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- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Natasha Jane Richardson was born in Marylebone, London, England, to director and producer Tony Richardson and actress Vanessa Redgrave. She was the sister of actress Joely Richardson, the niece of actors Corin Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave, and the granddaughter of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson.
Trained at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, Richardson
performed extensively on stage in roles, including "Helena" in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Ophelia in "Hamlet" at the Young Vic. In 1986, she garnered the London Drama Critics' Most Promising Newcomer Award for her performance as "Nina" in "The Seagull", with Vanessa Redgrave and
Jonathan Pryce. In 1987, she played "Tracey Lord" in Richard Eyre's musical, "High Society".
Natasha made her feature film debut as Mary Shelley in
Ken Russell's Gothic (1986). Her performance caught the
attention of director Paul Schrader, who cast her in the
title role in Patty Hearst (1988). Natasha achieved notable success in such films as Pat O'Connor's A Month in the Country (1987),
Roland Joffé's Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) and
The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish (1991), featuring Bob Hoskins and Jeff Goldblum. For her performance in
Volker Schlöndorff's The Handmaid's Tale (1990) and Schrader's
The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Richardson earned The London Evening Standard Award for Best Actress of 1990; and for Widows' Peak (1994),
also starring Mia Farrow and Joan Plowright, she received the Best Actress Award at the 1994 Karlovy Vary Festival.
Also in 1994, she co-starred with Jodie Foster
and Liam Neeson in
Nell (1994) and, in 1998, in
The Parent Trap (1998) with
Dennis Quaid. Her early 2000s films include
Blow Dry (2001) released in 2001, and
Ethan Hawke's
Chelsea Walls (2001).
Natasha performed the title role of "Anna Christie", first
in London, where she was voted London Drama Critics' Best Actress Award
in 1992, then on Broadway at the Roundabout in 1993, where she was
nominated for a Tony for Best Actress in a Play, a Theatre World Award
for Outstanding Debut, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding
Debut of an Actress, and a Drama Desk nomination for Best Actress. For
her performance as Sally Bowles in
Sam Mendes' production of "Cabaret",
she won the 1998 Tony, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and Drama
Desk Awards for Best Actress in a Musical. She then appeared on
Broadway in Patrick Marber's
Tony-nominated play "Closer". In December 2009 she had been intended to
play "Miss Julie" on Broadway with
Philip Seymour Hoffman, directed
by David Leveaux for Roundabout Theatre.
Richardson's television credits included
Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts" for the BBC, also
starring Judi Dench,
Michael Gambon and
Kenneth Branagh; the HBO cable feature
Hostages (1992); the BBC film
Suddenly, Last Summer (1993),
based on the play by
Tennessee Williams, and also starring
Maggie Smith and
Rob Lowe. In 1993 she starred as Zelda
Fitzgerald in the TNT movie
Zelda (1993), co-starring
Timothy Hutton and directed by Pat
O'Connor (cable Ace nomination for Best Actress). She played
Ruth Gruber in the 2001 CBS mini-series
Haven (2001) based on Ms.
Gruber's autobiography.
In March 2009, Natasha died in a New York City hospital, after falling and receiving a head
injury whilst skiing in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada. Natasha was married to actor Liam Neeson from 1994 until her death, and the couple have two children.- Jennifer Stahl was born on 11 April 1962 in Titusville, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for Dirty Dancing (1987), Firehouse (1987) and Identity Crisis (1989). She died on 10 May 2001 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Cinematographer
When hunky, twenty-year-old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of little depth. He spent several years trying desperately to sway this image, but this was a double-edged sword. His work comprised nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Patriot (2000), A Knight's Tale (2001), Monster's Ball (2001), Ned Kelly (2003), The Brothers Grimm (2005), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Casanova (2005), Candy (2006), I'm Not There (2007), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). He also produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.
Heath Ledger was born on the fourth of April 1979, in Perth, Western Australia, to Sally (Ramshaw), a teacher of French, and Kim Ledger, a mining engineer who also raced cars. His ancestry was Scottish, English, Irish, and Sephardi Jewish. As the story goes, in junior high school it was compulsory to take one of two electives, either cooking or drama. As Heath could not see himself in a cooking class he tried his hand at drama. Heath was talented, however the rest of the class did not acknowledge his talent. When he was seventeen he and a friend decided to pack up, leave school, take a car and rough it to Sydney. Heath believed Sydney to be the place where dreams were made or, at least, where actors could possibly get their big break. Upon arriving in Sydney with a purported sixty-nine cents to his name, Heath tried everything to get a break.
His first real acting job came in a low-budget movie called Blackrock (1997), a largely unimpressive cliché; an adolescent angst film about one boy's struggle when he learns his best mate raped a girl. He only had a very small role in the film. After that small role Heath auditioned for a role in a T.V. show called Sweat (1996) about a group of young Olympic hopefuls. He was offered one of two roles, one as a swimmer, another as a gay cyclist. Heath accepted the latter because he felt to really stand out as an actor one had to accept unique roles that stood out from the bunch. It got him small notice, but unfortunately the show was quickly axed, forcing him to look for other roles. He was in Home and Away (1988) for a very short period, in which he played a surfer who falls in love with one of the girls of Summer Bay. Then came his very brief role in Paws (1997), a film which existed solely to cash in on guitar prodigy Nathan Cavaleri's brief moment of fame, where he was the hottest thing in Australia. Heath played a student in the film, involved in a stage production of a Shakespeare play, in which he played "Oberon". A very brief role, this offered him a small paycheck but did nothing to advance his career. Then came Two Hands (1999). He went to the U.S. trying to audition for film roles, showcasing his brief role in Roar (1997) opposite then unknown Vera Farmiga.
Then Australian director Gregor Jordan auditioned him for the lead in Two Hands (1999), which he got. An in your face Aussie crime thriller, Two Hands (1999) was outstanding and helped him secure a role in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). After that, it seemed Heath was being typecast as a young hunk, which he did not like, so he accepted a role in a very serious war drama The Patriot (2000).
What followed was a stark inconsistency of roles, Ledger accepting virtually every single character role, anything to avoid being typecast. Some met with praise, like his short role in Monster's Ball (2001), but his version of Ned Kelly (2003) was an absolute flop, which led distributors hesitant to even release it outside Australia. Heath finally had deserved success with his role in Brokeback Mountain (2005). For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in in the film, Ledger won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and Best International Actor from the Australian Film Institute, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Ledger was found dead on January 22, 2008 in his apartment in the Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo, with a bottle of prescription sleeping pills near-by. It was concluded weeks later that he died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs that included pain-killers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication. His death occurred during editing of The Dark Knight (2008) and in the midst of filming his last role as Tony in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009).
Posthumously, he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the ensemble cast, the director, and the casting director for the film I'm Not There (2007), which was inspired by the life and songs of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In the film, Ledger portrayed a fictional actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Dylan's life and persona.
A few months before his death, Ledger had finished filming his performance as the Joker in 'The Dark Knight (2008). His untimely death cast a somber shadow over the subsequent promotion of the $185 million Batman production. Ledger received more than thirty posthumous accolades for his critically acclaimed performance as the Joker, the psychopathic clown prince of crime, in the film, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a Best Actor International Award at the 2008 Australian Film Institute Awards (for which he is the second actor to win an acting award posthumously after Peter Finch who won an Oscar for Network (Best Actor 1977)), the 2008 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor, the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture, and the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Since David McCallum's father, David McCallum Sr., was first violinist for the London Philharmonic Orchestra and his mother, Dorothy Dorman, was a cellist, it's not surprising that David was originally headed for a career in music, playing oboe. He studied briefly at the Royal Academy of Music. He left that, however, for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and joined Actor's Equity in 1946, his first acting work being for BBC Radio. He made nearly a dozen movies in the United Kingdom before his critically acclaimed work as Lt. Wyatt in Billy Budd (1962).
To the older generation, he is perhaps best known for his portrayal of U.N.C.L.E. agent Illya Kuryakin in the hit TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). To younger audience, he is best known for his superlative portrayal of Dr. Donald "Duckie" Mallard on NCIS (2003).
McCallum was first married to actress Jill Ireland, whom he met while filming Hell Drivers (1957). In 1962 he introduced Ireland to Charles Bronson when both were filming The Great Escape (1963). She eventually left McCallum and married Bronson in 1968. McCallum and Ireland had three sons: Paul, Jason (an adopted son who died from an accidental drug overdose in 1989), and Val (short for Valentine).
He met fashion model Katherine Carpenter during a photo shoot for Glamour in 1965 and married her two years later. The couple had a son, Peter, and a daughter, Sophie. They were together for 58 years and were active with charitable organizations that support the The United States Marine Corps: Katherine's father was a Marine who served in the Battle of Iwo Jima, and her brother lost his life in the Vietnam War. McCallum had eight grandchildren.
David McCallum died on September 25 2023 in New York City from natural causes at the age of 90.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Film and stage actor and theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, suburb of Fairport to Marilyn (Loucks), a lawyer and judge, and Gordon Stowell Hoffman, a Xerox employee, and was mostly of German, Irish, English and Dutch ancestry. After becoming involved in high school theatrics, he attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a B.F.A. degree in Drama in 1989.
He made his feature film debut in the indie production Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole (1991) as Phil Hoffman, and his first role in a major release came the next year in My New Gun (1992). While he had supporting roles in some other major productions like Scent of a Woman (1992) and Twister (1996), his breakthrough role came in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997).
He quickly became an icon of indie cinema, establishing a reputation as one of the screen's finest actors, in a variety of supporting and second leads in indie and major features, including Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998), Flawless (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and State and Main (2000). He also appeared in supporting roles in such mainstream, big-budget features as Red Dragon (2002), Cold Mountain (2003) and Mission: Impossible III (2006).
Hoffman was also quite active on the stage. On Broadway, he has earned two Tony nominations, as Best Actor (Play) in 2000 for a revival of Sam Shepard's "True West" and as Best Actor (Featured Role - Play) in 2003 for a revival of Eugene O'Neill (I)'s "Long Day's Journey into Night". His other acting credits in the New York theater include "The Seagull" (directed by Mike Nichols for The New York Shakespeare Festival), "Defying Gravity", "The Merchant of Venice" (directed by Peter Sellars), "Shopping and F*@%ing" and "The Author's Voice" (Drama Desk nomination).
He was the Co-Artistic Director of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York, for which he directed "Our Lady of 121st Street" by Stephen Adly Guirgis. He also directed "In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings" and "Jesus Hopped the A Train" by Guirgis for LAByrinth, and "The Glory of Living" by Rebecca Gilman at the Manhattan Class Company.
Hoffman consolidated his reputation as one of the finest actors under the age of 40 with his turn in the title role of Capote (2005), for which he won the Los Angeles Film Critics Award as Best Actor. In 2006, he was awarded the Best Actor Oscar for the same role.
On February 2, 2014, Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in an apartment in Greenwich village, New York. Investigators found Hoffman with a syringe in his arm and two open envelopes of heroin next to him. Mr. Hoffman was long known to struggle with addiction. In 2006, he said in an interview with "60 Minutes" that he had given up drugs and alcohol many years earlier, when he was age 22. In 2013, he checked into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days after a reliance on prescription pills resulted in his briefly turning again to heroin.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; Crawford worked a variety of menial jobs. She was a good dancer, though, and -- perhaps seeing dance as her ticket to a career in show business -- she entered several contests, one of which landed her a spot in a chorus line. Before long, she was dancing in big Midwestern and East Coast cities. After almost two years, she packed her bags and moved to Hollywood. Crawford was determined to succeed, and shortly after arriving she got her first bit part, as a showgirl in Pretty Ladies (1925).
Three films quickly followed; although the roles weren't much to speak of, she continued toiling. Throughout 1927 and early 1928, she was cast in small parts, but that ended with the role of Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), which elevated her to star status. Crawford had cleared the first big hurdle; now came the second, in the form of talkies. Many stars of the silents saw their careers evaporate, either because their voices weren't particularly pleasant or because their voices, pleasing enough, didn't match the public's expectations (for example, some fans felt that John Gilbert's tenor didn't quite match his very masculine persona). But Crawford wasn't felled by sound. Her first talkie, Untamed (1929), was a success. As the 1930s progressed, Crawford became one of the biggest stars at MGM. She was in top form in films such as Grand Hotel (1932), Sadie McKee (1934), No More Ladies (1935), and Love on the Run (1936); movie patrons were enthralled, and studio executives were satisfied.
By the early 1940s, MGM was no longer giving her plum roles; newcomers had arrived in Hollywood, and the public wanted to see them. Crawford left MGM for rival Warner Bros., and in 1945 she landed the role of a lifetime. Mildred Pierce (1945) gave her an opportunity to show her range as an actress, and her performance as a woman driven to give her daughter everything garnered Crawford her first, and only, Oscar for Best Actress. The following year she appeared with John Garfield in the well-received Humoresque (1946). In 1947, she appeared as Louise Graham in Possessed (1947); again she was nominated for a Best Actress from the Academy, but she lost to Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter (1947). Crawford continued to choose her roles carefully, and in 1952 she was nominated for a third time, for her depiction of Myra Hudson in Sudden Fear (1952). This time the coveted Oscar went to Shirley Booth, for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). Crawford's career slowed after that; she appeared in minor roles until 1962, when she and Bette Davis co-starred in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Their longstanding rivalry may have helped fuel their phenomenally vitriolic and well-received performances. (Earlier in their careers, Davis said of Crawford, "She's slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie", and Crawford said of Davis, "I don't hate [her] even though the press wants me to. I resent her. I don't see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms instead of real acting ability. Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words, and what have you got? She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that.")
Crawford's final appearance on the silver screen was in the flop Trog (1970). Turning to vodka more and more, she was hardly seen afterward. On May 10, 1977, Joan died of a heart attack in New York City. She was 71 years old. She had disinherited her adopted daughter Christina and son Christopher; the former wrote a tell-all book called "Mommie Dearest", The Sixth Sense published in 1978. The book cast Crawford in a negative light and was cause for much debate, particularly among her friends and acquaintances, including Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Crawford's first husband. (In 1981, Faye Dunaway starred in Mommie Dearest (1981) which did well at the box office.) Crawford is interred in the same mausoleum as fellow MGM star Judy Garland, in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Ben Gazzara's screen career began with two critically acclaimed roles
as heavies in the late 1950s. He turned to television in the 1960s but
made a big screen comeback with roles in three
John Cassavetes films in the
1970s. The 1980s and 1990s saw Gazzara work more frequently than ever
before in character parts. If he never became the leading man his early
films and stage work promised, he had a career notable for its
longevity. He was born Biagio Anthony Gazzara on August 28, 1930, in
New York City. The son of a Sicilian immigrant laborer, he grew up on
New York's tough Lower East Side. After seeing
Laurette Taylor in "The Glass
Menagerie," Gazzara decided he wanted to become an actor. He studied
engineering (unhappily) but quit after receiving an acting scholarship
(he worked under well-known coach
Erwin Piscator).
Gazzara then joined the Actors Studio, where a group of students
improvised a play from
Calder Willingham's novel End as a
Man. The tale of a brutal southern military academy reached Broadway
slightly changed in 1953 but with Gazzara still in the principal role.
It was a star making part (he won a Theatre World award) and he then
played leads in the original productions of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
(1955) and "A Hatful of Rain" (1955) (he was nominated for a Tony).
Bigger names Paul Newman and
Don Murray played those last two
roles on the big screen but Gazzara made his movie debut in
The Strange One (1957) the film
version of "End as a Man." The film was a critical but not commercial
success. His next role was as the defendant in
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
which was a big hit.
Gazzara followed this with an Italian venture co-starring
Anna Magnani,
The Passionate Thief (1960), two
Hollywood films
The Young Doctors (1961) and
Convicts 4 (1962) and then another
Italian film
Conquered City (1962).
None of these did much for his career, and he turned to television. He
appeared in the successful series
Arrest and Trial (1963) and
Run for Your Life (1965).
In between, he made
A Rage to Live (1965), a film
version of John O'Hara's novel. He
returned to films in
The Bridge at Remagen (1969)
and with a cameo appearance in
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969).
His buddy in the cameo was
John Cassavetes, who directed
and co-starred with him in
Husbands (1970), a critical success.
Gazzara made two more well-received films with his good friend
Cassavetes:
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
and Opening Night (1977).
Gazzara's other films in the 1970s were undistinguished apart from the
sprawling
Voyage of the Damned (1976)
and a rare leading role in director
Peter Bogdanovich's
Saint Jack (1979).
Bloodline (1979) and
They All Laughed (1981) (also
directed by Bogdanovich) were only notable because of Gazzara's
off-screen relationship with co-star
Audrey Hepburn (ironically,
Gazzara had declined to make his screen debut in
War and Peace (1956) starring
Hepburn).
Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981)
was another lead for Gazzara, but it received a mixed critical
reception. Other big-screen roles in the 1980s were scarce apart from
Road House (1989), a
Patrick Swayze vehicle that Gazzara
believed out of all his films had been the most repeated on television.
He worked much on the small screen, including the groundbreaking
television movie
An Early Frost (1985),
playing the father of an AIDS victim.
The 1990s saw Gazzara working like never before, appearing in 38
films. Most were for free-to-air television or cable but he also worked
on the big screen in
The Spanish Prisoner (1997),
The Big Lebowski (1998),
Happiness (1998) and
Summer of Sam (1999). His
television work included a guest appearance as an executive assistant
attorney in a 2001 episode of
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999)- a nice touch since
the predecessor of
Law & Order (1990) and its
spin-off series.
Gazzara has often returned to the stage throughout his career-in "The
Night Circus" (1958) (where he met second wife
Janice Rule), "Strange Interlude" (1963),
"Traveller Without Luggage" (1964), Hughie/Duet (1975) (nominated for a
Tony), "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1976) (again Tony nominated),
and "Shimada" (1992). He has also worked as a director on episodes his
series
Run for Your Life (1965)
and
The Name of the Game (1968)
and the television movies
A Friend in Deed (1974)
and
Troubled Waters (1975)
featuring his friend Peter Falk. The
unreleased Beyond the Ocean (1990)
(which he also wrote) was his final film as a director.
In 2003 Gazzara appeared in the independent
Dogville (2003) adding
Lars von Trier to the list of interesting
and acclaimed directors with whom he has worked. There can't be many
actors who can boast that they have acted in films by
Otto Preminger
(Anatomy of a Murder (1959)),
John Cassavetes,
Joel Coen
(The Big Lebowski (1998)),
Spike Lee
(Summer of Sam (1999)), and
Lars von Trier, among others. Ben Gazzara
died at age 81 of pancreatic cancer on February 3, 2012.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Acclaimed actress Jessica Walter was born on January 31, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Esther (Groisser), a teacher, and David Walter (his original surname was Warshawsky), a musician who was a member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the NYC Ballet Orchestra. She was of Russian Jewish descent, the sister of screenwriter and Chairman of the UCLA Screenwriting program Richard Walter. Their uncle was stage and screen actor Jerry Jarrett. Raised in Queens, Walter was a graduate of New York's High School of the Performing Arts and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. She first acted in summer stock and her extensive subsequent career on the stage included productions both on- and off-Broadway.
On Broadway, Walter appeared in Peter Ustinov's "Photo Finish" (which earned her the Clarence Derwent Award as Most Promising Newcomer), "A Severed Head", "Advise and Consent", "Night Life" and Neil Simon's "Rumors". Off-Broadway, she acted in a 1986 Los Angeles Theater Center production of "Tartuffe" opposite Ron Leibman (to whom she was married from 1983 until his death in 2019).
After guesting on several TV series in the early and mid-1960s, Walter made her move to feature films where she attracted attention for her role as the brash Libby in Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966). This seemed to set the tone for her next screen personae as bitchy, difficult or dangerously vindictive women, the most memorable of which was Evelyn in Clint Eastwood's directorial debut film, Play Misty for Me (1971). This earned Walter a richly deserved Golden Globe nomination. Another stand-out role was Pat, the bored ex-glamour model wife of one racing driver (Brian Bedford) and troublesome girlfriend of another (James Garner) in Grand Prix (1966). Walter's numerous TV roles included the enchantress Morgan LeFay in the rarely seen telemovie Dr. Strange (1978). Of her many screen villainesses she later said: "those are the fun roles. They're juicy, much better than playing the vanilla ingénues".
By the 1980s, Walter had turned increasingly towards comedy, both on the big screen (The Flamingo Kid (1984)) and the small (Three's a Crowd (1984)). However, she never shied away from other genres, whether playing an EarthGov senator on the cult sci-fi series Babylon 5 (1993) or providing the voice for the leading female character in the animated sitcom Dinosaurs (1991). Walter received an Emmy Award for Best Dramatic Actress in the Ironside (1967) spin-off Amy Prentiss (1974) and was nominated for guest-starring roles in episodes of Trapper John, M.D. (1979) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972). She found a new audience among younger viewers as the devious matriarch Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development (2003).
Jessica Walter died in her sleep on March 24, 2021 from undisclosed causes at the age of 80. Riverside Memorial Chapel and Funeral Home in New York City completed her final arrangements. She was cremated and her ashes are with her daughter.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Madeline Kahn was born Madeline Gail Wolfson of Russian Jewish descent on September 29, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Freda Goldberg (later known as Paula Kahn), who was still in her teens, and Bernard B. Wolfson, a garment manufacturer. She began her acting career in high school and went on to university where she trained as an opera singer and starred in several campus productions, ultimately earning a doctorate in her chosen field.
Kahn's best-known work came in Paper Moon (1973) with Ryan O'Neal, which was followed the next year by Mel Brooks's outrageous Blazing Saddles (1974) as Lili Von Shtupp, a cabaret singer who was obviously based on Marlene Dietrich's performance in Destry Rides Again (1939). Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in both movies. In 1998, she lent her voice to the character of "Gypsy" in A Bug's Life (1998).
On December 3, 1999, Madeline Kahn died of ovarian cancer in New York City, after a yearlong or so battle, during part of which time she was a cast member of Cosby (1996), aged 57.- Actor
- Casting Director
- Soundtrack
Werner Klemperer, everyone's favorite TV German Air Force colonel, was
best known for his role as the bumbling Col. Wilhelm Klink on the
comedy series
Hogan's Heroes (1965).
Although he'll forever be known as the blustering but inept German
commandant of Stalag 13, Klemperer was in fact a talented dramatic
actor, as evidenced by his acclaimed performance as an arrogant,
unrepentant Nazi judge being tried for crimes against humanity in
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961).
His identification with Nazi roles notwithstanding, Klemperer was in
real life the son of a Jew who fled with his family from Nazi Germany
in the 1930s. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. When he
was offered the Col. Klink role, Klemperer only agreed to do it if the
show's producers promised that Klink would never succeed in any of his
schemes. "Col. Klink" earned Klemperer five Emmy nominations, and he
took home the trophy twice, in 1968 and 1969. After the series,
Klemperer carved out an impressive musical career as a conductor and
also served as a narrator with many major U.S. symphony orchestras. He
was an accomplished concert violinist.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She was the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a salesman and her mother as a secretary. They divorced when she was five and she rarely saw her father after that.
As a school girl, she originally wanted to be a dancer, but later switched gears to head into acting. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, after attending She was educated at Highland Manor, a private boarding school in Tarrytown, New York (through the generosity of wealthy uncles), and then at Julia Richman High School, which enabled her to get her feet wet in some off-Broadway productions.
Out of school, she entered modeling and, because of her beauty, appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, one of the most popular magazines in the US. The wife of famed director Howard Hawks spotted the picture in the publication and arranged with her husband to have Lauren take a screen test. As a result, which was entirely positive, she was given the part of Marie Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944), a thriller opposite Humphrey Bogart, when she was just 19 years old. This not only set the tone for a fabulous career but also one of Hollywood's greatest love stories (she married Bogart in 1945). It was also the first of several Bogie-Bacall films.
After 1945's Confidential Agent (1945), Lauren received second billing in The Big Sleep (1946) with Bogart. The mystery, in the role of Vivian Sternwood Rutledge, was a resounding success. Although she was making one film a year, each production would be eagerly awaited by the public. In 1947, again with her husband, Lauren starred in the thriller Dark Passage (1947). The film kept movie patrons on the edge of their seats. The following year, she starred with Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore in Key Largo (1948). The crime drama was even more of a nail biter than her previous film.
In 1950, Lauren starred in Bright Leaf (1950), a drama set in 1894. It was a film of note because she appeared without her husband - her co-star was Gary Cooper. In 1953, Lauren appeared in her first comedy as Schatze Page in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). The film, with co-stars Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, was a smash hit all across the theaters of America.
After filming Designing Woman (1957), which was released in 1957, Humphrey Bogart died on January 14 from throat cancer. Devastated at being a widow, Lauren returned to the silver screen with The Gift of Love (1958) in 1958 opposite Robert Stack. The production turned out to be a big disappointment. Undaunted, Lauren moved back to New York City and appeared in several Broadway plays to huge critical acclaim. She was enjoying acting before live audiences and the audiences in turn enjoyed her fine performances.
Lauren was away from the big screen for five years, but she returned in 1964 to appear in Shock Treatment (1964) and Sex and the Single Girl (1964). The latter film was a comedy starring Henry Fonda and Tony Curtis. In 1966, Lauren starred in Harper (1966) with Paul Newman and Julie Harris, which was one of former's signature films.
Alternating her time between films and the stage, Lauren returned in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express (1974). The film, based on Agatha Christie's best-selling book was a huge hit. It also garnered Ingrid Bergman her third Oscar. Actually, the huge star-studded cast helped to ensure its success. Two years later, in 1976, Lauren co-starred with John Wayne in The Shootist (1976). The film was Wayne's last - he died from cancer in 1979. In late 1979, Lauren appeared with her good friend, James Garner, in a double episode, Lions, Tigers, Monkeys and Dogs (1979), of his Rockford Files series.
For Lauren's next film role, she appeared in a large ensemble film, HealtH (1980), which again paired her with James Garner, and in 1981, she played an actress being stalked by a crazed admirer in The Fan (1981). The thriller was absolutely fascinating with Lauren in the lead role, again playing opposite her good friend James Garner, making three straight screen roles with Lauren opposite James Garner. After that production, Lauren was away from films again, this time for seven years. In the interim, she again appeared on the stages of Broadway. When she returned, it was for the filming of 1988's Appointment with Death (1988) and Mr. North (1988). After 1990's Misery (1990) and several made for television films, Lauren appeared in 1996's My Fellow Americans (1996), a comedy romp with Jack Lemmon and James Garner as two ex-presidents and their escapades. In 1997, Lauren appeared in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), in one of the best roles of her later career, opposite Barbra Streisand, where Lauren was nominated as Best Actress in a Supporting Role by both the Academy and the Golden Globes, winning the Golden Globe for the role.
Despite her age and failing health, she made a small-scale comeback in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004) ("Howl's Moving Castle," based on the young-adult novel by Diana Wynne Jones) as the Witch of the Waste, and several other roles through 2008, but thereafter acting endeavors for the beloved actress became increasingly rare. Lauren Bacall died on 12 August 2014, five weeks short of her 90th birthday.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Anne Bancroft was born on September 17, 1931 in The Bronx, NY, the middle daughter of Michael Italiano (1905-2001), a dress pattern maker, and Mildred DiNapoli (1907-2010), a telephone operator. She made her cinema debut in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) in 1952, and over the next five years appeared in a lot of undistinguished movies such as Gorilla at Large (1954), Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), New York Confidential (1955), Nightfall (1956) and The Girl in Black Stockings (1957). By 1957 she grew dissatisfied with the scripts she was getting, left the film business and spent the next five years doing plays on Broadway. She returned to screens in 1962 with her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker (1962), for which she won an Oscar. Bancroft went on to give acclaimed performances in The Pumpkin Eater (1964), The Slender Thread (1965), Young Winston (1972), The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), The Elephant Man (1980), To Be or Not to Be (1983), 84 Charing Cross Road (1987) and other movies, but her most famous role would be as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967). Her status as the "older woman" in the film is iconic, although in real life she was only eight years older than Katharine Ross and just six years older than Dustin Hoffman. Bancroft would later express her frustration over the fact that the film overshadowed her other work. Selective for much of her intermittent career, she appeared onscreen more frequently in the '90s and early '00s, playing a range of characters in such films as Love Potion No. 9 (1992), Point of No Return (1993), Home for the Holidays (1995), G.I. Jane (1997), Great Expectations (1998), Keeping the Faith (2000) and Up at the Villa (2000). She also started to make some TV films, including Deep in My Heart (1999) for which she won an Emmy. Sadly, on June 6, 2005, Bancroft passed away at the age of 73 from uterine cancer. Her death surprised many, as she had not disclosed her illness to the public. Among her survivors was her husband of 41 years, Mel Brooks, and their son Max Brooks, who was born in 1972. Her final film, the animated feature Delgo (2008), was released posthumously in 2008 and dedicated to her memory.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Emmy-nominated actor and producer Michael Kenneth Williams was one of his generation's most respected and acclaimed talents. By bringing complicated and charismatic characters to life--often with surprising tenderness--Williams established himself as a gifted and versatile performer with a unique ability to mesmerize audiences with his stunning character portrayals.
Born in 1966 in Brooklyn, Williams was best known for his remarkable work on The Wire (2002). The wit and humor that Williams brought to Omar, the whistle-happy, profanity-averse, openly gay drug dealer-robbing stickup man, earned him high praise, and made Omar one of television's most memorable characters. Williams also co-starred in HBO's critically acclaimed series Boardwalk Empire (2010), in which he played Chalky White, a 1920s bootlegger and the impeccably suited, veritable mayor of Atlantic City's African American community. In 2012, "Boardwalk Empire" won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. He received his first Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie for HBO's Bessie (2015) and subsequently received his second nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for his portrayal of Freddy in HBO's The Night Of (2016).
In 2018, Vice (2013) returned for its sixth season with an extended special season premiere produced by and featuring Williams as he embarked on a personal journey to expose the root of the American mass incarceration crisis: the juvenile justice system. The episode "Raised in the System" offered a frank and unflinching look at those caught up the system, exploring why the country's mass incarceration problem cannot be fixed without first addressing the juvenile justice problem. Williams investigated the solutions that local communities were employing that resulted in drastic drops in both crime and incarceration. Michael garnered his first Emmy nomination as a producer for this incredible documentary and continues to host screenings across the country as a way to educate and raise awareness.
Giving back to the community played an important role in Williams' off-camera life. He launched Making Kids Win, a charitable organization, the primary objective of which is to build community centers in urban neighborhoods that are in need of safe spaces for children to learn and play. Williams served as the ACLU's Ambassador of Smart Justice.
Williams began his career as a performer by dancing professionally at age 22. After numerous appearances in music videos and as a background dancer on concert tours for Madonna and George Michael, Williams decided to pursue acting seriously. He participated in several productions of the La MaMA Experimental Theater, the prestigious National Black Theater Company. and the Theater for a New Generation, directed by Mel Williams.
Michael K. Williams was born, raised, and resided in Brooklyn, New York, until his death on September 6, 2021.- Actor
- Cinematographer
- Editor
John Cazale was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to an Irish-American
mother, Cecilia (Holland), and an Italian-American father, John Cazale.
Cazale only made five feature films in his career, which fans
and critics alike call classics. But before his film debut, in the short
The American Way (1962), he won Obie Awards for his off-Broadway performances in "The Indian Wants
the Bronx" and "The Line".
Cazale scored the role of Fredo Corleone in
Francis Ford Coppola's
The Godfather (1972), after his
long time friend, Al Pacino, invited him to
audition. He reprised his role as the troubled Fredo in
The Godfather Part II (1974),
where his character endures one of the most infamous movie moments in
the history of cinema.
Cazale also starred with Gene Hackman and
Harrison Ford in the thriller,
The Conversation (1974), as
Hackman's assistant, Stan. The Godfather's director,
Francis Ford Coppola, also directed
the movie.
Cazale's fourth feature film,
Dog Day Afternoon (1975),
earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his
role as Sal, a bank robber. His long time friend and Godfather co-star,
Al Pacino, played his partner, Sonny.
His final film,
The Deer Hunter (1978), was
filmed whilst he was ill with cancer. He was in a relationship with his
co-star, Meryl Streep, whilst filming
The Deer Hunter (1978), whom he
met when they both appeared in the New York Public Theater's 1976
production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.
Controversy occurred during the filming. While the studio was unaware
of his condition, the director,
Michael Cimino, knew about it. As
Cazale was evidently weak, he was forced to film his scenes first. When
the studio discovered he was suffering from cancer, they wanted him
removed from the film. His co-star and girlfriend,
Meryl Streep, threatened to quit if he was
fired. He died shortly after filming was completed.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Edward Herrmann was born on 21 July 1943 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He was an actor, known for Overboard (1987), The Lost Boys (1987) and Nixon (1995). He was married to Star Herrmann and Leigh Curran. He died on 31 December 2014 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Exotic leading man of American films, famed as much for his completely
bald head as for his performances, Yul Brynner masked much of his life
in mystery and outright lies designed to tease people he considered
gullible. It was not until the publication of the books "Yul: The Man
Who Would Be King" and "Empire and Odyssey" by his son, Yul "Rock"
Brynner, that many of the details of Brynner's early life became clear.
Yul sometimes claimed to be a half-Swiss, half-Japanese named Taidje
Khan, born on the island of Sakhalin; in reality, he was the son of
Marousia Dimitrievna (Blagovidova), the Russian daughter of a doctor,
and Boris Yuliyevich Bryner, an engineer and inventor of Swiss-German
and Russian descent. He was born in their home town of Vladivostok on
11 July 1920 and named Yuli after his grandfather, Jules Bryner. When
Yuli's father abandoned the family, his mother took him and his sister
Vera to Harbin, Manchuria, where they attended a YMCA school. In 1934
Yuli's mother took her children to Paris. Her son was sent to the
exclusive Lycée Moncelle, but his attendance was spotty. He dropped out
and became a musician, playing guitar in the nightclubs among the
Russian gypsies who gave him his first real sense of family. He met
luminaries such as Jean Cocteau and became
an apprentice at the Theatre des Mathurins. He worked as a trapeze
artist with the famed Cirque d'Hiver company.
He traveled to the U.S.
in 1941 to study with acting teacher
Michael Chekhov and toured the country
with Chekhov's theatrical troupe. That same year, he debuted in New York
as Fabian in "Twelfth Night" (billed as Youl Bryner). After working in
a very early TV series,
Mr. Jones and His Neighbors (1944),
he played on Broadway in "Lute Song" with
Mary Martin, winning awards and mild
acclaim. He and his wife, actress
Virginia Gilmore, starred in the first
TV talk show,
Mr. and Mrs. (1948). Brynner
then joined CBS as a television director. He made his film debut in
Port of New York (1949). Two
years later Mary Martin recommended him for the part he would forever
be known for: the King in
Richard Rodgers' and
Oscar Hammerstein II's musical "The
King and I". Brynner became an immediate sensation in the role,
repeating it for film
(The King and I (1956)) and
winning the Oscar for Best Actor.
For the next two decades, he
maintained a starring film career despite the exotic nature of his
persona, performing in a wide range of roles from Egyptian pharaohs to
Western gunfighters, almost all with the same shaved head and
indefinable accent. In the 1970s he returned to the role that had made
him a star, and spent most of the rest of his life touring the world in
"The King and I". When he developed lung cancer in the mid 1980s, he
left a powerful public service announcement denouncing smoking as the
cause, for broadcast after his death. The cancer and its complications,
after a long illness, ended his life. Brynner was cremated and his
ashes buried in a remote part of France, on the grounds of the Abbey of
Saint-Michel de Bois Aubry, a short distance outside the village of
Luzé. He remains one of the most fascinating, unusual and beloved stars
of his time.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Gloria Grahame Hallward, an acting pupil of her mother (stage actress and teacher Jean Grahame), acted professionally while still in high school. In 1944 Louis B. Mayer saw her on Broadway and gave her an MGM contract under the name Gloria Grahame.
Her debut in the title role of Blonde Fever (1944) was auspicious, but her first public recognition came on loan-out in
It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Although her talent and sex appeal were of star quality, she did not fit the star pattern at MGM, who sold her contract to RKO in 1947. Here the same problem resurfaced; her best film in these years was made on loan-out, In a Lonely Place (1950). Soon after, she left RKO. The 1950s, her best period, brought her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and typecast her as shady, inimitably sultry ladies in seven well-known film-noir classics.
Rumors of being difficult to work with on the set of Oklahoma! (1955) helped sideline her film career from 1956 onward. She also suffered from marital and child-custody troubles. Eight years after divorce from Nicholas Ray, who was 12 years her senior (and reportedly had discovered her in bed with his 13 year old son), and after a subsequent marriage to Cy Howard ended in divorce, in 1960 she married her former stepson Anthony Ray (who was almost 14 years younger than she was.) This led former husbands Nicholas Ray and Cy Howard to sue Grahame; each man seeking custody of his respective child, putting gossip columnists and scandal sheets into overdrive. Grahame herself underwent electroconvulsive therapy after the ensuing stress caused a nervous breakdown. Surprisingly, however, Grahame and Anthony "Tony" Ray proved a happy couple. The union would be Grahame's longest marriage, lasting almost 14 years (10 years longer than her previous union with Ray's father); the couple had two children, Anthony Jr. and James.
In 1960, Grahame resumed stage acting, combined with TV work and, from 1970, some mostly inferior films. She was described as a serious, skillful actress; spontaneous, honest, and strong-willed; imaginative and curious; incredibly sexy but insecure about her looks (prompting plastic surgery on her famous lips); loving appreciative male company; "a bit loony". In 1975, she was treated for breast cancer. Five years later, she was diagnosed with cancer again, although it is unclear if this was a new cancer or a metastasis of her breast cancer. Grahame eventually moved to England in 1978. Her busiest period of British and American stage work ended abruptly in 1981 when she collapsed from cancer symptoms during a rehearsal. She wished to remain in Liverpool with her partner, Peter Turner (almost 30 years her junior), but after Turner notified her children of her health condition and impending death, two of her children flew to England to retrieve her, insisting she return to the United States. She died a few hours later that same day of stomach cancer and peritonitis at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan on October 5, 1981 at age 57.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Anne Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana, on May 7, 1923. She was the daughter of a salesman, Kenneth Stuart Baxter, and his wife, Catherine Dorothy (Wright), who herself was the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-renowned architect. Anne was a young girl of 11 when her parents moved to New York City, which at that time was still the hub of the entertainment industry even though the film colony was moving west. The move there encouraged her to consider acting as a vocation. By the time she was 13 she had already appeared in a stage production of 'Seen but Not Heard'", and had garnered rave reviews from the tough Broadway critics. The play helped her gain entrance to an exclusive acting school.
In 1937, Anne made her first foray into Hollywood to test the waters there in the film industry. As she was thought to be too young for a film career, she packed her bags and returned to the New York stage with her mother, where she continued to act on Broadway and summer stock up and down the East Coast. Undaunted by the failure of her previous effort to crack Hollywood, Anne returned to California two years later to try again. This time her luck was somewhat better. She took a screen test which was ultimately seen by the moguls of Twentieth Century-Fox, and she was signed to a seven-year contract. However, before she could make a movie with Fox, Anne was loaned out to MGM to make 20 Mule Team (1940). At only 17 years of age, she was already in the kind of pictures that other starlets would have had to slave for years as an extra before landing a meaty role. Back at Fox, that same year, Anne played Mary Maxwell in The Great Profile (1940), which was a box-office dud. The following year she played Amy Spettigue in the remake of Charley's Aunt (1941). It still wasn't a great role, but it was better than a bit part. The only other film job Anne appeared in that year was in Swamp Water (1941). It was the first role that was really worth anything, but critics weren't that impressed with Anne, her role nor the movie. In 1942 Anne played Joseph Cotten's daughter, Lucy Morgan, in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). The following year she appeared in The North Star (1943), the first film where she received top billing. The film was a critical and financial success and Anne came in for her share of critical plaudits. Guest in the House (1944) the next year was a dismal failure, but Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944) was received much better by the public, though it was ripped apart by the critics. Anne starred with John Hodiak, who would become her first husband in 1947 (Anne was to divorce Hodiak in 1954. Her other two husbands were Randolph Galt and David Klee).
In 1946 Anne portrayed Sophie MacDonald in The Razor's Edge (1946), a film that would land her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She had come a long way in so short a time, but for her next two films she was just the narrator: Mother Wore Tights (1947) and Blaze of Noon (1947). It would be 1950 before she landed another decent role--the part of Eve Harrington in All About Eve (1950). This film garnered Anne her second nomination, but she lost the Oscar to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday (1950). After several films through the 1950s, Anne landed what many considered a plum role--Queen Nefretiri in Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956). Never in her Hollywood career did Anne look as beautiful as she did as the Egyptian queen, opposite Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner. After that epic, job offers got fewer because she wasn't tied to a studio, instead opting to freelance her talents. After no appearances in 1958, she made one film in 1959 Season of Passion (1959) and one in 1960 Cimarron (1960).
After Walk on the Wild Side (1962), she took a hiatus from filming for the next four years. She was hardly idle, though. She appeared often on stage and on television. She wasn't particularly concerned with being a celebrity or a personality; she was more concerned with being just an actress and trying hard to produce the best performance she was capable of. After several notable TV appearances, Anne became a staple of two television series, East of Eden (1981) and Hotel (1983). Her final moment before the public eye was as Irene Adler in the TV film Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death (1984). On December 12, 1985, Anne died of a stroke in New York. She was 62.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
John Hughes was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He was credited for creating some of the most memorable comedy films of the 1980s and the 1990s, when he was at the height of his career. He had a talent for writing coming-of-age stories, and for depicting fairly realistic adolescent characters.
In 1950, Hughes was born in Lansing, Michigan. The city's main employers for much of the 20th century were manufacturing plants for automobiles. Lansing housed the headquarters of companies such as Oldsmobile and the REO Motor Car Company. Hughes' father John Hughes Sr. was a salesman, while Hughes' mother Marion Crawford worked as a volunteer for charity organizations.
Hughes had three sisters and no brothers. His family moved often. For most of his childhood, the Hughes family lived in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a commuter suburb of Metro Detroit. According to an interview of Hughes, he was the only boy in his neighborhood while growing up. He was surrounded by girls and "old people," and there was no boys around for him to befriend. He spend a lot of time alone, and used his active imagination to keep himself entertained.
In 1963, the Hughes family moved to Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Hughes attended first the Grove Middle School, and then the Glenbrook North High School. His high school experiences reportedly provided inspiration for his teen-themed films of his career. According to interviews with Hughes' friends, Hughes had a poor relationship with his parents who often criticized him.
As an adolescent, Hughes felt the need to escape his problems. He became an avid film fan, as he found that films satisfied his need for escapism. He was a fan of both the Rat Pack (an informal group of actors and singers), and the music group The Beatles.
After graduating high school, Hughes enrolled in the University of Arizona. He eventually dropped out of the University, and tried to make a living as a comedy writer. He wrote jokes for professional comedians, such as Rodney Dangerfield (1921 - 2004) and Joan Rivers (1933 - 2014).
In 1970, Hughes was hired by the advertising company Needham Harper & Steers (1925-1986). That same year, Hughes married his former high school classmate Nancy Ludwig. Hughes worked in the advertising industry for several years. In 1974, Hughes was hired by the advertising agency Leo Burnett Worldwide. This company's most notable clients included the Pillsbury Company, StarKist, Heinz, Green Giant, and Philip Morris.
As a marketing agent, Hughes was assigned to handle Virginia Slims, a brand of cigarettes produced by Philip Morris. The assignment required him to regularly travel to New York City, where Philip Morris' headquarters were located. Hughes took the opportunity to visit the offices of the popular humor magazine "National Lampoon" (1970-1998) in New York City. He successfully negotiated a new position as a regular contributor to the magazine.
Hughes reportedly impressed the magazine's editors by producing quality work at a fast pace. Among his first short stories was "Vacation '58," based on his recollections of his family's vacations during his childhood. The story was eventually adapted into the road comedy film "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983).
"National Lampoon" co-produced films written by their staff writers. Hughes provided the script for the black comedy "National Lampoon's Class Reunion" (1982), depicting a serial killer who targets his former classmates. The film was poorly received and under-performed at the box office, but it inspired Hughes to try to make a career as a screenwriter.
Hughes subsequently wrote the scripts for both "National Lampoon's Vacation" (1983) and "Mr. Mom" (1983), comedy films which were box office hits. He then signed a contract for three films with the studio Universal Pictures. He made his directing debut in the coming-of-age comedy film "Sixteen Candles" (1984). The film depicted the misadventures of high school sophomore Samantha "Sam" Baker (played by Molly Ringwald). It performed well at the box office, and was well-received by critics.
Hughes quickly established himself as a leading director of teen films. His films "The Breakfast Club" (1985), "Weird Science" (1985), and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986) are considered classics of the genre. To cover new ground, he then directed "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" (1987), featuring a duo of adult protagonists. The stars of the film were experienced comic actors Steve Martin and John Candy. The film was a hit. More importantly, Hughes and Candy became close friends. They would often work together in subsequent films.
Hughes' next film as a director was "She's Having a Baby" (1988), about the life of a newlywed couple. The film fared poorly financially and was considered rather "blasé" by critics. Hughes made a comeback with "Uncle Buck" (1989), about a lifelong bachelor who has to take care of his two nieces and a nephew. The film was a box office hit, earning about 80 million dollars at the box office.
Hughes' final film as a director was the comedy-drama "Curly Sue" (1991), about homeless con artist Bill Dancer (played by Jim Belushi) who desperately tries to keep the custody of his surrogate daughter. While moderately successful at the box office at the box office, the film was widely ridiculed for being overly sentimental.
In the 1990s, Hughes found success as a screenwriter, scripting several box office hits. Among his most notable films in this period were "Home Alone" (1990) and "Beethoven" (1992), with both films starting lucrative media franchises. Hughes also wrote the scripts of the sequels "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" (1992) and "Home Alone 3" (1997). He also scripted a notable comic strip adaptation, "Dennis the Menace" (1993). It was based on the long-running comic strip "Dennis the Menace" (1951-) by Hank Ketcham (1920-2001).
In 1994, Hughes moved to the Chicago metropolitan area. At about that time, he started actively avoiding publicity. He rarely gave any interviews until the end of his life. In 1995, Hughes co-founded the production company Great Oaks Entertainment, which mainly handled co-production of Disney produced films. Hughes handled the scripting of two of the company's films: "101 Dalmatians" (1996) and "Flubber" (1997). Both were remakes of older films.
In 1997, Hughes severed his partnership with Ricardo Mestres. A year later, their final co-production, "Reach the Rock," was released. The film was scripted by Hughes, though it was uncharacteristically dramatic for a Hughes film. The film depicted the conflict between an alienated young man and a police chief.
In the 2000s, Hughes only scripted three more films. The most notable among them the romantic drama "Maid in Manhattan" (2002), a hit for protagonist Jennifer Lopez. It earned about 164 million dollars.
In August 2009, Hughes visited New York City with his wife. He wanted to visit one of his sons who lived there, and to meet his new grandson. On August 6, Hughes suffered a heart attack while walking in Manhattan. He was transported to Roosevelt Hospital, but died shortly after. He was fifty-nine years old.
Hughes was buried in Lake Forest Cemetery, a rural cemetery located in Lake Forest, Illinois. He was survived by his wife, their two children, and several grandchildren.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
A New York stage actress in the 1950s, McClanahan was plucked from the
stage by Norman Lear for roles on
All in the Family (1971)
and later Maude (1972). For two years
(1982 - 1984), she played "Aunt Fran" on
Mama's Family (1983) until her
character was killed off and she joined the cast of The Golden Girls (1985), in which she
hit her comedic stride as a sharp tongued oversexed Southern belle.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Cicely Tyson was born in Harlem, New York City, where she was raised by
her devoutly religious parents, who had come from the Caribbean island
of Nevis. Her mother Theodosia was a domestic worker and her her father
William was a carpenter and painter.
Tyson was discovered by a fashion editor at Ebony Magazine, and with her
stunning looks she quickly rose to the top of the modeling industry. In
1957 she began acting in Off-Broadway productions. She had small roles
in feature films before she was cast as Portia in
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968).
Four years later, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Actress for her sensational performance in the critically-acclaimed
film Sounder (1972). In 1974, she went on
to portray a 110-year-old former slave in
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974),
which earned her two Emmy Awards. She also appeared in the television
miniseries Roots (1977),
King (1978), and
A Woman Called Moses (1978).
While Cicely has not appeared steadily onscreen because of her loyalty
to solely portraying strong, positive images of Black women, she is
definitely one of the most talented, beautiful actresses who ever graced
stage or screen.- Sylvia Sidney was born in The Bronx, New York City, on August 8, 1910 as Sophia Kosow to Jewish parents. Her father was born in Russia and her mother was born in Romania. They divorced not long after her birth. Her mother subsequently remarried and young Sophia was adopted by her stepfather, Sigmund Sidney.
A shy, only child, her parents tried to encourage her to be more outgoing and gregarious. As an early teen, Sophia (later Sylvia) had decided she wanted a stage career. While most parents would have looked down on such an announcement, Sylvia was encouraged to pursue the dream she had made. She enrolled in the Theater Guild's School for Acting. Sylvia later admitted that when she decided to become a stage actress at 15, it wasn't being star struck that occurred to her, but the expression of beauty that encompassed acting. All she wanted was to be identified with good productions.
One school production was held at a Broadway theater and in the audience there was a critic from the New York Times who had nothing but rave reviews for the young woman. On the strength of her performance in New York, she appeared onstage in Washington, D.C. Further stage productions followed, each better than the last and it wasn't long before the film moguls were at the doorstep. She was appearing in the stage production of "Crime" when she made her first appearance on the silver screen in 1927. The film in question was Broadway Nights (1927) which dealt with stage personalities of which Sylvia, despite her extremely tender age, was one. After the film she returned to the stage where she appeared in creations which were, for the most part, forgettable. She moved to Colorado to tour with a stock company. She later returned to Broadway for a series of other plays. By 1929, she was on the big screen with Thru Different Eyes (1929) as Valerie Briand. This was followed by a short film, Five Minutes from the Station (1930). Sylvia Sidney was slowly leaving the stage for the production studios of Paramount.
1931 saw her appear in five films, one of which, City Streets (1931), made her a star. Aware that she was replacing the great Clara Bow, who was suffering from severe and debilitating health issues, mainly depression. The contrast between the two actresses was great but the movie was a hit. The sad-eyed Sylvia made a tremendous impact and her screen career was off a running. Her next film was Ladies of the Big House (1931) as Kathleen Storm McNeil, part of a couple framed for a murder they didn't commit. The film made huge profits at the box-office. She then made Merrily We Go to Hell (1932), appearing opposite Fredric March. The film was an unqualified success. Later, in Madame Butterfly (1932), she starred as the doomed geisha girl (Cho-Cho San); critics agreed that only her performance saved the film from being a total disaster.
In 1933, she starred in the title role in Jennie Gerhardt (1933). Yet another doom and gloom picture, she played a girl beset with poverty and the death of her young husband before the birth of their child. Sidney received the star spotlight in Good Dame (1934).
Despite her fine performance, the film failed at the box-office. She scored big with the film critics as the lead female in Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935), a restaurant owner who falls for a big time gangster. Her performance was overshadowed by Alan Baxter, who gave an outstanding portrayal as the gangster. That film was quickly followed by "Accent On Youth", in which she played Linda Brown, a young lady fascinated by older men. In 1938, Sidney played in "You and Me", opposite George Raft. The film critics gave it mixed reviews but it did not fare well at the box-office. Afterward, the roles began to dissipate. She filmed ...One Third of a Nation... (1939) and would not be seen again onscreen until The Wagons Roll at Night (1941). There was a four year hiatus before Blood on the Sun (1945), opposite James Cagney.
In 1946, she starred in The Searching Wind (1946) as Cassie Bowman. The film was based on a Broadway play but it just didn't transfer well onto the big screen. It was widely considered to be too serious and flopped with the movie fans. After Love from a Stranger (1947), she didn't appear onscreen again until Les Miserables (1952), as "Fantine". Only three more films followed that decade. There were no films throughout the 1960s. After appearing in a made-for-television movie, she returned to the big screen in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973), playing the mother of the character played by Oscar-winning actress Joanne Woodward. For her performance, Sidney received her only Oscar nomination, losing to another actress who also only received one Oscar nomination in her lifetime, Tatum O'Neal (Paper Moon (1973)). O'Neal was 10 years old when she accepted the award.
Aside from a few more supporting role film appearances strewn here and there, Sidney mostly appeared on television thereafter. In 1988, she appeared as Juno in Tim Burton 's hit film Beetlejuice (1988). Her last film for the big screen was Mars Attacks! (1996) as the unlikely heroine whose taste in music saves Earth from an exceptionally brutal Martian victory. She had been seriously injured after being hit by a car but director Burton waited for her to be able to appear (in a wheelchair) rather than recast the role. In 1998, she played Clia, the irritable elderly travel agency clerk, who appeared (along with Fyvush Finkel) at the beginning of every episode of Fantasy Island (1998), the short-lived black-humored reboot of the iconic 1970s series of the same name.
A lifelong heavy smoker, Sidney died on July 1, 1999, aged 88, of throat cancer. - Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
One of Hollywood's finest character / "Method" actors, Eli Wallach was in demand for over 60 years (first film/TV role was 1949) on stage
and screen, and has worked alongside the world's biggest stars, including
Clark Gable,
Clint Eastwood,
Steve McQueen,
Marilyn Monroe,
Yul Brynner,
Peter O'Toole, and
Al Pacino, to name but a few.
Wallach was born on 7 December 1915 in Brooklyn, NY, to Jewish parents
who emigrated from Poland, and was one of the few Jewish kids in his
mostly Italian neighborhood. His parents, Bertha (Schorr) and Abraham
Wallach, owned a candy store, Bertha's Candy Store. He went on to
graduate with a B.A. from the University of Texas in Austin, but gained
his dramatic training with the Actors Studio and the Neighborhood
Playhouse. He made his debut on Broadway in 1945, and won a Tony Award
in 1951 for portraying Alvaro Mangiacavallo in the
Tennessee Williams play "The Rose
Tattoo".
Wallach made a strong screen debut in 1956 in the film version of the
Tennessee Williams play
Baby Doll (1956), shined as "Dancer",
the nattily dressed hitman, in director
Don Siegel's film-noir classic
The Lineup (1958), and co-starred in
the heist film
Seven Thieves (1960). Director
John Sturges then cast Wallach as vicious
Mexican bandit Calvera in
The Magnificent Seven (1960),
the western adaptation of the
Akira Kurosawa epic
Seven Samurai (1954).
The Misfits (1961), in the
star-spangled western opus
How the West Was Won (1962),
the underrated WW2 film
The Victors (1963), as a kidnapper in
The Moon-Spinners (1964), in
the sea epic Lord Jim (1965) and in the
romantic comedy
How to Steal a Million (1966).
Looking for a third lead actor in the final episode of the "Dollars
Trilogy", Italian director
Sergio Leone cast the versatile
Wallach as the lying, two-faced, money-hungry (but somehow lovable)
bandit "Tuco" in the spectacular
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
(aka "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"), arguably his most memorable
performance. Wallach kept busy throughout the remainder of the '60s and
into the '70s with good roles in
Mackenna's Gold (1969),
Cinderella Liberty (1973),
Crazy Joe (1974),
The Deep (1977) and as
Steve McQueen's bail buddy in
The Hunter (1980).
The 1980s was an interesting period for Wallach, as he was regularly
cast as an aging doctor, a Mafia figure or an over-the-hill hitman,
such as in
The Executioner's Song (1982),
Our Family Honor (1985),
Tough Guys (1986),
Nuts (1987),
The Two Jakes (1990) and as the
candy-addicted "Don Altabello" in
The Godfather Part III (1990).
At 75+ years of age, Wallach's quality of work was still first class
and into the 1990s and beyond, he has remained in demand. He lent fine
support to
Vendetta: Secrets of a Mafia Bride (1990),
Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story (1992),
Naked City: Justice with a Bullet (1998)
and Keeping the Faith (2000).
Most recently Wallach showed up as a fast-talking liquor store owner in
Mystic River (2003) and in the
comedic drama
King of the Corner (2004).
In early 2005, Eli Wallach released his much anticipated autobiography,
"The Good, The Bad And Me: In My Anecdotage", an enjoyable reading from
one of the screen's most inventive and enduring actors.
Eli Wallach was very much a family man who remained married to his wife
Anne Jackson for 66 years. When Wallach died at 98, in 2014, in Manhattan, NY, he was survived by
his wife, three children, five grandchildren and several
great-grandchildren.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Sidney Lumet was a master of cinema, best known for his technical
knowledge and his skill at getting first-rate performances from his
actors -- and for shooting most of his films in his beloved New York.
He made over 40 movies, often complex and emotional, but seldom overly
sentimental. Although his politics were somewhat left-leaning and he
often treated socially relevant themes in his films, Lumet didn't want
to make political movies in the first place. Born on June 25, 1924, in
Philadelphia, the son of actor Baruch Lumet
and dancer Eugenia Wermus Lumet, he made his stage debut at age four at
the Yiddish Art Theater in New York. He played many roles on Broadway
in the 1930s and also in the film
...One Third of a Nation... (1939).
After starting an off-Broadway acting troupe in the late 1940s, he
became the director of many television shows in the 1950s. Lumet made
his feature film directing debut with
12 Angry Men (1957), which won the
Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and earned three Academy Award
nominations. The courtroom drama, which takes place almost entirely in
a jury room, is justly regarded as one of the most auspicious
directorial debuts in film history. Lumet got the chance to direct
Marlon Brando in
The Fugitive Kind (1960), an
imperfect, but powerful adaptation of
Tennessee Williams' "Orpheus
Descending". The first half of the 1960s was one of Lumet's most
artistically successful periods.
Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962),
a masterful, brilliantly photographed adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill
play, is one of several Lumet films about families. It earned
Katharine Hepburn,
Ralph Richardson,
Dean Stockwell and
Jason Robards deserved acting awards in
Cannes and Hepburn an Oscar nomination. The alarming Cold War thriller
Fail Safe (1964) unfairly suffered from
comparison to Stanley Kubrick's
equally great satire
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964),
which was released shortly before.
The Pawnbroker (1964), arguably
the most outstanding of the great movies Lumet made in this phase,
tells the story of a Holocaust survivor who lives in New York and can't
overcome his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps.
Rod Steiger's unforgettable performance in
the title role earned an Academy Award nomination. Lumet's intense
character study The Hill (1965) about
inhumanity in a military prison camp was the first of five films he did
with Sean Connery. After the overly talky
but rewarding drama The Group (1966)
about young upper-class women in the 1930s, and the stylish spy
thriller
The Deadly Affair (1967), the
late 1960s turned out to be a lesser phase in Lumet's career. He had a
strong comeback with the box-office hit
The Anderson Tapes (1971).
The Offence (1973) was commercially
less successful, but artistically brilliant - with Connery in one of
his most impressive performances. The terrific cop thriller
Serpico (1973), the first of his films
about police corruption in New York City, became one of his biggest
critical and financial successes. Al Pacino's
fascinating portrayal of the real-life cop Frank Serpico earned a
Golden Globe and the movie earned two Academy Award nominations (it is
worth noting that Lumet's feature films of the 1970s alone earned 30
Oscar nominations, winning six times). The love triangle
Lovin' Molly (1974) was not always
convincing in its atmospheric details, but Lumet's fine sense of
emotional truth and a good Blythe Danner
keep it interesting. The adaptation of
Agatha Christie's
Murder on the Orient Express (1974),
an exquisitely photographed murder mystery with an all-star cast, was a
big success again. Lumet's complex crime thriller
Dog Day Afternoon (1975), which
Pauline Kael called "one of the best "New
York" movies ever made", gave Al Pacino the
opportunity for a breathtaking, three-dimensional portrayal of a
bisexual man who tries to rob a bank to finance his lover's sex-change
operation. Lumet's next masterpiece,
Network (1976), was a prophetic satire on
media and society. The film version of
Peter Shaffer's stage play
Equus (1977) about a doctor and his
mentally confused patient was also powerful, not least because of the
energetic acting by
Richard Burton and
Peter Firth. After the enjoyable
musical The Wiz (1978) and the
interesting but not easily accessible comedy
Just Tell Me What You Want (1980),
Sidney Lumet won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for his
outstanding direction of
Prince of the City (1981), one
of his best and most typical films. It's about police corruption, but
hardly a remake of Serpico (1973).
Starring a powerful Treat Williams, it's
an extraordinarily multi-layered film. In his highly informative book
"Making Movies" (1995), Lumet describes the film in the following way:
"When we try to control everything, everything winds up controlling us.
Nothing is what it seems." It's also a movie about values, friendship
and drug addiction and, like "Serpico", is based on a true story. In
Deathtrap (1982), Lumet successfully
blended suspense and black humor.
The Verdict (1982) was voted the
fourth greatest courtroom drama of all time by the American Film
Institute in 2008. A few minor inaccuracies in legal details do not mar
this study of an alcoholic lawyer (superbly embodied by
Paul Newman) aiming to regain his
self-respect through a malpractice case. The expertly directed movie
received five Academy Award nominations. Lumet's controversial drama
Daniel (1983) with
Timothy Hutton, an adaptation of
E.L. Doctorow's "The Book of Daniel" about
two young people whose parents were executed during the McCarthy Red
Scare hysteria in the 1950s for alleged espionage, is one of his
underrated achievements. His later masterpiece
Running on Empty (1988) has a
similar theme, portraying a family which has been on the run from the
FBI since the parents (played by
Christine Lahti and
Judd Hirsch) committed a bomb attack on a
napalm laboratory in 1971 to protest the war in Vietnam. The son
(played by River Phoenix in an
extraordinarily moving, Oscar-nominated performance) falls in love with
a girl and wishes to stay with her and study music.
Naomi Foner's screenplay won the Golden
Globe. Other Lumet movies of the 1980s are the melancholic comedy drama
Garbo Talks (1984); the occasionally
clichéd Power (1986) about election
campaigns; the all too slow thriller
The Morning After (1986) and
the amusing gangster comedy
Family Business (1989). With
Q&A (1990) Lumet returned to the genre of
the New York cop thriller. Nick Nolte shines
in the role of a corrupt and racist detective in this multi-layered,
strangely underrated film. Sadly, with the exception of
Night Falls on Manhattan (1996),
an imperfect but fascinating crime drama in the tradition of his own
previous genre works, almost none of Lumet's works of the 1990s did
quite get the attention they deserved. The crime drama
A Stranger Among Us (1992)
blended genres in a way that did not seem to match most viewers'
expectations, but its contemplations about life arouse interest. The
intelligent hospital satire
Critical Care (1997) was unfairly
neglected as well. The courtroom thriller
Guilty as Sin (1993) was cold but
intriguing. Lumet's Gloria (1999) remake
seemed unnecessary, but he returned impressively with the
underestimated courtroom comedy
Find Me Guilty (2006) and the
justly acclaimed crime thriller
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007).
In 2005, Sidney Lumet received a well-deserved honorary Academy Award
for his outstanding contribution to filmmaking. Sidney Lumet tragically
died of cancer in 2011.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Myrna Williams, later to become Myrna Loy, was born on August 2, 1905 in Helena, Montana. Her father was the youngest person ever elected to the Montana State legislature. Later on her family moved to Radersburg where she spent her youth on a cattle ranch. At the age of 13, Myrna's father died of influenza and the rest of the family moved to Los Angeles. She was educated in L.A. at the Westlake School for Girls where she caught the acting bug. She started at the age of 15 when she appeared in local stage productions in order to help support her family. Some of the stage plays were held in the now famous Grauman's Theater in Hollywood. Mrs. Rudolph Valentino happened to be in the audience one night who managed to pull some strings to get Myrna some parts in the motion picture industry. Her first film was a small part in the production of What Price Beauty? (1925). Later she appeared the same year in Pretty Ladies (1925) along with Joan Crawford. She was one of the few stars that would start in silent movies and make a successful transition into the sound era. In the silent films, Myrna would appear as an exotic femme fatale. Later in the sound era, she would become a refined, wholesome character. Unable to land a contract with MGM, she continued to appear in small, bit roles, nothing that one could really call acting. In 1926, Myrna appeared in the Warner Brothers film called Satan in Sables (1925) which, at long last, landed her a contract. Her first appearance as a contract player was The Caveman (1926) where she played a maid. Although she was typecast over and over again as a vamp, Myrna continued to stay busy with small parts. Finally, in 1927, she received star billing in Bitter Apples (1927). The excitement was short lived as she returned to the usual smaller roles afterward. Myrna would take any role that would give her exposure and showcase the talent she felt was being wasted. It seemed that she would play one vamp after another. She wanted something better. Finally her contract ran out with WB and she signed with MGM where she got two meaty roles. One was in the The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933), and the other as Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934) with William Powell. Most agreed that the Thin Man series would never have been successful without Myrna. Her witty perception of situations gave her the image that one could not pull a fast one over on the no-nonsense Mrs. Charles. After The Thin Man, Myrna would appear in five more in the series. Myrna was a big box-office draw. She was popular enough that, in 1936, she was named Queen of the Movies and Clark Gable the king in a nationwide poll of movie goers. Her popularity was at its zenith. With the outbreak of World War II, Myrna all but abandoned her acting career to focus on the war effort. After making THE SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN in November of 1941, Myrna more or less stayed away from Hollywood for five years. She broke this hiatus to appear in one Thin Man sequel while devoting most of her time working with the Red Cross. When she did return her star quality had not diminished a bit, as evidenced by her headlining The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). The film did superbly at the box-office, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1947. With her career in high gear again, Myrna played opposite Cary Grant in back-to-back hits The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). She continued to make films through the '50s but the roles started getting fewer, her biggest success coming at the start of that decade with Cheaper by the Dozen (1950). By the 1960s the parts had all but dried up as producers and directors looked elsewhere for talent. In 1960 she appeared in Midnight Lace (1960) and was not in another film until 1969 in The April Fools (1969). The 1970s found her mainly in TV movies, not theatrical productions, except for small roles in Airport 1975 (1974) and The End (1978). Her last film was in 1981 called Summer Solstice (1981), and her final acting credit was a guest spot on the sitcom Love, Sidney (1981) in 1982. By the time Myrna passed away, on December 14, 1993, at the age of 88, she had appeared in a phenomenal 129 motion pictures. She was buried in Helena, Montana.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jerry Orbach was born in the Bronx, New York, the only child of Leon Orbach, a former vaudevillian actor, was a German Jewish immigrant, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, and Emily (nee Olexy), a radio singer, was born in Pennsylvania to immigrant Polish-Lithuanian Roman Catholic parents, Alexander Olexy and Susanna (nee Klauba). The family moved frequently. He spent part of his childhood in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania and eventually settled in Waukegan, Illinois, where he went to high school.
The constant moving made him the new kid on the block and forced him to become "a chameleon" to blend in his new settings. He studied drama at the University of Illinois and at Northwestern University. He then went to study acting in New York and got constant work in musicals. He slowly pushed to get acting roles in television and films after being overlooked due to his musical roots.
Orbach died at age 69 on December 28, 2004, after a decade-long battle with prostate cancer. His widow, Elaine Cancilla Orbach died on April 1, 2009, from pneumonia. Orbach and Cancilla both predeceased Orbach's mother, Emily Orbach, who died on July 28, 2012, at the age of 101.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
David Bowie was one of the most influential and prolific writers and performers of popular music, but he was much more than that; he was also an accomplished actor, a mime and an intellectual, as well as an art lover whose appreciation and knowledge of it had led to him amassing one of the biggest collections of 20th century art.
Born David Jones, he changed his name to Bowie in the 1960s, to avoid confusion with the then well-known Davy Jones (lead singer of The Monkees). The 1960s were not a happy period for Bowie, who remained a struggling artist, awaiting his breakthrough. He dabbled in many different styles of music (without commercial success), and other art forms such as acting, mime, painting, and play-writing. He finally achieved his commercial breakthrough in 1969 with the song "Space Oddity", which was released at the time of the moon landing. Despite the fact that the literal meaning of the lyrics relates to an astronaut who is lost in space, this song was used by the BBC in their coverage of the moon landing, and this helped it become such a success. The album, which followed "Space Oddity", and the two, which followed (one of which included the song "The Man Who Sold The World", covered by Lulu and Nirvana) failed to produce another hit single, and Bowie's career appeared to be in decline.
However, he made the first of many successful "comebacks" in 1972 with "Ziggy Stardust", a concept album about a space-age rock star. This album was followed by others in a similar vein, rock albums built around a central character and concerned with futuristic themes of Armageddon, gender dysfunction/confusion, as well as more contemporary themes such as the destructiveness of success and fame, and the dangers inherent in star worship. In the mid-1970s, Bowie was a heavy cocaine abuser and sometime heroin user.
In 1975, he changed tack. Musically, he released "Young Americans", a soul (or plastic soul as he later referred to it) album. This produced his first number one hit in the US, "Fame". He also appeared in his first major film, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). With a permanently-dilated pupil and skeletal frame, he certainly looked the part of an alien. The following year, he released "Station to Station," containing some of the material he had written for the soundtrack to this film (which was not used). As his drug problem heightened, his behavior became more erratic. Reports of his insanity started to appear, and he continued to waste away physically. He fled back to Europe, finally settling in Berlin, where he changed musical direction again and recorded three of the most influential albums of all time, an electronic trilogy with Brian Eno "Low, Heroes and Lodger". Towards the end of the 1970s, he finally kicked his drug habit, and recorded the album many of his fans consider his best, the Japanese-influenced "Scary Monsters". Around this time, he appeared in the title role of the Broadway drama The Elephant Man, and to considerable acclaim.
The next few years saw something of a drop-off in his musical output as his acting career flourished, culminating in his acclaimed performance in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983). In 1983, he released "Let's Dance," an album which proved an unexpected massive commercial success, and produced his second #1 hit single in the United States. According to producer Nile Rodgers, the album was made in just 17 days and was "the easiest album" he'd ever made in his life. The tour which followed, "Serious Moonlight", was his most successful ever. Faced with this success on a massive scale, Bowie apparently attempted to "repeat the formula" in the next two albums, with less success (and to critical scorn). Finally, in the late 1980s, he turned his back on commercial success and his solo career, forming the hard rock band, Tin Machine, who had a deliberate limited appeal. By now, his acting career was in decline. After the comparative failure of Labyrinth (1986), the movie industry appears to have decided that Bowie was not a sufficient name to be a lead actor in a major movie, and since that date, most of his roles have been cameos or glorified cameos. Tin Machine toured extensively and released two albums, with little critical or commercial success.
In 1992, Bowie again changed direction and re-launched his solo career with "Black Tie White Noise", a wedding album inspired by his recent marriage to Iman. He released three albums to considerable critical acclaim and reasonable commercial success. In 1995, he renewed his working relationship with Brian Eno to record "Outside." After an initial hostile reaction from the critics, this album has now taken its place with his classic albums. In 2003, Bowie released an album entitled 'Reality.' The Reality Tour began in November 2003 and, after great commercial success, was extended into July 2004. In June 2004, Bowie suffered a heart attack and the tour did not finish its scheduled run.
After recovering, Bowie gave what turned out to be his final live performance in a three-song set with Alicia Keys at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York in November 2006. He also returned to acting. He played Tesla in The Prestige (2006) and had a small cameo in the comedy David Bowie (2006) for fan Ricky Gervais. In 2007, he did a cartoon voice in SpongeBob SquarePants (1999) playing Lord Royal Highness. He had a brief cameo in the movie ''Bandslam'' released in 2009; after a ten year hiatus from recording, he released a new album called 'The Next Day', featuring a homage cover to his earlier work ''Heroes''. The music video of ''Stars are Out Tonight'' premiered on 25 February 2013. It consists of other songs like ''Where Are We Now?", "Valentine's Day", "Love is Lost", "The Next Day", etc.
In 2014, Bowie won British Male Solo Artist at the 2014 Brit Awards, 30 years since last winning it, and became the oldest ever Brit winner. Bowie wrote and recorded the opening title song to the television miniseries The Last Panthers (2015), which aired in November 2015. The theme used for The Last Panthers (2015) was also the title track for his January 2016 release, ''Blackstar" (released on 8 January 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday) was met with critical acclaim. Following Bowie's death two days later, on 10 January 2016, producer Tony Visconti revealed Bowie had planned the album to be his swan song, and a "parting gift" for his fans before his death. An EP, No Plan, was released on 8 January 2017, which would have been Bowie's 70th birthday. The day following his death, online viewing of Bowie's music skyrocketed, breaking the record for Vevo's most viewed artist in a single day.
On 15 January, "Blackstar" debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart; nineteen of his albums were in the UK Top 100 Albums Chart, and thirteen singles were in the UK Top 100 Singles Chart. The song also debuted at #1 on album charts around the world, including Australia, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the US Billboard 200. At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, Bowie won all five nominated awards: Best Rock Performance; Best Alternative Music Album; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Recording Package; and Best Rock Song. The wins marked Bowie's first ever in musical categories. David Bowie influenced the course of popular music several times and had an effect on several generations of musicians.- Actress
- Writer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Canadian-born Fay Wray was brought up in Los Angeles and entered films
at an early age. She was barely in her teens when she started working
as an extra. She began her career as a heroine in westerns at Universal
during the silent era. In 1926 the Western Association of Motion
Picture Advertisers selected 13 young starlets it deemed most likely to
succeed in pictures. Fay was chosen as one of these starlets, along
with Janet Gaynor and Mary Astor. Fame would indeed come to Fay when she played
another heroine in Erich von Stroheim's The Wedding March (1928). She continued playing leads in a
number of films, such as the good-bad girl in Thunderbolt (1929). By the early
1930s she was at Paramount working with Gary Cooper and Jack Holt in a number
of average films, such as Master of Men (1933). She also appeared in such horror
films as Doctor X (1932) and The Vampire Bat (1933). In 1933 Fay was approached by producer
Merian C. Cooper, who told her that he had a part for her in a picture in which
she would be working with a tall, dark leading man. What he didn't tell
her was that her "tall, dark leading man" was a giant gorilla, and the
picture turned out to be the classic King Kong (1933). Perhaps no one in the
history of pictures could scream more dramatically than Fay, and she
really put on a show in "Kong". Her character provided a combination of
sex appeal, vulnerability and lung capacity as she was stalked by the
giant beast all the way to the top of the Empire State Building. That
was as far as Fay would rise, however, as this was, after all, just
another horror movie. After "Kong", she began a slow decline that put
her into low-budget action films by the mid '30s. In 1939 her 11-year
marriage to screenwriter John Monk Saunders ended in divorce, and her career was
almost finished. In 1942 she remarried and retired from the screen,
forever to be remembered as the "beauty who killed the beast" in "King
Kong". However, in 1953 she made a comeback, playing mature character
roles, and also appeared on television as Catherine, Natalie Wood's mother,
in The Pride of the Family (1953). She continued to appear in films until 1958 and television
into the 1960s.- 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.- Mark Margolis was an American actor who is well-known for his collaborations with film director Darren Aronofsky, particularly Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), Noah (2014), Black Swan (2010), and The Fountain (2006). Margolis also gained notoriety for his portrayal of "Tio" Hector Salamanca in the highly successful crossover series Breaking Bad (2008) and Better Call Saul (2015). He also acted in the hit films Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) and Scarface (1983). He has been married to Jacqueline Margolis since 1962 and has one child with her.
- Actress
- Composer
- Music Department
Lesley Gore was born Lesley Sue Goldstein in Brooklyn, New York City, to Ronny and Leo Goldstein, a manufacturer of children's clothes and swimwear. Her family was Jewish. She grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey. Gore hit the music scene at 17 years of age in 1963 with the teen anthem "It's My Party". Born in Brooklyn (Kings County), New York, she was discovered at a party by legendary producer Quincy Jones, who signed her to Mercury Records and produced "It's My Party". More hits followed: "Judy's Turn to Cry", "She's a Fool", "That's the Way Boys Are", and the surprisingly (for the times) feminist-oriented "You Don't Own Me". She branched out from recording and began appearing on stage in summer stock, and putting in appearances in movies and television shows (including one on the TV series Batman (1966), which just happened to be produced by her uncle Howie Horwitz). In 1981, she was nominated for an Academy Award with her brother Michael Gore, for Best Song for the film Fame (1980). "Out Here on My Own" was bested for the award by another song from the same film - the theme song, written by her brother and Dean Pitchford In her later life, she toured and recorded in addition to appearing in summer stock productions. Gore died at the age of 68.- Marj Dusay was born on 20 February 1936 in Hays, Kansas, USA. She was an actress, known for All My Children (1970), Guiding Light (1952) and Star Trek (1966). She was married to Thomas Allen Perine Jr. and John Murray Dusay. She died on 28 January 2020 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Basil Rathbone was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1892, but
three years later his family was forced to flee the country because his
father was accused by the Boers of being a British spy at a time when
Dutch-British conflicts were leading to the Boer War. The Rathbones
escaped to England, where Basil and his two younger siblings, Beatrice
and John, were raised. Their mother, Anna Barbara (George), was a
violinist, who was born in Grahamstown, South Africa, of British
parents, and their father, Edgar Philip Rathbone, was a mining engineer
born in Liverpool. From 1906 to 1910 Rathbone attended Repton School,
where he was more interested in sports--especially fencing, at which he
excelled--than studies, but where he also discovered his interest in
the theater. After graduation he planned to pursue acting as a
profession, but his father disapproved and suggested that his son try
working in business for a year, hoping he would forget about acting.
Rathbone accepted his father's suggestion and worked as a clerk for an
insurance company--for exactly one year. Then he contacted his cousin
Frank Benson, an actor managing a Shakespearean troupe in
Stratford-on-Avon.
Rathbone was hired as an actor on the condition that he work his way
through the ranks, which he did quite rapidly. Starting in bit parts in
1911, he was playing juvenile leads within two years. In 1915 his
career was interrupted by the First World War. During his military
service, as a second lieutenant in the Liverpool Scottish 2nd
Battalion, he worked in intelligence and received the Military Cross
for bravery. In 1919, released from military service, he returned to
Stratford-on-Avon and continued with Shakespeare but after a year moved
onto the London stage. The year after that he made his first appearance
on Broadway and his film debut in the silent
Innocent (1921).
For the remainder of the decade Rathbone alternated between the London
and New York stages and occasional appearances in films. In 1929 he
co-wrote and starred as the title character in a short-running Broadway
play called "Judas". Soon afterwards he abandoned his first love, the
theater, for a film career. During the 1920s his roles had evolved from
the romantic lead to the suave lady-killer to the sinister villain
(usually wielding a sword), and Hollywood put him to good use during
the 1930s in numerous costume romps, including
Captain Blood (1935),
David Copperfield (1935),
A Tale of Two Cities (1935),
Anna Karenina (1935),
The Last Days of Pompeii (1935),
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938),
Tower of London (1939),
The Mark of Zorro (1940) and
others. Rathbone earned two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor
as Tybalt in
Romeo and Juliet (1936) and as
King Louis XI in
If I Were King (1938).
However, it was in 1939 that Rathbone played his best-known and most
popular character, Sherlock Holmes, with
Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, first in
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
and then in
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939),
which were followed by 12 more films and numerous radio broadcasts over
the next seven years.
Feeling that his identification with the character was killing his film
career, Rathbone went back to New York and the stage in 1946. The next
year he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Dr. Sloper in the
Broadway play "The Heiress," but afterwards found little rewarding
stage work. Nevertheless, during the last two decades of his life,
Rathbone was a very busy actor, appearing on numerous television shows,
primarily drama, variety and game shows; in occasional films, such as
Casanova's Big Night (1954),
The Court Jester (1955),
Tales of Terror (1962) and
The Comedy of Terrors (1963);
and in his own one-man show, "An Evening with Basil Rathbone", with
which he toured the U.S.- Charlbi Dean was born on 5 February 1990 in Cape Town, South Africa. She was an actress, known for Triangle of Sadness (2022), Spud (2010) and Don't Sleep (2017). She died on 29 August 2022 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
A bold, blunt instrument of hatred and violence at the onset of his film career, Peter Boyle recoiled from that repugnant, politically incorrect "working class" image to eventually play gruff, gentler bears and even comedy monsters in a career that lasted four decades.
He was born on October 18, 1935, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, to Alice (Lewis) and Francis Xavier Boyle. He eventually moved to Philadelphia, where his father was a sought-after local TV personality and children's show host. His paternal grandparents were Irish immigrants, and his mother was of mostly French and British Isles descent. Following a solid Catholic upbringing (he attended a Catholic high school), Peter was a sensitive youth and joined the Christian Brothers religious order at one point while attending La Salle University in Philadelphia. He left the monastery after only a few years when he "lost" his calling.
Bent on an acting career, Boyle initially studied with guru Uta Hagen in New York. The tall (6' 2"), hulking, prematurely bald actor wannabe struggled through a variety of odd jobs (postal worker, waiter, bouncer) while simultaneously building up his credits on stage and waiting for that first big break. Things started progressing for him after appearing in the national company of "The Odd Couple" in 1965 and landing TV commercials on the sly. In the late 60s he joined Chicago's Second City improv group and made his Broadway debut as a replacement for Peter Bonerz in Paul Sills' "Story Theatre" (1971) (Sills was the founder of Second City). Peter's breakout film role did not come without controversy as the hateful, hardhat-donning bigot-turned-murderer Joe (1970) in a tense, violence-prone film directed by John G. Avildsen. The role led to major notoriety, however, and some daunting supporting parts in T.R. Baskin (1971),
Slither (1973) and as Robert Redford's calculating campaign manager in The Candidate (1972). During this time his political radicalism found a visible platform after joining Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland on anti-war crusades, which would include the anti-establishment picture Steelyard Blues (1973). This period also saw the forging of a strong friendship with former Beatle John Lennon.
Destined to be cast as monstrous undesirables throughout much of his career, he played a monster of another sort in his early film days, and thus avoided a complete stereotype as a film abhorrent. His hilarious, sexually potent Frankenstein's Monster in the cult Mel Brooks spoof Young Frankenstein (1974) saw him in a sympathetic and certainly more humorous vein. His creature's first public viewing, in which Boyle shares an adroit tap-dancing scene with "creator" Gene Wilder in full Fred Astaire regalia, was a show-stopping audience pleaser. Late 70s filmgoers continued to witness Boyle in seamy, urban settings with brutish roles in Taxi Driver (1976) and Hardcore (1979). At the same time he addressed several TV mini-movie roles with the same brilliant darkness such as his Senator Joe McCarthy in Tail Gunner Joe (1977), for which he received an Emmy nomination, and his murderous, knife-wielding Fatso in the miniseries remake of From Here to Eternity (1979).
While the following decade found Peter in predominantly less noteworthy filming and a short-lived TV series lead as remote cop Joe Bash (1986), the 90s brought him Emmy glory (for a guest episode on The X-Files (1993)). Despite a blood clot-induced stroke in 1990 that impaired his speech for six months, he ventured on and capped his enviable career on TV wielding funny but crass one-liners in the "Archie Bunker" mold on the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). A major Emmy blunder had Boyle earning seven nominations for his Frank Barrone character without a win, the only prime player on the show unhonored. He survived a heart attack while on the set of "Everybody Loves Raymond" in 1999, but managed to return full time for the remainder of the series' run through 2005.
Following a superb turn as Billy Bob Thornton's unrepentantly racist father in the sobering Oscar-winner Monster's Ball (2001), the remainder of his films were primarily situated in frivolous comedy fare such as The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), The Santa Clause 2 (2002), Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), typically playing cranky curmudgeons. Boyle died of multiple myeloma (bone-marrow cancer) and heart disease at New York Presbyterian Hospital in 2006, and was survived by his wife Lorraine and two children. He was 71.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
As the short, straight-man counterpart of the stellar husband-and-wife comedy team "Stiller & Meara", Jerry Stiller and wife Anne Meara were on top of the comedy game in the 1960s, a steady and hilarious presence on television variety, notably The Ed Sullivan Show (1948), on which they appeared 36 times. Decades later, Jerry's career was revitalized in the role of the raucous, gasket-blowing Frank Costanza on the sitcom classic Seinfeld (1989).
Jerry Stiller was born Gerald Isaac Stiller in the Unity Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, to Bella (Citron) and William Stiller, a bus driver. His paternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Galicia, and his mother was a Polish Jewish emigrant, from Frampol. In the beginning, Stiller was a drama major at the Syracuse University. Though he had played rather uneducated, blue-collar sorts for most of his career, he received his Bachelor of Science in Speech and Drama before making his acting debut on stage with Burgess Meredith in "The Silver Whistle" in 1951. While a member of the improvisational team The Compass Players (the company later evolved into the well-known Second City troupe), he met Anne.
They married in 1954 and began touring together on the national club circuit while giving new and inventive meaning to the term spousal comedy. This led to television prominence on "The Ed Sullivan Show", "The Tonight Show", "The Steve Allen Comedy Hour", "The Merv Griffin Show", as well as game shows "He Said, She Said", "You're Putting Me On" and "What's My Line?" as well as other talk/comedy venues.
After well over a decade of fame together, they decided to pursue individual successes and both found it. A Broadway favorite in such shows as "Hurlyburly", "The Ritz" (he later recreated his hilarious mobster family member role in the film The Ritz (1976)), "The Golden Apple", "Three Men on a Horse", "What's Wrong with This Picture" and "The Three Sisters", Stiller even appeared with Kevin Kline and Blythe Danner as Dogberry in William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1988. Musicals were not out of his range, either, as he created the role of Launce in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and co-starred as Nathan Detroit in a production of "Guys and Dolls". Although he kept afloat on television as a 1970s regular on The Paul Lynde Show (1972) and Joe and Sons (1975), he had some rocky years and Anne's pilot fizzled when they reunited for a possible "Stiller & Meara" sitcom.
Then came eight seasons as hypertensive Frank Costanza and his character star was reborn. Nominated for a 1997 Emmy Award and the recipient of the 1998 American Comedy Award, Stiller found back-to-back sitcom hits with The King of Queens (1998) as the irascible Arthur Spooner. He also appeared in a number of his successful son Ben Stiller's comedy pictures including Heavyweights (1995), Zoolander (2001), The Heartbreak Kid (2007) and Zoolander 2 (2016)
Into the millennium, Jerry has appeared in a number of independent films, including a starring role as a low-level director seeking a comeback in the comedy The Independent (2000); had a cameo in the off-color Rodney Dangerfield slapstick farce My 5 Wives (2000); played the slick Mr. Pinky in the film version of the Broadway musical hit Hairspray (2007); and featured roles in the romantic comedies Swinging with the Finkels (2011) and Excuse Me for Living (2012).
Daughter Amy Stiller is also a thriving actress. He and Anne wrote, performed and produced award-winning radio commercials together for such products as Blue Nun Wine, United Van Lines and Amalgamated Bank, among others. His autobiography "Married to Laughter" came out in 2000. Stiller's wife Anne passed away on May 23, 2015, and he passed away nearly five years later, on May 11, 2020, at age 92.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Peter Scolari was born on 12 September 1955 in New Rochelle, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Newhart (1982), Girls (2012) and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show (1997). He was married to Tracy Shayne, Cathy Trien, Debra Steagall and Lisa Kretzschmar. He died on 22 October 2021 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Her father, Donald Cole, was a consulting engineer, and died in 1926
when Kim was only three years old. Her mother, Grace Lind, once performed
as a concert pianist. She had one brother who was eight years older
than she, and she was educated at Miami Beach High.
According to an in-depth article on Kim Hunter by
Joseph Collura in the October 2009 issue
of "Classic Images", Kim was quiet and painfully shy as a child and
overcame it through the guidance of a local dramatics teacher, a Mrs.
Carmine. Included were diction, voice and posture lessons.
She studied at the Actors Studio and her first professional appearance
was as "Penny" in "Penny Wise" in Miami in November 1939. Then, she
joined a repertory group called "Theatre of Fifteen", but it disbanded
in 1942 when WWII took away most of its male members.
She made her Broadway debut performance as "Stella" in "A Streetcar
Named Desire" at the Ethel Barrymore
Theatre, New York, in December 1947 that was the 1947-1948 season's
success and for which she won the Critics Circle and Donaldson awards.
A one-time student of the Pasadena Playhouse, she was appearing in the
1942 production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" when she was discovered by an
RKO talent hunter who signed her to a seven-year contract for
David O. Selznick's company. Selznick
suggested she change her first name to "Kim" and a RKO secretary
suggested the last name of "Hunter". A few years later,
Irene Mayer Selznick, David's
ex-wife by then, recommended Kim for her reprise role of "Stella" in
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951),
for which she won an Oscar.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Nelsan Ellis was an award-winning American film and television actor and playwright, perhaps best known as Lafayette Reynolds on HBO's True Blood (2008).
Nelsan was born on November 30, 1977, in Harvey, Illinois, the son of Jackie Ellis and Tommie Lee Thompson. Following his parents' divorce, Ellis and his mother moved to Alabama. He moved back to Illinois as a teenager, and graduated from Thornridge High School in Dolton, Illinois, in 1997. Ellis attended Juilliard and, while there, wrote a semi-autobiographical play titled Ugly that was performed at the school and later won the Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award. Ellis won a 2008 Satellite Award from the International Press Academy for best supporting actor in a television series for his role as Lafayette Reynolds in HBO's True Blood. Ellis won the "Brink of Fame: Actor" award at the 2009 NewNowNext Awards.
Tragically, Ellis died at the age of 39 on July 8, 2017, in Los Angeles, California, after complications from heart failure. His family released a statement on July 10, saying that Nelsan had been trying to quit alcohol in the days before his death, and suggesting that he suffered from alcohol withdrawal syndrome, leading to his heart failure.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Considered by many to be one of the greatest American actresses of all
time, Geraldine Page was a master craftswoman who seemed to bring out
the most inner detail of the character she was playing. Her dedication
to her craft has earned her the respect of many of today's great actors
including Meryl Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Geraldine Sue Page was born on November 22, 1924 in Kirksville,
Missouri to Dr. Leon Elwin Page, an osteopathic physician and Pearl
Maize Page, a homemaker. She had an older brother named Donald. The
family moved to Chicago when Page was five years old. Growing up, her
interests and hobbies always were directed toward the arts. She tried
writing and painting while younger, but that proved to be too
frustrating. She wanted to be a concert pianist, but her family
couldn't afford all that training. While she was still a preteen, she
joined the drama club at her church and soon found her passion. She
began reading all kinds of plays as well as reading about actors. She
was fascinated with the careers of actresses like Lucille La Verne,
Maude Adams, and Eva Le Gallienne.
Upon graduation from high school in 1942, she entered the Goodman
Theater School, where she performed in just about everything in which
students could perform, as well as earning money working for a
children's theater group. When she completed the three-year program in
1945, she and several other students organized a summer stock theater
in Lake Zurich, Illinois. After the summer season, she headed for New
York City. Unfortunately, by Christmas she was working three part-time
jobs just to get by and not finding any work as an actress. She
returned to Chicago that winter and accepted a position as a part-time
instructor in the theater department at DePaul University for the
spring semester. After another summer at Lake Zurich, Miss Page headed
for New York again, this time joining a stock company in Woodstock, New
York. She spent the next two summers in Lake Zurich, and the rest of
the time performing in Woodstock playing everything from young girls to
grandmothers.
In 1948, she made her New York City debut with an Off-Broadway
production of "Seven Mirrors." She spent the next four years performing
with Off-Broadway groups and summer stock in New Jersey. She also
performed character parts on radio shows. In 1952, she had the lead in
an Off-Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' "Summer and Smoke." That
production caused a sensation, not only with critics but with a growing
audience marking the first big hit Off-Broadway. Page won the Drama
Critics Award, becoming the first person from a non-Broadway production
to receive such an award.
Page put off a number of film offers and instead played leading roles
on radio and television, and made her Broadway debut in January 1953 in
Vina Delmar's play "Mid-Summer." Although the play was dismissed by
most critics, she was hailed by critics for her portrayal of an
uneducated woman married to a schoolteacher.
In the fall of 1953, she made her film debut opposite
John Wayne in the western
Hondo (1953). Although she received an
Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, she wasn't offered
any good parts in Hollywood and returned to New York.
During the 1950s, Page's theater career flourished. She played a
variety of roles on Broadway including a vindictive wife of a
homosexual in "The Immoralist," to a lonely spinster in "The
Rainmaker." She also made frequent radio and television appearances and
honed her craft at the Actors Studio. It was in the fall of 1959 that
Page starred opposite Paul Newman in Tennessee Williams's "Sweet Bird
of Youth." Her role as a pathetic fading movie star earned universal
praise, her first Tony Award nomination, and interest again from
Hollywood. It was also when she met and married one of her co-stars,
actor Rip Torn.
In 1961 she starred in the film version of
Summer and Smoke (1961) and in
1962 in
Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).
She earned consecutive Golden Globe awards as well as Academy Award
nominations for these two performances.
From now on, Page divided her time between the stage and the screen.
Her selectivity was high, whatever the medium. She turned down many
famous roles, including the role of Martha in the original Broadway
production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and the role of Chris
MacNeil in the film "The Exorcist." She was first and foremost a
character actress who believed in repertory. She tended to accept parts
that were very different from the one she had just played and often
liked to rotate between leading roles and supporting roles.
Despite the fact that she was such a highly respected stage actress,
very few of her Broadway productions after "Sweet Bird of Youth" were
hits, and often closed after just a few performances. The few
productions that were hits included revivals of "Strange Interlude" and
"The Three Sisters." Most of her better stage work through the rest of
her life came in productions Off-Broadway, or in regional theaters
across the country. She liked touring the United States and performing
theater in states and cities often neglected by Broadway touring
companies. In the 1960s, some of her notable film work included "The
Happiest Millionaire," "What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice" and "You're a
Big Boy Now." She earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the
latter. She also won two Emmy Awards for television work.
In the 1970s one of her few hits on Broadway was as a banker's
alcoholic wife in "Absurd Person Singular." This role netted her a
second Tony Award nomination. One of her bigger triumphs on the stage
was the Sanctuary Theater Company which she and her husband Rip Torn
founded off-Broadway. Although it only lasted a couple of years, it
gave young actors a chance to work, and many of the productions were
given rave reviews by critics. Some of her more memorable film roles in
the 1970s included a nosy matchmaker in
Pete 'n' Tillie (1972) (Oscar
nomination as Best Supporting Actress), a controversial religious
leader in
The Day of the Locust (1975),
the voice of the villain Madame Medusa in
The Rescuers (1977) and the suicidal
mother in Interiors (1978) (Oscar
nomination as Best Actress).
In the 1980s, she began teaching acting at the Pelican Theater School.
In 1982 she had another triumph on Broadway as Mother Superior in
"Agnes of God," a role which earned her a third Tony Award nomination.
In 1983 she co-founded the Mirror Repertory Company, an Off-Broadway
theater group dedicated to preserving the art of repertory theater. She
performed and directed in a variety of productions with the group. She
continued to work in films despite her hectic theater schedule. One of
her film roles in 1984 was a scene stealing bit part as a chain-smoking
mother of a murdered cop in
The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984).
She received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. With that
she became the first woman to receive seven Oscar nominations for
acting without a single win. In 1985, she starred in the independent
film
The Trip to Bountiful (1985).
Based on Horton Foote's play, it tells the story of a 60-year-old woman
who yearns to run away from her cramped city apartment that she shares
with her son and daughter-in-law, to see the old country town where she
grew up. Page's performance was hailed by critics and she began to rack
up a number of award nominations. She was nominated for a Best Actress
Oscar, making it her eighth try for the golden boy. Although
Meryl Streep looked like a sure bet for
Out of Africa (1985), many critics
predicted Page would emerge as the dark horse winner. When
F. Murray Abraham opened the envelope
on Oscar night he announced "Ah! I consider this woman the greatest
actress in the English language. The winner is Geraldine Page in 'The
Trip to Bountiful!'" As Page scrambled to find her shoes which she had
kicked under her seat, Meryl Streep led the long standing ovation for
her.
In the 1980s she received a number of other honors. She received
several lifetime achievement awards from various theater groups. In
1983, she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. The only thing
that seemed to be missing was a Tony Award. In the spring of 1987, Page
took a break from the Mirror Theater, to return to Broadway in a
revival of "Blithe Spirit." For her leading performance as the wacky
medium, she was nominated for her fourth Tony Award. Many critics
predicted her to be the sentimental favorite for the award. She did not
win. Six days after the Tony Awards ceremony, she died of a heart
attack, leaving behind her husband and their three children. She was 62
years old. A memorial service was held at a Broadway theater and
numerous actors and celebrities paid their respects including Meryl
Streep, Jessica Tandy, and Paul Newman among others. Ronald and Nancy
Reagan had flowers sent from the White House to the memorial service.
Page dedicated her life to her craft and is regarded as one of the most
important actresses of the 20th century. She appeared in 28 films, 16
Broadway plays, memorable television plays and radio plays, and
innumerable repertory, stock, regional and Off-Broadway performances.
As People magazine noted: "Geraldine Page wasn't resting on her laurels
at the time of her death; she was on a role. After a performance, she
asked, 'I wasn't overdone, was I?' Then she added with a smile, 'Wasn't
I exquisite?' As ever, she was."- Actress
- Writer
- Director
The late Adrienne Shelly was born in Queens, New York, to Elaine Langbaum
and Sheldon Levine. After graduating Jericho High School in Jericho, New
York, she enrolled at Boston University and majored in film production. She
dropped out after her junior year and moved to Manhattan, where she made
a name for herself in independent films with her work in
The Unbelievable Truth (1989)
and Trust (1990).
She eventually moved behind the camera, writing and directing
I'll Take You There (1999)
and Waitress (2007) (her final film).
On November 1, 2006, Adrienne Shelly was murdered. She was survived by
her husband Andy Ostroy and their daughter Sophie.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jack Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter, Jr. on September 18, 1920 in Newark,
New Jersey, to Laura M. (Costello) and John Warden Lebzelter. His father
was of German and Irish descent, and his mother was of Irish ancestry.
Raised in Louisville, Kentucky, at the age of seventeen, young Jack Lebzelter
was expelled from Louisville's DuPont Manual High School for repeatedly
fighting. Good with his fists, he turned professional, boxing as a
welterweight under the name "Johnny Costello", adopting his mother's
maiden name. The purses were poor, so he soon left the ring and worked
as a bouncer at a night club. He also worked as a lifeguard before
signing up with the U.S. Navy in 1938. He served in China with the
Yangtze River Patrol for the best part of his three-year hitch before
joining the Merchant Marine in 1941.
Though the Merchant Marine paid better than the Navy, Warden was
dissatisfied with his life aboard ship on the long convoy runs and quit
in 1942 in order to enlist in the U.S. Army. He became a paratrooper
with the elite 101st Airborne Division, and missed the June 1944
invasion of Normandy due to a leg badly broken by landing on a fence
during a nighttime practice jump shortly before D-Day. Many of his
comrades lost their lives during the Normandy invasion, but the future
Jack Warden was spared that ordeal. Recuperating from his injuries, he
read a play by Clifford Odets given to
him by a fellow soldier who was an actor in civilian life. He was so
moved by the play, he decided to become an actor after the war. After
recovering from his badly shattered leg, Warden saw action at the
Battle of the Bulge, Nazi Germany's last major offensive. He was
demobilized with the rank of sergeant and decided to pursue an acting
career on the G.I. Bill. He moved to New York City to attend acting
school, then joined the company of Theatre
'47 in Dallas in 1947 as
a professional actor, taking his middle name as his surname.
This repertory company, run by
Margo Jones,
became famous in the 1940s and '50s for producing Tennessee Williams's
plays. The experience gave him a valuable grounding in both classic and
contemporary drama, and he shuttled between Texas and New York for five
years as he was in demand as an actor. Warden made his television debut
in 1948, though he continued to perform on stage (he appeared in a
stage production in
Arthur Miller's
Death of a Salesman (1966)).
After several years in small, local productions, he made both his
Broadway debut in the 1952 Broadway revival of Odets' "Golden Boy" and,
three years later, originated the role of "Marco" in the original
Broadway production of Miller's "A View From the Bridge". On film, he
and fellow World War II veteran,
Lee Marvin (Marine Corps, South
Pacific), made their debut in
You're in the Navy Now (1951)
(a.k.a. "U.S.S. Teakettle"), uncredited, along with fellow vet
Charles Bronson, then billed as
"Charles Buchinsky".
With his athletic physique, he was routinely cast in bit parts as
soldiers (including the sympathetic barracks-mate of
Montgomery Clift and
Frank Sinatra in the Oscar-winning
From Here to Eternity (1953).
He played the coach on TV's
Mister Peepers (1952) with
Wally Cox.
Aside from
From Here to Eternity (1953)
(The Best Picture Oscar winner for 1953), other famous roles in the
1950s included Juror #7 (a disinterested salesman who wants a quick
conviction to get the trial over with) in
12 Angry Men (1957) - a film that
proved to be his career breakthrough - the bigoted foreman in
Edge of the City (1957) and one
of the submariners commended by
Clark Gable and
Burt Lancaster in the World War II drama,
Run Silent Run Deep (1958).
In 1959, Warden capped off the decade with a memorable appearance in
The Twilight Zone (1959)
episode,
The Lonely (1959),
in the series premier year of 1959. As "James Corry", Warden created a
sensitive portrayal of a convicted felon marooned on an asteroid,
sentenced to serve a lifetime sentence, who falls in love with a robot.
It was a character quite different from his role as Juror #7.
In the 1960s and early 70s, his most memorable work was on television,
playing a detective in
The Asphalt Jungle (1961),
The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965)
and N.Y.P.D. (1967). He opened up
the decade of the 1970s by winning an Emmy Award playing football coach
"George Halas" in
Brian's Song (1971), the
highly-rated and acclaimed TV movie based on
Gale Sayers's memoir, "I Am Third". He
appeared again as a detective in the TV series,
Jigsaw John (1976), in the
mid-1970s,
The Bad News Bears (1979)
and appeared in a pilot for a planned revival of
Topper (1937) in 1979.
His collaboration with
Warren Beatty in two 1970s films
brought him to the summit of his career as he displayed a flair for
comedy in both Shampoo (1975) and
Heaven Can Wait (1978). As the
faintly sinister businessman "Lester" and as the perpetually befuddled
football trainer "Max Corkle", Warden received Academy Award
nominations as Best Supporting Actor. Other memorable roles in the
period were as the metro news editor of the "Washington Post" in
All the President's Men (1976),
the German doctor in
Death on the Nile (1978), the
senile, gun-toting judge in
And Justice for All (1979),
the President of the United States in
Being There (1979), the twin car
salesmen in Used Cars (1980) and
Paul Newman's law partner in
The Verdict (1982).
This was the peak of Warden's career, as he entered his early sixties.
He single-handedly made
Andrew Bergman's
So Fine (1981) watchable, but after that
film, the quality of his roles declined. He made a third stab at TV,
again appearing as a detective in
Crazy Like a Fox (1984) in
the mid-1980s. He played the shifty convenience store owner "Big Ben"
in Problem Child (1990) and its two
sequels, a role unworthy of his talent, but he shone again as the
Broadway high-roller "Julian Marx" in
Woody Allen's
Bullets Over Broadway (1994).
After appearing in Warren Beatty's
Bulworth (1998), Warden's last film was
The Replacements (2000) in 2000.
He then lived in retirement in New York City with his girlfriend,
Marucha Hinds. He was married to French stage actress
Wanda Ottoni, best known for her role as
the object of Joe Besser's desire in
The Three Stooges short,
Fifi Blows Her Top (1958). She
gave up her career after her marriage. They had one son, Christopher,
but had been separated for many years.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Jonathan Demme was born on 22 February 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Philadelphia (1993). He was married to Joanne Howard and Evelyn Purcell. He died on 26 April 2017 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Like a number of British actors of the same generation
(John Hurt and
Alan Rickman, to name two), Roger Rees originally trained for the visual arts. He was born on May 5 1944 in Aberystwyth, Wales, and acted in church and Boy Scouts stage productions while growing up in South London, but studied painting and lithography at the Slade School of Art. He had to quit his studies, however, when his father died and he had to help support the family. His first paying jobs in show business were as a scenery painter. He was painting scenery, in fact, when he was asked to sub in for a part and made his acting debut. He put away his brushes for good after this.
He turned to acting on a full-time basis in the mid-1960s and appeared on both the London and Scottish stages. After his
fourth audition, the Royal Shakespeare Company finally hired him as a
walk-on, sword carrier and bit player in 1968. He then worked his way up through the RSC's ranks, finally achieving stardom in the early 1980s in the 8-1/2 hour stage adaptation of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby", which had a cast of 40 actors, and for which he won both an Olivier Award and a Tony Award. Rees was also nominated for an Emmy Award for the television version of the play. By this time, he had several
TV movies to his name, but he did not make his big-screen
debut until Star 80 (1983).
Living in the United States since 1989, Roger made a name for himself in America when he joined the cast of the TV hit comedy Cheers (1982) as the priggish Britisher Robin Colcord and later the glib British ambassador Lord John Marbury on the series The West Wing (1999). More recently, he appeared as a frequent guest in several British and American television series and in a number of independent films.
However, Roger Rees remained primarily a man of the theatre with secondary careers as a playwright and stage director. Married to theatre collaborator Rick Elice since 2011, Roger was subsequently diagnosed with cancer. Performing on Broadway in the musical "The Visit" starring Chita Rivera, he was forced to quit the show in late May of 2015. The 71-year-old actor died on July 10, 2015.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A disarming character lady quite capable of scene-stealing, Mildred
Natwick was a well-rounded talent with distinctively dowdy features and
idiosyncratic tendencies who, over a six-decade period, assembled
together a number of unforgettable matrons on stage and (eventually)
film and TV. Whimsical, feisty, loony, stern, impish, shrewish,
quizzical, scheming -- she greatly enhanced both comedies and dramas
and, thankfully, her off-centered greatness was captured perfectly on
occasion by such film directors as
John Ford,
Alfred Hitchcock and
Neil Simon.
A short, plumpish, oval-eyed figure with a unique flowery, honey-glazed
voice, Natwick was born on June 19, 1905 (some sources list 1908) to
Joseph (a businessman) and and Mildred Marion Dawes Natwick. The
Baltimore native graduated from both the Bryn Mawr School (in
Baltimore) and also from Bennett College in Dutchess County, N.Y.,
where she majored in drama. Breaking into the professional field
touring on stage, Miss Natwick joined the Vagabonds in the late 1920s,
a non-professional group from Baltimore. She later became part of the
renowned University Players at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, whose rising
performers at the time included Henry Fonda,
Margaret Sullavan and
James Stewart.
Natwick made her Broadway bow in the 1932 melodrama "Carry Nation,"
directed by Blanche Yurka with
Esther Dale in the title role. In the cast
was Joshua Logan, whom she befriended and
later collaborated with when he turned director. She then continued her
momentum on 1930s Broadway with "Amourette" (1933), "Spring in Autumn"
(1933), "The Wind and the Rain" (1934), "The Distaff Side" (1934) "End
of Summer" (1936), "Love from a Stranger" (1936), "The Star-Wagon"
(1937), "Missouri Legend" (1938), "Stars in Your Eyes" (1939) (directed
by Logan), and "Christmas Eve" (1939).
Natwick did not come to films until middle age (35) with the
John Ford classic
The Long Voyage Home (1940),
in which she played a Cockney floozie. Despite her fine work in this
minor part, she did not make another film until her landlady role five
years later in
The Enchanted Cottage (1945)
supporting Dorothy McGuire and
Robert Young. Not a great beauty by
Hollywood standards, Natwick learned quickly in Hollywood that if she
were to succeed, it would be as a character performer. Ford himself
picked up on her versatility and used her repeatedly in several of his
post-war classics --
3 Godfathers (1948),
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949),
and The Quiet Man (1952).
Never abandoning the theater for long, Natwick excelled as Miss Garnett
in George Bernard Shaw's "Candida"
and as the buoyant medium in Noël Coward's
"Blithe Spirit". As for the big screen, she was sporadically seen in
such films as
Yolanda and the Thief (1945),
The Late George Apley (1947),
A Woman's Vengeance (1948),
The Kissing Bandit (1948),
Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)
and Against All Flags (1952).
Making use of even the tiniest of roles, none of them did much to
improve her stature in Hollywood. With her delicious turn, however, in
Hitchcock's eccentric black comedy
The Trouble with Harry (1955),
which starred Shirley MacLaine (in her
film debut), John Forsythe, Kris
Kringle's Edmund Gwenn, little
Jerry Mathers (of "Leave It to Beaver"),
and another famous Mildred,
Mildred Dunnock, Natwick enjoyed one of
her best roles ever on film. This was followed by her scheming and
furtive sorceress in the Danny Kaye vehicle
The Court Jester (1955) in which
she, Kaye and Glynis Johns participate in
the memorable tongue-twisting "The pellet with the poison's in the
vessel with the pestle..." comedy routine. This, in turn, led to a
couple of more, albeit lesser, films, including
Teenage Rebel (1956) and
Tammy and the Bachelor (1957).
Preferring the theatre to movies, MIldred received her first Tony
nomination for her sharp, astute work in
Jean Anouilh's "Waltz of the Toredors" in
1957 and recreated her character in a TV special. She seemed to move
effortlessly from the classics ("Medea," "Coriolanus") to chic comedy
("Ladies in Retirement," "The Importance of Being Earnest"). Receiving
great applause as the beleaguered, overly-winded mother in
Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park"
on Broadway in 1963, she transferred the role to film four years later.
The cinematic
Barefoot in the Park (1967)
earned Mildred a well-deserved Oscar nomination for "best supporting
actress". She switched things up again with
Harold Pinter's theatrical "Landscape,"
and then again in 1971 when she made her debut in a singing role in the
John Kander-Fred Ebb
musical, "70, Girls, 70" (1971) in which she earned a second Tony
nomination. Her last Broadway show came as a replacement in "Bedroom
Farce" in 1979.
With only the slightest of gesture, look or tone of voice, Mildred's
characters could speak volumes and she became an essential character
player during the 1970s as an offbeat friend, relative or elderly on TV
and film. She was awarded the Emmy for her playing of one of
The Snoop Sisters (1972)_
alongside the equally delightful
Helen Hayes in the short-lived TV
series. Both played impish Jessica Fletcher-type mystery writers who
solve real crimes on the sly. She also played
Rock Hudson's quirky mother in
McMillan & Wife (1971) and a
notable dying grandmother in a guest appearance of the
critically-lauded TV series drama
Family (1976). Her final film came
with a small regal role as Madame de Rosemonde in
Dangerous Liaisons (1988) with
Glenn Close,
John Malkovich and
Michelle Pfeiffer.
Never married, Mildred was called "Milly" by close friends and family
and was the first cousin of Myron 'Grim' Natwick, the creator of Betty
Boop for the Max Fleischer cartoon studio
and prime animator for Disney's Snow White character. She died of
cancer at age 89 in New York City.- Actor
- Writer
- Stunts
Edward Montgomery Clift (nicknamed
'Monty' his entire life) was born on October 17, 1920 in Omaha, Nebraska, just after his twin sister Roberta (1920-2014) and eighteen months after his brother Brooks Clift. He was the son of Ethel "Sunny" Anderson (Fogg; 1888-1988) and William Brooks Clift (1886-1964). His father made a lot of money in banking but was quite poor
during the depression. His mother was born out of
wedlock and spent much of her life and the family fortune finding her
illustrious southern lineage and raising her children as aristocrats.
At age 13, Monty appeared on Broadway ("Fly Away Home"), and chose to
remain in the New York theater for over ten years before finally
succumbing to Hollywood. He gained excellent theatrical notices and
soon piqued the interests of numerous lovelorn actresses; their
advances met with awkward conflict. While working in New York in the
early 1940s, he met wealthy former Broadway star
Libby Holman. She developed an intense
decade-plus obsession over the young actor, even financing an
experimental play, "Mexican Mural" for him. It was ironic his
relationship with the bisexual middle-aged Holman would be the
principal (and likely the last) heterosexual relationship of his life
and only cause him further anguish over his sexuality. She would wield
considerable influence over the early part of his film career, advising
him in decisions to decline lead roles in
Sunset Blvd. (1950), (originally
written specifically for him; the story perhaps hitting a little too
close to home) and High Noon (1952).
His long apprenticeship on stage made him a thoroughly accomplished
actor, notable for the intensity with which he researched and
approached his roles. By the early 1950s he was exclusively
homosexual, though he continued to hide his homosexuality and
maintained a number of close friendships with theater women (heavily
promoted by studio publicists).
His film debut was Red River (1948)
with John Wayne quickly followed by
his early personal success
The Search (1948) (Oscar nominations
for this,
A Place in the Sun (1951),
From Here to Eternity (1953)
and
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)).
By 1950, he was troubled with allergies and colitis (the U.S. Army had
rejected him for military service in World War II for chronic diarrhea)
and, along with pill problems, he was alcoholic. He spent a great deal
of time and money on psychiatry.
In 1956, during filming of
Raintree County (1957), he ran
his Chevrolet into a tree after leaving a party at
Elizabeth Taylor's; it was she
who saved him from choking by pulling out two teeth lodged in his
throat. His smashed face was rebuilt, he reconciled with his estranged
father, but he continued bedeviled by dependency on drugs and his
unrelenting guilt over his homosexuality.
With his Hollywood career in an irreversible slide despite giving an
occasional riveting performance, such as in
Stanley Kramer's
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961),
Monty returned to New York and tried to slowly develop a somewhat more
sensible lifestyle in his brownstone row house on East 61st Street in
Manhattan. He was set to play in Taylor's
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967),
when he died in the early morning hours of July 23, 1966, at his home at
age 45. His body was found by his live-in personal secretary/companion
Lorenzo James, who found Clift lying nude on top of his bed, dead from
what the autopsy called "occlusive coronary artery disease." Clift's
last 10 years prior to his death from his 1956 car accident were called
the "longest suicide in history" by famed acting teacher
Robert Lewis.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
WWII veteran, dance instructor and diversely talented stage & screen
actor were all inclusions on the resume of this perpetually busy US
actor who didn't get in front of the cameras until around the time of
his fortieth birthday. The stockily built Charles Durning was one of
Hollywood's most dependable and sought after supporting actors.
Durning was born in Highland Falls, New York, to Louise Marie
(Leonard), a laundress, and James Gerald Durning. His father was an
Irish immigrant and his mother was of Irish descent. Durning first got
his start in guest appearances in early 1960's TV shows. He scored
minor roles over the next decade until he really got noticed by film
fans as the sneering, corrupt cop "Lt. Snyder" hassling street grifter
'Robert Redford' in the multi award winning mega-hit
The Sting (1973). Durning was equally
entertaining in the Billy Wilder production
of The Front Page (1974), he
supported screen tough guy
Charles Bronson in the
suspenseful western
Breakheart Pass (1975) and
featured as "Spermwhale Whalen" in the story of unorthodox police
behavior in The Choirboys (1977).
The versatile Durning is equally adept at comedic roles and
demonstrated his skills as "Doc Hopper" in
The Muppet Movie (1979), a
feisty football coach in
North Dallas Forty (1979), a
highly strung police officer berating maverick cop
Burt Reynolds in
Sharky's Machine (1981), and a
light footed, dancing Governor (alongside Burt Reynolds once more) in
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).
Durning continued a regular on screen association with
Burt Reynolds appearing in several
more feature films together and as "Dr. Harlan Elldridge" in the highly
popular TV series
Evening Shade (1990). On par
with his multitude of feature film roles, Durning has always been in
high demand on television and has guest starred in
Everybody Loves Raymond (1996),
Monk (2002) and
Rescue Me (2004). Plus, he has
appeared in the role of "Santa Claus" in five different television
movies.- Diana became involved in show business at a very early age, tap dancing at seven and winning a beauty contest three years later. This led to modeling sun suits for Sears Department Stores, and, eventually, to becoming a Conover model for the John Robert Powers Agency in New York. She also acquired plenty of acting practice during seven seasons of summer stock, playing assorted leads in classic plays like The Little Foxes, The Seven Year Itch (the role immortalized by Marilyn Monroe on screen!), Tobacco Road and Life With Father. From the mid-50s, she appeared on numerous live TV shows in New York and even enjoyed a second-billed leading role in a 1955 episode of Star Tonight (1955). This did not lead anywhere career-wise, so the blonde, comely-looking Diana took on further acting studies and got herself noticed with covers in popular contemporary magazines. Alas, it took a move to Hollywood for her career to really gain some traction, then, before long, she became a much-in-demand guest actress for prime-time TV shows. So much so, where by 1962, she was given the sobriquet 'Miss Emmy'.
Diana also appeared thrice on Broadway, culminating in a leading role in the comedy play Boeing-Boeing in 1962. That same year, she toured the U.S. and Canada in a National Theatre Company Production of The Seven Year Itch, opposite Eddie Bracken.
During her prolific TV appearances in the 60s, Diana accumulated screen credits on some of the most popular shows of the day, including Maverick (1957), Gunsmoke (1955), Route 66 (1960), Rawhide (1959), Perry Mason (1957), 77 Sunset Strip (1958), The Virginian (1962) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964).
However, her undoubted career highlight came near the end of her life as an actress when producer/creator Dan Curtis offered her the juicy role of Laura Collins (an immortal Phoenix-like entity) in his cult supernatural day time series Dark Shadows (1966). Between 1966 and 1969, Diana lived and breathed this character in 62 episodes and a subsequent spin-off movie release, Night of Dark Shadows (1971). After that, her acting career ended somewhat inconspicuously.
In later years, she moved back to New York where she reinvented herself as an author of several books, including "The Power of Halloween" (dealing with supernatural themes, such as witchcraft), "How to Create Good Luck" and "I'd Rather Eat Than Act".
Between 1966 and 1968, Diana Claire Millay was married to Geoffrey Montgomery Talbot Jones, a Broadway producer, Princeton alumnus and former wartime OSS officer. Sometime during the 1990s, she worked as a promoter for Microhydrin, an antioxidant and nutritional supplement.
Diana passed away in New York on 8 January 2021 at the age of 86. - Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Geraldine Fitzgerald was the only actress to appear as both Laurence Olivier's
wife and Rodney Dangerfield's mother-in-law, which surely qualifies her as running
the gamut (if not the gauntlet, in the latter case) of A to Z for
co-starring with cinema immortals. The Irish lass appeared in many
masterpieces of Hollywood's Golden Age, including Wuthering Heights (1939) and Dark Victory (1939),
to say nothing of her late-career screen work in the blue-collar
white-trash classic, Easy Money (1983).
She was born in Dublin, Ireland, on November 24, 1913, and made her
theatrical debut at her hometown's Gate Theater in 1932. She appeared
in English films from 1934 to 1937 before emigrating to New York City,
where she acted with Orson Welles (who had appeared at the Gate when he was
all of 16 years old as a protégé of Micheál MacLiammóir). In 1938 she made her
Broadway debut with Welles' Mercury Theater in their production of
George Bernard Shaw's "Heartbreak House," but her connection with Welles was
sundered when she was signed by a Warner Bros. talent scout and
decamped to Hollywood. Her first American film turned out to be a
masterpiece. Her portrayal of Isabella, the wife of Olivier's
Heathcliff in William Wyler's "Wuthering Heights" brought her a Best
Supporting Actress Oscar nomination in her very first role in
Tinseltown. She followed that up with a supporting turn in the Bette Davis
three-hankie tearjerker "Dark Victory." Other major films she appeared
in at Warner Bros. were Shining Victory (1941), The Gay Sisters (1942) and Watch on the Rhine (1943), but her career
was stymied by a rebellious streak. Like Warner Bros. divas Davis and
Olivia de Havilland, Fitzgerald refused roles she disliked and was put on
suspension by the studio. Unlike Davis and de Havilland, however, she
never won an Oscar, nor did she ever become a star. She matured into a character actress, appearing in a wide variety of
quality movies, including Ten North Frederick (1958), The Pawnbroker (1964), Rachel, Rachel (1968) and Harry and Tonto (1974). In
later years she appeared in several hit comedies, among them Arthur (1981).
Fitzgerald appeared on Broadway and off-Broadway in many plays,
including revivals of the works of Irish-American playwright Eugene
O'Neill (I)'; she was Mary Tyrone in a 1971 off-Broadway production of
"Long Day's Journey into Night" opposite Robert Ryan and was in the 1977
Broadway revival of "A Touch of the Poet" with Jason Robards. She also
appeared earlier that year on Broadway in the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony
Award-winning play "The Shadow Box." The previous year she had
performed in her own cabaret act for a one-week engagement on Broadway,
which she then revived in New York nightclubs as "Streetsongs." In
addition to singing, she would reminisce about her life. Later, she
received Tony Award and Drama Desk nominations for directing "Mass
Appeal," a play about Catholic priests.
Geraldine Fitzgerald died in New York City on July 19, 2005, of
complications from Alzheimer's disease. She was 91 years
old.- Actress
- Producer
Long a vital, respected thespian of the classic and contemporary stage, this grand lady did not become a household name and sought-after film actress until age 56 when she turned in a glorious, Oscar-winning performance as Cher's sardonic mother in the romantic comedy Moonstruck (1987). Movie (and TV) fans then discovered what East coast theater-going audiences had uncovered decades before -- Olympia Dukakis was an acting treasure. Her adaptability to various ethnicities (Greek, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European, etc.), as well her chameleon-like versatility in everything from cutting edge comedy to stark tragedy, kept her in high demand for 30 years as one of Hollywood's topnotch character players.
Olympia Dukakis was born on June 20, 1931, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the daughter of Greek immigrants, Alexandra (Christos), from the Peloponnese, and Constantine S. Dukakis, from Anatolia. She majored in physical therapy at Boston University, where she graduated with a BA. Olympia practiced as a physical therapist during the polio epidemic. She later returned to her alma mater and entered the graduate program in performing arts, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree.
Olympia found early success by distinguishing herself first on stage performing in summer stock and with several repertory and Shakespearean companies throughout the county. She made her Broadway debut as an understudy in "The Aspern Papers" at age 30, followed by very short runs in the plays "Abraham Cochrane" (1964) and "Who's Who in Hell" (1974). In 1999, she premiered a one-woman play "Rose," at the National Theatre in London and subsequently on Broadway in 2000. The play earned her an Outer Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk Award nomination and she continues to tour the country with it.
Olympia was seen on the New York stage in the Roundabout Theatre's production of "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" (2011), in San Francisco in A.C.T.'s production of "Vigil" (2011) and as "Prospera" in "The Tempest" (2012) at Shakespeare & Co. She has performed in over 130 productions Off-Broadway and regionally at theaters including the Public Theatre, A.C.T., Shakespeare in the Park, Shakespeare & Co., and the Williamstown Summer Theatre Festival, where she also served as Associate Director. She was seen again at Shakespeare & Co. in the summer of 2013 as the title role in "Mother Courage and Her Children."
Olympia married Yugoslav-American actor Louis Zorich in 1962. The New York-based couple went on to co-found The Whole Theatre Company in Montclair, New Jersey, and ran the company for 19 years (1971-1990). As actress, director, producer and teacher, she still found the time to raise their three young children. She also became a master instructor at New York University for fourteen years. She scored theater triumphs in "A Man's a Man," for which she won an Off-Broadway Obie Award in 1962; several productions of "The Cherry Orchard" and "Mother Courage"; "Six Characters in Search of an Author"; "The Rose Tattoo"; "The Seagull"; "The Marriage of Bette and Boo" (another Obie Award); and, more notably, her many performances as the title role in "Hecuba." A good portion of her successes was launched within the walls of her own theater company, which encouraged the birth of new and untried plays.
Olympia's prolific stage directing credits include many of the classics: "Orpheus Descending," "The House of Bernarda Alba," "Uncle Vanya," and "A Touch of the Poet," as well as the more contemporary ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Kennedy's Children"). She also adapted such plays as "Mother Courage" and "The Trojan Women" for the theater company. Over the duration of their marriage, she and her husband have experienced shared successes, appearing together in "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "Camino Real, "The Three Sisters" and "The Seagull," among many others. Both are master interpreters of Chekhovian plays -- one of their more recent acting collaborations was in "The Chekhov Cycle" in 2003.
Making an inauspicious debut in a bit role as a mental patient in Lilith (1964), she tended to gravitate toward off-the-wall films with various offshoots of the ethnic mother. She played mom to such leads as Dustin Hoffman in John and Mary (1969), Joseph Bologna in the cult comedy Made for Each Other (1971) and Ray Sharkey in The Idolmaker (1980). Interestingly, it was her scene-stealing work on Broadway in the comedy "Social Security" (1986) that caught director Norman Jewison's eye and earned her the Moonstruck (1987) movie role. The Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actress was the last of a stream of awards she earned for that part, including the Los Angeles Film Critics, Golden Globe and American Comedy awards.
From then on, silver-haired Olympia was frequently first in line for a number of cream-of-the-crop matron roles: Steel Magnolias (1989), Dad (1989), Look Who's Talking (1989), The Cemetery Club (1993), Mr. Holland's Opus (1995) and Mother (1995).
On TV, she received high praise for her work especially for her sympathetic trans-gendered landlady Anna Madrigal in the acclaimed miniseries Tales of the City (1993) and its sequels More Tales of the City (1998) (Emmy Nominee) and Further Tales of the City (2001). She was additionally seen in episodes of Bored to Death (2009), and TV movies The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000) (Judi Dench), Sinatra (1992) (Golden Globe Nominee), and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) (Emmy Nominee). This work is among more than 40 other series, mini-series and guest starring roles she accumulated over her long career. Several recurring TV roles also came her way with Center of the Universe (2004), Bored to Death (2009), Sex & Violence (2013), Forgive Me (2013), Switch (2018) and one last return to her popular Anna Madrigal role with the series sequel Tales of the City (2019).
The septuagenarian hardly slowed down and continued strongly into the millennium with top supporting film credits including The Intended (2002), The Event (2003), the title role in the mystery Charlie's War (2003), The Thing About My Folks (2005), Jesus, Mary and Joey (2005), Away from Her (2006), Day on Fire (2006), In the Land of Women (2007), The Last Keepers (2013), A Little Game (2014), 7 Chinese Brothers (2015), The Infiltrator (2016), Her Secret Sessions (2016) and Change in the Air (2018). The film Cloudburst (2011), in which she shared a co-lead with Brenda Fricker, became a critical and audience darling, winning a multitude of "Best Film" awards and several "Best Actress" honors (Seattle, San Diego) at various film festivals.
An ardent liberal and Democrat, she was the cousin of 1988 presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. Moreover, she was a strong advocate of women's rights and environmental causes. Olympia published her best-selling autobiography "Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress" in 2003, an introspective chronicle full of her trademark candor and wry humor. She was also a figure on the lecture circuit covering topics as widespread as life in the theater to feminism, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and osteoporosis.
A hardcore New Yorker, she resided there following the death of her husband in 2018, and until her death in May 2021. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greek America Foundation, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.