather, dictated and then I faced the TV business." The result was "The Naked Face," which was scorned by book reviewers but sold 21,000 copies in hardcover. The novel scored even bigger in paperback, where it reportedly sold 3.1 million copies. Thereafter Sheldon name would continually be on the best-seller lists, often reigning on top for months at a time.
Sheldon's books including titles like "Rage of Angels," "The Other Side of Midnight," "Master of the Game" and "If Tomorrow Comes," provided him with his greatest fame. They featured cleverly plots with sensuality and a high degree of suspense, a device that kept fans from being able to putting his books down.
In a 1982 interview Sheldon told of how he created his novels; "I try to write my books so the reader can't put them down. I try to construct them so when the reader gets to the end of a chapter, he or she has to read just one more chapter. It's the technique of the old Saturday afternoon serial: leave the guy hanging on the edge of the cliff at the end of the chapter."
Explaining why so many women bought his books, he once commented that: "I like to write about women, who are talented and capable, but most important, retain their femininity. Women have tremendous power, their femininity, because men can't do without it."
Sheldon had few fans among highbrow critics, whose reviews of his books were generally reproachful of both Sheldon and his readers. Sheldon however remained undeterred, promoting the novels and himself with warm enthusiasm.
A big, cheerful man, he bragged about his work habits. Unlike other novelists who toil over typewriters or computers, Sheldon would dictate fifty pages a day to a secretary or a tape machine. He would correct the pages the following day and dictate another fifty pages continuing the routine until he had between 1,200 to 1,500 pages. "Then I would do a complete rewrite 12 to 15 times," he said. "Sometimes I would spend a whole year rewriting."
Sheldon prided himself on the authenticity of his novels. During a 1987 interview he remarked that: "If I write about a place, I have been there. If I write about a meal in Indonesia, I have eaten there in that restaurant. I don't think you can fool the reader."
For his novel "Windmills of the Gods," that dealt with the CIA, he interviewed former CIA chief Richard Helms, traveled to Argentina and Romania, and spent a week in Junction City, Kansas where the book's heroine had lived.
After a career that had earned him a Tony, an Oscar and an Emmy (for "I Dream of Jeannie"), Sheldon declared that his work as a novelist was his best work. "I love writing books," he once commented. "Movies are a collaborative medium, and everyone is second-guessing you. When you do a novel you're on your own. It's a freedom that doesn't exist in any other medium."
Several of his novels became television miniseries, often with the Sheldon serving as producer.
He was married for more than 30 years to Jorja Curtright Sheldon, a stage and film actress who later became a prominent interior decorator. After her death in 1985 he married Alexandra Sheldon, a former child actress and advertising executive, in 1989.
Sheldon died January 30, 2007 of complications from pneumonia at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California according with his wife, Alexandra, was by his side.
Along with his wife, Sheldon was survived by his daughter, author Mary Sheldon; his brother Richard and two grandchildren.- Dominic DiMaggio was born on 12 February 1917 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was married to Emily DiMaggio. He died on 8 May 2009 in Marion, Massachusetts, USA.
- Veteran baseball announcer, Ernie Harwell was born in Washington, Georgia. Harwell became an Atlanta correspondent for "The Sporting News" at the age of 16. By 1936 he was working in the sports department of the "Atlanta Constitution". From there, he became sports director of WSB in Atlanta in 1940. From 1942 to 1946, Ernie served in the USMC. After spending a few seasons doing play by play for the minor league Atlanta Crackers team in the late 40s, Ernie got a call to come up to Brooklyn to do play by play there. He was the announcer in Brooklyn (working with Red Barber and Connie Desmond) from 1948 to 1949. In 1950, Harwell began working with Russ Hodges calling the plays for the New York Giants. In October of 1951 when Bobby Thomson hit his famous "shot heard round the world", it was Ernie who was announcing the game on national television. The coaxial cable had just been laid and it was one of the earliest coast to coast broadcasts. Unfortunately, no kinescope or recording of that broadcast exists. In 1954 Ernie became the very first announcer for the brand new Baltimore Orioles team. When Van Patrick was let go from the Tiger's broadcast booth because of sponsor conflicts, Ernie was hired and quickly became a familiar voice to millions of Tiger baseball fans. Ernie called play by play from the corner of Michigan and Trumbull from 1960 to 1991. He was teamed with such announcers as George Kell, Ray Lane and Paul Carey. On August 2, 1981, Ernie was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. At the end of the 1990 season, Ernie was informed by Tiger President Bo Schembechler that the team wanted to go in a "new direction". Harwell was told he could announce the Tiger games until the end of the 1991 season. Baseball fans everywhere were shocked and saddened to hear that their old friend Ernie had been fired. Millions of fans had spent countless hours listening to Ernie's laidback style of calling the games. In 1992, the team was bought by Mike Illitch who announced that Ernie would be hired back to announce the Tiger games over radio for the 1993 season. From 1994 to the present Ernie has announced the games over the Tiger cable and television networks. He is a devout Christian and once gave his testimony at a Billy Graham crusade. He is still a favorite of fans everywhere and is truly a national treasure.
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Composer, conductor, band leader, arranger, pianist, jazz expert and accompanist to Judy Garland on tour, Skitch Henderson was educated at Juilliard and the University of Califonia and was a student of Malcolm Frost, Roger Aubert, Albert Coates, Fritz Reiner, and Arnold Schönberg. He was a pianist in dance bands, and then theater orchestras, and in films and radio on the West Coast. He served in the US Air Force during World War II, then became Bing Crosby's music director on radio. Between 1947 and 1949, he toured with his own dance band, and from 1961 was the musical director for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) and a guest conductor for a number of symphony orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the London Philharmonic. He was also music director for the New York opera "Street Scene" and made many recordings. Joining ASCAP in 1958, his instrumental compositions include "Skitch's Blues," "Minuet on the Rocks," "Skitch in Time," "Come Thursday," and "Curacao."- Actor
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John Forysthe was born Jacob Lincoln Freund in Penns Grove, New Jersey, the son of Blanche Materson (Blohm) and Samuel Jeremiah Freund, a Wall Street businessman. He chose to pursue acting over the objections of his father. He did some work in radio soaps and on Broadway before signing a movie contract with Warner Bros. His early career was interrupted by World War II. During the war, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps appearing in the Air Corps show "Winged Victory". After the war, he helped found the Actors Studio. He has had the most success on television, with healthy runs on Bachelor Father (1957), Dynasty (1981) and as the unseen voice of Charlie Townsend on Charlie's Angels (1976). John Forsythe died at age 92 of complications from pneumonia on April 1, 2010 in Santa Ynez, California.- Actor
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Perpetually glum standup comedian Joey Bishop was born Joseph Abraham Gottlieb on February 3, 1918, in the Bronx, New York. He was the youngest of five children of Chana "Anna" (Siegel) and Jacob Gottlieb, a bicycle repairman. His father was an Austrian Jewish immigrant and his mother was a Romanian Jew. He was raised in Philadelphia and learned while growing up how to tap dance, do imitations and play the mandolin and banjo. Dropping out of high school at 18, he started out in the humor business in vaudeville as part of a comedy act with his brother. Billed as "Joey Gottlieb" at the time, he later joined a comedy group that called themselves "The Bishop Trio" and kept the last name for himself after the team broke up. His nascent career was interrupted while serving in the Army during WWII, but quickly resumed things after his discharge in 1945. He appeared on television as early as 1948, but it took a while before he caught on. A master ad-libber, he became a nitery specialist at such establishments as the Latin Quarter, and served as an opening act for a number of stars, including Frank Sinatra, in the mid-50s. As his reputation increased, he became a steadfast cog on the talk show, sitcom and game show circuits. A frequent and amusing guest panelist on What's My Line? (1950), the jug-eared jokester went on to guest-host on the The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) a record 177 times. He also frequently appeared as a guest for Steve Allen and Jack Paar in their earlier late-nite formats.
Bishop entered the sitcom venue in the early 1960s. On his first show, The Joey Bishop Show (1961), he played Joey Barnes, the host of a TV talk show in New York. Abby Dalton came on board in the second season as wife Ellie. Among his co-stars were up-and-coming stars Bill Bixby and Marlo Thomas and such character veterans as Joe Besser, of The Three Stooges fame, and Mary Treen were brought aboard for stronger support. This popular show lasted four seasons. Life imitated art several years later when Bishop went on to compete against Carson for the late-night viewing audience with his own talk show The Joey Bishop Show (1967) for ABC. The show was no match for Carson, however, and quickly dwindled in ratings, fading away after two years. His co-host/sidekick/foil was none other than Regis Philbin. Dick Cavett eventually replaced him to fill the ABC midnight void.
Relatively overlooked for his work on film, Bishop did show some promise early in the game with occasional straight roles that veered away from his sarcastic comedy demeanor with such roles in The Deep Six (1958), The Naked and the Dead (1958) and Onionhead (1958). He would also generate public interest as the less-than-slick member of Hollywood's "Rat Pack", which was comprised of ultra-hip pals Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. Known as "Sinatra's comic" at one time (for having frequently opened for the star), Bishop wrote material and serving as the emcee for many of the clan's Las Vegas shows in the 1960s. In addition he appeared in the "Rat Pack"-oriented movies Ocean's Eleven (1960) and Sergeants 3 (1962), but the straight-laced comedian later butted heads with the party-hearty Sinatra and split while the next film Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) was in preparation. Elsewhere, he appeared as either a foil, sidekick, or guest cameos in such standard movies as Johnny Cool (1963), Texas Across the River (1966) with Dean Martin, Who's Minding the Mint? (1967) and even Valley of the Dolls (1967).
Once his late night TV show folded he returned to night clubs for a time but gradually withdrew more and more from the show-biz limelight in the 1970s. He appeared in only three films after this point -- The Delta Force (1986), Betsy's Wedding (1990) and Mad Dog Time (1996) -- and showing up on a rare occasion as a TV guest. Married to Sylvia Ruzga since 1941, their son Larry Bishop is an actor-turned-director and producer. Long retired and the last surviving "Rat Pack" member after Sinatra's death in 1998, his wife Sylvia of 58 years died of cancer in 1999. Joey, in failing health for some time, died of multiple organ failure on October 17, 2007, at his Newport Beach, California home.- Actress
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Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. In most of her movies, she was cast as the hard, but sympathetic woman from the wrong side of the tracks. In The Sea Wolf (1941) and High Sierra (1940), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson. She made a handful of films during the forties playing different characters ranging from Pillow to Post (1945), where she played a traveling saleswoman to the tough nightclub singer in The Man I Love (1946). But good roles for women were hard to get and there were many young actresses and established stars competing for those roles. She left Warner Brothers in 1947 and became a freelance actress. When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Her first directing job came when director Elmer Clifton fell ill on a script that she co-wrote Not Wanted (1949). Ida had joked that as an actress, she was the poor man's Bette Davis. Now, she said that as a director, she became the poor man's Don Siegel. The films that she wrote, or directed, or appeared in during the fifties were mostly inexpensive melodramas. She later turned to television where she directed episodes in shows such as The Untouchables (1959) and The Fugitive (1963). In the seventies, she made guest appearances on various television show and appeared in small parts in a few movies.- Actor
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Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, and, as Lunar Module Eagle pilot on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, he and mission commander Neil Armstrong were the first two people to land on the Moon.- Dick Cheney was born on 30 January 1941 in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. He has been married to Lynne Cheney since 29 August 1964. They have two children.
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Richard Gephardt was born on 31 January 1941 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for A Broken House (2020), LateLine (1998) and For the Bible Tells Me So (2007). He has been married to Jane Byrnes since 13 August 1966. They have three children.- Music Department
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Sergio Mendes was born on 11 February 1941 in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is an actor and composer, known for Rio (2011), Never Say Never Again (1983) and The Brothers Grimsby (2016). He has been married to Gracinha Leporace since 1964. They have two children.- Radiant California blonde model and brief 1960s pop culture item Andrea Dromm had a mere two-movie run in the 1960s before she deliberately phased out her film career out. Born on February 8, 1941, to a well-to-do family (her father was an engineer), she was raised for a time on Long Island (Manhasset) before the family moved to Pennsylvania and settled. Little Andrea was already in the modeling business by age six but discontinued it in high school in order to pursue a steadier education.
Following graduation, Andrea attended the University of Connecticut and majored in drama, appearing in numerous school plays while there ("The Crucible," "The Diary of Anne Frank"). She quit during her senior year, however, and moved to San Francisco, working for a Saks store for a time. She then returned East to college to finish her degree.
Her move back to New York also encouraged a return to modeling and Andrea rebuilt her career as a popular New York runway model. She eventually signed up with the Eileen Ford Agency and became an "overnight" star after winning the role of the flight attendant in a long-running commercial for National Airlines in 1963.
Hollywood took notice of this easy, breezy, beautiful commercial model and enticed her to move West to forge an acting career. It was a reluctant move for her. Her first acting job would be in the second "Star Trek" pilot episode, which introduced William Shatner to the show. Although she was promised a continued run in the sci-fi series, she instead accepted her first film role.
The classic comedy/satire The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966) was a terrific introductory showcase for her in which she played a fetching-looking teenage babysitter who falls for a handsome young Russian sailor and protector (John Phillip Law). Both were surrounded by huge comedy talent in the film, including Alan Arkin, Carl Reiner, Paul Ford and Jonathan Winters. Following this she revealed even more of her curvy assets as a pretty, bikini-draped undercover agent trying to solve a murder alongside equally pretty Troy Donahue in Come Spy with Me (1967). This movie bombed on arrival.
The Hollywood scene was not for Andrea, however, and, after a mere three acting jobs, willingly returned to New York and modeling again. Still benefiting from her ultimate surfer West Coast image and exposure on-camera Hollywood exposure, Clairol hired her and gave her huge "Summer Blonde" campaign.
Once her modeling days were over, the never-married Andrea deliberately avoided the spotlight and has been little seen since. Reports have indicated that she was living with her mother off of real estate investments and spending time between homes in The Hamptons and Palm Beach. - Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Mac Davis was born on 21 January 1942 in Lubbock, Texas, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for North Dallas Forty (1979), Next (2007) and Passengers (2016). He was married to Lise Gerard, Sarah Jane Barg and Fran Cook. He died on 29 September 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
Scott Glenn was born January 26, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Hope Elizabeth and Theodore Glenn, a salesman. As he grew up in Appalachia, his health was poor; he was bedridden for a year and doctors predicted he would limp for the rest of his life. During long periods of illness, Glenn was reading a lot and "dreaming of becoming Lord Byron". He challenged his illness by intense training programs and eventually got rid of his limp.
After graduating high school, Glenn entered William and Mary College where he majored in English. He spent three years in the Marines and then tried to combine his passion for storytelling with his passion for adventures by working for five months as a criminal reporter at the Kenosha Evening News. Glenn planned to become an author but found out he had "problems with dialogues", so he decided to overcome it by studying acting. In 1966, he headed to New York where he joined George Morrison acting class. He helped in directing student plays to pay for his studies and appeared onstage in La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club productions. Soon after arriving in New York, Glenn became a fan of martial arts. In 1968, he joined The Actors Studio and began working in professional theater and TV. In 1970, James Bridges offered him his first movie work in The Baby Maker (1970).
Glenn left for L.A., where he spent seven of the "most miserable years of [his] life". He couldn't find interesting film roles and, doing brief TV stints, he felt "like a person who had to paint the Sistine Chapel with a house-painter's brush". On a brighter side, he worked episodically with Jonathan Demme (Angels Hard as They Come (1971), Fighting Mad (1976)), Robert Altman (Nashville (1975)) and Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now (1979)). In 1978, Glenn got tired of Hollywood and moved his family to Ketchum, Idaho, where he worked as a barman, huntsman and mountain ranger for two years (occasionally acting in Seattle stage productions). James Bridges once more changed the course of Glenn's life in 1980 when he offered him the role of John Travolta's rival in Urban Cowboy (1980) and made him a star. Glenn's acting abilities and physical presence helped him to excel both in action (Silverado (1985), The Challenge (1982)) and drama (The Right Stuff (1983), Countdown to Looking Glass (1984), The River (1984)) as he alternately played good guys and bad guys.
In the beginning of the '90s, his career was at its peak - he appeared in such indisputable masterpieces as The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and The Hunt for Red October (1990). Established as one of Hollywood's most solid and respected character actors he has appeared in a wide variety of films, such as the black Freudian farce Reckless (1995), the tragicomedy Edie & Pen (1996) and Ken Loach's socio-political declaration Carla's Song (1996), alternating mainstream (Courage Under Fire (1996), Absolute Power (1997)) with independent projects (Lesser Prophets (1997) and Larga distancia (1997)), written by his daughter Dakota Glenn), and TV (Naked City: A Killer Christmas (1998)). Continuing into the 21st century, Glenn has also appeared in Training Day (2001), W. (2008) (as Donald Rumsfeld), Secretariat (2010), Sucker Punch (2011), The Paperboy (2012), and two of the Bourne films: The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and The Bourne Legacy (2012).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Marty Balin was born on 30 January 1942 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Forrest Gump (1994), The Age of Adaline (2015) and Crank (2006). He was married to Karen Teresa Deal, Victoria Ann Martin and Susan Joy Finkelstein. He died on 27 September 2018 in Tampa, Florida, USA.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Music Department
Graham Nash was born on 2 February 1942 in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, UK. He is a music artist and actor, known for Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), The Limey (1999) and Up in the Air (2009). He has been married to Amy Grantham since 2019. He was previously married to Susan Sennett and Rose Eccles.- Roger Staubach was born on 5 February 1942 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Hail Mary: The Drew Pearson Roger Staubach Story, SLANT 45: The Movie (2011) and The Perfect 10 (2023). He has been married to Marianne Staubach since 4 September 1965. They have five children.
- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Robert Klein was born on 8 February 1942 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Two Weeks Notice (2002), One Fine Day (1996) and The Back-up Plan (2010). He was previously married to Brenda Boozer.- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Composer
Carole King is an American composer and singer-songwriter.
She is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the USA, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1955 and 1999. King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1952 and 2005.
King's career began in the 1960s when she and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists, many of which have become standards. She has continued writing for other artists since then. King's success as a performer in her own right did not come until the 1970s, when she sang her own songs, accompanying herself on the piano, in a series of albums and concerts. After experiencing commercial disappointment with her debut album 'Writer', King scored her breakthrough with the album 'Tapestry', which topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks in 1971 and remained on the charts for more than six years. King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being 'Tapestry', which held the record for most weeks at No. 1 by a female artist for more than 20 years. Her most recent non-compilation album was 'Live at the Troubadour' in 2010, a collaboration with James Taylor that reached number 4 on the charts in its first week and has sold over 600,000 copies. Her records sales were estimated at more than 75 million copies worldwide.- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Performed as a folk musician in Greenwich Village and Los Angeles before being selected for the Monkees TV show. Made 58 TV episodes 6 albums, a TV special, and a movie before leaving the Monkees in 1969 Released a solo single in 1982. Rejoined the Monkees for tours and an from 1986 to 1989. Released his first solo album, "Stranger Things Have Happened", in 1994- Producer
- Actress
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Oprah Gail Winfrey , often known simply as Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African-American of the 20th century, was once the world's only black billionaire, and the greatest black philanthropist in U.S. history. By 2007, she was sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world- Actress
- Soundtrack
The sultry, versatile, petite (5' 4") beauty Sherilyn Fenn was born Sheryl Ann Fenn in Detroit, Michigan, into a family of musicians. The youngest of three children, her mother, Arlene Quatro, played keyboard in rock bands, her aunt is rock-star Suzi Quatro, and her grandfather, Art Quatro, was a jazz musician. Her father, Leo Fenn, was the manager of such bands as The Pleasure Seekers (the all-girl band formed by the Quatro sisters), Alice Cooper, and The Billion Dollar Babies. Sherilyn's ancestry includes Irish, Italian, Hungarian, German, and Bohemian Czech.
Sherilyn traveled a lot with her divorced mother and two older brothers before the family settled in Los Angeles when she was seventeen. Fenn, who says herself she's demure didn't want to start with a new school again and soon enrolled at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
Fenn began her career with a number of B-movies including The Wild Life (1984) (alongside Chris Penn), skater film Thrashin' (1986) (opposite Josh Brolin) and teen-fantasy movie The Wraith (1986) (opposite Charlie Sheen). She had a memorable part in the cult teen-comedy Just One of the Guys (1985) in which she tries to seduce a teenage girl disguised as a boy, played by Joyce Hyser. Fenn landed her first starring role, as an engaged heiress to an old Southern family experiencing her sexual awakening in Zalman King's erotic drama film Two Moon Junction (1988), after which she said she wanted to hide for a year. Fenn won her most outstanding role and made an indelible impression on the public when she was cast by David Lynch and Mark Frost as the tantalizing Audrey Horne, the high-school femme fatale from the critically acclaimed TV series Twin Peaks (1990). The series ran from 1990 to 1991, and the character of Audrey was one of the most popular with fans, in particular for her unrequited love for FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan) and her style from the '50s (with her saddle shoes, plaid skirts and tight sweaters). Sherilyn made a memorable impression as the cherry stem-twisting siren. This was her breakout role; even now she says of her Twin Peaks (1990) experience: "It still makes me feel kind of proud and special to be part of something like that". In the show's second season, when the idea of pairing Audrey and Cooper was abandoned, Audrey was paired with other characters like Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) and John Justice Wheeler (Billy Zane). Sherilyn hit cult status when Lynch filmed her dancing on Angelo Badalamenti's music and with another memorable scene in which her character knotted a cherry stem with her tongue.
Shortly after shooting Twin Peaks' pilot episode, David Lynch gave her a small but impressive part in Wild at Heart (1990), as a girl injured in a car wreck, obsessed by the contents of her purse, opposite Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern. According to Fenn, the turning point in her career was when she met veteran acting coach Roy London in 1990. She credits him with instilling confidence and newfound enthusiasm.
After two nominations (Emmy and Golden Globe) and covers for Rolling Stone and Playboy magazines, Fenn was propelled to stardom and became a major sex symbol. She was chosen as one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World", was named one of the "10 Most Beautiful Women in the World" by Us magazine, and one of the "100 Sexiest Women in the World" by FHM magazine. Fenn's classic looks - with her lily-white skin, vertiginous boomerang eyebrows, beauty mark next to her left eye and topaz eyes - were highlighted by renowned photographers like George Hurrell Sr., Steven Meisel, and Bettina Rheims, and led her to be compared to the ones like Marilyn Monroe and Ava Gardner. Fenn has had an eclectic career with a significant body of work following Twin Peaks (1990). She chose to focus on widening her range of roles and was determined to avoid typecasting. She turned down the Audrey Horne spin-off series that was offered to her, and unlike most of the cast, chose not to return for the 1992 prequel movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), as she was then shooting Of Mice and Men (1992). She proved her mettle as an actress with varied roles in neo-noir black comedy Desire and Hell at Sunset Motel (1991) (as a sultry femme fatale, opposite Whip Hubley and David Hewlett), huis-clos Diary of a Hitman (1991) (the directorial debut of her acting coach Roy London, in which she plays a fragile mother who confronts hitman Forest Whitaker), John Mackenzie's fictionalized biopic Ruby (1992), (as stripper Sheryl Ann DuJean, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike fictional character, who is a composite of several real-life women from Jack Ruby and president John Kennedy's entourage; opposite 'Danny Aiello' and Arliss Howard), romantic comedy Three of Hearts (1993) (as Kelly Lynch and William Baldwin's love interest), Carl Reiner's 1940s detective parody Fatal Instinct (1993) (as Armand Assante's lovesick secretary and Sean Young and Kate Nelligan's rival) and Showtime's biblical Slave of Dreams (1995), directed by Robert M. Young (as Potiphar's seductive wife Zulaikha, opposite Adrian Pasdar and Edward James Olmos, and produced by Dino De Laurentiis).
A highlight of Fenn's film career is Gary Sinise's film adaptation of Of Mice and Men (1992), in which she brought nuance to the role of a seductive and lonely country wife, desperately in need to talk to somebody, opposite Sinise and John Malkovich. In 1993, Fenn teamed up with David Lynch's daughter Jennifer Lynch and starred in her directorial debut Boxing Helena (1993) as a haughty seductress forced to live in a box after her limbs were amputated by love-obsessed surgeon Julian Sands in an effort to possess her (a role Kim Basinger backed out of). Both Lynch and Fenn were proud of their work in it but the film - which was overshadowed by the lawsuits against Kim Basinger after she dropped out - ultimately was a critical and commercial failure. Another outstanding performance was in NBC's miniseries Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story (1995). During the shooting, Fenn fought to keep integrity in the script. Her priority was to respectfully and accurately portray Taylor, and she supported the original screenwriter's effort to concentrate on Taylor the person, not the legend. The same year she starred in an episode of Tales from the Crypt (1989) directed by Robert Zemeckis, alongside Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow, as the lover of Humphrey Bogart, who appeared in the episode via CGI special effects. She went on to star in independent films that have been well received on the festival circuit like Jon Harmon Feldman's Lovelife (1997) (as a low self-esteemed waitress, along with Bruce Davison, Jon Tenney, Carla Gugino and Saffron Burrows), romantic comedy Just Write (1997) (as the dream actress of Hollywood tour bus driver Jeremy Piven, who mistakes him for a famous screenwriter) and Adrian Pasdar's neo-noir directorial debut Cement (2000), a contemporary re-telling of "Othello", in which she played a tempting but imprudent femme fatale, alongside Chris Penn, Jeffrey Wright and Henry Czerny.
Tired of Hollywood, Fenn contemplated starting a European career when she starred opposite Ray Winstone in the British psychological drama and huis-clos Darkness Falls (1999) (as a wealthy, neglected wife, sequestered with her husband by a man determined to understand the events that led to his wife ending up in a coma). She eventually decided to return to the United-States and gained newfound enthusiasm with the lead role in Showtime's dark comedy Rude Awakening (1998) as Billie Frank, an alcoholic ex-soap actress who struggles with her self-destructive habits. Based upon creator/executive producer Claudia Lonow's experience, the series ran from 1998 to 2001 and co-starred Lynn Redgrave, Jonathan Penner and Mario Van Peebles. Following Rude Awakening (1998), Fenn's film and television credits have included Showtime's family comedy Off Season (2001), directed by Bruce Davison (along with Hume Cronyn, Rory Culkin, Adam Arkin and Davison; as a singer who takes care of her orphaned nephew), Matthew Ryan Hoge's The United States of Leland (2003) (as a woman who represents happiness and joie de vivre to Ryan Gosling), Showtime's Cavedweller (2004) (2004, along with Kyra Sedgwick and directed by Lisa Cholodenko), Geretta Geretta's Whitepaddy (2006) (opposite Lisa Bonet and Hill Harper, as a woman who struggles with her dysfunctional family after she reluctantly returned home and tries to fit in with her new neighborhood that has become predominantly black), Emily Skopov's Novel Romance (2006) (as a pregnancy shop owner, opposite Traci Lords and Paul Johansson), psychological thriller Presumed Dead (2006) (as a female detective working on a missing person case, who has to outwit crime novelist Duncan Regehr in order to get to the truth), and The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning (2007) (as a flirtatious version of Lulu Hogg).
Fenn has appeared along with Rob Estes and Milo Ventimiglia in a 2003 episode of Amy Sherman-Palladino's Gilmore Girls (2000), which was the pilot for a California-set spin-off, eventually dropped by the network. Sherman-Palladino brought her back in the series with a different part as Scott Patterson's ex-girlfriend and protective mother to his daughter (2006-2007). Fenn had previously had recurring parts on Dawson's Creek (1998), (2002, as Joshua Jackson's seductive boss) and Boston Public (2000) (2003-2004, as a porn star turned tutor). Other notable guest appearances have included 21 Jump Street (1987) (opposite her then-fiancé Johnny Depp), Friends (1994) (1997, as Matthew Perry's wooden-legged girlfriend), The Outer Limits (1995) (2001, as a duplicated scientist), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) (2002, as a manipulative actress), and The 4400 (2004) (2005, as Jean DeLynn Baker, a 4400 who has the ability to grow deadly toxin-emitting spores on her hands).
Fenn's interest in directing and children led her to step behind the camera to direct in 2006 a documentary film about the child enrichment program CosmiKids and Judy Julin, the program's founder. She subsequently joined its executive team as executive director of the film and television division.
On set, Sherilyn is noted for having a quirky sense of humor and a joie de vivre. Off-screen, Sherilyn is proud of the friendship she has maintained with her ex-hubby Toulouse Holliday, a musician and film technician. Sherilyn lives with her son, Myles, and two cats: Ophelia and Redmond. Sherilyn practices meditative kundalini yoga, and every room in her house has feng shui elements-- crystals in one corner, water in another. Sherilyn enjoys biking, swimming and cooking, and of course being a mom: "After I had my son, I found life much funnier and brighter".- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Princess Stéphanie of Monaco was born on 1 February 1965 in Prince's Palace, Monaco. She is an actress, known for 36 fillette (1988), Stéphanie: Flash (1986) and Stephanie: Irresistible (1986). She was previously married to Adans López Peres and Daniel Ducruet.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Born on February 1, 1965 to Bruce Lee (Martial Arts idol) and Linda Lee Cadwell. Brother to Shannon Lee. In 1970-71, they moved to Hong Kong, where Brandon lived until age eight, becoming fluent in Cantonese. By the time he was able to walk, he was already involved in learning about martial arts from his father.
Brandon attended high school in Los Angeles, where he realized that he had also inherited acting ability along with his martial arts skills. In 1983, he was expelled from school because of misbehavior, but received his diploma at Miraleste High School. He continued his education and interest in acting at Emerson College in Massachusetts, where he majored in theatre. Having chosen an acting career, he studied at the Strasberg Academy, with Eric Morris in New York and in Los Angeles, and in Lynette Katselas' class in Los Angeles.
His first professional job as an actor came at age twenty, when casting director Lynn Stalmaster asked him to read for a CBS television film, Kung Fu: The Movie (1986). Lee's first role in a feature film was Legacy of Rage (1986) (aka "Legacy of Rage" (1986)) for D.M. Films of Hong Kong, followed by a co-starring role in Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991). He was also in Rapid Fire (1992), and The Crow (1994). He turned down offers to be in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993).
Brandon died (while filming) at the age of 28, of what is to be believed, a brain hemorrhage on the set of The Crow (1994). The film crew shot a scene in which it was decided to use a gun without consent from the weapons coordinator, who had been sent home early that night. They handed Michael Massee the gun loaded with full power blanks and shot the scene, unaware that a bullet had become dislodged from a previous shot and had lodged itself in the barrel. Upon shooting of the scene the blank round forced the bullet out the barrel striking Brandon Lee. The crew only noticed when Lee was slow getting up. The doctors worked desperately for five hours, but it was no use. The bullet had lodged itself in Mr Lee's lower spine. He was pronounced dead at 1:04 P.M. the next day. He was supposed to marry Eliza Hutton on April 17, 1993. His body was flown to Seattle to be buried beside his father in Lake View Cemetery.- Actor
- Producer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Jeremy Robert Myron Sumpter was born on February 5, 1989 in Monterey, California, to Sandra (Johnson) and Gary Sumpter. He was raised in his mother's hometown, Mount Sterling, Kentucky. At a young age, he enjoyed mountain climbing and play with his friends like any other normal kid, but when he went to Lexington, Kentucky, to model, he won the numerous awards and met his manager Mark Robert. Soon after that, Jeremy, his twin sister Jessica Sumpter, his little sister Gigi Sumpter, and his mom and dad moved to Los Angeles, California.
Jeremy's first movie was Frailty (2001), in which he played young Adam Meeks, opposite Bill Paxton and Matthew McConaughey. "Bill had been one of my favorite actors so to be able to work with him was unbelievable," says Jeremy. The adult Adam Meeks was played by Matthew McConaughey. His next movie was Local Boys (2002).
Jeremy was chosen by Danny Glover to play Henry Sturbuck in the Showtime original film Just A Dream. "Working with Danny was great, we had a great time filming in a small town in Utah," explains Jeremy. Jeremy received the "Best Performance in a TV Movie, Mini-Series or Special - Leading Young Actor" from the Young Artist Awards. Jeremy was able to use his surfing skills on his next film, "Local Boys." This coming of age film was shot on location in southern California. "This was a hard film to shoot since we were surfing at the beach almost everyday and there were all these girls around in bikinis," jokes Jeremy.
After a worldwide search, Jeremy was chosen to play "Peter" in the P.J. Hogan film Peter Pan (2003). This was one of the most coveted roles in films for a teen actor in recent years. "It was a part that I really wanted," says Jeremy, "since I'd be able to fight pirates and fly around the stage on wires." Jeremy trained extensively in sword fighting and gymnastics prior to shooting the movie in Australia. Clubhouse (2004) was Jeremy's first television series, a dream role since he had always loved baseball and played little league when he was younger. Jeremy was cast in the role of Justin in Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life. After wrapping, he immediately went on to star in The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang in Oregon. A lot of the people from Napoleon Dynamite were involved in the film and it was a lot of fun for him to shoot. Jeremy shot "Calvin Marshall" in Oregon.
Jeremy Sumpter shot the Warner Bros./New Line big budget film "Into the Storm" and the independent feature film "Animal."
"The Squeeze," a feature film which was released in 2015 and starred Jeremy and Christopher McDonald. They teed off in a high stakes gambling matches careening throughout the South and landing in Las Vegas. Jeremy was also Co-Producer.
Jeremy recently shot Take Down" which is being distributed around the world.
In the future, Jeremy hopes to also work behind the camera as a director and producer. In his spare time, he surfs, plays basketball, football, golf and shoots pool.- Rick Warren was born on 28 January 1954 in San Jose, California, USA. He has been married to Elizabeth Kay Warren since 1978. They have three children.