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- Actor
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Perpetually serious-looking New York-born character actor, who showed up to good effect in many TV shows of the 1950s and '60s. His quietly authoritarian demeanor lent itself ideally to portraying characters with badges or uniforms: Sheriff Heck Tate in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), General Bogan of Strategic Air Command in Fail Safe (1964) and Major Harvey Stovall of Bomber Group 918 in 12 O'Clock High (1964). The latter was his only recurring role on television and he made the most of it, being strongly featured in several of the episodes. Prior to his well-remembered role as Elias Sandoval on the Star Trek (1966) episode, This Side of Paradise (1967), he had made notable appearances on two other science fiction series.
He was twice featured on The Twilight Zone (1959). On the episode, Walking Distance (1959), he played the father of advertising executive Martin Sloan (Gig Young), who, unhappy with his life such as it is, has somehow time-traveled back to his hometown. Sloan finds, to his delight, that everything has remained unchanged from the time of his childhood. In a superbly-acted and touching scene, the elder Sloan (having come to terms with the identity of the stranger), asks his son to leave, because there can only ever be "one summer per customer". In contrast, Overton's chill, austere Sheriff Harry Wheeler on Mute (1963) was the antithesis of his character on "Walking Distance", devoid of compassion or understanding. Overton also appeared as an unsympathetic physician on The Invaders (1967) episode, Genesis (1967).
Overton's characterizations on stage largely paralleled those on screen. He made his first stab at Broadway as a lieutenant in Elia Kazan's comedy 'Jacobowsky and the Colonel', written by S.N. Behrman. The play ran for 417 performances from 1944 to 1945. He played another sheriff in 'The Trip to Bountiful' (1953) and replaced James Gregory as deputy Jesse Bard in the original stage version of 'The Desperate Hours' (1955). His most successful performance was as Morris Lacey in 'The Dark at the Top of the Stairs' (1957-59), a role he reprised for the film version of 1960.
An actor who always looked older than his years, Frank Emmons Overton died of a heart attack in April 1967, aged only 49.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born July 14, 1918, the son of a priest. The film and T.V. series, The Best Intentions (1992) is biographical and shows the early marriage of his parents. The film Sunday's Children (1992) depicts a bicycle journey with his father. In the miniseries Private Confessions (1996) is the trilogy closed. Here, as in 'Den Goda Viljan' Pernilla August play his mother. Note that all three movies are not always full true biographical stories. He began his career early with a puppet theatre which he, his sister and their friends played with. But he was the manager. Strictly professional he begun writing in 1941. He had written a play called 'Kaspers död' (A.K.A. 'Kaspers Death') which was produced the same year. It became his entrance into the movie business as Stina Bergman (not a close relative), from the company S.F. (Swedish Filmindustry), had seen the play and thought that there must be some dramatic talent in young Ingmar. His first job was to save other more famous writers' poor scripts. Under one of that script-saving works he remembered that he had written a novel about his last year as a student. He took the novel, did the save-poor-script job first, then wrote a screenplay on his own novel. When he went back to S.F., he delivered two scripts rather than one. The script was Torment (1944) and was the fist Bergman screenplay that was put into film (by Alf Sjöberg). It was also in that movie Bergman did his first professional film-director job. Because Alf Sjöberg was busy, Bergman got the order to shoot the last sequence of the film. Ingmar Bergman is the father of Daniel Bergman, director, and Mats Bergman, actor at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theater. Ingmar Bergman was also C.E.O. of the same theatre between 1963-1966, where he hired almost every professional actor in Sweden. In 1976 he had a famous tax problem. Bergman had trusted other people to advise him on his finances, but it turned out to be very bad advice. Bergman had to leave the country immediately, and so he went to Germany. A few years later he returned to Sweden and made his last theatrical film Fanny and Alexander (1982). In later life he retired from movie directing, but still wrote scripts for film and T.V. and directed plays at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre for many years. He died peacefully in his sleep on July 30, 2007.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Billy Wilder proclaimed William Holden to be "the ideal motion picture actor". For almost four decades, the handsome, affable 'Golden Holden' was among Hollywood's most durable and engaging stars. He was born William Franklin Beedle Jr., one of three sons to a high school English teacher, Mary Blanche (Ball), and a chemical and fertilizer analyst, William Franklin Beedle, head of the George W. Gooch Laboratories in Pasadena. His father, a keen physical fitness enthusiast, taught young Bill the art of tumbling and boxing. During his days as a student at South Pasadena High, he also became adept at team sports (football and baseball), learned to ride and shoot and to be proficient on piano, clarinet and drums.
To his father's chagrin, Bill had no inclination of following in dad's footsteps, though he did major in chemistry at Pasadena Junior College. A trip to New York and Broadway had set Bill's path firmly on an acting career. He had already performed in school plays and lent his voice to several radio plays in Los Angeles by the time he was spotted by a Paramount talent scout (playing the part of octogenarian Eugene Curie) at the Pasadena Workshop Theatre. In early 1938, he was offered a six-month studio contract for a weekly salary of $50. Naturally, the name Beedle had to go. Several alternatives were bandied around -- including Randolph Carey and Taylor Randolph - until the head of Paramount's publicity department settled on the name Holden (based on a personal friend who was an associate editor at the L.A. Times, also named Bill).
Having joined Paramount's Golden Circle Club of promising young actors, Bill was now groomed for stardom. However, it was a loan-out to Columbia that secured him his breakthrough role. He was the sixty-sixth actor to audition for the part of an Italian violinist forced to become a boxer in Golden Boy (1939). His earlier training as a junior pugilist proved somewhat beneficial but it was self-effacing co-star Barbara Stanwyck who turned out to be most instrumental in helping him rehearse and overcoming his nerves to act alongside her and thespians Lee J. Cobb and Adolphe Menjou. The picture was a minor hit and Columbia consequently acquired half his contract. For the next few years, Bill continued playing wholesome, guy-next-door types and rookie servicemen in pictures like Our Town (1940), I Wanted Wings (1941) (which was the making of 'peek-a-boo' star Veronica Lake) and The Fleet's In (1942). His salary had been enhanced and he now earned $150 a week. In July 1941, he married 25-year old actress Brenda Marshall, who commanded five times his income.
In 1942, he enlisted in the Officers Candidate School in Florida, graduating as an Air Force second lieutenant. He spent the next three years on P.R. duties and making training films for the Office of Public Information. One of his brothers, a naval pilot, was shot down and killed over the Pacific in 1943. After war's end, he was demobbed and returned to Hollywood to resume playing similar characters in similar movies. He later commented that he found "no interest or enjoyment" in portraying the same type of "nice-guy meaningless roles in meaningless movies". That was to change - along with his image - when he was invited to play the part of caddish, down-on-his-luck scriptwriter Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd. (1950). The brilliantly acidulous screenplay was by Charles Brackett and director Billy Wilder (from their story A Can of Beans) and the story was narrated in flashback by Bill's character, opening with Gillis floating face-down in the swimming pool of a decrepit mansion "of the kind crazy people bought in the 20s".
With Sunset Blvd. (1950), Holden had effectively graduated from leading man to leading actor. No longer typecast, he was now allowed more hard-edged or even morally ambiguous roles: a self-serving, cynical prisoner-of-war in Stalag 17 (1953) (for which he won an Academy Award); an unemployed drifter who disrupts and changes the lives (particularly of womenfolk) in a small Kansas town, in Picnic (1955); a happy-go-lucky gigolo (who, as Billy Wilder explained the part to Bill, gets the sports car while Bogey -- Humphrey Bogart -- gets the girl), in the delightful Sabrina (1954); and an ill-fated U.S. Navy pilot in The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), set during the Korean War. Clever dialogue and the Holden likability factor also improved what potentially could have turned out dull or maudlin in pictures like Forever Female (1953) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955).
Already one of the highest paid stars of the 1950s, Holden received 10% of the gross for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), making him an instant multi-millionaire. He invested much of his earnings in various enterprises, even a radio station in Hong Kong. At the end of the decade, he relocated his family to Geneva, Switzerland, but spent more and more of his own time globetrotting. In the 1960s, Holden founded the exclusive Mount Kenya Safari Club with oil billionaire Ray Ryan and Swiss financier Carl Hirschmann. His fervent advocacy of wildlife conservation now consumed more of his time than his acting. His films, consequently, dropped in quality.
Drinking ever more heavily, he also started to show his age. By the time he appeared as the leader of an outlaw gang on their last roundup in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), his face was so heavily lined that someone likened it to 'a map of the United States.' He still had a couple more good performances in him, in The Towering Inferno (1974) and Network (1976), until his shock death from blood loss due to a fall at his apartment while intoxicated. In 1982, actress Stefanie Powers, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1972, helped set up the William Holden Wildlife Foundation and the William Holden Wildlife Education Center in Kenya. Bill also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His wanderlust has left traces of him all over the world.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer as was his father before him. He emigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's American mother, Volga Margaret (Hayworth), who was of mostly Irish descent, met Eduardo in 1916 and were married the following year. Rita, herself, studied as a dancer in order to follow in her family's footsteps. She joined her family on stage when she was eight years old when her family was filmed in a movie called La Fiesta (1926). It was her first film appearance, albeit an uncredited one. Sotted by Fox studio head Winfield R. Sheehan, she signed her first studio contract, and make her film debut at age sixteen, in Dante's Inferno (1935), followed by Cruz Diablo (1934). She continued to play small bit parts in several films under the name of "Rita Cansino". Fox dropped her after five small roles, but expert, exploitative promotion by her first husband Edward Judson soon brought Rita a new contract at Columbia Pictures, where studio head Harry Cohn changed her surname to Hayworth and approved raising her hairline by electrolysis. She played the second female lead, Judy McPherson, in Only Angels Have Wings (1939). After thirteen minor roles, Columbia lent her to Warner Bros. for her first big success, The Strawberry Blonde (1941); her splendid dancing with Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) made her a star. This was the film that exuded the warmth and seductive vitality that was to make her famous. Her natural, raw beauty was showcased later that year in Blood and Sand (1941), filmed in Technicolor.
Rita was probably the second most popular actress after Betty Grable. In You'll Never Get Rich (1941) with Fred Astaire, was probably the film that moviegoers felt close to Rita. Her dancing, for which she had studied all her life, was astounding. After the hit Gilda (1946) (her dancing had made the film and it had made her), her career was on the skids. Although she was still making movies, they never approached her earlier success. The drought began between The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Champagne Safari (1954). Then after Salome (1953), she was not seen again until Pal Joey (1957). Part of the reasons for the downward spiral was television, but also Rita had been replaced by a new star at Columbia, Kim Novak.
Rita, herself, said, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me". In person, Rita was shy, quiet and unassuming; only when the cameras rolled did she turn on the explosive sexual charisma that in Gilda (1946) made her a superstar. To Rita, though, domestic bliss was a more important, if elusive, goal, and in 1949 she interrupted her career for marriage - unfortunately an unhappy one almost from the start - to the playboy Prince Aly Khan. Her films after her divorce from Khan include perhaps her best straight acting performances, Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) and They Came to Cordura (1959).
After a few, rather forgettable films in the 1960s, her career was essentially over. Her final film was The Wrath of God (1972). Her career was really never the same after Gilda (1946). Perhaps Gene Ringgold said it best when he remarked, "Rita Hayworth is not an actress of great depth. She was a dancer, a glamorous personality, and a sex symbol. These qualities are such that they can carry her no further professionally." Perhaps he was right but Hayworth fans would vehemently disagree with him.
Beginning in 1960 (age 42), early onset of Alzheimer's disease (undiagnosed until 1980) limited Rita's ability. The last few roles in her 60-film career were increasingly small. With 20 years of symptoms, Rita was cared for by her daughter, Yasmin Khan, until Rita's death at age 68 on May 14, 1987, in New York City.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. In most of her movies, she was cast as the hard, but sympathetic woman from the wrong side of the tracks. In The Sea Wolf (1941) and High Sierra (1940), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson. She made a handful of films during the forties playing different characters ranging from Pillow to Post (1945), where she played a traveling saleswoman to the tough nightclub singer in The Man I Love (1946). But good roles for women were hard to get and there were many young actresses and established stars competing for those roles. She left Warner Brothers in 1947 and became a freelance actress. When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Her first directing job came when director Elmer Clifton fell ill on a script that she co-wrote Not Wanted (1949). Ida had joked that as an actress, she was the poor man's Bette Davis. Now, she said that as a director, she became the poor man's Don Siegel. The films that she wrote, or directed, or appeared in during the fifties were mostly inexpensive melodramas. She later turned to television where she directed episodes in shows such as The Untouchables (1959) and The Fugitive (1963). In the seventies, she made guest appearances on various television show and appeared in small parts in a few movies.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A natural and lovely talent who was discovered for films by Samuel Goldwyn, the always likable Teresa Wright distinguished herself early on in high-caliber, Oscar-worthy form -- the only performer ever to be nominated for Oscars for her first three films. Always true to herself, she was able to earn Hollywood stardom on her own unglamorized terms.
Born Muriel Teresa Wright in the Harlem district of New York City on October 27, 1918, her parents divorced when she was quite young and she lived with various relatives in New York and New Jersey. An uncle of hers was a stage actor. She attended the exclusive Rosehaven School in Tenafly, New Jersey. The acting bug revealed itself when she saw the legendary Helen Hayes perform in a production of "Victoria Regina." After performing in school plays and graduating from Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, she made the decision to pursue acting professionally.
Apprenticing at the Wharf Theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts during the summers of 1937 and 1938 in such plays as "The Vinegar Tree" and "Susan and God", she moved to New York and changed her name to Teresa after she discovered there was already a Muriel Wright in Actors Equity. Her first New York play was Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" wherein she played a small part but also understudied the lead ingénue role of Emily. She eventually replaced Martha Scott in the lead after the actress was escorted to Hollywood to make pictures and recreate the Emily role on film. It was during her year-long run in "Life with Father" that Teresa was seen by Goldwyn talent scouts, was tested, and ultimately won the coveted role of Alexandra in the film The Little Foxes (1941). She also accepted an MGM starlet contract on the condition that she not be forced to endure cheesecake publicity or photos for any type of promotion and could return to the theater at least once a year. Oscar-nominated for her work alongside fellow cast members Bette Davis (as calculating mother Regina) and Patricia Collinge (recreating her scene-stealing Broadway role as the flighty, dipsomaniac Aunt Birdie), Teresa's star rose even higher with her next pictures.
Playing the good-hearted roles of the granddaughter in the war-era tearjerker Mrs. Miniver (1942) and baseball icon Lou Gehrig's altruistic wife in The Pride of the Yankees (1942) opposite Gary Cooper, the pretty newcomer won both "Best Supporting Actress" and "Best Actress" nods respectively in the same year, ultimately taking home the supporting trophy. Teresa's fourth huge picture in a row was Alfred Hitchcock's psychological thriller Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and she even received top-billing over established star Joseph Cotten who played a murdering uncle to her suspecting niece. Wed to screenwriter Niven Busch in 1942, she had a slip with her fifth picture Casanova Brown (1944) but bounced right back as part of the ensemble cast in the "Best Picture" of the year The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) portraying the assuaging daughter of Fredric March and Myrna Loy who falls in love with damaged soldier-turned-civilian Dana Andrews.
With that film, however, her MGM contract ended. Remarkably, she made only one movie for the studio ("Mrs. Miniver") during all that time. The rest were all loanouts. As a freelancing agent, the quality of her films began to dramatically decline. Pictures such as Enchantment (1948), Something to Live For (1952), California Conquest (1952), Count the Hours! (1953), Track of the Cat (1954) and Escapade in Japan (1957) pretty much came and went. For her screenwriter husband she appeared in the above-average western thriller Pursued (1947) and crime drama The Capture (1950). Her most inspired films of that post-war era were The Men (1950) opposite film newcomer Marlon Brando and the lowbudgeted but intriguing The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956) which chronicled the fascinating story of an American housewife who claimed she lived a previous life.
The "Golden Age" of TV was her salvation during these lean film years in which she appeared in fine form in a number of dramatic showcases. She recreated for TV the perennial holiday classic The Miracle on 34th Street (1955) in which she played the Maureen O'Hara role opposite Macdonald Carey and Thomas Mitchell. Divorced from Busch, the father of her two children, in 1952, Teresa made a concentrated effort to return to the stage and found consistency in such plays as "Salt of the Earth" (1952), "Bell, Book and Candle" (1953), "The Country Girl" (1953), "The Heiress" (1954), "The Rainmaker" (1955) and "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1957) opposite Pat Hingle, in which she made a successful Broadway return. Marrying renowned playwright Robert Anderson in 1959, stage and TV continued to be her primary focuses, notably appearing under the theater lights in her husband's emotive drama "I Never Sang for My Father" in 1968. The couple lived on a farm in upstate New York until their divorce in 1978.
By this time a mature actress now in her 50s, challenging stage work came in the form of "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds", "Long Day's Journey Into Night", "Morning's at Seven" and "Ah, Wilderness!" Teresa also graced the stage alongside George C. Scott's Willy Loman (as wife Linda) in an acclaimed presentation of "Death of a Salesman" in 1975, and appeared opposite Scott again in her very last play, "On Borrowed Time" (1991). After almost a decade away from films, she came back to play the touching role of an elderly landlady opposite Matt Damon in her last picture, John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997). Teresa passed away of a heart attack in 2005.- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Born in Oklahoma, Ben Johnson was a ranch hand and rodeo performer when, in 1940, Howard Hughes hired him to take a load of horses to California. He decided to stick around (the pay was good), and for some years was a stunt man, horse wrangler, and double for such stars as John Wayne, Gary Cooper and James Stewart. His break came when John Ford noticed him and gave him a part in an upcoming film, and eventually a star part in Wagon Master (1950). He left Hollywood in 1953 to return to rodeo, where he won a world roping championship, but at the end of the year he had barely cleared expenses. The movies paid better, and were less risky, so he returned to the west coast and a career that saw him in over 300 movies.- Writer
- Music Department
- Composer
Renowned composer ("West Side Story", "Candide", "On The Town"), conductor, arranger, pianist, educator, author, TV/radio host, educated at the Boston Latin School and Harvard University (BA) with Walter Piston. Edward Burlingame Hill and A. Tillman Merritt. He studied piano with Helen Coates, Heinrich Gebhard and Isabelle Vengerova, at the Curtis Institute with Fritz Reiner, and at the Berkshire Music Center with Serge Koussevitzky (and became an assistant to Koussevitzky). He was assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic in 1943-1944, and conductor of the New York Symphony, 1945-1948.
He was music advisor to the Israel Philharmonic from 1948-1949, and a member of the faculty at the Berkshire Music Center from 1948 (though he did take leaves of absence), and head of the conducting department there in 1951. He was Professor of Music at Brandeis University, 1951-1956; and co-conductor of the New York Philharmonic, 1957-1958, and music director there after 1958. He won an Emmy award for his televised Young People's Concerts. He was guest conductor of symphony orchestras in the USA and Europe, and conducted the Israel Philharmonic seven times between 1947 and 1957. He toured the US with Koussevitzky in 1951, and was the first American to conduct at the La Scala Opera House in Milan, in 1953. He was awarded the Sonning Prize in Denmark, and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
He joined ASCAP in 1944, and his chief musical collaborators included Betty Comden, Adolph Green, John Latouche, and Stephen Sondheim. His song compositions include "New York, New York", "Lonely Town", "Some Other Time", "I Can Cook, Too", "I Get Carried Away", "Lucky to Be Me", "Ohio", "A Quiet Girl", "It's Love", "A Little Bit in Love", "Wrong Note Rag", "Glitter and Be Gay", "El Dorado", "The Best of All Possible Worlds", "Maria", "Tonight", "Something's Coming", "I Feel Pretty", "Cool", "America", and "Gee, Officer Krupke".- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Producer
Robert Aldrich entered the film industry in 1941 when he got a job as a production clerk at RKO Radio Pictures. He soon worked his way up to script clerk, then became an assistant director, a production manager and an associate producer. He began writing and directing for TV series in the early 1950s, and directed his first feature in 1953 (Big Leaguer (1953)). Soon thereafter he established his own production company and produced most of his own films, collaborating in the writing of many of them. Among his best-known pictures are Kiss Me Deadly (1955), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and the muscular WW II mega-hit The Dirty Dozen (1967).- Audra Marie Lindley was born in Los Angeles, California, to a show-business family -- her father, Bert Lindley, was a stage and film actor. She got her early start in Hollywood as a stand-in, which eventually progressed to stunt work. After a while, however, she found stunt work not to her liking and went to New York in her twenties to take her talent to the stage. Among her many Broadway plays were "On Golden Pond", "Playhouse 90", "Long Day's Journey Into Night", "Horse Heavens", and many others. She was married twice--once to actor James Whitmore -- and raised five children.
She appeared in many films and TV shows, and is probably best known for her work as the zany, randy, yet lovable doyenne Helen Roper, the sex-deprived wife of skinflint landlord Stanley Roper on Three's Company (1976) (the Roper characters were later spun off into their own sitcom, The Ropers (1979)). She died in the fall of 1997 while doing recurring work on shows Cybill (1995) and Nothing Sacred (1997), of complications from leukemia. - Actor
- Soundtrack
It's hardly surprising that the son of renowned Russian-born concert violinist Efrem Zimbalist Sr. (1889-1985) and Romanian-born opera singer Alma Gluck (1884-1938) would desire a performing career of some kind. Born in New York City on November 30, 1918, surrounded by people of wealth and privilege throughout his childhood, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. received a boarding school education. Acting in school plays, he later trained briefly at the Yale School of Drama but didn't apply himself enough and quit. As an NBC network radio page, he auditioned when he could and found minor TV and stock theatre parts while joining up with the Neighborhood Playhouse.
Following WWII war service with the Army infantry in which he was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded, a director and friend of the family, Garson Kanin, gave the aspiring actor his first professional role in his Broadway production of "The Rugged Path" (1945) which starred Spencer Tracy. With his dark, friendly, clean-scrubbed good looks and a deep, rich voice that could cut butter, Zimbalist found little trouble finding work. He continued with the American Repertory Theatre performing in such classics as "Henry VIII" and "Androcles and the Lion" while appearing opposite the legendary Eva Le Gallienne in "Hedda Gabler".
Zimbalist then tried his hand as a stage producer, successfully bringing opera to Broadway audiences for the first time with memorable presentations of "The Medium" and "The Telephone". As producer of Gian Carlo Menotti's "The Consul", he won the New York Drama Critic's Award and the Pulitzer Prize for best musical in 1950. An auspicious film debut opposite Edward G. Robinson in House of Strangers (1949) brought little career momentum due to the untimely death of his wife Emily (a onetime actress who appeared with him in "Hedda Gabler" and bore him two children, Nancy and Efrem III) to cancer in 1950. Making an abrupt decision to abandon acting, he served as assistant director/researcher at the Curtis School of Music for his father and buried himself with studies and music composition.
In 1954, Efrem returned to acting and copped a daytime television soap lead (Concerning Miss Marlowe (1954)). It was famed director Joshua Logan who proved instrumental in helping Zimbalist secure a Warner Bros. contract. Despite forthright second leads in decent films such as Band of Angels (1957) with Clark Gable and Yvonne De Carlo; Too Much, Too Soon (1958) starring Dorothy Malone and Errol Flynn; Home Before Dark (1958) with Jean Simmons and Rhonda Fleming; The Crowded Sky (1960) with Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Troy Donahue and Anne Francis; A Fever in the Blood (1961) opposite Angie Dickinson and (his best) Wait Until Dark (1967) with Audrey Hepburn, it was television that made the better use of his refined, unshowy acting style. His roles as smooth private investigator Stu Bailey on 77 Sunset Strip (1958) and dogged inspector Lewis Erskine on The F.B.I. (1965) would be his ultimate claims to fame.
A perfect gentleman on and off camera, Zimbalist's severest critics tend to deem his performances bland and undernourished. Managing to override such criticisms, he maintained a sturdy career for nearly six decades. In 1991, he made fun of his all-serious reputation and pulled off a Leslie Nielsen-like role in the comedy parody Hot Shots! (1991). In addition to theater projects over the years, he has made fine use of his mellifluous baritone performing narrations and cartoon voiceovers, including that of Alfred the butler on a "Batman" animated series.
In 2003, he completed his memoirs, entitled "My Dinner of Herbs". The father of three, grandfather of four and great-grandfather of three, he settled in Santa Barbara and later in Solvang, California with longtime second wife Stephanie until her death in 2007 of cancer. Their daughter, also named Stephanie (Stephanie Zimbalist), is the well-known actress who appeared with Pierce Brosnan in the Remington Steele (1982) television series, in which Zimbalist had a recurring role. He and his daughter also appeared on stage together in his later years, their first being "The Night of the Iguana". His eldest daughter Nancy died in 2012.
Zimbalist died peacefully at his Solvang home of natural causes at the age of 95 on May 2, 2014; he had been outside watering his lawn at his Solvang, Calif., ranch when a handyman found him lying dead in the grass. "He was healthy, playing golf three days a week, and always in his garden," Zimbalist's son said.- Actor
- Soundtrack
With his dark features and having spent much of his early years in Naples, Italy, Vito Scotti was understandably typecast as Italian waiters, government functionaries, policemen, maitre d's and barbers. When Vito was seven, the Scottis moved back to the U.S. where his mother became a diva in the Italian theatre in New York. It was in that theatre that Scotti developed his gift for farce, which he modeled on the style found in the Commedia dell'Arte. He worked the night club circuit doing pantomime and broke into movies and television during the early 1950s. Vito loved cooking, especially the recipes of his beloved mother and grandmother.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Margaret "Peg" Phillips was a retired accountant when she began taking acting classes at age 65. In 1990 she was cast in the role of Ruth-Anne Miller, the shop keeper in the series Northern Exposure (1990). The role was supposed to be only intermittent, but Peg's portrayal won the hearts of viewers, and Ruth-Anne became a regular role. In addition to Northern Exposure (1990), Peg appeared with Shirley MacLaine in Waiting for the Light (1990) and TV movies How the West Was Fun (1994) and Chase (1985), and guest appearances in 7th Heaven (1996), Touched by an Angel (1994), and ER (1994), and a number of commercials. Born in Everett, Washington, Peg overcame polio, peritonitis, a ruptured aorta, and, at age 81, a broken hip and wrist from being hit by a car. A smoker since age 13, Peg Phillips died of lung disease in a suburban Seattle care center. She was 84.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Sebastian Cabot was an English actor, often working as a voice actor in animation.
On 6 July, 1918, Cabot was born in London. He dropped out of school in 1932, to work in an automotive garage. He was eventually hired as both a chauffeur and a valet for actor Frank Pettingell (1891-1966). He learned to speak smoothly to fit his new profession, and became acquainted with several actors.
Cabot became interested in starting an acting career of his own, and started appearing regularly in theatre. His film debut was the gambling-themed comedy film "Foreign Affaires " (1935), where he was an uncredited extra. His first credited role was in the spy film "Secret Agent" (1936).
Cabot primarily worked in his native United Kingdom until the 1950s, when he moved to the United States. There he had roles in such films as "Westward Ho, the Wagons! " (1956), "Johnny Tremain" (1957), and "The Time Machine" (1960).
Cabot appeared mostly in guest star roles in television throughout the 1960s. His first major role in the medium was that of college professor Dr. Carl Hyatt in the detective television series "Checkmate" (1960-1962). Hyatt was depicted as a member of a detective agency which works to prevent crimes before they can take place. The series lasted for 70 episodes.
His voice acting credits started in radio, before he became a regular voice actor for the Disney studio. He voiced Sir Ector (King Arthur's adoptive father) in "The Sword in the Stone" (1963) and Baghreera the black panther (one of Mowgli's mentors) in "The Jungle Book". He was the original narrator of the Winnie the Pooh film series, serving in this role in "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" (1966), "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" (1968), "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too" (1974), and "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" (1977).
Cabot had another major television role as traditional "gentleman's gentleman" (valet) Giles French in the sitcom "Family Affair" (1966-1971). The series lasted for 138 episodes, and several members of the cast were nominated for Emmy Awards. Cabot himself was nominated for a 1968 Emmy Award for "Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series". The award was instead won by rival actor Don Adams (1923-2005).
Cabot's next significant television role was that of hotel owner Winston Essex, the host of the anthology horror television series "Ghost Story" (1972-1973). His last notable live-action roles were in two television films. He played Kris Kringle in "Miracle on 34th Street" (1973), and appeared in "The City That Forgot About Christmas" (1974).
Cabot survived his first stroke in 1974, and then mostly retired for show business. He lived his final years in Deep Cove, British Columbia, a suburb of Victoria. In 1977, he was hospitalized following a second stroke. He never recovered, dying in the Victoria hospital. He was 59 years old. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.- Actor
- Soundtrack
American leading man of vast charisma, Robert Preston was the son of a garment worker and a record store clerk and grew up in Los Angeles. He was a trained musician, playing several instruments, and in high school became interested in theatre. He joined the Pasadena Community Playhouse, taking classes and appearing in scores of plays alongside such soon-to-be-well-known actors as Dana Andrews, George Reeves, Victor Mature and Don DeFore. Even in the distinguished company of Playhouse veterans like Victor Jory and Samuel S. Hinds, young Preston Meservey--or Pres, as he was always known to intimates--was an acknowledged star in the making. During one play a Paramount scout saw him and he signed a contract with the studio, which renamed him Robert Preston. After several roles in inconsequential films, Preston became a favorite of director Cecil B. DeMille, who cast him in several films but became nevertheless one of the few people Preston actively and publicly disliked. In 1946, after serving in England with the Army Air Corps, Preston married Kay Feltus (aka Catherine Craig), whom he had known in Pasadena. He struggled through numerous unfulfilling roles in the '40s, then relocated to New York and concentrated on theatre. He played many roles on Broadway and in 1957 got the part that would immortalize him in entertainment history: Professor Harold Hill in the musical "The Music Man". He won a Tony Award for the role and repeated it in the film version (The Music Man (1962)). Now a star of the first magnitude, Preston alternated between stage and film, winning another Tony for "I Do, I Do" and appearing to enormous good effect in such films as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), All the Way Home (1963) and Junior Bonner (1972). He received an Oscar nomination for his triumphant portrayal of a witty, gay entertainer in Victor/Victoria (1982). He died in 1987 from lung cancer, after a career that took him from modest supporting lead to national treasure.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Cameron Mitchell was the son of a minister, but chose a different path from his father. Prior to World War II, in which he served as an Air Force bombardier, Mitchell appeared on Broadway, and, in 1940, an experimental television broadcast, "The Passing of the Third Floor Back". He made his film debut in What Next, Corporal Hargrove? (1945), but continued with stage as well as film work. He gained early recognition for his portrayal of Happy in the stage and screen versions of "Death of a Salesman". Still, out of more than 300 film and TV appearances, he is probably best remembered for his work on The High Chaparral (1967) TV series in which he, as the happy-go-lucky Buck Cannon, and Henry Darrow, as Manolito Montoya, stole the show.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
John Forysthe was born Jacob Lincoln Freund in Penns Grove, New Jersey, the son of Blanche Materson (Blohm) and Samuel Jeremiah Freund, a Wall Street businessman. He chose to pursue acting over the objections of his father. He did some work in radio soaps and on Broadway before signing a movie contract with Warner Bros. His early career was interrupted by World War II. During the war, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps appearing in the Air Corps show "Winged Victory". After the war, he helped found the Actors Studio. He has had the most success on television, with healthy runs on Bachelor Father (1957), Dynasty (1981) and as the unseen voice of Charlie Townsend on Charlie's Angels (1976). John Forsythe died at age 92 of complications from pneumonia on April 1, 2010 in Santa Ynez, California.- Actor
- Soundtrack
He possessed the same special brand of rebel/misfit sensitivity and charm that made superstars out of John Garfield and (later) James Dean and Montgomery Clift. In the war-torn 1940s, Robert Walker represented MGM's fresh, instinctive breed of up-and-coming talent. His boyish good looks combined with an attractive vulnerability came across the screen with such beauty, power and naturalness. He went quite far in his short life; however, the many tortured souls he played so brilliantly closely mirrored the actor himself and the demons that haunted his own being wasted no time in taking him down a self-destructive path for which there was no return.
Walker was born Robert Hudson Walker in 1918 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the youngest of four sons of Zella (McQuarrie) and Horace Hudson Walker, a news editor for the local paper. He was of English and Scottish descent. His maternal aunt, Hortense (McQuarrie) Odlum, was the first female president of Bonwit Teller. His parents separated while he was quite young and the anxiety and depression built up over this loss marred his early school years, which were marked by acts of belligerent aggression and temper tantrums, resulting in his being expelled from school several times. To control his behavioral problems, a positive activity was sought that could help him develop confidence and on which he could focus his energies. It came in the form of acting. Following a lead in a school play at the San Diego Army and Navy Academy at Carlsbad-by-the-Sea, California, Walker entered an acting contest at the Pasadena Playhouse and won a top performance prize. A well-to-do aunt paid for his tuition at the American Academy of Dramatic Art (AADA) in 1938, and he was on his way.
Things started off quite promisingly. While there he met fellow student Phyllis Isley who went on to play Elizabeth Barrett Browning to his Robert Browning in a production of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" (Phyllis was later renamed Jennifer Jones). The couple fell in love and both quit the academy in order to save money and marry, but they found little work other than some small parts at a Greenwich Village theater. They eventually found a radio job together in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and married on January 2, 1939, honeymooning in Hollywood in order to secure more acting parts. Other than some radio jobs and bit parts in films, the move didn't pan out. The couple returned to New York and started a family. Sons Robert Walker Jr. (born 1940) and Michael Walker (born 1941) would both become actors in their own right. Following their births Jennifer returned to auditioning and caught the eye of producer David O. Selznick, who took an immediate interest in her and signed her to a contract. Selznick was also instrumental in securing a contract for Robert over at MGM. Stardom would be theirs as a result of this Selznick association, but at quite a cost to Robert.
Robert gained immediate attention in his first important MGM role as a shy, ill-fated sailor in Bataan (1943), but was miscast as a scientist in the Greer Garson biopic Madame Curie (1943). Hollywood notice would come in the form of his sweet, sad-sack title role in the service comedy See Here, Private Hargrove (1944), the story of a cub reporter who is drafted into the army. The role brought out all the touching, fascinating qualities of Robert. In the meantime, Jennifer became so caught up in her obsessive relationship with mentor Selznick that she broke off with Robert. The actor was devastated and abruptly turned to heavy drinking. He would never completely recover from this loss. The first of many skirmishes with the law came about when he was arrested on a hit-and-run charge. In another self-destructive act, he agreed to appear with his estranged wife in the Selznick film Since You Went Away (1944). Although he suffered great anguish during the filming, the movie was praised by critics. He played a young soldier who dies before the end of the last reel, and audiences identified with him in both his troubled on- and off-screen roles. Another vivid part that showed off Walker's star quality came opposite the equally troubled Judy Garland in The Clock (1945), a simple romantic story of two lost souls, a soldier and a girl, who accidentally meet while he is on furlough.
The tumultuous state of Walker's not-so-private life began to seriously affect his screen career in the late 1940s. In the musical Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) he played composer Jerome Kern but was eclipsed by the musical numbers and flurry of special guests. He was third billed behind Katharine Hepburn and Paul Henreid, who portrayed pianist Clara Schumann and mentally unstable composer Robert Schumann, in Song of Love (1947). Robert played famed composer and friend Johannes Brahms. Following a lead part as a love-struck window dresser in One Touch of Venus (1948), which focused more on Ava Gardner's creative vision of loveliness, he impulsively married Barbara Ford, the daughter of famed director John Ford. The marriage ended in divorce after just five months, following more erratic outbursts, including arrests for drunkenness. By this time Jennifer had married Selznick, and this pushed Robert over the brink. He was committed to a sanatorium and not released until the middle of 1949.
After his recovery and release, he was back to work with top roles in the comedy Please Believe Me (1950) opposite Deborah Kerr and the western Vengeance Valley (1951) starring Burt Lancaster. Robert happened to be loaned out to Warner Bros. when he was handed the most memorable film role of his career, that of the charming psychopath who attempts to trade murder favors with Farley Granger in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller Strangers on a Train (1951). Hailed by the critics, Robert was mesmerizing in the part and part of the Hollywood elite once again. He had begun filming Paramount's My Son John (1952), which included Helen Hayes, Van Heflin and Dean Jagger in the cast, when tragedy occurred.
Robert had just finished principal photography and was making himself available for re-shoots for director Leo McCarey when, on the night of August 28, 1951, his housekeeper found him in an extremely agitated state. Failing to calm him down, she panicked and called his psychiatrist, who, upon arrival, administered a dose of sodium amytal, a sedative, which Walker had taken in the past. Unfortunately, he had been drinking as well and suffered an acute allergic reaction to the drug. Robert stopped breathing, and all efforts to resuscitate him failed. His death cut short the career of a man destined to become one of the most charismatic actors in film. As for life imitating art, perhaps Robert's agonies are what brought out the magnificence of his acting.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Art Carney was an American actor with a lengthy career but is primarily remembered for two roles. In television, Carney played municipal sewer worker Ed Norton in the influential sitcom "The Honeymooners" (1955-1956). In film, Carney played senior citizen Harry Coombes in the road movie "Harry and Tonto" (1974). For this role, Carney won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 1918, Carney was born in an Irish American family in Mount Vernon, New York. His father was publicist Edward Michael Carney, and his mother was housewife Helen Farrell. Carney was the youngest of the family's six sons. He was educated at Mount Vernon High School (at the time called "A.B. Davis High School").
In the 1930s, Carney was a singer with the orchestra of big band leader Horace Heidt (1901-1986). They appeared often in radio shows, and were regulars in the pioneering game show Pot o' Gold (1939-1947). Carney had an uncredited cameo in the film adaptation "Pot o' Gold" (1941), which was his film debut.
His career was interrupted when he was drafted for World War II service. He served as an infantryman and machine gun crewman for the duration of the war. He fought in the Invasion of Normandy (1944), where he was wounded in the leg by shrapnel. Following his injury, his right leg was shorter than his left one. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
Following the War, Carney appeared regularly on radio as a character actor. He also served as a celebrity impersonator, imitating the voices of (among others) Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Dwight David Eisenhower. He had a recurring role as the Red Lantern in the fantasy adventure series "Land of the Lost" (1943-1948), and another as Charlie the doorman in radio and television version of the sitcom The Morey Amsterdam Show (1948-1950).
Carney was first paired with fellow actor Jackie Gleason (1916-1987) in 1950, in a comedy sketch appearing in the variety series "Cavalcade of Stars" (1949-1952). Gleason appeared as lunchroom loudmouth Charlie Bratten, and Carney as mild-mannered victim Clem Finch. Due to good chemistry between the two actors, Carney became a show regular and appeared in several other comedy sketches with Gleason. "Cavalcade of Stars" was eventually reworked into "The Jackie Gleason Show" (1952-1957), with Gleason as the lead actor and Carney as his sidekick.
The most notable of the recurring sketches was "the Honeymooners", pairing the verbally abusive Ralph Kramden (Gleason) with his optimistic best friend Ed Norton (Carney). The sketch eventually was eventually given its own series, "The Honeymooners" (1955-1956). The series only lasted for 1 season, and a total of 39 episodes. The sitcom was canceled due to low ratings, but found success in syndication. Its depiction of the American working class was popular and influenced several other sitcoms. The popular animated sitcom "The Flintstones" (1960-1966) started as a Honeymooners parody, with the character Barney Rubble based on Ed Norton.
Due to his popularity as Gleason's sidekick, Carney was offered a number of lead roles in television. He starred in the television special "Art Carney Meets Peter and the Wolf" (1958), adapted from the story "Peter and the Wolf" (1936) by Sergei Prokofiev. He was eventually given his own show "Art Carney Special" (1959-1961), which was not particularly successful.
Carney had few notable guest star roles in television during the 1960s. He played an alcoholic department store Santa Claus in the episode "The Night of the Meek" (1960) of The Twilight Zone, and portrayed the villain "The Archer" in two episodes of "Batman". He opened the 1970s by playing both Santa Claus and villain Cosmo Scam in the Christmas television special "The Great Santa Claus Switch" (1970), where he appeared alongside Jim Henson's Muppets.
Carney had suffered a career decline until the 1970s, in part due to his alcoholism. He first found success in film as the leading character "Harry and Tonto" (1974), as a lonely senior citizen who goes on a cross-country journey with his pet cat. His critical success in the role and winning an Academy Award helped revive his career. He was offered many new film roles, though few leading ones.
Among his better-known film roles were the deranged preacher John Wesley Gore in "W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings" (1975), aging detective Ira Wells in "The Late Show" (1977), senile surgeon Dr. Amos Willoughby in "House Calls" (1978), and thrill-seeking bank robber Al in "Going in Style". During this period, Carney won both the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor and the Pasinetti Award for Best Actor.
Carney had a notable role in the television film "Star Wars Holiday Special" (1978) as Trader Saun Dann, a member of the Rebel Alliance. In the 1980s, Carney was mostly reduced to minor roles again. He is better remembered as the kind-hearted farmer Irv Manders in the horror film "Firestarter" (1984) and theatrical producer Bernard Crawford in the comedy-drama "The Muppets Take Manhattan" (1984). He mostly retired from acting by the late 1980s.
Carney emerged from retirement to play the supporting role of Frank Slater in "Last Action Hero" (1993). Frank is depicted as the "favorite second cousin" of the film's protagonist Jack Slater (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger). Frank's death provided motivation for the revenge-seeking protagonist. Frank's final line in the film was "I'm outta here", and this was indeed Carney's last appearance in a film before his death.
Carney lived in retirement until 2003. He died in his sleep in November 2003, in his home near Westbrook, Connecticut. His death was attributed to unspecified "natural causes". He was 85 years old and had reportedly managed to stay sober since he originally quit drinking in 1974. He is interred at the Riverside Cemetery in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
Carney was survived by his wife Jean Myers, who died in October 2012. Carney was the grandfather of politician Devin Carney, who served in the Connecticut General Assembly.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Dennis Patrick was born on 14 March 1918 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Joe (1970), House of Dark Shadows (1970) and Dark Shadows (1966). He was married to Barbara Cason and Amelia Honora Baines. He died on 13 October 2002 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Born in Brooklyn, Bergere began his career in 1936 as understudy to Danny Kaye in the Broadway production of "Lady in the Dark", with Gertrude Lawrence. His television debut was with James Dean in the live production of "Thunder on Sycamore Street". A World War II veteran, he was in charge of entertainment services for soldiers serving in North Africa. Best known for his role as majordomo "Joseph Anders" in the 1980s television series Dynasty (1981), he also briefly appeared in the rival soap opera Falcon Crest (1981) as "Justin Nash". He appeared in more than 200 television shows, including an original Star Trek (1966) episode in which he played Abraham Lincoln He died at the age of 88 in New Hampshire where he lived for over a decade.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Joseph Wiseman was born on May 15, 1918 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He came to Broadway in the 1930s, where he was critically hailed for performances in Shakespeare's "King Lear", Clifford Odets' "Golden Boy" and Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya". Motion pictures in which Wiseman has been seen include Detective Story (1951), starring Kirk Douglas, Viva Zapata! (1952) with Marlon Brando, The Garment Jungle (1957), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), The Valachi Papers (1972) and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) which brought him back to his native Canada for a co-starring role with Richard Dreyfuss.- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
Bobby Troup was an American actor, jazz pianist, singer, and songwriter. As a songwriter, Troup is mostly remembered for writing the hit song "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" (1946), about a cross-country drive through the highway U.S. Route 66. Tne song was originally performed by Nat King Cole and the King Cole Trio, and a second version was performed by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. Both versions were 1946 hits, and the song has since received many covers. As as an actor Troup is mostly remembered for playing Dr. Joe Early in the medical drama "Emergency!" (1972-1977).
Troup was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He attended the Hill School, a preparatory boarding school located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. In his college years, Troup attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He graduated with a degree in economics.
Troup's first success as a songwriter was writing "Daddy" (1941), a hit song performed first by Sammy Kaye and His Orchestra. Popular versions of the song were then recorded by Glenn Miller, Bing Crosby, Kay Kyser, and The Andrews Sisters. However, his music career was interrupted by World War II service.
Troup enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1942. He was trained as an officer, and then assigned to train African-American marine recruits at the camp Montford Point (modern Camp Gilbert H. Johnson), located in Jacksonville, North Carolina. In 1943, Troup became a recreation officer. He helped build a recreation hall, basketball court, and outdoor boxing ring. He also founded the first African-American band of U.S. Marines, and composed the song "Take Me Away from Jacksonville". The song is still used as an anthem by North-Carolina-based Marines.
While still serving with the Marines, Troup composed the popular song "Snootie Little Cutie" (1942) . It was first recorded by singers Frank Sinatra and Connie Haines. Following the end of the War, Troup returned to his music career. "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" was his first post-war hit as a songwriter. Other hits included "The Girl Can't Help It" (1956) performed by Little Richard, "The Meaning of the Blues" (1957) performed by Julie London, and "My City of Sydney" (1969) performed by Tommy Leonetti.
Troup released 10 records with his own recordings between 1953 and 1959. Despite his success as a songwriter, none of his records as a singer or pianist were commercially successful. His greatest success through the decade placed him in the producer's role, for Julie London's version of the hit song "Cry Me a River" (1955). It became a gold record.
Troup started acting as a side career. He made his film debut as an uncredited musician in the romantic comedy "Duchess of Idaho" (1950). He had credited roles in musical films such as "Bop Girl Goes Calypso" (1957), "The High Cost of Loving" (1958), and "The Five Pennies" (1959). Troup played then-recently deceased bandleader Tommy Dorsey (1905-1956) in the biographical "The Gene Krupa Story" (1959). His last film role was that of disgruntled staff sergeant Gorman in the military-themed comedy "M*A*S*H" (1970).
Troup had a more substantial career in television. He was cast as a fictionalized version of himself in the short-lived series "Acapulco" (1961). He had guest-star roles in popular series such as "Perry Mason", "Dragnet", and "Mannix". He found success in his long-running role of Dr. Joe Early in "Emergency". Early was depicted as a neurosurgeon, working at Rampart General Hospital. The series lasted for 6 seasons, and a total of 122 regular episodes. Six television films based on the series were broadcast between 1978 and 1979.
In the 1980s, Troup appeared in the stalker-themed television film "The 25th Man" (1982), which was intended as a pilot for a television series. His last television appearance was a guest-star role in a 1985 episode of the detective series "Simon & Simon". Troup was 67-years-old at the time.
Troup lived in retirement until 1999. He died due to a heart attack in February 1999. He was 80-years-old at the time of death. He was survived by his second wife Julie London, who died in October 2000.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
After passing his screen test, Rand Brooks played a bit role in the 1938 film Love Finds a Way. He then found several other roles before landing the part of Charles Hamilton in Gone with the Wind. He went on to play small roles in films such as Laddie, And One was Beautiful, The Son of Monte Cristo, Jennie, Niagara Falls, among others. Beginning in 1946, he took over the role of Hopalong Cassidy's youthful sidekick, Lucky, and played in twelve of the feature films. Among these, which starred William Boyd as Hoppy, were The Devil's Playground, Fool's Gold, Unexpected Guest, Dangerous Venture, and Hoppy's Holiday. Brooks continued playing roles in films throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s, which also started his television career. He made co-starring appearances on series such as The Roy Rogers Show, Highway Patrol, Lassie, Wagon Train, Maverick, The Real McCoys, The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, Bat Masterson, Laramie, Gunsmoke, The Munsters, Perry Mason, Columbo, and Bonanza, as well as nine episodes of The Lone Ranger, where he began a friendship with Clayton Moore. In 1966, Rand Brooks started Professional Ambulance Service in Glendale, California, with two used ambulances and a credit card. By 1977 his company had become the largest private ambulance 9-1-1 paramedic provider in Los Angeles County. During his ownership the company received dozens of awards and commendations and was widely recognized as one of the finest ambulance services in the country. In 1995 Brooks sold it to corporate giant American Medical Response. He lived at his ranch in Santa Barbara County with second wife Hermine, a former executive with his company, until his death in 2003. Brooks has two children; a daughter and a son, Rand Brooks Jr., who owns a trucking company in Los Angeles. Brooks can be seen portraying a police officer in the two-hour premier episode of the television series Emergency! (1972), which was first aired in January of 1972 on NBC. Rand Brooks' acting career spanned over 140 films and television series, as well as writing, producing, and directing one film called Legend of the Northwest.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Tom Drake was an American actor with a relatively lengthy career. Drake was born in 1918, in Brooklyn, New York. His real name was Alfred Sinclair Alderdice. He was educated at the Iona Preparatory School in New Rochelle, New York, and Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania,
He started his acting career in 1938, with theatrical performances in Broadway, New York City. He appeared in the plays "Run Sheep Run" (1938) and "Clean Beds" (1939), He initially used the stage name "Richard Alden", but later changed his stage name to "Tom Drake".
In the early 1940s, Drake started appearing in theatrical films. Following a number of uncredited parts as an extra, his first film credit was in the film "The Howards of Virginia" (1940), as the character James Howard. The setting of the film was 18th-century Virginia. In the film, the protagonist Matt Howard (played by Cary Grant) is a war orphan. His father was killed in the Braddock Expedition (1755), a failed British campaign during the French and Indian War. The impoverished Howard gains the favor and political patronage of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and uses this connection to acquire land and wealth, and build a new dynasty of plantation owners. But this family is undermined by the class difference and tensions between "new money" Matt and the "old money" heiress which he married.
In 1942, Drake received his first taste of fame by starring in the hit Broadway play "Janie". Afterwards, he was signed to a full contract with the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Drake was 24 years old, but was found ineligible for military service in World War II; his medical exams diagnosed a heart disease.
Drake's most memorable role during the War was the character John Truett in the musical "Meet Me in St. Louis". Truett was the boy next door, who served as the love interest for the character Esther Smith (played by Judy Garland). Following the War, Drake appeared in over 30 films and several television series. He broke out of typecasting in 1959, when playing gang leader Abe McQuown in the Western film "Warlock".
By the early 1970s, Drake's career was in decline. His final film role was the character Dr. Adam Forrest in the horror film "The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe" (1974), Drake died in 1982, suffering from lung cancer. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.- King Donovan was born on 25 January 1918 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Promises..... Promises! (1963) and Playhouse 90 (1956). He was married to Imogene Coca and Anne Catherine Thomas. He died on 30 June 1987 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Allan Arbus was born on 15 February 1918 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for M*A*S*H (1972), Coffy (1973) and Damien: Omen II (1978). He was married to Mariclare Costello and Diane Arbus. He died on 19 April 2013 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- A Drama Desk Award-winning actor ("A Whistle in the Dark" [1969] ) and a Tony Award nominee (as "Monsieur Colmier", "Marat/Sade" [1967] ), he began his career as a member of New York's Neighborhood Playhouse from 1940 to 1942, where he studied with noted acting instructor, Sanford Meisner, before joining the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II. Upon his return, he made his Broadway debut in 1945 in "The Tempest". His stepson, David Hirson, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview that his stepfather was always proudest of his stage work.
His mother died soon after his birth, during the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918, and he was raised by his father, who was a textile worker, and his stepmother.
Most of his acting successes in films came after he reached the age of fifty, although he was a pioneering actor in the days of early television, notably as the third actor, though he had the longest tenure (1950-55),after Bram Nossen and Hal Conklin to play "Dr. Pauli", nemesis of "Captain Video" on the daily TV series, _"Captain Video and His Video Rangers" (1949-1955) over the DuMont Television Network. His portrayal of "Burt Johnson" in Arthur (1981) earned praise from the New York Times as a "standout performance". - Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Jeff was born in Brooklyn and attended Erasmus High School. After high school, he took a drama course and worked in stock companies for two years. His next role was that of an officer in World War II. After he was discharged from the service, he became busy acting in radio dramas and comedies until he was signed by Universal. It was in the fifties that Jeff would become a star, making westerns and action pictures. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950). He followed this by playing the role of Cochise in two sequels: The Battle at Apache Pass (1952) and Taza, Son of Cochise (1954). While his premature gray hair and tanned features served him well in his westerns and action pictures, the studio also put him into soaps and costume movies. In his films, his leading ladies included Maureen O'Hara, Rhonda Fleming, Jane Russell, Joan Crawford, and June Allyson. Shortly after his last film Merrill's Marauders (1962), Jeff died, at 42, from blood poisoning after an operation for a slipped disc.- Virginia Vincent was born on 3 May 1918 in Goshen, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957) and The Return of Dracula (1958). She was married to Frank London and Jack Vincent. She died on 3 October 2013 in San Diego, California, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Marguerite Chapman, a small-town secretary and tomboy nicknamed "Slugger", became a model only after friends insisted "you oughta be in pictures", and she went on to act in more than 30 movies. Never a Hollywood wannabe, Chapman grew up in Chatham, New York, with four brothers. She started working as a typist and switchboard operator in White Plains, New York. Praised repeatedly for her beauty, she became a John Powers model in New York City. After she had appeared on the covers of enough magazines, studios beckoned her to Los Angeles. From 1940 to 1943 she appeared in 18 movies, ranging from Charles Chaplin comedies to armed services booster films as a member of the Warner Bros. singing and dancing Navy Blues Sextet. Chapman was cast as the leading lady in Destroyer (1943) with Edward G. Robinson and Glenn Ford. During World War II she entertained troops, kissed purchasers of large war bonds and appeared in a string of war-themed pictures. By the 1950s, however, she had slipped into supporting roles, notably as the secretary Miss Morris in The Seven Year Itch (1955) with Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell. As her film career waned, she made a few appearances on television, and appeared occasionally in small theaters. Her last film, The Amazing Transparent Man (1960), was a low-budget sci-fi quickie shot by cult director Edgar G. Ulmer in a few days on the grounds of the state fair in Texas (she was asked to appear as "Old Rose" Calver in Titanic (1997), but she was too ill at the time, and the role went to Gloria Stuart). She was married and divorced from attorney G. Bentley Ryan and assistant director Richard Bremerkamp. Her acting career is memorialized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Actor/director/producer Helmut Dantine was born in Vienna, Austria on October 7, 1917. He made a name for himself as an actor during World War Two playing German soldiers and Nazi villains in Hollywood films, most notably in Mrs. Miniver (1942). The young Dantine was a fervent anti-fascist/anti-Nazi activist in Vienna. As a leader in the anti-Nazi youth movement the 19-year old was summarily rounded up and imprisoned at the Rosserlaende concentration camp. Family influence persuaded a physician to grant him a medical release that June and he was immediately sent to Los Angeles to stay with the only friend they had in America. Dantine joined the Pasadena Playhouse, where he was spotted by a Warner Bros. talent scout who was struck by Dantine's dark good looks. Signed to a Warner's contract, he appeared in a variety of films after making his debut as a Nazi in International Squadron (1941) starring Ronald Reagan. He played supporting, second lead and eventually, lead roles in such films as Casablanca (1942) (where he was the newlywed who gambles away his visa money), Edge of Darkness (1943) (his first lead), the infamous Mission to Moscow (1943) and Passage to Marseille (1944). Two of his best films came on loan-out from Warners in 1942: Ernst Lubitsch's comic masterpiece To Be or Not to Be (1942) and William Wyler's Oscar-winning Mrs. Miniver (1942). Dantine directed the the unsuccessful Thundering Jets (1958). His wife, Niki Dantine, was the daughter of Loew's president Nicholas Schenck, the overall boss of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer -- ostensibly the most powerful man in Hollywood since 1927. After Schenck was forced out of Loew's, the wily old movie veteran formed his own production and distribution company. In 1959, Dantine's acting career was on the wane and his attempt to become a director a relative failure, he became a producer. He was appointed vice-president of his father-in-law's Schenck Enterprises, eventually becoming president of the company in 1970. Dantine produced three minor Sam Peckinpah films in the mid-1970s, including Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) and The Killer Elite (1975) in both of which,he had small supporting roles. Helmut Dantine died on May 2, 1982, at age 63, in Beverly Hills after suffering a massive heart attack. His body was interred at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.- Mary Anderson was born on 3 April 1918 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. She was an actress, known for Lifeboat (1944), Gone with the Wind (1939) and Wilson (1944). She was married to Leon Shamroy and Leonard Marion Behrens. She died on 6 April 2014 in Burbank, California, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Peter Shaw was born on 24 June 1918 in Reading, Berkshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Exile (1947) and Sons of the Sea (1939). He was married to Angela Lansbury and Mercia Lydia Squires. He died on 29 January 2003 in Brentwood, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
John McLiam was born on 24 January 1918 in Hayter, Alberta, Canada. He was an actor and writer, known for First Blood (1982), In Cold Blood (1967) and Sleeper (1973). He was married to Roberta Claire Robinson. He died on 16 April 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Distinguished character player James Firman Daly first appeared on stage in his home town of Wisconsin Rapids in 1928. He was set on acting from an early age, and was strongly encouraged by his parents. His father was in the fuel business and his mother at one time a CIA employee. Upon leaving school, Daly studied dramatic arts at various Midwestern colleges, eventually graduating from Grinnell in Iowa. His acting career was then put on hold as a result of the war and he served in all three of the service branches, the last four years spent in the navy as an ensign.
Daly's acting career got off to a good start once he arrived in New York in 1946, landing a part as understudy to Gary Merrill in the long-running hit play "Born Yesterday" on Broadway. By the time he appeared in his third play, "Man and Superman" (1949), he was billed third in the cast and won a Daniel Blum Award for his performance. Subsequently, Daly had a busy time on stage, both on and off-Broadway. He co-starred three times with the legendary Helen Hayes, most famously in "The Glass Menagerie" in 1950. That same year he also collected the Theater Guild Award as the star of "Major Barbara". His other theatrical roles of note included "Billy Budd", "Saint Joan", "The Merchant of Venice" and (on tour with Colleen Dewhurst) "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".
A hard-working actor and intent on diversifying into different media, Daly clearly understood the potential of live television drama. He made his small screen debut in the late 1940s and soon starred in early Playhouse productions. Within a few years he featured in his own weekly syndicated series, Foreign Intrigue (1951), about a family of foreign correspondents in Europe. This was one of the first TV shows to be shot on location and it necessitated his and his family's temporary relocation to Paris and Stockholm. Throughout the next twenty years, Daly remained much in demand as a reliable leading television actor with 'gravitas', often playing tragic or despairing figures. He was commanding as the titular star of Give Us Barabbas! (1961). Four years later, he picked up an Emmy for his role in the Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951) episode "The Eagle and the Cage".
Another memorably poignant portrayal was in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "A Stop at Willoughby", with Daly as a salesperson driven to the brink of a nervous breakdown, desperately escaping his world to a fantasy town in his own mind where life is perpetually simple and peaceful. He was also David Vincent's ill-fated business partner and friend in the pilot episode "Beach-Head", one of the first victims of The Invaders (1967). Many viewers will remember Daly as 'Flint', the solitary near-immortal from the Star Trek (1966) episode "Requiem for Methuselah". There were countless other guest starring roles and even a few choice movie parts, such as Planet of the Apes (1968). Daly enjoyed another recurring role in the long-running (170 episodes) Medical Center (1969) as resident 'elder statesman' to young surgeon Chad Everett. He had just completed filming on an episode of "Roots: The Next Generations" and was scheduled to appear in the play "Equus" at the historic Westchester Theatre, Tarrytown Music Hall, when he died of a heart attack at the age of 59.- Jeanne Bates began her acting career while a student at San Mateo Junior College, appearing on radio soap operas in San Francisco. She played the lead in an airwave mystery series, Lew X. Lansworth's "Whodunit" (Bates' scream was the show's "signature"), which became so successful that it (and Bates) moved to Hollywood in 1941. Bates and Lansworth married in 1943. By the time the two were married, Bates was already under contract to Columbia Pictures, where she debuted in a Boston Blackie mystery.
- Opulent French actress Suzanne Flon, who came from humble beginnings, evolved into a luminous stage and film star whose career lasted five decades. She was born near Paris, the daughter of a railway worker and a seamstress and at school developed an interest in writing poetry. Following high school she worked as an English interpreter at Au Printemps, a large Parisian department store, before finding a position with the famed songbird Édith Piaf as her personal secretary. Ms. Flon's first performance was as a mistress of ceremonies in a musical revue. She continued on stage and eventually developed an association with the noted playwright Jean Anouilh in the early 1940s; she played his heroine Ismene in "Antigone" and played Joan of Arc to great acclaim in "The Lark" in 1953. She also dabbled in avant garde works by Marguerite Duras as well as Shakespeare, Pirandello, Chekhov and Molliere and won a number of stage awards for her efforts. In 1959, she became a member of the Theatre National Populaire and appeared in several plays under the direction of René Clair.
Ms. Flon began in films with Capitaine Blomet (1947) before branching out internationally in the 1950s. She was an elegant standout as a free-spirited couture model who became the object of fascination and desire for the crippled painter Toulouse-Lautrec played by José Ferrer in John Huston's film Moulin Rouge (1952). She also impressed in friend Orson Welles' comedy-thriller Confidential Report (1955) as a listless patrician, and later played Miss Pittl for him in The Trial (1962) [The Trial]. War themes were prominent in her 1960s work. In Thou Shalt Not Kill (1961) [Thou Shalt Not Kill], she won the Venice Film Festival award for her resolute mother whose son resists the World War I draft. In The Train (1964) starring Burt Lancaster, Jeanne Moreau and Paul Scofield she had some excellent scenes as an art curator who becomes a detrimental figure in the Nazi's plans to secretly export masterpieces out of France during the French Resistance.
Awards continued to come her way with a number of stylish and sensitive "grande dame" roles. She won bookend César awards for One Deadly Summer (1983) [One Deadly Summer] as Isabelle Adjani's deaf but highly sensitized aunt, and as the mother of Lambert Wilson in La vouivre (1989) [The Dragon]. Her rich and soothing voice was also used frequently for French narratives in numerous documentaries. Ms. Flon continued to appear on stage, film and TV right up until her death of a stomach ailment at age 87 in 2005. - While never one of the big names on screen, Michael Strong was one of those excellent method actors who were often compelling to watch. Unsurprisingly, many of Michael's screen characters were typical New Yorkers, whether they be cops or thugs, and he imbued them with an edgy 'in-your-face' intensity that was all his own. He was already an established stage actor, both on and off-Broadway, with an extensive resume to his name long before transferring his talents to the screen. A graduate of the Actor's Studio, he was also part of the original crew of the Lincoln Center Repertory Company, performing in key plays by Arthur Miller, S.N. Behrman and Eugene O'Neill. Usually assigned to playing military types or proletarian firebrands, Michael eventually came to note as a young burglar in "Detective Story", written and staged on Broadway by Sidney Kingsley in 1949. Director William Wyler subsequently brought him to Hollywood to recreate his role for the 1951 motion picture.
A couple of other good roles Michael later enacted for the big screen were his smarmy used-car salesman Stegman in the thriller Point Blank (1967) and Brigadier General Hobart Carver in the Oscar-winning war drama Patton (1970). For the most part, however, television became Michael's most prolific medium. His furtive looks and nervous demeanor often suggested that his characters had something to hide - and most of them did, particularly those Eastern bloc spy types with names like Malkov and Petrovich. He was at home in just about every major police series of the period, equally adept at NYPD sergeants and contract assassins. Fans of Star Trek (1966) will also remember Michael as the unhinged Dr. Roger Korby who had his consciousness transferred into an android body in the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?". As tough as some of his characters, Michael continued to act right up until the end. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Evelyn Ankers, a beautiful movie actress who was a staple of Universal's horror films in the 1940s, was born in Chile to English parents in 1918. Her parents repatriated the family back to England in the 1920s, and it was in Old Blighty that Ankers developed a desire to become an actress.
She began appearing in small roles in English movies in the mid 1930s while she was still in school. She appeared in Fire Over England (1937) with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and in Bells of St. Mary's (1937). A beauty with talent, she soon won starring roles in the low-budget The Villiers Diamond (1938) and The Claydon Treasure Mystery (1938).
With war clouds darkening the skies over Europe, Ankers emigrated to the United States and was signed to a contract by Universal in 1940. She made her Universal debut in the Abbott and Costello comedy-horror picture Hold That Ghost (1941) before appearing in the horror film classic The Wolf Man (1941) opposite Lon Chaney Jr.. Ankers found herself cast into the horror picture ghetto, appearing in three more Chaney fright films, The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Son of Dracula (1943) and The Frozen Ghost (1945), during a period in which she was cast ashore with a sarong-less Jon Hall in The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944). She also appeared in support of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) and The Pearl of Death (1944).
Ankers married B-movie hunk Richard Denning in 1942 and made a go articulating the anxieties of the home front while her husband was off to war. Horror flicks were popular during World War II, but after the cessation of hostilities in 1945, they went out of favor with audiences. Ankers' career, mated to the genre at Universal, suffered.
She quit Universal in 1945 and freelanced at Columbia and Poverty Row's Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) and Republic Pictures in dramas and mysteries. Evelyn co-starred with her returned husband, Richard, in the major release Black Beauty (1946) for 20th Century Fox. For PRC, she headlined Queen of Burlesque (1946) and later co-starred with Lex Barker in Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949).
As the 1950s dawned, a decade of conformity and family values, Ankers quit the movies for married life and motherhood after making The Texan Meets Calamity Jane (1950), in which she was first-billed. She was 32 years old. A decade later, Ankers came out of retirement to make one final screen appearance, in her hubby's No Greater Love (1960).
Evelyn Ankers died of ovarian cancer on August 29, 1985, twelve days after her 67th birthday.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Born in London's East End, Barry's career began when he won a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the age of 15. Upon graduation, he followed with successful stage runs in London's West End and in theatrical productions throughout the United Kingdom, and appeared on the BBC's earliest live television broadcasts in the late 1930s. Barry relocated to Canada in the early 1950s, working in live theatre, on CBC Radio, and in the premiere CBC-TV broadcasts. While a staple in many of the anthology and dramatic series of the 1950s and 1960s, he is probably best known in North America for his TV roles as "Lt. Philip Gerard" in The Fugitive (1963) and as "Prof. Victor Bergman" in Space: 1999 (1975). A journalist once determined that Barry had played more than 3,000 roles on the stage, screen, and radio in a career spanning eight decades.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Born in Liberty, Missouri, as Gail Shikles Jr., tall, suave Craig Stevens will forever be remembered for his role as the cool, laid-back private eye Peter Gunn (1958), a ground-breaking show that ushered in the era of tough but smooth private eyes who were handy with their fists and with the ladies, and which also pioneered the use of jazz as not only background music but its main theme song. Stevens was attending Kansas University and planning a career in dentistry when he began performing in student plays at the university. Bitten by the acting bug, he moved to California, and in 1941 was signed by Warner Bros., where he met his future wife, Alexis Smith. Although never a front-rank star, Stevens played many second-leads through the 1940s and 1950s. Sci-fi fans will know him best as the lead in the somewhat cult-classic The Deadly Mantis (1957). With his film career in a rut, he moved over to television, and it was there he made his mark in the landmark "Peter Gunn" series. He made many guest-starring appearances in TV series over the years, had recurring roles in such series as Dallas (1978) and starred in ITC's Man of the World (1962). He retired after a role in his old friend Blake Edwards' 1981 film S.O.B. (1981).- Actor
- Writer
Jack MacGowran was an Irish actor, probably best known for his work with Samuel Beckett.
He established his professional reputation as a member of the Abbey Players in Dublin, while he achieved stage renown for his knowing interpretations of the works of Samuel Beckett. He appeared as Lucky in Waiting For Godot at the Royal Court Theatre, and with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Endgame at the Aldwych Theatre. He released an LP record, MacGowran Speaking Beckett, to coincide with Samuel Beckett's 60th birthday in 1966, and won the 1970-71 Obie for Best Performance By an Actor in the off-Broadway play MacGowran in the works of Beckett.
He also specialized in the work of Seán O'Casey, creating the role of Joxer in the Broadway musical Juno in 1959, based with O'Casey's 1924 play about the Troubles, Juno and the Paycock. He played O'Casey's brother Archie in Young Cassidy (1965), one of John Ford's last films.
In 1954 he moved to London, subsequently becoming a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. There he struck up a lasting friendship with Peter O'Toole, with whom he later appeared in Richard Brooks' Lord Jim (1965).
MacGowran played the title role of "Gandhi" in the Broadway play written by Gurney Campbell in 1971, directed by Jose Quintero.
MacGowran's film career started in Ireland with the film No Resting Place (1951), and many of his earlier films were set in Ireland. Notably The Quiet Man (1952), The Gentle Gunman (1952), Rooney (1958) and Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959). His last film was The Exorcist (1973), where he played Burke Dennings, an alcoholic director and Regan's first victim.- Hal Baylor was born on 10 December 1918 in San Antonio, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Big Jim McLain (1952), Emergency! (1972) and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). He died on 5 January 1998 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- William attended grammar and high schools in New York and New Jersey. Upon graduation, he enrolled at West Virginia University where he planned to study law and played football and tennis. One summer, his uncle got him a job at the Suffern County (in New York) Theatre. He worked with actors Broderick Crawford, George Tobias, José Ferrer and Kent Smith. After that experience, he decided to continue with theatre and left college and toured with "Tobacco Road". He had a brief stint with the Mercury theatre in New York and then left for Hollywood and was signed to an MGM contract. He was supposed to have made a movie with Esther Williams which never came about. Then it was off to the Army. Discharged in 1946, he spent three years with Columbia before freelancing. He starred for the entire run of the TV series It's a Great Life (1954).
- Actor
- Sound Department
Barry Atwater was born on 16 May 1918 in Denver, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for Star Trek (1966), One Step Beyond (1959) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964). He died on 24 May 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
They didn't come packaged any sweeter or lovelier than Anne Shirley, a gentle and gracious 1930s teen film actress who didn't quite reach the zenith of front-rank stardom and retired all too soon at age 26. On film as a toddler, she went through a small revolving door of marquee names before legally settling (at age 16) on the name Anne Shirley, the name of her schoolgirl heroine in Anne's most famous film of all -- Anne of Green Gables (1934).
Manhattan-born Anne was christened Dawn Evelyeen Paris on April 17, 1918. Her father died while she was still a baby, and she and her widowed mother lived a very meager New York existence at first. At the age of 16 months, the child was already contributing to the household finances as a photographer's model, using sundry different monikers, including Lenn Fondre, Lindley Dawn and Dawn O'Day. With this source of monetary inspiration, her mother sought work for her daughter in films as well, and at the age of 4, Anne (billed as Dawn O'Day) made her first feature with The Hidden Woman (1922). She showed enough promise in the film Moonshine Valley (1922), as a young girl who manages to reunite her separated parents, that she and her mother made a permanent move from New York to California. Scarce work for such a young child, but Anne managed to find it with minor roles in The Rustle of Silk (1923) and The Spanish Dancer (1923) for Paramount Pictures. During her adolescence she often appeared as the leading stars' daughter in films such as Mother Knows Best (1928) with Madge Bellamy, Sins of the Fathers (1928) starring Jean Arthur and Liliom (1930) with Charles Farrell. Oftentimes she would play the female star of the film as a child, such as Janet Gaynor's in 4 Devils (1928), Frances Dee's in Rich Man's Folly (1931) and Barbara Stanwyck's in So Big! (1932).
After a rash of unbilled parts, Anne was used by Vitaphone for a series of 1930s short subjects. By her teen years she had developed before the very eyes of Hollywood into a petite and lovely young brunette. Casting agents took notice. Following roles in Rasputin and the Empress (1932) with the three Barrymores and The Life of Jimmy Dolan (1933) starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Loretta Young, Anne was tested among hundreds of young aspirants and captured the role of Anne Shirley in Lucy Maud Montgomery's classic novel Anne of Green Gables (1934), imbuing the character with all the spirit and charm (not to mention talent) necessary. She officially became a teen celebrity after changing her moniker for the final time in conjunction with the release of the film.
Prominent misty-eyed ingénue leads came her way as a result of playing a swamp girl in Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) alongside Will Rogers and in M'Liss (1936) opposite John Beal, but her resume became littered with meek B-level comedies and weak dramas, such as Chasing Yesterday (1935), Too Many Wives (1937) and Meet the Missus (1937), that did little to advance her career. Finally at age 19, she found a role to match her "Green Gables" success playing Barbara Stanwyck's daughter in the classic weeper Stella Dallas (1937). The interaction between the two was magical, and both Barbara and Anne were nominated for Oscars (Anne in the supporting category) for their superb portrayals . Both lost, however, to Luise Rainer and Alice Brady, respectively.
During this time of major success, Anne met and eventually married actor John Payne in 1937. The popular Hollywood couple had one child, Julie Payne, who became an actress for a time in the 1970s. Her subsequent career was full of promise, but with every quality picture bestowed upon her, such as Vigil in the Night (1940) and All That Money Can Buy (1941), came a faltering one that hurt her career, including Career (1939) and West Point Widow (1941). Especially disappointing was her long-anticipated "Green Gables" sequel Anne of Windy Poplars (1940), which received very lackluster reviews.
The still-young actress finished on top, however, opposite Dick Powell in the classic movie mystery Murder, My Sweet (1944). Divorced from John Payne in 1943 and tiring of the Hollywood rat race she had endured since a child, however, Anne decided to end her career after her second marriage, to the movie's producer Adrian Scott, in 1945. Never an ambitious actress, Anne stayed with her career as long as she did primarily to please her mother. Her three-year marriage to Scott was unable to withstand the legal troubles of her husband's 1947 blacklisting (he was one of the "Hollywood 10" imprisoned during the McCarthy era for his communist affiliations). Her 1949 marriage to screenwriter Charles Lederer, the nephew of actress Marion Davies, was her longest and most fulfilling. Their son, Daniel, was born the following year. He inherited his father's writing talent and grew up to become a poet.
Never tempted to resume her career at any time, she remained a charming and gracious socialite in the Hollywood circle. A painter on the side, she at one point entertained the thought of becoming a behind-the-scenes worker, such as a dialogue coach, but it was never pursued aggressively. Her husband's sudden death in 1976 triggered a severe emotional crisis for Anne, who turned for a time to alcohol. Recovered, she lived the rest of her life completely out of the limelight, dying in 1993 of lung cancer at age 75. Her granddaughter by daughter Julie (via her marriage to screenwriter Robert Towne) is the actress Katharine Towne, who has appeared in such films as Mulholland Drive (2001).
Not as well remembered as an actress of her award-worthy caliber should be, perhaps had Anne Shirley given Hollywood a longer tryout and added a bit more bite to her rather benign, sweetly sentimental image, her star would be brighter today. Nevertheless, her film work has unarguably brightened the silver screen.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Possessing one of TV's more identifiable mugs, Jewish-American character actor Milton Selzer was here, there and everywhere in the 1960s and 1970s, playing a host of usually unsympathetic mobsters, gamblers, and crooks with a sad, almost pathetic quality in about every popular crime story offered, notably The Untouchables (1959), The Fugitive (1963), Hawaii Five-O (1968) and Mission: Impossible (1966). Always in demand with his trademark glum face, bulb nose and spoon-shaped ears, Selzer went on to enjoy a five-decade plus career.
Milton was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1918 but moved with his family while young to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Graduating from Portsmouth High School in 1936, he studied at the University of New Hampshire before serving in World War II. Moving to New York, he trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and The New School in the 1940s and received his first big break with minor roles in the Broadway classical plays "Richard III", "Julius Caesar" and "Arms and the Man". In the late 1950s, Selzer turned to film and (especially) to TV's "Golden Age", making an early mark in solid ethnic roles (German, Arab, etc.)
He finally made a definitive move to Los Angeles in 1960. Occasional movies included The Last Mile (1959), The Young Savages (1961), Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968), In Enemy Country (1968) and Lady Sings the Blues (1972), but it was the small screen that proved a sounder medium for him. With hundreds upon hundreds of guest parts to his credit, he also was called upon to play more upstanding gents including store-owners, judges and colonels on occasion, always offering a solid, authentic presence to every sound stage he set foot on.
In later years Selzer managed a few regular series roles including Needles and Pins (1973) and The Famous Teddy Z (1989). Broaching 80 years old, he officially retired in the late 1990s and passed away of pulmonary and stroke complications just shy of age 88 in Oxnard, California.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Dark haired, athletic American leading man of '40s B-movies. Richard Crane was at his most successful at a time when Hollywood was somewhat denuded of its male stars, most of whom were doing wartime military service. Upon their return to the ranks, Crane's career went into decline. He did, however, have a brief resurgence in the 1950s as the square-jawed, muscular hero of several space-borne serials, notably as the titular star of Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954). The next fifteen years he spent guesting in TV westerns and crime dramas, frequently appearing on The Lone Ranger (1949) and Lassie (1954). His final recurring role was as a police lieutenant in Surfside 6 (1960), a detective series aimed at the teenage market. At the time of Crane's death, he was President of Film Trend Productions.- Gloria Stewart was born on 10 March 1918 in Larchmont, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Laugh-In (1977), The Jimmy Stewart Show (1971) and The Jack Benny Program (1950). She was married to James Stewart and Edward Beale McLean Jr.. She died on 16 February 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.