Gone But Not Forgotten-2022
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Sidney Poitier was a native of Cat Island, Bahamas, although born, two months prematurely, in Miami during a visit by his parents, Evelyn (Outten) and Reginald James Poitier. He grew up in poverty as the son of farmers, with his father also driving a cab in Nassau. Sidney had little formal education and at the age of 15 was sent to Miami to live with his brother, in order to forestall a growing tendency toward delinquency. In the U.S., he experienced the racial chasm that divides the country, a great shock to a boy coming from a society with a majority of African descent.
At 18, he went to New York, did menial jobs and slept in a bus terminal toilet. A brief stint in the Army as a worker at a veterans' hospital was followed by more menial jobs in Harlem. An impulsive audition at the American Negro Theatre was rejected so forcefully that Poitier dedicated the next six months to overcoming his accent and improving his performing skills. On his second try, he was accepted. Spotted in rehearsal by a casting agent, he won a bit part in the Broadway production of "Lysistrata", for which he earned good reviews. By the end of 1949, he was having to choose between leading roles on stage and an offer to work for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out (1950). His performance as a doctor treating a white bigot got him plenty of notice and led to more roles. Nevertheless, the roles were still less interesting and prominent than those white actors routinely obtained. But seven years later, after turning down several projects he considered demeaning, Poitier got a number of roles that catapulted him into a category rarely if ever achieved by an African-American man of that time, that of leading man. One of these films, The Defiant Ones (1958), earned Poitier his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. Five years later, he won the Oscar for Lilies of the Field (1963), the first African American to win for a leading role.
He remained active on stage and screen as well as in the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. His roles in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and To Sir, with Love (1967) were landmarks in helping to break down some social barriers between blacks and whites. Poitier's talent, conscience, integrity, and inherent likability placed him on equal footing with the white stars of the day. He took on directing and producing chores in the 1970s, achieving success in both arenas.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Bob Saget was an American actor, stand-up comedian, and television host from Philadelphia. His best known role was playing pater familias Danny Tanner on the hit sitcom "Full House" (1987-1995). He played the character again in the sequel series "Fuller House" (2016-2020). Saget served as the original host of the long-running clip show "America's Funniest Home Videos" from 1989 to 1997. Saget voiced the narrator in the hit sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" (2005-2014), depicted as an older version of main character Ted Mosby.
In 1956, Saget was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia. His parents were supermarket executive Benjamin Saget and hospital administrator Rosalyn "Dolly" Saget. The Saget family eventually moved to Norfolk, Virginia. Bob received his early religious education at Temple Israel, a synagogue of Norfolk which adhered to Conservative Judaism. He was reportedly a rebellious student.
Saget spend part of his high school years in Los Angeles, where he befriended veteran comedian Larry Fine (1902-1975). He attended a Philadelphia high school during his senior year. He was originally interested in a medical career but his English teacher Elaine Zimmerman convinced Saget to aspire to an acting or filmmaking career instead.
Saget received his college education at the "Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts", a college associated with the Temple University of Philadelphia. One of his student films won a merit award at the Student Academy Awards. He graduated college with a Bachelor of Arts in 1978. He had already started performing in comedy clubs during his college years.
In 1978, Saget intended to take graduate courses at the University of Southern California. He dropped out due to health-related problems. He almost died due to a gangrenous appendix, costing him a loss of confidence. He decided afterwards to lose some weight, in the belief that it would improve his health.
Following his graduation, Saget spend about a decade working mostly as a comedian. He appeared in minor acting roles in both films and television. In 1987, Saget was performing comedy bits for the short-lived non-fiction show "The Morning Program". The show offered a mix of "news, entertainment and comedy", but was canceled due to low ratings.
Saget's big break came when he was chosen to portray widowed father Danny Tanner in the sitcom "Full House" (1987-1995). The series depicted Danny's efforts to raise three young daughters, with the assistance of his best friends. The show suffered from poor viewership in its first season, but attracted a family audience due to its portrayal of the struggles associated with parenting. By its third season, it was ranked among Nielsen's Top 30 shows. Saget became a household name, and the series lasted for 8 seasons and 192 episodes. The series was eventually canceled due to its increasing production costs. Its rating had remained high until its final episode.
In 1989, Saget was chosen as the host of the clip show "America's Funniest Home Videos". The show featured humorous homemade videos which were submitted by its viewers, often highlighting physical comedy, pranks, or unusual behavior by children and pets. While the show was popular with viewers, Saget himself was increasingly frustrated with its repetitive format. When his contract for the show expired in 1997, Saget was not interested in negotiating for a renewal.
In 1996, Saget directed the dramatic television film "For Hope". The film depicted the struggles of a woman who is slowly dying due to being afflicted with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease with no known cure. Saget was reportedly inspired by the life and death of his sister Gay Saget, who had died due to scleroderma. The film received high ratings in its debut.
In 1998, Saget directed the comedy film "Dirty Work". It depicted two half-brothers who offer to perform revenge schemes for paying clients, but have a personal grudge against a man who reneged on a deal with them. The film under-performed at the box office, but gained a cult following due to its reputation as a "gag-fest".
From 2001 to 2002, Saget had the starring role of Matt Stewart in the sitcom "Raising Dad". The premise of the series was that widowed father Matt Stewart was trying to raise two daughter, while pursuing a teaching career at his eldest's daughter's high school. Despite the series having a similar concept to "Full House", it failed to find an audience. It lasted for a single season.
In 2005, Saget was cast as the narrator in the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" (2005-2014). The premise of the series was that middle-aged Ted Mosby narrates his life story (and the life stories of his best friends) to his son and daughter. The series repeatedly implied that Ted was an unreliable narrator, who either embellished or censored aspects of his various stories. The series was quite popular, lasting for 9 seasons and 208 episodes.
In 2007, Saget directed the direct-to-video parody film "Farce of the Penguins". The film was a full-length parody of the documentary film "March of the Penguins" (2005), featuring penguins conversing about their love lives. It featured the voices of several then-popular actors, including several of Saget's former co-stars from "Full House".
In 2009, Saget was cast in the main role of Steve Patterson in the sitcom "Surviving Suburbia". The premise of the series was that the members of a suburban family have problems in interacting both with each other, and with their new neighbors. The series only lasted a single season, and struggled with low ratings.
In 2014, Saget published his memoirs under the title "Dirty Daddy". In 2016, a sequel series to "Full House" was introduced under the title "Fuller House". It featured the lives of two of Danny Tanner's daughters, and Danny's grandchildren. Saget played the recurring role of Danny for 15 episodes. The sequel series lasted for 5 seasons. This was Saget's last major role in a sitcom. He continued, however, to regularly host television events.
In January 2022, Saget was in Florida for a stand-up tour. On January 9, Saget was discovered dead in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, located south of Orlando, Florida. He was 65-years-old. His autopsy revealed that the cause of death was blunt head trauma from an accidental blow to the back of his head, likely from a fall. He had died in his sleep. He was buried at the Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery, next to the graves of his parents and his sister. Mourners honored Saget by offering donations to the charity "Scleroderma Research Foundation" (SRF), since Saget had long served in its board of directors. Saget is gone, but his popularity endures due to his acting and directing roles in several popular films and television shows.- Actor
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- Writer
Peter Bogdanovich was conceived in Europe but born in Kingston, New York. He is the son of immigrants fleeing the Nazis, Herma (Robinson) and Borislav Bogdanovich, a painter and pianist. His father was a Serbian Orthodox Christian, and his mother was from a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. Peter originally was an actor in the 1950s, studying his craft with legendary acting teacher Stella Adler and appearing on television and in summer stock. In the early 1960s he achieved notoriety for programming movies at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. An obsessive cinema-goer, sometimes seeing up to 400 movies a year in his youth, Bogdanovich prominently showcased the work of American directors such as John Ford, about whom he subsequently wrote a book based on the notes he had produced for the MOMA retrospective of the director, and the then-underappreciated Howard Hawks. Bogdanovich also brought attention to such forgotten pioneers of American cinema as Allan Dwan.
Bogdanovich was influenced by the French critics of the 1950s who wrote for Cahiers du Cinema, especially critic-turned-director François Truffaut. Before becoming a director himself, he built his reputation as a film writer with articles in Esquire Magazine. In 1968, following the example of Cahiers du Cinema critics Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Éric Rohmer who had created the Nouvelle Vague ("New Wave") by making their own films, Bogdanovich became a director. Working for low-budget schlock-meister Roger Corman, Bogdanovich directed the critically praised Targets (1968) and the not-so-critically praised Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), a film best forgotten.
Turning back to journalism, Bogdanovich struck up a lifelong friendship with the legendary Orson Welles while interviewing him on the set of Mike Nichols' film adaptation of Catch-22 (1970) from the novel by Joseph Heller. Subsequently, Bogdanovich has played a major role in elucidating Welles and his career with his writings on the great actor-director, most notably his book "This is Orson Welles" (1992). He has steadily produced invaluable books about the cinema, especially "Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors," an indispensable tome that establishes Bogdanovich, along with Kevin Brownlow, as one of the premier English-language chroniclers of cinema.
The 32-year-old Bogdanovich was hailed by a critics as a Wellesian wunderkind when his most famous film, The Last Picture Show (1971) was released. The film received eight Academy Award nominations, including Bogdanovich as Best Director, and won two of them, for Cloris Leachman and "John Ford Stock Company" veteran Ben Johnson in the supporting acting categories. Bogdanovich, who had cast 19-year-old model Cybill Shepherd in a major role in the film, fell in love with the young beauty, an affair that eventually led to his divorce from the film's set designer Polly Platt, his longtime artistic collaborator and the mother of his two children.
Bogdanovich followed up The Last Picture Show (1971) with a major hit, What's Up, Doc? (1972), a screwball comedy heavily indebted to Hawks' Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940), starring Barbra Streisand and 'Ryan O'Neal'. Despite his reliance on homage to bygone cinema, Bogdanovich had solidified his status as one of a new breed of A-list directors that included Academy Award winners Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin, with whom he formed The Directors Company. The Directors Company was a generous production deal with Paramount Pictures that essentially gave the directors carte blanche if they kept within strict budget limitations. It was through this entity that Bogdanovich's next big hit, the critically praised Paper Moon (1973), was produced.
Paper Moon (1973), a Depression-era comedy starring Ryan O'Neal that won his ten-year-old daughter Tatum O'Neal an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress, proved to be the highwater mark of Bogdanovich's career. Forced to share the profits with his fellow directors, Bogdanovich became dissatisfied with the arrangement. The Directors Company subsequently produced only two more films, Francis Ford Coppola's critically acclaimed The Conversation (1974) which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture of 1974 and garnered Coppola an Oscar nod for Best Director, and Bogdanovich's Daisy Miller (1974), a film that had a quite different critical reception.
An adaptation of the Henry James novella, Daisy Miller (1974) spelled the beginning of the end of Bogdanovich's career as a popular, critically acclaimed director. The film, which starred Bogdanovich's lover Cybill Shepherd as the title character, was savaged by critics and was a flop at the box office. Bogdanovich's follow-up, At Long Last Love (1975), a filming of the Cole Porter musical starring Cybill Shepherd, was derided by some critics as one of the worst films ever made, noted as such in Harry Medved and Michael Medved's book "The Golden Turkey Awards: Nominees and Winners, the Worst Achievements in Hollywood History" (1980). The film also was a box office bomb despite featuring Burt Reynolds, a hotly burning star who would achieve super-nova status at the end of the 1970s.
Bogdanovich insisted on filming the musical numbers for At Long Last Love (1975) live, a process not used since the early days of the talkies, when sound engineer Douglas Shearer developed lip-synching at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The decision was widely ridiculed, as none of the leading actors were known for their singing abilities (Bogdanovich himself had produced a critically panned album of Cybill Shepherd singing Cole Porter songs in 1974). The public perception of Bogdanovich became that of an arrogant director hamstrung by his own hubris.
Trying to recapture the lightning in the bottle that was his early success, Bogdanovich once again turned to the past, his own and that of cinema, with Nickelodeon (1976). The film, a comedy recounting the earliest days of the motion picture industry, reunited Ryan O'Neal and 'Tatum O'Neal' from his last hit, Paper Moon (1973) with Burt Reynolds. Counseled not to use the unpopular (with both audiences and critics) Cybill Shepherd in the film, Bogdanovich instead used newcomer Jane Hitchcock as the film's ingénue. Unfortunately, the magic of Paper Moon (1973) was not be repeated and the film died at the box office. Jane Hitchcock, Bogdanovich's discovery, would make only one more film before calling it quits.
After a three-year hiatus, Bogdanovich returned with the critically and financially underwhelming Saint Jack (1979) for Hugh Hefner's Playboy Productions Inc. Bogdanovich's long affair with Cybill Shepherd had ended in 1978, but the production deal making Hugh Hefner the film's producer was part of the settlement of a lawsuit Shepherd had filed against Hefner for publishing nude photos of her pirated from a print of The Last Picture Show (1971) in Playboy Magazine. Bogdanovich then launched the film that would be his career Waterloo, They All Laughed (1981), a low-budget ensemble comedy starring Audrey Hepburn and the 1980 Playboy Playmate of the Year, Dorothy Stratten. During the filming of the picture, Bogdanovich fell in love with Stratten, who was married to an emotionally unstable hustler, Paul Snider, who relied on her financially. Stratten moved in with Bogdanovich, and when she told Snider she was leaving him, he shot and killed her, then committed suicide.
They All Laughed (1981) could not attract a distributor due to the negative publicity surrounding the Stratten murder, despite it being one of the few films made by the legendary Audrey Hepburn after her provisional retirement in 1967 (the film would prove to be Hepburn's last starring role in a theatrically released motion picture). The heartbroken Bogdanovich bought the rights to the negative so that it would be seen by the public, but the film had a limited release, garnered weak reviews and cost Bogdanovich millions of dollars, driving the emotionally devastated director into bankruptcy.
Bogdanovich turned back to his first avocation, writing, to pen a memoir of his dead love, "The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten (1960-1980)" that was published in 1984. The book was a riposte to Teresa Carpenter's "Death of a Playmate" article written for The Village Voice that had won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize. Carpenter had lambasted Bogdanovich and Hugh Hefner, claiming that Stratten was as much a victim of them as she was of Paul Snider. The article served as the basis of Bob Fosse's film Star 80 (1983), in which Bogdanovich was portrayed as the fictional director "Aram Nicholas".
Bogdanovich's career as a noted director was over, and though he achieved modest success with Mask (1985), his sequel to his greatest success The Last Picture Show (1971), Texasville (1990), was a critical and box office disappointment. He directed two more theatrical films in 1992 and 1993, but their failure kept him off the big screen until 2001's The Cat's Meow (2001). Returning once again to a reworking of the past, this time the alleged murder of director Thomas H. Ince by Welles' bete noir William Randolph Hearst, The Cat's Meow (2001) was a modest critical success but a flop at the box office. In addition to helming some television movies, Bogdanovich has returned to acting, with a recurring guest role on the cable television series The Sopranos (1999) as Dr. Jennifer Melfi's analyst.
Bogdanovich's personal reputation suffered from gossip about his 13-year marriage to Dorothy Stratten's 19-year-old-kid sister Louise Stratten, who was 29 years his junior. Some gossip held that Bogdanovich's behavior was akin to that of the James Stewart character in Alfred Hitchcock's necrophiliac masterpiece Vertigo (1958), with the director trying to remold Stratten into the image of her late sister. The marriage ended in divorce in 2001.
Now in his early eighties, Bogdanovich has arguably imitated his hero Orson Welles, but in an unintended fashion, as filmmaker who never regained the acclaim bestowed on their first major success. However, unlike the widely acclaimed master Welles, the orbit of Bogdanovich's reputation has never recovered from the apogee it reached briefly in the early 1970s.
There has been speculation that Peter Bogdanovich's ruin as a director was guaranteed when he ditched his wife and artistic collaborator Polly Platt for Cybill Shepherd. Platt had worked with Bogdanovich on all his early successes, and some critics believe that the controlling artistic consciousness on The Last Picture Show (1971) was Platt's. Parting company with Platt after Paper Moon (1973), Bogdanovich promptly slipped from the heights of a wunderkind to a has-been pursuing epic folly, as evidenced by Daisy Miller (1974) and At Long Last Love (1975).
In 1998 the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress named The Last Picture Show (1971) to the National Film Registry, an honor awarded only to the most culturally significant films.- Actress
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An intelligent, slender leading lady of the 1960s and 70s, Yvette Carmen Mimieux was born in Hollywood, California, to Maria (Montemayor) and René Mimieux, an occasional movie extra. Her father was born in England, of French and German descent, and her mother was Mexican. While she was first persuaded to go into acting by a Hollywood publicist, her discovery for the screen can be attributed to the director Vincente Minnelli who saw her perform in a play and decided to cast her in his melodrama Home from the Hill (1960). Though Yvette's small role ended up on the cutting room floor, MGM producers were sufficiently impressed with her looks to sign her under a long term contract. Her first role of note, Platinum High School (1960), won her a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. She was then properly 'launched' with the part of Weena, the naive Eloi cave girl, in George Pal's version of The Time Machine (1960). This turned out to be one of the studio's biggest box office winners of 1960. That same year, Mimieux also played a carefree collegian in Where the Boys Are (1960), a teen comedy (with serious undertones) dealing with adolescent sexuality. Both of her performances were well received by critics, but also set the trend for the actress to become typed either as fragile or insecure characters, or as sex kittens.
After a two year hiatus, Mimieux gave a genuinely compelling performance as Clara Johnson, a retarded girl who captures the affections of a young Italian in Light in the Piazza (1962). Though disliking the film, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther described Clara as "played with sunshine radiance and rapturous grace." Having essayed more conventional heroines in Diamond Head (1962) (sister of blustering land baron), The Reward (1965) (a fugitive's girlfriend) and Dark of the Sun (1968) (girl caught up with mercenaries in the Congo), Mimieux began to concentrate on TV movies which gave her the opportunity to further expand her dramatic range. Her contract killer in Hit Lady (1974) and the unhinged stalker in Obsessive Love (1984) were based, respectively, on her own screenplay and story. Probably her last role of note was as the victim of a harrowing chain of events in Jackson County Jail (1976), a downbeat exploitation drama produced by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. In 1985, Mimieux had a recurring role in Berrenger's (1985), a glossy soap opera set in a luxurious department store. The series lasted just one season before being canceled. Though ultimately nominated for three Golden Globes, Mimieux came to bemoan the fact that scriptwriters of the period tended to depict women as 'one-dimensional'.
In 1992, Mimieux left the acting profession to form a partnership with Sara Shane (another ex-MGM contract player) in a Los Angeles-based enterprise called "Partners in Paradise", selling embroidered tapestries, bedspreads and pillows based on Haitian designs. She subsequently went on to find even more lucrative opportunities in real estate. In her spare time, Mimieux traveled extensively, painted and studied archaeology. At the time of her death at the age of 80, she was married to Howard F. Ruby, founder and chairman of Oakwood Worldwide, a large global corporation providing furnished apartments.- Actress
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- Music Department
Ronnie Spector is an American singer. Spector was the lead singer of the rock/pop vocal girl group The Ronettes, who had a string of hits during the early to mid-1960s such as "Be My Baby", "Baby, I Love You", and "The Best Part of Breakin' Up". Subsequently, Ronnie Spector launched her solo career and has since released five studio albums (Siren in 1980, Unfinished Business in 1987, Something's Gonna Happen in 2003, Last of the Rock Stars in 2006, English Heart in 2016) and one extended play (She Talks to Rainbows in 1999).
In 1986, Ronnie Spector experienced a career resurgence when she was featured on Eddie Money's Grammy nominated pop rock song "Take Me Home Tonight" which reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100. She has sung and collaborated with multiple other acts. In 2007, Ronnie and the Ronettes were inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 2018, Spector appeared in the music documentary; Amy Winehouse: Back to Black (2018), which is based on the late singer Amy Winehouse and her final studio album Back to Black (2006). The album was inspired by 60's girl groups Winehouse gathered inspiration from listening to, such as The Ronettes.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gaspard Ulliel's dream had always been to direct a movie, and after completing his studies at the lycée (French high school), he majored in cinema at the University of Saint-Denis, and began his acting career.
He was born in Paris, to Christine, a stylist and runway show producer, and Serge Ulliel, a fashion designer. One of his first professional performances came when he was twelve, in the TV film Une femme en blanc (1997). During the following years, Ulliel continued working on television and was cast in short films such as Alias (1999). He played a young shepherd who was injured by The Beast in Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001), and was then discovered by director Michel Blanc, who offered him a part in Summer Things (2002) which also starred veteran actress Charlotte Rampling. Ulliel then took summer stages at Les Cours Florent and was asked by director André Téchiné to star in Strayed (2003) as Emmanuelle Béart's over. His role as Manech opposite Audrey Tautou in A Very Long Engagement (2004) brought him to stardom. He was nominated thrice for Most Promising Male Newcomer at the César Awards (the equivalent of the Oscars in France) in 2003, 2004 and 2005; he won the last one. Ulliel's lead roles include The Last Day (2004), Jacquou le croquant (2007) and Hannibal Rising (2007), his first major English-language film.
He had a son with his former partner, model and singer Gaëlle Piétri, born in January 2016. They split up in 2020. Gaspard died on 19 January, 2022, in La Tronche, Isère, France, after a skiing accident.- André Leon Talley was born on 16 October 1948 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He was an actor, known for Sex and the City (2008), The September Issue (2009) and Empire (2015). He died on 18 January 2022 in White Plains, New York, USA.
- Actor
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Iconic comedian Louie Anderson, the three-time Emmy®-Award winner, was one of the country's most recognized and adored comics; named by Comedy Central as "One of 100 Greatest Stand-Up Comedians of All Time." His career spanned more than 30 years. He was a best-selling author, star of his own stand up specials and sitcoms, and toured, performing to standing-room only crowds worldwide.
Louis Perry Anderson was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the son of Ora Zella (Prouty) and Louis William Anderson, a trumpet player. He was of Swedish, Norwegian, and English descent. Sharing the ups and downs of his childhood experiences as one of eleven children, Louie crafted comedy routines that rang true for his early club audiences while reducing them to helpless fits of laughter, routines that led him from his career as a counselor to troubled children to the first-place trophy at the 1981 Midwest Comedy Competition. Henny Youngman, who hosted the competition, recognized the diamond-in-the-rough genius of the young comic and hired him as a writer, providing invaluable experience that soon put Louie in his own spotlight on comedy stages all over the country.
Johnny Carson, the comedy icon for generations of rising stars, invited Louie to make his national television debut on the "The Tonight Show" in 1984, and the rest is history. Leno, Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, "Comic Relief" and Showtime, HBO and CMT specials followed, including hosting the legendary game show, Family Feud, making Louie a household name and opening doors for him as an actor. He guest-starred in sitcoms like "Grace Under Fire" and dramas like "Touched by an Angel" and "Chicago Hope," and had memorable featured roles in film comedies like "Coming to America," opposite of Eddie Murphy, and the classic "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." In 2013, he took a dive on the ABC reality series, "Splash" where he conquered his own fears while becoming an inspiration of hope. His stand up Special, "Big Baby Boomer" premiered on CMT, in 2013. Also in that year, he competed and inspired on the ABC reality competition show, Splash.
In 1995 Louie put his creative energies to work on the Saturday morning animated series "Life with Louie." The long-running series based on Louie's own childhood and his life with his father won three Humanitas Prizes for writing on a children's' animated series, making him the only three-time recipient of this award. It also earned a Genesis Award for its depiction of the proper treatment of animals and, most significantly, two Emmy Awards.
His best selling books included Dear Dad - Letters From An Adult Child, a collection of alternately touching and outrageous letters from Louie to his late father, and Good-bye Jumbo...Hello Cruel World, self-help for those who struggle with self-esteem issues, and his latest installment on family, The F Word, How To Survive Your Family.
In 2016, Louie was cast to co-star along with Zach Galifianakis and Martha Kelly in the hit FX series, "Baskets." Anderson's extraordinary new role is Christine Baskets, the matriarch of the Baskets clan. The character is based on both his mother and his five sisters, who were a major presence in his life; "I'm not as nice in the character as my mom was as a person. It really is an extension of my mom, Anderson says, adding that he always aims to make his performance "as real as possible" without "affecting or cartooning it up. It felt like it was divine intervention when I got the call to be on the show, that somehow my mom, from the great beyond, was finally getting herself into show business where she truly belonged in the first place."
When not in production, Louie traveled the States doing what he loved to do, stand-up comedy, and again delivered to his fans his inimitable brand of humor and warmth. He died on January 21, 2022, in Las Vegas, of large B-cell lymphoma.- Music Artist
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- Producer
Meat Loaf was born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Texas, to Wilma Artie (Hukel), a teacher and gospel singer, and Orvis Wesley Aday, a police officer. He moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to play in local bands. In 1970, he moved to New York and appeared in the Broadway musicals "Hair", "Rockabye Hamlet" and "The Rocky Horror Show," and Off Broadway in "Rainbow", "More Than You Deserve", "National Lampoon Show" and the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of "As You Like it;" as well as other productions at the famed New York Public Theatre. He made his film debut with a memorable role in the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).
In 1977, he and lyricist Jim Steinman released an operatic rock album called "Bat Out Of Hell"; the record was huge and has sold 50,000,000 copies worldwide and is tied with AC/DC for the 2nd best selling record of all time. The tour and promoting the album took a toll on Meat Loaf's voice and left him unable to sing for 2 years, but with months of rehabilitation, he was able to get back in the studio and record the album "Dead Ringer". Meat Loaf stayed in the dark through the 1980s in the US, recording 4 records which got very little airplay or high chart positions in the US but continued to have major chart success in Europe and Australia. The 1981 Single "Dead Ringer for Love", a duet with Cher, was a top 10 single in many countries outside the US, but which American radio refused to play.
Meat Loaf had many film and TV roles, including the lead character Travis Redfish in Roadie (1980); a pilot in Out of Bounds (1986); in The Squeeze (1987) with Michael Keaton; and Fred in Focus (2001) (based on the Arthur Miller book by the same name), with Laura Dern and William H. Macy. When Meat Loaf and Steinman got back together in 1993, they delivered a powerful sequel, "Bat Out Of Hell II", which went to #1 in the US and UK and 26 other countries. Bat II sold over 22,000,000 copies.
He appeared in many films, including Crazy in Alabama (1999), Formula 51 (2001) (with Samuel L. Jackson), and Fight Club (1999) (with Brad Pitt). TV credits included guest starring roles as a soldier being held prisoner in Vietnam in Lightning Force (1991), a newspaper reporter in the hit series Glee (2009), a slick landlord of a restaurant who ends up on the menu in HBO series Tales from the Crypt (1989) a blacksmith on Showtime's Dead Man's Gun (1997), as fur trader Jake in Masters of Horror (2005) episode Pelts (2006), in House (2004) as caring husband Eddie, and, most recently, in the supporting role of Doug in the SYFY series Ghost Wars (2017). Hugh Laurie (star of "House") played piano on the song "If I Can't Have You" on Meat Loaf's album "Hang Cool Teddy Bear", which was produced by award-winning music producer Rob Cavallo. (Jack Black also sang on the album.)
Marvin Lee Aday died on January 20, 2022 in Austin, Texas from COVID-19 complications.- Producer
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- Director
Canadian producer and director Ivan Reitman created many of American cinema's most successful and best loved feature film comedies and worked with Hollywood's acting elite. Reitman produced such hits as the ground-breaking sensation National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), which introduced John Belushi to American filmgoers, and the family features Beethoven (1992) and Beethoven's 2nd (1993). His directing credits include Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981) and Ghostbusters (1984), films starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis; Dave (1993), which starred Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, Junior (1994) which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito and Emma Thompson. Reitman also produced the HBO telefilm The Late Shift (1996), based on Bill Carter's non-fiction book about the late-night television wars which received seven Emmy nominations. Other producing endeavors include Commandments (1997), starring Aidan Quinn and Courteney Cox, Private Parts (1997), starring Howard Stern, as well as the animation/live action film Space Jam (1996), starring Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes characters. With Twins (1988), Reitman created an entirely new comedic persona for action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger -- and forged a personal and professional relationship that continued with Kindergarten Cop (1990) and Junior (1994). Acclaimed dramatic actors such as Robert Redford, Debra Winger, Sigourney Weaver, and Emma Thompson also revealed untapped comic talents under Reitman's direction. In 1984, Reitman was honored as Director of the Year by the National Association of Theater Owners and the next year received a Special Achievement Award at the Canadian Genie awards. In 1979 and again in 1989, for the films National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and Twins (1988), Reitman was honored with the People's Choice Award. In November of 1994, Reitman became the third director honored by Variety magazine in a special Billion Dollar Director issue.
Reitman was born in Czechoslovakia, to Jewish Holocaust survivors, and left with his family for Canada at the age of four. He attended Canada's McMaster University, where he produced and directed several television shorts. He followed with a live television show, Greed: The Series (1999), with Dan Aykroyd as its announcer. "Spellbound," which Reitman produced for the live stage, evolved into the Broadway hit "The Magic Show," starring Doug Henning. He continued producing for the stage with the Off-Broadway hit "The National Lampoon Show," and returned to Broadway to produce and direct the musical "Merlin," earning a Tony nomination for directing. Reitman headed The Montecito Picture Company, a film and television production company, with partner Tom Pollock. His television credits included the Emmy-nominated children's show The Real Ghostbusters (1986) and the Saturday morning animated series Beethoven (1994) for CBS. His last directing credited was Draft Day (2014), before his death in February 2022 in Montecito, California.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Sally Kellerman arrived quite young on the late 1950s film and television scene with a fresh and distinctively weird, misfit presence. It is this same uniqueness that continued to make her such an attractively offbeat performer. The willowy, swan-necked, flaxen-haired actress shot to film comedy fame after toiling nearly a decade and a half in the business, and is still most brazenly remembered for her career-maker in the irreverent hit Korean War dramedy M*A*S*H (1970), for which she received supporting Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. From there, she went on to enjoy several other hallmark moments as both an actress and a vocalist.
California native Sally Clare Kellerman was born in Long Beach on June 2, 1937, to Edith (née Vaughn), a piano teacher, and John Helm Kellerman, a Shell Oil Company executive. Raised along with her sister in the San Fernando Valley area, Sally was attracted to the performing arts after seeing Marlon Brando star in the film Viva Zapata! (1952). Attending the renowned Hollywood High School as a teenager, she sang in musical productions while there, including a version of "Meet Me in St. Louis." Following graduation, she enrolled at Los Angeles City College but left after a year when enticed by acting guru Jeff Corey's classes.
Initially inhibited by her height (5'10"), noticeably gawky and slinky frame and wide slash of a mouth, Kellerman proved difficult to cast at first but finally found herself up for the lead role in Otto Preminger's "A"-level film Saint Joan (1957). She lost out in the end, however, when Preminger finally decided to give the role of Joan of Arc to fellow newcomer Jean Seberg. Hardly compensation, 20-year-old Sally made her film debut that same year as a girls' reformatory inmate who threatens the titular leading lady in the cult "C" juvenile delinquent drama Reform School Girl (1957) starring "good girl" Gloria Castillo and "bad guy" Edd Byrnes of "777 Sunset Strip" teen idol fame, an actor she met and was dating after attending Corey's workshops. Directed by infamous low-budget horror film Samuel Z. Arkoff, her secondary part in the film did little in the way of advancing her career.
During the same period of time, Sally pursued a singing career and earned a recording contract with Verve Records. The 1960s was an uneventful but growing period for Kellerman, finding spurts of quirky TV roles in both comedies ("Bachelor Father," "My Three Sons," "Dobie Gillis" and "Ozzie and Harriet") and dramas ("Lock Up," "Surfside 6," "Cheyenne," "The Outer Limits," "The Rogues," "Slattery's People" and the second pilot of "Star Trek"). Sally's sophomore film was just as campy as the first, but her part was even smaller. As an ill-fated victim of the Hands of a Stranger (1962), the oft-told horror story of a concert pianist whose transplanted hands become deadly, the film came and went without much fanfare.
Studying later at Los Angeles' Actors' Studio (West), Sally's roles increased toward the end of the 1960s with featured parts in more quality filming, including The Third Day (1965), The Boston Strangler (1968) (as a target for serial killer Tony Curtis) and The April Fools (1969). Sally's monumental break came, of course, via director Robert Altman when he hired her for, and she created a dusky-voiced sensation out of, the aggressively irritating character Major Margaret "'Hot Lips" Houlihan. Her highlighting naked-shower scene in the groundbreaking cinematic comedy M*A*S*H (1970) had audiences ultimately laughing and gasping at the same time. Both she and the film were a spectacular success with Sally the sole actor to earn an Oscar nomination for her marvelous work here. She lost that year to the overly spunky veteran Helen Hayes in Airport (1970).
Becoming extremely good friends with Altman during the movie shoot, Sally went on to film a couple more of the famed director's more winning and prestigious films of the 1970s, beginning with her wildly crazed "angelic" role in Brewster McCloud (1970), and finishing up brilliantly as a man-hungry real estate agent in his Welcome to L.A. (1976), directed by Alan Rudolph. Sally later regretted not taking the Karen Black singing showcase role in one of Altman's best-embraced films, Nashville (1975), when originally offered. Still pursuing her singing interests, she put out her first album, "Roll with the Feelin'" for Decca Records in 1972.
Films continued to be a priority and Sally was deemed a quirky comedy treasure in both co-star and top supporting roles of the 1970s. She was well cast neurotically opposite Alan Arkin in the Neil Simon comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972) and again alongside ex-con James Caan as a sexy but loony delight in Slither (1973), a precursor to the Coen Bros.' darkly comic films. She also co-starred and contributed a song ("Reflections") to the Burt Bacharach/Hal David soundtrack of the Utopian film Lost Horizon (1973), a musical picture that proved lifeless at the box office. More impressive work came with the movies A Little Romance (1979) as young Diane Lane's quirky mom; Foxes (1980) as Jodie Foster's confronting mother; Serial (1980), a California comedy satire starring Martin Mull; That's Life! (1986), a social comedy with Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews; and Back to School (1986), comic Rodney Dangerfield's raucous vehicle hit.
Sally's films from the 1980s on were a mixed bag. While some, such as the low-grade Moving Violations (1985), Meatballs III: Summer Job (1986), Doppelganger (1993), American Virgin (1999) and Women of the Night (2001) were beneath her considerable talents, her presence in others were, at the very least, catchy such as her Natasha Fatale opposite Dave Thomas' Boris Badenov in Boris and Natasha (1992); director Percy Adlon's inventive Younger and Younger (1993), which reunited her with MASH co-star Donald Sutherland, and in Robert Altman's rather disjointed, ill-received all-star effort Ready to Wear (1994) in which she played a fashion magazine editor.
When her film output waned in later years, Sally lent a fine focus back to her singing career and made a musical dent as a deep-voiced blues and jazz artist. She started hitting the Los Angeles and New York club circuits with solo acts. In 2009, Kellerman released her first album since "Roll with The Feelin'" simply titled "Sally," a jazz and blues-fused album. Along those same lines, Sally played a nightclub singer in the comedy Limit Up (1989) Kellerman's seductively throaty voice has also put her in good standing as a voice-over artist of commercials, feature films, and television.
Among her offbeat output in millennium films were prime/featured roles in the soft-core thriller Women of the Night (2001), written and director by Zalman King, in which she played a lady deejay (she also gets to sing); the real estate musical Open House (2004) in which she played an agent (who gets to sing again); the Florida senior citizens' romantic comedy Boynton Beach Club (2005); the comedy Night Club (2011) where friends and residents start a club in a retirement home; the social dramas A Place for Heroes (2014) and A Timeless Love (2016); and the family dramedy The Remake (2016).
Divorced from Rick Edelstein, Kellerman married Jonathan D. Krane in 1980 and the couple adopted twins, Jack and Hanna. Sally was also the adoptive mother of her niece, Claire Graham. Her husband died unexpectedly in August 2016; less than three months later, daughter Hanna died from heroin and methamphetamine use. Sally died on February 24, 2022 in Los Angeles.- Actor
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Emilio Delgado was an actor and singer, best known for his 44 years in the role of "Luis" on Sesame Street from 1971-2015 and had the unofficial distinction of having played the same role on U.S. television longer than any other Mexican American actor. He was born in Calexico, California and spent his early childhood living across the border in Mexicali, Mexico in a large extended family.
He started working at an early age in Mexicali shining shoes and working in his uncle's bicycle repair shop. As a U.S. citizen, he crossed the border daily into the United States to attend elementary school in Calexico, California, where he first began performing in school plays and musicals. He graduated from Glendale High School in Los Angeles, where his interest and passion for theater and music increased. After graduation he received a scholarship to study acting in Hollywood with Russian actress Eugenie Leontovich. He continued his theater studies at Glendale College and CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) while also performing as a folk singer, guitarist and singing traditional Spanish boleros with Mexican trios.
In 1968 Emilio began working as a professional actor in the Emmy Award winning PBS series Cancion De La Raza (Song of The People) KCET-LA. In 1971, the producers of Sesame Street expanded their cast to include Latinos and cast Emilio as Luis. Landing the role of "Luis" was very meaningful to Emilio because it offered a positive portrayal of a Mexican American on television. He can claim the longest running part for a Mexican American actor in a continuing television series for his 44 years on Sesame Street.
In addition to Sesame Street, Emilio was cast by Joe Papp in 1972 to understudy Raul Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona at the St. James Theatre on Broadway. Emilio starred in the lead role of Quixote Nuevo in four cities: CalShakes Berkeley, Hartford Stage, Huntington Theatre Boston & The Alley Theatre in Houston from June 13, 2018 to February 9, 2020; written by award winning playwright, Octavio Solis. Quixote Nuevo is a contemporary adaptation of the Cervantes classic, first premiering in 2018 at California Shakespeare Theater in Berkeley. Other theater credits include Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, INTAR Theatre, Round House Theatre in Bethesda, MD, Manhattan Theatre Source and King Claudius in the Asolo Repertory Theatre production of Hamlet: Prince of Cuba.
He appeared in several television classics and was a recurring cast member on the Lou Grant Show and appeared in Hawaii 5-0, Quincy, Police Story and co-starred in I Will Fight No More Forever. More recent television and film appearances include The Get Down, House of Cards, A Case of You, Law & Order, Criminal Intent, Law & Order: SVU, The Michael J. Fox Show and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and many other television and film appearances. In voice over work, you can hear his voice in The Bravest Knight, Red Dead Redemption II and Audible.
Emilio enjoyed the pleasure of being an occasional guest singer with the world popular band Pink Martini at venues such as Carnegie Hall, The Hollywood Bowl and made other guest appearances with the band in Portland, Seattle, and Montreal. He recorded 'Sing', a duet with China Forbes on the Pink Martini album Splendor in the Grass.
Awards he has received include, The Impact Award 2000 from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, The HOLA Ilka Award in 2005 and in 2009 he and the cast of Sesame Street were present to receive the Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award for Sesame Street's 40 years on the air. October 15, 2019 he was honored by New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio proclaiming October 15, 2019 as Emilio Delgado Day in New York City, taking place at Gracie Mansion in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.
He has contributed his time to organizations such as the United Farm Workers, Head Start, The 52nd Street Project and Project Sunshine.
On December 10, 2020, Delgado was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. He passed away from the disease on March 10, 2022 at the age of 81. He is survived by his wife Carole and his two children.- Actor
- Producer
William McChord Hurt was born in Washington, D.C., to Claire Isabel (McGill) and Alfred McChord Hurt, who worked at the State Department. He was trained at Tufts University and The Juilliard School and has been nominated for four Academy Awards, including the most recent nomination for his supporting role in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence (2005). Hurt received Best Supporting Actor accolades for the role from the Los Angeles Film Critics circle and the New York Film Critics Circle.
Hurt spent the early years of his career on the stage between drama school, summer stock, regional repertory and off-Broadway, appearing in more than fifty productions including "Henry V", "5th of July", "Hamlet", "Uncle Vanya", "Richard II", "Hurlyburly" (for which he was nominated for a Tony Award), "My Life" (winning an Obie Award for Best Actor), "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" and "Good". For radio, Hurt read Paul Theroux's "The Grand Railway Bazaar", for the BBC Radio Four and "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx. He has recorded "The Polar Express", "The Boy Who Drew Cats", "The Sun Also Rises" and narrated the documentaries, "Searching for America: The Odyssey of John Dos Passos", "Einstein-How I See the World" and the English narration of Elie Wiesel's "To Speak the Unspeakable", a documentary directed and produced by Pierre Marmiesse. In 1988, Hurt was awarded the first Spencer Tracy Award from UCLA.- Actor
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Part of the Philadelphia music scene which also spawned Frankie Avalon and Fabian, Rydell was undoubtedly the most talented of the teen idols. After a number of song hits, including "Wild One" and "Volare", he starred in Bye Bye Birdie (1963) before hitting the nightclub circuit. He still appears regularly on "oldies" shows, although he hasn't had a hit since the early 1960s.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Born in 1919 in Jerusalem, Nehemiah Persoff emigrated with his family to America in 1929.
Following schooling at the Hebrew Technical Institute of New York, he found a job as a subway electrician doing signal maintenance until an interest in the theater altered the direction of his life.
He joined amateur groups and subsequently won a scholarship to the Dramatic Workshop in New York. This led to what would have been his Broadway debut in a production of "Eve of St. Mark", but he was fired before the show opened. He made his official New York debut in a production of "The Emperor's New Clothes" in 1940.
WWII interrupted his young career in 1942, when he was inducted into the United Sates Army, returning to the stage after his hitch was over in 1945, three years later. He sought work in stock plays and became an intern of Stella Adler and, as a result, a strong exponent of the Actor's Studio. Discovered by Charles Laughton and cast in his production of "Galileo" in 1947, Persoff made his film debut a year later with an uncredited bit in The Naked City (1948).
Short, dark, chunky-framed and with a distinct talent for dialects, Persoff became known primarily for his ethnic villainy, usually playing authoritative Eastern Europeans.
In a formidable career which had him portraying everything from cab drivers to Joseph Stalin, standout film roles would include Leo in The Harder They Fall (1956) with Humphrey Bogart, Gene Conforti in Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man (1956), Albert in This Angry Age (1958) and gangster Johnny Torrio in Al Capone (1959). That same year he played another gangster, the small role of Little Bonaparte, in Some Like It Hot (1959).
He was a durable performer during TV's "Golden Age" (Gunsmoke (1955), The Twilight Zone (1959)) and well beyond (Chicago Hope (1994), Law & Order (1990)), playing hundreds of intense, volatile and dominating characters.
In later years, his characters grew a bit softer as Barbra Streisand's Jewish father in Yentl (1983) and the voice of Papa Mousekewitz in the An American Tail (1986) will attest. Later stage work included well-received productions of "I'm Not Rappaport" and his biographical one-man show "Sholem Aleichem".
After declining health and high blood pressure forced him to slow down, Persoff took up painting in 1985, studying sketching in Los Angeles. Specializing in watercolor, he created more than 100 works of art, many of which have been exhibited up and down the coast of California. He celebrated his 100th birthday in 2019.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
At the tender age of 15, Gilbert Gottfried began doing stand-up at open mike nights in New York City and, after a few short years, became known around town as "the comedian's comedian". After spending several years mastering the art of stand-up comedy, producers of the legendary NBC late-night comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975) became aware of Gottfried and, in 1980, hired him as a cast member. It was not until a few years later that his notoriety began after MTV hired him for a series of improvised and hilarious promos for the newly formed channel. This led to several television appearances on The Cosby Show (1984).
Gottfried's work in television soon led to roles in film. Most notable was his improvised scene as business manager "Sidney Bernstein" in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). The New York Daily News critic wrote that "Gilbert Gottfried steals the picture with a single scene". Aside from his glowing reputation in comedy clubs, Gottfried gained a reputation as the king of quirky roles in both movies and television. He appeared in such movies as Problem Child (1990), Problem Child 2 (1991), Look Who's Talking Too (1990), and The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990). He was also the host of the very popular late night movie series Up All Night (1989).
After his performance as the wise cracking parrot "Iago" in the Disney classic Aladdin (1992), Gottfried became one of the most recognizable voice-over talents. His signature voice was heard in several commercials, cartoons and movies, including the frustrated duck in the AFLAC Insurance commercials. Gottfried was the voice of Digit in the long-running PBS series Cyberchase (2002).
Gottfried was a regular on the new Hollywood Squares (1998) and was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992) and Howard Stern on Demand (2005). He appeared in the hit comedy documentary The Aristocrats (2005), with Entertainment Weekly opining that, "out of the 101 comedians who appear on screen, no one is funnier - or more disgusting - than Gilbert Gottfried".
"Gilbert Gottfried Dirty Jokes" was recently released on both DVD and CD, featuring 50 non-stop minutes of Gottfried telling the funniest and filthiest jokes, ever. The show was filmed live at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York City. Also featured on the DVD are some of the funniest bonus features ever, including wild stories, indignant ranting and celebrity impressions. For this live performance, Gottfried put aside political correctness and fires an onslaught of jokes that know no boundaries. At the end of the show, Gottfried told what is known among comedians as the "Dirtiest Joke of All Time", the basis for The Aristocrats (2005). He was one of the most sought-after comedians, and regularly performed live to sold-out audiences across North America.
Gottfried died of ventricular tachycardia at the age of 67, leaving behind his wife, his two children, and his sister, Karen.- Estelle Harris was an American actress and comedienne, known for her exaggerated shrill and grating comedic voice. She often worked as a voice actress in animation, voicing supporting characters and guest stars. Her best known roles are the obnoxious mother Estelle Costanza in the sitcom "Seinfeld" (1989-1998) and the sweet wife Mrs. Potato Head in the "Toy Story" film series.
Harris was born Estelle Nussbaum in 1928 in Manhattan, New York City. Her parents were Isaac "Ira" Nussbaum and his wife Anna (Stern), first-generation Jewish emigrants from Poland. Her parents owned a candy store in New York City. In 1935, the Nussbaum family moved to Tarentum, Pennsylvania, an industrial town primarily known for production of bottles. Ira had accepted a job offer from relatives who had already settled in Tarentum.
Harris was primarily raised in Tarentum, and graduated from the local high school. Relatively little is known for her life in early adulthood. In 1952, Estelle started dating Sy Harris, a window treatment salesman. They were married in early 1953, despite knowing each other for only 6 months at that point. Between 1957 and 1964, Harris gave birth to three children (two sons and a daughter). She was primarily a housewife until her children were old enough to attend school.
Harris aspired to an acting career, but started out in amateur productions. She eventually had roles in dinner theater, and found some success when cast in various television commercials. At one point she filmed 23 different commercials in a single year. In 1984, Harris had a small role in the crime film "Once Upon a Time in America", which primarily depicted the lives of Jewish-American gangsters.
In 1985, Harris was cast in the recurring role of Easy Mary in the sitcom "Night Court" (1984-1992). The sitcom focused on eccentric characters interacting with the night shift staff of a Manhattan municipal court. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, Harris was frequently cast in guest-star roles in various then-popular series, such as "Married... with Children" and "Mad About You".
Harris' big break came in 1992 when cast in "Seinfield" as Estelle Costanza, the overbearing mother of neurotic character George Costanza (played by Jason Alexander). The character spend most of her screen-time in berating her son, belittling anything which her son cared about, arguing with her husband, and maintaining hostile relations with nearly everyone who she interacted with. She became one of the series' most prominent supporting characters, allowing Harris to become a household name.
By 1995, Harris had started voicing characters in animated television series. Among her earliest prominent roles in the medium was voicing Timon's mother in the comedy series "Timon & Pumbaa" (1994-1999), which was a spin-off of "The Lion King". In 1996, Harris had a guest-star role in the science fiction series "Star Trek: Voyager", as an unnamed elder of the Nechani tribe. Her role was to guide protagonist Kathryn Janeway (played by Kate Mulgrew) through a tribal ritual which would heal Janeway's friend Kes (played by Jennifer Lien).
In 1998, Harris was cast as Grandmama Delilah Addams in the television film "Addams Family Reunion", the paternal grandmother of Gomez and Fester Addams. The film was based on the comic strip "Addams Family" (1938-1964) by Charles Addams, which had many other adaptations. In the film, Delilah suffers from Walthzheimer's disease, a condition which turns aging people into unnaturally "pleasant" versions of themselves. The rest of the Addams family is horrified by Delilah's fate.
In 1999, Harris was cast as Mrs. Potato Head in the computer-animated film "Toy Story 2". The character was depicted as the sweet and loving wife of Mr. Potato Head (voiced Don Rickles). Her personality was intended to contrast with the hot-headed and pessimistic behavior of her husband. The film was a box office hit. Harris would resume this role in the sequels "Toy Story 3" (2010) and "Toy Story 4" (2019), which were also commercially successful.
In 2004, Harris voiced the nervous hen Audrey in the Western comedy film "Home on the Range". The character was a member of the film's supporting cast and had a tendency to panic when dealing with her fear of abandonment. This animated film under performed at the box office, convincing Disney to cease producing traditionally animated films.
Also in 2004, Harris was cast in the recurring role of Mrs. Lipsky in the comedy adventure television series "Kim Possible". Her character was depicted as the overly-affectionate mother of the super-villain Dr. Drakken/Drew Theodore P. Lipsky, who still treated him as her baby boy and unwittingly interfered with his plans. Harris was also cast in a recurring role in the fantasy television series "Dave the Barbarian", as Lula the sentient enchanted sword.
In 2005, Harris voiced the antagonist Mama Gunda in the animated film "Tarzan II". The character was a female gorilla who used her own sons in a scheme to gain political power, but reforms after falling in love with a new mate. The film was one of the few Disney films were the antagonists find redemption.
Also in 2005, Harris was cast in the recurring role of Muriel in the live-action sitcom The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005). Her character was an elderly hotel maid, whose greed, laziness, and irritability were recurring plot points. In her last appearance on the show Muriel was "fired" by her boss, who failed to realize that Muriel had already retired and was no longer in his payroll.
Harris had relatively few new roles during the 2010s. Her most prominent recurring role at that time was the benevolent ghost Peg-Leg Peg in the fantasy series Captain Jake and the Never Land Pirates (2011), a spin-off of Peter Pan. She died in 2022, a year after husband Sy. Harris is fondly remembered for the many recurring characters which she has played or voiced, and is regarded as a veteran of the animation industry. - Actress
- Producer
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Naomi Judd was born on 11 January 1946 in Ashland, Kentucky, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for Someone Like You (2001), An Evergreen Christmas (2014) and Route 65 Nashville. She was married to Larry Strickland and Michael Charles Ciminella. She died on 30 April 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.- Actor
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- Executive
A marvelous character actor with intense eyes, a sly grin and somewhat grizzled appearance, Golden Globe-winner Fred Ward had nearly 90 appearances under his belt in many tremendous films and television programs. He first became interested in acting after serving three years in the US Air Force and studied at New York's Herbert Berghof Studio. Ward then went to Europe, where he dubbed many Italian movies, and first appeared on-screen in two films by Roberto Rossellini. He then returned to the United States, and got his first decent role alongside Clint Eastwood in the nail-biting prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). Ward's looks often saw him cast as law enforcement or military characters, and he put in noteworthy performances in Southern Comfort (1981), Uncommon Valor (1983), as astronaut Gus Grissom in The Right Stuff (1983) and scored the lead in the interesting spy/martial arts movie Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985), which unfortunately was not as successful as had been the mega-selling series of Remo Williams books.
However, during "Remo", Ward demonstrated a great knack for comedic timing and satirical performance, and this ability was used to great effect in several films, including playing Kevin Bacon's fellow giant-worm-fighting handyman in the light-hearted sci-fi hit Tremors (1990), as "Walter Stuckel" in Robert Altman's The Player (1992), as TV anchorman "Chip Daley" in Tim Robbins' razor-sharp political satire Bob Roberts (1992) and as a vicious, but incompetent, gangster menacing Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994).
Ward's abilities as both a supporting player and truly versatile character actor ensured that he would be in steady demand, and he continued to turn up in a wide variety of roles utilizing his skills. Keep an eye out for Fred Ward in the action-filled The Chaos Factor (2000), as David Spade's dad in Joe Dirt (2001), in the tongue-in-cheek Corky Romano (2001) and in the Reese Witherspoon romantic tale Sweet Home Alabama (2002). His last three films were more action-oriented, Armored (2009), [link=tt1622547, and 2 Guns (2013), and he subsequently mostly retired from acting until his death in 2022.- Actor
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Intense was the word for Ray Liotta. He specialized in psychopathic characters who hide behind a cultivated charm. Even in his nice-guy roles in Field of Dreams (1989) and Operation Dumbo Drop (1995), you get the impression that something is smoldering inside of him. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and was adopted by Mary (Edgar), a township clerk, and Alfred Liotta, an auto parts store owner. He studied acting at the University of Miami, where he became friends with Steven Bauer (Scarface (1983), Thief of Hearts (1984)). He spent his first years acting in TV: Another World (1964), a TV movie and several short-lived series. He broke into movies with the black comedy Something Wild (1986), which garnered him rave reviews. Originally unable to get a reading, he was recommended for the part by Melanie Griffith (then married to Bauer).
Following the success Something Wild (1986), he received more offers in the "psycho" vein, but refused them to avoid being typecast. Instead, he made "little movies" like Dominick and Eugene (1988), which earned him standing as an actor's actor, and Field of Dreams (1989), whose success always surprised him. When he heard Martin Scorsese was casting Goodfellas (1990), he lobbied hard for the part of Henry Hill. The film's huge success brought him wide popularity and garnered him star billing in future films such as Article 99 (1992), Unlawful Entry (1992), and Unforgettable (1996).
Liotta died on May 26, 2022, aged 67, in his sleep while filming on location in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.- Actor
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A masculine and enigmatic actor whose life and movie career have had more ups and downs than the average rollercoaster and whose selection of roles has arguably derailed him from achieving true superstar status, James Caan is New York-born and bred.
He was born in the Bronx, to Sophie (Falkenstein) and Arthur Caan, Jewish immigrants from Germany. His father was a meat dealer and butcher. The athletically gifted Caan played football at Michigan State University while studying economics, holds a black belt in karate and for several years was even a regular on the rodeo circuit, where he was nicknamed "The Jewish Cowboy". However, while studying at Hofstra University, he became intrigued by acting and was interviewed and accepted at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse. He then won a scholarship to study under acting coach Wynn Handman and began to appear in several off-Broadway productions, including "I Roam" and "Mandingo".
He made his screen debut as a sailor in Irma la Douce (1963) and began to impress audiences with his work in Red Line 7000 (1965) and the western El Dorado (1966) alongside John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. Further work followed in Journey to Shiloh (1968) and in the sensitive The Rain People (1969). However, audiences were moved to tears as he put in a heart-rending performance as cancer-stricken Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo in the highly rated made-for-TV film Brian's Song (1971).
With these strong performances under his belt, Francis Ford Coppola then cast him as hot-tempered gangster Santino "Sonny" Corleone in the Mafia epic The Godfather (1972). The film was an enormous success, Caan scored a Best Supporting Actor nomination and, in the years since, the role has proven to be the one most fondly remembered by his legion of fans. He reprised the role for several flashback scenes in the sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) and then moved on to several very diverse projects. These included a cop-buddy crime partnership with Alan Arkin in the uneven Freebie and the Bean (1974), a superb performance as a man playing for his life in The Gambler (1974) alongside Lauren Hutton, and pairing with Barbra Streisand in Funny Lady (1975). Two further strong lead roles came up for him in 1975, first as futuristic sports star "Jonathon E" questioning the moral fiber of a sterile society in Rollerball (1975) and teaming up with Robert Duvall in the Sam Peckinpah spy thriller The Killer Elite (1975).
Unfortunately, Caan's rising star sputtered badly at this stage of his career, and several film projects failed to find fire with either critics or audiences. These included such failures as the hokey Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), the quasi-western Comes a Horseman (1978) and the saccharine Chapter Two (1979). However, he did score again with the stylish Michael Mann-directed heist movie Thief (1981). He followed this with a supernatural romantic comedy titled Kiss Me Goodbye (1982) and then, due to personal conflicts, dropped out of the spotlight for several years before returning with a stellar performance under old friend Francis Ford Coppola in the moving Gardens of Stone (1987).
Caan appeared back in favor with fans and critics alike and raised his visibility with the sci-fi hit Alien Nation (1988) and Dick Tracy (1990), then surprised everyone by playing a meek romance novelist held captive after a car accident by a deranged fan in the dynamic Misery (1990). The 1990s were kind to him and he notched up roles as a band leader in For the Boys (1991), another gangster in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), appeared in the indie hit Bottle Rocket (1996) and pursued Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser (1996).
The demand on Caan's talents seems to have increased steadily over the past few years as he is making himself known to a new generation of fans. Recent hot onscreen roles have included The Yards (2000), City of Ghosts (2002) and Dogville (2003). In addition, he finds himself at the helm of the hit TV series Las Vegas (2003) as casino security chief "Big Ed" Deline. An actor of undeniably manly appeal, James Caan continued to surprise and delight audiences with his invigorating performances up until his death in July 2022 at the age of 82.- Actor
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Tall, dark and imposing American actor Paul Sorvino made a solid career of portraying authority figures.
He was born in Brooklyn, New York City. His mother, Angela (Renzi), was a piano teacher, of Italian descent. His father, Ford Sorvino, was an Italian immigrant who worked in a robe factory as a foreman. Paul originally had his heart set on a life as an opera singer. He was exposed to dramatic arts while studying at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. He furthered his studies with Sanford Meisner and eventually made his film debut in Where's Poppa? (1970).
Sorvino suffered from severe asthma, and worked hard at mastering various breathing techniques to manage the illness. He wrote a best-selling book entitled "How to Become a Former Asthmatic". He also started the Sorvino Asthma Foundation based in New York City.
Sorvino appeared in a variety of film, TV, and theatrical productions over five decades. He received critical praise for his role in the Broadway play "That Championship Season", and played the role again in the 1981 film alongside Robert Mitchum and Martin Sheen. Other noteworthy performances during the 1980s and 1990s included a stressed-out police chief in Cruising (1980), Mike Hammer's cop buddy in I, the Jury (1982), Lips Manlis in Dick Tracy (1990) with James Caan and in a standout performance as mob patriarch Paul Cicero in the powerhouse Goodfellas (1990).
Always keeping himself busy, Sorvino performed over 100 theatrical movies and over 30 TV movies throughout his career, including a dynamic and under-appreciated portrayal of Henry Kissinger in Nixon (1995), as "Fulgencio Capulet" in the updated Romeo + Juliet (1996) and in the Las Vegas thriller The Cooler (2003). At the time of his death in 2022, there were three more films in which he appeared yet to be released, including The Ride in which he worked alongside his wife Dee Dee Sorvino.
Sorvino was the proud father of Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino.- Actor
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Distinguished character actor David Hattersley Warner was born on July 29, 1941 in Manchester, England, to Ada Doreen (Hattersley) and Herbert Simon Warner. He was born out of wedlock and raised by each of his parents, eventually settling with his itinerant father and stepmother. He only saw his mother again on her deathbed. As an only child from a dysfunctional family, young David excelled neither at academia nor at athletics. He attended eight schools and "failed his exams at all of them." After a series of odd jobs, he was accepted against all odds at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
When he first took up acting, it was not with the notion of a prospective career, but rather to escape (in his own words) 'a messy childhood.' Warner received some early mentoring from one of his teachers, and made his theatrical debut in 1962 at the Royal Court Theatre as Snout in A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Tony Richardson. A year later, he became the youngest-ever actor to play Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Comedy may not have been his forte as much as the likes of Falstaff, Lysander and (on several occasions) Henry VI. Eventually becoming disaffected with the theatre (and plagued for some years by stage fright), Warner found himself better served by the celluloid medium. His first big break came on the strength of his small part in A Midsummer Night's Dream, courtesy of Tony Richardson who cast him in his bawdy period romp Tom Jones (1963) as the mendacious, pimple-faced antagonist Blifil, who vied with Albert Finney for the affections of Susannah York. A proper starring turn on the big screen followed in due course with the title role in Morgan! (1966), Warner playing a deranged artist with Marxist leanings who goes to absurd lengths to reclaim his ex-wife (played by Vanessa Redgrave), including blowing up his mother-in-law. In yet another off-beat satire, Work Is a Four Letter Word (1968), Warner played a corporate drop-out who grows psychedelic mushrooms in an automated world of the future. Combined with his two-year stint as Hamlet with the RSC, Warner became a star at age 24.
By the 1970s, he had become one of Britain's most sought-after character actors and went on to enjoy an illustrious and prolific career on both sides of the Atlantic, throughout which he rarely spurned a role offered him. Tall and somewhat ungainly in appearance, Warner excelled at troubled, introspective loners, outcasts and mavericks or downright sinister individuals. The latter have included SS General Reinhardt Heydrich in Holocaust (1978), Jack the Ripper in Time After Time (1979), Picard's sadistic Cardassian torturer Gul Madred in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), the villainous ex-Pinkerton man Spicer Lovejoy in Titanic (1997) and the evil geniuses of Time Bandits (1981) (a role turned down by Jonathan Pryce) and Tron (1982). He also essayed the creature to Robert Powell 's Frankenstein (1984).
Less eccentric roles saw him as the doomed photojournalist who literally loses his head in The Omen (1976) (Warner later described the experience of working alongside Gregory Peck as a career highlight), the sympathetic, but equally ill-fated Klingon Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) and the sad, likeable fantasist Aldous Gajic, searching for the Grail in Babylon 5 (1993). Warner also appeared in a trio of films for which he was handpicked by the director Sam Peckinpah. Best of these is arguably the comedy western The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), with Warner well cast as the roving-eyed, itinerant Reverend Joshua Duncan Sloane. Warner won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for his performance as the Roman Senator Pomponius Falco in the miniseries Masada (1981). Following a three-decade long absence, Warner returned to the stage in 2001 for the role of Andrew Undershaft in Shaw's Major Barbara. In 2004, he played the title role in King Lear at the Chichester Theatre Festival in England. More recently, he appeared on TV as Professor Abraham Van Helsing in Penny Dreadful (2014), as Rabbi Max Steiner in Ripper Street (2012) and as Kenneth Branagh's ailing father in Wallander (2008).
A riveting screen presence, the ever-versatile and charismatic David Warner passed away aged 80 from cancer at Denville Hall, an entertainment industry care home, in Northwood, London, on 24 July 2022.- Mary Alice was born on 3 December 1936 in Indianola, Mississippi, USA. She was an actress, known for The Matrix Revolutions (2003), Awakenings (1990) and Malcolm X (1992). She died on 27 July 2022 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
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Nichelle Nichols was one of 10 children born to parents Lishia and Samuel Nichols in Robbins, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. She was a singer and dancer before turning to acting and finding fame in her groundbreaking role of Lt. Nyota Uhura in the Star Trek (1966) series.
As long as she could remember, she wanted to do nothing but sing, dance, act and write despite no one else in her family following any of those tracks; although her father could tap dance. He not only became mayor of their town, Robbins, IL, but also a magistrate. On stage, Nichelle was twice nominated for the Sarah Siddons Award as Best Actress of the Year; while on film she danced with Sammy Davis, Jr. in Porgy and Bess, and opposite James Garner in Mister Budwing (1965). In a complete changearound soon after the Star Trek television series came to an end, she played a blousey madam, then co-starred with Lynn Redgrave n Antony and Cleopatra. She was been married twice and had a son, Kyle Johnson, from her first marriage to a tap dancer.- Actor
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Tony Dow was an American actor, film producer, television director, and sculptor from Los Angeles, California. His most famous role was that of athletic adolescent Wallace "Wally" Cleaver in the popular sitcom "Leave It to Beaver" (1957-1963). Dow played the older brother to the series' protagonist Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver (played by Jerry Mathers). Bow returned to the role of Wally in the sequel series "The New Leave It to Beaver" (1983-1989), which featured the Cleaver brothers as married adults with children of their own.
In 1945, Dow was born in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. He aspired to an acting career since childhood, but he only had a few theatrical roles until the late 1950s. He went to an open casting call for the upcoming sitcom "Leave It to Beaver., and he was cast in the regular role of Wallace "Wally" Cleaver. He replaced child actor Paul Sullivan, who played Wally in the series' pilot. Wally was depicted as a talented track and field athlete, basketball player and baseball player. He was well-liked by his teachers and popular with his peers, but his friendships with dimwitted bully Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford and untrustworthy schemer Edward Clark "Eddie" Haskell repeatedly landed him in trouble.
As the television series progressed, Dow received more screen-time for his character. He was often featured in "heartthrob"-type magazines for teen girls, and he was regarded as more popular than his co-star Jerry Mathers. "Leave It to Beaver" ended in 1963, after 6 seasons and 234 episodes. At 18, Dow was a bit too old to keep playing a high school student, while Mathers was considering an early retirement from acting. Dow then started appearing regularly at guest-star roles in television, until cast in a regular role for the short-lived soap opera "Never Too Young" (1965-1966). It was the first soap opera primarily aimed at an adolescent audience.
During the 1970s, Dow was mostly limited to guest star roles in television. To supplement his income, he found work at the construction industry. He also pursued studies in both filmmaking and journalism, thought they did not lead to an immediate change in his career. Dow played a parody of Wally Cleaver in the comedy film "The Kentucky Fried Movie" (1977), where his character caused trouble in a courtroom trial.
In 1983, Dow played Wally Cleaver in the reunion television film "Still the Beaver". He reunited with several of his former co-starts. The film served as a pilot for the sequel television series "The New Leave It to Beaver", which aired from 1984 to 1989. The series lasted for 4 seasons and 101 episodes. Dow played Wally as a skilled lawyer, who represented Beaver in a custody battle for his children. Meanwhile, Wally had to deal with marriage to his former sweetheart Mary Ellen Rogers (played by Janice Kent) and raising his daughter Kelly Cleaver (played by Kaleena Kiff). In 1987, Dow received a "Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award" for his role as Wally Cleaver.
In 1989, Dow made his debut as a television director. His first work in the field was an episode of the drama series "The New Lassie" (1989-1992), a sequel series to "Lassie" (1954-1973). He subsequently directed episodes of (among others) "Harry and the Hendersons", "Swamp Thing", "Coach", "Babylon 5", "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show", and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". In addition, Dow served as the visual effects supervisor for "Babylon 5". He provided the special effects for the television film "Doctor Who" (1996), a sequel to a long-running British television series.
In 1995, Dow produced the science fiction comedy film "The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space". In the film, aliens from the planet Pangea attempt to recruit the heroic Captain Zoom to help them in a war. The hero does not actually exist, and they have instead recruited the arrogant actor who was playing him on a television. The actor decides to use old science fiction script as inspiration for his strategies. The film was intended as an affectionate parody to both Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
In 1996, Dow produced the television film "It Came from Outer Space II". It was a remake (rather than a sequel) to the classic science fiction horror film "It Came from Outer Space" (1953). Both films feature shape-shifting aliens who have crash-landed on Earth, and who attempt to blend in with the human population. However, they manage to copy human appearance, but not human behavior and personalities. The remake was poorly received, and this was Dow's final effort as a producer.
During the 1990s, Dow admitted to the press that he had been diagnosed with clinical depression. He subsequently appeared in self-help videos concerning ways to struggle with the condition, such as "Beating the Blues" (1998). He also placed more efforts in his side career as a sculptor. He specialized in creating abstract bronze sculptures. In 2008, he was one of the artists representing the United States at the "Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts" exhibition in Paris. He displayed his sculpture of a warrior woman.- Actress
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Actress and entertainer Pat Carroll played everything from chatterbox wives to wicked stepsisters on TV, and from Gertrude Stein to Shakespeare's Falstaff on stage. Even at 80 plus, the plucky comedienne showed no sign of stopping any time The riotous Pat Carroll was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1927, the daughter of Angela (Meagher) and Maurice Clifton Carroll. Her family moved to Los Angeles when Pat was five, and there began performing in local stage productions. She graduated from Hollywood's Immaculate Heart High School, an all-girls Catholic school, then attended Immaculate College, also in Los Angeles, and Catholic University of America.
Following her college graduation, she began performing comedy in nightclubs and gained early experience with appearances in resort areas. Her stage debut in 1947 with a role in "The Goose and the Gander" starring Gloria Swanson led to hundreds of stock roles. She made her off-Broadway debut in the play "Come What May" in 1950. Also a talented singer, she earned a Tony nomination for her Broadway work in the singing revue "Catch a Star" in 1955, and then enjoyed a number of brash showcases in such musicals as "On the Town," "Once Upon a Mattress" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown".
It was, however, the "golden age" of TV that truly took advantage of Pat's adroit talents. An initial "second banana" regular on the variety programs The Red Buttons Show (1952) and The Saturday Night Revue (1953), she copped an Emmy award for her work on Caesar's Hour (1954) as Howard Morris' wife and earned fine reviews from her recurring role on the sitcom The Danny Thomas Show (1953) playing Bunny Halper, the pert and plucky wife of Danny Thomas' nightclub manager Charlie Halper (Sid Melton).
Pat's down-to-earth demeanor, chummy disposition and hearty, infectious laugh made her a popular guest on all the major talkfests and a welcomed panelist on such game shows as "You Don't Say," "To Tell the Truth," "I've Got a Secret" and "Password". In 1965, she co-starred on TV as one of the wicked stepsisters in the endearing Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Cinderella (1965), which starred Lesley Ann Warren as the princess-to-be. In later years she won recurring/regular roles on the last season of Too Close for Comfort (1980) [retitled in 1986 as "The Ted Knight Show"] and the Suzanne Somers' sitcom She's the Sheriff (1987).
As a character actress, the cropped-blond comedienne never made much of a dent in film, which included supporting roles in With Six You Get Eggroll (1968) with Doris Day and The Brothers O'Toole (1973) with John Astin. In the late 1970s her career received a huge shot in the arm with the award-winning, one-woman show "Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein", which she also produced and won multiple theater awards, including the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk trophies. A complete departure from her usual comedy antics, audiences saw a burgeoning dramatic actress in the making. Taking the show on the road for four years, she also won a Grammy for her recorded version of the performance in 1981. She then returned to Broadway after thirty years to appear in the play "Dancing in the End Zone" (1985).
Pat surprised her fans by continuing vigorously in this vein. She began taking on Shakespearean roles and earning critical acclaim. For her interpretations of Sir John Falstaff in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet" she won bookend Helen Hayes awards. A life member of The Actors Studio, other challenging stage roles over the years have included Volpone, Mother Courage (another Helen Hayes award), the Stage Manager in "Our Town" and the Chorus in a Broadway revival of "Electra".
Still interested in tickling the funny bone on occasion, she performed in a number of adaptations of the wacky musical comedy "Nunsense" playing the Reverend Mother. If this weren't enough, she extended herself into directing, helming a musical version of "Alice in Wonderland" for The Kennedy Center, as well as productions of "Private Lives and "The Supporting Cast".
With the late 1980s, Pat became a voice-over favorite on numerous animated programs -- notably for Disney as the sea witch Ursula in The Little Mermaid (1989) and other voices in A Goofy Movie (1995). Into the millennium, the feisty character lady still gave voice life to many Disney related characters and in video games and special projects. Some elderly film work includes Outside Sales (2006), Freedom Writers (2007), Nancy Drew (2007), Bridesmaids (2011) and BFFs (2014). She also guested on the drama series ER (1994) and provided the voice of Old Lady Crowley in the Disney TV animated series Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (2017).
She had three children (oldest son Sean and daughters Kerry and Tara) by late husband Lee Karsian, a one-time manager and talent agent. Tara Karsian is a character actress from stage, film and TV. Kerry Karsian is a casting director.- Music Artist
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Olivia Newton-John was an English singer and actress who was born on September 26, 1948, in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK. In 1954, her family relocated to Australia when her father was offered a job as the dean of a Presbyterian college in Melbourne. After winning a singing talent contest, she returned to England with her mother, where she resided until 1975. Her many hit singles include, "You're The One That I Want" from the movie Grease (1978), which she starred in with John Travolta. She appeared on the TV series, It's Cliff Richard (1970), as well as in the film Toomorrow (1970). For several years, she was engaged to Bruce Welch, a founding member of The Shadows, which included Cliff Richard. Welch was one of the producers of her first international hit, "If Not For You".- Actress
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Anne Celeste Heche was an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She came to recognition portraying Vicky Hudson and Marley Love in the soap opera Another World (1964), which won her a Daytime Emmy Award and two Soap Opera Digest Awards. She came to mainstream prominence in the late 1990s with roles in the crime drama film Donnie Brasco (1997), the disaster film Volcano (1997), the slasher film I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), the action comedy film Six Days Seven Nights (1998), and the drama-thriller film Return to Paradise (1998).- Actor
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Howard Hesseman was a leading counter-culture figure since the late 1960s. He was a member of the improv group, "The Committee", for a decade in the 1960s/1970s. A character actor for many years on different television shows since the 1960s, he took small parts in The Andy Griffith Show (1960), Dragnet 1967 (1967), Soap (1977), and Sanford and Son (1972). The role that brought him to prominence was Howard Johnson in the cult classic Billy Jack (1971).
He was a frequent guest star on The Bob Newhart Show (1972) but would become best-known for his role on the classic series WKRP in Cincinnati (1978), as anti-disco hipster DJ "Dr. Johnny Fever". Also in the 1970s, he appeared in The Sunshine Boys (1975), Tunnel Vision (1976), Silent Movie (1976) and The Big Bus (1976). After the cancellation of WKRP in Cincinnati (1978), he went on to star as the husband of Ann Romano in One Day at a Time (1975). After that series was cancelled, Hesseman starred in This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Doctor Detroit (1983), Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985), Clue (1985), and Flight of the Navigator (1986).
He then starred as history teacher Charlie Moore in Head of the Class (1986). He left that show in 1990 and appeared in a steady stream of television guest roles. In 1987, he appeared in Amazon Women on the Moon (1987). In 1991, he starred in Rubin and Ed (1991). Afterward, he appeared in other films, including Gridlock'd (1997) (with Tupac Shakur). His work in later years concentrated mostly on television, where he took mostly small guest roles, in such shows as That '70s Show (1998), Touched by an Angel (1994), The Practice (1997), and Crossing Jordan (2001).- Director
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A controversial film maker, Wolfgang Petersen has at once been lauded for his professionalism and attention to detail and decried for turning out a string of standard commercial Hollywood blockbusters. The son of a naval officer, Petersen held a lifelong fascination with the sea and naval subjects. He was born in Emden and attended drama school in Hamburg. Having already made some 8 mm films while at school, he proceeded to direct as well as act at the Junges Theater in Hamburg (later renamed the Ernst-Deutsch-Theater). In 1966, he joined the newly formed Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) where he made several short films while simultaneously directing plays in Hamburg. Having caught the eye of German television networks, Petersen went on to direct a string of TV movies which often dealt with such contentious issues as environmental pollution and underage sex. An early success and also his first cinematic release was the taut psychological thriller One or the Other (1974), which starred Jürgen Prochnow and Elke Sommer. This led to more regular assignments on the ever-popular detective series Tatort (1970) for which Petersen directed six episodes.
In 1980, Petersen was commissioned by Bavaria Studios to direct Das Boot (1981), based on a 1971 novel by Lothar G. Buchheim. Filmed on a budget of 32 million DM, it became the most realistic and harrowing portrayal of life aboard a submarine in wartime filmed to date, the action of 'Das Boot' being set during the battle of the North Atlantic and culminating in an abortive attempt to cross the British-controlled strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. The film concluded with a bitterly ironic climax. 'Das Boot' (re-released as a miniseries in 1985) starred Petersen's long-standing collaborator Jürgen Prochnow (who became an international star as a result) and was nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Director and Best Writing). In its wake, Petersen directed and co-wrote a children's fantasy --again filmed at the Bavaria facilities near Munich-- The NeverEnding Story (1984). Though successful at the box-office (especially in Germany), it did not attract universal critical appeal. By contrast, his second English-language film, the science fiction drama Enemy Mine (1985) was only a modest financial success but rated better in reviews over the years, the Los Angeles Times describing it as "surprisingly coherent, surprisingly enjoyable".
In 1987, Petersen moved to Santa Monica, California. For a while, he was part of an A-list of directors tasked with helming mega-budget blockbusters starring big name actors like Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Most were palpable box-office hits, especially In the Line of Fire (1993) (often cited as his best Hollywood enterprise), Air Force One (1997) and the historical epic Troy (2004), which grossed $497.4 million worldwide. Reviewer reception for Troy tended to be lukewarm to cool, even more so with the disaster movies Outbreak (1995) and The Perfect Storm (2000), the latter criticized as suffering from "a lack of any actual drama or characterization". Attracting even lower critical esteem was Petersen's remake of Irwin Allen 's original 1972 disaster movie, Poseidon (2006). It ended up both a box office and a critical flop in the U.S. with only the superior CGI special effects gaining plaudits. Poseidon was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake. Following this debacle, Petersen withdrew from Hollywood and had a decade-long hiatus before directing his final picture, the German heist drama Vier gegen die Bank (2016).
Petersen's second wife was the assistant director and script supervisor Maria-Antoinette Borgel with whom he had a son. Petersen died from pancreatic cancer on August 12 2022 in Brentwood, California.- Actor
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Character actor Joseph Evan Tata was the son of a vaudevillian known as Rosey the Singing Barber. Tata began acting onscreen in 1960. For the next decade, he appeared (then billed as "Joey" Tata) in numerous classic TV episodes of the era, usually in small supporting roles. His career took off after a recurring part as Private Neddick in No Time for Sergeants (1964). He provided the voice for several of the robots in Lost in Space (1965) and popped up as assorted minor henchmen in the original Batman (1966) series.
He essayed roles as an alien in The Outer Limits (1963) and Napoleon Bonaparte in The Time Tunnel (1966). A familiar face in police and detective shows, Tata made multiple appearances in Mission: Impossible (1966), Mannix (1967), The F.B.I. (1965), Police Story (1973) and The Rockford Files (1974). A lifelong fan of the early western series Maverick (1957), he later recalled James Garner as his favorite co-star. Today, he is best remembered as the good-natured owner of the Peach Pit Diner, Nat Bussichio, in ten seasons of Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990).
Joe E. Tata was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2018 and passed away on Los Angeles on August 24 2022, at the age of 85.- Actor
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Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Communist Party. He initiated the changes known as "perestroika" and "glasnost".
He was born Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev into a peasant family on March 2, 1931, in the village of Privolnoe, Stavropol province, Southern Russia. His father, named Sergei Gorbachev, was a tractor driver. His mother, named Maria Panteleyeva, was a peasant. His grandparents were deported and sentenced for nine years under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin, for their success in becoming richer independent farmers known as kulaks. Young Gorbachev witnessed the destruction of traditional farming and degradation of villages, that caused massive exodus of people from their land and to gloomy industrial Soviet cities, where they were doomed to become brainwashed by propaganda and live in small flats under restricting political and economic conditions for the rest of their lives. During the Second World War Gorbachev survived the Nazi occupation of his land in Stavropol province in 1942-1943. After the war, Gorbachev chose to remain on his land, although it was now taken by the Communist Government, the ranks of which he would penetrate later. Gorbachev privately described his life and work on a Soviet collective farm as serfdom.
In 1947 Gorbachev shot to fame at the age of 16, after helping his father, a combine harvester operator, to harvest a record crop on a collective farm. For this achievement he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and was promoted to the Communist Party at the age of 21. From 1950 - 1955 he studied law on a State scholarship at Moscow State University. There he met his future wife, Raisa Maksimovna Gorbacheva (nee Titarenko), they married in September 1953, and their daughter, Irina, was born in January 1957. After a brief stint as a Government Lawyer in Stavropol, Gorbachev made a career as a ranking leader of Komsomol (Union of Young Communists), then as a Communist Party leader of Stavropol province, climbing to the ranks as Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At that time Gorbachev made his first travels outside of the Soviet Union. While the Soviet leaders were manipulating their own people into submission through fear and control, the West Europeans enjoyed freedom and prosperity that attracted East Germans and other Soviet satellites. Gorbachev learned his first lesson on his tour in East Germany, witnessing their rapid recovery after the Second World War. At the same time, in 1956, Yuri Andropov and Georgi Zhukov led the attack on Hungarian Revolution, and killed thousands of Hungarians who opposed the Soviet-imposed regime. Then Soviet leadership made more aggressive international actions by spreading military support to pro-communist regimes across the world and also by building the Berlin Wall and enforcing Soviet military and political domination in Eastern Europe. These Soviet actions alienated Europeans.
Open political discussions in the Soviet Union were not allowed under threat of prosecution, freedom of speech was never guaranteed, all media was owned and controlled by the Soviet government and independent activity was suppressed, and only some fragmented information was made available to ranking provincial communists, such as Gorbachev. In 1961 he attended the important 22nd Congress of the Communist Party in Moscow, where Nikita Khrushchev announced his Utopian plan to surpass the USA per capita income in 20 years. At the same 22nd Congress, upon Khrushchev's instruction, Gorbachev, among other top communists received a copy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's anti-Stalin publication "One day of Ivan Denisovich" which criticized the brutality of Gulag prison-camps and the Soviet regime in general. That gave Gorbachev and some other young communists a hope that Khrushchev may change the brutal Soviet regime. However, in 1964, Nikita Khrushchev was arrested and dismissed by pro-Stalin group led by Leonid Brezhnev who eventually established a remake of Stalinism for the next 18 years, albeit in a more grotesque and senile version of Soviet regime. Then Brezhnev's regime crushed the Prague Spring of 1968, fought the Chinese Army over a border dispute in 1969, sent Soviet Tanks and Air Force to Egypt and Syria against Israel in the 1970s, as well as in North Vietnam against the French and Americans. At that time Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa Maksimovna, were allowed to travel to the Western Europe and see the difference between reality in European countries and its distorted depiction by the Soviet propaganda. In 1972 he headed the Soviet official delegation to Belgium, then, in 1974 was made Member of the Supreme Soviet in charge of the Commission on Youth Affairs. During the 1970s Gorbachev enjoyed a highly privileged life of a ranking communist, having many perks such as a villa in a suburb of Moscow, a special limo with a chauffeur and guards, and regular luxurious vacations in Italy and in the South of France, all at the expense of the Communist Party. However, this allowed him to see the striking difference between the quality of life in the Western Europe and gloomy survival of masses in the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev witnessed that people were living hopeless lives having no choice. Workers of collective farms lived without identification documents up until the 1970s. Undocumented citizens at collective farms were disposable. Migrants were used as industrial slaves, for symbolic pay. Wages were set by the state and did not depend on productivity or quality. The economy was governed by the state 5-year plan. This mostly ignored the world and domestic market signals; and lacked the incentives for innovation and efficiency. Teachers were forced to indoctrinate children of all ages from kindergartens through schools and universities. Total control and manipulation was demonstrated twice a year at annual May Day parades and Great Revolution parades on November 7. Military parades were accompanied by marching masses of industrial workers and managers, doctors and scientists, as well as teachers and students from all schools and universities. Exemplary obedient people were rewarded with better food and perks. Taming millions to obedience by fear and hunger led to a massive degradation of human rights, poor spirituality, lack of initiative and creativity, and the decay of public health and vitality. The country of almost three hundred million people was stuck in stagnation, inefficiency, and apathy. Brighter students were taken into the military-industrial system, brainwashed and locked there for life with little choices. Opponents were locked in the "Gulag" prison-camps, mostly in Siberia. There, millions were working various hard labor jobs in grand-scale economic projects; like the Baikal-Amur railroad (BAM). Since the Communist Revolution of 1917, people had been continually stripped of their land and property. Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev the destruction of independent farming was finalized. By the 1960s and 1970s massive poverty and anxiety pushed millions to migrate to cities. Mass-construction of cheap panel buildings was lagging behind. Millions of families shared poor housing, hostels, and dorms in cities. Villages were deserted. Collective farms decayed. Agricultural output fell below the levels of the Tsar's age. Tens of thousands of churches and monasteries were destroyed across the Soviet Union, and many churches were replaced by offices and halls of the Communist party. Spiritual life was dominated by ugly propaganda. People were blinded by fear and pushed to wrong values. Meaningful human virtues were replaced with fake ideals of ruthless Soviet communism. Propaganda idolized members of the Soviet Politburo, their portraits were decorating every school and factory along with countless portraits and statues of the first Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin.
In November 1979 Gorbachev was promoted Candidate Member of the Politburo, then less than a year later, he was made Full Member of Politbureau, the highest rank in the Communist Party which gave him unlimited direct access to Brezhnev and Andropov. The latter also promoted Gorbachev to sub for him at several Politburo meetings, and gave him a huge power in decision-making. Gorbachev developed a personal friendship with another Politburo member, Eduard Shevardnadze, and the two were vacationing together at the prestigious Black sea resort of Pitsunda. At that time the invasion of Afghanistan, ordered by senile Brezhnev in 1979, seriously undermined international credibility of the Soviet Union. Andrei Sakharov wrote an open letter to Brezhnev calling for a stop to the war. 50 nations boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Crackdown on intellectual freedom and human rights included the use of psychiatric terror, arrests, and the exile of dissidents. The head of the KGB Yuri Andropov declared Andrei Sakharov the "enemy No. 1." Sakharov was forcefully exiled from Moscow to the militarized 'closed' city of Gorky. He was placed under tight surveillance and restricted from any contacts. His wife was also under tight surveillance. By his 70th birthday Brezhnev's health declined dramatically; but he made himself a Generalissimus Marshal of the Soviet Union, similar to that of Joseph Stalin. Brezhnev accepted over 200 decorations and awards, including awards from all pro-Soviet governments, except China. Brezhnev accepted countless expensive gifts and amassed a collection of vintage cars and other bribes. His personal vanity and behavior was replicated at all levels of the Communist Party and led to massive corruption. The old Brezhnev lost his acting abilities and couldn't even read the script. Massive disillusionment was reflected in cynical jokes about the Soviet life. The ugly reality in the Soviet Union was reflected in its senile leader. Gorbachev saw that outdated economic and political system in the Soviet Union was doomed, but propaganda was still brainwashing the minds of millions, because it was controlled by the privileged few top communists who lived in denial of the big reality.
The youngest Politburo Member, Mikhail Gorbachev, was contemplating reforms. Leonid Brezhnev died on November 10, 1982, and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov who died just 16 months later. He was replaced by Konstantin Chernenko, who died in just 13 months. In 1983 Politbureau member Rashidov committed suicide, then, in 1984 the powerful Defence Minister Ustinov died. While the Soviet Union was in a dying mode, the real world was rapidly growing into computer age that reshaped global community. The rigid Soviet System was incompatible with the constantly innovating world. USSR failed to respond to rapidly changing reality and alienated forward-thinking people even in the pro-Soviet countries. During the early 1980s Soviet Politbureau was torn between two viciously fighting groups of Communists, one was made of the old hard-liners led by Andrei Gromyko, the apprentice of Joseph Stalin. The other, pro-democracy group, was made of the forward-thinking members of the Politbureau who chose Gorbachev as their leader along with Aleksandr Yakovlev who was the brain behind Gorbachev's moves. With Gorbachev's support Yakovlev managed to change all hard-liners in the Soviet media and propaganda system. In March 1985 Gorbachev was made the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, becoming the first Soviet leader to have been born after the disastrous Russian Revolution of 1917. He announced reforms called 'perestroika' (aka.. restructuring) and 'glasnost' (aka.. opening up), and lifted the walls of propaganda and denial. However, Gorbachev's first reform on regulations related to manufacturing and trade of alcohol became an economic disaster, causing a serious economic damage to the Soviet Union's State budget with annual losses exceeding tens of billions of dollars. Although his reforms were supported by public, many communist hard-liners openly opposed Gorbachev. Eventually, by the late 1980s Gorbachev's push for economic liberalization resulted in emergence of co-operatives and other forms of independent businesses, making the movement to freedom irreversible.
In December of 1986, Gorbachev personally contacted Andrei Sakharov in his exile. Gorbachev ordered that the KGB should release Sakharov and return him to Moscow. Back in Moscow Sakharov continued his work as a humanitarian. A few months before his death, he was elected as a representative of the Academy of Sciences to the Supreme Soviet in 1989. Sakharov showed to the World what an independent thinker can do by going to the extremes of science. He invented a bomb that could bring the most horrible extermination of life, and then took a stand to ban his own invention for the salvation of planet Earth. Gorbachev had important meetings with Ronald Reagan culminating in their summit in Reikjavik, Iceland, and leading to a more stable political and military situation in the world, that resulted in reunification of Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989. At that time the Soviet hard-liners criticized Gorbachev's international moves, saying that he was not a leader, but rather a follower of Ronald Reagan's instruction: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall" when the state of world affairs did not allow Gorbachev to disobey without a risk of losing his face. He also followed recommendations by Margaret Thatcher on opening the "Iron Curtain" to allow the Russian people to see the world and learn about the diverse international reality and travel freely on their own. A first, Gorbachev skillfully used hidden buttons within the rigid structure of the Soviet power tainted by the long tradition of obedience, fear and intimidation, which was installed by dictator Joseph Stalin within the ranks of Communist bureaucracy. That fear of the man in Kremlin served Gorbachev's plans well, as he managed to overcome the resistance of hard liners in ending the ruling powers of the Communist Party. Soon Gorbachev began giving away many power buttons in Moscow, which allowed his rivals to gain strength and independently form opposition groups. Andrei Gromyko, the last living member of Joseph Stalin's old Politbureau, had criticized Gorbachev's methods as "weak leadership" and also said "He (Gorbachev) is unfit for the Hat" (where the Hat means Kremlin, or an allusion to the Tsar's crown of power). Such criticism was ignored by most of the younger members of the Communist Politbureau and Central Committee, because weak central leadership allowed provincial bosses to privatize state property at a fraction of its real value.
Gorbachev replaced his hard-line critic Andrei Gromyko with Eduard Shevardnadze as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, and both Gorbachev and Shevardnadze pushed for international détente and withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. In another effort to add weight to his gradually eroding power, in March of 1990 Gorbachev updated his official title by adding a newly created post as President of the Soviet Union, albeit he was not really a democratically elected president. He surrounded himself with the political council of 15 top politicians, but he was lacking the grass-roots connections with masses and mid-level bureaucracy across the country. At that time Gorbachev began to experience powerlessness in his efforts to change the gigantic Soviet system, he was known for expressing his powerlessness by using profanities and anger at his meetings with the ranks of Soviet Government and industrial leaders. Gorbachev was facing an impossible task of modernizing the brittle structure of the Soviet Communism, especially the massive and inefficient Soviet military-industrial complex where opposition to reforms was the most organized, and inefficiency was dissembled as a military secret, like a catch-22, thus making it unreformable. Gorbachev himself was still perceived as the Secretary General of the Soviet Communist Party, and that stigma became the weakest part of his image in the eyes of many open-minded and quickly learning people in the Soviet Union. His effort to gain political weight by adding a figure of Vice-President of the Soviet Union had failed and soon backfired. Gorbachev's fatal mistake was letting the Members of Politbureau to chose the Vice-President of the Soviet Union behind closed doors in Kremlin; the "chosen" one was a career communist Gennadi Yanayev who would very soon betray Gorbachev during the coup.
Eventually Gorbachev became overshadowed by a much stronger figure of Boris Yeltsin, who gained more popular support by pushing further economic and political reforms, and also criticized Gorbachev's manner of restructuring of the Soviet system as slow, indecisive and inefficient. The rivalry between two former Communist comrades ended in the August 1991 coup, when still powerful KGB and Soviet Army leaders tried to take the power away from both Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Their coup failed just a couple days later, after the entire country watched Gennady Yanayev and his coup members on TV. "Let me say that Mikhail Gorbachev is now on vacation. He is undergoing treatment, himself, in our country. He is very tired after all these years and he will need time to get better." said Gennadi Yanayev before the cameras, and his hands were visibly trembling from fear. Gorbachev's disappearance during the coup was also seen as his grave weakness. Boris Yeltsin disposed his Communist ID card in front of the cameras and publicly denounced Gorbachev. Then all ranks of communists deserted the Communist Party in a massive exodus, and that was the end of the Soviet Union. All regional leaders were anxious to rule as presidents of their own independent states, and Yeltsin was already elected the president of Russia, the biggest part of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin met with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus and they made a treaty as independent states. By the end of December 1991 the Soviet Union became obsolete and Gorbachev retired after a formal signing of dissolution of the USSR.
Mikhail Gorbachev is still regarded in the Western world for his input in ending the Cold War and helping the reunification of Germany. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1990) and received numerous international awards, decorations and privileges, such as the Honorary German Citizenship. However, in Russia Gorbachev's political standing failed to gain any substantial public support. He received less than 1% of popular vote in the 1996 presidential elections in Russia, when his former rival Boris Yeltsin was elected for his second presidential term. In 2001 Gorbachev founded the Social Democratic Party of Russia, but later, in 2003, he had resigned from the party leadership and stayed away from most of the current Russian political forces and media. In contrast to Gorbachev's popularity all over the world, he fell in obscurity in Russia, largely because in the new era of the wild Russian capitalism his outdated views and experience became obsolete. Instead he turned to business of giving lecture tours and speeches internationally and selling photo-ops with him for money that goes to humanitarian causes; he also sold his name and image to commercials such as the Pizza Hut and other businesses. He has been running the business of the Gorbachev Foundation, which handles his international appearances, while keeping a low profile in the current political life of Russia. In 2005 he was awarded the Point Alpha Prize for his role in re-unification of Germany. In 2006 Gorbachev underwent a carotid artery surgery in Munich, Germany.- Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms.
Elizabeth was born in London, the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and she was educated privately at home. Her father ascended the throne on the abdication of his brother King Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In 1947, she married Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, with whom she had four children: Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.
When her father died in February 1952, Elizabeth became head of the Commonwealth and queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon. She reigned as a constitutional monarch through major political changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation, and the decolonization of Africa. Between 1956 and 1992, the number of her realms varied as territories gained independence, and as realms, including South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon (renamed Sri Lanka), became republics. Her many historic visits and meetings included a state visit to the Republic of Ireland and visits to or from five popes. Significant events included her coronation in 1953 and the celebrations of her Silver, Golden, and Diamond Jubilees in 1977, 2002, and 2012, respectively. In 2017, she became the first British monarch to reach a Sapphire Jubilee. She was the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch. She was the longest-serving female head of state in world history, and the world's oldest living monarch, longest-reigning monarch, and oldest and longest-serving head of state. - Henry Silva was born on September 23, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He quit public school to attend drama classes at age 13, supporting himself as a dishwasher in a Manhattan hotel. By 1955, Silva had moved up from dishwasher to waiter, and felt ready to audition for the Actors Studio. He was one of five students chosen out of more than 2500 applicants. When the Actors Studio staged Michael V. Gazzo's play "A Hatful of Rain" as a classroom project, it proved so successful it came to Broadway--with students Ben Gazzara, Shelley Winters, Harry Guardino, Anthony Franciosa and, of course, Silva in key roles. Called to Hollywood, he played a succession of heavies in films, including The Bravados (1958), Green Mansions (1959), Ocean's Eleven (1960), The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Johnny Cool (1963).
An Italian producer made Henry an offer he could not refuse--to star as a hero for a change--and he moved his family overseas. Silva's turning-point picture was a spaghetti Western, The Hills Run Red (1966), which made him a hot box office commodity in Spain, Italy, Germany and France. His popularity was enhanced by a gift for languages. He speaks Italian and Spanish fluently and has a flair for the kind of gritty, realistic roles that also catapulted Charles Bronson to European stardom. Returning to the United States, he co-starred with Frank Sinatra in the film Contract on Cherry Street (1977), then signed on as Buck Rogers' evil adversary Kane in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979) and the television series of the same name. Silva now calls the San Fernando Valley home, but makes continual film forays back to Europe's production centers. A dedicated jogger, he puts in five miles a day "to keep in shape and relieve tension". - Born in Birmingham, Alabama, to Episcopal minister Robert Fletcher and his wife Estelle, both of whom were deaf, Louise Fletcher was introduced to performing at a young age by the aunt who taught her to speak. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, she took a trip out west with her roommates, finding herself in Los Angeles without enough money to return home. She took a temporary job as a receptionist and signed up for acting classes at night. Soon she was working regularly in television and film, but after marrying producer Jerry Bick and having two sons, the actress took a long hiatus to raise her children.
Returning to work in 1974 in Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us (1974), Fletcher came to the attention of director Milos Forman, who was casting the difficult role of the nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). She won the role -- and then the Academy Award -- portraying deadly, inflexible Nurse Ratched, who has since become a cultural icon. Numerous film roles followed, including co-starring turns with Peter Falk in The Cheap Detective (1978) and with Richard Burton in Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). Fletcher has appeared in a number of science fiction and horror classics such as Firestarter (1984), Brainstorm (1983), and Flowers in the Attic (1987).
Though she earned an Emmy Award nomination for her recurring role on Picket Fences (1992), Fletcher is perhaps best known to recent television audiences as Kai Winn from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and as Nora Bloom from the cult classic VR.5 (1995). - Music Department
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With over 17 million records sold worldwide, Grammy award-winning and multi-platinum recording artist Coolio is an artist known around the world as a musical and cooking master of extraordinary reinvention. Growing up during the time of tremendous change in Compton, Calif., Coolio fed on struggle and used it as a launching pad of continual reinvention that led to selling over 17 million records globally and a long list of concerts to adoring fans in Africa, Israel, Russia, Japan, Thailand, Brazil, Australia, Turkey, the United States and throughout Europe. He gave back to the community by serving as the spokesman for the Asthma and Allergies Foundation. Coolio initially took over the world rap scene through the "Gangsta's Paradise" release, which won a Grammy Award in 1996 for Best Rap Performance, Solo. "Gangsta's Paradise" would also be featured on the "Dangerous Minds" soundtrack and movie. "Gangsta's Paradise," also featuring LV on vocals, was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Song of the Year and it sold over six million copies and was Billboard Magazine's number one single in 1995. The world recognition led to his music being featured Coolio for several major motion pictures including: Space Jam, Clueless, The Big Payback, Panther, New Jersey Drive, The Jerk Boys, Eddie, Half Baked and many more. He also composed the theme song for the popular kids TV series Kenan and Kel on Nickelodeon. The awards for his hard-hitting style are many. Coolio has won an American Music award, three MTV awards, two Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards and a World Music award. He has received six Grammy award nominations (1994, 1995 and 1996), two Billboard Music awards (1994 and 1996), two ASCAP awards (1996, 1997), three MTV video awards (1996 and 1997), four American Online awards (1996) and was the Playboy Music Poll winner in 1997. Coolio successfully made the transition from performer to actor during the 90s. He co-stared in the motion picture Retirement with Bill Cobb, Peter Falk, Charlie Murphy and Rip Torn. The film featured music from Coolio's "Return of the Gangsta" album. Coolio has also starred in several HBO films and series as well as making cameos in Bateman Dare Devil. His television accomplishments have included the reality TV show on the Oxygen network, "Coolio's Rules," and the ghetto funk cooking web series, "Cooking with Coolio," which logged over four million hits on the web. Television appearances included programs like Celebrity Cook Off and Celebrity Chopped. His musical collaborations continued with "From the Bottom to the Top." Coolio changed his style and opened up to working with many European and International disc jockeys such as Benny Benassi, Ives la rock, and Paul Oakenfold just to name a few. He also got the aide of his son A.I., who was a featured artist on the album. The first single is collaboration with Coolio and the Oscar-winning "Ennio Morricone," one of the most famous soundtrack composers of the last 50 years. Coolio's Album "El Cool Magnigico" was released in Europe on Jan 15, 2003. Featured artists on that album included hip-hop performer Miss Toi, country legend Kenny Rogers, Krazye Bone from Bone thugs n Harmony, B-real of Cypress Hill and Daz Dillinger. Associated Press stated that, "Coolio returns to Hip-Hop with El Cool Magnifico, and every track on the disc is a winner." The New York Post praised the album and wrote, "El Cool Magnifico is excellent from top to bottom". The album sold over 1.8 million copies worldwide. No stranger to the world of cartoons, Coolio recorded the single and music video "Dexter" (what's his name) for "Dexter's Laboratory: Home Boy Genius - The Hip-Hop Experiment." This was a creative and fun album featuring big name hip-hop artists such as De La Soul and Will I Am. "The Hip-Hop Experiment" album features original songs inspired by Dexter's Laboratory, the top rated, Emmy nominated Cartoon Network series. An ingenious chameleon, Coolio launched his book, "Cookin' with Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price," in 2009, which would become a New York Times bestseller. This move expanded his audience base from the stage to kitchens across the globe. Branding himself as the "ghetto gourmet," Coolio used his creativity and the inspiration of his mother to refine old-school recipes into accessible, fresh options. Coolio's interest in cooking started as a youngster. After a failed grilled cheese, his mother chose to make him pay her back for the charred mess by helping out in the kitchen. Rather than hate every minute of cleaning and scrubbing, Coolio fell in love with cooking. Later in life, when his mother passed, the love of cooking turned into an obsession with rediscovering and reinventing all her old recipes. He interviewed aunts, friends and relatives until he found her lost secrets. Then, Coolio took the lessons of his elders and morphed the recipes into healthier options that remained affordable. The secret ingredient of Coolio's recipes is his unconventional approach to culinary instruction. His style is brash and in your face for which he doesn't apologize. "People learn better when they're entertained. Cooking isn't just for the starched-stiff elite. Everyone should know how to cook something," said the ghetto gourmet. Performing and touring worldwide as a musical artist, Coolio is also working on a new cookbook with his best friend and band mate, hip hop jazz saxophonist Jarez. The recipes will continue on the theme of insane deliciousness that anyone can recreate. The recipes are designed to be accessible with easy to assemble ingredients that everyone will recognize. From the tang of balsamic vinegar to the freshness of chopped peppers, the new cookbook is something that everyone needs in their kitchen.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Writer
Loretta Lynn was born on 14 April 1932 in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, USA. She was a music artist and actress, known for The New Mutants (2020), High Crimes (2002) and Logan Lucky (2017). She was married to Oliver Lynn. She died on 4 October 2022 in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, USA.- Actress
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Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 into a prominent family of the upper middle class living in the Regent's Park neighborhood of London. Her father was socialist politician Edgar Isaac Lansbury (1887-1935), a member of both the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Labour Party. Edgar served as Honorary Treasurer of the East London Federation of Suffragettes (term 1915), and Mayor of Poplar (term 1924-1925). He was the second Communist mayor in British history, the first being Joe Vaughan (1878-1938). Lansbury's mother was Irish film actress Moyna Macgill (1895-1975), originally from Belfast. During the first five years of Angela's life, the Lansbury family lived in a flat located in Poplar. In 1930, they moved to a house located in the Mill Hill neighborhood of north London. They spend their weekends vacationing in a farm located in Berrick Salome, a village in South Oxfordshire.
In 1935, Edgar Lansbury died from stomach cancer. Angela reportedly retreated into "playing characters", as a coping mechanism to deal with the loss. The widowed Moyna Macgill soon became engaged to Leckie Forbes, a Scottish colonel. Moyna moved into his house in Hampstead.
From 1934 to 1939, Angela was a student at South Hampstead High School. During these years, she became interested in films.. She regularly visited the local cinema, and imagined herself in various roles. Angela learned how to play the piano, and received a musical education at the Ritman School of Dancing.
In 1940, Lansbury started her acting education at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art, located in Kensington, West London. She made her theatrical debut in the school's production of the play "Mary of Scotland" (1933) by Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959). The play depicted the life of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587, reigned 1542-1567), and Lansbury played one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting.
Also in 1940, Lansbury's paternal grandfather, George Lansbury, died from stomach cancer. When the Blitz started, Moyna Macgill had reasons to fear for the safety of her family and few remaining ties to England. Macgill moved to the United States to escape the Blitz, taking her three youngest children with her. Isolde was already a married adult, and was left behind in England.
Macgill secured financial sponsorship from American businessman Charles T. Smith. She and her children (including Angela) moved into Smith's house in Mahopac, New York, a hamlet in Putnam County. Lansbury was interested in continuing her studies, and secured a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing. From 1940 to 1942, Lansbury studied acting at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art, located in New York City. She appeared in performances organized by the school.
In 1942, Lansbury moved with her family to a flat located in Morton Street, Greenwich Village. She soon followed her mother in her theatrical tour of Canada. Lansbury secured her first paying job in Montreal, singing at the nightclub Samovar Club for a payment of 60 dollars per week. Lansbury was 16 years old at the time, but lied about her age and claimed to be 19 in order to be hired.
Lansbury returned to New York City in August, 1942, but Moyna Macgill soon moved herself and her family again. The family moved to Los Angeles, where Moyna was interested in resurrecting her film career. Their first home there was a bungalow in Laurel Canyon, a neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills.
Lansbury helped financially support her family by working for the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles. Her weekly wages were only 28 dollars, but she had a secure income while her mother was unemployed. Through her mother, Lansbury was introduced to screenwriter John Van Druten (1901-1957), who had recently completed his script of "Gaslight" (1944). He suggested that young Lansbury would be perfect for the role of Nancy Oliver, the film's conniving cockney maid. This helped secure Lansbury's first film role at the age of 17, and a seven-year contract with the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She earned 500 dollars per week, and chose to continue using her own name instead of a stage name.
In 1945, Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell (1910-1960), who was 15 years older than she. The troubled marriage ended in a divorce in 1946. The former spouses remained friends until Cromwell's death.
In 1946, Lansbury started a romantic relationship with aspiring actor Peter Shaw (1918-2003), who was 7 years older than her. Shaw had recently ended his relationship with actress Joan Crawford (c. 1908-1977). The new couple started living together, while planning marriage. They wanted to be married in the United Kingdom, but the Church of England refused to marry two divorcees. They were married in 1949, in a Church of Scotland ceremony at St. Columba's Church, located in Knightsbridge, London. After their return to the United States, they settled into Lansbury's home in Rustic Canyon, Malibu. In 1951, both Lansbury and Shaw became naturalized citizens of the United States, while retaining their British citizenship.
Meanwhile, Lansbury continued appearing in MGM films. She appeared in 11 MGM films between 1945 and 1952. MGM at times loaned Lansbury to other film studios. She appeared in United Artists' "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" (1947), and Paramount Pictures' "Samson and Delilah" (1949). In 1948, Lansbury made her debut in radio roles, followed by her television debut in 1950.
In 1952, Lansbury requested the termination of her contract with MGM, instead of its renewal. She felt unsatisfied with her film career as an MGM contract player. She then joined the East Coast touring productions of two former Broadway plays. By 1953, Lansbury had two children of her own and was also raising a stepson. She and her family moved into a larger house, located on San Vincente Boulevard in Santa Monica. In 1959, she and her family moved into a house in Malibu. The married couple were able to send their children to a local public school.
Meanwhile she continued her film career as a freelance actress, but continued to be cast in middle-aged roles. She regained her A-picture actress through well-received roles in the drama film "The Long, Hot Summer" (1958) and the comedy film "The Reluctant Debutante" (1958). She also appeared regularly in television roles, and became a regular on game show "Pantomime Quiz" (1947-1959).
In 1957, Lansbury made her Broadway debut in a performance of "Hotel Paradiso". The play was an adaptation of the 1894 "L'Hôtel du libre échange" ("Free Exchange Hotel"), written by Maurice Desvallières (1857-1926) and Georges Feydeau (1862-1921). Lansbury's role as "Marcel Cat" was critically well received. She continued appearing in Broadway over the next several years, most notably cast as the verbally abusive mother in "A Taste of Honey". She was cast as the mother of co-star Joan Plowright (1929-), who was only four years younger.
In the early 1960s, Lansbury was cast as an overbearing mother in "Blue Hawaii" (1961). The role of her son was played by Elvis Presley (1935-1977), who was only 10 years than her. The film was a box office hit, it finished as the 10th-top-grossing film of 1961 and 14th for 1962 on the "Variety" national box office survey. It gained Lansbury renewed fame, at a difficult point of her career.
Lansbury gained critical praise for a sympathetic role in the drama film "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1960), and the role of a manipulative mother in the drama film "All Fall Down" (1962). Based on her success in "All Fall Down", she was cast in a similar role in the Cold War-themed thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962). She was cast as Eleanor Iselin, the mother of her co-star Laurence Harvey (1928-1973), who was only 3 years younger than she. This turned out to be one of the most memorable roles in her career. She received critical acclaim and was nominated for a third time for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The award was instead won by Patty Duke (1946-2016).
Lansbury made a comeback in the starring role of Mame Dennis in the musical "Mame" (1966), by Jerome Lawrence (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994). The play was an adaptation of the novel "Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade" (1955) by Patrick Dennis (1921-1976), and focused on the life and ideas of eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis. The musical received critical and popular praise, and Lansbury won her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Lansbury gained significant fame from her success, becoming a "superstar".
Her newfound fame led to other high-profile appearances by Lansbury. She starred in a musical performance at the 1968 Academy Awards ceremony, and co-hosted the 1968 Tony Awards. The Hasty Pudding Club, a social club for Harvard students. elected her "Woman of the Year" in 1968.
Lansbury's next theatrical success was in 1969 "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1945) by Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944). The play concerns an eccentric Parisian woman's struggles with authority figures. Lansbury was cast in the starring role of 75-year-old Countess Aurelia, despite her actual age of 44. The show was well received and lasted for 132 performances. Lansbury won her second Tony Award for this role.
In 1970, Lansbury's Malibu home was destroyed in a brush fire. Lansbury and her husband decided to buy Knockmourne Glebe, an 1820s Irish farmhouse, located near the village of Conna in rural County Cork.
Her film career reached a new height. She was cast in the starring role of benevolent witch Eglantine Price in Disney's fantasy film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971). The film was a box-office hit; it was critically well received, and introduced Lansbury to a wider audience of children and families.
In 1972, Lansbury returned to the British stage, performing in London's West End with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1973, Lansbury appeared in the role of Rose in London performances of the musical "Gypsy" (1959) by Arthur Laurents. It was quite successful. In 1974, "Gypsy" went on tour in the United States. with the same cast. For her role, Lanbury won the Sarah Siddons Award and her third Tony Award. The musical had its second tour in 1975.
Tired from musicals. Lansbury next sought Shakespearean roles in the United Kingdom. From 1975 to 1976, she appeared as Queen Gertrude in the National Theatre Company's production of Hamlet. In November 1975, Lansbury's mother Moyna Macgill died at the age of 79. Lansbury arranged for her mother's remains to be cremated, and the ashes scattered near her own County Cork home.
In 1976, Lansbury returned to the American stage. In 1978, Lansbury temporarily replaced Constance Towers (1933-) in the starring role of Anna Leonowens (1831-1915) in The King and I. While Towers was on a break from the role, Lansbury appeared in 24 performances.
In 1978, Lansbury appeared in her first film role in seven years, as the novelist and murder victim Salome Otterbourne in the mystery film "Death on the Nile" (1978). The film was an adaptation of the 1937 novel by Agatha Christie (1890-1976); Otterbourne was loosely based on real-life novelist Elinor Glyn (1864-1943). The film was a modest box-office hit, and Lansbury befriended her co-star Bette Davis (1908-1989).
In 1979, Lansbury was cast in the role of meat pie seller Mrs. Lovett in the musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (1979), by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler (1912-1987). The musical was loosely based on the penny dreadful serial novel "The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance" (1846-1847), which first depicted fictional serial killer Sweeney Todd. Lansbury remained in the role for 14 months, and was then replaced by Dorothy Loudon (1925-2003). Lansbury won her fourth Tony Award for this role. She returned to the role for 10 months in 1980.
Lansbury's next prominent film role was that of Miss Froy in "The Lady Vanishes" (1979), a remake of the 1938 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). She was next cast in the role of amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple in the mystery film "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980), an adaptation of the novel "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" (1962) by Agatha Christie. The novel was loosely inspired by the life of Gene Tierney (1920-1991). The film was a modest commercial success. There were plans for at least two sequels, but they ended in development hell.
In 1982, Lansbury was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame, She appeared at the time in the new play "A Little Family Business" and a revival of "Mame", but both shows were commercial failures. In film, Lansbury voiced the witch Mommy Fortuna in the animated fantasy film "The Last Unicorn" (1982). The film was critically well received, but was not a box-office hit.
Lansbury played Ruth in the musical comedy "The Pirates of Penzance" (1983), a film adaptation of the 1879 comic opera by William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900). The film was a box office bomb, earning about 695,000 dollars.
Lansbury's next film role was that of Granny in the gothic fantasy film "The Company of Wolves" (1984), based on a 1979 short story by Angela Carter (1940-1992). Lansbury was cast as the grandmother of protagonist Rosaleen (played by Sarah Patterson), in a tale featuring werewolves and shape-shifting. The film was critically well received, but barely broke even at the box office.
At about that time, Lansbury appeared regularly in television films and mini-series. Her most prominent television role was that of Jessica Fletcher in the detective series "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996). Jessica was depicted as a successful mystery novelist from Maine who encounters and solves many murders. The character was considered an American counterpart to Miss Marple. The series followed the "whodunit" format and mostly avoided depictions of violence or gore.
The series was considered a television landmark for having an older female character as the protagonist. It was aimed primarily at middle-aged audiences, but also attracted both younger viewers and senior citizen viewers. Ratings remained high for most of its run. Lansbury rejected pressure from network executives to put her character in a relationship, as she believed that Fletcher should remain a strong single female.
In 1989, Lansbury co-founded the production company Corymore Productions, which started co-producing the television series with Universal Television. This allowed Lansbury to have more creative input on the series. She was appointed an executive producer. By the time the series ended in 1996, it tied with the original "Hawaii Five-O" (1968-1980) as the longest-running detective drama series in television history.
Her popularity from "Murder, She Wrote" made Lansbury a much-sought figure for advertisers. She appeared in advertisements and infomercials for Bufferin, MasterCard and the Beatrix Potter Company.
Lansbury's highest-profile film role in decades was voicing the character of singing teapot Mrs. Potts in Disney's animated fantasy film "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Lansbury performed the film's title song, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
During the late 1980s and 1990s, Lansbury lived most of the year in California. In 1991, she had Corymore House, a farmhouse at Ballywilliam, County Cork, built as her new family home. She spend Christmases and summers there.
Following the end of "Murder, She Wrote", Lansbury returned to a career as a theatrical actress. She temporarily retired from the stage in 2001, to take care of her husband Peter Shaw, whose health was failing. Shaw died in 2003, from congestive heart failure at the couple's Brentwood, California home. Their marriage had lasted for 54 years (1949-2003).
Lansbury felt at the time that she could not take on any more major acting roles, but that she could still make cameos. She moved back to New York City in 2006, buying a condominium in Manhattan. Her first prominent film role in years was that of Aunt Adelaide in the fantasy film "Nanny McPhee" (2005). She credits her performance in the film with pulling her out of depression, a state of mind which had lasted since her husband's death.
Lansbury returned to performing on the Broadway stage in 2007, after an absence of 23 years. In 2009, she won her fifth Tony Award. She shared the record for most Tony Award victories with Julie Harris (1925-2013). In the 2010s, she continued regularly appearing in theatrical performances. In 2014, she returned to the London stage, after an absence of nearly 40 years.
In 2015, Lansbury received her first Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress. At age 89, she was among the oldest first-time winners. Also in 2015, November 2015 was awarded the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.
In 2017, she was cast as Aunt March in the mini-series "Little Women". The mini-series was an adaptation of the 1868-1869 novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888). The series lasted for 3 episodes, and was critically well received.
In 2018, Lansbury gained her next film role in Disney's fantasy film "Mary Poppins Returns" (2018), a sequel to "Mary Poppins". Lansbury was cast in the role of the Balloon Lady, a kindly old woman who sells balloons at the park. The films was a commercial hit, earning about 350 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
In 2019, Lansbury performed at a one-night benefit staging of Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895). a farce satirizing Victorian morals. She was cast in the role of society lady Lady Bracknell, mother to Gwendolen Fairfax.
By 2020, Lansbury was 95 years old, one of the oldest-living actresses. She has never retired from acting, and remains a popular icon.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Robbie Coltrane, one of Britain's most popular comedians who was head of debating society at school and won prizes for his art, is now a film star who played in two James Bond films and in the "Harry Potter" franchise.
Coltrane was born Anthony Robert McMillan on March 30, 1950, in Rutherglen, a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. His mother, Jean Ross (Howie), was a teacher and pianist. His father, Ian Baxter McMillan, was a general surgeon who also worked for police pathology. Young Robbie was fond of art, music, films and cars. He was a voracious reader of his dad's books on medicine and crime. At age 12 he made his acting debut on stage at Glenalmond College, delivering rants from "Henry V". At that time he was fascinated with Marlon Brando and Orson Welles.
He attended Glasgow Art School, majoring in drawing, painting and film, then studied art at Edinburgh's Moray House College of Education for a year. In 1973 he made a documentary titled "Young Mental Health", which was voted Film Of The Year by the Scottish Education Council. At that time Robbie took the name Coltrane, due to his love of jazz, and began a career of a stand-up comedian at night clubs, at the Edinburgh Festival, as well as an actor with Edinburgh's renowned Traverse Theatre.
In 1980 Coltrane made his debut on television as "Border Guard" in BBC's mini-series The Lost Tribe (1980), then made his big screen debut as a limousine driver in Death Watch (1980). In 1981 he appeared in his first leading role as Detective Fritz Langley in Subway Riders (1981), by famed underground director Amos Poe.
He became a well-known face through appearances in The Comic Strip series, then in Alfresco (1983) and Comic Strip movies The Supergrass (1985) and The Pope Must Diet (1991), among other films. At that time Coltrane had a drinking problem, downing as much as a bottle of whiskey a day. In 1986 he flew to a clinic in Mexico and was treated for obesity. In 1987 his partner for 15 years, Robin Paine, left him for good, leaving her portrait in Coltrane's barn.
In 1988 Coltrane met then 18-year-old Rhona Gemmell in a pub. They married and had a son, Spencer, and a daughter, Alice. His career took off during the early 1990s with the leading role as Dr. Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald, a forensic psychologist, in the popular TV series Cracker (1993).
He made such a good performance as Valentin Zukovsky, a KGB man turned St. Petersburg mafia lord, in GoldenEye (1995) the producers called him back for the same character in The World Is Not Enough (1999). Then Coltrane hit another lucrative franchise; he was personally selected by J.K. Rowling as her choice to play half-giant Rubeus Hagrid in the 'Harry Potter' films.
In early 1990s Coltrane wrote an autobiography, "Coltrane in a Cadillac", and also starred in the eponymous TV series, Coltrane in a Cadillac (1993), in which he indulges his passion for vintage cars and tells with great humor about his 4000-mile journey across America from Los Angeles to New York. In 2003 he separated from his wife. His interests outside of his acting profession had been reading books, and rebuilding and collecting vintage cars. Robbie Coltrane resided in a converted farmhouse in Stirlingshire, Scotland, UK.- Producer
- Director
- Composer
Producer, author, and composer, educated at NYU. Until 1960, he worked at a New York advertising agency, and then co-founded a film production company in New York. He joined ASCAP in 1963 and collaborated musically with Edward Thomas and James Polack. His popular-song works include "Pinocchio," "Three Sad Souls," and "Daydreamer." His most famous and lasting collaboration was with Arthur Rankin Jr., with whom he partnered on many of his hits, including all his ABC-TV Christmas specials of stop motion animation and many cartoons.- Actor
- Music Department
- Additional Crew
Jerry Lee Lewis was born on September 29, 1935 into a very religious family . His family, though not very wealthy, sold their house when he was a child to get their son a piano. He loved to play piano. He was sent to a religious school, but was soon thrown out shortly thereafter -- he did a boogie version of a song about Jesus, something the school could not accept. At 16, he married for the first time, but it only lasted seven months. He married a second time three weeks before his divorce from his first wife was final. His second marriage lasted about four years and produced his first child.
In November 1956 he moved in with a cousin, J. W. Brown, in Memphis. They started a band together, with Jerry as singer. They sold a copy of their first song, "Crazy Arms", to the legendary Sam Phillips, president of Sun Records. Phillips had become famous because of his discovery of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash. Phillips liked the song, and Jerry Lee Lewis began to establish his name in Memphis in late 1956.
In January 1957, he recorded a new song, the self-penned "End of the Road." It was unusual in that singers did not write their own songs at that time. Jerry was fresh in other ways, too. He not only wrote some of his own songs, he played piano. Other rock singer of that era played guitar, such as Elvis Presley, Tommy Steele, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, etc. The piano wasn't considered a rock and roll instrument - Jerry Lee Lewis changed all that.
Jerry got his big break in April 1957, when he went to New York and appeared on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956) with the "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On". A couple of #1 hits would soon follow -- "Great Balls of Fire" (which became his signature song), "Breathless" and "High School Confidential". Many people predicted that Jerry Lee would be bigger than the King of Rock-n-Roll - Elvis Presley. In late 1957 the audiences at one of his shows stormed the stage when he set a piano on fire. Chuck Berry was supposed to have ended the evening's show, but he refused to go on, wisely understanding that he could never top what Jerry just did. Elvis went into the army in the late winter of 1958, so Jerry Lee was now virtually alone at the top of the rock heap. All was not rosy, however. Problems did arise--very serious problems. In 1957, he married for a third time, secretly, to the 13-year-old daughter of his cousin and partner J. W. Brown, Myra Gale Brown (Myra Lewis). Her parents were deeply hurt when they found out, but after a discussion with Sam Phillips, they forgave Jerry. The marriage was unknown to the press and fans until Jerry's arrival in England for a tour in the spring of 1958. Fans again stormed the stage -- but this time to express their disgust. The marriage was front-page news around the world. His career was in shambles. He had just signed a five-year contract with Sun Records, and he did continue to record songs until 1963. During the last years of the contract, however, he made very few rock songs. Most of his compositions were ballads, possibly due to his depression at the direction his career had taken.
Jerry and Myra had one son, Steve Allen Lewis, who drowned at age three. The couple divorced in 1970, after 13 years of bad treatment in the press. However, Jerry's career was not completely finished. In 1968 he made his great comeback, as a country singer. During the next few years, he performed more and more rock 'n' roll.
He married a fourth time in October 1971 but the marriage ended two years later, after producing one child. That same year, Jerry's son from his first marriage died in an auto accident. The combination of divorce, personal tragedies and his career stagnation contributed to his turning to the bottle, and for the next 15 years Jerry had a severe drinking problem. His drinking also contributed to a rash of health problems, and he almost died of a ruptured stomach in 1981. People thought that The Killer was finished. But he wasn't.
Jerry Lee Lewis continued putting on brilliant concerts even in his 70s, and with his wild life behind him. He divorced his sixth wife in the summer of 2005, after over 20 years of marriage. He remained a wild man to the end!- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Aaron Charles Carter was born December 7, 1987 in Tampa, Florida, to Jane Elizabeth (Spaulding) and Robert Gene Carter. He was the younger brother of Nick Carter (the Backstreet Boys) and had three sisters.
He began his music career at age seven, singing lead for the band "Dead End" for two years. He made his first solo appearance when he was 9, opening for the Backstreet Boys in Berlin in March 1997. The performance was followed by a record contract and, in the fall of 1997, he released his first single, "Crush On You".
His first full-length album "Aaron Carter" came out Dec 1, 1997. It achieved gold status in Norway, Spain, Denmark, Canada and Germany. The album was released in the United States on June 16, 1998. On May 18, 1998, Carter released the EP "Let The Music Heal Your Soul", a fund-raising project that featured vocals by Carter, the Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, the Moffatts and other artists. His next album, Aaron's Party (Sep 26, 2000), was released in the United States under the Jive Label. The album achieved triple-platinum certification.
At 13, Carter recorded the album "Oh, Aaron" (Aug 7, 2001) which featured his first duet recording with his brother Nick. "Oh, Aaron" was accompanied by a video/DVD of the same name (March 26, 2002) which included footage of his 2001 concert in Baton Rouge, Louisiana as well as music videos and interviews. Play Along Toys also created an Aaron Carter action figure along with the album's release.
Carter's next album, "Another Earthquake" (September 3, 2002), was released during the 2002 "Rock, Rap, and Retro" tour. The album featured the patriotic-themed "America A O" and the ballad "Do You Remember". Most Requested Hits was released November 3, 2003. The collection included tracks from his last three albums as well as a new single, "One Better".
Carter was also an actor. His TV appearances include Lizzie McGuire (2001), Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996) and 7th Heaven (1996). His first lead role in a feature was in Popstar (2005).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
A much-loved comic actor who has specialized in playing plummy, quintessentially English stereotypes, Leslie Phillips' heart was in acting from a very young age. He received elocution lessons as a child in order to lose his natural cockney accent (at that time a regional British accent was a major impediment to an aspiring actor) and he attended the Italia Conti School.
During the Second World War he served with the Durham Light Infantry (1942-45), but was invalided out, suffering from shell shock. He returned to acting and it was during the 1950s that he established himself as a notable player in British movies. His greatest claim to fame to this day is the "Doctor" series of movies, which he inherited from Dirk Bogarde. He also worked on radio, most notably 'The Navy Lark' for the BBC.
In later life he returned to playing supporting roles and even appeared in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun (1987). He continued to make cameo appearances in films and television, and became a regular guest on British chat shows.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Kevin Conroy was born on November 30, 1955 in Westbury, New York. At age 17, Kevin earned a full scholarship to attend Juilliard's drama division, where he studied under actor John Houseman. In 1978, after graduating from Juilliard, he toured with "The Acting Company", Houseman's acting group, and in 1979, he went on the national tour of "Deathtrap". In 1980, he was cast in the daytime soap opera Another World (1964). However, he soon missed the theatre, and so he became associated with the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, California, where he performed in "Hamlet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". From 1980 to 1985, he acted in a variety of contemporary and classic theatre pieces, including the Broadway production of "Eastern Standard" and "Lolita". He is very respected in theatre circles for his interpretation of Shakespearean characters, and in 1984, he played the title role in "Hamlet" in the New York Shakespeare Festival. Kevin returned to television in the television movie Covenant (1985). He was a series regular on Ohara (1987) in 1987, and on Tour of Duty (1987) from 1987 to 1988, before starring in a series of television movies. He is best known for providing the title role in the animated Batman: The Animated Series (1992) series.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Jason David Frank is well-known for his role of Tommy Oliver in the long-running family television show Power Rangers. He is the voice of Emissary in Transformers: Titans Returns and brings Bloodshot to life in the highly-anticipated project Ninjak vs.the Valiant Universe. Always one looking for adventure, Jason shares his exciting life in the extremely popular series My Morphin Life, which is now in its fourth season.
Arguably the most popular and famous Power Ranger, Jason's character was only intended to be in ten episodes. Due to his popularity, he was morphed into the most amount of different rangers in the show's twenty-four year history. He began as the Mighty Morphin Green Ranger, a bad boy turned good, and subsequently morphed into the Mighty Morphin White Ranger, Red Zeo, Red Turbo, and then returned in 2004 as the Black Dino Thunder Ranger.
Throughout Power Ranger history, Jason David Frank's character has appeared in 225 total episodes and counting, more episodes than any other ranger. He also starred in the series both full-length movies, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers the Movie (1995) and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997). In 2013, Jason David Frank reprised his role of the Green Ranger in the Power Ranger's 20th Anniversary season, which featured a mega-war with many rangers from the show's long history, and was most recently had a cameo in the Power Rangers movie. With his dynamic screen presence and outstanding martial arts, he has catapulted Tommy to legendary fame in the Power Ranger fandom and to this day, maintains an enormous fan base that stretches around the world.
His martial arts is not just for television and films, Jason, an inductee of the World Karate Union Hall of Fame, is a highly accomplished and respected martial artist with 39 years of experience. In 1994, he created his own martial arts system, "Toso Kune Do," which means "Way of the Fighting Fist" and incorporates many different aspects of martial arts. He holds an eighth degree black belt in American Karate, a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and in February 2013, he received the title of Master of Muay Thai by the world renowned Muay Thai trainer Grand Master Toddy (Arjan). He is the owner and operator of Rising Sun Karate and MMA, with three schools in Texas and one in California.
In January 2013, Jason David Frank became the Guinness World Record Holder for most 1 inch pine board broken during freefall. Jason, who was introduced to skydiving during Power Rangers, shattered the previous record with seven broken pine boards.
On November 19, 2022, Jason David Frank took his own life by hanging himself in the bathroom at the Texas hotel and died at the age 49.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Music Department
Actress, singer, songwriter, and producer Irene Cara was destined for a life of accomplishments that millions strive for but very few actually attain. From being able to play the piano by ear at age five to earning an Oscar, multiple Grammys, a Golden Globe, and a People's Choice Award, Irene's rise to stardom was paved with experiences of a lifetime.
Beginning shortly after realizing their daughter's natural talent, Irene was quickly enrolled in music, acting, and dance classes. Shortly before that, her mother entered her into multiple competitions and at the age of three, Irene was a finalist in the "Little Miss America" pageant.
Her professional career began on Spanish-language television singing and dancing before performing on shows including 'The Original Amateur Hour', 'The Ed Sullivan Show', and 'The Tonight Show' with Johnny Carson. Her talent was also showcased On and Off Broadway in various productions including 'Ain't Misbehavin'', the Obie Award-winning musical 'The Me Nobody Knows', 'Maggie Flynn' starring Shirley Jones and Tony Award-nominated actor Jack Cassidy, and 'Via Galactica' opposite Raul Julia.
Having performed on the stage, the next natural progression seemed to be series television. She would find a home on the daytime drama 'Love of Life' and the educational series 'The Electric Company' where she participated as a member of the group 'The Short Circus', teaching children about grammar through music. 'The Electric Company's' cast was made up of veteran actors Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, and Morgan Freeman.
Continuing the pursuit of excellence, Irene recorded her first Spanish-language album at the age of eight and released an English-speaking holiday album shortly thereafter. Her career already blossoming, she would receive the honor of becoming the youngest member to perform in an all-star concert tribute for the legendary Duke Ellington. Held at Madison Square Garden, Irene performed along with music greats Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Roberta Flack.
With Broadway, television, and recording firmly tucked under her belt, Irene's next stop was the big screen. Before she entered her teenage years, she had won the title role in the film Aaron Loves Angela. Her performance in the movie was so outstanding that she was cast as the lead in the now cult classic musical drama 'Sparkle'. Proving that she was a tremendously versatile actress, Irene received international acclaim for her roles in 'Roots: The Next Generation' starring alongside James Earl Jones and Diahann Carroll among others, and 'The Guyanna Tragedy: The Jim Jones Story' where she would again work with James Earl Jones as well as LeVar Burton. As much as she had already accomplished, nothing could have prepared her for the super-stardom that would come with her next role.
In 1980, Irene would portray the character Coco Hernandez in a movie-musical titled 'Fame', a story about a group of students auditioning for acceptance into New York's High School for the Performing Arts. The film follows the students from their first to final days at the school and served to shine a light on the film's inspiration, LaGuardia High, and its counterpart Julliard. Irene's massive solo vocal talent was showcased through the title song 'Fame' as well as 'Out Here on My Own'. They and Irene would make Academy Awards history as it marked the first time two songs from the same film were nominated in the same category, and both performed by Irene. The title track won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
The impact of 'Fame' would catapult Irene Cara into a household name and earn her two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Artist, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical. Billboard Magazine named her the Top New Single Artist and Cashbox Magazine awarded her with the Most Promising Female Vocalist and Top Female Vocalist honors.
In 1982, Irene was awarded the NAACP Image Award for Best Actress for the NBC movie-of-the-week Maya Angelou's 'Sister, Sister' also starring Diahann Carroll and Rosalind Cash. She would garner another NAACP Image Award nomination for the title role in the PBS film 'For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story'. When it seemed her professional life couldn't get any better, Irene set the world on fire again.
Composer Giorgio Moroder approached Irene in 1983 to collaborate on the theme to a film he was attached to titled 'Flashdance'. Irene agreed and actually wrote the lyrics to the title song 'Flashdance...What a Feeling' in a car with producer Keith Forsey while on the way to the studio to record it. Those lyrics would reinforce Irene's already solid place in Hollywood history. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards with Irene taking home the coveted Oscar for Best Original Song. She would also add a Golden Globe to her already impressive collection of honors for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture in addition to two Grammys, a People's Choice Award, and an American Music Award. On a personal level, as a woman of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, her Academy Award win is even more special as she was the first bi-racial woman to ever win in any category other than acting and only the second to be nominated outside of an acting category.
In 1984/85, Irene was back on the big screen in the film 'City Heat' opposite Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds. She co-wrote the theme as well as performed the classic standards 'Embraceable You' and 'Get Happy'. Irene also starred opposite Tatum O'Neal in the film 'Certain Fury', voiced "Snow White" in the animated film 'Happily Ever After', and toured as "Mary Magdalene" in the Andrew Lloyd Webber production 'Jesus Christ Superstar'.
Not having sat on her laurels, in between winning Oscars, Grammys, and touring, she released the albums 'Anyone Can See' and 'What a Feeling' in 1982 and 1983 respectively which spawned the additional hits 'Breakdance', 'The Dream', 'You Were Made for Me', and 'Why Me', and in 1985 collaborated and sang with Placido Domingo. 'Breakdance' and 'Why Me' would both become Top 10 hits. In 1987, the release of the album 'Carasmatic' was shelved in the United States because of legal issues with the label, but it was issued in limited quantities in the United Kingdom, immediately making the album a collector's piece for anyone lucky enough to have gotten a copy.
Still feeling the love of audiences everywhere, the 90s were spent living out of a suitcase on multiple European concert tours. After finally getting a little breathing space, Irene formed the group Hot Caramel in 1999 and returned to performing to the delight of eager audiences clamoring to hear her unmistakable voice.
In 2004, Irene was awarded the Prestige Award for Lifetime Achievement. She was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fort Lauderdale Film Institute in 2005, and in 2006, was awarded the Honorary Lifetime Achievement for outstanding contribution in the African-American community by the Columbus Times of Georgia, the country's oldest black newspaper. In 2007, the Reel Sisters of the Disapora Film Festival presented her with the Trailblazer Award, and the Council of the City of New York honored her for her outstanding contributions as a performer. Perhaps one her most pleasurable moments was the 2011 unveiling of her name on a street sign in the Grand Concourse of the Bronx Walk of Fame. That same year, she released a new album titled Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel. Now semi-retired from the industry that filled every corner of her life for decades, Irene is now enjoying entertaining audiences via her YouTube podcast 'The Irene Cara Show' where she shares videos and talks about the acting and music industry's backstory.
While the outpouring of love from fans still makes her happy, Irene continues to be touched by the knowledge that she and her roles have inspired others within the acting/music industry as well.
Mariah Carey: "Around the same time, my mother entered me in a talent competition in the city, and I sang one of my favorite songs, 'Out Here on My Own', by Irene Cara. I felt 'Out Here on My Own' described my entire life, and I loved singing that way - singing to reveal a piece of my soul. And I won doing it. At that age. I lived for the movie 'Fame', and Irene Cara was everything to me."
Celine Dion: "Whether it's 'Titanic' and the unsinkable 'My Heart Will Go On', 'Michael's Song' and 'Listen to the Magic Man' (in English and French) for 'The Peanut Butter Solution', or 'Deadpool 2's' unexpected 'Ashes', she presides over movie theme songs as if taking up the baton from Irene Cara herself."
Whitney Houston: "'Sparkle' was especially important to because she'd been trying to get the film made for 15 years, having fallen in love with the 1976 original (starring Irene Cara, who went on to appear in Fame) as a teenager, seeing it every Saturday for three months straight."
The two most memorable lines from the title song 'Fame' are "I'm gonna live forever," and "Baby, remember my name". From "Little Miss America" to Carson, 'The Electric Company', 'Flashdance' and beyond, Irene Cara's legacy is guaranteed. Everyone will remember her name.- Actor
- Soundtrack
As a kid in the 1930s growing up in a tough New York neighborhood, kinetic wiseguy Larry Storch took in the multi-ethnic flavor of his surroundings and started blurting out various accents as a juvenile to provoke laughs and earn attention. Little did he know that this early talent would take him on a six-decade journey as a prime actor and comedian.
The 5'8" actor was born on January 8, 1923, in New York City, the son of a realtor and telephone operator. Although he attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, he never graduated, earning money as a stand-up comic. Larry's gift as an impressionist paid off early during those teen years in vaudeville houses. Following military duty during WWII as a seaman (1942-1946), a happenstance meeting with comedian Phil Harris in Palm Springs led to an opening act gig at Ciro's for Lucille Ball's and Desi Arnaz' show.
Larry received his biggest break on radio with "The Kraft Music Hall" when he was asked to sub for an ailing Frank Morgan. He not only delivered his patented star impersonations, he did a devastating one of Morgan himself that went over famously.
Moving to the small screen, a summer hosting replacement on the TV variety show Cavalcade of Stars (1949) was followed by Larry's own variety series, The Larry Storch Show (1953). In musical revues from the early 1950s with such showcases as "Red, Hot and Blue" and "Curtain Going Up," he also became a fixture on the nightclub circuit. He made a leap into legit acting with the musical "You Never Know" (1955) and comedies "The Tender Trap" (1956) and "Who Was that Lady I Saw You With?" (1958), in which he played a hyper Russian spy.
A long-lasting friendship with Tony Curtis that formulated during his Navy days paid off in spades. Curtis started finding work for his buddy in his films, beginning with an unbilled bit in the Universal costumer The Prince Who Was a Thief (1951). When Larry's career was going through a noticeable lull in the early 1960s, Curtis again came to the rescue by giving him top supporting roles in some of his prime cinematic fluff--Who Was That Lady? (1960) (in which he recreated his stage role), 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), Sex and the Single Girl (1964) and Wild and Wonderful (1964).
TV audiences soon started seeing his manic-looking mug regularly on episodic TV, including The Phil Silvers Show (1955) and Car 54, Where Are You? (1961). Larry's biggest claim to fame would come via his Emmy-nominated role as Forrest Tucker's loyal but not particularly bright sidekick Cpl. Randolph Agarn in the western comedy F Troop (1965).
While continuing to make an "impression" in nightclubs, Larry found a lucrative outlet in animation, too, giving vocal life to four decades' worth of cartoons, including the series Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (1963), Underdog (1964), The Pink Panther Show (1969) and Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969). He also provided the voice of Koko the Clown in the syndicated cartoon show Out of the Inkwell (1961).
Beginning in the 1980s Storch made a comic resurgence of sorts under the theater lights with a healthy run opposite Jean Stapleton and Marion Ross in "Arsenic and Old Lace" from 1986-1988, and in the musicals "Oklahoma!" (1990) and "Annie Get Your Gun" (2000), the latter as Chief Sitting Bull. He also appeared with his friend Curtis again, this time in a musical stage version of Curtis' classic film Some Like It Hot (1959).
Larry went on to appear in typical oddball form in such films as Airport 1975 (1974), The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977), Record City (1977), Without Warning (1980) (as a scoutmaster), S.O.B. (1981) (as a guru), Fake-Out (1982), Sweet Sixteen (1983), A Fine Mess (1986), The Perils of P.K. (1986), The Silence of the Hams (1994), Funny Valentine (2005) and Bittersweet Place (2005). TV guest appearances included "The Fall Guy," "Knight Rider," "Out of This World," "Married ... with Children," "Days of Our Lives," and his last, a 2010 appearance on "Medium Rare."
He was married to actress Norma Storch from 1961 until her death from cancer in 2003.- With that impish, gap-toothed grin, nervous bundle of energy, Robert Morse could never be contained long enough to become a film star. The live stage would be his calling.
He was born Robert Allen Morse on May 18, 1931, in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of May (Silver) and Charles Morse, who worked at a record store. His father was of German Jewish descent and his mother was of Russian Jewish ancestry. He developed an interest in performing in high school. Moving to New York, he joined elder brother Richard who was already studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Robert made his debut with the musical "On the Town", in 1949, and trained with Lee Strasberg, before making his inauspicious film debut in The Proud and Profane (1956), but movie offers were few. Instead, he brightened up the lights of Broadway as "Barnaby Tucker" in "The Matchmaker" (and in the film version of The Matchmaker (1958)), as well as in "Say, Darling" (Tony nomination in 1958), "Take Me Along" (Tony nomination in 1959) and his best-known role as the ever-ambitious "J. Pierpont Finch" in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", in which he finally won the Tony, in 1961, while singing his signature song, "I Believe in You", to himself in the mirror. He took that role to film, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967), six years later.
Morse's best movie roles also came in the 60s, as a Britisher arranging his uncle's funeral in the cult favorite, The Loved One (1965), and as Walter Matthau's philandering buddy/advisor in A Guide for the Married Man (1967). His offbeat musical talents were used for the intriguing experimental James Thurber-like TV series, That's Life (1968), with E.J. Peaker, which combined sketches, monologues and musical interludes, but the show lasted only one season.
Overall, Bobby's work has never been less than interesting with no gray areas in his performances -- ranging from bizarre to irritating, from frenzied to fascinating. After earning acclaim and another Tony-nomination as the cross-dressing musician on the lam in "Sugar", a Broadway musical version of Some Like It Hot (1959), Morse appeared less and less -- his eccentricities proving both difficult to cast and to deal with.
Following an unfulfilling stint on the daytime soap, All My Children (1970), he came back in grand style in the one-man tour de farce, Tru (1992), based on the life of the equally-eccentric Truman Capote - a perfect fit, if ever there was one, between actor and role. With this role, Bobby became one of the choice few to ever win Tony awards for both a musical and dramatic part. At the age of 85, Morse returned to the lights of Broadway in the 2016 revival of "The Front Page" starring Nathan Lane.
Robert continued to be seen in odd roles from time to time, such as "Grandpa" in the revamped TV movie, Here Come the Munsters (1995). Into the millennium, he focused on TV work. He made a huge dramatic impression as an advertising agency founder Bertram Cooper on the popular series Mad Men (2007) and earned five Emmy nominations. He also impressed as Dominick Dunne on the series American Crime Story (2016) and provided the TV voice of Santa Claus in the animated short series Teen Titans Go! (2013).
Married twice, his five children include actresses Andrea Doven, Hilary Morse and Robin Morse. Robert Morse died on April 20, 2022, in Los Angeles. He was 90. - Actor
- Director
- Producer
Clarence Gilyard Jr. was born on 24 December 1955 in Moses Lake, Washington, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Die Hard (1988), Walker, Texas Ranger (1993) and Top Gun (1986). He was married to Elena Castillo and Catherine Dutko. He died on 28 November 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
English singer, keyboardist, and songwriter for British-American rock band, Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie was born Christine Anne Perfect on July 12th, 1943 in the Lake District village of Bouth, England (then Lancashire, now Cumbria), and grew up in the Bearwood area of Smethwick near Birmingham. Born into a musical family, McVie's father, Cyril Perfect, was an accomplished violinist and music lecturer at St Peter's College of Education, Saltley. He remained active in the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra into his mid-eighties. Her mother Beatrice ("Tee", née Reece) was a medium, psychic and faith healer. McVie's grandfather was an organist at Westminster Abbey. Introduced to the piano at the age of four, McVie did not study music until age 11, continuing her classical training until age 15. She then shifted her musical focus to Rock and Roll. It is said that she became addicted to Rock and Roll from the very first time she looked through a Fats Domino songbook.
While studying sculpture at Birmingham Art College, she got caught in the throes of the blues revival that was sweeping England. She made some duo appearances with Spencer Davis (before he teamed with Steve Winwood and Muff Windwood for the ignition of the Spencer Davis Group). Christine then met Stan Webb and Andy Silvester and joined them in the band, Sounds of Blue. By the time McVie graduated from college with a teaching degree, Sounds of Blue dismembered; McVie, unable to gather funds to find a place in the world of visual arts, took her teaching diploma to London where she worked briefly as a department store window dresser for Regent Street department store. However, after learning Webb and Silvester were scouting a pianist to join their band, Chicken Shack, she wrote them with request to join--they invited her to play keyboards/piano and to sing backing vocals. Chicken Shack debuted with "It's Okay With Me Baby", written by and featuring McVie. With two albums in, Chicken Shack found success with "I'd Rather Go Blind", a song originally recorded by Etta James in 1967. The song featured McVie on lead vocals. McVie earned a Melody Maker award for female vocalist of the year and lauded for having one of the "top 10 pairs of legs in all of Britain".
While touring with Chicken Shack, the band would often meet with Fleetwood Mac (they shared the same label at Blue Horizon). Fleetwood Mac asked her to play piano as a session musician for Peter Green's songs on the band's second album, Mr. Wonderful. McVie left Chicken Shack after marrying Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie. She continued her career with the recording of a solo album, Christine Perfect; following her success as a member of Fleetwood Mac, the album was reissued under the name of the Legendary Christine Perfect Album. By the time she had joined Fleetwood Mac full-time, she had already contributed backup vocals and painted the cover for Kiln House (the fourth studio album recorded by Fleetwood Mac). Peter Green had left the band, leaving Fleetwood Mac with reservations to perform live without him. Having been a huge fan of the Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac; and versed in all the lyrics to their songs, she joined in.
In 1974, with the band, McVie reluctantly relocated to the United States in effort to make a fresh start. Within a year, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band. With a new lineup, their first album together, titled Fleetwood Mac, found success with McVie's songs "Over My Head" and "Say You Love Me" both reaching Billboard's top-20 singles chart. The band sold 4 million copies of Fleetwood Mac and over 15 million of its follow-up, Rumours. From the album, McVie's "You Make Loving Fun" found a place on the top-10, and "Don't Stop" peaked to the #3, and years later became the song President Bill Clinton played for his Presidential campaign, and at his 1993 inaugural Gala (McVie and her band mates performed there, as well as as the Super Bowl a few days later). The success of Rumours earned the band many accolades; however, by the end of touring for the album, McVie divorced from John Mcvie. In 1979, the band released Tusk, the album was considered a disappointment, merely because it was impossible for any future releases to meet the success of Rumours. Three years later, the band reunited to record Mirage, which featured the top-5 hit "Hold Me"; McVie's inspiration for the song was her tumultuous relationship with Dennis Wilson, the drummer for the The Beach Boys. Wilson drowned in accident a few years later, leaving McVie heartbroken.
In 1984, McVie released her second solo album, simply titled, Christine McVie. The album featured the hit "Got a Hold on Me", positioning in the Top 10 pop, and #1 adult contemporary. She also met keyboardist Eddy Quintela (12 years her junior), they married two years later (October 1986). Although they divorced a decade later, they wrote several songs together, including "Little Lies" and "As Long as You Follow", two songs that became hits for Fleetwood Mac. The solo album also features McVie's cover of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling In Love", the song was featured in the Howie Mandel film A Fine Mess (1986). A year later, she reunited with Fleetwood Mac for the recording of the band's fourteenth studio album, Tango in the Night. The album went on to become the band's biggest success since Rumours, ten years earlier.
Always reluctant to tour, preferring to stay close to home and friends and family, and upon the death of her father, (while she was touring for Behind the Mask) (Fleetwood Mac's fifteenth studio album), McVie made the decision to retire from touring altogether. In 1998, she reunited with the band for the release of the live album, the Dance, which reached #1 on the US album charts. The same year, despite her reservations, she toured with the band for the group's 1998 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as the Grammy Awards show, and the BRIT Awards. McVie returned to England to be near her family and stayed out of public view until 2000, when she appeared to accept an Honorary Doctorate in music from the University of Greenwich. 2000 also saw the release of In the Meantime, McVie's third solo album. No tour was organized, but McVie delivered several press interviews in both Britain and the United States. In 2013, she appeared on stage in Maui, Hawaii performing with the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band (her first live appearance in 15 years). Later in September, McVie performed live with Fleetwood Mac in London (also, for the first time in 15 years) to perform "Don't Stop". Shortly after, Mick Fleetwood announced during a concert in Maui that McVie would be rejoining the band, it was officially announced two days later, she had rejoined. The original Rumours lineup (Nicks, Buckingham, Fleetwood, McVie, and McVie). In June, 2017, McVie teamed up with Lindsey Buckingham for the recording and release of Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie; the album sold over 22,000 units in the US in its first week and debuted within the top 20. More successful in the UK, where it debuted within the top 5. McVie continues to record and perform live with Fleetwood Mac.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Bob McGrath was born on 13 June 1932 in Ottawa, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Follow That Bird (1985), Sesame Street (1969) and Sesame Street: Put Down the Duckie (1988). He was married to Ann Logan Sperry. He died on 4 December 2022 in New Jersey, USA.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Kirstie Louise Alley was an American actress. Her breakout role was as Rebecca Howe in the NBC sitcom Cheers (1987-1993), receiving an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe in 1991 for the role. From 1997 to 2000, she starred in the sitcom Veronica's Closet, earning additional Emmy and Golden Globe nominations.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
An actor since the age of 14, Bernard Cribbins had become a major star on the London stage by his mid-20s, but it was another ten years before he became a national star by his success in film comedies and with a string of hit records. He appeared in several of the "Carry On" series, and also achieved a great degree of success doing voiceovers for cartoons and TV commercials.- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Costume Designer
- Writer
Vivienne Westwood was born on 8 April 1941 in Glossop, Derbyshire, England, UK. She was a costume designer and writer, known for Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Shadowboxer (2005) and Twenty-One (1991). She was married to Andreas Kronthaler and Derek Westwood. She died on 29 December 2022 in Clapham, South London, England, UK.- Actor
- Soundtrack
As a kid in the 1930s growing up in a tough New York neighborhood, kinetic wiseguy Larry Storch took in the multi-ethnic flavor of his surroundings and started blurting out various accents as a juvenile to provoke laughs and earn attention. Little did he know that this early talent would take him on a six-decade journey as a prime actor and comedian.
The 5'8" actor was born on January 8, 1923, in New York City, the son of a realtor and telephone operator. Although he attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, he never graduated, earning money as a stand-up comic. Larry's gift as an impressionist paid off early during those teen years in vaudeville houses. Following military duty during WWII as a seaman (1942-1946), a happenstance meeting with comedian Phil Harris in Palm Springs led to an opening act gig at Ciro's for Lucille Ball's and Desi Arnaz' show.
Larry received his biggest break on radio with "The Kraft Music Hall" when he was asked to sub for an ailing Frank Morgan. He not only delivered his patented star impersonations, he did a devastating one of Morgan himself that went over famously.
Moving to the small screen, a summer hosting replacement on the TV variety show Cavalcade of Stars (1949) was followed by Larry's own variety series, The Larry Storch Show (1953). In musical revues from the early 1950s with such showcases as "Red, Hot and Blue" and "Curtain Going Up," he also became a fixture on the nightclub circuit. He made a leap into legit acting with the musical "You Never Know" (1955) and comedies "The Tender Trap" (1956) and "Who Was that Lady I Saw You With?" (1958), in which he played a hyper Russian spy.
A long-lasting friendship with Tony Curtis that formulated during his Navy days paid off in spades. Curtis started finding work for his buddy in his films, beginning with an unbilled bit in the Universal costumer The Prince Who Was a Thief (1951). When Larry's career was going through a noticeable lull in the early 1960s, Curtis again came to the rescue by giving him top supporting roles in some of his prime cinematic fluff--Who Was That Lady? (1960) (in which he recreated his stage role), 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), Sex and the Single Girl (1964) and Wild and Wonderful (1964).
TV audiences soon started seeing his manic-looking mug regularly on episodic TV, including The Phil Silvers Show (1955) and Car 54, Where Are You? (1961). Larry's biggest claim to fame would come via his Emmy-nominated role as Forrest Tucker's loyal but not particularly bright sidekick Cpl. Randolph Agarn in the western comedy F Troop (1965).
While continuing to make an "impression" in nightclubs, Larry found a lucrative outlet in animation, too, giving vocal life to four decades' worth of cartoons, including the series Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales (1963), Underdog (1964), The Pink Panther Show (1969) and Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969). He also provided the voice of Koko the Clown in the syndicated cartoon show Out of the Inkwell (1961).
Beginning in the 1980s Storch made a comic resurgence of sorts under the theater lights with a healthy run opposite Jean Stapleton and Marion Ross in "Arsenic and Old Lace" from 1986-1988, and in the musicals "Oklahoma!" (1990) and "Annie Get Your Gun" (2000), the latter as Chief Sitting Bull. He also appeared with his friend Curtis again, this time in a musical stage version of Curtis' classic film Some Like It Hot (1959).
Larry went on to appear in typical oddball form in such films as Airport 1975 (1974), The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977), Record City (1977), Without Warning (1980) (as a scoutmaster), S.O.B. (1981) (as a guru), Fake-Out (1982), Sweet Sixteen (1983), A Fine Mess (1986), The Perils of P.K. (1986), The Silence of the Hams (1994), Funny Valentine (2005) and Bittersweet Place (2005). TV guest appearances included "The Fall Guy," "Knight Rider," "Out of This World," "Married ... with Children," "Days of Our Lives," and his last, a 2010 appearance on "Medium Rare."
He was married to actress Norma Storch from 1961 until her death from cancer in 2003.- Pope Benedict XVI is a retired prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the head of the Catholic Church and the sovereign of the Vatican city state from 2005 until his resignation in 2013. Benedict's election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II. Benedict is known by the title "Pope Emeritus" upon his resignation.
- Producer
- Writer
- Actress
Barbara Walters was born on 25 September 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She was a producer and writer, known for The Barbara Walters Summer Special (1976), The View (1997) and 20/20 (1978). She was married to Merv Adelson, Lee Guber and Robert Henry Katz. She died on 30 December 2022 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Signed on as a Warner Brothers starlet, bouncy, blonde-coiffed Diane McBain would develop a burgeoning career as lively '60s "bad girl" and "spoiled rich girl" types on film and TV. Born in Cleveland, Ohio on May 18, 1941, the family moved to California while still young and she started things off as a "sweet 16" model in print and commercial ads. Eventually TV got more than just a glimpse of this diverting beauty after a WB talent agent spotted her in a Los Angeles play and signed her on during her senior year at Glendale High School.
After busily apprenticing on various TV projects, Diane made her first big splash in 1960 (age 19) with a prominent role in Ice Palace (1960) co-starring Richard Burton, Carolyn Jones and Martha Hyer. Brimming with style and confidence, Diane was quickly ushered into other films as Warner's answer to Carroll Baker, winning parts in two consecutive soapers. The first was Parrish (1961) with beef-cake film star Troy Donahue and screen legend Claudette Colbert; the other was the title role in Claudelle Inglish (1961) opposite up-and-comers Chad Everett and Robert Logan. Neither the tawdry scripts nor the box office receipts were anything to write home about unfortunately, and her leading lady career in films started to flounder with such fodder as The Caretakers (1963) with Joan Crawford, A Distant Trumpet (1964), yet again with Donahue, and Spinout (1966). The last was one of Elvis Presley' later vehicles that signified an inevitable fadeout was on the horizon. Significantly better was her dizzy good time girl and socialite "Daphne Dutton" on the hip Warner Bros. series Surfside 6 (1960) alongside Van Williams (later TV's "Green Hornet") and Donohue. The show ran for two seasons.
Diane proved popular with the teen set with her devilish débutantes and snobby sophisticates, even accompanying Bob Hope on one of his USO tours of South Vietnam in 1966/67. On the cult series Batman (1966), she played "Pinky Pinkston" (with pink hair, pink outfits and a pink dog). By the late 1960s, however, her career began drifting into exploitation with terrible titles like I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew (1969), Maryjane (1968) and The Mini-Skirt Mob (1968) (miscast as a biker chick) representative of what she was being handed.
Diane instead lay low for a time focusing instead on her child, Evan Burke, more or less splitting from the Hollywood scene. A few plays (Amanda in "The Glass Menagerie") and low budget films came her way, and in the 1980s she was seen a bit more on daytime soaps. The still young-looking and ever-elegant Diane was out and about in the 1990s as well, playing good-looking grandmas on such shows as Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996). The victim of a rape attack in 1982, Diane chose to rise above her traumatic circumstances and help others as a rape counselor.