Celebrity Deaths in 2023
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- Actress
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Gangsta Boo was born on 7 August 1979 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. She was an actress and composer, known for Zola (2020), Gangsta Boo: Meet The Devil (2015) and Latto Feat. GloRilla & Gangsta Boo: FTCU (2022). She died on 1 January 2023 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.- Director
- Writer
Lian Wei was born in February 1945 in China. Lian was a director and writer, known for Da zhuan zhe: Ting jin da bie shan (1996), Tai Hang shan shang (2005) and Da Jue Zhan II: Huai Hai Zhan Yi (1991). Lian died on 1 January 2023 in China.- Fred White was born on 13 January 1955 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Earth, Wind & Fire: Boogie Wonderland (1979), The Music for UNICEF Concert: A Gift of Song (1979) and Phil Collins: Seriously Live (1990). He died on 1 January 2023.
- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Kelly Monteith was born on 17 October 1942 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Too Hip for the Room (2015), A Lousy 10 Grand (2004) and Kelly Monteith (1979). He was married to Caroline Alexander. He died on 1 January 2023 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Writer
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ken Block was born on 21 November 1967 in Long Beach, California, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Gymkhana Seven: Wild in the Streets of Los Angeles (2014), Gymkhana Ten: Ultimate Tire Slaying Tour (2018) and The DC Video (2003). He was married to Lucy Block. He died on 2 January 2023 in Wasatch County, Utah, USA.- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Frank Galati was born on 29 November 1943 in Highland Park, Illinois, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for The Accidental Tourist (1988), American Playhouse (1980) and The Party Animal (1984). He was married to Peter Amster . He died on 2 January 2023 in Sarasota, Florida, USA.- Producer
- Production Manager
- Transportation Department
James D. Brubaker was born on 30 March 1937 in Hollywood, California, USA. He was a producer and production manager, known for Cobra (1986), The Nutty Professor (1996) and Dragonfly (2002). He was married to Marcy Kelly. He died on 3 January 2023 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.- Walter Cunningham was born on 16 March 1932 in Creston, Iowa, USA. He was married to Lo Ella Irby, Dot and Dorothy. He died on 3 January 2023 in Houston, Texas, USA.
- Fay Weldon was born on 22 September 1931 in Worcester, England, UK. She was a writer, known for She-Devil (1989), Puffball: The Devil's Eyeball (2007) and Flood Warning (2020). She was married to Nicolas P Fox, Ronald Weldon and Ronald G. Bateman. She died on 4 January 2023 in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England, UK.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Joseph Koo was born on 23 February 1931 in Guangzhou, China. He was a composer and actor, known for The Way of the Dragon (1972), A Better Tomorrow (1986) and Fist of Fury (1972). He died on 3 January 2023 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.- Director
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Jean Bertho was born on 23 January 1928 in Pont-à-Mousson, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France. He was a director and actor, known for En votre âme et conscience (1955), Lectures pour tous (1953) and Dim Dam Dom (1965). He died on 4 January 2023 in France.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Veteran character actor Earl Boen is probably best known for his role as criminal psychologist Dr. Peter Silberman in the Terminator series. Other films which he appeared include Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), The Man with Two Brains (1983), Alien Nation (1988), Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994) and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000). Boen retired from screen acting in 2003, but continues his work as a voice actor in radio, animated series and video games.- Daniel Kaleikini Jr. was born on 10 October 1937 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. He was an actor, known for Hawaii Five-O (1968), The Little People (1972) and Dolly (1987). He was married to Jacqueline Kaleikini. He died on 6 January 2023 in Nuuanu, Hawaii, USA.
- Director
- Editor
- Actor
Central figure of the American avant-garde. An artist who made an isolated animated short, A to Z (1956), Snow concentrated on his painting career until moving to New York in 1963. After attending avant-garde film screenings organized by critic-filmmaker Jonas Mekas and turning out a second film, the formalist New York Eye and Ear Control (1972), he made the highly influential Wavelength (1967). WAVELENGTH consists of a 45-minute zoom across a loft--interruped at several points by a cryptic narrative involving a murder--which ends on a close-up of a photograph of ocean waves. The film quickly earned a reputation in international avant-garde circles and inspired a generation of structuralist filmmakers. It was the first in a series of Snow's works which reduce the film medium to one of its most basic elements--camera movement: Standard Time (1967) is made up of 360-degree pans; in _Back and Forth (1969)_, the camera moves backwards and forwards at varying speeds, recording events in a classroom; in The Central Region (1971), Snow's remote-controlled camera, mounted on a tripod in the middle of the Quebec tundra, executes 360 degree rotations in three different circular patterns (at various speeds) while zooming in and out.- Mark Capps was born on 14 December 1968 in the USA. Mark died on 5 January 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
- Wyllie Longmore was born on 2 November 1940 in Stirling, St Ann, Jamaica. He was an actor, known for Love Actually (2003), Coronation Street (1960) and Floodtide (1987). He was married to Estelle Hampton. He died on 4 January 2023 in Manchester, England, UK.
- Kingsize Taylor died on 2 January 2023 in Germany.
- Cinematographer
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Ace cinematographer Owen Roizman was born September 22, 1936, in Brooklyn, New York. His father Sol was a cinematographer for Fox Movietone News and his uncle Morrie Roizman was a film editor. Owen studied math and physics at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. He began his career shooting TV commercials, and made his feature debut as a director of photography with the obscure and little seen 1970 movie Stop! (1970). Owen brought a strong and compelling sense of raw, gritty, documentary-style realism to William Friedkin's harsh and hard-hitting police action thriller classic The French Connection (1971). Roizman received a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for his outstanding visual contributions to this picture; he went on to garner four additional Oscar nominations, for The Exorcist (1973), Tootsie (1982), Network (1976) and Wyatt Earp (1994). Owen gave a similar rough and grainy look to the edgy urban thrillers The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) and Straight Time (1978). His other films encompass an impressively diverse array of different genres which include horror ("The Exorcist"), science fiction (The Stepford Wives (1975)), comedy (The Heartbreak Kid (1972) "Tootsie"), musicals (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)), drama (True Confessions (1981), Absence of Malice (1981)) and even Westerns (The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976), "Wyatt Earp"). His last feature to date was French Kiss (1995). In the early 1980s Owen took a hiatus from shooting films and formed the commercial production company Roizman and Associates. He has directed and/or photographed hundreds of TV commercials. In 1997 he was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Kevin Lemons was born on 12 September 1978 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for Come Sunday (2018) and 34th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards (2019). He died on 6 January 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Adam Rich was born on 12 October 1968 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Code Red (1981), Eight Is Enough (1977) and Dungeons & Dragons (1983). He died on 8 January 2023 in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Russell Banks was born on 28 March 1940 in Newton, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Affliction (1997) and American Darling. He was married to Chase Twichell, Kathy Walton, Mary Gunst and Darlene Bennett. He died on 7 January 2023 in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA.- Bernard Kalb was born on 4 February 1922 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Dave (1993), Years of Crisis (1950) and Bicentennial Minutes (1974). He was married to Phyllis Bernstein. He died on 8 January 2023 in North Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
- Soundtrack
Jeff Blackburn died on 6 January 2022 in Santa Cruz, California, USA.- Black Warrior died on 10 January 2023 in Mexico.
- Blake Hounshell was born on 4 September 1978 in California, USA. He was married to Sandy Choi. He died on 10 January 2023 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Actress Carole Cook showed a knack for comic timing from early on, so much so that the legendary Lucille Ball took her on as a protégée. Cook would make many appearances on Ball's TV shows The Lucy Show (1962) and Here's Lucy (1968), as well as other shows like Magnum, P.I. (1980), Dynasty (1981), and Grey's Anatomy (2005). She would also appear in several movies, like Sixteen Candles (1984) and Home on the Range (2004), while maintaining an active stage career and supporting many AIDS charities.- Ben Masters was born on 6 May 1947 in Corvallis, Oregon, USA. He was an actor, known for Passions (1999), All That Jazz (1979) and Mandingo (1975). He died on 11 January 2023 in Palm Springs, California, USA.
- Music Artist
- Composer
- Actor
Jeff Beck was born in Surrey in 1944. He grew up in a suburban street in Carshalton. When he was about 10, he wanted to play the guitar. His mum, however, wanted him to play the piano because she didn't approve of the guitar. When he was in his late teens, he joined "The Tridents" on lead guitar. In 1965, he replaced Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds. He played with them until 1967 when he decided he'd had enough and wanted to go solo. In the same year, he released his first solo effort "Hi-Ho-Silver Lining", which was the only one of his tracks he ever sang on. In his backing group, he had Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, who later went on to form The Faces. Thoughout the rest of the 60s and 70s, he continued to record instrumental albums. In 1983, three former The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, got together to do one-off charity concerts. In 1984, he contributed lead guitar on Mick Jagger's first solo album "She's the Boss". The same year, he released his next album "Flash", which was voted best instrumental album. In 1989, he released the album "Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop", which was also a big success. Throughout the 90s, Jeff Beck still toured around and, in 1998, played a sellout date in Mexico. In early 2001, he released yet another album "You had it Coming", which he toured to promote.- Tatjana Patitz was born on 25 March 1966 in Hamburg, West Germany. She was an actress, known for Rising Sun (1993), The Larry Sanders Show (1992) and Ready to Wear (1994). She was married to Jason Johnson. She died on 11 January 2023 in Santa Barbara, California, USA.
- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Lisa Marie Presley was born on 1 February 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. She was a music artist and actress, known for Lisa Marie Presley: Idiot (2005), Michael Jackson: You Are Not Alone (1995) and Lisa Marie Presley: Dirty Laundry (2005). She was married to Michael Lockwood, Nicolas Cage, Michael Jackson and Danny Keough. She died on 12 January 2023 in West Hills, California, USA.- Stunts
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Robbie Knievel was born on 7 May 1962 in Butte, Montana, USA. He was an actor, known for Ninja III: The Domination (1984), Hawaii Five-0 (2010) and Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil (2010). He died on 13 January 2023 in Reno, Nevada, USA.- Ray Cordeiro was born on 12 December 1924 in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, British Crown Colony. He was an actor, known for Security Unlimited (1981), The Private Eyes (1976) and Games Gamblers Play (1974). He died on 13 January 2023 in Hong Kong.
- Keith Beaton was born on 30 July 1950 in the USA. He died on 14 January 2023 in the USA.
- Madeleine Attal was born on 11 December 1921 in French Algeria. She was an actress, known for Clause toujours (1999). She died on 13 January 2023 in France.
- Al Brown was born on 26 September 1939 in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for Red Dragon (2002), The Replacements (2000) and Liberty Heights (1999). He was married to Barbara Eberz and Janet Newhart. He died on 13 January 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
- David S. Howard was born on 10 September 1928 in Mount Kisco, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Deconstructing Harry (1997) and Moonstruck (1987). He was married to Anne. He died on 10 January 2023 in Sarasota, Florida, USA.
- Michael Levin was born on 8 December 1932 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He was an actor, known for Ryan's Hope (1975), As the World Turns (1956) and The Equalizer (1985). He was married to Elizabeth Levin and Loretta Chiljian. He died on 6 January 2023 in Mount Kisco, New York, USA.
- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Gina Lollobrigida was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, Italy. Destined to be called "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Gina possibly had St. Brigid as part of her surname. She was the daughter of a furniture manufacturer, and grew up in the pictorial mountain village. The young Gina did some modeling and, from there, went on to participate successfully in several beauty contests. In 1947, she entered a beauty competition for Miss Italy, but came in third. The winner was Lucia Bosè (born 1931), who would go on to appear in over 50 movies, and the first runner-up was Gianna Maria Canale (born 1927), who would appear in almost 50 films. After appearing in a half-dozen films in Italy, it was rumored that, in 1947, film tycoon Howard Hughes had her flown to Hollywood; however, this did not result in her staying in America, and she returned to Italy (her Hollywood breakout movie would not come until six years later in the John Huston film Beat the Devil (1953)).
Back in Italy, in 1949, Gina married Milko Skofic, a Slovenian (at the time, "Yugoslavian") doctor, by whom she had a son, Milko Skofic Jr. They would be married for 22 years, until their divorce in 1971. As her film roles and national popularity increased, Gina was tagged "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", after her signature movie Beautiful But Dangerous (1955). Gina was nicknamed "La Lollo", as she embodied the prototype of Italian beauty. Her earthy looks and short "tossed salad" hairdo were especially influential and, in fact, there's a type of curly lettuce named "Lollo" in honor of her cute hairdo. Her film Come September (1961), co-starring Rock Hudson, won the Golden Globe Award as the World's Film Favorite. In the 1970s, Gina was seen in only a few films, as she took a break from acting and concentrated on another career: photography. Among her subjects were Paul Newman, Salvador Dalí and the German national soccer team.
A skilled photographer, Gina had a collection of her work "Italia Mia", published in 1973. Immersed in her other passions (sculpting and photography), it would be 1984 before Gina would grace American television on Falcon Crest (1981). Although Gina was always active, she only appeared in a few films in the 1990s. She retired from acting in 1997 after 50 years in the motion picture industry. In June 1999, she turned to politics and ran, unsuccessfully, for one of Italy's 87 European Parliament seats, from her hometown of Subiaco. Gina was also a corporate executive for fashion and cosmetics companies. As she told Parade magazine in April 2000: "I studied painting and sculpting at school and became an actress by mistake". (We're glad she made that mistake). Gina went on to say: "I've had many lovers and still have romances. I am very spoiled. All my life, I've had too many admirers."- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
British cinematographer Brian Tufano began his career at the BBC, working with such directors as Stephen Frears and Alan Parker. In 1992 he was assigned to the series Mr. Wroe's Virgins (1993) and worked with director Danny Boyle. Boyle took him along on his feature debut, Shallow Grave (1994), and continued to work with Tufano on such films as Trainspotting (1996) and A Life Less Ordinary (1997). In 2001 Tufano won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film and Television.- C.J. Harris was born on 28 January 1991 in Jasper, Alabama, USA. He died on 15 January 2023 in Jasper, Alabama, USA.
- Jeanne Phelps was born on March 1, 1924 in Los Angeles to Lyndon Phelps and Ada Marie Grinnell. She was second to three siblings, brothers named Robert and Raymond. When Jean was about five years old the family moved to Santa Maria, California. In 1942 they moved back with their mother to Los Angeles. As teenagers living in the LA area they often practiced swing dance with their friends. In fact, Jean and Ray got along together so well that they often teamed in dance halls, as a famous photograph testifies. She won a dance contest at the Hollywood Legion Stadium with Gene Halverson, and with it a Screen Actors Guild card and her first movie role, a dancing part in the feature film Swing Fever (1943). The number, One Girl and Two Boys sung by Marilyn Maxwell to Kay Kyser's band, has become a classic although the three (Jean, Lennie Smith and Don Gallagher) remained uncredited. Then she would appear in Where Are Your Children? (1943) and Jive Junction (1943) (dancing with Bob Ashley) and in the swing short Groovie Movie (1944), partnering with Arthur Walsh. She also danced in The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945) with none less than Dean Collins. Yet she did not figure in any of those movies' credits, as neither did her colleagues, usually appearing as background dancers. She married Harold "Babe" Davi whom she would later divorce. In 1946 she acted in El Rancho Vegas hotel under Nick Castle's choreography for several months.
Then in 1948 she started training with famed ballroom dancer Frank Veloz, of the Yolanda and Veloz duo. When wife Yolanda retired the following year, Jean partnered with Frank. They would marry in 1963, continuing with their dancing commitments until he died. They collaborated with Marge Champion, taught Susan Hayward and coached Anthony Dexter for the role of Valentino in the 1951 movie of the same title Valentino (1951), choreographing Lana Turner, Rita Moreno and Ricardo Montalban in Latin Lovers (1953). One can see what a great job Frank and Jean, Tony Dexter and Patricia Medina did together watching the tango sequence in the first film. They opened dance schools and had a TV show. Then when Veloz died in 1981 Jean retired, until the filming of a swing documentary by Rudy Linan brought her back to dancing, and she has continued to do so ever since, well into her 90s. And she is affectionately loved by all the swing and Lindy dancers around the world. Just watch one of her many videos and get stunned. She has her own website too (jeanveloz.com). - Actress
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Renée Geyer was born on 11 September 1953 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She was an actress and composer, known for Mary and Max (2009), Mystic Pizza (1988) and Chopper (2000). She died on 17 January 2023 in Geelong, Victoria, Australia.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Andrew Jones was a prolific independent film producer, screenwriter, director and editor.
Born on 6th October 1983 in Swansea, South Wales, Andrew was educated at Olchfa Comprehensive School and later attended the University of Glamorgan. At the age of 27, he founded UK production company North Bank Entertainment to produce independent genre films with a similar aesthetic to the work of American luminaries Roger Corman and Charles Band. Andrew went on to become one of the most prolific independent film producers in the UK with an established track record of commercially successful titles. Andrew's feature films, most of which he also wrote and directed, regularly received distribution in numerous territories around the world including the UK, North America, Canada, Germany, South America, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the Philippines, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Distribution companies he worked with include Lionsgate, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures and 4Digital Media.
In North America, Andrew's independent titles regularly appeared on the DVD shelves of retail giants such as Walmart, generating a high level of physical sales which consistently defy the odds. In the United Kingdom, nine of Andrew's films reached the Top 30 of the national DVD chart, thirteen of his films placed in the Top 5 of best selling Direct-to-Video titles in their first week of release and four of his films reached the Number 1 position on the HMV DVD Premiere Chart.
According to the annual BFI Research and Statistics booklet North Bank Entertainment regularly maintained a Top 10 spot on the list of production companies involved in the greatest number of commercially released British feature films each year. Andrew's top selling titles include the Robert (2015) franchise which to date has generated five films, culminating with Robert Reborn (2019) all of which have been released in dozens of territories worldwide.
Andrew was married to artist and filmmaker Sharron Jones and resided in his hometown of Swansea in South Wales until his passing in 2023.- is an American professional wrestler best known by his ring name Jay Briscoe and is currently signed to Ring of Honor (ROH) and also works for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). He is a record 11-time ROH World Tag Team Champion with his brother, Mark Briscoe, with whom he also has a reign as IWGP Tag Team Champion in NJPW, as well as being part of three Six-Man Tag Team Championship teams between ROH and NJPW. As a singles wrestler, Briscoe is also one of four wrestlers (alongside Austin Aries, Adam Cole, and Jay Lethal) to have twice held the ROH World Championship. Jay and Mark Briscoe made their debuts for Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) at Delaware Invasion on January 20, 2001, being brought in to job as part of a three-on-one handicap match against Trent Acid. At the inaugural Best of the Best event, a show somewhat atypical of CZW in that it is a tournament spotlighting athletic junior heavyweight wrestling as opposed to violent hardcore matches, the two advanced past the first round in a three-way match with Nick Mondo where the stipulation was whoever took the fall would be eliminated. They were then matched against each other in the second round, with Jay winning and advancing further. This match was seen by fans as the best of the tournament, and seen in retrospect as having been responsible in large part for helping launch the brothers' careers, as they were new to the independent circuit and very young at the time.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Leon Dubinsky was born on 5 July 1941 in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. He was an actor, known for Life Classes (1988), Something About Love (1988) and Pit Pony (1999). He died on 17 January 2023 in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada.- Director
- Producer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Top television director Bruce Gowers has been awarded Emmys, the DGA Award, a Grammy Award and many other shiny trophies for his stylish and groundbreaking work on high-profile productions. His resume includes directing nine seasons of American Idol (2002), earning him an Emmy Award and five nominations for Outstanding Directing and a nomination for the Directors Guild Award.
Bruce is often found calling the shots on the biggest award shows including The Emmys, The MTV Awards, The American Music Awards, The MTV Movie Awards, The Academy of Country Music Awards, The Espy Awards, The Comedy Awards, People's Choice Awards and The Billboard Awards. He has helmed many of the biggest event specials including Live Earth, Live 8, Woodstock Revisited, Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration (2001), The Grammy Nomination Concerts, Miss America, and single artist music specials for The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, Fleetwood Mac and Prince. His work on Genius: A Night for Ray Charles (2004) was recognized with a DGA Award win and an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Direction. Specials for Britney Spears, Prince and Barry Manilow were critical and ratings successes.
His career goes beyond his work on music and live event productions, with extensive credits in the comedy arena, such as the long-running series Whose Line Is It Anyway? (1998) and specials for Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Richard Lewis, Eddie Murphy and Jerry Seinfeld. Gowers' forays into kids programming has brought major successes to Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and PBS, where his name appears on the hit shows Teen Choice Awards, Kid's Choice Awards, Roundhouse (1992), the "Kidsongs" TV shows, The Amanda Show (1999) and All That (1994).
As an Executive Producer and Show Creator, Bruce is credited with the long-running hit "Kidsongs" videos, TV series and music franchise in addition to these successful television series: America's Funniest People (1990), "Spectacular World of Guinness Records", Dancin' to the Hits (1986) and "The Essence Awards". His best-known work is his landmark music video "Bohemian Rhapsody" for Queen and he is least known for his remarkable documentary on Salvador Dalí, "Hello Dali", which won him his first Emmy Award.- Producer
- Actor
- Music Department
With over 80 diverse motion pictures and more than 30 years of experience to his credit, native New Yorker and film producer Edward R. Pressman has forged a career of international renown, marked by originality and eclecticism. Throughout his maverick career, he has brought numerous emerging filmmakers together with projects that have put them firmly on the map. Pressman's reputation as a daring filmmaker was cemented with the international recognition of the French Cinematheque, which presented a 1989 retrospective of his films and awarded him the esteemed Chevalier des Arts et Letters medal. He's also received tributes from The National Film Theatre in London, New York's Museum of Modern Art, the Pacific Film Archives and Brooklyn Academy of Music's Cinematék. In 2003, Pressman was honored with the IFP Gotham Award for lifetime achievement.
Pressman's specialty is discovering new talent. He is known for fostering the careers of young and inspired filmmakers including Brian De Palma, Terrence Malick, Oliver Stone, Kathryn Bigelow, David Byrne, Charles Burnett, David Gordon Green, James Marsh, Wayne Kramer, and Jason Reitman. He is responsible for giving Alex Proyas his directorial debut with their breakout hit, The Crow (1994).
Over the years, Pressman has produced many director-driven, high profile projects, bringing new experiences to audiences with directors John Milius, David Mamet, Mary Harron, Abel Ferrara, and Barbet Schroeder. He has also established a reputation as an international producer, working with directors Wolfgang Petersen, the Taviani brothers, Fred Schepisi, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, David Hare, Bo Widerberg, Yimou Zhang, Michael Apted, and Werner Herzog.
The recent Pressman production Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), the sequel to the Oscar®-winning Wall Street (1987) starring Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan, and Frank Langella, marked his fourth collaboration with director Oliver Stone. Pressman's three-time collaboration with Abel Ferrara began with the cult classic Bad Lieutenant (1992) He has re-teamed with American Psycho (2000) director Mary Harron on The Moth Diaries (2011). Pressman also enjoys a unique collaboration in Sunflower Productions with long-time friend Terrence Malick.
Pressman is the son of the son of Lynn and Jack Pressman, who founded the Pressman Toy Corporation. He attended New York's Fieldston School, went on to graduate with honors from Stanford University with a B.A. in Philosophy, and pursued graduate studies at the London School of Economics. Pressman is married to Annie McEnroe, whom he met while she was starring in Oliver Stone's movie The Hand (1981). Their son Sam Pressman is an aspiring filmmaker.- Michael Lehrer was born on 1 December 1978 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for The Second City Presents: The Last Show Left on Earth (2020), Sports Action Team (2006) and Masters of the Internet (2017). He died on 17 January 2023 in Portland, Oregon, USA.
- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Gary Lee Conner is known for Daria (1997), We Tour Econo (2020) and Screaming Trees: Nearly Lost You (1993).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Arthur Duncan was drafted into a dance team with two friends while in school. He initially resisted, but they insisted he give it a try. He liked it, and began to take tap lessons.
For a few years Arthur worked in Australia, where he was a popular performer who was even offered his own TV show. Feeling that he was too young and experienced for the responsibility that would have come with the show, he turned it down. He explained that he was working regularly, so he didn't miss much. While in Australia he met and worked with Ken Delo, who he would later work with for many years on the Lawrence Welk show.
After returning to the US, Arthur asked an acquaintance in the business to inquire if Lawrence Welk had any interest in adding a performer like Arthur to his show. After a long wait, he was asked to an audition, and then a few months later to make a guest appearance. After another couple of guest appearances, Arthur appeared with the show during a run in Lake Tahoe. At the end of the last show there, Lawrence asked Arthur out onto the stage, commented to the audience that Arthur had become popular with them, and announced that he'd like Arthur to "join the Welk musical family". Arthur accepted, and thus began a run of decades on the show, during which it was very rare not to see Arthur have a tap solo, along with other dance numbers with fellow members of the cast.
It shouldn't go without mention that when Lawrence Welk put Arthur Duncan on his show, black performers were generally not well received by TV audiences of the time. Welk showed real courage in breaking the color barrier, and Arthur Duncan obviously won the admiration and respect of both live and TV audiences with his incredible talent, good humor, and pleasant personality.
(The above is based on an interview of Arthur Duncan on the Lawrence Welk shows syndicated on PBS).- Music Artist
- Actor
- Music Department
David Crosby was born on 14 August 1941 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a music artist and actor, known for Backdraft (1991), Hook (1991) and The Limey (1999). He was married to Jan Dance. He died on 18 January 2023 in Santa Ynez, California, USA.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Director
From the mid-1970s on, Sandra Seacat has been one of America's more sought-after and influential acting teachers/coaches. A method-based actor and teacher, closely associated with the Method's originator, her mentor Lee Strasberg, Seacat gradually became recognized as well for her groundbreaking work in the early eighties involving the application of Carl Gustav Jung's theories to acting technique and pedagogy, thus introducing the practice now known as dream work (also known as "The Way," much as Strasberg's Stanislavski-based system eventually came to be known as "The Method").
Born on October 2, 1936, Sandra Diane Seacat (whose first name, despite the spelling, is pronounced somewhere between 'Sondra' and 'Saundra') was the first of three daughters born to Lois Marion Seacat (née Cronic) and Russell Henry Seacat of Greensburg, Kansas.
After attending Northwestern University, Seacat made her way to New York, eventually being admitted to The Actors Studio, where she would become well versed in the method school of acting espoused by the Studio's director, Lee Strasberg. During the 1960s, Seacat began to get acting work in the city, appearing under her married name, Sandra Kaufman. In 1962, she earned plaudits from Village Voice critic Jerry Tallmer, making her New York stage debut in the American premiere of Leonid Andreyev's "Waltz of the Dogs," an Off-Off-Broadway production mounted by noted acting teacher - and Actors Studio member - Michael Howard.
While the next two years would be taken up with the birth and early rearing of her daughter Greta B. Kaufman (eventually also known as Greta Seacat), she returned to action in 1964 on Broadway with a small role in the Actors Studio production of Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters," starring Kim Stanley, Geraldine Page, and Shirley Knight (though neither she nor Knight would appear in the version eventually preserved on videotape).
For the remainder of the decade, as she continued to hone her craft at the Studio, doing scene work with future stage co-stars Ben Piazza and Will Hare, as well as Robert Walden and Robert Viharo, each of whom would remain longtime friends, Seacat (aka Kaufman) quickly became one of Strasberg's prize pupils, and one of the Method's most articulate exponents. Thus, at just about the time her first marriage was coming to an end, a new career path beckoned, when, in 1969, the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute was born.
By the early 1970s, Seacat was leading classes, not only at the Institute, but also at the City College of New York's Leonard Davis Center for the Performing Arts, as well as teaching privately. By 1980, she would also teach at John Strasberg's The Real Stage.
In the meantime, though, both Seacat's acting career - which, from this point forward, along with all other facets of her career, would be conducted under her maiden name - and her matrimonial status (in conjunction with fellow actor Michael Ebert) showed renewed signs of life, as the couple appeared together in a 1969 production of Brendan Behan's 'The Hostage," followed by the New Orleans Repertory Theater's June 1970 revival of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," directed by June Havoc, featuring Ebert as Harold "Mitch" Mitchell and E. Katherine Kerr as Blanche DuBois, as well as Seacat and Ben Piazza, respectively, as Stella and Stanley Kowalski.
Returning to New York, Seacat began to build her teaching practice. Among her early students were Treat Williams and Steve Railsback (the latter preparing for his film debut in Elia Kazan's The Visitors (1972)), and later, Lance Henriksen, Jessica Lange, and Mickey Rourke. Rourke would study with Seacat for several years in New York before departing for the west coast, and then, only at his mentor's behest.
Rourke has repeatedly cited his time with Seacat as the turning point in his career. "That's when everything started to click," he told Newsday in 1984, making a point - as he had in a New York Magazine profile the previous year - to contrast this with his disappointing Actors Studio stint ("I sat there a year, waiting for the teacup to develop in my hand"), saying of the Studio's director, "All I saw Lee do was tear people down." By contrast, speaking with the Los Angeles Times in 1984, Rourke credited Seacat with "channeling all it was that was messing me up into something creative and challenging."
Moreover, notwithstanding his subsequent disillusionment with the Studio, it was Seacat's counsel (as Rourke himself has mentioned more than once) - i.e. that, in order to bring some semblance of conviction to the scene Rourkee himself had chosen for his Actors Studio audition, he must immediately find his biological father (whom he hadn't seen in 20 years) - that enabled Rourke to realize his dream of membership in the alma mater of Brando, Clift and Dean. During Rourke's 2009 appearance on Inside the Actors Studio (1994), after describing his first affective memory, executed under Seacat's guidance more than thirty years before, the 56-year-old Rourke was asked whether he still used what Seacat had taught him. "Very much," he replied. (13 years earlier, a previous generation of ITAS viewers had witnessed Jessica Lange call Seacat "a powerful influence on my acting," and two years before that, Lance Henriksen had offered Film Comment readers an unsolicited 20-year-old recollection of "a great teacher named Sandra Seacat.")
During the 1970s, Seacat continued to juggle her teaching and acting careers, portraying the female leads in a number of Off and Off-Off-Broadway productions, as well as minor roles in three Broadway and Off Broadway shows, receiving particularly favorable notices in the 1973 revival of William Inge's "Natural Affection," co-starring Nathan George, and the American premiere of John Hopkins's "Economic Necessity" in 1976. Halfway between the two came a much-anticipated but ultimately disappointing Actors Studio revival of Harold Pinter's "Old Times." Presented in the fall of 1974 (and followed by a particularly disastrous January 1975 Actors Studio West reprise) with the nominal participation of 'supervising director' Arthur Penn, the production was, in essence, self-directed by its three actors, Seacat, Hildy Brooks, and Will Hare, a fact much lamented by reviewers.
In February 1975, upon Seacat's less than triumphant return to New York following the "Old Times" debacle, Seacat's CCNY employment afforded her a welcome distraction, in the form of an upcoming four-day, Davis Center event featuring playwrights Peter Shaffer, Edward Albee and Arthur Miller, moderated by director Alan Schneider. Starting on May 12 with a symposium entitled "Theatre in the University," and concluding with one day apiece devoted to the works of each of the three guests, with student performances followed by discussions with the respective playwrights, the final day would be devoted to Arthur Miller's work, with each grade level in the Davis Center's acting program performing a scene from a different Miller opus.
The play assigned to Seacat's freshman class was "A View from the Bridge." After choosing as their showcase the final scene from Act One, she cast four of her regular students, but reserved the central role of Eddie Carbone for one of her private students who had just started auditing the class. And thus did Seacat, in this somewhat obscure setting, come to direct the stage debut of the as-yet unknown Mickey Rourke.
Starting in 1978 (after minor roles in two TV specials, NBC's Bicentennial tribute, First Ladies Diaries: Edith Wilson (1976), and Hallmark Hall of Fame's premiere presentation of Arthur Miller's Fame (1978), Seacat's stage career concluded on a decidedly anticlimactic note: a pair of smaller roles, albeit within the context of two somewhat notable productions - one being the first work to be staged in the new Harold Clurman Theatre, Eugene Ionesco''s "The Lesson;" the other, a rare directorial credit for Ellen Burstyn, in the 1979 Actors Studio production of Norman Krasna's rarely revived "Bunny."
In fact, 1978 provided a number of punctuation points for Seacat. Early that year, two significant eras had come to an end - first, on January 26, the end of her marriage to Michael Ebert, and next, just two days later, the death of her father, Russell. This was also the year Seacat persuaded her prize pupil Rourke that there was nothing further to be gained by staying in New York, that it was time to go west and test his fortunes in Hollywood.
Certainly, given her circumstances at that moment, one could see such advice applying equally to Seacat herself, and, indeed, by the early 1980s, Seacat had expanded her base of operations, teaching in both New York and Los Angeles (as she has continued to do ever since), helping actors like Lange, Rachel Ward, and Marlo Thomas give career-changing performances. On March 29, 1983, just weeks after the announcement of Lange's dual Oscar nominations, Seacat was acknowledged by the Associated Press as the one who "helped turn Jessica Lange from King Kong's consort into the soulful actress in Frances (1982) and Tootsie (1982)." A few years later, Liz Smith would acknowledge Seacat for "helping Jessica Lange to her Oscar and Marlo Thomas to her Emmy." Lange herself later told both James Lipton and Vanity Fair just how pivotal Seacat's contribution had been, both for her career in general and, in particular, her portrayal of Frances Farmer.
Regarding the latter, and the intensive nature of that collaboration, J.T. Jeffries writes in his 1986 biography of Lange: "In the spring of 1981, while still breast-feeding her newborn daughter by Baryshnikov, she worked on each scene with her coach, Sandra Seacat... Seacat had expanded her theatrical repertoire in recent years to include techniques from Eastern meditation. Lange regularly used those deep relaxation techniques on the set to improve her concentration in the grueling role." (For screen novice Baryshnikov, the Seacat connection - and those relaxation techniques in particular - would prove a welcome legacy of his relationship with Lange, long since ended by 1985, when the legendary dancer was coached by Seacat on the set of White Nights (1985).)
Regarding the Emmy-winning performance that would help transform the image of Marlo Thomas (at least within the industry), from the indefatigable, relentlessly upbeat protagonist of That Girl (1966) to an actor who could take on any role and be taken seriously doing it, Thomas writes in her 2010 autobiography: "I only wish Lee [Strasberg] could have lived to see me portray a schizophrenic in Nobody's Child (1986). I never could have gotten near playing that kind of part without Lee's exercises, and the subsequent work I did and continue to do with his primary disciple, the brilliant Sandra Seacat."
Of the three career turning points mentioned above, Rachel Ward's transformation - culminating in her Golden Globe-nominated lead performance in The Thorn Birds (1983) - stands out. In the fall of 1982 and continuing on through the following winter, even as Lange's two Oscar-nominated performances were receiving applause, acclaim, and, eventually, awards, the then inexperienced Ward was undergoing a rigorous makeover program under Seacat's guidance. But simply in order to get to that point, Ward first had to get the part. As the Associated Press reports: "Ward's first reading before producers David L. Wolper and Stan Margulies was disastrous. So she hired drama coach Sondra [sic] Seacat." "I studied exhaustively for two weeks," recalled Ward, "went back and did a screen test with Richard." According to Margulies, Ward's second reading "was so breathtaking that she got the part right there. But our questions were whether she could do it over the five-month shooting period."
Seacat had no problem answering those questions, but her prescription was radical, and required Ward's active participation and unwavering commitment. To her credit, Ward did not disappoint; under Seacat's direction, she gave up cigarettes and meat, started a daily exercise regimen, and - utilizing those same meditation techniques used by Lange to such great effect just months before - learned to calm her mind and focus on the task at hand. "You can almost see her develop as an actress in 'Thorn Birds,'" reported the Chicago Tribune. "By the finish, her Meggie is much stronger, more worldly, compassionate. The changes were in character, but they were taking place in Ward too. Thanks, in large part, to Seacat."
"She's extraordinary," Ward said of her new mentor. "She made me work in a totally different way than I'd ever worked before. For the first time, I really worked on technique... It was definitely not an easy five months. It was a lot of tying things together and understanding and confusion and frustration and anger. I asked a lot of questions about acting and about me and stuff, and Sandra just had these answers, and they were just like, of course, oh my God, of course!"
It was during this same period, as reported by The New York Times more than 25 years later, that Seacat's Jung-inspired experiments ushered in the now widespread practice known as dream work, wherein actors interpret and sometimes influence their own dreams, often casting and staging those dreams in the process, all in the interests of achieving the richest, most genuine characterization possible. A number of the younger dream work practitioners, such as Elizabeth Kemp, Kim Gillingham, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, and actor/directors John Markland and Jamie Wollrab, as well as Sandra's daughter and fellow acting coach, Greta, all claim Seacat as their mentor. Moreover, longtime Seacat clients Melanie Griffith and Gina Gershon, as well as onetime student, Diane Salinger, have long been on record regarding the impact this innovation has had on their own careers.
"In Sandra's class," recalled Salinger in 1987, "we had dream assignments where, before you went to sleep, you'd write out an assignment to yourself, and dream dreams that had connections to the work you were doing. I've done that with this play." "It's a great way to open yourself up," insisted Griffith in a 1986 interview. "It's been very healthy for me, because I think our interior soul knows a lot more about ourselves than our conscious intellect ever allows you to think about." More recently, Hélène Cardona, a Paris-born poet, translator and actor who studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Actors Studio in the early 1990s, recalled: "When I trained with Sandra Seacat at the Actors Studio in New York, she introduced me to a particular form of dream work. You could call it Jungian. I have kept doing this work for many years now. It's very therapeutic, a more holistic approach to [sic] medicine. And it can also be used to develop a character in a play or movie. You dig into yourself to find the answers. In the dream you are connected to your inner self and to the divine."
Gershon is particularly passionate on the subject, speaking in a 1998 interview: "Sandra totally changed my acting. Instinctively, I was always in love with psychology and my dream life had always been very important to me... What's really exciting to me about Sandra's work is that it changes your life, almost on a psychic level. Now I'll get parts and in working on them, she'll say, 'Well, let's see how you're developing, as a human being.' Because the parts you're doing, it's no accident. Those parts affect your life and they kind of illustrate the map that your life is following." As recently as August 26, 2012, speaking with The Lab Magazine, Gershon reaffirmed the importance of Seacat and dream work to her career.
In a 2001 interview with Back Stage West, another longtime Seacat client of mid-eighties vintage, Laura Dern, went public. While not specifically referencing dream work, Dern echoes both Gershon, Cardona and Rachel Ward in her portrayal of Seacat's holistic, almost therapeutic approach, a characteristic previously noted in 1994 by erstwhile Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter ("better than any therapist," Carter told USA Today, regarding the time spent studying with Seacat: "you strip yourself of ego, and the whole experience unearths all your analytical feelings and self-discovery"), and one which brings to mind another Jungian archetype central to Seacat's career from at least the 1980s onward; as Seacat would tell the New York Times in 2009, "I believe that the artist is a wounded healer, that they are healing wounds of their own, and when they do that truthfully, they heal the audience." Dern recalled:
"Through studying and through being raised on movie sets, I was surrounded by a lot of people who believed that the more tortured the person, the greater the artist. I always had a hard time understanding that, but thought, 'I guess that's the way it is'... Luckily through life and the gift of the acting teacher who's changed my life in so many ways since 1984 (her name is Sandra Seacat), I learned there's another opinion, which is: the better the person, the better the artist. The more true you are to who you are and the more honest you are as an individual, the more honest you can be as an actor, and I'm really liking that." Asked if she still studied, Dern replied, "I still study with Sandra and I love studying."
Speaking again with BSW in 2004, Dern elaborated: "All of a sudden, this new idea that the parts I play help me discover myself and I could maybe be kinder to the ambiguous places and the flaws - I was so lifted by that. Since then, I feel like it's an extraordinary experience of therapy and learning about being in the moment and honoring that. All of a sudden, acting wasn't this torment where you're supposed to be a screwed-up artist, but it's an opportunity for self-growth. And I think I've had fun ever since." Finally, in January 2012, at the [error], Dern reaffirmed the connection, thanking Seacat in her acceptance speech for Best Actress in HBO's Enlightened (2011), the first two episodes of which had each featured Seacat in a small role.
In 1988, with her dream work innovations now well underway, and some well-publicized individual success stories under her belt, a unique opportunity came Seacat's way - that being the chance to direct a feature film. This would eventually become In the Spirit (1990), the first, and as yet, only film Seacat has directed, "a low-budget pic," as Variety would note, featuring "big-name talent."
The over-qualified/underpaid cast included no less than three of Seacat's regular clients, Marlo Thomas, Melanie Griffith and Peter Falk, as well as Olympia Dukakis at the height of her popularity, having just collected her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Moonstruck (1987). Arguably the film's casting coup, however (and probably the positive element most frequently cited by reviewers), was landing the celebrated writer/performer Elaine May to co-star opposite Thomas (with May's daughter, Jeannie Berlin, who co-authored the screenplay, also appearing).
Very much a homegrown New York product (a passing reference to The Robin Byrd Show (1977) being just one of several inside jokes contained therein), the supporting cast featured an assortment of local luminaries, some of them professional actors, some not. The former group included both indie icons - e.g. Michael Emil, Mark Boone Junior and Rockets Redglare - and 'legit' stage and TV actors such as Hope Cameron and Gary Swanson (both fellow Actor Studio members); the latter, such miscellaneous notables as Fox TV anchor/reporter Steve Powers, musicians Roy Nathanson and Nora York, and playwright Christopher Durang. Of the remaining bit players, at least two were Seacat students, Phil Harper and Emidio La Vella (the latter of whom would be Seacat's first post-ITS coaching client in 1990). Moreover, making his film debut here was Seacat's current husband, Thurn Hoffman.
Notwithstanding numerous press references to Seacat's screen directing debut, both before and after the film's release (almost all citing her storied coaching career), Seacat herself maintained a characteristically low profile throughout, surfacing only long enough to contribute one sentence to an article on the film's producer, Julian Schlossberg: "There are two main things about Julian -- he has a big heart and he goes the distance." Speaking of Schlossberg, co-star Elaine May got into the act as well, providing her own characteristically tongue-in-cheek teaser, a mock-interview with the producer on the making and marketing of ITS, published in the New York Times just days before the film's release.
Regarding May, Liz Smith would report (circa December 1988, shortly after the film had wrapped): "Recent remarks here about the genius that is Elaine May brought forth the encouraging news that we'll soon see this gifted actress in a new suspense movie written by her daughter Jeannie Berlin (with co-writer Laurie Jones). In the Spirit had all its money raised independently by producers Julian Schlossberg and Beverly Irby. They're now editing the film and seeking a distributor for release next spring. The cast is a staggering one -- Elaine and daughter, as well as Peter Falk, Melanie Griffith, Marlo Thomas, Olympia Dukakis and Louise Lasser. The director was an interesting choice: Sandra Seacat, acting coach and guru to many stars..."
In retrospect, given both the fact that Louise Lasser - barely visible in the finished film and nowhere to be seen in its credits - was still being announced as one of the film's featured players even after the film had wrapped, and that the film itself would not make it to theaters until more than a year past its estimated release date, one becomes better prepared for the reality of ITS's narrative disarray - a reality made obvious by the titles themselves in this broad sample of reviews: "Grand and Goofy Comedy," "'In the Spirit' - An Endearing Mess," "Screwball Comedy Holds Up Even When Plot Sags," "Spirit Loses Its Comic Flair Halfway Through," "'Spirit' Amusing, But Unpolished," "'In the Spirit' Needs a Bit More Body," "'In The Spirit' Needs To Be More Perky, Less Poky," and "A Few Screws Are Loose But 'In The Spirit' Offers A Rare Glimpse Of Elaine May In A Feminist Comedy."
As one can see, critical reaction among the nation's dailies was mixed at best. Two reactions were almost universal: appreciation for the film's performances, especially those of the two leads, as well as disdain for its technical shortcomings - seen primarily in the areas of camera placement and pacing, as well as the aforementioned matter of narrative construction. What distinguished the favorable from the unfavorable review in these cases was largely a matter of emphasis. Unfortunately for Seacat, when it came to evaluating her impact on the finished film, the emphasis was placed almost exclusively on the shortcomings. And while reviewers had, almost without exception, made the obligatory mention of Seacat's storied coaching career, in practice, it appears, few felt compelled to credit her with even contributing to her actors' success.
Two of the more sympathetic reviews, by Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune and ex-Village Voice critic Carrie Rickey, writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer, tended however to bypass both Seacat and the film's screenwriter, Jeannie Berlin, and instead credit Elaine May as the film's true auteur.
Two of the film's most merciless drubbings were administered, respectively, by the Washington Times ("New Age 'Spirit' Gets Old and Boring Quickly") and by the Chicago Sun-Times ("The Mystery of 'Spirit' is Finding Film's Funny Parts"); however, given the film's target audience (even the Los Angeles Daily News called it "a flat-out New York comedy, with all of the pluses and minuses"), the most damaging blow of all was almost certainly delivered by the New York Times' Janet Maslin, with her considerably more polite, yet thoroughly condescending dismissal:
"The beneficial power of crystals has done nothing for In the Spirit, a nervous new-age comedy much more notable for good intentions than good luck. A rare appearance by Elaine May, who co-stars with Marlo Thomas in what proves to be an unexpectedly mundane caper story, and a directing credit for the respected acting coach Sandra Seacat give In the Spirit a lot more curiosity value than it would otherwise have... Ms. Seacat's direction is especially strange, since it is so thoroughly unaccommodating to the actors. The camera is treated as if it were radioactive, never being allowed to linger where a performer might be heard clearly or shown off to good advantage." Even the generally lauded female leads do not escape unscathed: "The actors, especially Ms. May and Ms. Thomas, spend a lot of time yammering simultaneously in time-honored sitcom style."
If America's original paper of record had delivered one of Spirit's most resounding pans, it would fall to the entertainment industry's trade 'paper of record' to supply arguably its most simpatico critique (though it did little to help the movie's less than middling box office returns). Not merely echoing the critical consensus regarding Thomas' and May's "memorable screen odd couple," Variety embraced the film itself, portraying its limitations as strengths: "an unusual case of big-name talent gathering with friends to make a low-budget pic freed of mainstream good taste and gloss." While not oblivious of the film's structural issues ("weakest element being a stupid framing device of a mystical narrator... midway shift in tone may put off some viewers, but others will likely relish the intensity of the May and Thomas segment"), it was Variety, virtually alone among reviewers, that cited Seacat for something beyond merely her ability to handle actors: "First-time director Sandra Seacat emphasizes slapstick but also female bonding as the gals on the lam reach beyond their wacky survivalist tactics to address feminist issues."
After Seacat's extended directorial excursion, the transition back to her customary regimen was eased considerably by the fact that the clients for her next few coaching projects were all ITS cast members. First, as previously mentioned, was Emidio La Vella in Un metro all'alba (1990). Next in line was Thomas herself, on Held Hostage: The Sis and Jerry Levin Story (1991); in addition, Seacat would work with Melanie Griffith on Born Yesterday (1993), and with Thomas again on Reunion (1994). Back on the east coast, Seacat would join the faculty of the recently formed Actors Studio Drama School at the New School for Social Research in the fall of 1996.
Starting in 1999, Seacat embarked on an unprecedented binge of media exposure, becoming the 'talking head' on three TV documentaries in the space of two years, and, even more uncharacteristically, speaking at length about three of her clients in the process. Despite this seeming incongruity, given Seacat's customary regard for client confidentiality (witness the Sandra Seacat entry at TakeHollywood.com), the fact is that, whenever a given actor has had no qualms about revealing their working relationship, or has already done so, Seacat has always been happy to grant interviews on the subject, as she did at length in 1983 for New York Magazine's Mickey Rourke profile. Speaking of whom, Rourke is the subject of the first of these three documentaries (as well as one in 2008, in which Seacat also participated), followed, respectively, by two very vocal Seacat champions, Laura Dern and Jessica Lange.
Another Seacat outburst, addressed not merely to the press, but to one of her longstanding client's potential employers, would occur in 2003, part of an image makeover much like that of Seacat's oft-recounted early success stories, Jessica Lange and Marlo Thomas, especially the latter, another era's perpetually perky, seemingly ubiquitous paragon of 'cute.' This time, however, instead of a sixties sitcom princess, it was the nineties romcom queen, Meg Ryan, who was chomping at the bit for some more challenging roles. While working with Seacat on her upcoming Jackie Kallen biopic, Against the Ropes (2004), Ryan saw the opportunity for an even more radical departure with Nicole Kidman's early exit from Jane Campion's In the Cut (2003).
Interviewed shortly before the film's release, Campion recounted Seacat's surprising phone intervention: "Sandra said, 'Look, I'm working with Meg Ryan. I've never done this before, but she's doing amazing work. You should audition her.' And I said, 'Audition Meg? Do you think she'd audition?' She said, 'Sure, she would.'"
Ryan would indeed audition, and for helping Campion get beyond her preconceptions, the grateful director likened Seacat to "a fairy godmother who takes the mists away." As it happens, Campion's preconceptions were not unlike those of the many reviewers who would find Ryan's performance a revelation, as well as the most interesting and accomplished element within a not so successful film. Speaking for public consumption, Seacat reiterated: "Meg has great courage and discipline and commitment. Her talent is large, and her potential is vast."
The following year, speaking with Newsday on the set of We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004), exactly one week after the film's co-star, Laura Dern, had expanded upon her own 2001 tribute to Seacat, her longtime teacher returned the favor: "'Laura is a free spirit,' says Sandra Seacat, the celebrated acting coach and a longtime associate of Dern's. 'She's also a great student and a dedicated artist - and there aren't very many people I call artists. But the entire cast of this film [including also Mark Ruffalo, Naomi Watts, and Peter Krause], they're all true artists, dedicated to their own inner truth, and they have the courage to share that. You don't find that very often.'"
As the decade wore on, perhaps fueled by dream work's increasing popularity, Seacat's name began to be seen in print more frequently, some of the mentions dreamwork-related, others - like those by Dern, Marlo Thomas, or Mickey Rourke - simply satisfied customers reaffirming their indebtedness.
Speaking with Back Stage in 2010, acting teacher Alex Cole Taylor called Seacat "a beautiful woman and a beautiful artist'," as well as the primary model for Taylor's compassionate and nurturing stance towards his own students. Speaking with CNN in 2012, acting coach and dream work practitioner Elizabeth Kemp paired Seacat with Lee Strasberg as two of the teachers to whom she was most deeply indebted. Moreover, two of Seacat's students, actor/directors Jamie Wollrab and John Markland, have each been putting Seacat's teachings into practice, one play at a time - Wollrab, with his Triptych Theatre; Markland, with the Moth Theatre Company, itself composed largely, if not entirely, of fellow Seacat alumni (including Scoot McNairy, Pamela Guest, Dov Tiefenbach, Anna Rose Hopkins, and Kris Lemche), recently incorporating Wollrab as well. The latter's words -- quoted in Steve Julian's 2010 Moth Theatre profile -- echo those of his mentor, just one year before: "'More than anything,' Wollrab says, 'we're wounded healers. Each of us. I think that's why audiences keep taking to our work.' Work he describes as fragile and beautiful."
As it happens, Wollrab had hitherto collaborated with his teacher on just such work, when, in August 2007, more than four decades and a quarter of a century, respectively, after Seacat's previous notable forays into directing, she would oversee Wollrab's direction of Elizabeth Meriwether's play, "The Mistakes Madeline Made," staged at Boulder, Colorado's Dairy Center for the Arts.
As in her previous directorial assignments, Seacat was again supervising a number of current and/or former students, including, along with the director, her daughter Greta Seacat, Justin Chatwin, Shannon Woodward, and the late Johnny Lewis. The younger Ms. Seacat's performance garnered particularly favorable notices, dubbed "steady and grounded" by Mark Collins of the Boulder Daily Camera, and "a marvel" by Lisa Bornstein of the Rocky Mountain News: "Simplistic (she frequently shuts her laptop to avoid news of Iraq) and authoritarian, but awkwardly kind as well, Beth is annoying, but she knows it; in Seacat's hands, she's funny and real."
Regarding Seacat Sr., one happy addendum: roughly coinciding with the millennial media spike in Seacat sightings was a corresponding increase in the size and substance of her film roles. Seacat's screen resumé had long seemed little more than a collection of discreetly camouflaged acting coach credits, typically a small part contained in one or two scenes within a film which itself featured one or more of Seacat's coaching clients - well-acted, in and of itself, but, as conceived, simply too perfunctory and/or peripheral to the film's narrative to register strongly. (For a perfect case in point, witness Seacat's 5½-minute one-and-done appearance in The Golden Seal (1983) with Steve Railsback, starting at the '01:23:14 remaining' mark; IMDb provides free access to the film in its entirety.)
This began to change in 1999 with a series of three consecutive films, each one featuring Seacat as the protagonist's mother. In the first two, Crazy in Alabama (1999) and Daddy and Them (2001) (portraying, respectively, 'Crazy' Melanie Griffith's concerned mom, and 'Daddy' Andy Griffith's oft seen, but rarely heard wife), the upgrades were subtle, to be sure; nonetheless, Seacat was onscreen far more - and at more crucial points in the narrative - than in any of her previous films.
It was 2003, however, that brought the most dramatic change, not just from a subsidiary to a starring role, but from the almost mute matriarch of D&T's constantly bickering clan (blocking out the most intense or awkward moments with her trusty Macarena monkey) to the vigorously - and vocally - proactive 'normalizer' of the equally - if less loudly - dysfunctional family in A Little Crazy (2003).
Co-starring Seacat students Jack Kerrigan, Kim Gillingham, and Kirk Baltz, "A Little Crazy" debuted at the 2003 Method Fest, earning Kerrigan a nomination for the festival's John Garfield Award, and, for the film itself, a rave review from Variety's Robert Koehler, praising, in particular, "the superb Seacat," as the "overreaching but never strident" matriarch of the film's "unhinged American family." Sadly, despite the review and subsequent awards from the Berkeley Video & Film Festival, the Hollywood MiniDV Festival, and the Los Angeles Silver Lake Film Festival, the independently produced film found neither a theatrical nor a DVD release (though it has, as of 2010, become available online via IndieFlix); as a result, what is almost certainly Seacat's most sizable and fleshed-out film performance to date has gone largely unseen.
Her next assignment, another independently made feature that would not see a theatrical release (again co-starring Kim Gillingham), In the Land of Milk and Money (2004), features Seacat in a much smaller role, but again a pivotal one, in a film which, none too skillfully, harkens back to the cautionary sci-fi tales of the fifties, as well as the neo-zombie variations of the seventies and beyond, in its tale of genetically modified cow's milk generating an epidemic of mothers killing their offspring. As one of the affected mothers, Seacat, in a handful of scenes, with a minimum of screen time and dialogue, gives an acting clinic, shifting from unreadable rage to transparent delight, from grief-stricken, guilt-ridden parent to righteous avenger.
Seacat's next few post-millennial assignments included a number of independently made films that remain, for better or worse, even harder to get a hold of than the previous two. More recently, however, have come brief but high-impact performances in a pair of relatively high-profile projects, HBO's You Don't Know Jack (2010), starring Al Pacino as Jack Kevorkian, aka 'Dr. Death' (and featuring Seacat as his first 'patient,' the Alzheimers-afflicted Janet Adkins), as well as actor Mark Ruffalo's feature film directing debut, Sympathy for Delicious (2010), wherein Seacat has an even smaller, but equally pivotal, role.
The former, in particular, caught the eye of Columbia University MFA candidate Jed Cowley in the fall of 2011, then casting his thesis film, a short subject set - and shot - in a shale pit in the filmmaker's home town of Medford, Oregon. As he would later recall, it took no more than one viewing of Seacat's brief but telling appearance in the Kevorkian biopic before Cowley and his producer "knew she should be Sheila," Shale (2012)'s long-suffering but "newly empowered" protagonist, the "once dutiful wife" now confronting her intractable ex-spouse against the shale pit's stark backdrop.
With Seacat in attendance, "Shale" had its premiere on May 5, 2012, at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, as part of the Columbia University Film Festival, where the film would earn the IFC Audience Choice Award. The film is also an official selection at the 2013 Slamdance Festival in Park City, Utah, screening with the South-African-set feature, Fynbos (2012), on Friday, January 18th, at 7 PM, and again on Tuesday the 22nd, at 12 noon.
As already mentioned, Seacat also appeared recently in the first two episodes of Laura Dern's HBO series "Enlightened," as well as the feature film, The Time Being (2012), representing the directing and screenwriting debuts, respectively, of Nenad Cicin-Sain and producer Richard N. Gladstein.
Seacat's next scheduled appearance is in Gia Coppola's feature film directing debut, still in pre-production, entitled Palo Alto (2013), based on short stories by James Franco.
In the meantime, Seacat has not neglected her educational mission; in fact, while remaining active on both coasts, she also recently made inroads into the heartland, when, on March 8, 2012, together with longtime friend and colleague, Robert Walden, and several others, she became a founding faculty member of the newly instituted Winthrop Rockefeller Institute Film Forum, a three-day, multi-disciplinary seminar to be hosted annually by the University of Arkansas.- Actor
- Director
Wally Campo was born on 23 April 1923 in Alameda, California, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Shock Corridor (1963) and Master of the World (1961). He was married to Geraldine Matthews. He died on 14 January 2023 in Studio City, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Music Department
- Editor
- Editorial Department
Donn Cambern was born on 9 October 1929 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an editor, known for Romancing the Stone (1984), The Bodyguard (1992) and Ghostbusters II (1989). He was married to Patricia Lee Cambern. He died on 18 January 2023 in the USA.- Tim Barlow was born on 18 January 1936 in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Hot Fuzz (2007), Les Misérables (1998) and Automata (2014). He died on 20 January 2023 in the UK.
- While best remembered as Ernest Borgnine's Japanese prisoner-of-war Fuji Kobiashi in the wartime sitcom McHale's Navy (1962), Yoshio Yoda came to acting reluctantly and purely by accident. Born in Tokyo, the only son of Honshu middle-class manufacturers, he initially studied law at the prestigious Keio University. However, he quickly realized that neither law nor industry suited his aspirations. A chance meeting with motion picture executive Edward Ugast (1900-1964), general manager in Asia for 20th Century Fox and Vice-President of Four Star Films, persuaded Yoda to study cinema technique in the United States with the prospect of becoming a producer. In 1958, Yoda arrived in California and enrolled at USC.
Three years into his studies, Yoda's faculty was contacted by producer Joe Pasternak at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who was casting for an Asian actor required to be fluent in both English and Japanese. Yoda naturally fitted the bill. Despite his initial misgivings, a mere ten minute interview led to the youngster being signed for the role of Sgt. Roy Tada in The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962), a comedy starring Jim Hutton and Paula Prentiss. On the strength of his performance he was subsequently able to secure the gig on McHale's Navy. When that series had run its course, so did Yoda's acting career. After one more brief TV appearance in 1969, he returned to his roots to forge a career in the car manufacture business at Toyota. He lived in Hawaii for fifteen years, became a United States citizen under the name of James Yoda, and, by 1987, had risen to the position of assistant vice president of inventory and senior division manager. He later resided in Fullerton, California. - Lloyd Morrisett Jr. was born on 2 November 1929 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. He was a writer, known for Sesame Street (1969), Sesame Street and The Electric Company (2006). He was married to Mary Pierre. He died on 15 January 2023 in San Diego, California, USA.
- Sal Piro was born on 29 June 1950 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for Fame (1980), Four Deadly Reasons (2002) and Third Watch (1999). He died on 22 January 2023 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Elisabeth Carmen Sturm was born in Spain, raised in Germany, and came to California in the late 1950s. As a young, single actress, she lived at the famous Hollywood Studio Club. She became a United States citizen in 1966, aged 33.
In 1962, she was cast in Timothy Carey's The World's Greatest Sinner (1962) but due to a financial dispute with the producer, coupled with the dragged-out, year-long shooting schedule, she opted not to complete work on the picture. She appeared in the final cut of the film in several dramatic scenes. She received credit in the end titles, but originally her role in the film was much more significant as a major supporting character. Betty reluctantly took Carey to the labor commissioner, and finally received financial compensation for her acting work. She later appeared in another independent film, but then married former actor turned entertainment attorney Robert Winckler, and quit acting altogether. They had two children: a daughter, Patricia Winckler-Tousignant, and a son, writer/producer/director William Winckler.
Betty Sturm Winckler died in 2023, aged 89, of Alzheimer's disease. - Top Topham died on 23 January 2023 in England, UK.
- Writer
- Producer
- Actress
Lynnette Hardaway was born on 25 November 1971 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She was a writer and producer, known for Diamond & Silk Settles It, Diamond and Silk Breaking News (2015) and Diamond and Silk Crystal Clear (2020). She died on 8 January 2023 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA.- Lance Kerwin was born on 6 November 1960 in Newport Beach, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Outbreak (1995), Enemy Mine (1985) and Salem's Lot (1979). He was married to Yvonne Kerwin and Kristen Lansdale. He died on 24 January 2023 in San Clemente, California, USA.
- B.G. The Prince of Rap was an actor and composer, known for B.G. The Prince of Rap: This Beat Is Hot (Version 1) (1991), B.G. The Prince of Rap: This Beat Is Hot (Version 2) (1991) and B.G. The Prince of Rap: Give Me the Music (1991). He died on 21 January 2023 in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany.
- Soundtrack
Dean Daughtry was born on 8 September 1946 in Kinston, Alabama, USA. Dean was married to Donna Daughtry. Dean died on 26 January 2023 in Huntsville, Alabama, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
London-born Sylvia May Laura Syms hit major film appeal at a relatively young age. Born on January 6, 1934, she was educated at convent schools before receiving dramatic training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She made her stage debut in a production of "The Apple Cart" in 1954.
A repertory player by the time she was discovered for films by the British star Anna Neagle and her director/husband Herbert Wilcox, the lovely demure blonde started out auspiciously enough in the delinquent film Teenage Bad Girl (1956) in which she played Neagle's troubled daughter. This was followed by a second Neagle/Wilcox collaboration with No Time for Tears (1957).
Excelling whether cast in stark melodrama, spirited adventure or harmless comedy fluff, Syms' film list grew impressive in the late 1950s and early 1960s working alongside the likes of John Mills and Anthony Quayle in Ice Cold in Alex (1958), Curd Jürgens and Orson Welles in Ferry to Hong Kong (1959), Lilli Palmer and Yvonne Mitchell in Conspiracy of Hearts (1960), Laurence Harvey in Expresso Bongo (1959), William Holden in The World of Suzie Wong (1960), and Dirk Bogarde in the landmark gay-themed Victim (1961), playing the unsuspecting wife of Bogarde's closeted male. After nearly a decade's absence, Sylvia returned briefly to the London theatre lights in 1964 to play the title role in "Peter Pan."
Ably portraying innocent love interests throughout the years, she graced a number of pictures without ever nabbing that one role that would truly put her over the top. She was nominated, however, three times for British Film Academy Awards--twice for best actress in Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) and No Trees in the Street (1959) and once for supporting actress in The Tamarind Seed (1974) that starred Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif.
The 1970s saw quite a bit of TV series work and she played British prime minister Margaret Thatcher at one point on both stage and TV. She grew plumper with middle age and found herself immersed in character roles, offering support in such films as Absolute Beginners (1986), Shirley Valentine (1989) and Shining Through (1992).
The stage once again beckoned in the mid-to-late 1980's with touring performances, among many others, in "The Heiress," "The Beaux Stratagem," "The Ideal Husband," "A Doll's House," "Ghosts," "The Vortex," "Hamlet," "Anthony and Cleopatra" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" She portrayed the Queen and Margaret Thatcher in a production of "Ugly Rumours" and was among the cast in a musical presentation of "On the Town" in 2005.
Into the millennium, Sylvia has continued to have remarkable agility. American audiences have recently seen her as the dog-doting "Princess Charlotte" in the light teen comedy What a Girl Wants (2003) with Amanda Bynes and Colin Firth, and treading water as the Shelley Winters character in the TV-remake of The Poseidon Adventure (2005). Other movies have included the role of the Queen Mum in The Queen (2006) starring Oscar-winning Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, as well as featured roles in Is Anybody There? (2008) starring Michael Caine and Booked Out (2012). She also co-starred opposite Peter Bowles in the heart-warming senior character study Together (2018).
Married once and divorced in the 1980s from Alvin Edney, daughter Beatie Edney (aka Beatrice) is a highly prolific actress in her own right, and her son, Benjamin Edney, was briefly an actor while young and appeared with his mother as her son in the western The Desperados (1969). Ms. Syms is sometimes confused with Brooklyn-born jazz/cabaret performer and recording artist Sylvia Syms (1917-1992) (née Sylvia Blagman).- Writer
- Producer
- Script and Continuity Department
Gregory Allen Howard was born on 28 January 1952 in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Harriet (2019), Remember the Titans (2000) and Ali (2001). He died on 27 January 2023 in Miami, Florida, USA.- Composer
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Tom Verlaine was born on 13 December 1949 in Morristown, New Jersey, USA. He was a composer, known for The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), I'm Not There (2007) and Gold (2016). He died on 28 January 2023 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Mandeep Roy was born on 4 April 1949 in Karnataka, India. He was an actor, known for Nishkarsha (1993), Murder (1994) and Akasmika (1993). He died on 29 January 2023 in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
- Actress
- Producer
Viola Léger was born on June 29, 1930 in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, United States but spent most of her life in Canada. One of her best known roles is that of "La Sagouine" written by Antonine Maillet, a role she performed over 2, 500 times, winning rave reviews.
She was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 2001 at the recommendation of then Prime Minister Chrétien, representing L'Acadie, New Brunswick. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1989. She was awarded the Order of New Brunswick in 2007.
In 2013, she received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for her work as an actress. She died in New Brunswick, Canada, on January 28, 2023, aged 92.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Soul music singer and songwriter Barrett Strong was born on February 5, 1941, in Westpoint, Mississippi. He moved to Detroit, Michigan, and was one of the first artists to sign with Berry Gordy's legendary Motown Records label in the early 1960s. In fact, his recording of "Money (That's What I Want)" on the Anna Records label in 1960 was so successful (it peaked at #2 on the R&B radio charts and almost cracked the Top 20 pop charts) that it produced the necessary capital for Gordy to start his Motown label (the song has been covered by such artists as The Beatles, The Searchers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Guy and The Flying Lizards). Strong wrote, played piano and sang vocals on many early Motown recordings. He frequently collaborated on songs with noted producer and songwriter Norman Whitfield. Among the many classic soul songs Barrett co-wrote for Motown are "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", "War", "Smiling Faces Sometimes", "Cloud Nine", "I Can't Get Next to You", "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World is Today)", "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby", "Just My Imagination" and "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone." In addition, he co-wrote "Take Me in Your Arms and Love Me" for Gladys Knight and The Pips. In 1972 Strong left Motown and signed with Epic Records. After one failed single with Epic, he went on to record two albums for Capitol Records in the mid-'70s. Strong continued to work in the 1980s: he recorded the single "Rock It Easy" on an independent label in 1981 and both wrote and arranged "You Can Depend on Me" for the album "The Second Time" by The Dells in 1988. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.- This talented actress was born Anne Marie Wersching and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. She opted early on for a life in the entertainment industry, performing in community theatre and later as a dancer for some fourteen years with a troupe called the St. Louis Celtic Stepdancers. After moving to Chicago, she acted in several touring plays and at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. In 1999, Wersching graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theatre from the Millikin University School of Theater and Dance in Decatur, Illinois. Moving to Los Angeles, two years later, she appeared in a revival of the Stephen Sondheim-Richard Rodgers-Arthur Laurents musical "Do I Hear a Waltz?" at the Pasadena Playhouse, as well as making her screen debut in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001).
Testament to her acting skill have been lengthy stints on popular prime time series like 24 (2001) (as the valiant but ill-fated FBI Special Agent Renee Walker), The Vampire Diaries (2009) (Lily Salvatore), Timeless (2016) (as time traveler Emma Whitmore) and Marvel's Runaways (2017) (as charismatic villain turned ally Leslie Dean). She also gave a thoroughly convincing performance as extrovert rookie police officer Julia Brasher, involved with (Harry) Bosch (2014) at LAPD's Hollywood Division on both a professional and a personal level. Their relationship eventually soured in season two, although Brasher returned briefly for two episodes in season 7. Wersching became the third actress to play the dreaded Borg Queen (following in the footsteps of Alice Krige and Susanna Thompson) and did so to chilling effect in season two of Star Trek: Picard (2020). Her steady volume of television work has included guest appearances on Charmed (1998), Supernatural (2005), NCIS (2003), Hawaii Five-0 (2010) and Castle (2009).
Very much at the peak of her career, Annie Wersching was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2020, but kept her illness private and continued to work afterwards. She passed away at her home in Los Angeles, California on January 29, 2023, at age 45. - Actress
- Make-Up Department
- Writer
Lisa Loring was an American actress and former child model. She is primarily known for having played Wednesday Addams in the comedy-horror sitcom "The Addams Family" (1964-1966). The sitcom was the first screen adaptation of the comic strip "The Addams Family" (1938-1988) by Charles Addams, which featured a wealthy aristocratic clan who took delight in the macabre. Wednesday was the perpetually gloomy daughter of the family in the comic strip. Loring's version of the character was sweet-natured, but eccentric. This version of Wednesday owned a collection of decapitated dolls, and named her favorite doll after Marie Antoinette, the executed Queen of France. Wednesday raised spiders as a hobby.
In 1958, Loring was born on the Kwajalein Atoll, the southernmost of the Marshall Islands. The island is located about 2,100 nautical miles (3,900 kilometers; 2,400 miles) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii. It has hosted an American naval base since World War II. Her parents were both personnel of the United States Navy. Loring's parents separated shortly after her birth, and Judith Loring (Loring's mother) received custody of Loring. Lisa Loring was initially raised in Hawaii, before moving with her mother to Los Angeles.
In 1961, Loring started working as a child model. She eventually took a few acting roles, and reportedly guest starred in a 1964 episode of the medical drama "Dr. Kildare". When cast to play Wednesday in "The Addams Family", Loring was only 6-years-old. It was her first regular role in television. The series lasted for 2 seasons and 64 episodes, ending in 1966.
Loring was cast in the role of Susan "Suzy" Pruitt in the short-lived sitcom "The Pruitts of Southampton" (1966-1967). The sitcom was the brainchild of David Levy, who had previously produced "The Addams Family". The series used much of the former cast of "The Addams Family". The premise of this sitcom was that the Pruitts were a formerly wealthy family who still lived in an aristocratic mansion in the Hamptons. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had found out about their loss of wealth, but instructed them to maintain their pretensions of great wealth in order to avoid a potential loss of confidence in the financial system. Episodes revolved about the family's efforts to raise money while maintaining secrecy.
In 1973, aged 15, Loring married her boyfriend Farrell Foumberg. She gave birth to her daughter Vanessa that year. The couple divorced in 1974. Judith Loring died in 1974 from alcoholism. Lisa Loring had to provide for herself. She appeared infrequently in television films during the late 1970s. Loring was cast as Wednesday Sr. in the television film "Halloween with the New Addams Family" (1977). Wednesday was depicted in the film as having a look-alike younger sister, known as Wednesday junior (played by Jennifer Surprenant). In 1980, Loring joined the cast of the soap opera "As the World Turns". She portrayed Cricket Montgomery, a half-sister of the regular character Margo Montgomery Hughes. Loring continued appearing in the series until 1984.
In 1981, Loring married the soap opera actor Doug Stevenson. They had daughter Marianne early in their marriage, but received a divorce in 1983. Loring's acting career was in hiatus until she agreed to play in the slasher film "Blood Frenzy" (1987). Its premise was that a killer stalked the patients of psychiatrist Dr. Barbara Shelley (played by Wendy MacDonald) during their trip through a desert. The film's plot reportedly combined plot elements from the earlier films "Ten Little Indians" (1974) and "Friday the 13th" (1980). The film was an early attempt by pornographic film producer Hal Freeman to create his own horror films.
Loring was an uncredited co-writer in the pornographic film "Traci's Big Trick" (1987). She was introduced to porn actor Jerry Butler (born Paul David Siederman; 1959-2018), and they started dating. They were married within 1987, but their relationship was tumultuous. They divorced each other in 1992, following failed a number of failed attempts in reconciliation.
In 1988, Loring co-starred in the slasher film "Iced". Its premise was that a group of old friends has received invitations to a new ski resort. They reunite there, but are stalked by a killer who has mysterious ties to their past. Loring's performance and humorous dialogue were reportedly among the highlight of the film. But the film has a relatively poor reputation among horror fans, due to soap opera-like plot elements and an inconclusive ending to its mystery. It was her last notable role for several years.
By the early 1990s, Loring was feeling depressed due to the decline of her career and her poor relationship with her husband. She tried to self-medicate her condition, leading to a drug addiction. In 1991, Loring was the first person to discover the corpse of her friend Kelly Van Dyke, who had committed suicide by hanging. Loring was in a fragile state of mind. She made a suicide attempt not long after. In 1992, she went to rehab and beat her addiction. She gave a few interviews in the mid-1990s, but semi-retired from acting. She resumed her acting career in the mid-2010s, with appearances in two different horror films. In 2023, Lisa Loring died, aged 64.- Bobby Hull is a Canadian former ice hockey player who is regarded as one of the greatest players of all time. His blonde hair, legendary skating speed, end-to-end rushes, and ability to shoot the puck at very high velocity together earned him the name "The Golden Jet".
In his 23 years in the National Hockey League (NHL) and World Hockey Association (WHA), Hull played for the Chicago Black Hawks, Winnipeg Jets, and Hartford Whalers. He won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player twice and the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's leading point scorer three times, while helping the Black Hawks win the Stanley Cup in 1961. He also led the WHA's Winnipeg Jets to Avco Cup championships in 1976 and 1978. He led the NHL in goals seven times, the second most of any player in history, and led the WHA in goals one additional time while being the WHA's most valuable player two times. He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983, the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1997, and received the Wayne Gretzky International Award in 2003. In 2017 Hull was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history.
Hull ended his career having played in 1,063 NHL games, accumulating 610 goals, 560 assists, 1,170 points, 640 penalty minutes, three Art Ross Trophies, two Hart Memorial Trophies, a Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, a Stanley Cup Championship and adding 102 penalty minutes, 62 goals and 67 assists for 129 points in 119 playoff games. He played in 411 WHA games, scoring 303 goals, 335 assists and 638 points, adding 43 goals and 37 assists in 60 playoff games.
Hull joined many WHA stars (including Gordie Howe) in a second series against the Soviet national team. The WHA lost the series four games to one (three ending in a tie), despite Hull's seven goals. He was a key member of the Canadian squad that won the 1976 Canada Cup, though, scoring five goals and three assists in seven games. - Director
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Alfred Leslie was born on 29 October 1927 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and writer, known for The Cedar Bar (2002), Pull My Daisy (1959) and Alfred Leslie: Cool Man in a Golden Age (2009). He died on 27 January 2023 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Cindy Williams was born Cynthia Jane Williams in Van Nuys, California on August 22, 1947. The Leo was 5'4" and, during her first years on Laverne & Shirley (1976), weighed a dainty 105 lbs. The brown haired, blue-eyed female was born the daughter of Francesca Bellini and Beachard Williams. Her father was an electronic technician, and Cindy grew up in reduced circumstances. She had one sister, Carol Ann Williams, and an older half-brother, Jim from her mother's first marriage.
As a child, she dreamed of being an actress. She used to create and perform her own plays and, as she grew, she wished that one day, Debbie Reynolds would see her in one of those amateur shows and whisk her away and put her in a film. Another thing that brought show business into her life was her alcoholic father's imitations of comics like Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle. She worked as a waitress, while she auditioned for commercials, television guest spots, and feature films. Her first step to fame was a movie in which she tap danced with Gene Kelly. She stepped on Kelly's foot, leaving her "really embarrassed". She landed important film roles early in her career.
Famed director George Cukor cast her in Travels with My Aunt (1972). Her next big role was for George Lucas in American Graffiti (1973), as Ron Howard's girlfriend, for which she earned a BAFTA nomination as Best Supporting Actress. That led to Francis Ford Coppola casting her in The Conversation (1974). The three instant-classic films should have propelled her into movie stardom, but her career inexplicably hit a lull. She couldn't go back to working as a waitress, because she was too well-known.
She was set up in a writing team with Penny Marshall and the girls were called by Penny's brother, Garry Marshall, to do a stint as two fast girls on Happy Days (1974). The public received them so warmly that Cindy and Penny soon got their own show and was referred to everywhere as "Shirley Feeney".
She earned a Golden Globe nomination as Best Actress in 1978. She left the show in 1982, pregnant with daughter Emily. She was married to Bill Hudson, who had previously been married to actress Goldie Hawn. Williams later gave birth to a son, Zachary, in 1986. She went on to make a few movies and co-produced "The Father Of The Bride" movies with Hudson. They divorced in 2000.
She did Jenny Craig commercials and acted on guest spots on the TV show For Your Love (1998) and reunited with Penny Marshall several times on television. In 2015, her memoir, Shirley, I Jest! (co-written with Dave Smitherman), was published.
Cindy Williams died, aged 75, following a brief, undisclosed illness, in 2023.- Additional Crew
- Writer
- Actor
Kit Hesketh-Harvey was born on 30 April 1957 in Malawi, Central Africa. He was a writer and actor, known for Maurice (1987), A God and His Gifts and The Vicar of Dibley (1994). He was married to Catherine Rabett. He died on 1 February 2023.- Charles Silverstein was born on 23 April 1935 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Bill Bartelt. He died on 30 January 2023 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- George R. Robertson was a Canadian actor best known as Chief Hurst in the first 6 Police Academy films. He was also featured in JFK, Murder At 1600 (Mack Falls), as Dick Cheney in The Path To 9/11 and, most recently as Chester Jones in Still Mine. He appeared as Barry Goldwater in The Reagans, as Sen. Fulbright in The Pentagon Papers and as Adm. William Leahy in Hiroshima.
- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Lanny Poffo was born on 28 December 1954 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He was an actor and producer, known for WWF Championship Wrestling (1972), Summerslam (1989) and Saturday Night's Main Event (1985). He was married to Sally. He died on 2 February 2023 in the USA.- Stunts
- Actor
- Special Effects
George P. Wilbur was born on 6 March 1941 in Kent, Connecticut, USA. He was an actor, known for The Perfect Storm (2000), Escape from New York (1981) and Die Hard (1988). He died on 1 February 2023 in the USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Heddy Lester was born on 18 June 1950 in Leeuwarden, Friesland, Netherlands. She was an actress, known for Groeten van Gerri (2020), Zeg 'ns Aaa (1981) and De tranen van Maria Machita (1991). She died on 29 January 2023 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Actor
Paco Rabanne was born on 18 February 1934 in Pasaia, Gipuzkoa, Pais Vasco, Spain. He was a costume designer and actor, known for Barbarella (1968), Two for the Road (1967) and The Last Adventure (1967). He died on 3 February 2023 in Portsall, Ploudalmézeau, Brittany, France.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Melinda Dillon came to prominence with the role of Jillian Guiler, a mother whose child is abducted by aliens in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Dillon's performance in the film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. A few years later, Dillon received another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as a devout Catholic woman in Absence of Malice (1981). The performance won the actress a KCFCC Award.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Charles Kimbrough was born on 23 May 1936 in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. He was an actor, known for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Murphy Brown (1988) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002). He was married to Beth Howland and Mary Jane Wilson. He died on 11 January 2023 in Culver City, California, USA.- Director
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Adrian Hall was born on 3 December 1927 in Van, Texas, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Great Performances (1971), Visions (1976) and The House of Mirth (1981). He died on 4 February 2023 in Tyler, Texas, USA.- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Arnold Schulman was born on 11 August 1925 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) and And the Band Played On (1993). He was married to Diana Solomon. He died on 4 February 2023 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Louis Velle was born on 29 May 1926 in Paris, France. He was an actor and writer, known for Code Name: Jaguar (1965), 1... 2... 3... Rideau! (1965) and The Impossible Mr. Pipelet (1955). He was married to Frédérique Hébrard. He died on 3 February 2023 in Morainvilliers, Yvelines, France.- Additional Crew
- Actor
Louis van Niekerk was born on 27 June 1935 in South Africa. He was an actor, known for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013), The Fourth Reich (1990) and Egoli: Place of Gold (1991). He died on 7 February 2023 in South Africa.- Production Designer
- Art Department
- Costume Designer
Eugene Lee was born on 9 March 1939 in Beloit, Wisconsin, USA. He was a production designer and costume designer, known for Saturday Night Live (1975), Man on the Moon (1999) and Schmigadoon! (2021). He was married to Brooke E. Lutz and Franne Lee. He died on 6 February 2023 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.- Fernando Becerril was born in 1944. He was an actor, known for The Mask of Zorro (1998), Ravenous (1999) and Get the Gringo (2012). He died on 7 February 2023 in Mexico.
- Tonya Knight was born on 24 March 1966 in Peculiar, Cass County, Missouri, USA. She was married to John Poteat. She died on 7 February 2023 in the USA.
- Music Department
- Actor
Mendelson Joe was born on 30 July 1944 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor, known for Sharon, Lois & Bram's Elephant Show (1984), Max Glick (1990) and Canada After Dark (1978). He was married to Karen Robinson. He died on 7 February 2023 in Emsdale, Ontario, Canada.- Actor
- Music Department
- Additional Crew
Handsome, pipe-smoking South-African born singer and actor who reached the peak of his popularity in Britain during the late 1950s and early '60s. Lotis began his career in the entertainment industry at the tender age of nine after winning a talent contest. He then made several stage appearances and sang on radio. After leaving school, aged fifteen, he briefly worked as a bus conductor and as an electrician before leaving for England with a letter of introduction to the bandleader Ted Heath. Engaged as a regular vocalist with the Heath orchestra during the early 1950s, Lotis often crooned ballads which proved especially popular with female audiences. He straddled different genres, his repertoire encompassing jazz, pop and rock 'n' roll.
As a solo act from the mid-'50s, Lotis recorded a number of albums for Decca, Pye Nixa and Columbia, was featured frequently on BBC radio, toured the variety circuit and performed at the London Palladium. His singing career peaked in the '60s when he became a regular guest on TV pop music shows like Six-Five Special (1957) and Dial for Music (1959). He also acted in a few motion pictures, including The City of the Dead (1960) and Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960). As changing musical trends began to adversely affect his career by the end of the decade, Lotis reinvented himself as a restaurateur and antique store owner, based in the market town of Tring in Hertfordshire. He did, however, make a brief nostalgic comeback in the 1980s.
Lotis was married to the South African singer Alexandrena Maie (Rena) Mackie (1929-1997). After her death from cancer, he remarried and moved to North Norfolk where he passed away, aged 97, on February 8 2023.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Burt Bacharach was a well known and multi award winning singer and song writer.
Over 1,000 different artists have recorded Bacharach's songs. From 1961 to 1972, most of Bacharach and David's hits were written specifically for and performed by Dionne Warwick, but earlier associations (from 1957 to 1963) saw the composing duo work with Marty Robbins, Perry Como, Gene McDaniels, and Jerry Butler. Following the initial success of these collaborations, Bacharach wrote hits for singers such as Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, and B.J. Thomas. Bacharach wrote 73 U.S. and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He worked on many sound tracks including the smash hit, "Beware of the Blob" for the version of The Blob (1958) starring Steve McQueen.
He was married four times, lastly to Jane Hansen from 1993 until his death. They had two children. He also had two other children.- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Phil Spalding was an actor and producer, known for Thunderfingers - A Tribute to John Entwistle (2009), Mike Oldfield Feat. Maggie Reilly: Moonlight Shadow (1983) and Axel Bauer: Eteins La Lumière (2016). He died on 6 February 2023 in the UK.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
The old Etonian, after National Service in the British Army, wanted to get into films but found the doors were closed to him, so he worked on commercials for about 20 years. David Putnam gave him a chance to direct Chariots of Fire which was a hit, and he never looked back.
He met his second wife, actress Maryam d'Abo, when she came to see him about wanting to play the leading role of Jane in his film Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). They reconnected 15 years later at a dinner party. They wed four years later in 2003.- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Cody Longo was an American actor and musician. The early stages of his career began onstage before eventually moving to Los Angeles to pursue film and television. He studied psychology and film at UCLA.
Cody had various film and television roles since he started his professional career in 2009. He was a singer/songwriter who broke into the Billboard Top 100 charts in 2014 with his song "She Said", which charted #3 along with his debut album. He was a music supervisor and executive producer on various film and television projects. He had his hand in charities and pushed to keep both art programs in schools domestically, and continue to help build housings that provides schooling for children around the world. He headed his own non-profit LiveAlive, and was heavily involved with Make a Wish foundation and Pencils of Promise.
Cody relocated to Nashville, Tennessee to write and produce music. He co-founded and served as chief music executive officer of Circle 11 Entertainment, a company that would help create and mold up-and-coming talent. He was poised to return to acting in 2023 before his untimely death.- Debra Engle was born on 4 July 1953 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She was an actress, known for The Golden Girls (1985), Dream On (1990) and The Golden Palace (1992). She was married to Russell Smith. She died on 10 February 2023 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Spanish director, writer, producer (2 films) and actor (2 films). His interest in cinema started when he was very young. His mother, who was a pianist, instilled in him the liking for music, and his brother, Antonio, who was a painter, the passion for art. When he was an teenager he started to practice photography, and in 1950 he made his first illustrated feature films with a 16 mm camera. Carlos Saura is an excellent photographer, an activity that he shares in a sporadic way with the making of films.
He then moved to Madrid to continue his Industrial Engineering career, but his vocation for photography, cinema and journalism made him leave his studies and matriculate at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Estudios Cinematográficos (Cinematographic Study and Research Institute). Sporadically, he combined his cinematographic studies with the courses at the Escuela de Periodismo (Journalism School). In 1957 he finished studying and got the director diploma. At the same time, he finished his end-of-career short film La tarde del domingo (1957). He continued as a professor until 1963. In that year he was removed from the school for strictly political reasons (Franco's censorship).
In 1959 he filmed The Delinquents (1960). In this film he tried to create a sort of Spanish Neo-Realism by tackling the juvenile delinquency in the Madrid's poor quarters from a sociological point of view. In his first stage as director he tried to take a position in favour of outcast people, and he got to make a both lyric and documentary-style cinema.
Saura is a well accepted director both nationally and internationally, and in proof of it he won many awards among which there are the following ones: Silver Bear in the Berlin Festival for The Hunt (1966), in 1965, and for Peppermint Frappé (1967), in 1967. Special Jury Awards in Cannes for Cousin Angelica (1974), in 1973, and for Cría Cuervos (1976), in 1975. Also, the film Mama Turns 100 (1979) got an Oscar nomination in 1979 as the best foreign film, and it also won the Special Jury Award at the San Sebastian Festival. In 1990, he won two Goya awards as best adapted screenplay writer and best director.