Birthdays: December 8
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- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Nicki Minaj was born Onika Tanya Maraj on December 8, 1982 in St. James, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago and raised in Queens, New York City, New York. She grew up in a troubled family with a father that was a drug addict who later changed after he checked into rehab and started going to church. Minaj went to LaGaurdia High School and studied singing and acting.
She was first spotted by the CEO of Young Money, and was later recruited for The Carter Edition of Young Money's own "The Come Up" DVD series. Her rapping skills caught the eyes of Lil Wayne who later worked with her for many collaborations with his mixtapes.
In April 2007, Minaj released her first mixtape "Playtime Is Over". One year later she made another mixtape "Sucka Free" which made her Female Artist of the Year at the Underground Music Awards. In 2009 she made her third mixtape "Beam Me Up Scotty" which got positive reviews from BET and MTV.
To date, Nicki has released 3 platinum selling studio albums, Pink Friday, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, and the most recent The Pinkprint- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Alesia Toyoko Glidewell, also known as Z, is a Los Angeles based director of Japanese/Brazilian/European descent who spent her formative years living in Saudi Arabia, Mexico City, Peru, Brazil, Hawaii, Boston, Florida and more. Glidewell began her career in the film industry as a voice over/motion capture artist, actor and audio mixer. In Seattle, she began making her own sci-fi and dramedy shorts and capturing the attention of audiences and producers. Simultaneously, she gained a reputation as an effective and passionate producer/director of music videos, shorts, industrial videos and commercials.
During a two year stint running a branded content channel for Studio71, Glidewell took the New Media space by storm, ushering the channel towards becoming the #1 most organically viewed branded beauty channel in the world with upwards of 80 million views. Her creative strategy, execution and ability to bring in and successfully collaborate with top tier influencers yielded many hit original comedy series, scripted and non.
Glidewell is known for cinematic styles that service story and for her dedication to unearthing the truth in every character and performance. Her filming efficiency and cross-genre versatility stems from her varied experience in this industry, as an unscripted, multicam director/showrunner in new media, a commercial and branded content director trusted by some of the largest brands in the world (Major League Baseball, AT&T, Honda, Estee Lauder) and as a development executive and freelance creative ideator.
She's had the pleasure of working with: Stephen Curry, Storm Reid, Lilly Singh, Mark Boone Junior, Lili Taylor, Sadie Sink, Kelly Reilly, Max Martini, Paige O'Hara, Bobby Moynihan, Charles Shotwell, James Duvall, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Ronald Acuna Junior (Atlanta Braves), Colleen Ballinger, Melissa Villasenor, Grace Helbig, Rebecca Black, Mamrie Hart, Hannah Hart, Lindsey Stirling, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Dodgers and Padres - as well as stakeholders from Paramount Players, Netflix, Sony, Studio71, Lucasfilm, MGM, Astronauts Wanted, Viacom, Facebook Watch, Go90, Top Gun 2, Jungle Cruise, Disney Parks, The Witcher, Old Guard, Army of the Dead, Extraction, Top Class.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Alisa Brunovna Freindlikh was born on December 8, 1934, in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia). Her father, named Bruno Frejndlikh, was a notable actor. Alisa Freindlikh graduated from Leningrad Institute of Theatre, Music, and Cinematography in 1957.
From 1961-1983 Alisa Freindlikh was a permanent member of the Leningrad Theatre of Lensovet under directorship of her husband Igor Vladimirov. She was the leading star of that theatre and her stage partners were such actors as Georgi Zhzhyonov, Aleksey Petrenko, Sergey Migitsko, Anatoliy Ravikovich, Mikhail Devyatkin, Mikhail Boyarskiy, Larisa Luppian, Galina Nikulina, Vera Ulik, Leonid Dyachkov, Valeri Kuzin, Yefim Kamenetsky, Leila Kirakosian, Aleksandr Estrin, Petr Shelokhonov, and other notable Russian actors.
Alisa Freindlikh made a stellar film career in collaboration with director Eldar Ryazanov. She also brilliantly played a supporting role in A Cruel Romance (1984), a Ryazanov's adaptation of the 19th century story by Aleksandr Ostrovskiy. In 1983 Alisa Freindlikh was designated the People's Artist of the USSR. That same year she divorced from her husband Igor Vladimirov, and soon left the Theatre of Lensovet.
Since 1984 Alisa Freindlikh has been a permanent member of Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT) in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) under directorship of Georgi Tovstonogov. There her stage partners were such stars as Kirill Lavrov, Oleg Basilashvili, Lyudmila Makarova, Svetlana Kryuchkova, Zinaida Sharko, Valentina Kovel, Sergey Yurskiy, Nikolay Trofimov, Vladislav Strzhelchik, Evgeniy Lebedev, Georgiy Shtil, Vsevolod Kuznetsov, Vadim Medvedev, Yuriy Demich, Leonid Nevedomsky, Gennadiy Bogachyov, Andrey Tolubeev, and many other notable Russian actors.
In 2004, on her 70th birthday, Alisa Freindlikh was visited in her home by the Russian president Vladimir Putin. She was decorated for her achievements as an actress in film and theatre. Alisa Freindlikh is residing in St. Petersburg, Russia.- Amir Khan was born on 8 December 1986 in Bolton, Lancashire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Undisputed (2023), Team Khan (2018) and The Big Fight Live (1976). He has been married to Faryal Makhdoom since 31 May 2013.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ana Ofelia Murguía was born on 8 December 1933 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. She was an actress, known for Coco (2017), Mi querido Tom Mix (1992) and Life Sentence (1979). She died on 31 December 2023 in Mexico.- Andy Griffith Jr. was born on 8 December 1958 in Florida, USA. Andy was a producer, known for Dying Game (1995). Andy died on 17 January 1996 in Universal City, California, USA.
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Ann Coulter was born on 8 December 1961 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015), Real Time with Bill Maher (2003) and Poodle Samizdat (2006).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Actress AnnaSophia Robb most recently starred in two of Hulu's most critically acclaimed limited series. In 2019, she co-starred opposite Patricia Arquette in THE ACT. This spring, she portrayed the flashback version of Reese Witherspoon's "Elena Richardson" character in LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE, based on Celeste Ng's bestselling book. Robb is soon to be seen alongside Charlie Plummer and Taylor Russell in the film WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS, based on Julia Walton's debut novel. She will also star in THE EXPECTING, a new scripted horror series for Quibi. The series will follow the dark journey of a young woman (Robb) down on her luck and pregnant mysterious circumstances. Additionally, Robb will star in the upcoming Peacock limited-series DR. DEATH, alongside Chris Sullivan, Jamie Dornan, Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater.
On the silver screen, Robb recently starred opposite Uma Thurman in Lionsgate's suspenseful thriller DOWN A DARK HALL, directed by Rodrigo Cortes. She played 'Kit Gordon,' a troubled but gifted teenager sent away to a private boarding school to develop her talents, but then uncovers a dark secret about the school's true intensions. She was also seen in the feature FREAKSHOW, produced by Drew Barrymore's Flower Films and directed by Trudie Styler. Robb co-starred opposite Toni Collette and Steve Carell in the critically acclaimed Fox Searchlight film, THE WAY, WAY BACK directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. She received amazing reviews for her performance in SOUL SURFER, the story of Bethany Hamilton, a competitive surfer who survived a horrific shark attack. Her additional film credits include CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, SLEEPWALKING, THE SPACE BETWEEN, RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN, JUMPER, BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE, SPY SCHOOL and BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA.
Robb has portrayed a diverse array of characters on television. She starred in the second season of the PBS Civil War mini-series MERCY STREET, produced by Ridley Scott. Robb also starred in the CW's THE CARRIE DIARIES, playing the character Carrie Bradshaw in the prequel to the HBO highly successful series SEX & THE CITY. Additional television credits include A CONSPIRACY ON JEKYLL ISLAND opposite Dianna Agron, Minnie Driver and Frank Grillo, as well as the highly-rated TV movie SAMANTHA: AN AMERICAN GIRL HOLIDAY.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Aria Noelle Curzon was born on 8 December 1987 in Hollywood, California, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for The Prince of Egypt (1998), The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock (1998) and The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island (1997). She was previously married to Alex DePue.- Babyjohn Choi was born on 8 December 1986 in Hong Kong. He is an actor, known for The Way We Dance (2013), Ip Man 3 (2015) and Shock Wave (2017).
- Belinda Balaski began acting at age five. Through her career she has starred in many feature films, movies of the week, and commercials, not to mention making guest appearances on dozens of television series. Honored with an Emmy Award for starring in Best After School Special, "Runaways" (1974), she received two Emmy submissions for "Are You My Mother" (1986) (with Michael York) and Proud Men (1987) (with Charlton Heston and Peter Strauss). Her theatre background earned her the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, and two Robbie Awards.
Memorable movie roles include a hippie chick in The Werewolf of Woodstock (1975); as Essie Beaumont in Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976); as an imperiled pregnant woman in The Food of the Gods (1976), and as Robert Carradine's surfer girl in Cannonball! (1976). She starred in a dozen Joe Dante films: a summer camp counselor in Piranha (1978); a news producer in The Howling (1981); in Amazon Women on the Moon (1987), and as a harried working class mother in Gremlins (1984) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). She appeared in such television series as Baretta (1975), S.W.A.T. (1975), Starsky and Hutch (1975), Charlie's Angels (1976), Vega$ (1978), The A-Team (1983), Matt Houston (1982), Hunter (1984), Simon & Simon (1981), Our House (1986), Falcon Crest (1981), Father Dowling Mysteries (1989), Eerie, Indiana (1991) and Baywatch (1989).
In the late 1980s, she created BB's Kids Acting School where she teaches both children, teenagers, and adults in theatrical, commercial and musical workshops; passing on the knowledge she has acquired through her four decades in the entertainment industry. She has been an actress, teacher, painter, photographer, writer and, of course, mother. - Stocky, versatile, and wonderfully engaging character actor Ben Hammer was born on December 8, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York. Hammer often portrayed judges, priests, doctors, and other such authority figures in a slew of films and TV shows alike. Ben's most memorable movie roles were a square middle-aged scientist in the terrific sci-fi/horror exploitation cult classic "Invasion of the Bee Girls," Young Dar's father in the delightful fantasy adventure "The Beastmaster," and feisty old guy Hal in the excellent "Survival Quest." Hammer had a recurring part as Judge Herman Mooney on the hit TV show "Law & Order." Among the many television programs Ben did guest spots on are "Highway to Heaven," "Airwolf," "T.J. Hooker," "The A-Team," "Fame," "Simon & Simon," "Barney Miller," "CHiPs," "The Incredible Hulk," "Charlie's Angels," "The Streets of San Francisco," "Kojak," "Police Woman," "Mannix," "Ironside," "Mission: Impossible," and "The Virginian."
Moreover, Hammer has also had an extremely lengthy and distinguished career acting in Broadway plays. He made his Broadway stage debut in 1956 in "The Great Sebastians." Other plays Ben acted in are "The Tenth Man," "The Deputy," "The Three Sisters," "The Crucible," "Golda," and "The Gathering." Hammer married his potter wife Dorothea on December 21, 1958. Hammer died at age 92 on September 18, 2017. He was survived by two daughters. - Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Bertie Higgins was born and raised in Tarpon Springs, Florida. While he was still in his teens, he met and became a protégé of the actor/directors Richard Boone and his friend Burt Reynolds, who saw Bertie's writing potential and tutored him in screenwriting. But his screenwriting career would have to wait, as he diverted his creative abilities toward the music business. Bertie had been working on a song, and that song became "Key Largo." Released on the CBS/SONY label, it blew a hole in the U.S. charts and when it reached #1 in the nation, the world took notice and it became an international evergreen. Other hit singles followed, like "Just Another Day in Paradise" and "Casablanca," which became a Song of the year in all of the Pacific Rim countries. When the CD reached multi-platinum status, Bertie became an international recording star literally overnight. He has appeared on all the major network talk and variety shows, was featured as an actor in The Guiding Light as well as The ABC Mystery Movie of the Week and starred in the feature film Out of Hand. He recently performed in 2012 with Michael Bolton during international and Chinese New Years on two television shows from Beijing. The performances were viewed by and audience of over a billion people worldwide.
Bertie opened an office in Burbank, California in 2004 to pursue his love of film making and to work with his son Julian Higgins, a film student majoring in film direction. After writing several screenplays he decided to form a production company with Julian and they began to produce their own projects. The first film was entitled Beast Beneath and was recently released by Entertainment one in early 2012. The next film was entitled, Poker Run. Bertie co-wrote the script, produced, took a role in and supervised the music in the film. It is being distributed domestically and internationally. The next project is entitled, The Colombian Connection, starring Tom Sizemore and it also has domestic and international distribution. The year 2013-14 saw the fourth release, Christmas in Hollywood, Bertie's first family film that he starred in as well as co-producing, co-directing, and co-writing. He is working on a documentary about the creation of Rock and Roll which he is producing. These are the first of many projects forthcoming from Cayo Largo Productions and the company looks forward to a bright future. Bertie has just completed his thirteenth CD entitled, The Very Best of Trop Rock and was released in early 2014. He recently had a number one country single on the UK and European charts.- Actor
- Writer
- Casting Department
Billy Hufsey is an internationally renowned performer who has been one of the few to maintain a highly successful career in multiple facets of the entertainment industry over four decades. He has masterfully embraced the art of re-invention and ceaselessly strives to achieve his goals and dreams every day. Within the last year alone Billy Hufsey maintained successful coaching businesses in both Las Vegas and Los Angeles, starred in the Lifetime network reality docu-series "Raising Asia", released two original singles one of which ("The Lover in Me") finished the year two weeks in a row charting at #7 on the A/C Hot 200, released a new motivational/auto-biographical book called "Living the Dream" and headlined a live variety show on the Las Vegas strip at Planet Hollywood.
After five years of being a primary star on the immensely successful, and culturally groundbreaking NBC show "Fame," which won two Golden Globes and nine Primetime Emmys, Billy Hufsey starred for four years on the Soap Opera, "Days of our Lives." As a live performer, Billy has thrilled thousands at sold-out concerts here and abroad and has starred in multiple Broadway shows. Billy has also performed with legendary artists such as Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Carol Burnett, and Janet Jackson just to name a few.
As a Performance Coach (acting, vocals, public speaking and stand-up) and Personal Manager, through Billy Hufsey Management, Billy has trained, mentored and guided many of today's stars throughout various avenues of the complex world of the entertainment industry. To date, Billy has coached clients in booking over 250 different roles on television and film projects.
As an extension of his highly successful mentoring and coaching programs, Billy Hufsey is taking the message of his book, "Living the Dream" on the road through public speaking engagements. He shares his personal experiences of overcoming obstacles (health, homelessness), maintaining a positive mental attitude (through insurmountable adversity) while being open to the art of reinventing himself to achieve continued success. Through sharing his Seven Key Principles for Success as outlined in his book, Billy Hufsey is on a mission to inspire others to Live the Dream that he once lived. And still lives today.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Since 1993, Mr. Kimmel has been one of the leading producers of theater music on CD, having produced over one hundred and thirty albums. He was nominated for a Grammy for producing the revival cast album of Hello, Dolly! and his album with jazz pianist Fred Hersch, I Never Told You, was also nominated for a Grammy. He created the critically acclaimed Lost In Boston and Unsung Musicals series, has produced solo albums for Petula Clark, Helen Reddy, Liz Callaway, Laurie Beechman, Paige O'Hara, Christiane Noll, Judy Kaye, Judy Kuhn, Brent Barrett, Jason Graae, Randy Graff, Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley, and has worked with such legends as Lauren Bacall, Elaine Stritch and Dorothy Loudon. He has also produced many off-Broadway and Broadway cast albums, including the hit revival of The King and I, starring Lou Diamond Philips and Donna Murphy, The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas starring Ann-Margret and Bells Are Ringing starring Faith Prince.
Mr. Kimmel has written four novels, a trilogy, comprised of Benjamin Kritzer, Kritzerland, and Kritzer Time, Writer's Block and Rewind. He has a new novel coming out this fall and recently launched a new record label Kritzerland. he has written a new play called Deceit that will open in Los Angeles in January 2006.- Actor
- Writer
- Executive
Bushwick Bill was born under the name Richard Stephen Shaw in Kingston, Jamaica, on December 1, 1966. His father is a merchant marine, and his mother a maid. According to a source from the Houston Chronicle, he is a high school dropout, and reads at the fourth grade level. He has failed a majority of courses in his freshman year in high school. Like actors Billy Barty and Herve Villechaize, he is a dwarf. His stage name came from the Brooklyn district that he lived in.- Carina Lau moved to Hong Kong with her family at the age of 14 and at the the time could not speak the local Cantonese and was often teased by other people the "Mainland Girl". She would eventually gave her best effort to learn the language and then was re-accepted at the TVB actors training program when she had improved her speaking ability. It was 1983 the year when she had graduated from the program and launched her acting career as contract basic actress for TVB, and her now boyfriend Tony Leung (Happy Together) was graduated one year earlier. Her acting career for TVB was limited to playing ornamental parts in series for the first several years and she didn't get a major challenging starring role until the hit series Looking Back in Anger. That series had established her status as a strong leading lady, but she was aiming to abandon the small screen for films.
She had been in tabloid headlines for her near-marriage romance with a handsome billionaire in the late 80s, and she was considering giving up acting to marry him but the wedding got cancelled the last minute, and Carina was devastated. Shortly after she started dating Tony after partnering to do a stage play called "Happy Lemon Husband". It was "I Am Sorry" (a low-budget dramedy) that first garnered her the HK best actress nomination in 1989, and she had previously been sent out by TVB to do some films but nothing significant enough to turn her into a film star. Since leaving TVB, she had been approached by film jobs consistently. She found the dream role when Wong Kar Wai let her play a sexy and volatile showgirl in Days of Being Wild opposite Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung, and she was in the spotlight and became the "It" girl of the year during film festivals and awards. She once told the press that it was WKW who taught her how to bring out the best of her acting skills and how to use body language to convey emotions.
Over the course the 90s, Carina was constantly working mostly on dramas and comedies and had many box office hits. She subsequently chose very daring dramatic roles and she has a reputation for playing troubled women and prostitutes very well. For instance, her bisexual role in Intimates was one of the most challenging roles of her career and it was very provocative that it was entirely accepted by mainstream audiences. Towards the late 90s, she cut reduced her working in films since there was lesser good scripts and the industry was in decline. She even participated in a period dramatic series in Taiwan and a HK theatrical play when films didn't excite her. With more than 60 starring roles in films, TV series and plays, she was not desperate to work just for work, so the recent years she's still one of the highest earning actress in Asia because she's the spokesperson for numerous big fashion and cosmetic labels. It was unfortunate that her five year involvement in making the most lavish sci-fi epic 2046 had reduced her to a supporting role. She was frustrated that she didn't know what she was playing since Wong Kar Wai had not issued a script and was working from his head the whole time. Finally, a fellow actor recommended her to read a script called Curiosity Kills the Cat, a low-budget Chinese thriller, and insisted that she should do the film because it was clear that the leading role was perfectly suitable for her and she's never played anything like it before. Her performance garnered her the best reviews of her career. In this film, she turned in a multi-layered and unpredictable performance and for the first time she was willing to be made up to look very middle-aged and unattractive, and she was welling to do 3 takes of paint splattering all over her like Sissy Spacek in Carrie. - Carlos Agüero was born on 8 December 1964 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was a composer, known for Entre Sombras (2022). He died on 29 May 2009 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Actress
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- Producer
Chrisette Michele was born on 8 December 1982 in Central Islip, New York, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for Crossing Over ISO Love, Chrisette Michele: Charades (2013) and Christmas Ringer (2023).- Actor
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Corey Taylor was born on 8 December 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. He is an actor and composer, known for Thunder Force (2021), Resident Evil (2002) and Rollerball (2002). He has been married to Alicia Dove since 6 October 2019. He was previously married to Stephanie Luby and Scarlett Stone.- Music Artist
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Cristian Castro was born on 8 December 1974 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He is a music artist and actor, known for Cristian Castro: Amor (1995), Crown of Tears (2012) and Pasapalabra (2016). He was previously married to Valeria Liberman and Gabriela Bo.- Damaris Phillips is a celebrity chef who can often be seen on the Food Network co-hosting "Southern & Hungry" with Rutledge Wood and "The Bobby and Damaris Show" with Bobby Flay. She is also the 2013 (9th Season) winner of "Food Network Star," where she impressed judges with her fresh take on Southern cuisine, and won over the audience with her impeccable charm. She then went on to host her own show, "Southern at Heart," for five seasons. Damaris can also be seen on several other shows on the network, including "Guy's Grocery Games," "Cooks vs. Cons," "Bakers vs. Fakers," "Celebrity Food Fight," and others.
From Louisville, Kentucky, Phillips graduated from Jefferson Community and Technical College with a degree in culinary arts. One of five kids, Damaris learned to cook at an early age and was responsible for cooking one night a week for her large family. Damaris uses her wit and her updated take on Southern cuisine to pack a one-two punch in the kitchen. Her first cookbook, Southern Girl Meets Vegetarian Boy was released by Abrams Books in October 2017. Her husband, Darrick Wood, and she hope to adopt their first child in the near future. - Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Dan Hartman was born on 8 December 1950 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Oliver & Company (1988), Scrooged (1988) and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1995). He died on 22 March 1994 in Westport, Connecticut, USA.- Actor
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David Carradine was born in Hollywood, California, the eldest son of legendary character actor John Carradine, and his wife, Ardanelle Abigail (McCool). He was a member of an acting family that included brothers Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine as well as his daughters Calista Carradine and Kansas Carradine, and nieces Ever Carradine and Martha Plimpton.
He was born in Hollywood and educated at San Francisco State College, where he studied music theory and composition. It was while writing music for the Drama Department's annual revues that he discovered his own passion for the stage, joining a Shakespearean repertory company and learning his craft on his feet. After a two-year stint in the army, he found work in New York as a commercial artist and later found fame on Broadway in "The Deputy" and "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" opposite Christopher Plummer. With that experience he returned to Hollywood, landing the lead in the short-lived TV series Shane (1966) before being tapped to star opposite Barbara Hershey in Martin Scorsese's first Hollywood film, Boxcar Bertha (1972). The iconic Kung Fu (1972) followed, catapulting Carradine to super-stardom for the next three years, until he left the series to pursue his film career.
That career included more than 100 feature films, a couple of dozen television movies, a whole range of theater on and off Broadway and another hit series, Kung Fu: A Legend Reborn (1992).
Carradine received the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Film Review as well as a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory (1976), and he won critical acclaim for his work as Cole Younger in The Long Riders (1980). "Kung Fu" also received seven Emmy nominations in its first season, including one for Carradine as Best Actor. In addition, he won the People's Prize at the Cannes Film Festival's "Director's Fortnight" for his work on Americana (1981), and a second Golden Globe nomination for his supporting role in North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985). Among his other notable film credits were Gray Lady Down (1978), Mean Streets (1973), Bird on a Wire (1990), The Long Goodbye (1973), The Serpent's Egg (1977) and Circle of Iron (1978). He returned to the screen in what could be his greatest performance, playing the title role in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), for which he received his fourth Golden Globe nomination. He also continued his devotion to music, and recorded some 60 tracks in various musical genres and sang in several movies. He made his home in Los Angeles with his fifth wife Annie, her four children and their two dogs.
Found dead in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 3, 2009, aged 72.- Actor
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David Cowgill was born on 8 December 1960 in McAllen, Texas, USA. He is an actor, known for Madagascar (2005), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) and Oblivion (2013). He has been married to Jackie Gonneau since January 1982. They have two children.- Actor
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David Harewood was born on 8 December 1965 in Birmingham, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for Blood Diamond (2006), The Merchant of Venice (2004) and Supergirl (2015). He has been married to Kirsty Handy since 26 February 2013. They have two children.- Director
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- Actor
Raised and educated in Texas, David Schmoeller began his career as a young playwright and was awarded the Texas Good Neighbor Scholarship for studies in Mexico, attending the Universidad De Las Americas from 1967-1968. In Mexico he studied theater with Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo (1970)) and was mentored in film by legendary director Luis Buñuel. After a stint as an interpreter for ABC Sports during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Schmoeller returned to Texas and completed a Masters program in Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. His thesis film, The Spider Will Kill You (1976), funded by a grant from the Directors Guild of America, received an Academy Award Student Film Nomination in 1974, losing in the finals to Robert Zemeckis student short A Field of Honor (1973). Subsequently, under the auspices of the American Film Institute with funding from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Schmoeller spent six months as an intern with writer-director Peter Hyams on Capricorn One (1977).
Schmoeller's first feature, Tourist Trap (1979) (which he wrote and directed), is the favorite film of master storyteller of modern horror Stephen King. His writing and directing credits include work on the highly-praised television series James at 16 (1977) as well as the feature films The Seduction (1982) for Embassy Pictures; Crawlspace (1986), Ghost Town (1988) and Catacombs (1988) for Empire Entertainment and the cult classic Puppet Master (1989) for Paramount Pictures. "Puppetmaster" subsequently became one of the most successful franchise horror films ever made, producing seven more sequels, the latest in 2003 (Puppet Master: The Legacy (2003)). Schmoeller's film The Arrival (1991), a science-fiction black comedy, was selected for the Midnight Madness screening at the Toronto Film Festival. After "The Arrival," Schmoeller wrote and directed Netherworld (1992), a ghost story filmed in New Orleans. Produced by Full Moon Entertainment, "Netherworld" was also released by Paramount. Schmoeller then directed two children's features: The Secret Kingdom (1998) and "Mysterious Museum" in New Orleans and the Romanian cities of Bucharest and Sinia. In addition to his feature work, Schmoeller has directed many hours of network television, including three seasons of the CBS-USA Network series Silk Stalkings (1991) as well as Renegade (1992) and the pilot and multiple episodes of Cop Files (1995), a series for the Fox Network.
He was honored on January 26, 2007, in Paris by the Cinematheque Francaise with a tribute to David Schmoeller screening, showing two of his early features ("Tourist Trap" and "Crawlspace") as well as his celebrated short documentary on directing enfant terrible Klaus Kinski: Please Kill Mr. Kinski (1999).
In March 2007 Schmoeller was a Visiting International Artist at Objectifs Centre for Photography & Filmmaking in Singapore, where he shot the Singapore segment of a film he is making, Wedding Day (2008) (set in Las Vegas, Paris and Singapore), about a bride in each city on her wedding day as something unexpected happens.
Schmoeller has been an internationally recognized feature film and television writer-director (nine feature films, many hours of network television and numerous award-winning shorts) for over three decades. Schmoeller has two feature film projects in development: "Little Monsters," a crime drama and "Neon Desert," a romantic-comedy. His short Spanking Lessons (2007) won the Cinevegas Jury Award for Best Nevada Filmmaker.
Schmoeller is an Associate Professor of film production at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and runs the Film Department's UNLV Short Film Archive. He can be reached at schmoeller@cox.net.- Actress
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Deborra-Lee Furness was born on 30 November 1955 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She is an actress and producer, known for Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010), Shame (1988) and Jindabyne (2006). She has been married to Hugh Jackman since 11 April 1996. They have two children.- Denis Kuljis was born on 8 December 1951 in Split, Croatia, Yugoslavia. He was a writer, known for Mistika uspjeha (2018), Trieste, Yugoslavia (2017) and SFRJ za pocetnike (2012). He was married to Nada Mirkovic. He died on 18 August 2019 in Zagreb, Croatia.
- American juvenile leading man. A native of Texas, Martin entered the theatre in 1946 and within three years was tapped to play one of the young toughs in Knock on Any Door (1949). After minor roles in several minor films, he was given a larger role in The Thing from Another World (1951) by producer Howard Hawks. Hawks followed this with one of the two lead roles in his great Western The Big Sky (1952). Despite this and a few other prominent parts in big pictures, Martin's appearances became more and more infrequent and less and less stellar. He did, however, become a familiar face on television into the 1970s. He was married to singer Peggy Lee in the late 50s.
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Diego Rivera was a revolutionary Mexican artist and controversial politician, whose actions fluctuated from supporting Joseph Stalin and Soviet communism to dealing with Henry Ford and other tycoons promoting Pan-Americanism.
He was born Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez on December 8, 1886, in Guanajuato, Mexico, the son of Maria del Pilar Barrientos and Diego de la Rivera y Acosta. His twin brother, Carlos, died in infancy, and Diego Rivera was raised as the only child. His father was a municipal counselor in Guanajuato, and a man of liberal views. He arranged an art studio for young Rivera by covering the walls of his room with drawing paper and encouraging him to paint all over the walls from the age of three. His mother was an obstetrician and a very religious Catholic. Diego also had an Indian nanny, named Antonia, who was an inspiration for many of his paintings and nurtured his love for the indigenous culture.
In 1892 the family moved to Mexico City, where Rivera's father worked for the Mexican government. Young Rivera studied at the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City from 1898-1905. In 1906 he exhibited 26 works at San Carlos Academy. At that time his father worked as inspector at the federal Ministry of Public Education, and was instrumental in obtaining a government grant for Rivera to study in Europe.
He lived in Europe from 1907-1921. At first he studied in Madrid for two years, then settled in Paris where he studied art at museums and became involved in the Parisian cultural milieu. There Rivera developed a friendship with Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Augusto Modigliani, Henri Matisse and many others who defined 20th-century art. He was involved with the Montparnasse artists community of La Rouche (The Beehive). His greatest artistic influences after El Greco were his wife, Russian sculptor Angelina Beloff and artists Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso. Together with Beloff, Rivera experimented in making a series of Cubist works between 1913 and 1917. Then Rivera broke from Picasso and the Cubists. He decided to find his own style, but his art dealer and critics did not appreciate Rivera's change of style.
Rivera met Beloff, a Russian artist trained in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1909 at the Brussels trade fair, beginning what Rivera regarded as the "one and only true love of [my] life." Two years later they married in Paris and lived together as a couple for another seven years. Rivera revered her love, honesty and loyalty, confessing, "She gave me everything a woman can give to a man. In return, she received from me all the heartache and misery that a man can inflict upon a woman." Their son was born in 1917 but died during the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918. Beloff was the one who saved Rivera from trouble several times while he was out of control and violent. In one case he was drunk at a Parisian café and started a fight with other artists, but she managed to save him from being arrested. Eventually Rivera's actions resulted in his destroying his own reputation among the artists of Paris.
His family life was also in trouble. While Beloff was pregnant with his son, Rivera lived with another Russian artist, the famous beauty Maria (Marevna) Vorobieff-Stebelska, and they had a daughter, named Marika Rivera, born in 1919. Unstable, violent and a womanizer, Rivera was torn between his two women. He tried to kill Marevna, but as his knife cut into her throat their baby girl started to cry, which stopped him from taking the woman's life. However, her neck was disfigured with scars from the attack--she later did the same thing to Rivera--and they later divorced.
As passionate as ever, Rivera became involved in politics. He and David Alfaro Siqueiros met in Paris in 1919. They were both impressed with the Mexican revolution of 1914 and the Russian revolution of 1917. The two discussed the development of new monumental art that would reflect Mexico's political and cultural transformation. Both agreed that art should not be isolated in museums and galleries, but must be made accessible to the people outdoors, spread on the walls of public buildings. They created the new iconography that represented complex social and historic context. They introduced national themes, political events, religious motifs and a pre-Hispanic history in their large-scale murals. The two returned to Mexico and led the revival of mural art in the 20th century. They remained friends for many years and made a profound impact on Mexican art, known as the Mexican Mural Renaissance.
Back in Mexico, Rivera joined the Communist Party in 1922, and co-founded with Siqueiros the "Syndicato"--a union of workers, artists and sculptors. From 1922 to 1926 Rivera worked on 124 frescoes on the courtyard walls of the Ministry of Public Education. His work began the revival of mural painting and made him famous in the Western world. At that time Rivera was married to Guadalupe Marin, and they had two children. In 1927 he traveled with a delegation from the Mexican Communist Party to the Soviet Union. There he took part in the 10th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution and also attended a massive reception party in Moscow, which was hosted by Joseph Stalin. Rivera had discussions with Soviet cultural authorities, which led to provocative debates. He signed risky political statements and sided with the Trotskyite faction of Soviet communism, led by Lev Trotskiy, together with militant Bolsheviks; this caused his expulsion from the USSR. Back in Mexico, in 1928, he met artist Frida Kahlo and divorced Guadalupe Marin. He was appointed the head of the Department of Plastic Crafts at the Ministry of Education in 1929, the year he and Kahlo married.
He lived and worked in the US during the 1930s. In New York he began his work on his first major American commissions. His mural at the American Stock Exchange Luncheon Club subtly incorporated Rivera's radical policies while trying to maintain a sense of simple history. Rivera investigated the exploitation and struggles of the working class. Henry Ford invited him to Detroit at the height of the Great Depression. From 1932-1933 Rivera created a paean to the American worker on the walls inside the garden court of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The composition of 27 fresco panels depicted industrial life, focusing on the workers of Detroit's auto industry. Thanks to Edsel Ford, the frescoes survived much controversy and remain Rivera's most significant painting in the US. His next mural in the lobby of the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center included a scene of a giant May Day demonstration with a portrait of Soviet Communist leader Vladimir Lenin. It was chipped off the wall and destroyed in 1934, because Rivera refused to remove Lenin. He kept the money from the Rockefellers and re-created that mural at the Independent Labor Institute in Mexico City under the title "Man, Controller of the Universe" depicting Lenin and Trotsky as leading figures.
Rivera was instrumental in obtaining political asylum in Mexico for Trotsky, who had been exiled by Soviet dictator Stalin. Rivera was initially approached by his political friend, Alberto J. Pani, who petitioned for Trotsky. When the moment was right, Rivera sought out Mexican President 'Lazaro Cardenas', who agreed to grant Trotsky political refuge. Trotsky and his wife were invited to live in Rivera's home in Coyoacan. They also socialized with surrealist writer André Breton and his wife, and traveled together. Eventually a series of personal and political conflicts developed between Rivera and Trotsky. Rivera discovered that Frida and Trotsky were having an affair at his home. He divorced Frida in 1940, and then went to San Francisco to participate in the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition. At the same time, Rivera's friend Siqueiros led a failed assassination attempt on Trotsky in Rivera's Coyoacan home. In August of 1940 Trotsky was murdered by Ramón Mercader, a professional assassin. Rivera and Frida Kahlo remarried in December of 1940 and lived together until her death in 1954. After that Rivera made another trip to the Soviet Union and had meetings with post-Stalin Soviet authorities.
Meanwhile, Rivera's first wife, Angelina Beloff, moved to Mexico looking for him and asked him for alimony, which he never paid. Rivera, who had remarried twice by that time and had other relationships outside his marriages, refused to recognize her and their son, who died while they lived together in Paris. Rivera even denied that he was ever in a relationship with Beloff, and refused her any support. She survived by teaching sculpture, and eventually founded the Salon de la Plastica Mexicana in 1949. She died in 1969 in Mexico.
In 1955 Rivera married his art dealer Emma Hurtado. In the fall of 1955 he underwent a surgery and went through cobalt treatments. He spent the last two years of his life in his native Mexico. Diego Rivera died of heart failure on November 24, 1957, in his studio in San Angel, Mexico. He was laid to rest in the Rotunda of Famous Men in Civil Pantheon of Mourning in Mexico City, Mexico.- Actor
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Dominic Monaghan is best known for his role in the movie adaptations of "Lord of the Rings". Before that, he became known in England for his role in the British television drama Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1996).
Monaghan was born in Berlin, West Germany, to British parents Maureen, a nurse, and Austin Monaghan, a science teacher. His family moved back to England when he was eleven. He was studying English Literature, Drama and Geography at Sixth Form College when he was offered the co-starring role in the series, which ran for four seasons. His other television credits include This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (2000) and a leading role in Monsignor Renard (2000), a series starring John Thaw.
On the stage Monaghan has performed in the world premiere UK production of The Resurrectionists, Whale and Annie and Fanny from Bolton to Rome. Since watching Star Wars when he was six years old, Dominic has been consumed by films. His other obsessions include writing, music, fashion, playing/watching soccer and surfing. Utilizing his writing skills, he and LOTR co-star Billy Boyd are collaborating on a script.
Born and raised in Berlin, Monaghan and his family moved to England when he was twelve. In addition to speaking fluent German, he has a knack at impersonations and accents. He frequently returns to his hometown of Manchester, England.- Actor
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Doron Bell is a Canadian-American actor who was Born at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal to Jamaican parents. Doron found his love for music and performing at age 16. After couple years of a college theatre program, Doron started his acting career in Vancouver B.C in 1995. In 1998, while pursuing a singing career in Los Angeles, Doron was asked to audition for the 1st run syndicated tv series Born Free. His innate ear for accents landed him the role of a South African teenager and he was Taft-Hartleyed into SAG. The recurring character was eventually made a series regular and he lived in Ventura, CA for its 26 episode run. It seems Doron's 1st acting & singing experiences in Hollywood, fermented the bug and it's been one or the other ever since!!
Doron splits his time between Vancouver, Los Angeles & Atlanta.- Dov Tiefenbach was born on 8 December 1981 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is an actor, known for Jason X (2001), Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004) and Tommy Boy (1995).
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Dwight Howard was born on 8 December 1985 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Free Birds (2013), The Three Stooges (2012) and Percy Vs Goliath (2020).- Edwin Cardona has been married to Carolina Castaño since 2 July 2016. They have three children.
- Elsa Benitez was born on 8 December 1977 in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. She is an actress, known for Le retour d'Arsène Lupin (1989), Enrique Iglesias: Love to See You Cry (2002) and Mexico's Next Top Model (2009). She was previously married to Rony Seikaly.
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Emily Skye is an award winning director and cinematographer, who shot her debut feature, River (released July 13th 2021 by Gravitas Ventures), which she filmed September 2020, during the pandemic. She won over 15 awards for her short film of River, filmed May 2020, on DUST with over 4 million views, Hollyshorts Bitpix to name a few.
Seeing the need within the filmmaking community on social media and using her following to give back, Emily became a mentor, coaching women and men in film, soon branching out and created a tribe called #shefilmtribe on Instagram. This is a safe place for women to come together, encourage, love and talk. Women from all over the world in the industry have joined the sisterhood as well as her Filmmaking 101 classes.
Emily is also a Global Brand Ambassador for LUMIX Panasonic, SmallHD, Wooden Camera and Teradek.- Writer
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One of the most critically and commercially successful screenwriters in Hollywood history, Lehman grew up on Long Island, graduated from NY's City College. One of his first jobs was as a copywriter for a Broadway publicist. This experience would later be reflected in his novel and screenplay, "Sweet Smell of Success." He also worked as a radio comedy writer, and as editor of a financial magazine. He freelanced short stories for the likes of Collier's magazine and one of these fiction piece 'The Comedian' led to his first job in Hollywood as a screenwriter for Paramount in the mid 1950s. Nick Roddick, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, praised Lehman as "a champion of the well-crafted, what-happens-next screenplay." Served as president of the Writers Guild of America from 1983-85.- Actor
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Ferdie Pacheco was born on 8 December 1927 in Tampa, Florida, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Virtual Weapon (1997), The Great White Hype (1996) and The Super Fight (1970). He was married to Elva Sweeney and Luisita Mestas. He died on 16 November 2017 in Miami, Florida, USA.- Composer
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Fernando Cabrera is known for Por un tiempo (2013), Jamás leí a onetti (2010) and El Verano Siguiente (2014).- Actor
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Fernando 'Fher' Olvera was born on 8 December 1959 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. He is an actor and composer, known for Yo amo a Juan Querendón (2007), The Neighbor (2019) and New Girl (2011). He was previously married to Mónica Noguera.- Writer
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Flip Wilson was born on 8 December 1933 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Flip (1970), The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979) and Uptown Saturday Night (1974). He was married to Cookie Mackenzie and Lovenia Patricia (Peaches) Wilson. He died on 25 November 1998 in Malibu, California, USA.- Floyd Tillman was born on 8 December 1914 in Ryan, Oklahoma, USA. He was married to Margaret Hartis (remarried), Frances Woods and Margaret Hartis. He died on 22 August 2003 in Bacliff, Texas, USA.
- She was born in Siena, Tuscany, Italy. Daughter of a doctor and an art critic, she began her acting studies in Siena during high school. At the age of 18, right after graduation, she was chosen by well renowned theatrical director Giorgio Strehler to attend the Piccolo Teatro di Milano theatre academy, one of the most important in Italy and Europe. After several years in Milan, where she worked on prestigious stages with illustrious directors, she moved to Rome where she started her movie and tv career. Since 2002 she is equally well accomplished in theater, movie and television acting. She has covered widely disparate roles from the tragic to the comedic and gained the audience favor being part of the permanent cast of some of the most followed Italian television series. She speaks English, French, and Spanish.
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American character actor who specialized in average-guy parts and who could be equally effective in sympathetic or unlikeable roles. His parents, the vaudeville team of Ruf and Cusik, took him onstage with them when he was a baby, and Faylen grew up in the theatre. He attended St. Joseph's Preparatory College in Kirkwood, Missouri, but returned to vaudeville as a comic pantomimist. He toured the country throughout the late Twenties and early Thirties as a clown and later as song-and-dance man with acrobatic agility. During a tour stop in Los Angeles, he was screen tested and began a thirty-year career as one of Hollywood's most familiar character players. His most famous film roles were as the vicious male nurse Bim in The Lost Weekend (1945) and as the cabdriver Ernie in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). But his greatest fame came in television, particularly as Dobie's dad Herbert T. Gillis in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959). Faylen was married to actress Carol Hughes, with whom he had two daughters. He retired after Funny Girl (1968), and died in 1985.- Writer
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Gastón Duprat is a director, screenwriter and film producer. He started his career in video art, experimental cinema and television. He has made a dozen films, with which he obtained more than thirty international awards, among which stand out The Man Next Door (2009), The Distinguished Citizen (2016), My Masterpiece (2018) and Official Competition (2020).- Director
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Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color.
His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and An Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films.
Méliès died of cancer on 21 January 1938 at the age of 76.
In 2016, a Méliès film long thought lost, A Wager Between Two Magicians, or, Jealous of Myself (1904), was discovered in a Czechoslovak film archive.- Actor
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Collins played linebacker and guard at Brother Rice High School (Bloomfield Township, Michigan). He was a Football Writers Association first-team All-American (second-team Associated Press) at Notre Dame in 1974. He was the leading tackler on Notre Dame's national championship team in 1973, garnering 18 solo stops in a showdown victory over the defending national champions, Southern California, and 16 in the Sugar Bowl victory vs. Alabama that secured the national title for Notre Dame. Collins was taken in the second round of the 1975 NFL Draft by the 49ers, the 35th overall selection. He later played for the Seattle Seahawks in 1976 and for the Buffalo Bills in 1977.- Actor
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Gregg LeNoir Allman was NOT primarily known for being an actor, he was a musician, songwriter and singer that formed the Allman Brothers Band with his brother Duane in 1969. His music appeared in the movie soundtracks of films such as Walking Tall (2004) and Jack Reacher (2012) and in the television drama miniseries The Crowded Room (2023) and True Detective (2014).- Actor
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Ian Somerhalder was born and raised in the small southern town of Covington, Louisiana. His mother, Edna (née Israel), is a massage therapist, and his father, Robert Somerhalder, is a building contractor. He has Cajun (French), English, and Scots-Irish ancestry. Boating, swimming, fishing and training horses filled much of his recreational time growing up, as did the school drama club and performing with the local theater group. With his mother's encouragement, at age 10, he began a modeling career that took him to New York each summer. By junior high, he opted to put modeling on the back burner and focus more on sports and school. A few years later, when the opportunity to model in Europe arose, Somerhalder grabbed it, embarking on an enriching path of work, travel and study that took him to cities, including Paris, Milan and London. At 17, he began studying acting in New York and, by 19, had committed himself to the craft, working with preeminent acting coach William Esper. His fate was sealed while working as an extra in a club scene in the feature film, Black & White (1999). A talent manager visiting a client on the set spotted Somerhalder in a crowd scene of 400 and immediately signed him for representation. He was cast later for the drama Changing Hearts (2002) directed by Martin Guigui. Happy to be anchored in New York, Somerhalder spends much of his time studying acting, writing and practicing yoga. His recreational interests include water and snow skiing and horseback riding.- Composer
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When she walks into a store in her Brooklyn neighborhood, Ingrid Michaelson is rarely recognized. But once she hands over her credit card to pay, the clerk often pauses, brightens up and, enthusiastically, offers a bit of trivia: "Did you know that there's a singer named Ingrid Michaelson?" This reaction is fitting because Michaelson has earned both acclaim and a loyal following, due to her knack for crafting beautiful, idiosyncratic songs ("The Way I Am", "Maybe", "Keep Breathing") that just nestle in your head. Her single, "Parachute", is a perfect example of that, showcasing a seamless stylistic growth in melody and beat, while nurturing the sound that Ingrid's fans have come to know and love. Image has never been her priority, but let the record show that her librarian-chic style has, nonetheless, received a shout-out in The New York Times.
Michaelson's grassroots sensibility has worked like gangbusters: Her music, often about love and relationships, has been steadily wafting out of your television set for roughly four years now, be it in an Old Navy ad or in handfuls of Grey's Anatomy (2005) episodes (not to mention countless other series, such as One Tree Hill (2003), Ugly Betty (2006) and Scrubs (2001)) or on VH1 as an artist, "You Outta Know". The New York Times marveled at how she was "singing her way from obscurity to fame". Billboard trumpeted her as the face of the new music business. NPR declared, "Ingrid Michaelson is everywhere". The release of the soaring, blissful "Parachute" - a one-off track available only as a download - is milestone of sorts for Michaelson. After turning 30, she found herself itching to grow as a songwriter. "I feel like I've exhausted so many possibilities of writing, as a female singer-songwriter", she says. For a year and a half, Michaelson had a big, hook-laden song playing out in her mind, so she recruited writer-producer Marshall Altman to help her hash out what would become "Parachute". Its fantastical video, directed by Adria Petty (Beyoncé, Regina Spektor, Duffy), features the singer as a latter-day Amelia Earhart, who flies through space rescuing dying planets - a nod to her lyrics' increasingly optimistic bent.
Such serendipity has graced the singer throughout her whirlwind career. The Staten Island-raised daughter of classical-music composer Carl Michaelson, she took piano lessons from the age of five and starred in plays during her grade-school years. Michaelson went on to study musical theater at Binghamton University in upstate New York, where she sang in an a Capella group. After graduating, she cultivated her interest in music by performing at a coffee house where she worked as a barista. She was teaching theater to kids when she got a fateful call in 2006 from a music manager named Lynn Grossman who discovered Michaelson's homegrown music on her MySpace page.
Within a few months, Michaelson's music could be found sound-tracking the romantic-surgical debauchery, Grey's Anatomy (2005), with songs such as the cascading "Breakable" and the melancholic lullaby "Keep Breathing". A music supervisor for Old Navy just happened to catch the episode featuring the latter and snapped up the cooing, calypso-inflected "The Way I Am" for one of the company's commercials. (The song ultimately went platinum.) Radio play followed, just in time for the release of her 2007 full-length debut, "Girls and Boys" (out on Cabin 24, her own imprint). This all happened in about a year. "We really had a lot of luck, and then we worked really hard to be in the position we're in nowadays", says Michaelson, who has since released an EP, 2008's "Be OK", and a follow-up album, "Everybody" (both via the Cabin 24 label) - each proving fertile resources for music licensors.
She'll work on her third full-length-due in 2011 on Ingrid's own Cabin 24 in partnership with Mom+Pop - which will explore the themes of life and death. (One song is tentatively titled "The Battle of Brooklyn", about a Revolutionary War skirmish). Sonically, the upcoming album will fall "somewhere between Judy Garland's music and Beyoncé; and St. Vincent", the adventurous Michaelson says excitedly, before adding, "not that I'm gonna come out and have an alter ego!"- Isabella Biagini was born on 8 December 1940 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress, known for F.F.S.S., cioè: '...che mi hai portato a fare sopra a Posillipo se non mi vuoi più bene?' (1983), Nick the Sting (1976) and Quelli belli... siamo noi (1971). She was married to Roberto Romagnani Cardella and Pietro Campagnola. She died on 14 April 2018 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
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In a career spanning more than four decades, James MacArthur developed a body of work which is wonderfully dynamic in both scope and range. Portraying everything from crazed killer to stalwart defender of law and order, frustrated teenager to cynical senior supervisor, he has appeared in numerous films, television programs, and stage productions since his career officially began back in 1955. Although he had been performing in parts during summer stock productions since 1949, making his stage debut in "The Corn Is Green", his real acting career did not begin until he starred as the complex and misunderstood teenager in John Frankenheimer's "Deal a Blow". Broadcast live on the Climax! (1954) television anthology series, the program told the story of "Hal Ditmar", a relatively ordinary youngster on the verge of manhood who finds himself caught up in a snowballing world of trouble with his parents, the law, and virtually everyone in authority after a minor infraction of the rules at a movie theater. The story was so well-crafted and MacArthur's performance so compelling that a year later it was remade by Frankenheimer into his first theatrical release, The Young Stranger (1957). The movie received much critical acclaim and earned its star a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Film Award nomination as Most Promising Newcomer (1958) and won a film festival in Switzerland. Next up was the Disney movie of Conrad Richter's novel, The Light in the Forest (1958). Set in the late 18th century in the burgeoning United States, it told the tale of a young man who had been kidnapped by Indians as a baby and raised as the son of a chief. A respected and accepted member of the tribe, the boy, known as "True Son", is ripped away from the only life he has ever known and forced to return to his biological parents due to a treaty signed by people of whom he has no knowledge and who cannot possibly have any interest in his individual welfare. His subsequent struggles to find out exactly where he fits in and to gain the trust and sanction of his new community are told in a way which is as wrenching and relevant to today's society as it was then. The corollaries between this story and the custody battles which seem to occur with alarming frequency in our own time are strong and thought provoking. It seems the question regarding when in a child's life his biological parentage begins to be outweighed by the environment in which he is being raised is one which has yet to be answered. The depth with which MacArthur imbued the role makes his performance both truthful and unforgettable. Before its release in theaters, The Light in the Forest (1958) was preceded by three more appearances in live teleplays, including another outstanding performance in the Studio One (1948) production of "Tongues of Angels" as "Ben Adams", a young man with a devastating stuttering problem who pretends to be a deaf/mute in order to hide his infirmity. A string of meaty roles quickly followed, including the Disney classic films Kidnapped (1960), Third Man on the Mountain (1959) and Swiss Family Robinson (1960); television programs such as The Untouchables (1959), Bus Stop (1961) and Wagon Train (1957); and two more live teleplays. As sociopathic killer and racketeer "Johnny Lubin" in The Untouchables (1959) episode "Death for Sale", MacArthur for the first time portrayed an unsympathetic character. The heart-stopping realism of his performance provided definitive proof of his abilities as a multifaceted and talented actor. In what he described in one interview as his first "mature" role, he then appeared as a doctor-in-the-making in The Interns (1962), turning in a fine performance as a somewhat naive young man who grows up rather quickly when presented with several tough choices and life-defining situations. After that came more television, the underrated yet stirring film, Cry of Battle (1963), and Spencer's Mountain (1963), the highly successful precursor to the popular television series The Waltons (1972). Once again, in both films, MacArthur played young men whose lives are changed by circumstances beyond their control and who must dig deep within themselves to find the inner strength and fortitude to deal with those events. Having by now amassed an impressive list of film and television credits in addition to stage performances on Broadway and other venues, MacArthur then turned to the pivotal role of "Ensign Ralston" in the tense and nerve-wracking Cold War yarn, The Bedford Incident (1965). His performance as the eager to-please and earnest young officer carried a subtlety and intensity hard to believe of someone not yet thirty years old. The role of "William Ashton" in the light-hearted romance, The Truth About Spring (1965) came next, almost immediately followed by yet another coming-of-age performance as "Lt. Weaver" in the blockbuster WWII saga, Battle of the Bulge (1965). Westerns and war dramas predominated the next phase of MacArthur's career with appearances in television programs such as Branded (1965), 12 O'Clock High (1964), Gunsmoke (1955), Combat! (1962), Hondo (1967), Bonanza (1959), and Death Valley Days (1952), in addition to the films Ride Beyond Vengeance (1966), "Mosby's Marauders" (1966) and Hang 'Em High (1968). It was his appearance in this last movie that would ultimately lead him into the role of "Dan Williams" on Hawaii Five-O (1968). When Leonard Freeman found himself looking for a replacement to play the complex sidekick to Jack Lord's powerful "Steve McGarrett", he went looking for the young actor he remembered from just two or three days' work on his low-budget spaghetti Western. The juxtaposition of MacArthur's still-boyish good looks with his ability to bring a convincing toughness and sincerity to the role made him one of the best-remembered and well-admired actors of 1960s and 1970s popular television. Even today, more than twenty years after the program stopped production, it is broadcast in syndication in markets all over the world. Its "Book 'im, Danno" catchphrase is still as much a part of our popular culture as that famed line from another show of the same era: "Beam me up, Scotty". Departing "Five-O" prior to its 12th and final season, MacArthur's appearances became less frequent, yet still memorable. He was featured in such popular television shows as The Love Boat (1977), Vega$ (1978), Fantasy Island (1977), and Murder, She Wrote (1984) and starred in two made-for-television movies: Irwin Allen's The Night the Bridge Fell Down (1980) and Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story (1980). His poignant portrayal of hapless "Walt Stomer" in the latter provided a fine example that his skills as an actor had not waned in the 25 years since that first television appearance. He concentrated on the stage for a while then, performing in productions such as "Arsenic and Old Lace", "A Bedfull of Foreigners" and "Love Letters", as well as the occasional live appearance at charity and celebrity sporting events. In 1998, after nearly a decade away from television screens, he took up the role of "Frank Del Rio" in the Family Channel movie Storm Chasers: Revenge of the Twister (1998). With the new century, MacArthur returned to a more active professional schedule, continuing to make a number of personal appearances to sign autographs and greet fans, as well as several speaking engagements such as northeast Ohio's "One Book, Two Counties: An Evening With James MacArthur", The Cinema Audio Society Annual Awards Banquet and AdventureCon in Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition, he has been featured in several television specials and interview programs, including Emme & Friends, Entertainment Tonight (1981), Inside TVLand, and Christopher Closeup. The increasing popularity of the DVD market has seen the re-release of Swiss Family Robinson (1960) with a new behind-the-scenes documentary narrated by MacArthur and a lengthy on-screen interview covering many aspects of his career. Planned for re-release in July 2003, the 1956 version of Anastasia (1956) is expected to include an on-screen interview with MacArthur discussing his mother, Helen Hayes, and her work in that movie. April 2003 marked his return to the stage as "Father Madison" in Joe Moore's original play Dirty Laundry. On 6 November 2003, the Hawaii International Film Festival chose James MacArthur and Hawaii Five-O (1968) as the recipient of their annual "Film in Hawaii" award, an honor both well-deserved and especially significant, coming as it did from the people and the State of Hawaii. Plans were being made to feature MacArthur in a new television series set in the Hawaiian Islands, though nothing more definitive had ever been arranged.- Actress
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One of MGM's more vivacious secondary stars during the 40s, petite and lovely Jean Porter was born in Texas in 1922 but left the state while young to pursue her dream as an actress. Following some vaudeville experience, she made her uncredited film debut in 1939 (age 17) and slowly graduated to sweet-natured ingénues in light, wholesome "B" fare. Most were sentimental trifles, such as Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble (1944)and Easy to Wed (1946), or western action with such obvious titles as Heart of the Rio Grande (1942) and Home in Wyomin' (1942). Despite her promise and talent, none of her approximately 30 films managed to set her apart and top stardom remained elusive.
Jean's finest screen roles probably came with The Youngest Profession (1943) and Till the End of Time (1946), where she met future husband, director Edward Dmytryk. They married in 1948 and had three children: Richard, Victoria and Rebecca, the latter becoming a wildlife rescuer and rehabilitator. Not long into their marriage, Dmytryk was branded a Communist as one of the "Hollywood Ten" (he was admittedly once a member of The American Communist Party) and the next decade or so would be a dark period of time for them.
Unable to work, the blacklisted director moved his family to England where he found some employment. In 1951, however, Dmytryk decided to return to the States and was jailed for six months before giving testimony and being granted a reprieve. As a result, he was allowed to return to directing. Jean's last film, in fact, would be The Left Hand of God (1955) starring Humphrey Bogart and Gene Tierney, which was directed by her husband. She last appeared on 1961 TV episodes of "Sea Hunt" and "77 Sunset Strip."
Throughout their ordeal Jean and Edward remained a loyal couple and in later years wrote a book together "On Screen Acting" in 1984. Happily married until his death at age 90 of heart and kidney failure in 1999, Jean continues to be a regular attendee of film-related events and a by-line contributor for "Classic Images," the popular magazine for old-styled film fans, in which she reminisces of Hollywood back then. Jean died at age 95 on January 13, 2018, in Canoga Park (Los Angeles), California.- Jennie Linden was born on 8 December 1939 in Worthing, Sussex, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Women in Love (1969), Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Dick Turpin (1979). She has been married to Chris Mann since 1962. They have one child.
- Jessalynn Siwa, mom to teen star JoJo Siwa. Her debut on TV was on the show Dance Moms. Her and JoJo made the big move from Omaha Nebraska to California to pursue JoJo's career. In 2020 Jessalynn started her own show called, "Success With Jess" podcast and YouTube every Wednesday and Saturday. Her husband Tom Siwa, also known as "Tommy Tuna" and son Jayden Siwa, "The Food Dude" moved to California to join JoJo and Jess. The Siwa's are all on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and most recently the family TikTok.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jessica Tyler was born on 8 December 1993 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is an actress, known for Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001), Degrassi: Minis (2005) and Degrassi Takes Manhattan (2010). She has been married to Adam Mikici since 2 September 2022. They have one child.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Music Department
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American poet, singer, and songwriter from Florida. He was the lead vocalist of the rock band "The Doors" (1965-1973), and has been cited as "one of the most influential frontmen in rock history". Morrison recorded a total of six studio albums with the Doors, all of which sold well. Morrison struggled with alcohol dependency for most of his adult life, and displayed erratic behavior both on and off the stage. He was described as "A Jekyll and Hyde" by record producer Paul Rothchild, due to often displaying contradictory character traits in his interactions with others. Morrison died unexpectedly in Paris, France at the age of 27. No autopsy was ever performed, and the cause of Morrison's death remains disputed. His mysterious death has inspired a large number of theories, and has fascinated people for decades.
In 1943, Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida, a city located 72 miles (116 kilometers) southeast of Orlando. Melbourne emerged as a new settlement in the 1870s. It was named after Melbourne, Australia, because the new town's first postmaster had spend most of his life in the Australian city. Morrison's parents were George Stephen Morrison (1919-2008) and his wife Clara Virginia Clarke (1919-2005). Morrison's father was a career officer of the United States Navy, and would eventually reach the rank of rear admiral. George is primarily remembered for his service in the Vietnam War. The Morrisons were part of a Scottish-American family that had been living in the United States since the 18th century. Genealogical research has indicated that they were descendants of Clan Morrison, a Scottish clan which is primarily associated with the Isle of Lewis and Harris.
Morrison experienced the typical nomadic life of a military brat, as his family never settled permanently in any location. At various points in his childhood, Morrison lived in San Diego, in northern Virginia, in Kingsville, Texas, and in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1957, Morrison started his high school years in Alameda, California. In 1959, he was transferred to the George Washington High School, located in Alexandria, Virginia. He graduated from there in June 1961. During his last years of high school, Morrison maintained a grade average of 88. He reportedly tested in the top 0.1% with an IQ of 149.
Following his high school graduation, Morrison went to live with his paternal grandparents in Clearwater, Florida. He initially attended the St. Petersburg Junior College, which had been operating as a private, non-profit institution since the late 1920s. In 1962, Morrison started attending the Florida State University (FSU), located in Tallahassee. In September 1963, he was first arrested for the police. He had been found drunk at a home football game, and was charged with disturbing the peace.
In 1964, Morrison was transferred to the film program at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He enrolled at a class which studied the works of Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), and reportedly developed a fascination with surrealist theatre. In 1965, Morrison completed his undergraduate degree at UCLA's film school. He refused to attend the graduation ceremony, and the University mailed his diploma to his mother.
Following his university graduation, Morrison followed a bohemian lifestyle in Venice Beach, California. He lived on the rooftop of a building, and wrote song lyrics without having a chance to perform them. In the summer of 1965, Morrison and his recent acquaintance Ray Manzarek decided to form a rock band. They soon recruited the guitarist Robby Krieger and the drummer John Densmore. Morrison decided to name the band "The Doors", after the autobiographical book "The Doors of Perception" (1954) by Aldous Huxley. The name of the book was a reference to using "psychedelic drugs as facilitators of mystical insight".
Morrison soon emerged as the primary lyricist of the band, though Krieger wrote or co-wrote several of their hit songs. Morrison typically avoided using music instruments in live performances, though he learned to use both the maracas and the tambourine. In June 1966, the band were the opening act at the nightclub "Whisky a Go Go" in West Hollywood. During their performances there, Morrison interacted with the Irish singer Van Morrison (1945-), and studied aspects of Van's stage persona and stagecraft. He eventually incorporated several of these aspects into his own stage persona.
In November 1966, Morrison and the other members of the band produced the promotional film "Break On Through (To the Other Side)", named after the title of their first single. They would continue to create short music films throughout the initial years of the band. In 1967, the band signed a contract with the record company Elektra Records. The company would promote their songs to nationwide. The band had its breakthrough hit in the summer of 1967, with the single "Light My Fire". It spent three weeks at the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The band was soon booked to perform two of their songs in the variety television series "The Ed Sullivan Show". The show's censors insisted on changes to "Light My Fire", due to the show's explicit references to drug use. The band feigned compliance, but instead used the explicit version of the song. The resulting controversy caused the cancellation of their six further bookings for television appearances. However, their popularity among rock fans increased.
In September 1967, the band released their second album "Strange Days". It reached the 3rd place number on the US Billboard 200, and earned favorable reviews by the music press. The bands distinctive blend of blues and dark psychedelic rock had turned them into one of the most popular rock bands in the United States. However, Morrison would soon gain notoriety for different reasons. He was arrested on stage in New Haven, Connecticut, after narrating to the audience his recent encounter with a police officer who had maced him. The local police charged him with indecency and public obscenity, though the charges were eventually dropped. Morrison was the first rock performer to be arrested onstage during a live performance.
In September 1968, the Doors played in Europe for the first time. They gave four performances at the Roundhouse, London. Their performances were filmed by Granada Television for the television documentary "The Doors Are Open", which introduced the band to a wider British audience. As the band was gaining international popularity, the members increasingly took note of Morrison's self-destructive behavior. They were aware that he was a heavy drinker, but they realized that he started regularly appearing inebriated in their recording sessions.
By early 1969, Morrison had gained weight. He decided to stop wearing leather pants and concho belts, and to dress casually instead. He also ditched his typically clean-shaven look, and grew a beard for the first time. On March 1, 1969, Morrison increased his own reputation for rebellious behavior. While performing at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, he encouraged the audience to start a riot and threatened to expose his penis on stage. Within days, six warrants for his arrest were issued by the Dade County Police department. One on them on charges of indecent exposure.
Due to Morrison's ongoing legal problems, many of the Doors' scheduled concerts had to be canceled. On September 20, 1970, Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure and profanity in a jury trial in Miami. In October 30, he was officially sentenced to imprisonment for 6 months and a fine of 500 dollars. Morrison remained free on a bond of 50,000 dollars. He commented in a press interview that the American judicial system favors the wealthy, and that (in his words) "if you have money you generally don't go to jail".
Morrison's last album with "The Doors" was "L.A. Woman". It was recorded between December 1970 and January 1971, and eventually released in April 1971. The album was heavily influenced by the blues genre, even more so than their previous works. It was co-produced by the veteran sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The album peaked at the 9th place on the Billboard 200, and the 28th place on the UK Albums Charts. Its most popular song was "Riders on the Storm", which peaked at the 14th place on the U.S Billboard Hot 100.
After finishing the recording of the album, Morrison announced to his band-mates that he planned to move to Paris, France. They had no objection to his decision. In March 1971, Morrison joined his longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson (1946-1974) at her rented apartment in Rue Beautreillis. This Paris street was noted as the former residence of the poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). While staying in Paris, Morrison shaved his beard and lost some weight.
On July 3, 1971, Courson found Morison dead in the bathtub of their apartment at approximately 6:00 a.m. No autopsy was performed, as it was not required by French law. The official cause of death was heart failure, though this was just an educated guess. There were initial rumors of an accidental heroin overdose, but no evidence could confirm them. Morrison was buried at "Père Lachaise Cemetery", the largest cemetery in Paris and the most visited necropolis in the world. The cemetery was founded by the emperor Napoleon in 1804, and houses the remains of several famous writers and artists. Morrison has continued to inspire musicians for decades, and has repeatedly been cited as a main inspiration for the gothic rock genre.- Jimmy Wisner was born on 8 December 1931 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He died on 13 March 2018 in the USA.
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Joana de Verona (b.1989) is an award-winning Portuguese-Brazilian actress. She has worked with directors such as Marco Martins, Raúl Ruiz, João Botelho, João Salaviza, Solveig Nordlund, Catarina Ruivo, Valeria Sarmiento, Larissa Figueiredo, Gabriel Abrantes, Carlos Conceição, Miguel Gomes, António Ferreira, Pierre Edouard Dumorra, Lúcia Murat, Denis Côté, Fanny Ardant, among others.
She is mostly known for "How to Draw a Perfect Circle" (2009), "Mysteries of Lisbon" (2010) (winner of the Louis Delluc award), "Lines of Wellington" (2012), "Rafa" (2012) (Golden Berlin Bear for short film), "Arabian Nights" by Miguel Gomes, "Paris Square" by Lúcia Murat winner of best film at Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival.
Graduated with an MFA in Theater from the Lisbon Theatre and Film School. She has worked with theater directors such as Carlos Avillez, Luis Miguel Cintra, Gonçalo Amorim, Marco Martins, Monica Garnel, Monica Calle. She works in countries such as Brazil, France, Portugal, Germany and Italy.
"Chantal", her first documentary, was produced at Ateliers Varan (Paris).- Actor
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One of the best and most familiar character actors of the first four decades of sound films, although few who knew his face also knew his name, John Qualen was born in Canada to Norwegian parents. His father was a minister. The family moved to the United States and Qualen (whose real name was Kvalen) grew up in Elgin, Illinois. He won an oratory contest and was given a scholarship to Northwestern University. His interest in acting was piqued there, and he began appearing in tent shows on the Lyceum-Chautauqua circuit and in stock. He went to New York in 1929 and got his big break as the Swedish janitor in Elmer Rice's Street Scene. He repeated the role two years later in the film version. That same year he first worked for director John Ford in Arrowsmith (1931). He became a member of Ford's famed stock company and had prominent roles for Ford for the next thirty-five years. He became a most familiar character player, specializing in Scandinavians of various nationalities, but frequently playing a wide variety of other ethnicities. Perhaps his greatest work among many memorable roles was as the pitiful Muley, who recounts the destruction of his farm by the bank in Ford's masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Although plagued in his later years by failing eyesight, he continued to work steadily into his final years. He was treasurer of The Authors Club and historian of The Masquers, Hollywood's famed social group for actors. He had three children, Elizabeth, Kathleen, and Meredith. Qualen died in 1987.- Actor
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John Rubinstein is an actor, director, composer, singer, and teacher. He was born in Los Angeles, California in 1946, the same year his father, the renowned Polish-born concert pianist Artur Rubinstein, became an American citizen. He is the youngest of four children. His sister, Eva, danced and acted on Broadway, originating the role of "Margot" in the original production of "The Diary of Anne Frank"; she later became an internationally known photographer. His brother, Paul, recently retired from his career as a stockbroker in New York; his sister, Alina, is a psychiatrist in Manhattan. John attended St. Bernard's School and Collegiate School in New York City, and then returned to Los Angeles in 1964 to study theater at UCLA. During his college years, he began his professional career as an actor, appearing in 1965 with Howard Keel in Lerner and Loewe's "Camelot" in San Carlos and Anaheim; playing a role in the Civil War film, Journey to Shiloh (1968); and starting his long list of television appearances in shows, such as The Virginian (1962), Dragnet 1967 (1967) and Room 222 (1969). It was also at UCLA that he began composing and orchestrating music: incidental music for theatrical plays, and a musical, "The Short and Turbulent Reign of Roger Ginzburg", with book and lyrics by David Colloff, that won the 1967 BMI Varsity Musical Award as Best Musical.
Rubinstein made his Broadway acting debut in 1972, and received a Theater World Award, for creating the title role in the musical "Pippin", directed by Bob Fosse. In 1980, he won the Tony, Drama Desk, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, and Drama-Logue Awards for his portrayal of "James Leeds" in Mark Medoff's "Children Of A Lesser God", directed by Gordon Davidson. Other Broadway appearances were in Neil Simon's "Fools", and David Rabe's "Hurlyburly", both directed by Mike Nichols; Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial", which earned him another Drama Desk nomination; David Henry Hwang's "M. Butterfly"; "Getting Away With Murder", by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, directed by Jack O'Brien, and the musical "Ragtime", directed by Frank Galati. In 2014, he joined the Broadway cast of the hit revival of "Pippin," directed by Diane Paulus, this time playing Pippin's father, Charlemagne. He repeated this role on the national tour throughout the United States, Japan, and Europe in 2014-2016. In 2017 he originated the role of Grandpa Joe in the Broadway musical, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," directed by Jack O'Brien. In 1987, he made his off-Broadway debut at the Roundabout Theater as "Guildenstern" in Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", with Stephen Lang and John Wood, and subsequently performed in "Urban Blight" and "Cabaret Verboten". In 2005, he received the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Lead Actor in a Play, as well as nominations for both the Outer Critics' and Drama League Awards, for his portrayal of "George Simon" in Elmer Rice's "Counselor-at-Law", directed by Dan Wackerman, at the Pecadillo Theatre.
His appearances in regional theaters include the musicals "Camelot" (at various times as "Tom of Warwick", "Mordred" and "King Arthur") and "South Pacific"; the role of "Billy" in David Rabe's "Streamers", "Ariel" in "The Tempest", "Marchbanks" in Shaw's "Candida", both Sergius and Bluntschli (alternating nights with Richard Thomas) in Shaw's "Arms And The Man", several roles in Arnold Weinstein's "Metamorphoses", directed by Paul Sills at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, "Sight Unseen" at L.A.'s Odyssey Theatre, "The Torch-Bearers" and "Our Town" at the Williamstown Theater Festival, Arthur Miller's "Broken Glass" at Monterey Peninsula College, and Warren Smith in "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever" (in a 160-city National Tour). In 1985 He starred in "Merrily We Roll Along" at the La Jolla Playhouse, in a version newly re-written by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, directed by James Lapine. He was the original Andrew Ladd III in A.R. Gurney's "Love Letters" at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, opened the play in New York off-Broadway, and later performed it on Broadway, in San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. He created the role of Molina in "Kiss Of The Spider Woman", the musical by Terrence McNally, John Kander, and Fred Ebb, directed by Harold Prince, and the role of Kenneth Hoyle in Jon Robin Baitz's "Three Hotels". In 1997, he played Tateh in the American premiere run of the musical "Ragtime", by Terrence McNally, Stephen Flaherty, and Lynn Ahrens, directed by Frank Galati, at the Shubert Theater in Los Angeles, receiving both an L. A. Drama Critics Circle nomination and a Drama-Logue Award as Best Actor in a Musical, and continued in the show both in Vancouver and on Broadway. He appeared opposite Donald Sutherland in Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's "Enigmatic Variations" at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, and at the Savoy Theatre in London's West End; played the Wizard of Oz in the hit musical "Wicked", by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz, directed by Joe Mantello, at the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles for 18 months; and starred with John Schuck and Ken Page in the world premiere of a musical version of "Grumpy Old Men" in Winnipeg at the Manitoba Theatre Centre.
His 24 feature films include Atlas Shrugged Part II; Hello, I Must Be Going, which opened the 2012 Sundance Festival; 21 Grams; Red Dragon; Mercy; Another Stakeout; Someone To Watch Over Me; Daniel; The Boys From Brazil; Rome and Jewel; Choose Connor; Sublime; Jekyll; Kid Cop; Getting Straight; Zachariah; The Trouble with Girls; Journey To Shiloh; and The Car. He received an Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of Jeff Maitland III in the ABC series "Family", a role he played for five years; and he starred for two years with Jack Warden in the CBS series "Crazy Like A Fox". He has acted in over 200 television films and series episodes, including Arthur Miller's "The American Clock" (CableAce Award Nomination), "Feud!", "When We Rise", "Mrs. Harris", "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town", "Norma And Marilyn", "The Sleepwalker", "Working Miracles", "In My Daughter's Name", "Perry Mason", "Voices Within: The Lives Of Truddi Chase", "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles", "Skokie", "Movieola", "Roots: The Next Generations", and "A Howling In The Woods". He has played recurring parts on "This Is Us", "The Fosters", "Perception", "The Mentalist", "Desperate Housewives", "Parenthood", "No Ordinary Family", "Greek", "The Wizards of Waverly Place", "Dirty Sexy Money", "Day Break", "Angel", "The Guardian", "The Practice", "Star Trek: Enterprise", "Girlfriends", "Robocop: the Series", "The Young and the Restless", and "Barbershop."
Mr. Rubinstein has composed, orchestrated, and conducted the musical scores for five feature films, including Jeremiah Johnson (directed by Sidney Pollack) and The Candidate, (directed by Michael Ritchie), both starring Robert Redford; Paddy (with Milo O'Shea); The Killer Inside Me (with Stacy Keach); and Kid Blue (with Dennis Hopper); and for over 50 television films, among them the Peabody Award-winning "Amber Waves", "The Dollmaker" (starring Jane Fonda), "A Walton Wedding", "The Ordeal Of Patty Hearst", "Choices Of The Heart", and "Emily, Emily", as well as the weekly themes for "Family" and "China Beach".
He spent six years as host for the radio program "Carnegie Hall Tonight", broadcast on l80 stations in the United States and Canada, and two years as the keyboard player for the jazz-rock group Funzone. He has recorded over 100 audio books, including 25 of the best-selling Alex Delaware novels by Jonathan Kellerman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Independence Day" by Richard Ford, Tom Clancy's "Debt Of Honor" and "Op Center", and E. L. Doctorow's "City of God", "World's Fair", and "All The Time In The World".
In 1987, Rubinstein made his directorial debut at the Williamstown Theater Festival, staging Aphra Behn's "The Rover", with Christopher Reeve and Kate Burton; the following season he directed the first American-cast production of Christopher Hampton's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", with Dwight Schultz and Dianne Wiest. Off-Broadway, he directed the New York premieres of "Phantasie", by Sybille Pearson, and "Nightingale", by Elizabeth Diggs; and the world premiere of A. R. Gurney's "The Old Boy", with Stephen Collins. At the Cape Playhouse in Massachusetts, he staged "Wait Until Dark", with Hayley Mills and William Atherton. For NYU, he directed productions of "The Three Sisters" and "Macbeth"; for UCLA, "Company"; and for USC, "Brigadoon", "Into The Woods", "On The Town", "City of Angels", and "The Most Happy Fella". In Los Angeles, at Interact Theatre Company, of which he has been a member since 1992, he co-directed and starred in the revival of Elmer Rice's Counsellor-At-Law, winning Drama-Logue Awards and L.A. Drama Critics Circle Awards in both categories, as well as Ovation Awards for Ensemble Acting and Sound Design; the production itself won 22 awards; he also directed and acted in Sondheim and Lapine's "Into The Woods" and "A Little Night Music", and Meredith Willson's "The Music Man", and also directed Sheridan's "The Rivals" and Frank Loesser's "Guys and Dolls". For television, he directed the CBS Schoolbreak Special "A Matter Of Conscience", which won the Emmy Award for Best Children's Special in 1990, an episode of the CBS series "Nash Bridges", the ABC AfterSchool Special miniseries "Summer Stories", and three episodes of the TV series "High Tide".
In 2011, Rubinstein provided commentary for the online web-casting of the XIVth International Tchaikovsky Competition, a classical music competition held in Moscow. He teaches courses in musical theater audition and acting for the camera, and directs the annual spring musical, at the University of Southern California.
He is married to Bonnie Burgess, and has five children: Jessica, Michael (the actor Michael Weston), Peter, Jacob, and Max.- Actor
- Music Department
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John Waters is one of Australia's most recognised and respected television, film and theatrical actors. He was born in London, England on December 8 1948, to Scottish actor Russell Waters and wife Barbara. The family, including siblings Philip, Angela, Stephen and Fiona, lived in a rented top floor 2 bedroom flat in 56c Anlaby Road, Teddington, Middlesex close to the Thames TV studios.
Growing up around his fathers film studio's found him catching the acting bug early. His youngest appearance was at age ten in the original Titanic movie A Night To Remember, followed by a Disney classic Dr Syn and a bit part in Z Cars. John attended Hampton Grammar School from approx 1960 to 1967, appearing as Macbeth in the school play in about 1966 complete with the normally banned long hair.
As a teen he lived every boyhood dream, singing and playing bass in a rock and roll band called The Riots.
In 1968 he took the "ten pound" opportunity offered by the Australian government and sailed to Australia with his guitar and a few pounds in his pocket. He worked on a sheep station before moving to Sydney, where he was working as a storeman by day and frontman of a cover band at night. He soon heard a US film called Adam's Woman, starring Beau Bridges, was being filmed in NSW and got a job as a grip on set. Cast members, including Helen Morse, recommended he try auditioning for an up and coming new musical. He did, and landed the lead role of Claude in Sydney's 1969 production of the landmark rock musical, Hair. This was followed by the role of Judas in Godspell.
This led to an acting career on stage, film and television that elevated him to his current status as Australia's most versatile leading man.
In order to appear a more mature actor, John added 5 years to his age in the early 70s. This, along with exciting stories of how he came to acquire the famous scar beneath his left eye (anything from sword fight in Algiers to bar brawls in Paris), enabled John to get many of the most sought after roles in Australia at the time.
Articles in womens magazines had John celebrating his 40th birthday several years too early. Around the late 80s - early 90s John gradually let the extra years slip until he was back to his real age - where he has remained ever since.
And as for that scar, barely visible thru the rugged character lines etched upon his face these days, but so darned appealing 'back then', an interview with his sister Fizz in 2002 revealed it to be no more than a childhood mishap with some traffic that was never treated properly by the doctor.
John wasnt the first actor in the world to embelish his age or past, and he certainly wont be the last. Thats showbiz folks. After all, a 29 year old with a scar from a brawl in Paris certainly sounds more exciting than a 24 year old who came off a footpath as a kid !! Funnily- while John was able to revert back to his correct age eventually, one
While he played hard nosed criminals, policemen, soldiers and murderers on television through the 70s, the other side of John was enthralling an audience of 5 year olds (and thier mums) as he had tea and played dress ups with Jemima and Big Ted as a regular host of Play School for 10 years.
As a television actor John was the brooding Sgt. McKellar of ABC TV's Rush which earned him a Logie Award for Best New Talent, and the sexy paddlesteamer captain Brenton Edwards in All The Rivers Run. He guest starred in everything from Homicide to The Box, Good Guys Bad Guys, The Man From Snowy River, All Together Now and Young Lions. Not forgeting the memorable mini series and telemovies of the 80s Nancy Wake, Alice To Nowhere and Singapore Sling.
He also starred in the ABC series Fireflies and Channel 7's hospital drama All Saints (for which he received a 2006 AFI Award nomination for "Best Guest or Supporting Actor in a TV Drama"). In 2010 he guest starred in Channel 9's Underbelly - The Golden Mile and Sea Patrol , channel 7's City Homicide and earned a lead role in the Ch10 series Offspring. In 2012 John starred in the ABC mystery drama telemovie The Mystery of the Hansom Cab.
As a presenter/narrator/spokesman he has been seen and heard on ad campaigns for The Bankers Trust, MBF Health Fund, Birdseye, Sudafed, Uncle Toby's Porridge, Qantas , Telstra, Mao's Last Dancer, MLC, Arnotts, Sydney Wildlife World, Toyota Hybrid Camry, Continental Tortilla Stacks. He has narrated programs such as Mind Games: Real Life Adventures, Nostradamus, Triple Zero Heroes and Kapyong.
On film John has appeared in many Australian productions, from End Play, Summerfield, Breaker Morant, Eliza Frazer, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, The Getting Of Wisdom, Bushfire Moon, Heaven Tonight, The Real McCaw, The Bouncer, Centre Place and The Return to Nim's Island alongside Bindi Irwin.
John is a big supporter of up and coming Australian film makers and adds gravitas to their casting by appearing in their short films including Ragtime, Worm and Luck.
As a theatrical performer John has starred in all the classics from Hair to Godspell, Dracula, Jesus Christ Superstar, My Fair Lady, The Sound Of Music, They're Playing Our Song, The Hunting of the Snark, A Little Night Music, Love Letters, Children of a Lesser God, Oliver, The Graduate, An Ideal Husband , Influence, The Rocky Horror Show and The Swimming Club. In 2013 John starred as Gomez Addams in The Addams Family Musical.
He wrote, financed and composed the rock musical ReUnion with friend Stewart D'Arrietta. He and Stewart also wrote the one man show Looking Through a Glass Onion, based on the life of John Lennon and toured nationally regularly since 1992 and also played six months in London's West End in 1995. Glass Onion returned in an all new season for 2010-2011 and again for full Australian tours in 2012 - 2014 and will head to New York in 2014.
He performed a one-man Cabaret season as Jacques Brel in Cafe Brel in the 70's and brought the show back to life as BREL in 2010 followed by the release of a cd of the same name. He has performed the songs of Lennon & McCartney with Christine Anu, Leo Sayer & Rick Price in Let It Be in 2006, and with Jon Stevens, Jack Jones and Doug Parkinson in 2010.
John's solo album Cloudland was released in 2010 and features his own work as well as a couple of special covers. He has also released a new CD version of Pilliga Pete and Clarrie the Cocky, a childrens story & songs first released in the 80s.
John has been imortalised on canvas twice when portraits of him have been entered in the esteemed Archibald Prize in 2001 and 2014.
On the family side, John's first marriage was to actress Jenny Cullen - a union that produced children Ivan and Rebecca. His second marriage was to actress Sally Conabere. His third marriage, to Zoe Burton, was in January 2002 and they became parents to son Archie in January 2003 and twins Gloria & Rusty in September 2006.
John continues to be one of the hardest working and most employable actors in Australia. Happily married for the third time, he is a father of 5 and grandfather of 2.- Actor
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Jorge Serrano is known for Biutiful (2010), Los nuevos y clásicos bloopers (2004) and Pasapalabra (2016). He has been married to Alejandra since 1990. They have three children.- Juliette Danielle was born on 8 December 1980 in Fort Smith, Arkansas, USA. She is an actress, known for The Room (2003), Development Hell (2013) and The Story of Sarah (2013). She has been married to Joe Clark since 7 July 2017.
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Tom Holkenborg, aka Junkie XL, is a Grammy-nominated multi-platinum producer, musician, composer and educator whose versatility puts him on the cutting edge of contemporary music, and whose thirst for innovation is helping to reimagine the world of composition.
A full-contact composer, Holkenborg is hands-on at every stage of the composing process, a multi-instrumentalist who combines a mastery of studio engineering, classical musical training and an innate sense of curiosity. He's as adept working with a 50 piece philharmonic orchestra as he is with a wall of modular synths, playing a bass guitar or building his own physical and digital instruments. His drive to reimagine what's possible and share that knowledge with the next generation of composers is what makes Holkenborg a unique force, and one of the most in-demand film composers in the world.
Tom's film scoring credits have grossed over $2 billion at the box office and include Mad Max: Fury Road, Deadpool, Black Mass, Alita: Battle Angel, Divergent, Brimstone, Justice League: The Snyder Cut, Godzilla vs. Kong, The Dark Tower, Tomb Raider, Terminator: Dark Fate, the record setting Sonic the Hedgehog and forthcoming projects including The 355, Army of The Dead, 3000 Years of Longing and more. He has worked with directors and producers including Peter Jackson, Robert Rodriguez, James Cameron, George Miller, Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder and Tim Miller among many others.
An educator as well as a creator, Tom is committed to breaking down the barriers of entry in the world of film composition, creating the free SCORE Academy program in Los Angeles, a music composition program at the ArtEZ conservatorium in his home country of the Netherlands, and on YouTube, where he hosts his educational series StudioTime, which has been watched millions of times.
Tom is able to draw on his extensive knowledge of classical forms and structures while keeping one finger planted firmly on the pulse of popular music. When his eclectic background is paired with his skill as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays keyboards, guitar, drums, violin, and bass) and a mastery of studio technology, a portrait emerges of an artist for whom anything is possible. Outside of his own artistry Tom's desire to marry technology and classical composition to initiate change and evolution led him to partner with Orchestral Tools in 2019 to create Junkie XL Brass, his first sample library, making world-class sounds available to composers everywhere.JXL- Actress
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Kate began her acting career as a recurring guest star in the CW series: One Tree Hill (2003). as Mia Catalano (35 episodes). Voegele is acting in film, television and stage in Los Angeles and New York.
Kate began her career as a professional musician when she signed a record deal with Myspace Records in 2006 and released her debut album, "Don't Look Away" (produced by Marshall Altman), in May of 2007.
Voegele continues to build her professional music career and fan base by touring in the US, UK and Europe. Her fourth full length record is due out in fall of 2016.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Katie Stevens is a versatile young actress who has quickly established herself as one of Hollywood's most sought-after, vibrant young talents. She leads the cast of Freeform's "The Bold Type," which reveals a glimpse into the outrageous lives and loves of those responsible for the fictional global women's magazine, Scarlet. The show, which premiered summer 2017 to fantastic reviews, is loosely based on Joanna Coles who serves as chief content officer at Hearst Magazines and previously served as editor in chief of Cosmo Magazine.
Katie began performing and singing at age 3. Her passion eventually landed her a spot on the "American Idol" stage. In August 2009, she auditioned for "American Idol" in Boston, Massachusetts and sang "At Last," where all four judges (including guest judge Victoria Beckham) advanced her to Hollywood. At the Boston audition, Judge Kara DioGuardi called her one of the most talented 16-year old singers she had ever seen.
Katie splits her time between Los Angeles and Nashville.- Kees Driehuis was born on 8 December 1951 in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. He was an actor and editor, known for Sinterklaasjournaal (2001), Zembla (1995) and Sinterklaasjournaal: De Meezing Moevie (2009). He died on 29 October 2019 in Nederhorst den Berg, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.
- Canadian-born actor Kevin McNulty, can be described as being a prolific performer of film and television. Born in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada, Kevin grew up in Rossland, British Columbia. He studied music and acting at Washington State University and graduated from Studio 58, Langara College in Vancouver. He put his acting skills to work first on stage, working for two years from 1984-'85 at the Straford Festival. In 1986, Kevin made his break in screen work. Since that time, Kevin continued on a extensive track of television and film work. Some notable television appearances might include the disaster movies Supervolcano (2005), Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York (2006) and Meteor Storm (2010). Series-wise, Kevin has appeared on Stargate: Atlantis (2004), Supernatural (2005), Battlestar Galactica (2004) and Psych (2006). He has been involved with such high-profile works including Snakes on a Plane (2006), the Marvel Comics action films Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007). He also appeared in the chilling drama The Uninvited (2009) and the superhero film Watchmen (2009).
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Kim Basinger was born December 8, 1953, in Athens, Georgia, the third of five children. Both her parents had been in entertainment, her dad had played big-band jazz, and her mother had performed water ballet in several Esther Williams movies. Kim was introspective, from her father's side. As a schoolgirl, she was very shy. To help her overcome this, her parents had Kim study ballet from an early age. By the time she reached sweet sixteen, the once-shy Kim entered the Athens Junior Miss contest. From there, she went on to win the Junior Miss Georgia title, and traveled to New York to compete in the national Junior Miss pageant. Kim, who had blossomed to a 5' 7" beauty, was offered a contract on the spot with the Ford Modeling Agency. At the age of 20, Kim was a top model commanding $1,000 a day. Throughout the early 1970s, she appeared on dozens of magazine covers and in hundreds of ads, most notably as the Breck girl. Kim took acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse, performed in various Greenwich Village clubs, and she sang under the stage name Chelsea. Kim moved to Los Angeles in 1976, ready to conquer Hollywood. Kim broke into television doing episodes of such hit series as Charlie's Angels (1976). In 1980, she married Ron Snyder (they divorced in 1989). In movies, she had roles like being a Bond girl in Never Say Never Again (1983) and playing a small-town Texan beauty in Nadine (1987). Her breakout role was as photojournalist Vicki Vale in the blockbuster hit Batman (1989). There was no long-orchestrated campaign on her part to snag this plum role, Kim was a last-minute replacement for Sean Young. This took her to a career high.
With perhaps too much disposable income, Kim headed up an investment group that purchased the entire town of Braselton, in her native Georgia, for $20 million (she would later have to sell it). In 1993, Kim married Alec Baldwin, and in 1995 they had a daughter, Ireland Eliesse. Kim took some time off to stay at home with her child. Kim, who loves animals and is a strict vegetarian, devoted energy to animal rights issues, and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), even posing for some ads. In 1997, Kim gave an Oscar-winning performance in the film noir classic L.A. Confidential (1997). Kim's salary for I Dreamed of Africa (2000) was $5,000,000, putting her firmly in the category of big-name movie star. And no doubt there are still many great things ahead, in the career of cover girl turned Oscar-winning actress Kim Basinger.- Actress
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Kim Sill was born on 8 December 1963 in Tifton, Georgia, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Bad Blood (1994), Carnal Fate (1998) and Lap Dancing (1995). She is married to Joel Sill.- Stunts
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Kym Stys was born on 8 December 1973 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. She was an actress, known for Vacancy (2007), Piranha 3D (2010) and Transformers (2007). She died on 12 February 2024 in Camarillo, California, USA.- Actor
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Lee J. Cobb, one of the premier character actors in American film for three decades in the post-World War II period, was born Leo Jacoby in New York City's Lower East Side on December 8, 1911. The son of a Jewish newspaper editor, young Leo was a child prodigy in music, mastering the violin and the harmonica. Any hopes of a career as a violin virtuoso were dashed when he broke his wrist, but his talent on the harmonica may have brought him his first professional success. At the age of 16 or 17 he ran away from home to Hollywood to try to break into motion pictures as an actor. He reportedly made his film debut as a member of Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals (their first known movie appearance was in the 1929 two-reeler Boyhood Days), but that cannot be substantiated. However, it's known that after Leo was unable to find work he returned to New York City, where he attended New York University at night to study accounting while acting in radio dramas during the day.
An older Cobb tried his luck in California once more, making his debut as a professional stage actor at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1931. After again returning to his native New York, he made his Broadway debut as a saloonkeeper in a dramatization of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but it closed after 15 performances (later in his career, Dostoevsky would prove more of a charm, with Cobb's role as Father Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (1958) garnering him his second Oscar nomination),
Cobb joined the politically progressive Group Theater in 1935 and made a name for himself in Clifford Odets' politically liberal dramas Waiting for Lefty and Til the Day I Die, appearing in both plays that year in casts that included Elia Kazan, who later became famous as a film director. Cobb also appeared in the 1937 Group Theater production of Odets' Golden Boy, playing the role of Mr. Carp, in a cast that also included Kazan, Julius Garfinkle (later better known under his stage name of John Garfield), and Martin Ritt, all of whom later came under the scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the heyday of the McCarthy Red Scare hysteria more than a decade later. Cobb took over the role of Mr. Bonaparte, the protagonist's father, in the 1939 film version of the play, despite the fact that he was not yet 30 years old. The role of a patriarch suited him, and he'd play many more in his film career.
It was as a different kind of patriarch that he scored his greatest success. Cobb achieved immortality by giving life to the character of Willy Loman in the original 1949 Broadway production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. His performance was a towering achievement that ranks with such performances as Edwin Booth as Richard III and John Barrymore as Hamlet in the annals of the American theater. Cobb later won an Emmy nomination as Willy when he played the role in a made-for-TV movie of the play (Death of a Salesman (1966)). Miller said that he wrote the role with Cobb in mind.
Before triumphing as Miller's Salesman, Cobb had appeared on Broadway only a handful of times in the 1940s, including in Ernest Hemingway's The Fifth Column (1940), Odets' "Clash by Night" (1942) and the US Army Air Force's Winged Victory (1943-44). Later he reprised the role of Joe Bonaparte's father in the 1952 revival of Golden Boy opposite Garfield as his son, and appeared the following year in The Emperor's Clothes. His final Broadway appearance was as King Lear in the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center's 1968 production of Shakespeare's play.
Aside from his possible late 1920s movie debut and his 1934 appearance in the western The Vanishing Shadow (1934), Cobb's film career proper began in 1937 with the westerns North of the Rio Grande (1937) (in which he was billed as Lee Colt) and Rustlers' Valley (1937) and spanned nearly 40 years until his death. After a hiatus while serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Cobb's movie career resumed in 1946. He continued to play major supporting roles in prestigious A-list pictures. His movie career reached its artistic peak in the 1950s, when he was twice nominated for Best Supporting Actor Academy Awards, for his role as Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront (1954) and as the father in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). Other memorable supporting roles in the 1950s included the sagacious Judge Bernstein in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), as the probing psychiatrist Dr. Luther in The Three Faces of Eve (1957) and as the volatile Juror #3 in 12 Angry Men (1957).
It was in the 1950s that Cobb achieved the sort of fame that most artists dreaded: he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee on charges that he was or had been a Communist. The charges were rooted in Cobb's membership in the Group Theater in the 1930s. Other Group Theater members already investigated by HUAC included Clifford Odets and Elia Kazan, both of whom provided friendly testimony before the committee, and John Garfield, who did not.
Cobb's own persecution by HUAC had already caused a nervous breakdown in his wife, and he decided to appear as a friendly witness in order to preserve her sanity and his career, by bringing the inquisition to a halt. Appearing before the committee in 1953, he named names and thus saved his career. Ironically, he would win his first Oscar nomination in On the Waterfront (1954) directed and written by fellow HUAC informers Kazan and Budd Schulberg. The film can be seen as a stalwart defense of informing, as epitomized by the character Terry Malloy's testimony before a Congressional committee investigating racketeering on the waterfront.
Major films in which Cobb appeared after reaching his career plateau include Otto Preminger's adaptation of Leon Uris' ode to the birth of Israel, Exodus (1960); the Cinerama spectacle How the West Was Won (1962); the James Coburn spy spoofs, Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967); Clint Eastwood's first detective film, Coogan's Bluff (1968); and legendary director William Wyler's last film, The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970).
In addition to his frequent supporting roles in film, Cobb often appeared on television. He played Judge Henry Garth on The Virginian (1962) from 1962-66 and also had a regular role as the attorney David Barrett on The Young Lawyers (1969) from 1970-71. Cobb also appeared in made-for-TV movies and made frequent guest appearances on other TV shows. His last major Hollywood movie role was that of police detective Lt. Kinderman in The Exorcist (1973).
Lee J. Cobb died of a heart attack in Woodland Hills, California, on February 11, 1976, at the age of 64. He is buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Though he will long be remembered for many of his successful supporting performances in the movies, it is as the stage's first Willy Loman in which he achieved immortality as an actor. Bearing in mind that the role was written for him, it is through Willy that he will continue to have an influence on American drama far into the future, for as long as Death of a Salesman is revived.- Director
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Marco Berger was born on 8 December 1977 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a director and writer, known for Absent (2011), The Blonde One (2019) and Taekwondo (2016).- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Margaret Anne Florence has built a diverse career as a successful actor, singer and model in New York City. She has been featured in major motion pictures including Martin Scorsese's The Irishman (2019), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), The Mighty Macs (2009), and The New Daughter (2009).
Margaret Anne can be seen on Amazon Prime Video in the tennis comedy, First One In (2020), as well as playing the lead in the two Lifetime Television Movies; A Sister's Secret (2018) and Cheer Squad Secrets (2020).
She starred alongside Chad Michael Murray in CMT's limited series, Sun Records (2017). Margaret Anne returned to her southern roots in the 1950's period drama as Marion Keisker, Sam Phillips' assistant-turned-girlfriend. Marion was best known for being the first person to record Elvis Presley. Additionally, Margaret Anne has worked on numerous television shows including Inside Amy Schumer (2013), 30 Rock (2006), and Nurse Jackie (2009).
Margaret Anne has also spent time on New York and regional stages appearing in productions such as The Light in the Piazza, The Fantasticks, and Street Scene to name a few.
Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. She received a B.A. in Music/Classical Voice from the College of Charleston, and a Masters in Music Theater Performance from New York University.
Margaret Anne lives in New York City with her husband and two sons. In her free time, she enjoys working out, playing sports, travel, cooking, maintaining a healthy lifestyle and chasing her children. She is a member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA. She is represented by Steve Maihack at 44 West Entertainment.- Animation Department
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Maria Perego was born on 8 December 1923 in Venice, Veneto, Italy. She was a writer, known for The World of Topo Gigio (1961), Dillinger Is Dead (1969) and Le avventure di Cappuccetto a pois (1969). She was married to Federico Caldura. She died on 7 November 2019 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy.- Marianne Hagan was born on 8 December 1966 in Mount Pleasant, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), Stake Land (2010) and I Think I Do (1997).
- Martín Lousteau has been married to Carla Peterson since 23 September 2012. They have one child.
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- Soundtrack
Martin Semmelrogge was born on 8 December 1955 in Bad Boll, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He is an actor, known for Das Boot (1981), Schindler's List (1993) and Fahr zur Hölle (2011). He was previously married to Sonja Semmelrogge and Susanne.- Actress
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Mary Woronov was born on December 8, 1943, at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. A surgeon's stepdaughter, she was raised in Brooklyn Heights and attended Cornell University as a sculpting major. After a class trip to Andy Warhol 's Silver Factory, she joined Warhol's entourage and starred in a number of his underground films and appeared as a go-go dancer in the Velvet Underground's Exploding Plastic Inevitable shows. She left the Factory in the late 1960s and, after recovering from a heavy methamphetamine addiction, spent two years in Europe with a friend; during this time, Warhol was shot by Valerie Solanas, and with the altered Factory dynamic, "there was nothing to go back to." She supported herself with work in off-Broadway and off-off- Broadway theater, then "got scared and got married" to director/producer Theodore Gershuny. She appeared in three of his films, Kemek (1970), Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972), and Sugar Cookies (1973). After the marriage broke up, Woronov moved to Los Angeles at the invitation of friend Paul Bartel, where she appeared on the daytime soap Somerset (1970) and had a memorable role in Bartel's Death Race 2000 (1975). Her best and most famous role came in 1982, with the part of Mary Bland in Bartel's black comedy Eating Raoul (1982). A major cult figure as an actress, she is also an accomplished painter and writer, having published three books--Wake for the Angels: Paintings and Stories, the autobiography Swimming Underground: My Years in the Warhol Factory, and the novel Snake.- Actor
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- Producer
Matt Adler was born on 8 December 1966 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Flight of the Navigator (1986), Teen Wolf (1985) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004). He has been married to Laura San Giacomo since 2000. He was previously married to Ria Pavia.- Actor
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Matthew Labyorteaux was born in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is known for his role as Albet Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie (from 1978-1983). His most prominent film role was in Wes Craven's Deadly Friend (1986) as Paul Conway. He has been married to Leslie Labyorteaux since July 17, 2020. They have two children.- Actor
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Matthias Schoenaerts was born on December 8, 1977 in Antwerp, Belgium. His mother, Dominique Wiche, was a costume designer, translator, and French teacher, and his father was actor Julien Schoenaerts. He made his film debut at the age of 13 alongside his father in the Belgian film Daens (1992), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Schoenaerts enrolled in film school but was expelled for poor attendance in his second year. By age 21, he was enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Antwerp and was acting professionally in small roles on Belgian television and in Belgian film. By the time he graduated in 2003, Schoenaerts was already named one of "Europe's Shooting Stars" by the influential marketing organization, European Film Promotion.
In 2002, he starred in Dorothée Van Den Berghe's directorial debut Meisje (2002), which was also his first feature film since Daens. With his role in Tom Barman's Any Way the Wind Blows (2003), he proved he was Flanders' young actor to watch.
In 2004, Schoenaerts produced and starred in the short film A Message from Outer Space (2004). He also appeared in Ellektra (2004) alongside his father.
In 2006, he had a small role as a member of the Dutch Resistance in Paul Verhoeven's Black Book (2006), and landed his first starring role in the Belgian film Dennis van Rita (2006), playing Dennis, a mentally-challenged man learning to adjust to life after a prison sentence for a rape he may not have committed.
Though Schoenaerts garnered critical praise for his role in "Love Belongs to Everyone", the film that would make him a star in his homeland came in 2008, in Erik Van Looy's Loft (2008), Schoenaerts played Filip, one of a group of married friends who share the rent on a downtown loft as a place to meet their respective mistresses. The dramatic thriller was a smash hit, becoming the top-grossing Flemish film of all time. In the same year, he also starred in the horror film Linkeroever (2008).
In 2009, he worked once again with director Dorothée Van Den Berghe, playing the hippie Raven in My Queen Karo (2009). In 2010, he played the lead role in Alex Stockman's techno-thriller Pulsar (2010).
In 2011, Schoenaerts starred in Michaël R. Roskam's Bullhead (2011), playing Jacky Vanmarsenille, a cattle farmer who becomes entangled with the underworld of bovine hormones and steroids. Impressed by the script, Schoenaerts committed to star in the film in 2005, and over the five years that it took first-time director Roskam to secure financing, the actor transformed his naturally thin body into that of a steroid-abusing brute. His powerful performance in the tragic role won awards at numerous film festivals and propelled "Bullhead" to an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012.
In 2012, Schoenaerts got the lead role opposite Marion Cotillard in Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone (2012); in the film he played Ali, an ex-boxer who falls in love with Cotillard's character. Like Audiard's previous films, "Rust and Bone" received a breathless reception at the Cannes Film Festival with a 10-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening and was a critical and box office hit in France. Schoenaerts' performance in the film earned him a César Award for Most Promising Actor in 2013.
Schoenaerts also starred in the Belgian short film Death of a Shadow (2012), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2013 and won the European Film Award for Best European Short.
In 2013, he starred in Blood Ties (2013) after being recommended for the film by his co-star in "Rust and Bone", Marion Cotillard. Following his breakthrough in "Rust and Bone", Matthias started a career in Hollywood and landed roles in American and British productions like Saul Dibb's Suite Française (2014), Alan Rickman's A Little Chaos (2014), Michaël R. Roskam's The Drop (2014), and Thomas Vinterberg's Far from the Madding Crowd (2015).
In 2015, Schoenaerts returned to French cinema in Alice Winocour's Disorder (2015), in which he plays an ex-soldier with PTSD. He also played one of the leads of Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash (2015), opposite Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes, and played the art-dealer Hans Axgil in Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl (2015).
He will reteam with Michaël R. Roskam in Racer and the Jailbird (2017) and also with Thomas Vinterberg in The Command (2018), in which Schoenaerts will play the captain of a Russian submarine.- Actor
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Maximilian Schell was the most successful German-speaking actor in English-language films since Emil Jannings, the winner of the first Best Actor Academy Award. Like Jannings, Schell won the Oscar, but unlike him, he was a dedicated anti-Nazi. Indeed, with the exception of Maurice Chevalier and Marcello Mastroianni, Schell was undoubtedly the most successful non-anglophone foreign actor in the history of American cinema.
Schell was born in Vienna, Austria on December 8, 1930, but raised in in Zurich, Switzerland. (Austria became part of Germany after the anschluss of 1938), then was occupied by the allies from 1945 until 1955, when it again joined the family of nations.) He learned his craft on the stage beginning in 1952, and made his reputation with appearances in German-language films and television. He was a fine Shakespearean actor, and had a huge success with "Richard III" (he has also appeared in as the eponymous prince in a German-language version of "Hamlet").
Schell made his Hollywood debut in 1958 in the World War II film The Young Lions (1958) quite by accident, as the producers had wanted to hire his sister Maria Schell, but lines of communication got crossed, and he was the one hired. He impressed American producers as his turn as the friend of German soldier Marlon Brando, and subsequently assayed the role of the German defense attorney in the television drama Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) on "Playhouse 90" in 1959. He was also cast in the big screen remake, for which he won the 1961 Academy Award for Best Actor, beating out co-star Spencer Tracy for the Oscar. He also won a Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for the role. Schell ultimately won two more Oscar nominations for acting, in 1976 for Best Actor for The Man in the Glass Booth (1975) and in 1978 as Best Supporting Actor for Julia (1977) (which also brought him the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor). He has twice been nominated for an Emmy for his TV work, and won the 1993 Golden Globe for best performance by an actor in a supporting role in a series, mini-series or made-for-TV movie for Stalin (1992).
Schell has also has directed films, and his 1974 film The Pedestrian (1973) ("The Pedestrian"), which Schell wrote, produced, directed, and starred in, was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and won the Golden Globe in the same category. His documentary about Marlene Dietrich, Marlene (1984), was widely hailed as a masterpiece of the non-fiction genre and garnered its producers a Best Documentary Oscar nomination in 1985. In 2002, Schell released Meine Schwester Maria (2002) (My Sister Maria), a documentary about the career of and his relationship with Maria Schell. Since the 1990s, Schell has appeared in many German language made-for-TV films, such as the 2003 film Alles Glück dieser Erde (2003) (All the Luck in the World) and in the mini-series The Hard Cops (2004), which was based on Henning Mankell's novel. He has also continued to appear on stage, appearing in dual roles in the 2000 Broadway production of the stage version of "Judgment at Nuremberg", and most recently in Robert Altman's London production of Arthur Miller's play "Resurrection Blues" in 2006. He died on 31st of January 2014, aged 83, in Innsbruck, Austria.- Actor
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Memè Perlini was born on 8 December 1947 in Vallefoglia, Marche, Italy. He was an actor and director, known for Ferdinando, uomo d'amore (1990), Il ventre di Maria (1992) and Duck, You Sucker! (1971). He died on 5 April 2017 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Music Department
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- Sound Department
Michael Blakey, born in London, England, studied music in Madrid and Berlin. Coming to the United States with a vast array of musical experience as an accomplished drummer, hit making music producer and music promoter, Blakey made his life long passion for the entertainment industry his business. He became the head of Music Production at the famous Hansa Tonstudio in West Berlin and in house session drummer. Over his career, he has successfully created three record labels as well as being involved with numerous gold and platinum selling records. In 1999, Blakey co-founded 2KSounds and was one of the first to integrate the Internet into daily operations for the successful distribution of music. Soon after going public in early 2002, 2KSounds entered into a joint venture with Virgin Records and Mr. Blakey was appointed the President of the Record Division. Throughout his career Blakey produced and promoted music for many Record Labels and Motion Picture companies as well as producing songs for movies, including Disney's Cinderella II. Blakey was honored by Cambridge Who's Who for demonstrating dedication, leadership and excellence in all aspects of production, promotion, marketing and all related areas of the entertainment industry. Now having teamed up with renowned comedian Ron White to create OMGVIP (Organica Media Group) creating VIP Fan Experiences, Blakey has already signed several artists to the company including Scott Baio, The Temptations, LeAnn Rimes, Maluma, Henry Rollins, Toad The Wet Sprocket and many others. Michael Blakey is also the head of Electra Star Management, a boutique management company based in Hollywood.- Michael Coulthard was born on 8 December 1968 in Syracuse, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for WrestleMania XXVIII (2012), WWE Smackdown! (1999) and WrestleMania XXVI (2010).
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- Editorial Department
- Cinematographer
Michael Kahn was born on 8 December 1935 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an editor and cinematographer, known for West Side Story (2021), Jurassic Park (1993) and Minority Report (2002).- Actor
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- Stunts
Mickey Gilmore was born on 8 December 1967 in Loring AFB, Maine, USA. He is an actor, known for Vault (2019), A Life Not to Follow (2015) and Spin the Plate (2018).- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
- Actor
At the age of 28 Ruiz began in the field of photography. "I found a camera under my Christmas tree and within minutes, I was obsessed. I began shooting everything in sight. I taught myself the intricate mechanics of the camera but it was a couple of years before I realized that I could actually make a living with my work'" Ruiz was quoted as saying. Presently based in New Jersey, Ruiz is known for beauty, celebrity and fashion photography. Mike's long list of celebrity clients include Priyanka Chopra, Lewis Hamilton, Cardi B, Ruby Rose, Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, Prince, Taraji P Henson, Penn Badgley, Lakeith Stanfield, Kelly Clarkson, Queen Latifah, Betty White and the list goes on and on. He's also gone on direct several music videos for artists such as Kelly Rowland, Vanessa Williams, Erika Jayne and Rupaul and made his feature film directorial debut with the uproarious comedy "StarrBooty" starring Rupaul. Mike has also appeared frequently on America's and Canada's Next Top Model, Rupaul's Dragrace, along with dozens of other television appearances as an expert in his field. Mike is most proud of his community service having supported such organizations as GMHC, The Trevor Project, Housing Works, It Gets Better Campaign, Live Out Loud, Project Angel Food, and GLAAD. He is also on the honorary board of the "Let There Be Hope" research foundation. Mike's life was changed profoundly after adopting a sweet terrier named Oliver. Oliver inspired Mike to work with various animal rights rights organizations and animal rescues throughout the United States including Stand Up For Pits Foundation and numerous animal rescues nation wide.- Actress
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Mille Lehfeldt was born on 8 December 1979. She is an actress, known for Nothing's All Bad (2010), Flame & Citron (2008) and Lykke (2011). She has been married to Sophus K. Windeløv since 2008. They have two children.- Writer
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Nancy Jane Meyers is an American filmmaker. She has written, produced, and directed many critically and commercially successful films including Private Benjamin (1980), Irreconcilable Differences (1984), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), Father of the Bride Part II (1995), The Parent Trap (1998), What Women Want (2000), Something's Gotta Give (2003), The Holiday (2006), It's Complicated (2009), and The Intern (2015).- Actor
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Nick Nevern is a British actor and Director. Nick spent some time in Russia, returning years later to London, where he started his acting career.
He first appeared on our TV screens in 2002 in the 'made-for-tv' film Out Of Control, a depiction of the lives of three boys sent to a young offenders institute. His next appearance would be in the TV football drama Dream Team, where he played Pavel Kovac for 2 episodes in 2006. In 2007 he appeared in Bonkers, Hotel Babylon and played the role of Viktor in 4 episodes of The English Class, as well as appearing in the film I Want Candy.
2008 saw him appear in the films West 10 LDN (2008) and Adulthood (2008), Eastenders, TV mini series Matroesjka's 2 and Spooks. In 2009 he played the role of Rogowski in Shameless, Lenny in Jonathan Creek and Elliot Johns in The Bill. Nick appeared in the film Mission London and also played the role of Ely in the TV mini series The Deep in 2010. In 2011, Nick Nevern appeared in the films 7lives and The Tapes. He also played the roles of Andrew in the film Turnout, Roger in Demon Never Dies and Marky in Victim. This was also the year of the release of Nick Nevern's most noted roles in the film Terry which Nick wrote, directed and played the role of Terry Jones, a documentary style film following his life of petty crime, drugs and extreme violence.
2012 sees the biggest year in Nicks career as he stars in some of the biggest British films of the year including The Sweeney (2012) and The Rise & Fall of a White Collar Hooligan (2012) and Riot (2017) (formally Riot).- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Nick Thune was born in Seattle and lived there until he was 24, when he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his comedy career. He has been getting steadily more popular over the past few years, appearing at the Laugh Factory, on Letterman and in several short comedy films. He has also had cameo appearances in several major films, including Knocked Up.- Owen Teague was born on 8 December 1998 in Tampa, Florida, USA. He is an actor, known for It (2017), It Chapter Two (2019) and Bloodline (2015).
- Composer
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Pablo Lescano was born on 8 December 1977 in San Isidro, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. He is a composer and actor, known for Get the Gringo (2012), Cruzadas (2011) and Palermo Hollywood (2004). He is married to Cecilia Calafell. They have two children.- Patti Chandler was born on 8 December 1943 in Culver City, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965) and Bikini Beach (1964).
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Cambridge-educated Paul Cavanagh appeared in pictures as the epitome of the debonair, well-dressed Englishman. The former barrister and Royal Canadian Mountie turned to acting in 1924 and had a starring role on Broadway in 'Scotland Yard' (1929). His film career began in 1928 and lasted just over three decades. During that time, he portrayed charming grifters (The Notorious Sophie Lang (1934), stalwart leading men (Mae West's love interest in Goin' to Town (1935), as well as the occasional murder victim or dastardly swine (as Martin Arlington in Tarzan and His Mate (1934). He was at his best however, as the urbane older husband of Joan Crawford in the brilliant Humoresque (1946), tolerating the antics of his neurotic wife - and Oscar Levant's wisecrack ("Does your husband interfere with your marriage?") with nothing but bemused languor.