Famous Men: R.I.P List...
This is my tribute list of the talented and famous gentlemen individuals that have passed away....Their legacies will forever live in our hearts for us to continue to enjoy......May the Rest in Peace.......
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- Music Artist
- Composer
- Actor
Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Mattie Shaw, a jazz singer and social worker, and John L. Nelson, a lyricist and pianist. His father's stage name was "Prince Rogers". His parents were both from African-American families from Louisiana. They separated during his youth, which lead him to move back and forth. Prince had a troubled relationship with his step-father which lead him to run away from home. Prince was adopted by a family called the Andersons. Prince soon after became friends with the Anderson's son, Andre Anderson (Cymone) together along with Charles Smith they joined a band called Grand Central. The band later renamed themselves Champagne and were a fairly successful live band, however soon diminished.
Prince at the age of eighteen started working on high-quality demo tracks with Chris Moon. With these demo tracks Prince eventually ended up signing a recording contract with Warner Brothers Records and was the youngest producer associated with the label. Prince made his debut on the record label with his 1978 album, For You. It wasn't a strong successful album, however it was fair for a beginning artist and ranked 163 on the U.S. Pop Charts. Prince's next releases would tend to do much better on the charts with his singles, "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and I Wanna Be Your Lover in 1979. This would start to introduce Prince as a person who presented sexually explicit material into the music industry. However Prince didn't begin to attract mainstream artists until he release his single, 1999. This single began to be noticed by M.T.V. viewers and this would make him a part of the main-stream music media. Prince released two more singles called Little Red Corvette and Delirious. The album featured Prince's new band, The Revolution. In 1984 Prince would release what would be seen as an admired and profound masterpiece the feature film/sound-track album, Purple Rain in 1984. Prince's father contributed to this album, by cowriting the chord sequence for a couple of his songs. Prince continued to give cowriting credit to his father on several other albums, as his famous chord sequence would be used in several of Prince's singles and albums.
A lot of Prince's songs did not agree with listeners and one of his songs, Darling Nikki prompted a group of people to start a censorship organization called, Parents Music Resource Center (P.M.R.C.) as the track implemented grinding ludicrous acts such as masturbating, which stunned listeners. Prince however continued to release various other singles with the same platform his memorable releases being, Around The World In A Day, Parade, Love Sexy, and Batman.
Prince released a sequel to Purple Rain in 1990 called Graffiti Bridge, a soundtrack album accompanied this movie entitled, Graffiti Bridge. The film did terrible in box-office and was nominated for several Razzie awards. Many people saw the sound-track album, as the high point of the film.
In 1991, Prince assembled a new band called, The New Power Generation with this band he would release singles such as Diamond And Pearls, Cream, and Gett Off. Prince eventually changed his stage name from Prince to a symbol, which lead people to call him, "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince". Prince soon took back his old stage name.
In the 1990s, Prince continued to release singles such as Came, The Gold Experience, Chaos And Disorder, and Emancipation. With the rise of the new millennium, Prince released material such as a religious album called The Rainbow Children,One Nite Alone,The Chocolate Invasion,The Slaughter House, and had a collaboration with Stevie Wonder on Stevie's single called, What The Fuss in 2005.
Prince died on April 21, 2016 in Chanhassen, Minnesota, at his Paisley Park recording studio complex. He was 57.
Prince will be remembered as a musician and artist who inspired millions through his music, and set an inspirational platform which others still abide by.Date of Birth 7 June 1958, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Date of Death 21 April 2016, Paisley Park, Chanhassen, Minnesota, USA
Birth Name Prince Rogers Nelson
Nicknames The Purple One His Royal Badness Skipper The High Priest of Pop The Prince of Funk The Artist Formerly Known as Prince
Height 5' 2" (1.57 m)
Spouses: Manuela Testolini (31 December 2001 - 2006) (divorced)
Mayte Garcia (14 February 1996 - 14 February 1999) (annulled) (1 child)
One of the very few musicians who wrote, produced, and composed all of their music themselves. On most of his albums, he played all the instruments himself, except for brass instruments, which he didn't play, though he did have a backing band for concerts.
Died approximately 67 days after the death of his longtime protege and former girlfriend Vanity.
Prince was working on his memoirs with his brother when he passed away.
Prince reportedly has enough unreleased music in his Vault at Paisley Park to fill albums for the next century, but since he has no will it is unknown if any of it will ever be made public.- 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.Date of Birth 8 January 1947, Brixton, London, England, UK
Date of Death 11 January 2016, London, England, UK (cancer)
Birth Name David Robert Haywood Jones
Nicknames The Thin White Duke Ziggy Stardust
Height 5' 10" (1.78 m)
Spouse (2) Iman (6 June 1992 - his death) (1 child)
Angie Bowie (19 March 1970 - 8 February 1980) (divorced) (1 child)
Trade Marks: His constantly changing appearance His wide ranging vocals and rich baritone His one permanently dilated pupil that gives him the appearance of different colored eyes Known for having a different theme on almost every album Lyrics with science fiction or fantasy themes Highly theatrical style and performances- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Jack Carter was born on 24 June 1922 in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for History of the World: Part I (1981), Alligator (1980) and Amazing Stories (1985). He was married to Roxanne Wander, Paula Stewart and Joan Mann. He died on 28 June 2015 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.Date of Birth
24 June 1922, New York, New York, USA
Date of Death
28 June 2015, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA
(respiratory failure)
Birth Name
Jack Chakrin
Spouse (3)
Roxanne Wander
(8 October 1971 - 28 June 2015) (his death)
Paula Stewart
(30 March 1961 - 30 January 1970)
(divorced) (1 child)
Joan Mann (27 March 1949 - 1958)
(divorced)
He was a topnotch Las Vegas comedian known for his fast, irreverent and funny patter, he was once praised by the late great Fred Allen as "one of the outstanding comedians of the century."- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Writer
Pascal Chaumeil was born on 9 February 1961 in Paris, France. He was a director and assistant director, known for Heartbreaker (2010), The Fifth Element (1997) and Léon: The Professional (1994). He was married to Camille Lipmann. He died on 27 August 2015 in Paris, France.Date of Birth:
1961
Date of Death
27 August 2015, Paris, Ile-de-France, France (cancer)- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Wes Craven has become synonymous with genre bending and innovative horror, challenging audiences with his bold vision.
Wesley Earl Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Caroline (Miller) and Paul Eugene Craven. He had a midwestern suburban upbringing. His first feature film was The Last House on the Left (1972), which he wrote, directed, and edited. Craven reinvented the youth horror genre again in 1984 with the classic A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), a film he wrote and directed. And though he did not direct any of its five sequels, he deconstructed the genre a decade later, writing and directing the audacious New Nightmare (1994), which was nominated as Best Feature at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards, and introduced the concept of self-reflexive genre films to the world.
In 1996 Craven reached a new level of success with the release of Scream (1996). The film, which sparked the phenomenal trilogy, was the winner of MTV's 1996 Best Movie Award and grossed more than $100 million domestically, as did Scream 2 (1997). Between Scream 2 and Scream 3 (2000), Craven, offered the opportunity to direct a non-genre film for Miramax, helmed Music of the Heart (1999), a film that earned Meryl Streep an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. That same year, in the midst of directing, Craven completed his first novel, "The Fountain Society," published by Simon & Shuster. Recent works include the 2005 psychological thriller Red Eye (2005), and a short rom-com segment for the ensemble product, Paris, I Love You (2006).
In later years, Craven also produced remakes of two of his earlier films for his genre fans, The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and The Last House on the Left (2009). Craven has always had an eye for discovering fresh talent, something that contributes to the success of his films. While casting A Nightmare on Elm Street, Craven discovered the then unknown Johnny Depp. Craven later cast Sharon Stone in her first starring role for his film Deadly Blessing. He even gave Bruce Willis his first featured role in an episode of TV's mid-80's edition of The Twilight Zone. In My Soul to Take (2010), Craven once again brought together a cast of up-and-coming young teens, including Max Thieriot, in whom he saw the spark of stardom. The film marked Craven's first collaboration with wife and producer Iya Labunka, who also produced with him the highly anticipated production of Scream 4.
Craven's Scream 4 (2011) reunited the director with Dimension Films and Kevin Williamson, as well as with stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, to re-boot the beloved franchise. Craven again exhibited his knack for spotting important talent, with a cast of young actors bringing us a totally new breed of Woodsboro high schoolers, including Emma Robert and Hayden Pannetierre.Date of Birth
2 August 1939, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Date of Death:
30 August 2015 (Brain Cancer)
Birth Name
Wesley Earl Craven
Spouses:
Iya Labunka
(27 November 2004 - 30 August 2015) (his death)
Mimi Craven
(25 July 1982 - 1987) (divorced)
Bonnie Broecker
(1964 - 1969) (divorced) (2 children)
Height
6' 2" (1.88 m)- Richard Dysart served for four years in the Air Force during the Korean War. He was a founding member of the American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco. He received the Drama Desk Award in 1972 and a Emmy Award in 1992. He was good friends with Diana Muldaur, who played Rosalind Shays on L.A. Law.Date of Birth
30 March 1929, Brighton, Massachusetts, USA
Date of Death
5 April 2015, Santa Monica, California, USA (cancer)
Birth Name
Richard Allen Dysart
Nickname
Dick
Height
5' 9½" (1.77 m)
Spouse:
Kathryn Marie Jacobi
(5 September 1987 - 5 April 2015) (his death) - He was born in Reykjavik, Iceland and moved to the United States at the age of 5. Gunnar lived in Maine till he was 11, his family then moving to Texas, where he went to high school before attending the University of Texas. At the university, he did some theater work and majored in English and mathematics before going on to graduate in English and Scandinavian Studies. Despite graduating in the aforementioned fields, his first job out of high school was as a computer operator.
In the summer of 1973, he heard that Tobe Hooper and others were in town to work on a movie and decided to try out for a part. After interviewing with Tobe Hooper and the writer of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Kim Henkel, he was cast in the role of the disturbed, mentally handicapped killer, Leatherface.
After Chainsaw, Hansen went on to work as a freelance writer for magazines for several years before going on to write books, one later being set in Iceland about purported serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas. He has gone on to write multiple screenplays - one co-written with his partner Gary Jones, director of Mosquito (1994)).
Gunnar also directed a documentary on Greenland and had a stint designing web pages for GTE.Date of Birth
4 March 1947, Reykjavik, Iceland
Date of Death
7 November 2015, Northeast Harbor, Maine, USA
(pancreatic cancer)
Nicknames
Gunner
Leatherface
Height
6' 4" (1.93 m)
Hansen will forever be remembered as "Leatherface" the original slasher from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). - Actor
- Additional Crew
Frank Gifford was born on 16 August 1930 in Santa Monica, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Jerry Maguire (1996), Viva Knievel! (1977) and Spin City (1996). He was married to Kathie Lee Gifford, Astrid Gifford and Maxine Avis Ewart. He died on 9 August 2015 in Riverside, Connecticut, USA.Date of Birth
16 August 1930, Santa Monica, California, USA
Date of Death
9 August 2015, Riverside, Connecticut, USA (natural causes)
Birth Name
Francis Newton Gifford
Height
6' 1" (1.85 m)
Spouces:
Kathie Lee Gifford
(18 October 1986 - 9 August 2015) (his death) (2 children)
Astrid Gifford
(11 March 1978 - 1986) (divorced)
Maxine Ewart
(13 January 1952 - 1978) (divorced) (3 children)- Director
- Writer
- Producer
John Guillermin was born on 11 November 1925 in London, England, UK. He was a director and writer, known for The Towering Inferno (1974), Death on the Nile (1978) and King Kong (1976). He was married to Maureen Connell and Mary Guillermin. He died on 27 September 2015 in Topanga Canyon, California, USA.Date of Birth
11 November 1925, London, England, UK
Date of Death
September2015, Los Angeles, California, USA
Spouse (3)
Maureen Connell
(20 July 1956 - 28 September 2015) (his death) (2 children)
Maureen Connell (
20 January 1956 - ?) (divorced) (2 children)
Mary Guillermin
(? - 28 September 2015) (his death)
Began his career in France in 1947 as a documentary filmmaker.
Personal Quote:
You know, there's really nothing like an exciting film on a big screen. Hopefully, I've made a few in my career.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Pat Harrington Jr. was born on 13 August 1929 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for One Day at a Time (1975), The President's Analyst (1967) and Move Over, Darling (1963). He was married to Sally Cleaver and Marjorie Ann Gortner. He died on 6 January 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Date of Birth
13 August 1929, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
6 January 2016, USA (Alzheimer's Disease)
Birth Name
Daniel Patrick Harrington Jr.
Spouse (1)
Marjorie Ann Gortner
(19 November 1955 - 1985) (divorced)
(4 children)
Pro wrestler The Honky Tonk Man based his gimmick on the character (Dwayne Schneider) that Harrington played on One Day at a Time (1975).- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Born and raised in New York City, Robert Loggia studied journalism at the University of Missouri before moving back to New York to pursue acting. He trained at the Actors Studio while doing stage work. From the late 1950s he was a familiar face on TV, usually as authoritative figures. Loggia also found work in movies such as The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Scarface (1983) and Big (1988). Always in demand, Loggia worked until his death, at 85, from complications of Alzheimer's.Date of Birth
3 January 1930, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
4 December 2015, Los Angeles, California, USA
Birth Name
Salvatore Loggia
Height
5' 9" (1.75 m
Spouses:
Audrey Loggia
(27 December 1982 - 4 December 2015) (his death)
Della Marjorie Sloan
(28 March 1954 - 1981) (divorced)
(3 children)
Trade Mark:
Distinctive raspy voice
His hair and eyebrows are more than often dyed a brown-like color in his movies, so often that his naturally white hair comes as a surprise when seen in real life and in films without it.- George McGovern, one of the leading liberals in U.S. politics, was born in a Republican household in a small South Dakota town. His family had some struggles during the Great Depression, but they were able to make ends meet. The young, idealistic man joined the Air Force during World War II and became a bomber pilot. He served with great bravery, flying missions over North Africa and Italy, bombing German military targets, and won citation for his duty. Upon returning home, he graduated from college and became a college teacher, teaching history. Up to that point, he had been relatively non-political, as had his parents. That changed in 1952, when he heard a speech by the Democratic nominee, Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, and was so inspired by it that he volunteered for the Stevenson campaign. Stevenson lost to retired General Dwight D. Eisenhower, but McGovern remained active in politics, becoming Chairman of the South Dakota Democratic Party. Democrats were very much the minority in the state, but McGovern pursued his duties with great zeal, and in 1956 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in an upset, helped by growing dissatisfaction with the Eisenhower administration in the rural Midwest. He was reelected in 1958 and in 1960, was an enthusiastic backer of Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. That same year, McGovern took a gamble by running against Republican U.S. Senator Karl Mundt, who had first been elected in 1948. Although he ran well ahead of what Democrats usually did in the state, he fell short, as Mundt won by a 52% to 48% margin. In 1961, Kennedy appointed McGovern Director of the Food For Peace program, and McGovern was greatly affected by his service in this capacity.
In 1962, McGovern ran for the U.S. Senate again (each state has two U.S. Senators), this time in an open race. He was considered the underdog against Republican Governor Joe Bottum, but managed to win by 597 votes, one of the closest U.S. Senate races in state history. He immediately became one of the Senate's most liberal members, enthusiastically supporting the domestic policies of Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. His major accomplishment was creation of the Food Stamp program, which was to provide Federal food assistance to impoverished people. But he became increasingly focused on overseas and military affairs. He became an opponent of the growing American involvement in Vietnam and opposed maintaining a large military. In 1968, he was a leading supporter of Robert F. Kennedy and was horrified by the latter's assassination. He was also appalled by the Chicago Police Force's rough treatment of anti-war protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that same year. He was reelected easily that year, winning 57% of the vote. After Richard Nixon took office, McGovern quickly became a proponent of immediate withdraw of all military forces form Vietnam. In 1969, he chaired the commission which instituted reforming the way the Democratic Party nominated its Presidential candidates, dramatically reducing the role of party leaders and political insiders.
In 1972, McGovern launched a campaign for President. He was given little chance of winning his party's nomination, which seemed to be united around U.S. Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine. However, Muskie's campaign foundered and McGovern ran a close second to Muskie in the Presidential primary in New Hampshire. Helped by his campaign manager, Gary Hart (later a Senator and Presidential candidate himself), McGovern won several other primaries and the nomination. His campaign theme was "America, come home." His main platform, aside from withdraw from Vietnam, was a 37% reduction in defense spending and a guaranteed minimal income for all Americans. At the convention in Miami, he initially won praise for nominating U.S. Senator 'Thomas Eagleton' of Missouri as his running mate. But his campaign was rocked when it was revealed that Eagleston had been treated for depression in a psychiatric ward many years before. McGovern initially claimed that he was "1000 percent" behind Eagleston, but later his campaign staff persuaded Eagleston to drop out of contention. This made McGovern look bad to his most idealistic supporters and haunted him throughout the campaign. Ultimately, former Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver replaced Eagleston as his running mate, but the damage was done. Throughout the campaign, he was perceived by the public as a well-meaning but fuzzy minded radical leftist. Taking advantage of McGovern's support for amnesty for Vietnam draft dodgers, decriminalizing abortion, and ending Federal drug laws (leaving them to the individual states), Vice President Spiro Agnew labeled McGovern the candidate of "amnesty, abortion, and acid," and the label stuck. The Nixon campaign successfully portrayed McGovern as a pacifist and socialist who would endanger national security, wreck the economy, and bankrupt the government. In the election, McGovern lost overwhelmingly. Nixon out-polled him by 61% to 37%, with a plurality of 18 million votes, a record that has yet to be broken. The only state McGovern won was Massachusetts. His only consolation was that a friend and political ally, Congressman James Abourezk, was elected to the South Dakota's other U.S. Senator.
Following the loss, McGovern returned to his Senate duties. Following Nixon's resignation in disgrace in the wake of the Watergate scandal in 1974, he seemed to have been vindicated in his attacks on Nixon's ethics. However, later that year, he had a surprisingly difficult reelection bid, winning by less than expected against a former Vietnam War prisoner, who felt that McGovern had prolonged his captivity. There were many Demcorats elected that year, and McGovern worked closely with them to cut defense spending and reign in intelligence agencies. He also worked to expand government benefits. He was encouraged when Democrats won the White House with the narrow election of former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. But his friend and ally Abourezk was forced to retire in the face of impending defeat in 1978 and polls indicated that McGovern was losing support there, as well. In 1980, McGovern was challenged for reelection by Republican Congressman James Abdnor. While campaigning that year, McGovern ran into two women who angrily complained about his support for defense cuts, then bought some groceries with food stamps. He later remarked that he knew he wouldn't be reelected at that moment. He was right. On election day, Abdnor defeated McGovern by a landslide.
Following his departure from elective office, he was a professor at the University of New Orleans. In 1984, he made a whimsical, late-entering candidacy for President, and narrowly won the primary in Massachusetts, but as expected, lost the nomination to former Vice President Walter Mondale. Also a candidate, and a more successful one, was his former campaign manager, Gary Hart, who won several primaries, although losing the nomination to Mondale. That year, however, then President Ronald Reagan, whose policies McGovern fervently opposed, was reelected by a landslide, nearly as large as Nixon's 1972 margin. For many years, he largely stayed out for the limelight. He went into the motel business, but the business ultimately foundered and he was forced to fold. McGovern later admitted in late 1990, "I wish I had had a better sense of what it took to [meet a payroll] when I was in Washington." In 1991, he surprised nearly everyone when he supported President George Bush's campaign to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, which culminated in The Persian Gulf War. McGovern defended this by claiming that Hussein was a great threat to the entire region. In 1994, he was hit with personal tragedy when one of his daughters, Teresa, died of exposure while intoxicated. She had been an alcoholic for many years who had been unable to overcome the addiction. McGovern became involved in helping the relatives of alcoholics. In 1998, President Bill Clinton as United States Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Agencies, a post he held until 2001.
In more recent years, he has become an advocate for the withdraw of U.S. troops from Iraq.Date of Birth
19 July 1922, Avon, South Dakota, USA
Date of Death
21 October 2012, Sioux City, S.D.,USA
Birth Name
George Stanley McGovern
Height
6' 1" (1.85 m)
Spouse
Eleanor Fay Stegeberg (31 October 1943 - 25 January 2007) (her death) 5 children:Ann, Susan, Mary, Teresa, Steven.
"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in." - Actor
- Producer
- Director
Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for their father, a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store and was the son of emigrants from Poland and Hungary. Newman's mother (born Terézia Fecková, daughter of Stefan Fecko and Mária Polenak) was a Roman Catholic Slovak from Homonna, Pticie (former Austro-Hungarian Empire), who became a practicing Christian Scientist. She and her brother, Newman's uncle Joe, had an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on him. He acted in grade school and high school plays. The Newmans were well-to-do and Paul Newman grew up in affluent Shaker Heights. Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.
By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte (born 1929), and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he moved Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut, where he attended Yale University's School of Drama.
While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play "Picnic". Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward (born 1930), who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition.
In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, The Silver Chalice (1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in a trade paper apologizing for it to anyone who might have seen it. He had always been embarrassed about the film and reveled in making fun of it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in "The Desperate Hours". In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and critics praised his performance. In 1957, with a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), co-starring Joanne Woodward.
During the shooting of this film, they realized they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together and raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The 1960s would bring Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade, and garnered three more Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (1968) was given good marks, and although the film and Woodward were nominated for Oscars, Newman was not nominated for Best Director. However, he did win a Golden Globe Award for his direction.
1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films as The Sting (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974) to lesser known films as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) to a cult classic Slap Shot (1977). After the death of his only son, Scott, in 1978, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction. His acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (1982) for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination and, in 1987, finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (1986), almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony.
Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982, and also founded "Newman's Own", a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which Newman donated to charity. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status.
Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his movies. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organizations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Newman died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer.Date of Birth 26 January 1925, Shaker Heights, Ohio, USA
Date of Death 26 September 2008, Westport, Connecticut, USA (lung cancer)
Birth Name Paul Leonard Newman
Nicknames King Cool
Height 5' 9½" (1.77 m)
Spouses: Joanne Woodward (29 January 1958 - 26 September 2008) (his death) (3 children)
Jacqueline E. Witte (27 December 1949 - 28 January 1958) (divorced) (3 children)
Trade Marks: His movies often reflect his political views.
Often played detached yet charismatic anti-heroes and rebels He was known for his wry, puckish sense of humor, mainly off-screen.
While he played similar system-bucking, troubled young men as such near contemporaries as Marlon Brando and James Dean, Newman's characters were often more humorous, introspective and self-assured.
Newman's character's conflicts were often ironic and (intentionally) borderline-absurd.
Bright blue eyes.
Had a son and two girls with his first wife Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte. His only son, Scott Newman, died of a drug overdose in 1978.
Said he didn't want his epitaph to say two things: "Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown" and "Here lies the old man who wasn't a part of his time." -1960's.
The TV episode The Simpsons: Lost Verizon (2008), was dedicated to his memory.
Cars (2006), his last movie, was the highest-grossing film of his career.
Like his dear friend Robert Redford, both men had firstborn sons named Scott who predeceased their fathers.
I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried - who tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn't complacent, who doesn't cop out.- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
He, along with the other members of the "Compass Players" including Elaine May, Paul Sills, Byrne Piven, Joyce Hiller Piven and Edward Asner helped start the famed "Second City Improv" company. They used the games taught to them by fellow cast mate, Paul Sills 's mother, Viola Spolin. He later worked in legitimate theater as an actor before entering into a very successful comedy duo with Elaine May. The two were known as "the world's fastest humans".Date of Birth 6 November 1931, Berlin, Germany
Date of Death 19 November 2014 (heart attack)
Birth Name Michael Igor Peschkowsky
Height 5' 11" (1.8 m)
Spouses: Diane Sawyer (29 April 1988 - 19 November 2014) (his death)
Annabel Davis-Goff (1975 - 1986) (divorced) (2 children)
Margot Callas (July 1963 - 1974) (divorced) (1 child)
Patricia Scot (4 June 1957 - 1960) (divorced)
Trade Mark: Often included extremely long starting and/or ending shots taken from high in the air, for example Working Girl (1988) and Angels in America (2003).
From the early 1960s until his death, he was a well-known figure among Arabian Horse fans - as a breeder of over 400 registered Arabians, including owning and breeding many US National Champion horses.
[Part of 2005 Tony Award acceptance speech] "God, my head is totally empty. I had a thing I was going to say, and I have forgot it, because I had given up so long ago. But the first thing to say is thank you. To the other members of my category, my friends Jack and James and Bartlett, I guess you are thinking age before beauty, me too! My congratulations to the winners. My love to those who have not won tonight. I just want to remind you of my motto: Cheer up, life isn't everything. It always stands me in good stead."
[on working with Orson Welles on Catch-22 (1970)] We were talking about Jean Renoir one day on the set and Orson said, very touchingly, that Renoir was a great man but that unfortunately Renoir didn't like his pictures. And then he said, "Of course, if I were Renoir I wouldn't like my pictures either".
[on Jack Nicholson] Jack is the sort of guy who takes parts others have turned down, might turn down, and explodes them into something nobody could have conceived of. All his brilliance of character and gesture is consumed and made invisible by the expanse of his nature.
[on Elizabeth Taylor] There are three things I never saw Elizabeth Taylor do: Tell a lie; be unkind to anyone; and be on time.
[on Stanley Kubrick] In the end, I think he began to have trouble, because if you can't leave home, you lose track of reality, and I think that happened to him. Still, he made great movies and he was a completely gifted director. If you look at 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), you suddenly realize: My God, there's nobody in this movie!
[on his experience judging a limerick contest] It was easy. We just threw out the dirty limericks and gave the prize to the one that was left.
[on developing an act with Elaine May] We were winging it, making up as it went along, It never crossed our minds that it had any value beyond the moment. We were stunned when we got to New York. Never for a moment did we consider that we would do this for living. It was just a handy way to make some money until we grew up.
[on coming to New York as a child] American society to me and my brother was thrilling because, first of all, the food made noise. We were so excited about Rice Krispies and Coca-Cola. We had only silent food in our country, and we loved listening to our lunch and breakfast.
[on firing Mandy Patinkin during making of Heartburn (1986)] I loved Mandy then, and I love him now. It was awful to have to replace him, but on film I couldn't see the chemistry I wanted. I don't know how many days it was, but to save the damn thing, I had to move fast to get Jack [Nicholson]. Mandy was, of course, devastated, and I've felt awful about it all my life.
Do you know my theory about '[Who's Afraid of] Virginia Woolf' which I think I only developed lately? It may be the only play - certainly the only play I can think of, including Shakespeare - in which every single thing that happens is in the present. Even the beautiful reminiscences of the past are traps being set in the present, sprung in the present, having violent effect in the present. It's why you can't hurt it. It's now. It's the one thing plays have the hardest time with.- Actor
- Producer
Roddy Piper was born Roderick George Toombs on April 17, 1954 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was a pro wrestler from 1973-1987 in the NWA, Pacific Northwest, California. He was a longtime mainstay in the WWF, and was one of the biggest "bad guys" in the WWF during the early '80s, before becoming a fan favorite in the late '80s. He became infamous for his mouth as much as his skills in the ring. He hosted Pipers Pit, which saluted the bad guys of professional wrestling, the most famous of which involved him smashing Jimmy Superfly Snuka over the head with a coconut. He was wrestling's most popular villain because of his feud with Hulk Hogan that culminated at Wrestlemania I. He went into semi-retirement after Wrestlemania III, when he beat and shaved the late Adrian Adonis.
He continued to wrestle into the '90s, but spent much of his time doing color commentary for WWF TV. In January 1992, he won the WWF Intercontinental Title from "The Mountie", the only title he would ever hold in his storied WWF career. After losing the title three months later, he left the WWF, and only made the occasional appearance in the ring over the next few years. In 1995, he had a stint as the WWF's interim president. He later resurfaced in WCW during the late '90s to continue his feud with "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, until the company's demise in 2001.
Roddy Piper appeared in many action films. He died of a heart attack on July 31, 2015, in Hollywood, California.Date of Birth
17 April 1954, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Date of Death
31 July 2015, Hollywood, California, USA
(heart attack)
Birth Name
Roderick George Toombs
Nicknames
The Rowdy Scot
Hot Rod
The Hot Scot
Height
6' (1.83 m)
Spouse:
Kitty Dittrich
(12 October 1982 - 31 July 2015)
(his death) (4 children)
Trade Marks:
Wears a kilt
Finishing move: Sleeper Hold
Trademark move: Eye Poke
[on being cast in They Live!] You know, when we did it, it was about Reaganomics, but it was also a political statement [about] where our society is headed. Right now, what they're trying to do in society is get rid of all cash money so you just have a chip and everything is on your chip. Well, that's full control. If you go on an airplane right now, they won't take cash anymore. They actually say, "We're a cashless airplane." Wait a second? You won't take cash? That's "OBEY. This is your God." I think this movie is a statement of "keep our freedom," and I believe everybody gets that from it no matter what generation.
[on co-star Keith David] Keith David, it took us 20 years to see each other after we did They Live. When we were shooting that movie, Keith came over to me and he's a schooled, Julliard actor - a professional - and he would help me with my script, while everyone else was saying, "This is just some dumb jock coming to act now." But he stood up for me, and we had such a bond.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Tough around the edges and with a handsome durability, Alabama-bred Wayne Rogers was born in Birmingham on April 7, 1933. He graduated from Princeton with a history degree in 1954 and joined the Navy before giving acting a thought. During his military service, however, he became associated with theater by happenstance and decided to give it a try after his discharge.
Studying with renowned acting teacher Sanford Meisner and dancer Martha Graham at the Neighborhood Playhouse, Rogers toiled for years in off-Broadway and regional plays ("Bus Stop", "No Time for Sergeants") and had a short stint on the daytime soap The Edge of Night (1956) before making a minor dent in films, including small roles in Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), The Glory Guys (1965) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). Rogers finally hit co-star status opposite Robert Bray in the short-lived TV western series Stagecoach West (1960) and co-produced and wrote the script for the cult sci-fi cheapie The Astro-Zombies (1968) in-between.
It wasn't until 1972, when the 39-year-old actor nabbed the role of "Trapper John," a Korean War surgeon, in the classic comedy series M*A*S*H (1972), that he found elusive stardom. Alongside Alan Alda's "Hawkeye Pierce", the TV show was a huge hit and the two enjoyed equal success at the beginning. Slowly, however, Wayne's character started getting the short end of the stick as the wry, sardonic, highly appealing Alda became a resounding audience favorite. Frustrated at turning second-banana to Alda, he quit the series (his character was discharged) after three seasons amid a contractual dispute. Mike Farrell replaced him in the cohort role of "B.J. Hunnicut" and the show enjoyed several more award-winning seasons
TV movies came Wayne's way throughout the late '70s and a couple more comedy series, including House Calls (1979), in which Wayne received a Golden Globe nomination, but nothing would equal the success he found during the M*A*S*H (1972) years. Sporadic filming in Once in Paris... (1978), The Hot Touch (1981), The Gig (1985) and The Killing Time (1987) also failed to raise his standard, nor did his starring work in the TV movies He's Fired, She's Hired (1984), The Lady from Yesterday (1985), One Terrific Guy (1986), American Harvest (1987), Drop-Out Mother (1988), Miracle Landing (1990).
Broaching the millennium, Rogers was lesser seen, but found some featured roles in such films as Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), Love Lies Bleeding (1999), Frozen with Fear (2001) and Three Days of Rain (2002). He would be last glimpsed in the Hollywood-themed comedy Nobody Knows Anything! (2003) in which he also served as producer. Wayne found renewed respect as a businessman and investor in later years, managing the affairs of such stars as Peter Falk and James Caan, among others. He died on New Year's Eve of 2015 of complications from pneumonia. He was 82.Date of Birth
7 April 1933, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Date of Death
31 December 2015, USA (pneumonia)
Birth Name
William Wayne McMillan Rogers III
Height
6' 3" (1.91 m)
Spouse (2)
Amy H. Rogers
(8 December 1988 - 31 December 2015) (his death)
Mitzi McWhorter
(1960 - 21 October 1983) (divorced) (2 children)
When he left M*A*S*H (1972) in 1975, he was sued for breach of contract, but the case was thrown out because he had no contract. Producers wanted him to sign a morality clause, in which he could be suspended or fired at any time, and he refused because he wanted the same privilege regarding the producers. In addition to the disputes about contracts, he says he also left M*A*S*H (1972) because he felt the writers were not giving Trapper John any character development.
[on leaving the sitcom M*A*S*H (1972) in retrospect] If I had known that the show was gonna run that long, I probably would have kept my mouth shut and stayed put.- Writer
- Actor
- Cinematographer
Oliver Sacks was born on 9 July 1933 in London, England, UK. He was a writer and actor, known for Awakenings (1990), At First Sight (1999) and Wolf. He died on 30 August 2015 in New York City, New York, USA.Date of Birth
9 July 1933, London, England, UK
Date of Death
30 August 2015, New York City, New York, USA (cancer)
Birth Name
Oliver Wolf Sacks- Stuart Scott was born on 19 July 1965 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for The Kid (2000), The Game Plan (2007) and Drumline (2002). He was married to Kimberley Alice Emmons. He died on 4 January 2015 in Avon, Connecticut, USA.Date of Birth
19 July 1965, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date of Death
4 January 2015, Avon, Connecticut, USA (cancer)
Nickname
Stu
Height
6' 0½" (1.84 m)
Spouse:
Kimberly
(March 1993 - 2 January 2007) (divorced) (2 children) - Fred Thompson was born on 19 August 1942 in Sheffield, Alabama, USA. He was an actor, known for The Hunt for Red October (1990), No Way Out (1987) and Baby's Day Out (1994). He was married to Jeri Kehn Thompson and Sarah Elizabeth Lindsey. He died on 1 November 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.Date of Birth
19 August 1942, Sheffield, Alabama, USA
Date of Death
1 November 2015, Nashville, Tennessee, USA (cancer)
Birth Name Freddie Dalton Thompson
Height 6' 6" (1.98 m) - Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Paul William Walker IV was born in Glendale, California. He grew up together with his brothers, Caleb and Cody, and sisters, Ashlie and Amie. Their parents, Paul William Walker III, a sewer contractor, and Cheryl (Crabtree) Walker, a model, separated around September 2004. His grandfather, William Walker, was a Pearl Harbor survivor and a Navy middleweight boxing champion, while his maternal grandfather commanded a tank battalion in Italy under General Patton during World War II. Paul grew up active in sports like soccer and surfing. He had English and German ancestry.
Paul was cast for the first season of the family sitcom, Throb (1986) and began modeling until he received a script for the 1994 movie, Tammy and the T-Rex (1994). He attended high school at Village Christian High School in Sun Valley, California, graduating in 1991. With encouragement from friends and an old casting agent who remembered him as a child, he decided to try his luck again with acting shortly after returning from College.
He starred in Meet the Deedles (1998), a campy, silly but surprisingly fun film which failed to garner much attention. However, lack of attention would not be a problem for Paul Walker for long. With Pleasantville (1998), he appeared in his first hit. As the town stud (a la 1950s) who more than meets his match in modern day Reese Witherspoon, he was one of the most memorable characters of the film. That same year, Paul and his then-girlfriend Rebecca had a baby girl named Meadow Walker (Meadow Rain Walker). Even though Paul publicly admitted that Meadow was not planned, he said that she is his number one priority. Paul and Rebecca separated and Meadow lives with her mother in Hawaii. She often visited with Paul as his homes in Santa Barbara and Huntington Beach, California.
Roles in the teen hits Varsity Blues (1999), She's All That (1999) and The Skulls (2000) cemented Walker's continued rise to celebrity. He was chosen to be one of the young stars featured on the cover of Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood issue in April 2000. While the other stars on the cover, brooded and tried their best to look sexy and serious, Paul smiled brightly and showed why he is not part of the norm. This is one young actor who certainly stood apart from the rest of the crowd, not only with his talent but with his attitude. The Dallas Morning News commented in March of 2000 that, "Paul is one of the rarest birds in Hollywood- a pretension free movie star." The latest blockbuster hit, The Fast and the Furious (2001), had raised his stardom to an even higher level.
His fighting scenes in movies lead to a passion for martial arts. He has studied various forms of Jujitsu, Taekwondo, Jeet Kune Do and Eskrima. Paul mentioned in a magazine interview that he had hoped enroll in the Keysi Fighting Method when it comes to the United States. Other than practicing martial arts, Paul enjoyed relaxing at home with his daughter, Meadow Rain, surfing near his Huntington Beach abode, walking his dogs and just driving.
When Paul seriously did get a break from the entertainment business, he said he loved traveling. Paul had traveled to India, Fiji, Costa Rica, Sarawak, Brunei, Borneo and other parts of the Asian continent. Tragically, Paul Walker died in a car crash on Saturday November 30, 2013, after attending a charity event for "Reach Out Worldwide".
Several of Paul's films were released after his death, include Hours (2013), Brick Mansions (2014), and his final starring role in The Fast and the Furious series, Furious 7 (2015), part of which was completed after his death. The film's closing scenes paid tribute to Walker, whose character met with a happy ending, and rode off into the sunset. He appeared archival footage in Fast X (2023).Date of Birth
12 September 1973 , Glendale, California, USA
Date of Death
30 November 2013 , Valencia, Santa Clarita, California, USA (car accident)
Birth Name
Paul William Walker IV
Height
6' 2" (1.88 m)
The driver in the fatal crash that killed Paul Walker was 38-year-old Roger Rodas. Rodas was the CEO of automotive company Always Evolving, and they were in Walker's 2005 Porsche Carrera GT when Roger lost control of the car and struck a tree. Walker was one of Always Evolving's owners, and Rodas was a former race car driver.
Personal Quotes...
You know, all that really matters is that the people you love are happy and healthy. Everything else is just sprinkles on the sundae. - in Flaunt Magazine, July 2001.
Some people say that you should go to all the parties, to the nightclubs, the Viper Room, and make contacts, and I look at them and say, 'You don't want to have contacts with those people.' Look at what happened to River Phoenix (who died in 1993 of a drug overdose outside the Viper Room). If you get caught up in that, it ruins you. Hollywood is garbage.
Surfing soothes me, it's always been a kind of zen experience for me. The ocean is so magnificent, peaceful, and awesome. The rest of the world disappears for me when I'm on a wave.
I'm into being a dad, that's where my focus is most of the time. I'm an actor that's my job, but it's not my life. I have a lot of other interests too.
I'm a dreamer. I've got this whole thing where I think I'm supposed to be a musician. I live by the seat of my pants, but I'd like to think that I'm also pretty sensible.
I want to get married. I think about it a lot. But I also think about my cars, so maybe my priorities aren't exactly in line just yet.
Life's too short. And the biggest curse is falling in love with somebody.
I'm much more likely to give myself a kick in the butt than a pat on the back.
I like low maintenance, natural, outdoor, shy girls.
I'm a Christian now. The things that drove me crazy growing up was how everyone works at fault-finding with different religions. The people I don't understand are atheists. I go surfing and snow boarding and I'm always around nature. I look at everything and think, 'Who couldn't believe there's a God? Is all this a mistake?' It just blows me away.
(2010) I'm passionate about animals and I hunt too. It's like I save and I kill. I'm a walking, talking contradiction. I'm all about preserving the environment but I'm racing cars on the weekend. I tell everyone I'm a gun-loving hippy.
[on often being asked how "Dom" - not Vin [Diesel] - is doing]: I get that a lot. I'm Brian a lot more than I'm Paul Walker, which is awesome. When I hear, "Hey, Paul Walker!" my hair stands up on the back of my neck. It's uncomfortable. But when I hear "It's Brian!" it's cool. I like Brian.
[on "The Fast & the Furious" series]: When I did the first one, it was a cool movie where I got to run around in race cars, shoot a gun and kiss a hot chick. That's where I was at in my life then. Now that I'm older, there's a reason we're still here. The themes we hit on early on, whether the audience even realized what it was that was drawing them in, is irrelevant. The second you lose the family, how significant are we? It's funny to see the people connect with it the way they do. I had no clue, I didn't get it. And now, more I get it and I see it.
[on Brian O'Conner, his character in "The Fast & the Furious" films]: The guy's a sucker for family. Brian's a heart guy, he just is. He's dealing with daddy issues and the things that most of us are that are unresolved. What he's looking for, and he wouldn't be able to articulate it, is anything that's going to allow for healing, things that he's missed out on.
What's Dom really representative of to him? He's the father and the older brother he never had. It's not a buddy. Brian doesn't even realize it. He gave up on having that kind of family or life before he even knew it was possible, and I don't think he ever thought it could be as great as what he has.
[on "The Fast & the Furious" franchise and being real and authentic]: That's what's capturing people, unless of course you're doing The Avengers (2012) where you've gotta be larger than life and you've gotta be out there and turn green and drag your arm down the side of a building, and jump all over the place. But for us, I like having (special effects) to fall back on. You allow the creative minds to get in there and figure out how to do it real, and it gives you more to be proud of.
[on working on Hours (2013)]: What I've found recently is the heart, the soul, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't differentiate: If you really live the experience making a movie, it's the same as living it in real life, as crazy as it sounds. My victory in that movie was my victory in real life. You walk away with that, walking a little taller and a pop in your collar. You learn a lot about yourself. It's heroic in a different way. We're pretty awesome when we're tested. Call it the human spirit or whatever you want, I like celebrating our victories.
[on what he hopes to achieve before he dies]: I missed out on a lot when I was younger because of this game [acting]. I think people tell you you are a certain thing and so you miss out on a lot you would have otherwise experienced. Inside I still feel certain things calling me. That's why I was doing the shark tagging recently and will be doing it again in two weeks on an island off Hawaii. I'm also going to go do the Grouper spawning. (2013)
[on the amount of films he has coming out over the next two years]: ... It's so funny, my daughter now lives with me full time and my original plan was to work up until I was 40 then reassess my life, even go in a completely different direction with things. She keeps encouraging me to do all this stuff. I thought at this point in my life I would need to be home with her, but she wants me to keep acting so she can travel around the world with me. Would that be so bad? Thing is, I went to a born-again Christian high school, was brought up in a traditional Mormon family where these ideas about parenting are of structure and sacrifice. To think outside of that idea of family and parenting that I've grown up with is tough, but also very freeing. (2013)- 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.Date of Birth
7 December 1915 , Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
24 June 2014 , New York City, New York, USA
Birth Name
Eli Herschel Wallach
Height
5' 7" (1.7 m)
Spouse:
Anne Jackson
(5 March 1948 - 24 June 2014) (his death) (3 children)
Personal Quotes:
I'd come out of the army after five years as a medic. I was a medical administrator and we ran hospitals, and I was a Captain in the army at the end, in 1945.
John Huston was a superb master. He knew how to make good films. I did three things with him. One is called Independence. It plays in Philadelphia, for free. It's been playing there for 25 years.
My wife says that stage acting is like being on a tightrope with no net, and being in the movies, there is a net - because you stop and go over it again. It's very technical and mechanical. On stage you're on your own.
So I wanted to show what I did with the money. So I got red silk shirts, beautiful hats, wonderful saddles, a great horse, and two gold teeth. So that was the way I did it.
Well, I was getting a lot of money then, and I wasn't getting any Hollywood films, so I just did those. I'd always do a play in between. Whenever I ran low on funds, I'd always rush off to do a movie somewhere.
I met my wife and, for the next ten years, we did no films at all. She did the first movie and then I did several after. My first movie was written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Kazan and was called Baby Doll.
I've learned that life is very tricky business: Each person needs to find what they want to do in life and not be dissuaded when people question them.
Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.
I was at the premiere of The Holiday (2006), a movie I did with Kate Winslet. Surrounded by all these beautiful young women. And after they left, [wife Anne Jackson] comes up and says to me, "Honestly, I don't know what they see in you.
The subtitle [of his memoir "The Good, the Bad and Me"] is "In My Anecdotage". Bill Clinton asked me if he could use it, and I said, "You sold two million copies of your book. How dare you try to steal my subtitle!".- J.T. Walsh was born on 28 September 1943 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Breakdown (1997), Sling Blade (1996) and Needful Things (1993). He was married to Susan West. He died on 27 February 1998 in La Mesa, California, USA.Date of Birth
28 September 1943, San Francisco, California, USA
Date of Death
27 February 1998, La Mesa, California, USA (heart attack)
Birth Name
James Thomas Patrick Walsh
Height
6' 1" (1.85 m)
Trade Marks:
Often played cowardly, sinister villains
Deep authoritative voice
He died of a heart attack while vacationing near San Diego, CA. Walsh fell ill while staying at a resort hotel & was taken to Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, CA, where he was pronounced dead. He lived in Encino (Los Angeles) with his son, John West, at the time of his death.
Before his death, he was hoping to follow the example of Gene Hackman and get away from playing the psychopaths and cowards he had been typecast as, playing more complicated and substantial character parts.
In his last year, Walsh starred in the 1998 films Hidden Agenda, Pleasantville, and The Negotiator. All three movies, plus Outside Ozona (Walsh died shortly before production commenced) were dedicated to his memory.
His father died of brain cancer and his mother died of Alzheimer's disease.
Jack Nicholson dedicated his Best Actor Academy Award (for As Good as It Gets (1997)) to Walsh.
Personal Quotes:
I never resented being called a character actor in New York, but with the caste system they have in Hollywood, you feel the little sting of it. There is a distinction made between the person who is getting $20 million and everyone else. You're the one directors know they don't have to worry about, so they can turn their attention to more pressing problems, like finding the star a bigger trailer.
(1997) I like to read fiction because it transports me away from Hollywood, and I like travel novels. I also drive up the coast to Santa Barbara to escape and get out of town. I stay the most at the San Ysidro Ranch. It's a quiet and simple, protected village and no one bothers you. It's also very pretty. - Stunts
- Actor
- Director
Bryon Weiss was born on 12 February 1963 in Ohio, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), The Time Machine (2002) and Idiocracy (2006). He was married to Laura Weiss. He died on 1 March 2014 in Arlington, Texas, USA.Date of Birth
12 February 1963, Ohio, USA
Date of Death
1 March 2014, Arlington, Texas, USA (colon cancer)
Height
6' 1½" (1.87 m)
Spouse:
Laura Weiss
(2 February 2001 - his death) (2 children)- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Maurice was born in Memphis on December 19, 1941, but moved to Chicago as a teenager. His father, Verdine, was a doctor. For many years, they lived in the South Shore section on the South Side. He attended Crane Junior College and the Chicago Conservatory of Music. It was while he was at the conservatory that he got the call to fill in for a drummer a Betty Everett session. The song was "You're No Good" and it marked White's debut as a session drummer. He played on many sessions for Chicago based artists such as Etta James, Fontella Bass, The Impressions, The Dells, Little Milton, Howlin' Wolf and Billy Stewart. Soon after, he was touring with The Dells as their drummer. Then Isaac "Red" Holt left the Ramsey Lewis Trio and Maurice replaced him. He spent three years (1966-69) with Ramsey before deciding to form his own group. Hiring a local band that included his younger brother Verdine, Maurice founded the Salty Peppers and later changed the name to Earth, Wind & Fire (in IMDb as Earth Wind & Fire) after the elements of the earth. As well as creating hits with the group, he wrote and produced such artists as the Emotions, Ramsey Lewis, Deniece Williams, Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Holliday, Pockets and Neil Diamond. Maurice White no longer tours full time with Earth, Wind & Fire. He started feeling the effects of Parkinson's Disease in the late 1980s, and it gradually began to escalate. He still records with the group and performs occasionally.Date of Birth
19 December 1941, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Date of Death
3 February 2016, Los Angeles, California, USA (Parkinson's disease)
Nickname
Reese- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Robin McLaurin Williams was born on Saturday, July 21st, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, a great-great-grandson of Mississippi Governor and Senator, Anselm J. McLaurin. His mother, Laurie McLaurin (née Janin), was a former model from Mississippi, and his father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, was a Ford Motor Company executive from Indiana. Williams had English, German, French, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Robin briefly studied political science at Claremont Men's College and theater at College of Marin before enrolling at The Juilliard School to focus on theater. After leaving Juilliard, he performed in nightclubs where he was discovered for the role of "Mork, from Ork", in an episode of Happy Days (1974). The episode, My Favorite Orkan (1978), led to his famous spin-off weekly TV series, Mork & Mindy (1978). He made his feature starring debut playing the title role in Popeye (1980), directed by Robert Altman.
Williams' continuous comedies and wild comic talents involved a great deal of improvisation, following in the footsteps of his idol Jonathan Winters. Williams also proved to be an effective dramatic actor, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991), before winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Good Will Hunting (1997).
During the 1990s, Williams became a beloved hero to children the world over for his roles in a string of hit family-oriented films, including Hook (1991), FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Flubber (1997), and Bicentennial Man (1999). He continued entertaining children and families into the 21st century with his work in Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Happy Feet Two (2011), and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014). Other more adult-oriented films for which Williams received acclaim include The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Awakenings (1990), The Birdcage (1996), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), World's Greatest Dad (2009), and Boulevard (2014).
On Monday, August 11th, 2014, Robin Williams was found dead at his home in Tiburon, California USA, the victim of an apparent suicide, according to the Marin County Sheriff's Office. A 911 call was received at 11:55 a.m. PDT, firefighters and paramedics arrived at his home at 12:00 p.m. PDT, and he was pronounced dead at 12:02 p.m. PDT.Date of Birth
21 July 1951 , Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date of Death
11 August 2014 , Tiburon, California, USA (apparent suicide)
Birth Name
Robin McLaurin Williams
Height
5' 7" (1.7 m)
Spouses:
Susan Schneider
(22 October 2011 - 11 August 2014) (his death)
Marsha Garces Williams
(30 April 1989 - 2010) (divorced) (2 children)
Valerie Velardi
(4 June 1978 - 6 December 1988) (divorced) (1 child)
Trade Marks:
Wild improvised stream-of-consciousness comedy dialogue where he will do cultural references, impersonations and one-liners with rapid switching.
Unique skill at imitating voices
Frequently plays offbeat and eccentric characters
Frequently plays fathers or family men
Often plays characters lacking in self-awareness
Often plays men who have suffered a trauma or loss
Often plays characters with mental instability and/or a deep capacity for violence (One Hour Photo, Insomnia)
Was declared dead at 12:02 PM on August 11, 2014, seven minutes after the call was received by 911 operators, and two minutes after paramedics arrived at his home in the unincorporated town of Tiburon, which is in Marin County, California, USA, just north of San Francisco. The cause was apparent suicide after a long bout with severe depression.
Upon his death, his wife, Susan Schneider said, "This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin's family, we are asking for privacy during our tie of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin's death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions".
As of his death in 2014, he had appeared in three films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990) and Good Will Hunting (1997).
Personal Quotes:
Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public. Once you step on stage you're licensed to do that. It's an understood relationship. You walk on stage - it's your job.
I'd play the Riddler in the next Batman, although it'd be hard to top Heath Ledger as the villain, and I'm a little hairy for tights. Plus, the Batman films have screwed me twice before: years ago they offered me the Joker and then gave it to Jack Nicholson, then they offered me the Riddler and gave it to Jim Carrey.
[While accepting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting (1997)] Most of all, I want to thank my father, up there, the man who when I said I wanted to be an actor, he said, "Wonderful. Just have a back-up profession like welding.".
[on his acting career]: All the new people you meet, it's pretty amazing. The vampire needs new blood. And there is still a lot to learn and there is always great stuff out there. Even mistakes can be wonderful.
...And now that you have a child you have to clean up your act, 'cause you can't drink anymore. You can't come home drunk and go, "Hey, here's a little switch: Daddy's gonna throw up on you!".
Everyone has these two visions when they hold their child for the first time. The first is your child as an adult saying "I want to thank the Nobel Committee for this award." The other is "You want fries with that?".- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Character actor Jason Wingreen was born on October 9, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York City. The son of a Jewish tailor father, Wingreen grew up in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens. Jason attended John Adams High School and majored in English and Speech at Brooklyn College (he initially planned on being a sportswriter and wrote about high school sporting events for the daily newspaper the Brooklyn Eagle during his high school years). While at Brooklyn College Wingreen caught the acting bug after taking a mandatory speech course and joined the undergraduate theater group the Masquers, which he became president of in his senior year at college. Following graduation from Brooklyn College in June, 1941, Jason got his first show business job with a marionette company.
Wingreen went on to serve in the armed forces during World War II as a member of the 81st Fighter Squadron, 50th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force. In the wake of his tour of duty, Jason returned to Howard Beach and went to the New School on the G.I. Bill. Wingreen helped to found the famed Circle in the Square Theatre company in Greenwich Village in the early 1950's and in 1954 acted for the first time on Broadway in the plays "Fragile Fox" and "The Girl on the Via Flaminia." Jason acted on his first TV show in 1955 and acted in his first movie shortly thereafter. In addition, Wingreen was a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since the early 1960's. Jason died at age 95 at his home in Los Angeles, California on December 25, 2015. He's survived by his son Ned, two grandchildren, and his sister Harriett Wingreen, who was the orchestra pianist for the New York Philharmonic for several decades.Date of Birth
9 October 1920, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Date of Death
25 December 2015, Los Angeles, California, USA
Height
5' 10½" (1.79 m)
Trade Mark:
Raspy menacing voice
One of the few actors to have been part of two, successful sci-fi franchises. "Star Trek" (1966)-as Federation Dr. Linke, and "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)-as voice of bounty hunter Boba Fett.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
In a career of over 30 years this Lancashire-born former art teacher has achieved great success in acting, both in television and film and writing, for television, film and stage.
His first film appearance is perhaps still his best-loved, the sympathetic Mr Farthing in Kes (1969), for which he won a BAFTA. Welland started in television in 1962 with his role of Constable David Graham in the long-running police serial Z Cars (1962). With its groundbreaking grittiness the series introduced a new realism to the genre. Welland stayed with the show until 1965, by which time he was a household name.
In the 70s, Welland combined careers as an actor and writer. On the film side he put in a nice turn as a laconic policeman in Villain (1971) and featured in the controversial Straw Dogs (1971) and in an episode of the popular TV series Faces (1975) and its big-screen adaptation Sweeney! (1977). In this time he had also been writing and appearing (sometimes both) in several plays and TV movies - he was voted Best TV Playwright in Britain in 1970, 1973 and 1974. In 1972 he won a BAFTA for Kisses at Fifty (1973). His plays were known for their earthy humour and working-class themes.
He reappeared with the other stars from the early years of Z Cars in the show's finale in 1978. In 1979 he put in one of his most memorable TV performances in Dennis Potter's award-winning play Blue Remembered Hills (1979) which recalled the days of the author's childhood. Playing the role of a child, Welland cavorted gleefully around woods and fields crammed into a pair of boy's shorts.
His first film as a writer was the successful John Schlesinger wartime culture clash drama Yanks (1979) and after this he decided to focus on his writing. He followed Yanks up with the multi award-winning, box office smash Chariots of Fire (1981), for which he won the Best Screenplay Oscar.
If his heralded arrival of the Brits didn't quite materialise, Welland did write some other worthy films - Twice in a Lifetime (1985) was an effective blue-collar drama starring Gene Hackman, A Dry White Season (1989) starred Donald Sutherland and dealt with the cruelties imposed by apartheid in South Africa (co-written with Euzhan Palcy) and War of the Buttons (1994) was an offbeat and entertaining tale of warring children.
He has put in occasional acting appearances over the years and was last seen in Our Brave Boys (1998) and Loose Women (1998) in 1998.
In 1962 he married Patricia Sweeney, they have 4 children. Genevieve, Catherine, Caroline and Christie.Date of Birth
4 July 1934, Leigh, Lancashire, England, UK
Date of Death
2 November 2015 (Alzheimer’s)
Birth Name
Colin Williams
Height
5' 10½" (1.79 m)
Spouse:
Patricia Sweeney
(1962 - his death) (4 children)- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler was adjudged one of the ten most influential cinematographers in movie history, according to an International Cinematographers Guild survey of its membership. He won his Oscars in both black & white and color, for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (1966) and Bound for Glory (1976) (1976). He also shot part of Days of Heaven (1978) (1978), for which credited director of photography Nestor Almendros -- won a Best Cinematography Oscar that Wexler initially felt should have been jointly shared by both. Later he admitted he was just finishing the work of Almendros and when Bert Schneider offer him more credit in the Criterion Dvd release of the film, he turned down the offer. In 1993, Wexler was awarded a Lifetime Achivement award by the cinematographer's guild, the American Society of Cinematographers. He received five Oscar nominations for his cinematography, in total, plus one Emmy Award in a career that has spanned six decades.
In addition to his masterful cinematography, Wexler directed the seminal late Sixties film Medium Cool (1969) and has directed and/or shot many documentaries that display his progressive political views. He was the subject of a 2004 documentary shot by his son Mark Wexler, Tell Them Who You Are (2004).Date of Birth
6 February 1922, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date of Death
27 December 2015 (Natural causes)
Nickname
Pete
Rita Taggart
(1989 - his death)
Marian Jane Witt
(1954 - 1985) (divorced) (1 child)
Nancy Jane Ashenhurst
(14 January 1943 - 1953) (divorced) (2 children)- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Winner was an only child, born in Hampstead, London, England, to Helen (née Zlota) and George Joseph Winner (1910-1975), a company director. His family was Jewish; his mother was Polish and his father of Russian extraction. Following his father's death, Winner's mother gambled recklessly and sold art and furniture worth around £10m at the time, bequeathed to her not only for her life but to Michael thereafter. She died aged 78 in 1984.
He was educated at St Christopher School, Letchworth, and Downing College, Cambridge, where he read law and economics. He also edited the university's student newspaper, Varsity (he was the youngest ever editor up to that time, both in age and in terms of his university career, being only in the second term of his second year). Winner had earlier written a newspaper column, 'Michael Winner's Showbiz Gossip,' in the Kensington Post from the age of 14. The first issue of Showgirl Glamour Revue in 1955 has him writing another film and showbusiness gossip column, "Winner's World". Such jobs allowed him to meet and interview several leading film personalities, including James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. He also wrote for the New Musical Express.
He began his screen career as an assistant director of BBC television programmes, cinema shorts, and full-length "B" productions, occasionally writing screenplays. In 1957 he directed his first travelogue, This is Belgium, shot largely on location in East Grinstead. His first on-screen credit was earned as a writer for the crime film Man with a Gun (1958) directed by Montgomery Tully. Winner's first credit on a cinema short was Associate Producer on the film Floating Fortress (1959) produced by Harold Baim. Winner's first project as a lead director involved another story he wrote, Shoot to Kill (1960). He would regularly edit his own movies, using the pseudonym "Arnold Crust". He graduated to first features with Play It Cool (1962), a pop musical starring Billy Fury.
Winner's first significant film was West 11 (1963), a sympathetic study of rootless drifters in the then seedy Notting Hill area of London. Filmed on location (always Winner's preference), with a script by Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse, the film remains an interesting contribution to the working-class realism wave of the early 1960s. Following differences with his producer, Daniel Angel, Winner (who had wanted to cast Julie Christie in the main female role) resolved to produce as well as direct his films and set up his own company, Scimitar. The Girl-Getters (1964) and the hectic, dystopian I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967) were paired pieces starring Oliver Reed that continued Winner's exploration of alienated youth adrift in a rising tide of affluence, dreaming of an alternative life they can never achieve. These films and the exuberant 'Swinging London' comedy The Jokers (1967), also starring Reed, were well-suited to Winner's restless, intrusive camera style and staccato editing. They were followed by Hannibal Brooks (1969), a witty Second World War comedy written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, which attracted attention in America and led to Winner pursuing a Hollywood career in the 1970s.
Winner now developed a new reputation as an efficient maker of violent action thrillers, often starring Charles Bronson. The most successful and controversial was Death Wish (1974), with Bronson cast as a liberal architect who embraces vengeance after the murder of his wife and daughter. An intelligent analysis of the deep roots of vigilantism in American society, Death Wish is restrained in its depiction of violence. With his obsessive need to work, Winner accepted many inferior projects, including two weak Death Wish sequels, though occasionally he tried to make more prestigious films, notably The Nightcomers (1971), a prequel to Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, made in Britain with Marlon Brando; and A Chorus of Disapproval (1989), a satisfying version of Alan Ayckbourn's bittersweet comedy.
By the 1990s Winner had become less prolific, and reaped no benefit from the Lottery-prompted rise in genre film-making, which favoured the young and inexperienced. Dirty Weekend (1993), a rape-revenge movie with a female vigilante, aroused considerable controversy, but hardly enhanced Winner's reputation; Parting Shots (1998), a comedy revenge thriller suffused with allusions to Death Wish and restaurant scenes invoking Winner's current incarnation as a food critic, is perhaps his swan song.
In an interview with The Times newspaper, Winner said liver specialists had told him in summer 2012 that he had between 18 months and two years to live. He said he had researched assisted suicide offered at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, but found the bureaucracy of the process off-putting. Winner died at his home, Woodland House in Holland Park, on 21 January 2013, aged 77. Winner was buried following a traditional Jewish funeral at Willesden Jewish Cemetery.Date of Birth
30 October 1935, London, England, UK
Date of Death
21 January 2013, London
Spouse
Géraldine Lynton (19 September 2011 - his death)
Personal Quotes
I don't want to live in a tolerant society. I want to live in a very intolerant society.
Women like to be treasured for themselves. They don't get taken in by men with money. In fact, I did far better when I was an assistant director.
My sympathy is totally with the little old lady who gets bashed over the head with an iron bar, not with the youngster who did it and gets sent to the South of France for six weeks to turn into a lovely human being.
On late actor-comedian Terry-Thomas: "For years, in the English film business, if you wanted a Terry-Thomas-type comedian, you were lucky if you got Terry-Thomas himself.".
A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.
Success has gone to my stomach.
In this business disaster is always just around the corner.
The hardest part of directing is staying awake for nine weeks at a stretch.
There's no moralistic side to Death Wish; it's a pleasant romp.
Hitchcock said actors are cattle, but show me a cow who can earn one million dollars per film.
If you want art, don't mess about with movies. Buy a Picasso.
An OBE is what you get if you clean the toilets well at King's Cross station. I really don't care if I get anything or not. I'm very glad that they recognize my considerable skills as a toilet cleaner. But when you look at the rubbish who are getting these awards and the absolute non-service they have given to the nation other than financing or working for political parties, you say, 'What company am I in?' At least if you go straight to the House of Lords you can wear fancy dress and have a giggle.
Nearly dying hasn't taught me a thing. It's just taught me that being ill is a bloody pain!- Ben Woolf was born on 15 September 1980 in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for American Horror Story (2011), Haunting Charles Manson (2014) and Woggie (2012). He died on 23 February 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Date of Death
23 February 2015, Los Angeles, California (head injury)
Birth Name
Benjamin Eric Woolf
Height
4' 3½" (1.31 m)
Struck in the head by the side mirror of a passing car while jaywalking on a Hollywood, California street. - Lee Thompson Young was born as the son of Velma Love and Tommy Scott Young. When he was in second grade his parents split up and he went to live with his mother. At age ten, he portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King in a play called "A Night of Stars and Dreams". That's when Lee decided he wanted to be an actor. After doing community theater for a while, he traveled to New York during the spring break of 1996 and got himself an agent. He moved to NY in June but it wasn't until next year that he got to audition for the part of Jett Jackson. Lee filmed the pilot. He found out in June 1998 from Disney that the show had been picked up.Date of Birth
1 February 1984, Columbia, South Carolina, USA
Date of Death
19 August 2013, Los Angeles, California, USA
Height
5' 7¾" (1.72 m) - Actor
- Soundtrack
It's hardly surprising that the son of renowned Russian-born concert violinist Efrem Zimbalist Sr. (1889-1985) and Romanian-born opera singer Alma Gluck (1884-1938) would desire a performing career of some kind. Born in New York City on November 30, 1918, surrounded by people of wealth and privilege throughout his childhood, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. received a boarding school education. Acting in school plays, he later trained briefly at the Yale School of Drama but didn't apply himself enough and quit. As an NBC network radio page, he auditioned when he could and found minor TV and stock theatre parts while joining up with the Neighborhood Playhouse.
Following WWII war service with the Army infantry in which he was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded, a director and friend of the family, Garson Kanin, gave the aspiring actor his first professional role in his Broadway production of "The Rugged Path" (1945) which starred Spencer Tracy. With his dark, friendly, clean-scrubbed good looks and a deep, rich voice that could cut butter, Zimbalist found little trouble finding work. He continued with the American Repertory Theatre performing in such classics as "Henry VIII" and "Androcles and the Lion" while appearing opposite the legendary Eva Le Gallienne in "Hedda Gabler".
Zimbalist then tried his hand as a stage producer, successfully bringing opera to Broadway audiences for the first time with memorable presentations of "The Medium" and "The Telephone". As producer of Gian Carlo Menotti's "The Consul", he won the New York Drama Critic's Award and the Pulitzer Prize for best musical in 1950. An auspicious film debut opposite Edward G. Robinson in House of Strangers (1949) brought little career momentum due to the untimely death of his wife Emily (a onetime actress who appeared with him in "Hedda Gabler" and bore him two children, Nancy and Efrem III) to cancer in 1950. Making an abrupt decision to abandon acting, he served as assistant director/researcher at the Curtis School of Music for his father and buried himself with studies and music composition.
In 1954, Efrem returned to acting and copped a daytime television soap lead (Concerning Miss Marlowe (1954)). It was famed director Joshua Logan who proved instrumental in helping Zimbalist secure a Warner Bros. contract. Despite forthright second leads in decent films such as Band of Angels (1957) with Clark Gable and Yvonne De Carlo; Too Much, Too Soon (1958) starring Dorothy Malone and Errol Flynn; Home Before Dark (1958) with Jean Simmons and Rhonda Fleming; The Crowded Sky (1960) with Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Troy Donahue and Anne Francis; A Fever in the Blood (1961) opposite Angie Dickinson and (his best) Wait Until Dark (1967) with Audrey Hepburn, it was television that made the better use of his refined, unshowy acting style. His roles as smooth private investigator Stu Bailey on 77 Sunset Strip (1958) and dogged inspector Lewis Erskine on The F.B.I. (1965) would be his ultimate claims to fame.
A perfect gentleman on and off camera, Zimbalist's severest critics tend to deem his performances bland and undernourished. Managing to override such criticisms, he maintained a sturdy career for nearly six decades. In 1991, he made fun of his all-serious reputation and pulled off a Leslie Nielsen-like role in the comedy parody Hot Shots! (1991). In addition to theater projects over the years, he has made fine use of his mellifluous baritone performing narrations and cartoon voiceovers, including that of Alfred the butler on a "Batman" animated series.
In 2003, he completed his memoirs, entitled "My Dinner of Herbs". The father of three, grandfather of four and great-grandfather of three, he settled in Santa Barbara and later in Solvang, California with longtime second wife Stephanie until her death in 2007 of cancer. Their daughter, also named Stephanie (Stephanie Zimbalist), is the well-known actress who appeared with Pierce Brosnan in the Remington Steele (1982) television series, in which Zimbalist had a recurring role. He and his daughter also appeared on stage together in his later years, their first being "The Night of the Iguana". His eldest daughter Nancy died in 2012.
Zimbalist died peacefully at his Solvang home of natural causes at the age of 95 on May 2, 2014; he had been outside watering his lawn at his Solvang, Calif., ranch when a handyman found him lying dead in the grass. "He was healthy, playing golf three days a week, and always in his garden," Zimbalist's son said.Date of Birth
30 November 1918 , New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
2 May 2014 , Solvang, California, USA (natural causes)
Height
6' (1.83 m)
Spouses:
Loranda Stephanie Spaulding
(12 February 1956 - 5 February 2007) (her death) (1 child)
Emily Munroe McNair
(23 December 1941 - 18 January 1950) (her death) (2 children)
Trade Mark:
Deep smooth voice
Zimbalist died on May 2, 2014 from natural causes at the age of 95, outliving his father's age of 94 by one year. His daughter Stephanie announced the news saying he was 95 years old, a devout Christian. He actively enjoyed his life to the last day, showering love on his extended family, playing golf and visiting with close friends.
His father was Russian-born and his mother was Romanian-born; both were from Jewish families. Zimbalist was an early practitioner and proponent of Transcendental Meditation, as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, prior to his conversion to Christianity.
Personal Quotes:
Having been kept pretty strict in prep schools, I guess I couldn't cope with all the freedom at Yale. I had a wild, wonderful time, got abysmal grades and was bounced out in my freshman year. I then came back the following fall as a repeating freshman, lasted until April and got bounced out again -- for the same reason. This time I quit.
As for the year 2000 being the time for Armageddon, Jesus himself said: "Even the son doesn't know. Only the father knows." So if Jesus didn't know, you can be sure I've got no idea.
I happen to believe that the liberating movements of our time are devised and thought up, not for the people they are supposed to champion, but to splinter society. In the case of women's liberation, if the state gets the women out of the house working, they can get to the children and bring them up. I thing that has been the game plan all along.
I don't even know the people who are making movies today. I stopped going to the movies over 20 years ago. The movies I used to be fanatic about they stopped making. They started making another kind of movie, and it's not my kind of world.- Uggie is a Jack Russell terrier, born in 2002.
He was rescued from being sent to a dog pound by Omar Von Muller, animal trainer. His career included touring with a dog talent show in the United States and South America and starring in commercials.
His most famous movie roles are in Water for Elephants (2011) and The Artist (2011). In The Artist, his performance was considered by many to have upstaged those of his co-stars and has won him the Palm Dog award in Cannes and there are petitions for other awards to be opened up to dogs, on account of his exceptional performance.
Uggie lives in North Hollywood with Von Muller, his wife, and his daughter.
It was announced by his trainer that Uggie will retire after his appearance at the Oscars on February 26 2012.A Jack Russell Terrier Born in 2002
Put Down in Aug 2015 (Prostate Tumor)
He was rescued from being sent to a dog pound by Omar Von Muller, animal trainer. His career included touring with a dog talent show in the United States and South America and starring in commercials. - Actor
- Soundtrack
A golden career was reflected in his name. Robert Golden Armstrong ("Bob" to his friends) was born in Birmingham, Alabama on April 7, 1917. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While there, he was frequently performing on stage with the Carolina Playmakers. After graduating, R.G. headed to New York, where his acting career really took off. In 1953, along with many of his Actors Studio buddies, he was part of the cast of "End As a Man" -- this became the first play to go from off-Broadway to Broadway. The following year, R.G. got his first taste of movies, appearing in Garden of Eden (1954). However, he returned to New York and the live stage. He received great reviews for his portrayal of Big Daddy in the Broadway production of "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" in 1955.
In 1958, R.G. took the plunge to Hollywood -- he appeared in two movies, a television series, and did numerous guest appearances on television series that year, usually in Westerns such as The Rifleman (1958), Have Gun - Will Travel (1957) and Zane Grey Theatre (1956), among others. He would go on to appear in 80 movies and three television series in his career, and guest-starred in 90 television series, many of them Westerns, often as a tough sheriff or a rugged land baron. R.G. was a regular cast member in the television series T.H.E. Cat (1966), playing tough, one-handed Captain MacAllister. During the filming of Steel (1979) in Kentucky, watching the mammoth Kincaid Tower being built, he made some good friends in the cast: "You become a family on the set," he said in an interview at the time.
Even though he had a long, versatile career, the younger generation knows him as the demonic Lewis Vandredi (pronounced VON-drah-dee), who just would not let the main characters have a good night's sleep on the television series Friday the 13th: The Series (1987). Finally retiring after six successful decades in show business -- his last film appearance was Purgatory (1999) -- R.G. and his lovely wife Mary Craven were mostly just enjoying life in California, and still traveled and vacationed in Europe occasionally. His upbeat, fun-loving personality made him a delight for all who came in contact with him. R.G. Armstrong died at age 95 of natural causes in Studio City, California on July 27, 2012.Date of Birth 7 April 1917, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Date of Death 27 July 2012, USA (natural causes)
Birth Name Robert Golden Armstrong Jr.
Nickname Bob
Height 6' 3" (1.91 m)
"I had to learn it the hard way. I studied with Lee Strasberg. Acting is not acting. It's being. If you have the kind of personality makeup where you can transform into being the character in that situation, it brings about authenticity. You get a feel of the situation, the line in a scene and where your hearts goes to in a scene and you always keep that in mind."- Actor
- Soundtrack
The refined and debonair English actor Jeremy Brett will forever be best remembered for his long-running and critically acclaimed portrayal of Sherlock Holmes for Britain's Granada Television. From a privileged background, Brett was educated at England's most prestigious independent school, Eton College. After training as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Brett made his professional stage debut in repertory in 1954. He became a noteworthy classical actor who was to make regular appearances on stage, including many with the National Theatre.
Brett was as cultured off screen as on. His interests included classical music, archery and horseback riding. His greatest popularity and acclaim would come with his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on television from the 1980s through to the 1990s. Where so many have tried and failed to capture the essence of the character, either being derided or forgotten, Brett's widely praised take on it has been described by many as superlative and even definitive. Brett suffered from poor health towards the end of his life but he was still playing the role of Holmes shortly before his death in 1995 at the age of 61.To me, the Sherlock Holmes stories are about a great friendship. Without Watson, Holmes might well have burnt out on cocaine long ago. I hope the series shows how important friendship is.
(On being typecast as Holmes) "I don't really mind actually. I must be very grateful to Arthur Conan Doyle because we are in the deepest recession in England, and only five percent of my profession are at work. I'm one of them at work, so I'm not knocking it."
"Holmes could be rude, impatient, abrupt, and his intolerance of fools was legendary. I tried to show all this, all of the man's incredible brilliance. But there are some cracks in Holmes' marble, as in an almost-perfect Rodin statue. And I tried to show that, too."
(On playing the "definitive" Sherlock Holmes) "I've done 33 Sherlock Holmes stories and bits of them are all right. But the definitive Sherlock Holmes is really in everyone's head. No actor can fit into that category because every reader has his own ideal." (February 1991)
(about his early speech impediment caused by an extra attachment of skin under his tongue) "I was tongue-tied. I had a very weak 'r' sound and had to work hard on it. I didn't have the condition corrected until I was 17. And then I went to the Central School of Speech and Drama to relearn how to speak."
I no longer feel threatened by Holmes, in fact I really enjoy playing him. Holmes is an upholder of the law, and he has a magnetism and mental genius that have been compulsive for people throughout the last hundred years. I was astounded when I realized how attractive he is to them (women). You'd never suspect it for one moment from the books. Girls long to seduce him. I do know that the team at Granada Studios are the finest. To everyone who has worked on these films of 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle''s stories in the past decade, only one word can express how I feel: Bravo! Holmes has finally given me recognition as a real actor, not just an aging pretty face.
"There may have been this beautiful girl, that he fell flat for, but she didn't look at him. So that broke his heart and he thought, 'Well, I'm not going to be rejected again,' so that's why he's the way he is." (On developing a past for Holmes)
(about the many female fans who came to see "The Secret of Sherlock Holmes" - he felt they were coming to see Holmes rather than him) "Women throughout the world identify with what's going on and see me as Holmes. It's all very flattering and frightening at times. I just have to realize I'm in the fantasy business, but I do feel responsible and I get very concerned about the power this character wields."
(on what he will remember best about the Holmes stories) "They are a great essay in male friendship, which has gone now. Men's friendship has been debased. One of the lovely things about Holmes and Watson is that they do have this great platonic relationship." (May 1990)
(on the loss of his wife, Joan) "I have got used to people saying I will get over it. You never do get over it. You just get used to it. But I am not very good at losing people I love. I lost my mother, she was killed in a car accident, and it threw me for a loop." (May 1990)
Date of Birth
3 November 1933, Berkswell Grange, Warwickshire, England, UK
Date of Death
12 September 1995, London, England, UK (iatrogenic congestive cardiac failure)
Birth Name
Peter Jeremy William Huggins
Height
6' 0¾" (1.85 m)
His death at the age of 61 was the result of cardiomyopathy (heart failure). Brett's heart valves were permanently scarred by rheumatic fever, which he suffered as a teenager. Medication later prescribed for his bipolar disorder, and his longtime smoking habit, also weakened his heart. His co-star Edward Hardwicke recalled that Brett would often buy three packets of cigarettes in the morning, and smoke them all during the course of the day.
After training as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Jeremy Brett made his professional stage debut in Manchester, England, in the repertory company of the Library Theatre in 1954. There he became lifelong friends with actor Robert Stephens. They would go on to share rooms and roles, serve as each other's best man, and died within two months of one another.- Bearing a strong resemblance to Humphrey Bogart certainly helped in typecasting the handsome, hairy-chested Gerald Mohr into "B" film noir. Born in New York City in 1914, he was the son of Sigmond Mohr and Henrietta Noustadt, a Viennese singer. In 1920 his father was killed in a tragic accident while at work when Mohr was five years old, and he was raised primarily by his mother and maternal grandfather, who was a psychologist and associate of Dr. Sigmund Freud, the famed psychoanalyst. Mohr became a fervent student of Freud as a result of this association. He was taught to ride and play piano at an early age and attended the prestigious Dwight Preparatory School in New York. Even as a teen, Mohr possessed a smooth vocal delivery and landed a job as a staff broadcaster for CBS Radio, which in turn opened the door for him to Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre. Mohr made his Broadway debut in the minor role of a gangster in "The Petrified Forest," the same play that put Bogart on the map.
His first starring role in films came with the serial Jungle Girl (1941), in which he played principal villain Slick Latimer. However, because of his pleasant, distinctive baritone voice, it was radio that became Mohr's meal ticket during the 1940s, and he signed on for a number of popular suspense thrillers such as "The Adventures of Philip Marlowe" and "The Whistler." In 1949, "Radio and Television Life" magazine named Mohr as the Best Male Actor on Radio.
After a number of bit parts, he finally won a noticeable role in Lady of Burlesque (1943) with Barbara Stanwyck, after Welles referred him to the film's director, William A. Wellman. Following WWII service with the Air Force, Mohr returned to acting and found his niche in intrigue, playing the title role in The Notorious Lone Wolf (1946) and its two sequels, along with Passkey to Danger (1946), Dangerous Business (1946) and The Truth About Murder (1946). As much as he wanted to extricate himself from this trenchcoat stereotype, he continued to chug along in the 1950s with the same type of roles represented by The Sniper (1952), Invasion, U.S.A. (1952) and Guns Girls and Gangsters (1959). His final leads were in This Rebel Breed (1960) and the low-grade sci-fi thriller The Angry Red Planet (1959). In 1954-55 he starred as Christopher Storm in 41 episodes of the Swedish-made TV series Foreign Intrigue (1951).
Finding film work scarce in the following decade, he found regular work on TV, guest starring in over 100 dramas, ranging from TV westerns like Maverick (1957), Bronco (1958), Cheyenne (1955) and Bonanza (1959) to action/courtroom series such as 77 Sunset Strip (1958), Hawaiian Eye (1959) and Perry Mason (1957), among many others.
His last movie role came in the top-notch musical Funny Girl (1968) starring Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif, in which Mohr was featured as Tom Branca, one of Nicky Arnstein's cronies, who offers to help Fanny Brice out by giving the proud but debt-ridden gambler a prime casino job.
Mohr was overseas in Stockholm, Sweden, where he had just completed filming the pilot of a new TV series called "Private Entrance" when he suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of 54.Date of Birth
11 June 1914, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
9 November 1968, Södermalm, Stockholm, Stockholms Län, Sweden (heart attack)
Height
6' 2" (1.88 m) - Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born in New York City, New York, to Maud Humphrey, a famed magazine illustrator and suffragette, and Belmont DeForest Bogart, a moderately wealthy surgeon (who was secretly addicted to opium). Bogart was educated at Trinity School, NYC, and was sent to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in preparation for medical studies at Yale. He was expelled from Phillips and joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. From 1920 to 1922, he managed a stage company owned by family friend William A. Brady (the father of actress Alice Brady), performing a variety of tasks at Brady's film studio in New York. He then began regular stage performances. Alexander Woollcott described his acting in a 1922 play as inadequate. In 1930, he gained a contract with Fox, his feature film debut in a ten-minute short, Broadway's Like That (1930), co-starring Ruth Etting and Joan Blondell. Fox released him after two years. After five years of stage and minor film roles, he had his breakthrough role in The Petrified Forest (1936) from Warner Bros. He won the part over Edward G. Robinson only after the star, Leslie Howard, threatened Warner Bros. that he would quit unless Bogart was given the key role of Duke Mantee, which he had played in the Broadway production with Howard. The film was a major success and led to a long-term contract with Warner Bros. From 1936 to 1940, Bogart appeared in 28 films, usually as a gangster, twice in Westerns and even a horror film. His landmark year was 1941 (often capitalizing on parts George Raft had stupidly rejected) with roles in classics such as High Sierra (1940) and as Sam Spade in one of his most fondly remembered films, The Maltese Falcon (1941). These were followed by Casablanca (1942), The Big Sleep (1946), and Key Largo (1948). Bogart, despite his erratic education, was incredibly well-read and he favored writers and intellectuals within his small circle of friends. In 1947, he joined wife Lauren Bacall and other actors protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunts. He also formed his own production company, and the next year made The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Bogie won the best actor Academy Award for The African Queen (1951) and was nominated for Casablanca (1942) and as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny (1954), a film made when he was already seriously ill. He died in his sleep at his Hollywood home following surgeries and a battle with throat cancer.Date of Birth
25 December 1899, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
14 January 1957, Los Angeles, California, USA (cancer of the esophagus)
Birth Name
Humphrey DeForest Bogart
Nickname
Bogie
Height
5' 8" (1.73 m)
Spouse
Lauren Bacall (21 May 1945 - 14 January 1957) (his death) 2 children
Mayo Methot (21 August 1938 - 10 May 1945) (divorced)
Mary Philips (3 April 1928 - 21 June 1937) (divorced)
Helen Menken (20 May 1926 - 18 November 1927) (divorced)
Trade Mark
Typically played smart, playful, courageous, tough, occasionally reckless characters who lived in a corrupt world, anchored by a hidden moral code.
Almost always played a hard-boiled cynic who ultimately shows his noble side.
Low-key, distinctive nasal voice
Often wore bow ties
Roles in film noirs
Lauren Bacall once recalled that while John Wayne and Fred Astaire hardly knew her husband Humphrey Bogart at all, they were the first to send flowers and good wishes after Bogart was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in January 1956.
After undergoing a nine-and-a-half hour operation for esophageal cancer on 1 March 1956, Bogart began smoking filtered cigarettes for the first time in his life.
He had just turned 57 and weighed only 80 pounds when he died on January 14, 1957.
Decades after his death, Bogie made a guest appearance on the TV horror series "Tales from the Crypt" (1989). Footage from several movies was computer enhanced and combined with a voice and body double to allow Bogart to receive top billing for the episode "You, Murderer." Guest starring with "Bogie" were John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini, performing an eerie (and hilarious) parody of her mother, Ingrid Bergman.
"The trouble with the world is that it's always one drink behind."
[attributed last words] "I should never have switched from scotch to martinis."
[on the House Un-American Activities Committee] "They'll nail anyone who ever scratched his ass during the National Anthem."
I came out here with one suit and everybody said I looked like a bum. Twenty years later Marlon Brando came out with only a sweatshirt and the town drooled over him. That shows how much Hollywood has progressed.
"I can't say I ever loved my mother, I admired her."
"I hate funerals. They aren't for the guy who's dead. They're for the guys who are left alive and enjoy mourning."
"Acting is like sex: you either do it and don't talk about it, or you talk about it and don't do it. That's why I'm always suspicious of people who talk too much about either."
"I'm not good-looking. I used to be but not any more. Not like Robert Taylor. What I have got is I have character in my face. it's taken an awful lot of late nights and drinking to put it there. When I go to work in a picture, I say, 'Don't take the lines out of my face. Leave them there.'"- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gruff, burly American character actor. Born in 1903 in Benkelman, Nebraska (confirmed by Social Security records; sources stating 1905 or Denver, Colorado are in error.) Bond grew up in Denver, the son of a lumberyard worker. He attended the University of Southern California, where he got work as an extra through a football teammate who would become both his best friend and one of cinema's biggest stars: John Wayne. Director John Ford promoted Bond from extra to supporting player in the film Salute (1929), and became another fast friend. An arrogant man of little tact, yet fun-loving in the extreme, Bond was either loved or hated by all who knew him. His face and personality fit perfectly into almost any type of film, and he appeared in hundreds of pictures in his more than 30-year career, in both bit parts and major supporting roles. In the films of Wayne and Ford, particularly, he was nearly always present. Among his most memorable roles are John L. Sullivan in Gentleman Jim (1942), Det. Tom Polhaus in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and the Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnson Clayton The Searchers (1956). An ardent but anti-intellectual patriot, he was perhaps the most vehement proponent, among the Hollywood community, of blacklisting in the witch hunts of the 1950s, and he served as a most unforgiving president of the ultra-right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. In the mid-'50s he gained his greatest fame as the star of TV's Wagon Train (1957). During its production, Bond traveled to Dallas, Texas, to attend a football game and died there in his hotel room of a massive heart attack.Born:
Wardell E. Bond
April 9, 1903 in Benkelman, Nebraska, USA
Died:
November 5, 1960 (age 57) in Dallas, Texas, USA
On a hunting trip, he was accidentally shot by John Wayne. Bond left Wayne the shotgun in his will.
Was an epileptic, a closely guarded secret not made public until many years after his death.
Although his career was cut short by his premature death in 1960 at the age of 57, he was one of the most prolific of Hollywood's actors over a period of 30 years. He regularly appeared in 10 to 20 films per year, with the record year for him being 1935, when he acted in 30 movies.
Died at the Town House Motor Hotel, 2914 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, Texas.
John Wayne gave the eulogy at his funeral.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Ernest Borgnine was born Ermes Effron Borgnino on January 24, 1917 in Hamden, Connecticut. His parents were Anna (Boselli), who had emigrated from Carpi (MO), Italy, and Camillo Borgnino, who had emigrated from Ottiglio (AL), Italy. As an only child, Ernest enjoyed most sports, especially boxing, but took no real interest in acting. At age 18, after graduating from high school in New Haven, and undecided about his future career, he joined the United States Navy, where he stayed for ten years until leaving in 1945. After a few factory jobs, his mother suggested that his forceful personality could make him suitable for a career in acting, and Borgnine promptly enrolled at the Randall School of Drama in Hartford. After completing the course, he joined Robert Porterfield's famous Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, staying there for four years, undertaking odd jobs and playing every type of role imaginable. His big break came in 1949, when he made his acting debut on Broadway playing a male nurse in "Harvey".
In 1951, Borgnine moved to Los Angeles to pursue a movie career, and made his film debut as Bill Street in The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951). His career took off in 1953 when he was cast in the role of Sergeant "Fatso" Judson in From Here to Eternity (1953). This memorable performance led to numerous supporting roles as "heavies" in a steady string of dramas and westerns. He played against type in 1955 by securing the lead role of Marty Piletti, a shy and sensitive butcher, in Marty (1955). He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, despite strong competition from Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, James Dean and James Cagney. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Borgnine performed memorably in such films as The Catered Affair (1956), Ice Station Zebra (1968) and Emperor of the North (1973). Between 1962 and 1966, he played Lt. Commander Quinton McHale in the popular television series McHale's Navy (1962). In early 1984, he returned to television as Dominic Santini in the action series Airwolf (1984) co-starring Jan-Michael Vincent, and in 1995, he was cast in the comedy series The Single Guy (1995) as doorman Manny Cordoba. He also appeared in several made-for-TV movies.
Ernest Borgnine has often stated that acting was his greatest passion. His amazing 61-year career (1951 - 2012) included appearances in well over 100 feature films and as a regular in three television series, as well as voice-overs in animated films such as All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996), Small Soldiers (1998), and a continued role in the series SpongeBob SquarePants (1999). Between 1973 until his death, Ernest was married to Tova Traesnaes, who heads her own cosmetics company. They lived in Beverly Hills, California, where Ernest assisted his wife between film projects. When not acting, Ernest actively supported numerous charities and spoke tirelessly at benefits throughout the country. He has been awarded several honorary doctorates from colleges across the United States as well as numerous Lifetime Achievement Awards. In 1996, Ernest purchased a bus and traveled across the United States to see the country and meet his many fans. On December 17, 1999, he presented the University of North Alabama with a collection of scripts from his film and television career, due to his long friendship with North Alabama alumnus and actor George Lindsey (died May 6, 2012), who was an artist in residence at North Alabama.
Ernest Borgnine passed away aged 95 on July 8, 2012, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, of renal failure. He is survived by his wife Tova, their children and his younger sister Evelyn (1926-2013)Date of Birth
24 January 1917, Hamden, Connecticut, USA
Date of Death
8 July 2012, Los Angeles, California, USA (renal failure)
Birth Name
Ermes Effron Borgnine
Height
5' 9" (1.75 m)
Spouse
Tova Borgnine (24 February 1973 - present)
Donna Rancourt (30 June 1965 - 1 January 1972) (divorced) 3 children
Ethel Merman (27 June 1964 - 28 July 1964) (divorced)
Katy Jurado (31 December 1959 - 3 June 1963) (divorced)
Rhoda Kemins (2 September 1949 - 29 August 1958) (divorced) 1 child
"Please, for heaven's sake, if anybody lives next to a hospital, a veteran's hospital or something, take a half hour, take an hour, take two hours, and go down there and visit our veterans. They would love to see you. Bring 'em flowers or something. Just to say hello. Believe me, they're hungry for people to come and see them... we owe freedom and opportunity to them. It's the least we can do."
"I don't care whether a part is 10 minutes long, or two hours, and I don't care whether my name is up there on top, either. Matter of fact, I'd rather have somebody else get top billing; then if the picture bombs, he gets the blame, not me."
[on drugs]: No, I've never done anything. At least, not to my knowledge. I once took a bunch of goofballs by accident. They looked like candy. They were in a little bowl at a party. I grabbed a hand full and went to town. That was some New Years Eve. I didn't have a coherent thought till February.
[on the Womens Rights movement] They tried it the wrong way. You can't expect anyone to take you seriously if you burn your undies and tell me I'm a pig. That's why it failed. Too many ugly broads telling me that they don't want to sleep with me. Who wanted you anyway?
"I like my women a little big. Natural. Now, they shave this and wax that. It's not right. I love natural women. Big women. This trend in women has to go. Bulemia, anorexia. That's just wrong. You know what will cure that? My special sticky buns. One lick of my sticky buns and your appetite will come right back."
"[on Brokeback Mountain (2005)] I didn't see it and I don't care to see it . . . If John Wayne were alive, he'd be rolling over in his grave."
"I think you have to keep going. Otherwise, you know these fellas that say, "Boy I can't wait to retire. Boy, I'm going to be 65 years old, and I'm retiring and I'm quitting and that's it." Well, two weeks later they're saying to themselves, "What the hell am I gonna do?" And first thing you know they find themselves in a wheelchair or in a rocking chair going back and forth, back and forth, and that's the end of it. And suddenly you're dead."- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Ray Bradbury was an American science fiction writer whose works were translated in more than 40 languages and sold millions of copies around the world. Although he created a world of new technical and intellectual ideas, he never obtained a driver's license and had never driven an automobile.
He was born Ray Douglas Bradbury on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. He was the third son in the family. His father, Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, was a telephone lineman and technician. His mother, Esther Marie Bradbury (nee Moberg), was a Swedish immigrant. His grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers. In 1934, his family settled in Los Angeles, California. There, young Bradbury often roller-skated through Hollywood, trying to spot celebrities. He attended Los Angeles High School, where he was involved in the drama club and planned to become an actor. He graduated from high school in 1938 and had no more formal education. Instead, he learned from reading works of such writers as Lev Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, among others.
From 1938-1942, he was selling newspapers on the streets of Los Angeles, spending days in the local library and nights at the typewriter. At that time, he published his stories in fanzines. In 1941, he became a paid writer when the pulp magazine Science Stories published his short story, titled "Pendulum", and he was a full-time writer by the end of 1942. His first book - "Dark Carnival" - was a collection of stories published in 1947. That same year, he married Marguerite McClure (1922-2003), whom he met at a bookstore a year earlier. Maggie, as she was affectionately called, was the only woman Bradbury ever dated. They had four daughters and, eventually, eight grandchildren.
Ray Bradbury shot to international fame after publication of "The Martian Chronicles" (1950), a collection of short stories partially based on ideas from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Then he followed the anti-Utopian writers Yevgeni Zamyatin and Aldous Huxley in his best-known work, "Fahrenheit 451" (1953). The film adaptation (Fahrenheit 451 (1966)) by director François Truffaut, starring Julie Christie, received several nominations. However, Bradbury was not happy with the television adaptation (The Martian Chronicles (1980), starring Rock Hudson) of his story "The Martian Chronicles". His other novels and stories also have been adapted to films and television, as well as for radio, theatre and comic books. Bradbury had written episodes for Alfred Hitchcock's television series, as well as for many other television productions. His total literary output is close to 600 short stories, more than 30 books and numerous poems and plays. He was writing daily.
In 2004, Bradbury received a National Medal of Arts. He was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard. An asteroid was named in his honor, "9766 Bradbury", and the Apollo 15 astronauts named an impact crater on the moon "Dandelion Crater", after his novel, "Dandelion Wine". He also received the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from Science Fiction Writers of America, an Emmy Award for his work as a writer on "The Halloween Tree", and many other awards and honors. Ray Bradbury died on June 6, 2012, at the age of 91, in Los Angeles, California.Date of Birth
22 August 1920, Waukegan, Illinois, USA
Died:
June 5, 2012 Southern California, USA
Birth Name
Ray Douglas Bradbury
Spouse
Maggie Bradbury (27 September 1947 - 24 November 2003) (her death)
Father of 4 daughters: Susan, Ramona, Bettina and Alexandra.
Though considered by many to be the greatest science-fiction writer of the of the 20th century, he suffered from a fear of flying and driving. He never learned to drive, and did not fly in an airplane until October, 1982.
He was the great-great-great grandson of Mary Bradbury, a woman who was tried in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, but saved herself from being hanged for witchcraft.
Paid tribute to in the music video *beep* Me, Ray Bradbury" by Rachel Bloom.
"Once you hear a metaphor of mine, you won't forget it. A dinosaur falling in love with a lighthouse, boom, there's your metaphor. Once you hear that, you say, "Gee, I gotta read that, I wonder what happened?" All the great stories of the world are metaphorical, so they can be remembered. That's why so much stage writing and film writing today can't be remembered, because there are no metaphors. You can't tell the story when you come out of the theater. That's what's wrong with most modern fiction. Realism is what we already know. My job is to interpret realism, to turn it into metaphors, so you can swallow it."
"I don't need to be vindicated, and I don't want attention. I never question. I never ask anyone else s opinion. They don't count."
[on Ray Harryhausen] Long after we are all gone, his shadow shows will live through a thousand years in this world.
I have fun with ideas. I play with them. I'm not a serious person and I don't like serious people. I don't see myself as a philosopher. That's awfully boring.
I don't believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously.
I don't try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
James Joseph Broderick III was an American actor of English and Irish descent. Broderick was born in Charlestown, New Hampshire to James Joseph Broderick II (1895-1959) and his wife Mary Elizabeth Martindale. His father, a highly-decorated veteran of World War I, was of Irish descent and his mother had both English and Irish ancestry.
Broderick attended Manchester Central High School, in Manchester, New Hampshire. He then attended the University of New Hampshire, where he took pre-medical courses. In 1945, the 18-year-old Broderick interrupted his studies to join the United States Navy during the closing months of World War II, enlisting as a pharmacist. He was discharged in 1947 during the post-World War II demobilization of the United States armed forces.
In 1947, Broderick returned to his studies at the University of New Hampshire, as junior pre-med student. His life changed course when Broderick auditioned for a pat in a theatrical production of the University. His acting skills gained him the leading role of Captain Bluntschli,the cynical mercenary officer in the play "Arms and the Man" (1894) by George Bernard Shaw.
J. "Joe" Donald Batcheller served as Faculty advisor to the student drama club, and was impressed with Broderick. Batcheller arranged a meeting between Broderick and the experienced actor Arthur Kennedy (1914-1990), who happened to be an old friend of Batcheller. Kennedy gave Broderick a few acting tips, and advised him to attend the "Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre", a full-time professional conservatory for actors in New York City. The faculty there included Sanford Meisner (1905-1997), the acting teacher who developed the so-called "Meisner technique" of acting.
Following his acting studies, Broderick was ready for a professional career. He was mostly a theatrical actor, but started appearing in television productions in the 1950s. He was cast in the leading role of Officer Ernie Brenner in the crime drama "Brenner" (1959-1964). The series featured a father-son duo of New York City police officers. The father was Roy Brenner (played by Edward Binns), a hardened, cynical veteran of the police force, with over 20 years of service. The son was Ernie Brenner (played by Broderick), an optimistic young man who was was only starting his career.
Another highlight of Broderick's television career was the episode "On Thursday We Leave for Home"(1963) in the anthology series "The Twilight Zone". In the episode, the residents of a failed space colony request transportation back to Earth. But the colony's leader desperately tries to keep them there, unwilling to relinquish power. Broderick played the character Al Baines, the engineering officer who unsuccessfully tries to rescue the former leader, after everyone else abandons him.
In the 1960s, Broderick started appearing in theatrical films. Highlights of his film career include the roles of the bohemian-commune leader Ray Brock in "Alice's Restaurant" (1969), the motorman (rail vehicle operator) Denny Doyle in the hijacking-themed film "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (1974), and the FBI agent Sheldon in the crime drama "Dog Day Afternoon".
In the late 1970s, Broderick gained a new leading in television, playing the lawyer and proverbial pater familias Doug Lawrence in the drama series "Family" (1976-1980). The series mainly focused on the family problems of the Lawrence family. Doug's wife Kate had quit a promising academic career to get married, and felt frustrated with the life of a homemaker. The elder daughter Nancy had divorced a philandering husband and was struggling as a single mother. Younger daughter Letitia (nicknamed "Buddy") had body-image issues, and considered herself abnormal. The family's only living son Willie was a high-school dropout and had no intention of getting a full-time job. The family mentioned to be still mourning another son, Timothy, who had died years earlier.
Broderick's last acting role was the television film "The Shadow Box" (1980), an adaptation of a play by Michael Cristofer. In the film, Broderick plays Joe, a man dying from an incurable disease and, trying to understand why his wife and son refuse to keep him company.
In the early 1980s, Broderick himself suffered from cancer, and his poor health prevented him from accepting more roles. He died in 1982, due to cancer. He was survived by his wife, painter Patricia Biow Broderick (1925-2003), and their three children. Broderick's son Matthew Broderick (1962 - ) followed in his father's footsteps and became an actor.“ Date of Birth
7 March 1927, Charlestown, New Hampshire, USA
Date of Death
1 November 1982, New Haven, Connecticut, USA (cancer)
Spouse
Patricia Broderick (? - 1 November 1982) (his death) 2 children- The archetypal screen tough guy with weatherbeaten features--one film critic described his rugged looks as "a Clark Gable who had been left out in the sun too long"--Charles Bronson was born Charles Buchinsky, one of 15 children of struggling parents in Pennsylvania. His mother, Mary (Valinsky), was born in Pennsylvania, to Lithuanian parents, and his father, Walter Buchinsky, was a Lithuanian immigrant coal miner.
He completed high school and joined his father in the mines (an experience that resulted in a lifetime fear of being in enclosed spaces) and then served in WW II. After his return from the war, Bronson used the GI Bill to study art (a passion he had for the rest of his life), then enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. One of his teachers was impressed with the young man and recommended him to director Henry Hathaway, resulting in Bronson making his film debut in You're in the Navy Now (1951).
He appeared on screen often early in his career, though usually uncredited. However, he made an impact on audiences as the evil assistant to Vincent Price in the 3-D thriller House of Wax (1953). His sinewy yet muscular physique got him cast in action-type roles, often without a shirt to highlight his manly frame. He received positive notices from critics for his performances in Vera Cruz (1954), Target Zero (1955) and Run of the Arrow (1957). Indie director Roger Corman cast him as the lead in his well-received low-budget gangster flick Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), then Bronson scored the lead in his own TV series, Man with a Camera (1958). The 1960s proved to be the era in which Bronson made his reputation as a man of few words but much action.
Director John Sturges cast him as half Irish/half Mexican gunslinger Bernardo O'Reilly in the smash hit western The Magnificent Seven (1960), and hired him again as tunnel rat Danny Velinski for the WWII POW big-budget epic The Great Escape (1963). Several more strong roles followed, then once again he was back in military uniform, alongside Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in the testosterone-filled The Dirty Dozen (1967).
European audiences had taken a shine to his minimalist acting style, and he headed to the Continent to star in several action-oriented films, including Guns for San Sebastian (1968) (aka "Guns for San Sebastian"), the cult western Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) (aka "Once Upon a Time in The West"), Rider on the Rain (1970) (aka "Rider On The Rain") and, in one of the quirkier examples of international casting, alongside Japansese screen legend Toshirô Mifune in the western Red Sun (1971) (aka "Red Sun").
American audiences were by now keen to see Bronson back on US soil, and he returned triumphantly in the early 1970s to take the lead in more hard-edged crime and western dramas, including The Valachi Papers (1972) and the revenge western Chato's Land (1972). After nearly 25 years as a working actor, he became an 'overnight" sensation. Bronson then hooked up with British director Michael Winner to star in several highly successful urban crime thrillers, including The Mechanic (1972) and The Stone Killer (1973). He then scored a solid hit as a Colorado melon farmer-done-wrong in Richard Fleischer's Mr. Majestyk (1974). However, the film that proved to be a breakthrough for both Bronson and Winner came in 1974 with the release of the controversial Death Wish (1974) (written with Henry Fonda in mind, who turned it down because he was disgusted by the script).
The US was at the time in the midst of rising street crime, and audiences flocked to see a story about a mild-mannered architect who seeks revenge for the murder of his wife and rape of his daughter by gunning down hoods, rapists and killers on the streets of New York City. So popular was the film that it spawned four sequels over the next 20 years.
Action fans could not get enough of tough guy Bronson, and he appeared in what many fans--and critics--consider his best role: Depression-era street fighter Chaney alongside James Coburn in Hard Times (1975). That was followed by the somewhat slow-paced western Breakheart Pass (1975) (with wife Jill Ireland), the light-hearted romp (a flop) From Noon Till Three (1976) and as Soviet agent Grigori Borsov in director Don Siegel's Cold War thriller Telefon (1977).
Bronson remained busy throughout the 1980s, with most of his films taking a more violent tone, and he was pitched as an avenging angel eradicating evildoers in films like the 10 to Midnight (1983), The Evil That Men Do (1984), Assassination (1987) and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989). Bronson jolted many critics with his forceful work as murdered United Mine Workers leader Jock Yablonski in the TV movie Act of Vengeance (1986), gave a very interesting performance in the Sean Penn-directed The Indian Runner (1991) and surprised everyone with his appearance as compassionate newspaper editor Francis Church in the family film Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (1991).
Bronson's final film roles were as police commissioner Paul Fein in a well-received trio of crime/drama TV movies Family of Cops (1995), Breach of Faith: A Family of Cops II (1997) and Family of Cops III: Under Suspicion (1999). Unfortunately, ill health began to take its toll; he suffered from Alzheimer's disease for the last few years of his life, and finally passed away from pneumonia at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in August 2003.
Bronson was a true icon of international cinema; critics had few good things to say about his films, but he remained a fan favorite in both the US and abroad for 50 years, a claim few other film legends can make.Born:
Charles Dennis Buchinsky
November 3, 1921 in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, USA
Died:
August 30, 2003 (age 81) in Los Angeles, California, USA
"I don't have friends, I have thousands of acquaintances. No friends. I figured I had a wife and children. They took up all the personal time I had. My children are my friends. My wife was my friend. We were opposite but I figured it made for a better relationship that way. One of the difficult parts of being a public person married to someone who was seriously ill is that people asked, 'So, how's your wife.' I found it difficult. They were strangers."
[on wife Jill Ireland's terminal illness] When you love someone you feel their pain. It's why some husbands go through morning sickness when their wives are pregnant. But to ever talk about it is difficult. I wouldn't tell Jill how I felt. I behaved in such a way that was opposite to how I felt. I must have seemed strong to her. I didn't want to bring her down. It was like keeping the stiff upper lip, of being British about it. Of course, she understood that. The fear really hits you. That's what you feel first. And then it's the anger and frustration. Part of the problem is how little we understand about the ultimate betrayal of the body when it rebels against itself. You always worry about charlatans. We found that specialists did not know as much as we thought. So, you think maybe there are other answers. There are not but if you believe something will help you it probably will: it will help, not cure. What kind of man would I have been if I had not been there to help her? I felt along with her--not the physical pain, of course, but all her mental anguish. You can't be detached. She needed to have someone who understood what was happening in her mind. That was what I was for. - Francis Vaselle Aiello was born June 6, 1915, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York. He worked many odd jobs after graduating High School, including working with his father, Carmine, who owned a tailoring shop. He earned the nickname "The earl of Warwick" because of his persistence trying to obtain a job at the most luxurious hotel in town, The Warwick Hotel (he sat in the lobby for weeks every day). However, he was a "newspaper seller" when he first saw 'James Cagney' on film and became an immediate fan. He imitated Cagney for a long time to his friends and family, much to their approval, before deciding to hitchhike to Hollywood to get an interview with Cagney, but this attempt failed, so he returned home to New York. Later he tried it again, and this time he landed a job on the vaudeville circuit doing impressions of Cagney. A Warner Bros. talent scout saw his act and hired him for the role of the young version of Cagney's "Rocky Sullivan" in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938). After that he made 17 films until he disappeared from the celebrity circuit in 1941. His whereabouts from 1941 to about 1961 are unknown, but sometime in the early 1960s, he decided to ride the rails as what he, himself, called a "Hobo" until he became too ill and was taken from a train when it pulled into Junction City, Kansas. He was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and sent to a long term care facility in Chapman, Kansas where he passed away only weeks later on April 7th, 1983.Born:
Francis Aiello
June 6, 1915 in Brooklyn, New York, USA
Died:
April 7, 1983 (age 67) in Chapman, Kansas, USA
Often described as a James Cagney look-alike - and in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), in which he plays the Cagney character at a younger age, the resemblance is quite remarkable. - Actor
- Director
- Producer
One of Hollywood's preeminent male stars of all time, James Cagney was also an accomplished dancer and easily played light comedy. James Francis Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to Carolyn (Nelson) and James Francis Cagney, Sr., who was a bartender and amateur boxer. Cagney was of Norwegian (from his maternal grandfather) and Irish descent. Ending three decades on the screen, he retired to his farm in Stanfordville, New York (some 77 miles/124 km. north of his New York City birthplace), after starring in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961). He emerged from retirement to star in the 1981 screen adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel "Ragtime" (Ragtime (1981)), in which he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 1930s, Pat O'Brien, and which was his last theatrical film and O'Brien's as well). Cagney's final performance came in the title role of the made-for-TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (1984), in which he played opposite Art Carney.Born:
James Francis Cagney
July 17, 1899 in New York City, New York, USA
Died:
March 30, 1986 (age 86) in Stanfordville, New York, USA
Films co-starring James Cagney and Pat O'Brien were these nine: Here Comes the Navy (1934), Devil Dogs of the Air (1935), The Irish in Us (1935), Boy Meets Girl (1938), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Torrid Zone (1940), The Fighting 69th (1940), Ceiling Zero (1936), as well as their finale together, four decades later, Ragtime (1981).
Extraordinarily (for Hollywood), he never cheated on his wife Frances, resulting in a marriage that lasted 64 years (ending with his death). The closest he came was nearly giving into a seduction attempt by Merle Oberon while the two stars were on tour to entertain WWII GIs.
Though most Cagney imitators use the line "You dirty rat!", Cagney never actually said it in any of his films.
[about his most famous misquoted line] I never actually said, "Nnng-you dirty ra-at!" What I actually said was [imitating Cary Grant] "Judy! Judy! Judy!"
"I hate the word "superstar". I have never been able to think in those terms. They are overstatements. You don't hear them speak of [William Shakespeare] as a superpoet. You don't hear them call Michelangelo a superpainter. They only apply the word to this mundane market."- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Harry Carey, Jr., had been reliable character actor for decades, mostly in Westerns, before he retired. He is the son of the actor Harry Carey and the actress Olive Carey. He was born on his parents' 1000-acre ranch near Saugus, in the northwestern part of Los Angeles County, which is now next door to Santa Clarita, a large town that certainly did not exist in 1947 or for decades longer. Thus, the young Harry Carey, Jr., grew up among cattle and horses at the ranch. Because of a large group of Navajo Indians who worked on his parents' ranch, he learned to speak the Navajo language at the same time that he was learning to speak English.
During World War II, Carey enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and he served in the Pacific Theater first as a Navy medical corpsman. However, he was transferred back to the United States (against his wishes) to serve under his father's good friend, the director John Ford, in making movies for the Navy (training films)and the O.S.S. (propaganda films).
After World War II ended, Carey tried to make a career in singing, but he was not successful at this. Hence, he moved into acting, and after a couple of small acting parts, he was given a chance to work in a motion picture with his father, the John Wayne film Red River (1948). (However, the father and the son did not have any scenes with one another). After the death of Harry Carey, Sr., in 1946, Mr. Ford gave the younger Carey a leading role in the movie that Ford dedicated to the memory of Harry Carey, Sr., in 1948, 3 Godfathers (1948).
As a full-fledged member of the noted John Ford Stock Company, Carey, Jr., appeared in many of Mr. Ford's epic Westerns during the following two decades. Carey also starred in a series-within-a-series on TV, The Adventures of Spin and Marty (1955), which was shown as a part of The Mickey Mouse Club (1955). Very boyish looks characterized Carey's early years, but he matured into a strong and familiar character actor over the following four decades, and he acted in scores of films and TV programs in his long career. Carey, Jr., is married to Marilyn Fix Carey, the daughter of the actor Paul Fix.Date of Birth
16 May 1921, Saugus, California, USA
Date of Death
27 December 2012, Santa Barbara, California, USA
Birth Name
Henry G. Carey
Nickname
'Dobe'
Height
6' 1" (1.85 m)
Spouse
Marilyn Carey (12 August 1944 - his death) 4 children
Trade Mark
Red hair
Given nickname "Dobe," short for adobe (the color of Carey's hair as a boy
Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 2003.- Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (28 July 1954 - 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012.Date of Birth
28 July 1954, Sabaneta, Venezuela
Date of Death
5 March 2013, Caracas, Venezuela (cancer)
Birth Name
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías
Nickname
El Commandante
Esteban de Jesús
El Mico Mandante
Spouse
Marisabel Rodríguez (1997 - 2004) (divorced) 1 child
Nancy Colmenares (1977 - 1995) (divorced) 3 children
Trade Mark
Slogan "Por ahora!"
Solid Green Military Fatigues
Red Beret
Personal Quotes
He [Jesus] accompanied me in difficult times, in crucial moments. So Jesus Christ is no doubt an historical figure - he was someone who rebelled, an anti-imperialist guy. He confronted the Roman Empire. Because who might think that Jesus was a capitalist? No. Judas was the capitalist, for taking the coins! Christ was a revolutionary. He confronted the religious hierarchies. He confronted the economic power of the time. He preferred death in the defense of his humanistic ideals, who fostered change. He is our Jesus Christ. - Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the eldest of three children of Helen (Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz, Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Curtis himself admits that while he had almost no formal education, he was a student of the "school of hard knocks" and learned from a young age that the only person who ever had his back was himself, so he learned how to take care of both himself and younger brother, Julius. Curtis grew up in poverty, as his father, Emanuel, who worked as a tailor, had the sole responsibility of providing for his entire family on his meager income. This led to constant bickering between Curtis's parents over money, and Curtis began to go to movies as a way of briefly escaping the constant worries of poverty and other family problems. The financial strain of raising two children on a meager income became so tough that in 1935, Curtis's parents decided that their children would have a better life under the care of the state and briefly had Tony and his brother admitted to an orphanage. During this lonely time, the only companion Curtis had was his brother, Julius, and the two became inseparable as they struggled to get used to this new way of life. Weeks later, Curtis's parents came back to reclaim custody of Tony and his brother, but by then Curtis had learned one of life's toughest lessons: the only person you can count on is yourself.
In 1938, shortly before Tony's Bar Mitzvah, tragedy struck when Tony lost the person most important to him when his brother, Julius, was hit by a truck and killed. After that tragedy, Curtis's parents became convinced that a formal education was the best way Tony could avoid the same never-knowing-where-your-next-meal-is-coming-from life that they had known. However, Tony rejected this because he felt that learning about literary classics and algebra wasn't going to advance him in life as much as some real hands-on life experience would. He was to find that real-life experience a few years later, when he enlisted in the navy in 1942. Tony spent over two years getting that life experience doing everything from working as a crewman on a submarine tender, the USS Proteus (AS-19), to honing his future craft as an actor performing as a sailor in a stage play at the Navy Signalman School in Illinois.
In 1945, Curtis was honorably discharged from the navy, and when he realized that the GI Bill would allow him to go to acting school without paying for it, he now saw that his lifelong pipe dream of being an actor might actually be achievable. Curtis auditioned for the New York Dramatic Workshop, and after being accepted on the strength of his audition piece (a scene from "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in pantomime), Curtis enrolled in early 1947. He then began to pay his dues by appearing in a slew of stage productions, including "Twelfth Night" and "Golden Boy". He then connected with a small theatrical agent named Joyce Selznick, who was the niece of film producer David O. Selznick. After seeing his potential, Selznick arranged an interview for Curtis to see David O. Selznick at Universal Studios, where Curtis was offered a seven-year contract. After changing his name to what he saw as an elegant, mysterious moniker--"Tony Curtis" (named after the novel Anthony Adverse (1936) by Hervey Allen and a cousin of his named Janush Kertiz)--Curtis began making a name for himself by appearing in small, offbeat roles in small-budget productions. His first notable performance was a two-minute role in Criss Cross (1949), with Burt Lancaster, in which he makes Lancaster jealous by dancing with Yvonne De Carlo. This offbeat role resulted in Curtis's being typecast as a heavy for the next few years, such as playing a gang member in City Across the River (1949).
Curtis continued to build up a show reel by accepting any paying job, acting in a number of bit-part roles for the next few years. It wasn't until late 1949 that he finally got the chance to demonstrate his acting flair, when he was cast in an important role in an action western, Sierra (1950). On the strength of his performance in that movie, Curtis was finally cast in a big-budget movie, Winchester '73 (1950). While he appears in that movie only very briefly, it was a chance for him to act alongside a Hollywood legend, James Stewart.
As his career developed, Curtis wanted to act in movies that had social relevance, ones that would challenge audiences, so he began to appear in such movies as Spartacus (1960) and The Defiant Ones (1958). He was advised against appearing as the subordinate sidekick in Spartacus (1960), playing second fiddle to the equally famous Kirk Douglas. However, Curtis saw no problem with this because the two had recently acted together in dual leading roles in The Vikings (1958).Born:
Bernard Herschel Schwartz
June 3, 1925 in The Bronx, New York, USA
Died:
September 29, 2010 (age 85) in Henderson, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
"I enjoy being Tony. I was the only one who ever knocked Burt Lancaster on his *ss in Trapeze (1956), and I took Kirk Douglas' eye out in The Vikings (1958), and I took two girls away from Jack Lemmon. I also took away Cary Grant's submarine, so I've got these nice moments in my movies."
"I was resented and hated because I was so good-looking and Jewish. It's true. This is not paranoia. I think that because of the Iraq war, anti-Semitism is on the increase again."
[on his love for the ladies] Listen, we all do. I tell ya, there isn't a guy a met that wouldn't love to jump on a beautiful woman without knowing her name. And if that's what you call womanizing, then call me the King.
They are all dead now; Cary Grant, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, all my Hollywood friends. Sometimes I feel so lonely. Actors today achieve nothing nor do they have any glamour. They seem more interested in adopting babies than films. All the films are terrible, too, because the scripts are so bad and there are no decent film-makers.
One of the big reasons I started using cocaine was that I was told it was great for sex. It didn't make me superhuman in the longevity department, but it certainly did make my sexual experiences more intense.
[on today's actors, starting with Brad Pitt] That Pitt fellow - what's his name? He hasn't got it. Now, Robert Downey Jr. - I think he might have something.
on his relationship with his mother] I got nothing from her. I got slapped around is what I got.
[on his 1951 marriage to first wife Janet Leigh] I even married Janet for my career. I could see the two of us could get more attention together. We had the paparazzi wherever we went, we were on the cover of all the movie magazines. It wasn't enough for a man to be cute, he had to be connected to the right woman...What better way to get famous?
[on the long-running feud with daughter Jamie Lee Curtis] What am I going to do? God bless her, I wish her the best. If she can't forgive me, then get another father.
I realized if I could [have sex with] a girl . . . a woman has accepted me. The main force in me was to be accepted by others. Not education, not money in my pocket, nothing except to be accepted by a girl.
[in 2008] I'm just wondering how many more years I have. I don't have 20. I don't have 15. How many years do I have? I don't know, but I plan to reinvent myself as an 84-year-old, as an 85-year-old man who can do anything and everything.
[on Brokeback Mountain (2005)] This picture is not as important as we make it. It's nothing unique. The only thing unique about it is they put it on the screen. And they make 'em gay cowboys. 'Howard Hughes (I)' and John Wayne wouldn't like it.
[on his troubled relationship with daughter Jamie Lee Curtis] I have a feeling she wanted to teach me a lesson for abandoning her mother and her. But I couldn't be with Janet Leigh anymore. She was disappearing into her own madnesses.
[about his many sexual dalliances] It was love. I was falling in love every day. I am completely in love with women. Every woman. I loved their company and there was always a chance you could kiss them. I found kissing a very appealing experience. I was just always hoping for that conquest, hoping for that physical affection . . . that ejaculation.
I was 22 when I arrived in Hollywood in 1948. I had more action than Mount Vesuvius - men, women, animals! I loved it too. I participated where I wanted to and didn't where I didn't. I've always been open about it.
I ran around with a lump in my pants, chased all the girls. This is what I reflected on the screen. There wasn't anything deeper or less deep than that.
[on dying] I may have them take my ashes and spread them all over Las Vegas!- Tall, rangy Jim Davis spent much of his early career in westerns mainly at Republic Pictures. The Missouri-born and -raised Davis' relaxed, easygoing manner and Southern drawl easily fit most moviegoers' image of the cowboy and Republic put him in a ton of them over the years (the fact that, unlike a lot of movie cowboys, he looked right at home on a horse didn't hurt, either). He alternated between good-guy and villain roles, one of his better ones being that of the devious, murderous fur trapper working for Kirk Douglas' competition in The Big Sky (1952). He is best known, however, for his role as Ewing family patriarch Jock in the long-running TV series Dallas (1978).Date of Birth
26 August 1909, Edgerton, Missouri, USA
Date of Death
26 April 1981, Northridge, California, USA (multiple myeloma)
Birth Name
Marlin Davis
Height
6' 2½" (1.89 m)
Spouse
Blanche Hammerer (1945 - 26 April 1981) (his death) 1 child
Trivia
Only child Tara Diane (15 January 1953 - 9 February 1970) died in a car crash at age 17.
He was the son of Lucian Davis (1878-1954) and Ethyl Offutt Davis (1890-1984). They are buried in Camden Point Cemetery, Camden Point, Platte County, Missouri.
He was very close to "Dallas" (1978) co-star Victoria Principal, who bore a strong resemblance to his late daughter, and he had Principal's picture along with his daughter's in his pocket when he was buried.
In April 1981 the writers of "Dallas" (1978) decided not to write his death into the storyline right away. They initially thought about replacing him with another actor, but out of respect decided that only Davis should play Jock Ewing. Jock was kept alive on the show (he was down in South America drilling for oil) until early 1982 when it was learned that he died in a plane crash. - Actor
- Writer
- Director
Ossie Davis was born on 18 December 1917 in Cogdell, Georgia, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Do the Right Thing (1989), Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) and Grumpy Old Men (1993). He was married to Ruby Dee. He died on 4 February 2005 in Miami Beach, Florida, USA.Date of Birth
18 December 1917, Cogdell, Georgia, USA
Date of Death
4 February 2005, Miami Beach, Florida, USA (natural causes)
Birth Name
Raiford Chatman Davis
Height
6' 3" (1.91 m)
Spouse
Ruby Dee (9 December 1948 - 4 February 2005) (his death) 3 children
The county clerk misunderstood his mother's dialectal pronunciation of his initials "R.C." when he was born. He thought he heard "Ossie" and registered him as such. The name stuck.
Was a featured speaker at the funeral of both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
He and Ruby Dee had 3 children, actor Guy Davis, Nora, and LaVerne.
Played the father of Jennifer Beals' character on "The L Word" (2004). In a powerful performance, fitting of his legacy, his character died in the episode, "L'Chaim." This was his final performance before his own death, and the episode was dedicated to his memory.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Stocky, balding American character actor with a rich, deep voice, equally adept at Western bad guys and Shakespeare. He began his career in films in minor roles, primarily as gangland henchmen, and progressed to become widely familiar as a figure in a variety of dramas and occasional comedies. Although a stalwart and reliable supporting player, he was not of a type to essay leading roles in films, but remained a well-respected actor whose face, if not name, is familiar to a generation of film and television viewers.Born:
January 21, 1921 in Brockton, Massachusetts, USA
Died:
August 16, 1994 (age 73) in Banning, California, USA
Was said to be the fastest draw in Hollywood with a six-gun!
Was survived by five daughters, three sons, a brother, a sister, sixteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren!- Actor
- Soundtrack
Colorful American character actor equally adept at vicious killers or grizzled sidekicks. As a child he worked in the cotton fields. He attended Santa Monica Junior College in California and subsequently became an accountant and, at one time, manager of the Bel Air Hotel. Elam got his first movie job by trading his accounting services for a role. In short time he became one of the most memorable supporting players in Hollywood, thanks not only to his near-demented screen persona but also to an out-of-kilter left eye, sightless from a childhood fight. He appeared with great aplomb in Westerns and gangster films alike, and in later years played to wonderful effect in comedic roles.Date of Birth
13 November 1920, Miami, Gila, Arizona, USA
Date of Death
20 October 2003, Ashland, Oregon, USA (congestive heart failure)
Birth Name
William Scott Elam
Height
6' (1.83 m)
Spouse
Margaret Jennison (23 August 1961 - 20 October 2003) (his death) 1 child
Jean Elam (1937 - 24 January 1961) (her death) 2 children
Trade Mark
His bulging eyes and unmoving left eye
Predominantly played mean, scheming bad guy henchmen in Westerns.
Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1994.
Died two months after Charles Bronson.
Was known to be great at all forms of gambling. Also great at winning games played with people on sets.
Personal Quotes
The heavy today is usually not my kind of guy. In the old days, Rory Calhoun was the hero because he was the hero and I was the heavy because I was the heavy - and nobody cared what my problem was. And I didn't either. I robbed the bank because I wanted the money ... I've played all kinds of weirdos but I've never done the quiet, sick type. I never had a problem - other than the fact I was just bad.
[on Night Passage (1957)] It was a payday, but I could have done without it.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Peter Michael Falk was born on September 16, 1927, in New York City, New York. At the age of 3, his right eye was surgically removed due to cancer. He graduated from Ossining High School, where he was president of his class. His early career choices involved becoming a certified public accountant, and he worked as an efficiency expert for the Budget Bureau of the state of Connecticut before becoming an actor. On choosing to change careers, he studied the acting art with Eva Le Gallienne and Sanford Meisner. His most famous role is that of the detective Columbo (1971); however, this was not his first foray into acting the role of a detective. During a high school play, he stood in for such a role when the original student actor fell sick. He has been married twice, and is the father of two children:Catherine, a private detective in real life, and Jackie. He was diagnosed with dementia in 2008, which was most likely brought on by Alzheimer's disease, from which he died on June 23, 2011.Date of Birth
16 September 1927, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
23 June 2011, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA (Alzheimer's disease)
Birth Name
Peter Michael Falk
Height
5' 6" (1.68 m)
His remains were interred at Westwood Memorial Park in Westwood, Los Angeles, California upon his death.
(December 2008) Adopted daughter, Catherine Falk, files for conservatorship, explaining that Falk has been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and, at 81, he no longer recognizes anyone. Later sworn statements from the Falk family, family friends and associates report Catherine has been long-estranged from her father and would not handle his affairs in his best interest.
(January 2009) Shera Danese, Falk's wife of 32 years, files paperwork with the court, including sworn statements from longtime CPA, attorney, friends & family members, stating she is already attending to Falk's affairs, Falk named her as his guardian when first diagnosed with the disease, and long-estranged adopted daughter's attempt to gain conservatorship and control of his affairs is NOT in Falk's best interests.
(May 2009) Shera Danese, his wife, is awarded conservatorship of his affairs.
[upon losing to Peter Ustinov for the 1961 Oscars] When I hit the seat, I turned to the press agent and said 'You're fired!' I didn't want him charging me for another day.
[on Columbo's appeal] What are you hanging around for? Just one thing. You want to know how he gets caught.
Being chased by Columbo is like being nibbled to death by a duck.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Jay C. Flippen could probably be characterized these days as one of those craggy, distinctive faces you know but whose name escapes you while viewing scores of old 1950s and 1960s films and television series. Playing both sides of the law throughout his career, his huge cranium, distinctive bulldog mug, beetle brows, bulky features, usually scowling countenance, and silver-white hair were ideally suited for roles as criminals and rugged adventurers, while his background as a standup comedian in burlesque, vaudeville and minstrel shows.
He was born John Constantine Flippen on March 6, 1899, in Little Rock, Arkansas. His father, John (a bookkeeper), died in 1908. Flippen's older sister, Era, died a year later (in 1909). His mother, Emma L. Flippen (née Pack), earned an income as a dance and theatre instructor. His maternal grandmother, Mary Pack, lived with the family. Picking up on his mother's artistic interests, Flippen joined the Al G. Field Minstrels at age 16. He was discovered by African-American star comedian Bert Williams in the 1920s, and was Williams' Broadway black face understudy and tour replacement for the 1920 musical revue "Broadway Brevities". Between 1924-29, he recorded scores of songs for Pathé Columbia, Perfect, and Brunswick Records. A veteran radio announcer for Yankee baseball games, Flippen was a lifelong baseball fan who forged friendships with several major league baseball stars. He also appeared on Broadway throughout the mid-1920s (and after), including "June Days" (1925), "Hello, Lola" (1926), "The Great Temptation" (1926), "Padlocks of 1927" (1927), "Second Little Show" (1930), the musical "Hellzapoppin'" (1941), and "Take a Bow" (1944).
Flippen made his film debut in the short The Ham What Am (1928), which captured a vaudeville performance, followed by a few other early 1930's shorts. He didn't move strongly into feature films until post-World War II where he could be counted on to provide his patented gruff and bluster in primarily war stories, film noir, and westerns whether playing a sheriff, farmer, cop, prison warden, military high-ranker or bartender. After playing Hodges, a guard, in Brute Force (1947), he appeared in such other crime yarns as Intrigue (1947), They Live by Night (1948), A Woman's Secret (1949), The Las Vegas Story (1952), The Wild One (1953), The Killing (1956), The Midnight Story (1957), Studs Lonigan (1960) and, The Seven Minutes (1971). His also dominated in such westerns as The Lady from Texas (1951), Devil's Canyon (1953), Man Without a Star (1955), Oklahoma! (1955) (as Ike Skidmore), The Restless Breed (1957), Run of the Arrow (1957), The Deerslayer (1957), From Hell to Texas (1958), and The Plunderers (1960).
Flippen supported many a top Hollywood male star during his four-decade film career. His atmospheric characters notably supported James Stewart in several of his top-notch vehicles, including Winchester '73 (1950), Bend of the River (1952), Thunder Bay (1953), The Far Country (1954), Strategic Air Command (1955), The Restless Breed (1957), Night Passage (1957), and Firecreek (1968). He was a regular player on 1960s television as well, including Bonanza (1959), The Untouchables (1959), The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Route 66 (1960), Burke's Law (1963), Gunsmoke (1955), Rawhide (1959), That Girl (1966), and The Name of the Game (1968). He also co-starred as an Chief Petty Officer in Ensign O'Toole (1962).
In later years, Flippen was dogged by illness. While filming his sheriff role in the classic comedy western Cat Ballou (1965), he had to have his leg amputated after a minor scrape, probably aggravated by diabetes, turned into a severe infection. He continued his career often in a wheelchair. His latest television roles were on episodes of The Virginian (1962), Here Come the Brides (1968), and Ironside (1967).Born:
March 6, 1899 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
Died:
February 3, 1971 (age 71) in Los Angeles, California, USA
The actor lost a leg to diabetes in the late 60's.
Can be seen in his wheelchair, minus his right leg, in the party scene at Jim Backus' house in the movie Mooch Goes to Hollywood (1971) (TV) , which was filmed shortly before his death. The great character actor is having a good time in his brief cameo, and obviously is beloved by the other guests.- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Victor French was the son of a stuntman. His debut was a small role in Lassie (1954), uncredited. He had his first real acting experiences in western-films, where he usually played the "bad guy" due to his rather gruff look. This changed with Little House on the Prairie (1974), (as Isaiah Edwards). In 1977, he left Little House on the Prairie (1974) to play in his own sitcom Carter Country (1977), which lasted for two seasons. French then teamed up again with Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven (1984), as (Mark Gordon). French, along with Leonard Nimoy, founded LA's "Company of Angels", one of the area's earliest attempts to establish LA as a type of "Off-Broadway-West Coast". Its limited seating arrangement (99 seats) served as the prototype of LA's Equity-Waiver code. After he left the company in the mid 1970s, he went on to teach acting privately. He was well sought-after, and it became apparent that he had to take students on "by referral only". His philosophy and style was gentle and encouraging to young actors just entering the field. He directed in LA Theaters and won the Critics Circle Award for "12 Angry Men." In the 1980s, he declined to play "bad guys." Victor French died 1989 after finishing the last episode of Highway to Heaven (1984).Date of Birth
4 December 1934, Santa Barbara, California, USA
Date of Death
15 June 1989, Los Angeles, California, USA (lung cancer)
Birth Name
Victor Edwin French
Nickname
Uncle Eddie
At his funeral in 1989, his humorous farewell for friends and family was "Eat *beep* Love Victor," a message displayed overhead by an airplane.
Was not diagnosed with lung cancer until May 1989, by which time it was too advanced.
Inducted (as a cast member of "Little House on the Prairie" (1974)) into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1998.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
John Garfield was born Jacob Julius Garfinkle on the Lower East Side of New York City, to Hannah Basia (Margolis) and David Garfinkle, who were Jewish immigrants from Zhytomyr (now in Ukraine). Jules was raised by his father, a clothes presser and part-time cantor, after his mother's death in 1920, when he was 7. He was sent to a special school for problem children, where he was introduced to boxing and drama. He won a scholarship to Maria Ouspenskaya's drama school. He joined the Civic Repertory Theatre in 1932, changing his name to Jules Garfield and making his Broadway debut in that company's Counsellor-at-Law. Joined the Group Theatre company, winning acclaim for his role in Awake and Sing. Embittered over being passed over for the lead in Golden Boy, which was written for him, he signed a contract with Warner Brothers, who changed his name to John Garfield. Won enormous praise for his role of the cynical Mickey Borden in Four Daughters (1938). Appeared in similar roles throughout his career despite his efforts to play varied parts. Children Katherine (1938-1945), David Garfield (1942-1995) and Julie Garfield (1946-). Active in liberal political and social causes, he found himself embroiled in Communist scare of the late 1940s. Though he testified before Congress that he was never a Communist, his ability to get work declined. While separated from his wife, he succumbed to long-term heart problems, dying suddenly in the home of a woman friend at 39. His funeral was mobbed by thousands of fans, in the largest funeral attendance for an actor since Rudolph Valentino.Born:
Jacob Julius Garfinkle
March 4, 1913 in New York City, New York, USA
Died:
May 21, 1952 (age 39) in New York City, New York, USA
Blacklisted during the McCarthy "Red Scare" era in the early 1950s for his left-wing political beliefs, he adamantly refused to "name names" in testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in April 1951. He was found dead of a heart attack in the apartment of a former showgirl, Iris Whitney on May 21, 1952, the day after Clifford Odets, testifying before HUAC, reaffirmed that Garfield had never been a member of the Communist Party. His funeral in New York was mobbed by thousands of fans.
The role of Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954) was originally written for Garfield, however he passed away before the film was made.
In his only TV appearance, Garfield played Joe Bonaparte and Kim Stanley played Lorna Moon in a scene from Clifford Odets' play Golden Boy on the June 3, 1950 episode of Cavalcade of Stars. The role had been written for him by Odets. But when the play was first produced by the Group Theatre in 1938, the powers that be decided Garfield wasn't "ready" to play the role of the young violinist turned boxer. Luther Adler subsequently created the role. Garfield finally played the role on Broadway in 1951 - a few months before his premature death from a heart attack.
Screen acting is my business but I get my kicks from Broadway.
[In September 1947 "Screenland"] England has been praised for turning out intelligent, adult pictures whereas Hollywood has been severely censured for turning out junk. I don't think criticism is a valid one because, in defense of Hollywood, we have censorship problems England doesn't have. I'm not speaking of the license to do sexy stuff. I'm speaking of the license to present adult ideas and viewpoints, which we lack and which means in turn that many of our pictures lack intelligent content.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
The son of singers in the Metropolitan Opera, Billy Gilbert began performing in vaudeville at age 12. He developed a drawn-out, explosive sneezing routine that became his trademark (he was the model for, and voice of, Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)). Gilbert's exquisite comic timing made him the perfect foil for such comedians as Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and he was especially memorable as the dim-witted process server Pettibone in His Girl Friday (1940).Born:
William Gilbert Barron
September 12, 1894 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Died:
September 23, 1971 (age 77) in Hollywood, California, US
Worked often as a character actor in comedy shorts with comics like The Three Stooges, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, as did his contemporary, James C. Morton.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
This old codger film favorite, born in 1869 (some reports say 1875), got into the entertainment field at an early age, first as a circus performer (aerialist and trapeze artist). When acting sparked his interest, he worked in a series of stock companies while writing stage plays that he himself could star in. He married actress Anna Chance around the turn of the century, and they remained a devoted couple until her death 47 years later. They had no children. Charley came into his own in films at the ripe old age of 60 as the ultimate humorous, toothless character in a range of films with rustic settings. Notable movies include The Petrified Forest (1936) with Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart, The Good Earth (1937) with Paul Muni and Luise Rainer, and They Died with Their Boots On (1941) with Errol Flynn. However, his best-remembered parts were as huggable Uncle Henry in the classic The Wizard of Oz (1939), ornery Grandpa Joad, who refused to leave the homestead in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Inspector Queen in the Ellery Queen whodunits that ran from 1940 through 1942, and the amiable ne'er-do-well Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road (1941). A soft, humorous presence who seemed frail around the edges, he was a thorough delight, his folksy presence gracing over 100 films. He died in 1956.Date of Birth
20 December 1869, Xenia, Ohio, USA
Date of Death
2 February 1956, Corona, California, USA (natural causes)
Birth Name
Charles Ellsworth Grapewin
Height
5' 7½" (1.71 m)
Spouse
Anna Chance (1895 - 11 September 1943) (her death)
Trivia
Interred at Forest Lawn (Glendale), Glendale, California, USA, in the Great Mausoleum.
Best known for his portrayal of Dorothy's Uncle Henry in The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Grapewin Street in Corona, California, where he died, is named after him.
Died the same year that his most famous film, "The Wizard of Oz", first came to television, but did not live long enough to see the telecast, which took place in November of 1956.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Andy Griffith is best known for his starring roles in two very popular television series, The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and Matlock (1986). Griffith earned a degree in music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the 1950s, he became a regular on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) and The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956). He was featured in the Broadway play "No Time for Sergeants" (1955) for which he received a Tony nomination, and he later appeared in the film version. His film debut was in the provocative and prophetic A Face in the Crowd (1957), in which Griffith gave a performance that has been described as stunning.
On The Andy Griffith Show (1960), Griffith portrayed a folksy small-town sheriff who shared simple heartfelt wisdom. The series was one of the most popular television series in history. It generated some successful spin-offs, and the original is still seen in reruns to this day. Griffith created his own production company in 1972, which produced several movies and television series. In 1981, he was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal in Murder in Texas (1981). In 1983, Griffith was stricken with Guillain-Barre syndrome, but he recovered after rehabilitation. In 1986, he produced and starred in the very successful television series Matlock (1986). The series spawned numerous television movies as well. When he accepted the People's Choice Award for this series, he said this was his favorite role. Andy Griffith died at age 86 of a heart attack in his home in Dare County, North Carolina on July 3, 2012.Date of Birth
1 June 1926, Mount Airy, North Carolina, USA
Date of Death
3 July 2012, Manteo, North Carolina, USA (heart attack)
Birth Name
Andy Samuel Griffith
Height
6' (1.83 m)
Spouse
Cindi Knight (2 April 1983 - 3 July 2012) (his death)
Solica Casuto (11 June 1975 - 1981) (divorced)
Barbara Griffith (26 August 1949 - 16 October 1972) (divorced) 2 children
Andy Griffith and George Lindsey, his co-star from "The Andy Griffith Show" (1960), both died less than 2 months apart from each other.
He and Don Knotts were best friends from 1955 to Friday, February 24th, 2006, when Don Knotts lost his life.
[on his off-camera relationship with Frances Bavier, who played Aunt Bee] There was just something about me she did not like.
[How he valued Don Knotts as an actor/best friend]: I loved Don. There was no one like him.
I was baptized alongside my mother when I was 8 years old. Since then, I have tried to walk a Christian life, ... And now that I'm getting older, I realized that I'm walking even closer with my God.
I still play that guitar. It's a Martin D-18 with a clear pick guard. I've played that guitar on and off my TV shows for nearly 50 years.
[on being released from Universal Studios - while being typecast as Andy Taylor]: I wanted to prove that I could play something else, but there were 249 episodes out there of 'Mayberry,' and it was aired every day. It was hard to escape.- Actor
- Writer
Best remembered for his raunchy humor, Robin Harris became famous in supporting roles in movies such as Do The Right Thing as Sweet Dick Willie and House Party. He has left a legacy that fans and actors will truly miss due to his career which was cut by a massive heart attack at the age of 36. Spike Lee dedicated Mo'Better Blues to Harris after his untimely death.Date of Birth
30 August 1953, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date of Death
18 March 1990, Chicago, Illinois, USA (heart attack)
Birth Name
Robin Hughes Harris
Spouse
Exetta (? - 18 March 1990) (his death) 1 child
Stand-up comic turned actor.
Best known for his recurring comic sketch about Bebe's Kids.
The Hudlin Brothers had intended to make a feature film based upon the "Bebe's Kids" sketches, but Harris passed away while the film was in preproduction.- Arthur Kennedy, one of the premier character actors in American film from the late 1940s through the early 1960s, achieved fame in the role of Biff in Elia Kazan's historic production of Arthur Miller's Pultizer-Prize winning play "Death of a Salesman." Although he was not selected to recreate the role on screen, he won one Best Actor and four Best Supporting Academy Award nominations between 1949 and 1959 and ranked as one of Hollywood's finest players.
Born John Arthur Kennedy to a dentist and his wife on February 17, 1914 in Worcester, Massachusetts. As a young man, known as "Johnny" to his friends, studied drama at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. By the time he was 20 years old, he was involved in local theatrical groups. Kennedy's first professional gig was was with the Globe Theatre Company, which toured the Midwest offering abbreviated versions of Shakespearian plays. Shakesperian star Maurice Evans hired Kennedy for his company, with which he appeared in the Broadway production of "Richard II" in 1937. While performing in Evans' repertory company, Kennedy also worked in the Federal Theatre project.
Arthur Kennedy made his Broadway debut in "Everywhere I Roam" in 1938, the same year that he married Mary Cheffrey, who would remain his wife until her death in 1975. He also appeared on Broadway in "Life and Death of an American" in 1939 and in "An International Incident" in 1940 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, in support of the great American actress the theater had been named after.
Kennedy and his wife moved west to Los Angeles, California in 1938, and it was while acting on the stage in L.A. that he was discovered by fellow actor James Cagney, who cast him as his brother in the film City for Conquest (1940). The role brought with it a contract with Warner Bros., and the studio put him in supporting roles in some prestigious movies, including High Sierra (1940), the film that made Humphrey Bogart a star, They Died with Their Boots On (1941) with Errol Flynn, and Howard Hawks's Air Force (1943) alongside future Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Gig Young and the great John Garfield. His career was interrupted by military service in World War Two.
After the war, Kennedy went back to the Broadway stage, where he gained a reputation as an actor's actor, appearing in Arthur Miller's 1947 Tony Award-winning play "All My Sons," which was directed by Kazan. He played John Proctor in the original production of Miller's reflection on McCarthyism, "The Crucible" - which Kazan, an informer who prostrated himself before the forces of McCarthyism, refused to direct - and also appeared in Miller's last Broadway triumph, "The Price."
When Kennedy returned to film work, he quickly distinguished himself as one of the best and most talented of supporting actors & character leads, appearing in such major films as Boomerang! (1947), Champion (1949) (for which he received his first Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor) and The Glass Menagerie (1950), playing Tom in a mediocre adaptation of Tennessee Williams's classic play. Kennedy won his first and only Best Actor nomination for Bright Victory (1951), playing a blinded vet, a role for which he won the New York Film Critics Circle award over such competition as Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart. Other films included Fritz Lang's 'Rancho Notorious (1951)', Anthony Mann's Bend of the River (1952), William Wyler's The Desperate Hours (1955), Richard Brooks' Elmer Gantry (1960), David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (1964).
In 1956, Kennedy won another Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Trial (1955), plus two more Supporting nods in 1958 and 1959 for his appearances in the screen adaptations of Grace Metalious's Peyton Place (1957), and James Jones Some Came Running (1958).
Kennedy returned to Broadway frequently in the 1950s, and headlined the 1952 play "See the Jaguar", a flop best remembered for giving a young actor named James Dean one of his first important parts. A decade later, Kennedy replaced his good friend Anthony Quinn in the Broadway production of "Becket", alternating the roles of Becket and Henry II with Laurence Olivier, who was quite fond of working with him. In the 1960s, the prestigious movie parts dried up as he matured, but he continued working in movies and on TV until he retired in the mid-1980s. He moved out of Los Angeles to live with family members in Connecticut. In the last years of his life, he was afflicted with thyroid cancer and eye disease. He died of a brain tumor at 75, survived by his two children by his wife Mary, Terence and actress Laurie Kennedy. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Lequille, Nova Scotia, Canada.Date of Birth
17 February 1914, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
Date of Death
5 January 1990, Branford, Connecticut, USA (brain tumor)
Birth Name
John Arthur Kennedy
Nickname
Johnny
Height
5' 10" (1.78 m)
Spouse
Mary Cheffrey (1938 - 1975) (her death) 2 children - Jesse Aragon was born on 21 March 1956 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Sledge Hammer! (1986), The Under Achievers (1987) and Cold Steel (1987). He was married to Dijon Pincay. He died on 8 November 1988 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Date of Birth
21 March 1956, Los Angeles, California, USA
Date of Death
8 November 1988, Los Angeles, California, USA (road accident) - Actor
- Soundtrack
Jason Bernard was born on 17 May 1938 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Liar Liar (1997), WarGames (1983) and While You Were Sleeping (1995). He was married to Carol Joy Pacanda and Debra Jean Wilson. He died on 16 October 1996 in Burbank, California, USA.Date of Birth
17 May 1938, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date of Death
16 October 1996, Burbank, California, USA (heart attack)
Height
6' 2" (1.88 m)
Spouse:
Debra
(? - 16 October 1996) (his death) (3 children)
Suffered a fatal heart attack while driving his car in Hollywood and was involved in a rear-end accident. He died about an hour later at Providence St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank.
Died shortly after he was nominated for a Cable Ace award for his work in the tele-movie Sophie & the Moonhanger (1996), which aired on the Lifetime network.
Had just finished a support role opposite comedian Jim Carrey in Liar Liar (1997) at the time of his death. The movie was dedicated to his memory.- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of the hard-working, unappreciated African-American actors of Hollywood's "Golden Era" who produced good work with what he was given. He starred alongside some of film's great comedians including the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, Laurel and Hardy and three films with Shirley Temple. Best is sometimes confused with William "Pat" Best, a musician and writer of (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons.. After a drug arrest ended his film career, he worked in television for a while before retiring to obscurity. He passed away at the Motion Picture Country Home and is buried in North Hollywood, California.
Best was one of the victims of the racist attitudes of the era, never given the opportunity to fully flex his comedic muscle beyond the stereotyped porter and janitor roles that dominated his career. Sadly he was also a victim of backlash for these same roles during the Civil Rights movement and it is hard to watch many of his films without cringing, despite his ability.Date of Birth
27 May 1913, Sunflower, Mississippi, USA
Date of Death
27 February 1962, Hollywood, California, USA (cancer)
Nickname
Sleep 'n' Eat
Height
6' (1.83 m)- Stanley Blystone was born on 1 August 1894 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA. He was an actor, known for Modern Times (1936), Eyes of Texas (1948) and Code of the Mounted (1935). He was married to Alma Tell and Claire Siebrecht. He died on 16 July 1956 in Hollywood, California, USA.Birth Name
William Stanley Blystone
Date of Birth
1 August 1894, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA
Date of Death
16 July 1956, Hollywood, California, USA (heart attack)
Best known for being a 3 Stooges foil in many of their comedy shorts. - Campbell was born in Australia, and spent most of his career in Canada. He performed for several seasons at the Stratford Festival, and spent his last few years playing Thernardier in Les Miserables at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre and in theatres across Canada. He also provided the voiceover for 1980s and 1990s Phantom of the Opera television advertisements.Date of Birth
30 November 1940 , Australia
Date of Death
18 January 1992 , Toronto, Ontario, Canada (cancer) - Actor
- Director
- Composer
Tall, versatile, brown-haired (now balding) supporting actor, John Clive has been in a number of famous movies throughout his career. His first film was Smashing Time (1967), which was followed by a role in The Beatles' movie, Yellow Submarine (1968), when he was called upon to dub John Lennon's voice. Appearing in the The Italian Job (1969) was also something of an achievement for this versatile actor. He appeared the controversial but landmark A Clockwork Orange (1971), two years later. For "Carry On..." fans he is best remembered for playing the first openly gay character in the series. The character,"Robin", goes on holiday with his partner "Nicholas" in Carry on Abroad (1972), but unfortunately the characters fall out in the film and Robin is left on his own at the end of the holiday. Another good performance in Carry on Dick (1974) followed.
John is not seen in film so much anymore, but he remains a successful performer in many stage productions and is also a successful author. He shares his free time between two properties in London and Spain.Date of Birth
6 January 1938, London, England, UK
Date of Death
15 October 2012- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jerome Cowan was one of Hollywood's most prolific and instantly recognizable character actors. His trademark pencil-thin mustache and slicked back hair, immaculate suits and sophisticated manner were his stock-in-trade for impersonating an assortment of rejected husbands, shifty politicians, lawyers and shady detectives. He also excelled at delivering snappy repartee and witty or barbed one-liners which were typical of the gritty Warner Brothers films of the 1930's and 40's.
Straight out of high school, Jerome began to work his way up through stock companies and burlesque, making his debut on Broadway in the 1923 comedy 'We've Got to Have Money'. On the strength of his most successful stage performance in 'Boy Meets Girl' (1935-37), he was contracted by producer Samuel Goldwyn to appear in Beloved Enemy (1936) as an Irish patriot. Several films later, he found his niche as the dapper sophisticate with attitude, in films like There's Always a Woman (1938), as Nick Shane, Torrid Zone (1940), Crime by Night (1944) - a rare leading role as private eye Sam Campbell; and Mr. Skeffington (1944), as Bette Davis's ex. He was the short-lived partner, Miles Archer, to Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941), a nervous informer in Riffraff (1947) and the district attorney who fails to indict Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Add to that several well-acted gangsters (Frisco Lil (1942), Fog Island (1945), Deadline for Murder (1946), to mention a few) and some unexpected comedy, particularly as Dagwood's boss George Radcliffe in the Blondie (1957) series. In the 1950's and 1960's, Cowan adapted perfectly to the medium of television and became a regular on several shows, alternating drama with comedy, from Perry Mason (1957)to The Munsters (1964). He gave a short, but poignant performance opposite Ida Lupino in 'The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine', a 1959 episode of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone (1959), as an unrecognizable aged former matinee idol.Date of Birth
6 October 1897, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
24 January 1972, Encino, California, USA (natural causes)
Birth Name
Jerome Palmer Cowan
Height
6' (1.83 m)
Spouse
Helen Dodge (1930 - 24 January 1972) (his death) 2 children
Trade Mark
Pencil-thin moustache and slicked back ha- Actor
- Soundtrack
Although he attended West Point, James Flavin decided on an acting career instead of the military. After touring with several stock and repertory companies, he arrived in Hollywood and broke into films in the early 1930s. A fast-talking, granite-jawed Irishman, Flavin appeared in hundreds of films during his career and was often cast as a big-city homicide detective, street cop, prison guard or Marine sergeant. One of Flavin's closest friends, oddly enough, was legendary cheapo producer Sam Katzman. Flavin was married for more than 40 years to actress Lucile Browne; he died in 1976, and she died two weeks after he did.Date of Birth
14 May 1906, Portland, Maine, USA
Date of Death
23 April 1976, Los Angeles, California, USA (ruptured aorta)
Birth Name
James William Flavin Jr.
Height
6' 1" (1.85 m)
Spouse
Lucile Browne (1932 - 23 April 1976) (his death) 1 child- Actor
- Writer
Big, burly character actor, one of the toughest of screen heavies. New York-born Leo Gordon's combination of a powerful physique, deep, menacing voice and icy, withering glare was guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of even the bravest screen hero. Director Don Siegel, who used Gordon in his prison film Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), once said that "Leo Gordon was the scariest man I have ever met"--this coming from a man who had directed John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Bette Midler! Siegel wasn't talking about just Gordon's screen presence. As a "heavy", Gordon was the real deal--before becoming an actor (he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts), Gordon served five years in San Quentin State Prison for armed robbery (during which he was shot several times point-blank by police--and survived). "Riot in Cell Block 11" was filmed at Folsom State Prison--where Gordon also served time--and the Folsom warden remembered him as a troublemaker.At first he refused to allow the film to be shot there if Gordon was to be in it, but Siegel was able to convince him that Gordon was no threat to the prison.
Contrary to his image, though, Gordon was not just a one-note villain. He did play sympathetic parts on occasion, notably in the western Black Patch (1957)--which he also wrote--and in Roger Corman's civil rights drama The Intruder (1962), and turned in first-rate performances, especially in the latter film. Gordon was also a screenwriter, turning out several screenplays for Corman. He wasn't just limited to writing low-budget sci-fi films, either; he penned the screenplay for the WWII epic Tobruk (1967), writing in a meaty part for himself as Kruger, a tough sergeant in a platoon of German Jews masquerading as Nazi soldiers to help blow up a German oil storage facility.
Leo Gordon died in Los Angeles, CA, in 2000 at age 78 of heart failure.Date of Birth
2 December 1922, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
26 December 2000, Los Angeles, California, USA (cardiac failure)
Birth Name
Leo Vincent Gordon
Height
6' 2" (1.88 m)
Spouse
Lynn Cartwright (14 February 1950 - 26 December 2000) (his death) 1 child- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Roberto 'Flaco' Guzmán was born on 9 November 1936 in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. He was an actor and writer, known for El valle de los miserables (1975), Cacería humana (1987) and Jóvenes delincuentes (1991). He died on 9 August 2002 in Mexico City, Mexico.Born:
November 9, 1936 in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico
Died:
August 9, 2002 (age 65) in Mexico City, Mexico
aka Roberto 'Flaco' Guzman- Paul Harvey was born on 10 September 1882 in Sandwich, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Spellbound (1945), Calamity Jane (1953) and Algiers (1938). He was married to Merle Stanton and Ottye Henrietta Cramer (actress). He died on 15 December 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Date of Birth
10 September 1882, Sandwich, Illinois, USA
Date of Death
5 December 1955, Los Angeles, California, USA (coronary thrombosis)
Birth Name
Roy Paul Harvey
Height
6' 2" (1.88 m)
Spouse
Merle Stanton (? - ?)
Ottye ? (? - ?)
Trivia
Stocky supporting actor who appeared in comedy on stage in 'The Awful Truth' and 'Dinner at Eight'. Came to films in his forties and tended to play supportive dads, nervous corporate types or priests (notably, Reverend Galsworthy in 'Father of the Bride' and 'Father's Little Dividend'). - An American character actor who specialized in "average joes", often timid or down-on-their-luck, Louis Jean Heydt was born in Montclair, New Jersey, and educated at Worcester Academy and Dartmouth College. He intended a career in journalism and worked as a reporter for the old New York World, but developed an interest in acting and landed a number of roles on the New York stage (active there from 1927-48). In the mid-'30s he traveled to Hollywood and quickly established himself as a reliable supporting player. He played dozens of roles in many fine films including Gone with the Wind (1939), They Were Expendable (1945) and The Big Sleep (1946), and although his face is exceptionally familiar to viewers of that period's films, his name never quite broke through. He remained a pleasant presence in scores of films of the 1940s and 1950s while continuing to work on the stage and on television. He died backstage at the Colonial Theatre in Boston during an out-of-town try-out performance of the play "There Was a Little Girl" in 1960.Born:
April 17, 1903 in Montclair, New Jersey, USA
Died:
January 29, 1960 (age 56) in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Collapsed and died of a heart attack after appearing in the first scene of "There Was a Little Girl," in which he had played opposite actress Jane Fonda. - Cruz Infante was born in 1949 in Mexico City, Mexico. He was an actor, known for Policía judicial federal (1987), Allá en el rancho de las flores (1983) and El sinaloense (1985). He died on 11 May 1987 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.Date of Birth
1949, Mexico City, Mexico
Date of Death
11 May 1987, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico (car crash)
Birth Name
Cruz Infante Torrentera - Pedro Infante Jr. was born on 31 March 1950 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor, known for La muerte del soplon (1978), La noche del Ku-Klux-Klan (1980) and Noche de justicia (1987). He died on 1 April 2009 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Born:
Pedro Infante Torrentera
March 31, 1950 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico
Died:
April 1, 2009 (age 59) in Los Angeles, California, USA (pneumonia)
Trivia
Son of legendary Mexican actor Pedro Infante and dancer Lupita Torrentera.
Passed away a day after celebrating his 59th birthday. - Actor
- Producer
Keith Knight was born on 20 January 1956 in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor and producer, known for My Bloody Valentine (1981), Meatballs (1979) and The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland (1987). He was married to Jennifer McCullough. He died on 22 August 2007 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Date of Birth
20 January 1956, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada
Date of Death
22 August 2007, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (brain cancer)
Spouse :
Jennifer McCullough
(? - 22 August 2007) (his death)
He appeared in more than 160 TV commercials.
He appeared at the Shaw Festival (Ontario), and was working in summer stock when he was signed for his first movie role in "Meatballs". During the filming of a hot-dog-eating contest in that movie, he ate more than 100 hot dogs.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gus Leonard was born on 4 February 1859 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was an actor, known for Wurra-Wurra (1916), Her Reputation (1923) and The Girl I Loved (1923). He died on 27 March 1939 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Date of Birth
4 February 1859, Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France
Date of Death
27 March 1939, Los Angeles, California, USA
Birth Name
Amédée Théodore Gaston Lerond
Trivia
French-born actor, who began on the stage in San Francisco while still a child in the 1860s. In later years, specialised in a drunken waiter act in vaudeville and, finding comedy his forte, entered films in 1915. Was often cast in multiple parts in the same film and thus rarely seen without heavy make-up or disguise.- Producer
- Additional Crew
Dan Gordon-Levitt was born on 27 July 1974 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a producer, known for Moon Shot (1994), Nova (1974) and Einstein Revealed (1996). He died on 4 October 2010 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Date of Birth
27 July 1974, Los Angeles, California, USA
Date of Death
4 October 2010, Los Angeles, California, USA,
Birth Name
Daniel Douglas Gordon Levitt
Nickname
Dan
Height
5' 10" (1.78 m)
Trade Mark
White Guy From Our Internet- Born in Armagh, Northern Ireland, Patrick Magee is a classic example of how certain actors rate the stage far more highly than the screen. He was a favorite actor of Samuel Beckett, one of whose greatest plays, 'Krapp's Last Tape', was written specifically for him. He did outstanding work on film, most notably in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) as the crippled writer Mr. Alexander, and in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975), as the chevalier. He also appeared in Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963), Peter Brook's Marat/Sade (1967) and William Friedkin's The Birthday Party (1968). He also appeared in films by such cult directors as Roger Corman, Lucio Fulci and Walerian Borowczyk.Date of Birth
31 March 1922, Armagh, Northern Ireland, UK
Date of Death
14 August 1982, Fulham, London, England, UK (heart attack)
Birth Name
Patrick Joseph Gerard Magee
Magee had a reputation as a heavy drinker, which may have caused his premature death from a heart attack at 60. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Best known for his work in slapstick comedy and detective whodunits, character actor Donald MacBride lent his serious, craggy mug and determined professionalism to scores of 30s and 40s crimers. Born in Brooklyn, he first appeared on the vaudeville and Broadway stages as a teenage singer in such shows as "George White's Scandals" and "Room Service." Taking a chance on Hollywood, he appeared in a few silents, then returned full time to films again in the 30s with a variety of interesting parts in over 100 comedies and dramas. These included the movie version of Room Service (1938) with the Marx Brothers, the flustered hotel manager in My Favorite Wife (1940), an ex-con and ringleader in High Sierra (1940) and an Irish politico in The Dark Horse (1946). However, his real prowess was playing by-the-book police inspectors and, while looking slightly less capable when at odds with a Charlie Chan, a Michael Shayne, or the Saint, he came off much more capable on his own in tracking down such hardened criminals as The Creeper. In the 50s he turned to TV as well, until his death in 1957.Date of Birth
23 June 1889, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Date of Death
21 June 1957, Los Angeles, California, USA
Birth Name
Donald Hugh MacBride
Spouse
Esther ? (? - ?)
Trivia
His last film was The Seven Year Itch (1955).
According to a January 1909 Victor Records catalog, boy soprano Donald Hugh MacBride is pictured with an announcement of his first 78 release.- Dark-haired, rugged-looking Stephen McNally forsook a thriving career as an attorney in the late 1930s in order to pursue an acting career. This impulsive decision to switch gears in mid-life was rewarded in the end, playing a steady stream of hard-edged, noirish characters and more than his share of cold-hearted villains and thugs for nearly four decades.
Born Horace Vincent McNally on July 29, 1911 in New York City of Irish descent, he attended Fordham University Law School. Like fellow Irish-American performers J. Farrell MacDonald, Pat O'Brien, and Dennis Day, McNally's voice often carried at least the trace of an innate, rather than acquired, working-class/transatlantic Irish accent. He practiced law until the late 1930s when the acting bug finally hit hard. Beginning on the stage, Horace made his Broadway debut in a bit part as a waiter in "The Man Who Killed Lincoln" (1940). This was immediately followed by more prominent roles in the plays "Johnny Belinda" (1940) and "The Wookey" (1941).
MGM took an interest in the nascent actor during the war-era years. Continuing to use his real name of Horace McNally, he appeared in a series of film shorts while moving gradually up the credits ranks with featured roles in such full-length films as Grand Central Murder (1942), The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942), Eyes in the Night (1942), For Me and My Gal (1942), Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant (1942), the Tracy/Hepburn drama Keeper of the Flame (1942), the Laurel & Hardy comedy Air Raid Wardens (1943), The Man from Down Under (1943), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), An American Romance (1944), and Bewitched (1945).
By 1948, the actor was freelancing and made a strong impression in the Warner Bros. movie version of the Canadian-set Johnny Belinda (1948), playing menacing brute "Locky McCormick", a fisherman who sexually assaults deaf mute Belinda played by Jane Wyman (who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance), who bears his child. This was a far different role than the doctor part he played years earlier on Broadway. With this movie, Horace also changed his marquee name to Stephen McNally, taking the first name of his then-2-year-old son.
Alternating between anti-heroes and villains, Stephen is best recalled for his sturdy niche of "bad guy" roles. He played a Nazi war criminal pursued by Army agent Dick Powell in the action adventure Rogues' Regiment (1948); a casino owner who prods Barbara Stanwyck's gambling habit in The Lady Gambles (1949); a foreign terrorist in the historical action pic Sword in the Desert (1949); Ida Lupino's murderous husband in Woman in Hiding (1950); a rifle-stealing bully in the James Stewart western Winchester '73 (1950); a gambler who uses his hot-headed brother Jeff Chandler for prizefighting profit in Iron Man (1951); a murderous Austrian count in the swashbuckler The Black Castle (1952); an escaped killer on the lam in Split Second (1953); a paroled gangster out to exact revenge on Dorothy McGuire and her daughter in Make Haste to Live (1954); a bank robber in Violent Saturday (1955); an avenging ranch hand in Tribute to a Bad Man (1956); and a wanted member of the James gang in the western Hell's Crossroads (1957).
In his first top-billed role, McNally starred as a decent guy who runs a youth center in an effort to save kids from a life of crime in the dramatic film City Across the River (1949). Other "good guy" leads and second leads came with such parts as Sidney Poitier's doctor boss in No Way Out (1950); a government agent in Wyoming Mail (1950); an exiled town gambler who returns to warn and assist his town pending an Indian attack in Apache Drums (1951); another casino owner who tries to help and falls for weak-willed teacher/gambler Linda Darnell in the romantic film The Lady Pays Off (1951); a marshal after a gang of claim jumpers in the Audie Murphy western The Duel at Silver Creek (1952); a sheriff battling Indians in The Stand at Apache River (1953); and a plant engineer whose family his threatened by disgruntled ex-employee Vic Morrow in Hell's Five Hours (1958).
McNally made a notably adjustment to TV in the late 1950's with such anthologies as "Lux Video Theatre," "Goodyear Playhouse," "Schlitz Playhouse," "Ford Theatre Playhouse," "Zane Grey Theatre" and "Climax!" Into the 1960's he was frequent guest on a number of popular rugged westerns and suspense series including "Wagon Train," "The Texan," "Laramie", "Rawhide", "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", "The Outer Limits", "Burke's Law", "Ben Casey", "The Big Valley", "Gunsmoke", "Branded", and "Iron Horse." He starred in the short-lived drama series Target: The Corruptors (1961) as a news reporter and earned a brief, recurring part on Run for Your Life (1965). He went on to be seen in such 1970s TV series as "Mission: Impossible", "The Rockford Files", "Medical Story", "Policy Story", "Police Woman", "The F.B.I.", "Starsky & Hutch", and "Charlie's Angels", he was spotted on a 1980s episode of "Fantasy Island" before retiring.
Long married to Rita Wintrich, with whom he had eight children, McNally was a one-time president of the Catholic Actors Guild. He died of heart failure on June 4, 1994, at age 82, at his Beverly Hills home.Date of Birth
29 July 1913, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
4 June 1994, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA (heart failure)
Birth Name
Horace Vincent McNally
Nickname
Steve
Height
5' 11½" (1.82 m) - Victor Millan was born on 1 August 1920 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Touch of Evil (1958), Giant (1956) and Scarface (1983). He died on 3 April 2009 in Santa Monica, California, USA.Date of Birth
1 August 1920, California, USA
Date of Death
3 April 2009, Santa Monica, California, USA (complications of age) - Writer
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Jeff Pollack was born on 15 November 1959 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Above the Rim (1994), The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990) and Monster (2003). He was married to Solange White Pollack. He died on 23 December 2013 in Hermosa Beach, California, USA.Born:
1959 in USA
Died:
December 23, 2013 (age 54) in Hermosa Beach, California, USA- Ralph Reed "Freeto", worked as an actor from 1938 to 1965. Attended UCLA in 1953. Korean War Veteran, discharged in 1955. He was best known for playing Billy Clanton in five episodes of the Life and Legand of Wyatt Earp. Moved to Orange County, California in 1962 and had been in Real Estate for the past 35 years. Burial at El Toro Memorial Park, El Toro, California.Date of Birth
12 August 1931, Wichita, Kansas, USA
Date of Death
21 January 1997, Orange County, California, USA
Birth Name
Ralph Reed Freeto - Actor
- Additional Crew
Joey Rourke was born on 25 June 1954. He was an actor, known for Wild Orchid (1989), Bullet (1996) and The Last Outlaw (1993). He died on 16 October 2004.Date of Birth
25 June 1954
Date of Death
16 October 2004, (lung cancer)- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Joe Sawyer's familiar mug appeared everywhere during the 1930s and 1940s, particularly as a stock player for Warner Bros. in its more standard college musicals, comedies and crime yarns. He could play both sides of the fence, street cops and mob gunmen, with equal ease. He was born Joseph Sauers in Guelph, Canada, on August 29, 1906, and eventually moved to California to pursue a film career. Trained at the Pasadena Playhouse, he had a perfect "tough guy" look: sturdy build, jutting chin and beady eyes, made more distinctive by his shock of light hair and a slightly high-pitched voice. Sawyer made his film debut in 1931 under his real name, which, contrary to popular opinion, was German and not Irish, though he made a career out of playing Irishmen, and appeared mostly in strongarm bit parts in his early career until hitting his stride playing a variety of coaches, cops and sidekicks with imposing names like "Spud," "Slug" and "Whitey." He appeared in hundreds of films, in just about every genre, over a four-decade-long career, among them College Humor (1933), College Rhythm (1934), The Westerner (1934), The Informer (1935), in which his portrayal of an IRA gunman got him noticed by the public and critics alike, Pride of the Marines (1936), Black Legion (1937), The Petrified Forest (1936) (another "tough-guy" role that got him good reviews), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), They Died with Their Boots On (1941), Sergeant York (1941), Tarzan's Desert Mystery (1943), Gilda (1946), It Came from Outer Space (1953), North to Alaska (1960) and How the West Was Won (1962). He also guest-starred on many TV series and was a regular on The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1954) as Sgt. Aloysius "Biff" O'Hara. His first wife was actress Jeane Wood, the daughter of Gone with the Wind (1939) uncredited director Sam Wood. His second wife, June, died in 1960. Sawyer died in Ashland, Oregon, on April 21, 1982 of liver cancer at the age of 75.Date of Birth
29 August 1906, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Date of Death
21 April 1982, Ashland, Oregon, USA (liver cancer)
Birth Name
Joseph Sauers
Jeane Wood (? - ?) (divorced)
June (? - 1960) (her death)
Although he looked Irish, often played Irish characters and had an "Irish" stage name, his real name was Joseph Sauers and his ancestry was German.- Robert Strange was born on 26 November 1881 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for High Sierra (1940), Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) and Special Agent (1935). He was married to Diantha Pattison and Florence Stockwell. He died on 22 February 1952 in Hollywood, California, USA.Born:
November 26, 1881 in New York City, New York, USA
Died:
February 22, 1952 (age 70) in Hollywood, California, USA
Played almost the same character in two different but similar films: They Made Me A Criminal(1939) and High Sierra(1941). - Actress
- Soundtrack
One is certainly hard-pressed to think of another true "bad girl" representative so closely identifiable with film noir than hard-looking blonde actress Audrey Totter. While she remained a "B"-tier actress for most her career, she was an "A" quality actress and one of filmdom's most intriguing ladies. She always managed to set herself apart even in the most standard of programming.
Born to an Austrian father and Swedish mother on December 20, 1917, in Joliet, Illinois, she treaded lightly on stage ("The Copperhead," "My Sister Eileen") and initially earned notice on the Chicago and New York radio airwaves in the late 1930s before "going Hollywood." MGM developed an interest in her and put her on its payroll in 1944. Still appearing on radio (including the sitcom "Meet Millie"), she made her film bow as, of course, a "bad girl" in Main Street After Dark (1945). That same year the studio usurped her vocal talents to torment poor Phyllis Thaxter in Bewitched (1945). Her voice was prominent again as an unseen phone operator in Ziegfeld Follies (1945). Audrey played one of her rare pure-heart roles in The Cockeyed Miracle (1946). At this point she began to establish herself in the exciting "film noir" market.
Among the certified classics she participated in were The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) in which she had a small role as John Garfield's blonde floozie pick-up. Things brightened up considerably with Lady in the Lake (1946) co-starring Robert Montgomery as detective Philip Marlowe. The film was not well received and is now better remembered for its interesting subjective camera technique. Audrey's first hit as a femme fatale co-star came on loanout to Warner Bros. In The Unsuspected (1947), she cemented her dubious reputation in "B" noir as a trampy, gold-digging niece married to alcoholic Hurd Hatfield. She then went on a truly enviable roll with High Wall (1947), as a psychiatrist to patient Robert Taylor, The Saxon Charm (1948) with Montgomery (again) and Susan Hayward, Alias Nick Beal (1949) as a loosely-moraled "Girl Friday" to Ray Milland, the boxing film The Set-Up (1949) as the beleaguered wife of washed-up boxer Robert Ryan, Any Number Can Play (1949) with Clark Gable and as a two-timing spouse in Tension (1949) with Richard Basehart.
Although the studio groomed Audrey to become a top star, it was not to be. Perhaps because she was too good at being bad. The 1950s film scene softened considerably and MGM began focusing on family-styled comedy and drama. Audrey's tough-talking dames were no longer a commodity and MGM soon dropped her in 1951. She signed for a time with Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox as well but her era had come and gone. Film offers began to evaporate. At around this time she married Leo Fred, a doctor, and instead began focusing on marriage and family.
TV gave her career a slight boost in the 1960s and 1970s, including regular roles in Cimarron City (1958) and Our Man Higgins (1962) as a suburban mom opposite Stanley Holloway's British butler. After a period of semi-retirement, she came back to TV to replace Jayne Meadows in the popular television series Medical Center (1969) starring Chad Everett and James Daly. She played Nurse Wilcox, a recurring role, for four seasons (1972-1976). The 70-year-old Totter retired after a 1987 guest role on "Murder, She Wrote." Her husband died in 1996. On December 12, 2013, Audrey Totter died at age 95 in West Hills, California.Date of Birth
20 December 1918 , Joliet, Illinois, USA
Date of Death
12 December 2013 , Woodland Hills, California, USA (congestive heart failure)
Spouse:
Fred, Leo (1953 - 1995) (his death) (1 child)
Trade Mark:
Often portrayed jilted lovers, bad girls, unfaithful wives, and women with a past- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Tubby 5' 10 1/2" character actor Bruno VeSota had a remarkably long, varied and impressive career acting and directing in the mediums of stage, radio, movies and television. He was born Bruno William VeSota on March 25th, 1922 in Chicago, Illinois. He was the second of three sons born to Lithuanian immigrants Kasmir and Eleanora VeSota. Bruno first began acting in the 7th grade while attending the Catholic parochial school St. George's. He made his stage debut as the villain in the children's play "Christopher's Orphans." At age 19 VeSota went to the Hobart Theatre in Chicago where he learned the basics on acting, make-up and direction. He made his stage directorial debut with a production of "Richard III" and went on to direct everything from the classics to light comedies. After briefly working in Lithuanian radio in the 40s Vesota did a longer stint on English-language radio. He even provided the voice of Winston Churchill for a radio production. Moreover, Bruno joined the Actors Company of Chicago and continued to perform on stage. VeSota then worked in live television in Chicago in 1945. He directed over 2,000 live TV programs and acted in some 200 more. VeSota moved to Hollywood, California in 1952. Bruno began acting in films in 1953. He achieved his greatest cult feature popularity with his frequent and delightful appearances in a bunch of hugely enjoyable low-budget Roger Corman exploitation pictures. Bruno was especially excellent as Yvette Vickers' angry cuckolded husband in the Grade B monster classic "Attack of the Giant Leeches." Other notable movie roles include a disgusting slob junkyard owner who sells stolen automobile parts on the side in "The Choppers," a bartender in "The Haunted Palace," a hapless night watchman who becomes a victim of "The Wasp Woman," a snobby coffeehouse regular in the hilarious black comedy gem "A Bucket of Blood," a perverse oddball named Mr. Donald Duck from Duluth in "Single Room Unfurnished," a nervous innkeeper in "The Undead," a Russian spy in "War of the Satellites," a minister in "Hell's Angels on Wheels," a cultured gangster in "Daddy-O," and a brutish loan enforcer in "Carnival Rock." Bruno narrated the atrocious cheapie clunker "Curse of the Stoned Hand" for notorious schlockmeister Jerry Warren. He also worked on the make-up and has a bit part in Curtis Harrington's nicely spooky "Night Tide." VeSota does a cameo in Steven Spielberg's made-for-TV fright feature "Something Evil." Bruno directed three movies: the entertainingly lurid crime potboiler "The Female Jungle," the fun alien invasion entry "The Brain Eaters," and the silly spoof "Invasion of the Star Creatures." VeSota had a recurring role as a bartender in a handful of episodes of the hit Western TV show "Bonanza." Among the TV shows VeSota had guest spots on are "Kojak," "McMillan and Wife," "Hogan's Heroes," "Mission: Impossible," "It Takes A Thief," "Hondo," "Branded," "My Mother the Car," "The Wild, Wild West," "The Untouchables," and "Leave It to Beaver." VeSota had six children with his wife Genevieve. Bruno VeSota died of a heart attack at age 54 on September 24th, 1976.Date of Birth
25 March 1922, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date of Death
24 September 1976, Culver City, Los Angeles, California, USA (heart attack)
Birth Name
Bruno William VeSota
Height
5' 10½" (1.79 m)- Writer
- Additional Crew
Ned Vizzini was born on 4 April 1981 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010), Last Resort (2012) and Teen Wolf (2011). He was married to Sabra Embury. He died on 19 December 2013 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA.Year of Birth:
1981
Date of Death:
20 December 2013 (suicide)
A native New Yorker, he first rose to fame with stories based on his experiences at Stuyvesant High School. His first book, “Teen Angst? Naaah…: A Quasi-Autobiography,” was published when he was 19. His novel “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” was adapted into a 2010 film starring Zach Galifianakis.- Sullivan Walker was born on 20 November 1946 in Success Village, Laventille, Trinidad and Tobago. He was an actor, known for The Firm (1993), Crocodile Dundee (1986) and Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005). He was married to Carol Mark-Walker. He died on 20 February 2012 in California, USA.Date of Birth
20 November 1946, Success Village, Laventille, Trinidad and Tobago
Date of Death
20 February 2012, California, USA (heart attack) - Actor
- Soundtrack
Rough-and-tumble American actor Dick Wessel had a fierce-looking scowl on a bulldog of a mug. That, coupled with a thick build and imposing stance, earned him appearances in countless Warner Bros. comedies and hard-boiled crime dramas throughout the late 1930s and 1940s. Although he made hundreds of films, he had few chances to show off, appearing uncredited in over half of them and in minor, fleeting roles when he did receive billing. He had roles in such "A" pictures as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and Strangers on a Train (1951), but his visibility in them was practically nil.
Born Richard M. Wessel in Wisconsin in 1913, the husky-framed character began his career on stage before starting in films in the mid-'30s. Getting unbilled extra roles at first, he appeared on both sides of the moral fence over the years, playing as many brutish gangsters, henchmen and convicts as he did rough-hewn cops or streetwise characters (cabbies, mailmen, bartenders, boxers, etc.) The tough-sounding names of his characters, such as "Monk," "Beans," "Moxie" and "Chopper Kane", pretty much said it all. His best showcase--and it should have worked out better for him--was menacing, bald-pated arch-villain Harry "Cueball" Lake in Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946). Here he was finally given a chance to shine but it did not lead to meatier roles.
He became a stock player for Columbia and their assembly-line of short comedy subjects, essaying a slew of burglars, thieves, wrestlers, circus strongmen and lummox husbands for The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde and others. On TV he was a rugged presence on such western series as Gunsmoke (1955), Laramie (1959), Rawhide (1959) and Bonanza (1959). Close to the end of his life and career he had a regular part as a crew member on the adventure series Riverboat (1959) with Darren McGavin. Dick's final role was released posthumously, playing a bit as a frantic garbage man in The Ugly Dachshund (1966). He had died a year earlier at his Hollywood home of a heart attack on his 52nd birthday. His wife and a daughter survived him.Born:
April 20, 1913 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Died:
April 20, 1965 (age 52) in Studio City, California, USA- James Westerfield was born on 22 March 1913 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for On the Waterfront (1954), True Grit (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968). He was married to Alice Gertrude Fay (Fay Tracey) and Rosemary Doris Deveson. He died on 20 September 1971 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.Date of Birth
22 March 1913 , Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Date of Death
20 September 1971 , Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA (heart attack)
Birth Name
James A. Westerfield
Height
6' 1" (1.85 m)
Spouse:
Alice G. Fay
(27 December 1962 - 20 September 1971) (his death) - Actor
- Soundtrack
Alvaro Zermeno (1935-1987). Born in Jalisco and died at the age of 52 years in the capital of Mexico. Actor and singer began his career in Mexican cinema in 1961 in the movie "Juramento De Sangre"(Blood Oath)" next to Jaime Fernandez. He shot a total of 49 films. In the 60's his films were very entertaining and commercial ventures, He was a very charismatic artist and the audience loved him. His profile in addition helped him to perform personages of character.Born:
January 21, 1935 in Mexico
Died:
December 10, 1987 (age 52) in Mexico