Actors w/dramatic voices
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A grand, robust, highly theatrical British classical actor, Maurice Evans was born on June 3, 1901, in Dorchester, England, the son of a justice of the peace who enjoyed amateur play writing on the side. In fact, his father adapted several adaptations of Thomas Hardy's novels and Evans would often appear in them. Early interest also came in London choirs as a boy tenor.
Making his professional stage debut in 1926, Evans made do during his struggling years by running a cleaning and dyeing store. He earned his first triumph three years later in the play "Journey's End." When his resulting attempts as an early 1930's romantic film lead and/or second lead in White Cargo (1929), Raise the Roof (1930), The Only Girl (1933), The Path of Glory (1934), Bypass to Happiness (1934) and Checkmate (1935) didn't pan out, he refocused on the stage.
Following a season with the Old Vic theatre company, he arrived in America and proceeded to conquer Broadway, establishing himself as one of the world's more illustrious interpreters of Shakespeare. His eloquent, florid portrayals of Romeo, Hamlet, Macbeth and Richard II are considered among the finest interps. He was also deemed a master of Shavian works which included superlative performances in "Major Barbara", "Man and Superman" and "The Devil's Disciple".
As a U.S. citizen (1941), Maurice was placed in charge of the Army Entertainment Section, Central Pacific Theater during WWII and left military service with the rank of major. His post-war career included a handful of character film roles, notably Kind Lady (1951), Androcles and the Lion (1952), Gilbert and Sullivan (1953) (as composer Sir Arthur Sullivan), The War Lord (1965), Rosemary's Baby (1968), and as "Dr. Zaius" in the Planet of the Apes (1968) series.
Films would never be Evans' strong suit, earning much more stature on TV. More importantly, he brought Shakespeare and Shaw to 1950's TV, adapting (and directing) a number of his stage classics including King Richard II (1954), The Taming of the Shrew (1956), Man and Superman (1956), Twelfth Night (1957), The Tempest (1960). He won an Emmy award in 1960 for his Macbeth (1960).
Interestingly, for all his legendary performances under the theatre lights and stirring TV classics, the ever-regal stage master is probably best known to generations for his delightful, Shakespeare-spouting appearances on the Bewitched (1964) TV series, as Elizabeth Montgomery's irascible warlock father. Following guest shots on such popular TV shows as "Medical Center," "The Big Valley," "Columbo," "Streets of San Francisco," "Fantasy Island" and "The Love Boat," he made his final on-camera appearance in the TV movie A Caribbean Mystery (1983).
Evans returned to England to live out his remaining years and died there on March 12, 1989, in a Sussex nursing home of heart failure as a result of a bronchial infection, aged 87.- Actor
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With features chiseled in stone, and renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in Biblical epics, the tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome Charlton Heston was one of Hollywood's top leading men of his prime and remained active in front of movie cameras for over sixty years. As a Hollywood star, he appeared in 100 films over the course of 60 years. He played Moses in the epic film, The Ten Commandments (1956) , for which he received his first Golden Globe Award nomination. He also starred in Touch of Evil (1958) with Orson Welles; Ben-Hur, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor (1959); El Cid (1961); and Planet of the Apes (1968). He also starred in the films The Greatest Show on Earth (1952); Secret of the Incas (1954); The Big Country (1958); and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). A supporter of Democratic politicians and civil rights in the 1960s, Heston later became a Republican, founding a conservative political action committee and supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston's most famous role in politics came as the five-term president of the National Rifle Association, from 1998 to 2003.
Heston was born John Charles Carter on October 4, 1923, in No Man's Land, Illinois, to Lila (Charlton) and Russell Whitford Carter, who operated a sawmill. He had English and Scottish ancestry, with recent Canadianforebears.
Heston made his feature film debut as the lead character in a 16mm production of Peer Gynt (1941), based on the Henrik Ibsen play. In 1944, Heston enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. He served for two years as a radio operator and aerial gunner aboard a B-25 Mitchell stationed in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands with the 77th Bombardment Squadron of the Eleventh Air Force. He reached the rank of Staff Sergeant. Heston married Northwestern University student Lydia Marie Clarke, who was six months his senior. That same year he joined the military.
Heston played 'Marc Antony' in Julius Caesar (1950), and firmly stamped himself as genuine leading man material with his performance as circus manager 'Brad Braden' in the Cecil B. DeMille spectacular The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), also starring James Stewart and Cornel Wilde. The now very popular actor remained perpetually busy during the 1950s, both on TV and on the silver screen with audience pleasing performances in the steamy thriller The Naked Jungle (1954), as a treasure hunter in Secret of the Incas (1954) and another barn storming performance for Cecil B. DeMille as "Moses" in the blockbuster The Ten Commandments (1956).
Heston delivered further dynamic performances in the oily film noir thriller Touch of Evil (1958), and then alongside Gregory Peck in the western The Big Country (1958) before scoring the role for which he is arguably best known, that of the wronged Jewish prince who seeks his freedom and revenge in the William Wyler directed Ben-Hur (1959). This mammoth Biblical epic running in excess of three and a half hours became the standard by which other large scale productions would be judged, and its superb cast also including Stephen Boyd as the villainous "Massala", English actor Jack Hawkins as the Roman officer "Quintus Arrius", and Australian actor Frank Thring as "Pontius Pilate", all contributed wonderful performances. Never one to rest on his laurels, steely Heston remained the preferred choice of directors to lead the cast in major historical productions and during the 1960s he starred as Spanish legend "Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar" in El Cid (1961), as a US soldier battling hostile Chinese boxers during 55 Days at Peking (1963),played the ill-fated "John the Baptist" in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), the masterful painter "Michelangelo" battling Pope Julius II in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), and an English general in Khartoum (1966). In 1968, Heston filmed the unusual western Will Penny (1967) about an aging and lonely cowboy befriending a lost woman and her son, which Heston has often referred to as his favorite piece of work on screen. Interestingly, Heston was on the verge of acquiring an entirely new league of fans due to his appearance in four very topical science fiction films (all based on popular novels) painting bleak futures for mankind.
In 1968, Heston starred as time-traveling astronaut "George Taylor", in the terrific Planet of the Apes (1968) with its now legendary conclusion as Heston realizes the true horror of his destination. He returned to reprise the role, albeit primarily as a cameo, alongside fellow astronaut James Franciscus in the slightly inferior sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Next up, Heston again found himself facing the apocalypse in The Omega Man (1971) as the survivor of a germ plague that has wiped out humanity leaving only bands of psychotic lunatics roaming the cities who seek to kill the uninfected Heston. And fourthly, taking its inspiration from the Harry Harrison novel "Make Room!, Make Room!", Heston starred alongside screen legend Edward G. Robinson and Chuck Connors in Soylent Green (1973). During the remainder of the 1970s, Heston appeared in two very popular "disaster movies" contributing lead roles in the far-fetched Airport 1975 (1974), plus in the star-laden Earthquake (1974), filmed in "Sensoround" (low-bass speakers were installed in selected theaters to simulate the earthquake rumblings on screen to movie audiences). He played an evil Cardinal in the lively The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974), a mythical US naval officer in the recreation of Midway (1976), also filmed in "Sensoround", an LA cop trying to stop a sniper in Two-Minute Warning (1976) and another US naval officer in the submarine thriller Gray Lady Down (1978). Heston appeared in numerous episodes of the high-rating TV series Dynasty (1981) and The Colbys (1985), before moving onto a mixed bag of projects including TV adaptations of Treasure Island (1990) and A Man for All Seasons (1988), hosting two episodes of the comedy show, Saturday Night Live (1975), starring as the "Good Actor" bringing love struck Mike Myers to tears in Wayne's World 2 (1993), and as the eye patch-wearing boss of intelligence agent Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies (1994). He also narrated numerous TV specials and lent his vocal talents to the animated movie Hercules (1997), the family comedy Cats & Dogs (2001) and an animated version of Ben Hur (2003). Heston made an uncredited appearance in the inferior remake of Planet of the Apes (2001), and his last film appearance to date was in the Holocaust-themed drama of My Father (2003).
Heston narrated for highly classified military and Department of Energy instructional films, particularly relating to nuclear weapons, and "for six years Heston [held] the nation's highest security clearance" or Q clearance. The Q clearance is similar to a DoD or Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) clearance of Top Secret.
Heston was married to Lydia Marie Clark Heston since March 1944, and they have two children. His highly entertaining autobiography was released in 1995, titled appropriately enough "Into The Arena". Although often criticized for his strong conservative beliefs and involvement with the NRA, Heston was a strong advocate for civil right many years before it became fashionable, and was a recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, plus the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and did appear in a film or TV production after 2003. He died in April 2008, a memorable figure in the history of US cinema.- Actor
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Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was born in Herne Hill, London, to Winifriede Lucinda (Corcoran), an Irish-born aspiring actress, and Thomas Andrew McDowall, a merchant seaman of Scottish descent. Young Roddy was enrolled in elocution courses at age five. By age 10, he had appeared in his first film, Murder in the Family (1938), playing Peter Osborne, the younger brother of sisters played by Jessica Tandy and Glynis Johns.
His mother brought Roddy and his sister to the U.S. at the beginning of World War II, and he soon got the part of "Huw", the youngest child in a family of Welsh coal miners, in John Ford's How Green Was My Valley (1941), acting alongside Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O'Hara and Donald Crisp in the film that won that year's best film Oscar. He went on to many other child roles, in films like My Friend Flicka (1943) and Lassie Come Home (1943) until, at age eighteen, he moved to New York, where he played a long series of successful stage roles, both on Broadway and in such venues as Connecticut's Stratford Festival, where he did Shakespeare. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1949.
In addition to making many more movies (over 150), McDowall acted in television, developed an extensive collection of movies and Hollywood memorabilia, and published five acclaimed books of his own photography. He died at his Los Angeles home, aged 70, of cancer. He never married and had no children.- Actress
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Her father, Donald Cole, was a consulting engineer, and died in 1926 when Kim was only three years old. Her mother, Grace Lind, once performed as a concert pianist. She had one brother who was eight years older than she, and she was educated at Miami Beach High.
According to an in-depth article on Kim Hunter by Joseph Collura in the October 2009 issue of "Classic Images", Kim was quiet and painfully shy as a child and overcame it through the guidance of a local dramatics teacher, a Mrs. Carmine. Included were diction, voice and posture lessons.
She studied at the Actors Studio and her first professional appearance was as "Penny" in "Penny Wise" in Miami in November 1939. Then, she joined a repertory group called "Theatre of Fifteen", but it disbanded in 1942 when WWII took away most of its male members.
She made her Broadway debut performance as "Stella" in "A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York, in December 1947 that was the 1947-1948 season's success and for which she won the Critics Circle and Donaldson awards.
A one-time student of the Pasadena Playhouse, she was appearing in the 1942 production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" when she was discovered by an RKO talent hunter who signed her to a seven-year contract for David O. Selznick's company. Selznick suggested she change her first name to "Kim" and a RKO secretary suggested the last name of "Hunter". A few years later, Irene Mayer Selznick, David's ex-wife by then, recommended Kim for her reprise role of "Stella" in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), for which she won an Oscar.- Actor
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Born on October 1, 1921, in White Plains, New York, gruff veteran character actor James Whitmore earned early and widespread respect with his award-winning dramatic capabilities on Broadway and in films. He would later conquer TV with the same trophy-winning results.
The son of James Allen Whitmore and Florence Crane, he was educated at Connecticut's Choate School after receiving a football scholarship. He later earned his BA from Yale University in 1944 before serving with the Marines in World War II. Following his honorable discharge he prepared for the stage under the G.I. bill at the American Theatre Wing, where he met first wife Nancy Mygatt. They married in 1947 and went on to have three sons together -- Steve, Dan and actor/director James Whitmore Jr..
Applause and kudos came swiftly for Whitmore while under both the Broadway and film banners. After appearing with the Peterborough, New Hampshire, Players in the summer of 1947 in "The Milky Way," Whitmore made a celebrated Broadway debut as Tech Sergeant Evans in "Command Decision" later that year. His gritty performance swept the stage acting trifecta -- Tony, Donaldson and Theatre World awards. In later years Whitmore would often comment that most of his satisfaction came from performing on the live stage.
Hollywood soon took notice of Whitmore. Clark Gable happened to be starring in the film version of Command Decision (1948), and it was hoped that Whitmore would get to recreate his award-winning role. But it was not to be. Song-and-dance star Van Johnson, who was looking for straight, serious roles after a vastly successful musical career, was given the coveted part. The disappointment didn't last long, however, and Whitmore made an auspicious film bow the following year with a prime role in the documentary-styled crime thriller The Undercover Man (1949) starring Glenn Ford and Nina Foch. Whitmore scored brilliantly with his second film as well. Battleground (1949), another war picture, was highly praised and the actor became the talk of the town upon its initial release, grabbing both the Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for "supporting actor" for his efforts.
Hardly the handsome, matinée lead type, Whitmore nevertheless primed himself up for leading roles in a character vein and found a fine range of material come his way. He showed off his soft inner core as a religious, moral-minded family man opposite Nancy Reagan [Reagan] in the inspirational drama The Next Voice You Hear... (1950); featured his usual saltier side alongside Marjorie Main in Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone (1950); ably portrayed a hunchbacked crook in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and displayed customary authority as a security chief in the stoic military drama Above and Beyond (1952) starring Robert Taylor. Elsewhere, he played it strictly for laughs as a Runyonesque gangster partnered with Keenan Wynn in the classic MGM musical Kiss Me Kate (1953); portrayed a valiant cop fighting off gigantic mutant ants in the intelligent sci-fi thriller Them! (1954); a hard-hitting social worker in Crime in the Streets (1956) and even made the most of his small role as Tyrone Power's manager in The Eddy Duchin Story (1956).
By 1959, the craggy-faced actor known for his trademark caterpillar eyebrows, turned more and more toward the small screen, with memorable roles in The Twilight Zone (1959), The Detectives (1959) (working again with Robert Taylor), Ben Casey (1961) and a host of live theater dramas. He also starred in his own series as attorney Abraham Lincoln Jones in The Law and Mr. Jones (1960), which lasted two seasons.
Every so often a marvelous character would rear its pretty head and interest him back to the big screen. Notable of these were his white man passing for black in the controversial social drama Black Like Me (1964); his weary veteran cop in Madigan (1968); and his brash, authoritative simian in the classic sci-fi Planet of the Apes (1968).
Divorced from wife Nancy after more than two decades, Whitmore married actress Audra Lindley, best known on TV as Mrs. Roper of Three's Company (1976) fame, in 1972. The couple forged a strong acting partnership as well, particularly on stage, and maintained a professional relationship long after their 1979 divorce. Whitmore and Lindley were lauded for their appearances together in such plays as "The Magnificent Yankee," "On Golden Pond," "The Visit," "Foxfire" and "Love Letters," among others.
In the 1970s the actor transformed into a magnificent one-man-show machine playing such celebrated and inspiring historical/entertainment icons as Will Rogers, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt. He disappeared into these historical legends so efficiently that even the powers-that-be had the good sense to preserve them on film and TV in the form of Will Rogers' USA (1972); Give 'em Hell, Harry! (1975), which earned him his second Oscar nomination; and Bully: An Adventure with Teddy Roosevelt (1978).
In his twilight years, Whitmore showed he still had what it took to touch movie audiences, most notably as the fragile prisoner-turned-parolee who cannot adapt to his late-life freedom in the classic film The Shawshank Redemption (1994). On TV he continued to win awards, copping a TV Emmy for a recurring part on The Practice (1997) in the late 1990s. A household face in commercials as well, one of his passions was gardening and he eventually became the spokesman for Miracle-Gro plant food.
Whitmore remarried (and re-divorced, 1979-1981) his first wife Nancy briefly before finding a lasting union with his fourth wife, actress-turned-author Noreen Nash, whom he married broaching age 80 in 2001. Whitmore died of lung cancer on February 6, 2009, after having been diagnosed in mid-November 2008.- Veteran character actor Paul Lambert was born in El Paso, Texas, and brought up in Kansas City. He was an Army Air Corps lieutenant in World War II. Using the G.I. Bill, he attended the Actors Lab in Los Angeles and several acting schools in New York. He made his motion picture debut in Spartacus (1960). He began his acting career on the New York stage in the 1950s. His stage credits include a role in the Broadway production of "A Little Night Music". In addition to being an actor, he was also a playwright and stage director, and wrote, directed and acted in his own play, "Interior Hollywood Day". In addition, he was in a record 14 productions of the prestigious Playhouse 90 (1956).
- Parfrey was born Sydney Woodrow Parfrey in New York City, New York, to Hazel (James) and Sidney Parfrey, both Welsh immigrants. One of the most interesting character actors to emerge on American film and television in the 1960s, Parfrey brought a quirky charisma to every role he played, from shopkeepers to space-age simians. His noted turn as the unbalanced informer in Broadway's "Advise and Consent" (1961) set the standard for his offbeat, conspiratorial persona in dozens of TV and movie appearances into the 1980s. Always a supporting player receiving inconsistently deferential billing, Parfrey did manage some focal TV guest-star roles, mainly in the late sixties, and a few big A-movie parts, most notably as one of the wretched prisoners in Papillon (1973). Parfrey's association with that film's director, Franklin Schaffner, also included his bit as one of the three "See No Evil" orangutan judges in Planet of the Apes (1968) (he would don the prosthetics again for the pilot of the spinoff TV series). In addition, Parfrey also turned up in the unofficial repertory companies of both Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel. His determination to bring that edgy "something extra" to his profession lives on in his son, the "underground" publisher Adam Parfrey.
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Lou Wagner was born on 14 August 1940 in San Jose, California, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Planet of the Apes (1968), Airport (1970) and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972).- Buck Kartalian was born on 13 August 1922 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for Planet of the Apes (1968), The Rock (1996) and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972). He was married to Margaret Poloshjian and Mary E. Bannister. He died on 24 May 2016 in Mission Hills, California, USA.
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Tall, thin, wiry Sam Elliott is the classic picture of the American cowboy. Elliott began his acting career on the stage and his film debut was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Although his future wife, Katharine Ross co-starred in the film, the two did not meet until they filmed The Legacy (1978) together. Over the years there would be few opportunities to act in feature westerns, but it would be television that gave him that opportunity, in The Sacketts (1979), The Shadow Riders (1982) and The Yellow Rose (1983), among others. He would also work in non-westerns, usually as a tough guy, as in Lifeguard (1976) and Road House (1989). In 1985 he played Cher's love interest Gar in the drama Mask (1985), and he was in some cop movies such as Fatal Beauty (1987) and Shakedown (1988). In the 1990s, Elliott was back on the western trail, playing everyone from Brig. Gen. John Buford in the film Gettysburg (1993) to Wild Bill Hickok in the made-for-TV movie Buffalo Girls (1995). In 1991 he wrote the screenplay and co-starred with his wife in the made-for-TV western Conagher (1991), and two years later he played Wyatt Earp's brother Virgil in Tombstone (1993), with Kurt Russell as Wyatt. In 1995 the starred as John Pierce the tense thriller The Final Cut (1995), as a former head of a Bomb Squad who must to stop a dangerous bomber. In 1998 he was the narrator of the hilarious comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), playing him as The Stranger, and returned to the Western in the drama The Hi-Lo Country (1998), closing the 20th century with another western, the TV movie You Know My Name (1999).
Sam Elliott started the 21st century with the Stephen Frears' TV movie Fail Safe (2000) playing Congressman Raskob, and The Contender (2000) as Kermit Newman, at the side of Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Gary Oldman, and in We Were Soldiers (2002) as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley, together Mel Gibson. In 2003 he played Gen. Thunderbolt Ross in the Ang Lee's pre-MCU Hulk (2003), repeating in another Marvel superhero movie as Caretaker in Ghost Rider (2007). After participating in the fantasy movie The Golden Compass (2007) and made a stellar cameo in Up in the Air (2009), Elliott played Clay Wheeler in the box office flop comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), starring Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker, and in 2012 he was a supporting character as Mac Macleod in Robert Redford's The Company You Keep (2012). After the playing Coach Moore in the sport drama Draft Day (2014) In 2015 Elliott was hyperactive, appearing in seven different productions including cinema and TV: Digging for Fire (2015), I'll See You in My Dreams (2015), Sam Elliott, the sixth season of Justified (2010) as Avery Markham, and The Good Dinosaur (2015) voicing Butch. Two years later was absolute star in the drama The Hero (2017) as Lee Hayden, and in the sci-fi movie The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot (2018) as Calvin Barr, to shine again as supporting character playing Bradley Cooper's brother Bobby in the multi-nominated Cooper's directorial debut A Star Is Born (2018), sharing scenes with Lady Gaga, coming back again to the western in the TV series 1883 (2021) as Shea Brennan.- Actor
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Dooley was a keen cartoonist as a youth and drew a strip for a local paper in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He joined the Navy before discovering acting while at college. Moving to New York, he soon found success as a regular on the stage. Also having an interest in comedy, Dooley was a stand-up comedian for five years, as well as having brief stints as a magician and as a clown. Unafraid of trying different areas of entertainment, he was also a writer. After appearing in many movies, including most notably Popeye (1980), Dooley has appeared as recurrent characters on various shows, including My So-Called Life (1994), Dream On (1990), Grace Under Fire (1993), and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993).- Actor
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Ron Glass was born on 10 July 1945 in Evansville, Indiana, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Serenity (2005), Barney Miller (1975) and Firefly (2002). He died on 25 November 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Emmy Award-winning actress Jaime Pressly is known for her wide range of film and television roles. Pressly appeared in Welcome to Flatch (2022) from 2022 to 2023. Previously, she played Jill Kendall, opposite Anna Faris and Academy Award winner Allison Janney, on Chuck Lorre's hit CBS comedy Mom (2013).
Before that, Pressly starred as Jennifer Doyle in TV Land's original sitcom Jennifer Falls (2014). The first-ever single camera comedy for TV Land, the show revolved around Jennifer, a former high-powered executive who had fallen from grace and hit every bump on the way down to rock bottom. Best known for her role as Joy Turner, on the hit show "My Name Is Earl," Pressly was nominated for her first Golden Globe and won the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2007. Additionally, Jaime was nominated for a SAG Actor Award in both 2006 and 2007, and an Emmy in 2006. She has previously starred the DreamWorks film "I Love You, Man" directed by John Hamburg, opposite Paul Rudd, Jason Segel and Jon Favreau. Other film credits include cult classics such as "Joe Dirt" with David Spade, "Not Another Teen Movie" with Chris Evans, and "Can't Hardly Wait", among others.- Actor
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Trained professionally at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, a graduate of Dartmouth College, a Ph.D. in Dramatic Literature from Indiana University and, during his teaching days, a tenured Associate Professor, Stephen Macht is one of the best-educated working actors in America, today.
Stephen Robert Macht was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Janette (Curlenjik) and Jerome Irving Macht. He is of Russian Jewish descent.
He starred as "Proctor" in "The Crucible", "Orsino" in "12th Night", and "Dunois" in "Saint Joan" at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada, where he was scouted and signed by Universal Television to come to Hollywood to begin his film career. Since then, he has played leading men in plays and dozens of television movies and feature films from "Yoni Netanyahu" in Raid on Entebbe (1976) to "Warwick" in Stephen King's Graveyard Shift (1990), and from "Dan Lavetta" in The Immigrants (1978) to "David Keeler", Sharon Gless' love interest on Cagney & Lacey (1981). He has recurred on Boston Public (2000), Jack & Jill (1999) and Boomtown (2002). Soap Opera Digest nominated Stephen as "2007 Villain of the Year, for Trevor Lasing", on General Hospital (1963), a role he played through 2008.
Opposite Charlton Heston, Stephen played "King Henry VIII" in "A Man For All Seasons" at the Ahmansohn Theatre, and prosecutor "Challee" in "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial" at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He was "Henry II" in "Lion in Winter" at the Cleveland Playhouse and, most recently, "Lyman Felt" in Arthur Miller's "Ride Down Mt. Morgan" at the Will Geer Theatre in what Variety called "a juicy star turn, appropriate for a character defined as a recklessly sexual, splendidly hungry man".
Stephen taught at Smith College, was a tenured professor at Queens College in New York and has directed theatre and television in Los Angeles. Together with his wife, he is the father of actor Gabriel Macht, and of three other children, and also has eight grandchildren and counting. His greatest hobby and future plans are to provide a lot of entertainment for years to come. Through the years, Macht has participated in and supported various charitable causes, serving as an Honorary Board Member of the Parkinson's Resource Organization and its Master of Ceremonies for the past ten years. In 1981 and 1982, he was the original moderator of the Los Angeles Jewish Federation's JTV. He has been spokesman for the Jewish National Fund, M.C. for several Israeli Consulate functions and is a board member of The Center For Jewish Culture and Creativity under leadership of Ruth and John Rauch. In 2013 Stephen earned his M.A. in Jewish Studies at the Academy for the Jewish Religion, Ca. and is an ordained Chaplain. He officiates at weddings, baby namings, and funerals by private arrangement.- Actress
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Acclaimed actress Jessica Walter was born on January 31, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Esther (Groisser), a teacher, and David Walter (his original surname was Warshawsky), a musician who was a member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the NYC Ballet Orchestra. She was of Russian Jewish descent, the sister of screenwriter and Chairman of the UCLA Screenwriting program Richard Walter. Their uncle was stage and screen actor Jerry Jarrett. Raised in Queens, Walter was a graduate of New York's High School of the Performing Arts and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. She first acted in summer stock and her extensive subsequent career on the stage included productions both on- and off-Broadway.
On Broadway, Walter appeared in Peter Ustinov's "Photo Finish" (which earned her the Clarence Derwent Award as Most Promising Newcomer), "A Severed Head", "Advise and Consent", "Night Life" and Neil Simon's "Rumors". Off-Broadway, she acted in a 1986 Los Angeles Theater Center production of "Tartuffe" opposite Ron Leibman (to whom she was married from 1983 until his death in 2019).
After guesting on several TV series in the early and mid-1960s, Walter made her move to feature films where she attracted attention for her role as the brash Libby in Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966). This seemed to set the tone for her next screen personae as bitchy, difficult or dangerously vindictive women, the most memorable of which was Evelyn in Clint Eastwood's directorial debut film, Play Misty for Me (1971). This earned Walter a richly deserved Golden Globe nomination. Another stand-out role was Pat, the bored ex-glamour model wife of one racing driver (Brian Bedford) and troublesome girlfriend of another (James Garner) in Grand Prix (1966). Walter's numerous TV roles included the enchantress Morgan LeFay in the rarely seen telemovie Dr. Strange (1978). Of her many screen villainesses she later said: "those are the fun roles. They're juicy, much better than playing the vanilla ingénues".
By the 1980s, Walter had turned increasingly towards comedy, both on the big screen (The Flamingo Kid (1984)) and the small (Three's a Crowd (1984)). However, she never shied away from other genres, whether playing an EarthGov senator on the cult sci-fi series Babylon 5 (1993) or providing the voice for the leading female character in the animated sitcom Dinosaurs (1991). Walter received an Emmy Award for Best Dramatic Actress in the Ironside (1967) spin-off Amy Prentiss (1974) and was nominated for guest-starring roles in episodes of Trapper John, M.D. (1979) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972). She found a new audience among younger viewers as the devious matriarch Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development (2003).
Jessica Walter died in her sleep on March 24, 2021 from undisclosed causes at the age of 80. Riverside Memorial Chapel and Funeral Home in New York City completed her final arrangements. She was cremated and her ashes are with her daughter.- Actor
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Sir Patrick Stewart was born in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England, to Gladys (Barrowclough), a textile worker and weaver, and Alfred Stewart, who was in the army. He was a member of various local drama groups from about age 12. He left school at age 15 to work as a junior reporter on a local paper; he quit when his editor told him he was spending too much time at the theatre and not enough working. Stewart spent a year as a furniture salesman, saving cash to attend drama school. He was accepted by Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1957.
He made his professional debut in 1959 in the repertory theatre in Lincoln; he worked at the Manchester Library Theatre and a tour around the world with the Old Vic Company followed in the early 1960s. Stewart joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, to begin his 27-year association. Following a spell with the Royal National Theatre in the mid 1980s, he went to Los Angeles, California to star on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), which ran from 1987-1994, playing the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. After the series ended, Stewart reprised his role for a string of successful Star Trek films: Star Trek: Generations (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). Stewart continues to work on the stage and in various films. He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 Queen's New Year's Honours List for his services to drama.- Actor
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Widely regarded as one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native Great Britain and internationally, twice nominated for the Oscar and recipient of every major theatrical award in the UK and US, Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England, to Margery Lois (Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer and lay preacher. He is of Scottish, Northern Irish, and English descent. During his early childhood, his parents moved with Ian and his older sister, Jean, to the mill town of Wigan. It was in this small town that young Ian rode out World War II. He soon developed a fascination with acting and the theatre, which was encouraged by his parents. They would take him to plays, those by William Shakespeare, in particular. The amateur school productions fostered Ian's growing passion for theatre.
When Ian was of age to begin attending school, he made sure to get roles in all of the productions. At Bolton School in particular, he developed his skills early on. Indeed, his first role in a Shakespearian play was at Bolton, as Malvolio in "Twelfth Night". Ian soon began attending Stratford-upon-Avon theatre festivals, where he saw the greats perform: Laurence Olivier, Wendy Hiller, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Paul Robeson. He continued his education in English Drama, but soon it fell by the wayside as he concentrated more and more on performing. He eventually obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1961, and began his career in earnest.
McKellen began working in theatre over the next few years. Very few people knew of Ian's homosexuality; he saw no reason to go public, nor had he told his family. They did not seem interested in the subject and so he saw no reason to bring it up. In 1988, Ian publicly came out of the closet on the BBC Radio 4 program, while discussing Margaret Thatcher's "Section 28" legislation, which made the promotion of homosexuality as a family relationship by local authorities an offense. It was reason enough for McKellen to take a stand. He has been active in the gay rights movement ever since.
Ian resides in Limehouse, where he has also lived with his former long-time partner Sean Mathias. The two men have also worked together on the film Bent (1997) as well as in exquisite stage productions. To this day, McKellen works mostly in theatre, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his efforts in the arts. However, he has managed to make several quite successful forays into film. He has appeared in several productions of Shakespeare's works including his well received Richard III (1995), and in a variety of other movies. However, it has only been recently that his star has finally begun to shine in the eyes of North American audiences. Roles in various films, Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Apt Pupil (1998) and Gods and Monsters (1998), riveted audiences. The latter, in particular, created a sensation in Hollywood, and McKellen's role garnered him several of awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe and an Oscar nod. McKellen, as he continues to work extensively on stage, he always keeps in 'solidifying' his 'role' as Laurence Olivier's worthy 'successor' in the best sense too, such as King Lear (2008) / King Lear (2008) directed by Trevor Nunn and in a range of other staggering performances full of generously euphoric delight that have included "Peter Pan" and Noël Coward's "Present Laughter", as well as Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land" (National Theatre Live: No Man's Land (2016)), both in acclaimed productions brilliantly directed by Sean Mathias.
McKellen found mainstream success with his performance as Magneto in X-Men (2000) and its sequels. His largest mark on the big screen may be as Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, which he reprised in "The Hobbit" trilogy. He also reprised the role of 'King Lear' with new artistic perspectives in National Theatre Live: King Lear (2018) offering an invaluable mesmerizing experience as a natural force of stage - and screen - of infinite generosity through his unsurpassable interpretation of the titanically vulnerable king.- Actor
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Born in Los Angeles but raised in Manhattan and educated at Middlebury College and Carnegie-Mellon University, James Cromwell is the son of film director John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson. He studied acting at Carnegie-Mellon, and went into the theatre (like his parents) doing everything from Shakespeare to experimental plays. He started appearing on television in 1974, gaining some notice in a recurring role as Archie Bunker's friend Stretch Cunningham on All in the Family (1971), made his film debut in 1976, and goes back to the stage periodically. Some of his more noted film roles have been in Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and the surprise classic about a charming pig, Babe (1995). He garnered some of the best reviews of his career (many of which said he should have received an Oscar) for his role as a corrupt, conniving police captain in L.A. Confidential (1997).- Actor
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Leo appeared in thirty-seven films, thirty-two television appearances and nine Broadway plays. He just completed a part on M. O. N. Y. directed by Spike Lee for NBC, and the revival of The Fantasticks off Broadway. He was nominated for Best Actor in Robert Altman's Rattlesnake in a Cooler (1982) and won the New York Fanny award for Best supporting actor in Ah Wilderness at New York's Lincoln Center.
Leo produced concerts for Save The Lakes, an environmental effort to protect New York City's water supply and along with his wife Lora Lee Ecobelli, produced Calm The Storm a concert to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina with over one hundred volunteers, and one hundred bands on five stages both indoor and out.
Leo's Art work is featured in the documentary: Leo Burmester and The Literature of Junk, which won best documentary at the Westchester Film Festival, and he is featured in the May 2007 issue of Hudson Valley Magazine.- Music Department
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Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to an Italian carpenter/stagehand father from Naples, Italy, and an African-American opera singer mother from Alabama. His parents, working in Europe at the time of his birth, settled in Manhattan by the time he was 6, and that's where he grew up.
Coming from a theatrical background, it was, perhaps, inevitable that young Giancarlo would appear on stage sooner or later, and he did, at age 8, appearing on Broadway as a slave child in "Maggie Flynn" in 1966.
More Broadway work followed through the 1960s and early '70s, followed by some small roles in movies. TV work followed in the 1980s, with increasingly significant parts in a string of high-profile series until he became well-established as a character player both on TV and in a number of movies.
He came very much to the public's attention playing Agent Mike Giardello in the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993) in 1998 and since then has rarely been off our screens.- Actress
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Wendy Hughes was an accomplished actress who had won over 13 major awards. She had been called "one of the world's great actresses" with "the beauty and talent to become an international star". Hughes was born in Melbourne and studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She has two children, Charlotte (17) and Jay (13).- Actor
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Perhaps best known for his chilling performance as "Candyman", the charismatic 6' 5" actor Tony Todd has consistently turned in compelling performances since his debut in the fantasy film Sleepwalk (1986). Born in Washington, D.C., Todd spent two years on a scholarship at the University of Connecticut, which, in turn, led to a scholarship from the renowned Eugene O'Neill National Theatre Institute. It proved to be the foundation for intense stints at the Hartman Conservatory in Stamford, Connecticut and the Trinity Square Repertory Theatre Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. Todd appeared in dozens of classical and many experimental plays, yet still managed to find time to teach playwriting to high school students in the Hartford public school system.
Todd's extensive credits exemplify his versatility. They include such film classics as The Rock (1996), The Crow (1994), Lean on Me (1989), Bird (1988), Night of the Living Dead (1990), Final Destination (2000), the multiple Academy Award winning Oliver Stone film Platoon (1986) and The Secret (2000), which was nominated and screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Todd's recent films include the independent film Silence (2002) and Final Destination 2 (2003). He has had prominent guest starring roles in numerous critically-acclaimed television series, including recurring on Boston Public (2000), For the People (2002) and The District (2000), as well as NYPD Blue (1993), Smallville (2001), Law & Order (1990), Crossing Jordan (2001), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993) and The X-Files (1993). Todd recurred on three incarnations of "Star Trek" and guest starred on Xena: Warrior Princess (1995) and episodes of CSI: Miami (2002) and Andromeda (2000). His television movies include starring roles in True Women (1997), Black Fox (1995), Butter (1998), Ivory Hunters (1990), Babylon 5: A Call to Arms (1999) and Control Factor (2003).
Todd's considerable theatre credits include the world premiere of award-winning playwright August Wilson's "King Hedley II", where he originated the title role in Pittsburgh, Seattle and Boston. Variety commented: "Todd's King Hedley dominates the stage. A sour-faced mix of rage and resolve, anger and vulnerability. Todd's Hedley was a memorable tour-de-force even on opening." He also received a coveted Helen Hayes nomination for his performance in Athol Fugard's "The Captain's Tiger at La Jolla, the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Kennedy Center. Other theatre credits include "Les Blancs", "Playboy of the West Indies", "Othello", "Zooman and the Sign", award-winning playwright Keith Glover's "Dark Paradise", "Aida" (on Broadway), and most recently, "Levee James" for the prestigious Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference and The New Dramatist Guild.- Actor
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Al Freeman, Jr. was an actor and director who was the first African American to win a Daytime Emmy Award for acting. His most famous role was that of Police Captain Ed Hall in the soap opera One Life to Live (1968), which brought him the Emmy in 1979. He was a regular on the soap from 1972 through 1987, and appeared off and on as Captain Hall from 1988 through 2000. He received three additional Emmy nominations playing the role in 1983, '86 and '87. Freeman also was the first African American to direct a TV soap opera, helming "One Life to Live" episodes.
Born on March 21, 1934 in San Antonio, Texas, he was raised primarily by his father, an actor and jazz musician, after his parents divorced. Al Freeman father and son left Texas, moving to Cleveland, Ohio. After studying drama at Los Angeles City College, Freeman fils moved to New York City to act in the theater, making his Broadway debut in Ketti Frings's "The Long Dream" in 1960, a flop that closed after five performances. He had a major success playing the lead in James Baldwin's play "Blues for Mister Charlie" in 1964. In 1970, he appeared in "Look to the Lilies" on Broadway, a musical version of the 1963 movie Lilies of the Field (1963), playing the part of Homer Smith, the role that brought Sidney Poitier an Oscar. Despite a prestigious production team that included director Joshua Logan, composer Jule Styne and lyricist Sammy Cahn, the show was a flop.
Freeman made his reputation primarily in television. He debuted as a television actor in the series Suspicion (1957) in 1958, and his soap opera debut came in 1967 in The Edge of Night (1956). He was nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards for My Sweet Charlie (1970) and for Roots: The Next Generations (1979), in which he played Malcolm X.
In 1958, Freeman made his movie debut in an uncredited role in the Glenn Ford WWII picture _Torpedo Run (1958)_ and first received billing in the 1960 gang war B-movie potboiler This Rebel Breed (1960). His most memorable role was the lead in Amiri Baraka's Dutchman (1966) opposite Shirley Knight, who was named Best Actress at the 1967 Venice Film Festival. Freeman won the N.A.A.C.P. Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for playing Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992).
Freeman was a professor in the drama department of Howard University. When he died on August 9, 2012, in Washington, D.C. at the age of 78, he had established himself as a legend in the African American arts community.- Actor
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The middle of five children, Bratt hails from a close-knit family. His mother, an indigenous Quechua Peruvian from Lima, moved to the U.S. at age 14. He grew up in San Francisco. He is known for his roles in the films Traffic (2000), Miss Congeniality (2000), and Despicable Me 2 (2013). He is married to actress Talisa Soto.- Actor
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Widely regarded as the one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native USA and internationally, James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931 in Arkabutla, Mississippi. At an early age, he started to take dramatic lessons to calm himself down. It appeared to work as he has since starred in many films over a 40-year period, beginning with the Stanley Kubrick classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). For several movie fans, he is probably best known for his role as Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy (due to his contribution for the voice of the role, as the man in the Darth Vader suit was David Prowse, whose voice was dubbed because of his British West Country accent). In his brilliant course of memorable performances, among others, he has also appeared on the animated series The Simpsons (1989) three times and played Mufasa both in The Lion King (1994) and The Lion King (2019), while he returned too as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).- Actress
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Multi-talented actress Lynne Thigpen was born Cherlynne Thigpen in Joliet, Illinois, on December 22, 1948. She performed in community theater and university theater productions while attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Following graduation, she taught high-school English for a short time, but her interest in acting eventually prevailed over teaching. Her desire to act professionally was further fueled by a strong set of vocal chops.
Moving to New York, Lynne subsequently won a singing role as part of the ragtag disciple ensemble in the hip, flower-powered musical "Godspell" in 1971. Two years later she transferred her role to film along with several other members of the original stage cast. Godspell (1973) opened a major door for the actress as a performer of boundless energy and vocal power, as exemplified by her rousing version of "O Bless the Lord My Soul."
Lynne continued on the 1970s musical stage with roles in "The Magic Show" and the blue-collar piece "Working," and in 1981 earned a Tony nomination for her powerhouse performance in "Tintypes." She eventually reasoned, however, that if she was to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress, she would need to refocus her energies. She then abandoned her tuneful ways and ventured assertively into films and TV.
During her 30-year career, Lynne went on to appear in nearly 40 movies and numerous television series, usually secondary in nature but alternately fiery and dignified in character. Lynne became a strong, set-jawed figure in social and urban drama as she managed to avoid the easy pitfalls of typecasting. Though most of her early film parts seemed small and insignificant, she continued to grow and gain a more assured footing while appearing in such popular features as Tootsie (1982), Sweet Liberty (1986), Hello Again (1987), and Running on Empty (1988).
Every now and then she was given a chance to shine, as with her volatile school parent in Lean on Me (1989). TV was a more palpable and productive medium for her with a stand-out recurring role as a judge on L.A. Law (1986) and a long-running part on the daytime soap All My Children (1970). She also committed herself to wholesome viewing for children, portraying the unnamed Chief on the PBS children's series Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1991) and Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? (1996), earning four Emmy nominations in the process.
Throughout the years, Lynne remained a vital force on the stage. She won a Los Angeles Drama Critics award for her performance in August Wilson's "Fences," two off-Broadway Obies for Athol Fugard's "Boesman and Lena" (1992) and "Jar the Floor" (2000), and a Tony for "Best Supporting Actress" for her portrayal of a half-Black, half-Jewish feminist in "An American Daughter" (1997).
Other strong theater roles came with "A Month of Sundays" (1987) and as a spunky 101-year-old maiden woman in "Having Our Say." Lynne's dusky-voiced command was also utilized to narrate more than 20 socially relevant books on tape. Her last regular TV series role was as police clerk and computer expert Ella Farmer on The District (2000), a role she played until her sudden death.
Lynne was found unconscious at her home in Marina del Rey, California, by a friend. She died on March 12, 2003, age 54, of a cerebral hemorrhage. Her final film Anger Management (2003), which starred Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson, was released posthumously.- Actor
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Born and raised in Washington DC, Jeffrey Wright graduated from Amherst College in 1987. Although he studied Political Science while at Amherst, Wright left the school with a love for acting. Shortly after graduating he won an acting scholarship to NYU, but dropped out after only two months to pursue acting full-time. With roles in Presumed Innocent (1990), and the Broadway production of Angels in America, (in which he won a Tony award), within a relatively short time Wright was able to show off his exceptional talent and ability on both stage and screen alike. His first major on-screen performance came in 1996 in the Julian Schnabel directed film Basquiat (1996). Wright's harrowing performance as the late painter Jean Michele Basquiat was critically acclaimed. Wright later had a continuing role in the HBO dramatic series Boardwalk Empire (2010).- James Westerfield was born on 22 March 1913 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for On the Waterfront (1954), True Grit (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968). He was married to Alice Gertrude Fay (Fay Tracey) and Rosemary Doris Deveson. He died on 20 September 1971 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Malachi Throne, the character actor who became one of the more ubiquitous faces on television from the "Golden Age" of the 1950s through the 21st-century, was born in New York City on December 1, 1928, the son of Samuel and Rebecca (née Chaikin) Throne, who had immigrated to America from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He began performing at an early age.
During World War Two, he quit school to work in theater, though he later returned and got his high school diploma. He then set out upon a life as a "wandering player", as he describes it, playing in summer and winter stock companies while matriculating at Brooklyn College and Long Island University. Though he loved acting, he believed he would eventually wind up as an English teacher, which is why he doggedly kept at his studies between tours.
When he was 21 years old, the Korean conflict broke out, and Throne wound up in the infantry attached to an armored unit. When he returned to the New York theatrical scene, he found out that the revolution Marlon Brando had started in 1947 playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) was now the status quo. Possessed of a deep, classically trained voice, Throne was cast in the parts of characters much older than his actual age. His clear enunciation also made him a natural for live television, and he went to work on the now-defunct DuMont TV network. He continued his acting studies in New York, tutored by such luminaries as Uta Hagen and William Hickey.
In addition to TV, he continued to work on the the stage, appearing in the landmark Off-Broadway production of Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh", in support of Jason Robards. He also played in the famous Off-Broadway revivals of "The Threepenny Opera" and Clifford Odets' "Rocket To The Moon", as well as appeared on Broadway in such top shows as Jean Anouilh's "Becket" in support of Laurence Olivier.
In 1958-59, he found himself in California, playing a season at San Diego's Old Globe Theater. After his stint with the Globe was over, he went to Hollywood, and established himself as a major character actor in guest spots on series television during the 1960s. He had memorable appearances as "Falseface" onBatman (1966) and the Arab-styled "Thief of Outer Space" on Lost in Space (1965). He also provided the voice of "The Keeper" for The Cage (1966), the pilot episode of Star Trek (1966). He turned down an offer to be a regular cast member on that show, rejecting the part of Dr. McCoy as he did not want to play third fiddle to William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy.
Producer Gene Roddenberry, who had offered him the role of Dr. McCoy ("Bones"), was not offended and cast Throne as "Commodore José Mendez" in the two-part episode "The Menagerie", which included most of the original pilot, although by then The Keeper's voice had been re-dubbed by another actor, Meg Wyllie. Many years later, Throne played "Senator Pardac" in the Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) two-part episode ,"Unification", appearing with Leonard Nimoy, whose role as Spock Throne had coveted a generation earlier. In 1968, two years after "Star Trek" debuted, Throne was cast as Robert Wagner's boss on It Takes a Thief (1968) while continuing to guest star on many other television shows.
Throne remained committed to the stage, appearing as a resident actor with a variety of regional theaters, including the San Francisco Actors' Workshop, the Los Angeles Inner City Repertory Co., the Mark Taper Forum and the Louisville Free Theatre.
Throne died of lung cancer on March 13, 2013 in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, where he appeared in local theater. He also wrote historical novels. His two sons are also in show business: Zachary Throne is an actor/musician while Joshua Throne is a producer and unit production manager.- Actress
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Mercedes McCambridge was a highly talented radio performer who won a best supporting Actress Oscar for her film debut.
Mercedes McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, to Marie (Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge, a farmer. She was of mostly Irish (with a small amount of English and German) ancestry. Despite a career full of supporting roles, she later became something of a cult figure. Her memorable voice-over for the demon child in The Exorcist (1973) has secured her place in movie history. Ironically, she took Warner Bros. to court over her being uncredited for the role, which was probably the most important in the film.
Mercedes enjoyed a quiet retirement starting from the early 1980s. She was a special guest star at the 70th Annual Anniversary Academy Awards in 1998 along with many other Oscar winners. Mercedes also made special television appearances to discuss her role in The Exorcist (1973) at the 30th Anniversary of the film's release.
She died in La Jolla in California on 2nd March 2004 from natural causes.- Bearing a strong resemblance to Humphrey Bogart certainly helped in typecasting the handsome, hairy-chested Gerald Mohr into "B" film noir. Born in New York City in 1914, he was the son of Sigmond Mohr and Henrietta Noustadt, a Viennese singer. In 1920 his father was killed in a tragic accident while at work when Mohr was five years old, and he was raised primarily by his mother and maternal grandfather, who was a psychologist and associate of Dr. Sigmund Freud, the famed psychoanalyst. Mohr became a fervent student of Freud as a result of this association. He was taught to ride and play piano at an early age and attended the prestigious Dwight Preparatory School in New York. Even as a teen, Mohr possessed a smooth vocal delivery and landed a job as a staff broadcaster for CBS Radio, which in turn opened the door for him to Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre. Mohr made his Broadway debut in the minor role of a gangster in "The Petrified Forest," the same play that put Bogart on the map.
His first starring role in films came with the serial Jungle Girl (1941), in which he played principal villain Slick Latimer. However, because of his pleasant, distinctive baritone voice, it was radio that became Mohr's meal ticket during the 1940s, and he signed on for a number of popular suspense thrillers such as "The Adventures of Philip Marlowe" and "The Whistler." In 1949, "Radio and Television Life" magazine named Mohr as the Best Male Actor on Radio.
After a number of bit parts, he finally won a noticeable role in Lady of Burlesque (1943) with Barbara Stanwyck, after Welles referred him to the film's director, William A. Wellman. Following WWII service with the Air Force, Mohr returned to acting and found his niche in intrigue, playing the title role in The Notorious Lone Wolf (1946) and its two sequels, along with Passkey to Danger (1946), Dangerous Business (1946) and The Truth About Murder (1946). As much as he wanted to extricate himself from this trenchcoat stereotype, he continued to chug along in the 1950s with the same type of roles represented by The Sniper (1952), Invasion, U.S.A. (1952) and Guns Girls and Gangsters (1959). His final leads were in This Rebel Breed (1960) and the low-grade sci-fi thriller The Angry Red Planet (1959). In 1954-55 he starred as Christopher Storm in 41 episodes of the Swedish-made TV series Foreign Intrigue (1951).
Finding film work scarce in the following decade, he found regular work on TV, guest starring in over 100 dramas, ranging from TV westerns like Maverick (1957), Bronco (1958), Cheyenne (1955) and Bonanza (1959) to action/courtroom series such as 77 Sunset Strip (1958), Hawaiian Eye (1959) and Perry Mason (1957), among many others.
His last movie role came in the top-notch musical Funny Girl (1968) starring Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif, in which Mohr was featured as Tom Branca, one of Nicky Arnstein's cronies, who offers to help Fanny Brice out by giving the proud but debt-ridden gambler a prime casino job.
Mohr was overseas in Stockholm, Sweden, where he had just completed filming the pilot of a new TV series called "Private Entrance" when he suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of 54. - Actor
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Royal Dano was undoubtedly one of the best, most quirky and striking character actors to ever grace the big and small screen alike in a lengthy and impressive career which spanned 42 years.
Royal Edward Dano was born on November 16, 1922 in New York City, to Mary Josephine (O'Connor) and Caleb Edward Dano, a newspaper printer. He was of mostly Irish descent (his mother was an immigrant). Royal ran away from home at age twelve and lived in such states as Texas, Florida and California. He struck a deal with his father to continue his education, but still be able to travel around the country. Dano eventually attended New York University. His performing career began as part of the 44th Special Service Provisional Company during World War II. Dano soon branched out to the New York stage and made his Broadway debut with a small role in the hit musical "Finian's Rainbow." He was nominated by the New York Critic's Circle as one of the Promising Actors of 1949. Tall and lean, with a gaunt face, dark hair, a rangy build, and a very distinctive deep croaky voice, Dano was usually cast in both movies and TV shows as gloomy and/or sinister characters. He appeared most often in westerns and worked several times with James Stewart and director Anthony Mann. He made his film debut in Undercover Girl (1950). Dano's more memorable roles include the Tattered Soldier in The Red Badge of Courage (1951), a sickly bookworm bad guy in Johnny Guitar (1954), Elijah in Moby Dick (1956), Peter in King of Kings (1961), a cattle rustler in The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972), a coroner in Electra Glide in Blue (1973), a profanity-spewing preacher in Big Bad Mama (1974), Ten Spot in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), a weary factory line worker in Take This Job and Shove It (1981), a lightening rod salesman in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), a caterwauling minister who showed up at the doors of newly widowed wives of test pilots, and sang "Eternal Father Strong To Save" in The Right Stuff (1983). He was a stuffy high school teacher in Teachers (1984), rascally zombie old-timer Gramps in House II: The Second Story (1987), a cantankerous farmer in Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988), and in his last part, a cemetery caretaker in George A. Romero's The Dark Half (1993). Among the numerous TV shows Dano did guest spots on are Twin Peaks (1990), Amazing Stories (1985), CHiPs (1977), Quincy M.E. (1976), Fantasy Island (1977), Little House on the Prairie (1974), Kung Fu (1972), Ben Casey (1961), Planet of the Apes (1974), Cannon (1971), Playhouse 90 (1956), Lost in Space (1965), Gunsmoke (1955), Bonanza (1959), Wagon Train (1957), The Virginian (1962), Hawaii Five-O (1968), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958), Night Gallery (1969), Route 66 (1960), The Rifleman (1958), and Rawhide (1959). Moreover, Dano did the voice of the animatronic Abraham Lincoln for Walt Disney's Hall of Presidents for both Disneyland and Disney World. Dano also portrayed Lincoln on the Omnibus (1952) television series. He's the father of actor Rick Dano. Royal Dano died at age 71 of a heart attack on May 15th, 1994.- Highly accomplished American stage and screen actress, director, dancer and musician. Hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she is the daughter of builder/farmer Arnold John Jens and his Polish-born wife Salomea Szujeuska (after whom she was named). Her sister Arnette Jens is married to the well-known character actor Anthony Zerbe.
Jens attended the University of Wisconsin and later majored in drama at Northwestern University. Her first foray into acting was with the Swan Theatre in her home town (now the Milwaukee Repertory Theater). Already an accomplished pianist by the time she moved to New York, Jens was at first undecided as to which branch of the arts to pursue. She thus went on to study dance under Martha Graham, as well as acting with Stella Adler and at Herbert Berghof's studio in Greenwich Village. Having decided on the acting profession, Jens moved on to Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio (of which she became a Lifetime Member in 1962), while at the same time making ends meet working as a secretary. Her Broadway stage debut duly followed in 1956 with a part in Sixth Finger in a Five Finger Glove.
This was the beginning of a prolific and critically acclaimed theatrical career, both on and off-Broadway in famous plays like Jean Genet 's The Balcony and (as Josie) in Eugene O'Neill 's A Moon for the Misbegotten. Her other performing highlights on the Great White Way have included roles in A Far Country (as Sigmund Freud 's wife, Martha Bernays Freud), Tartuffe (as Elmire) and the title role of Mary Stuart in 1971. For the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center, Jens appeared in Arthur Miller's After the Fall. In addition to larger West Coast venues like the Mark Taper Forum, Jens has more recently acted on the smaller stages in Los Angeles. Besides her busy performing career, she has also taught for many years at UCLA's theater department. Surprisingly, she found time for a substantial career in films and television as well.
On screen from 1956, Jens has often played off-beat characters, none more so than her inscrutable Female Changeling, head of the despotic Dominion and a primary antagonist in TV's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) (her daily make-up for the role took two hours to apply). Earlier in her career, she had starred in the torrid southern drama Angel Baby (1961) (credited as 'Miss Salomé Jens) which marked the film debut of Burt Reynolds, and played the romantic interest of the surgically altered, 'reborn' Rock Hudson in the powerful psychological thriller Seconds (1966). She said in an interview "I was never an ingénue. I've always been fortunate to be somebody who could never be pigeonholed. I was able to do a lot of different things." Those 'different things' have included appearances in Tales from the Crypt (1989), The Outer Limits (1963), The Untouchables (1959), Superboy (1988) (as Clark Kent's mother, Martha) and the voice of the female Guardian in DC's Green Lantern (2011), among a host of others shows and TV movies. She has had recurring roles in the spoof series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976), as well as in Falcon Crest (1981), L.A. Law (1986) and Melrose Place (1992).
Salome Jens was twice married, first to tough guy actor Ralph Meeker and later to radio and TV personality Lee Leonard. In her private life she keeps fit by walking and doing weights. She has latterly attended Comic Con events in the U.S. and abroad. - Actor
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Michael Jeter was an American actor from Tennessee. His best known roles were that of math teacher and assistant football coach Herman Stiles in the sitcom "Evening Shade" (1990-1994) and "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle" in "Sesame Street", a role he played from 2000 to 2003. He specialized in playing "eccentric, pretentious, or wimpy characters".
In 1952, Jeter was born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, located between Chattanooga and Memphis. The town is mostly associated with local hero Davy Crockett (1786-1836), who owned a powder mill there in the early 19th century. The area is home to the David Crockett State Park.
Jeter's father was dentist William Claud Jeter (1922-2010), and his mother was housewife Virginia Raines (1927-2019). The Jeters were a large family, and Jeter had one brother and four sisters. Jeter enrolled at the Memphis State University (later renamed to the University of Memphis) with the intention to follow a medical career. His interests changed, and he pursued an acting education instead.
Jeter started his career as a theatrical actor, regularly performing at the Circuit Theatre and Playhouse on the Square, both located in Memphis. He made his film debut in the anti-war film "Hair" (1979), playing Woodrow Sheldon. The film depicted the hippie counterculture and the Vietnam War.
Jeter's early film roles included appearing in the historical drama "Ragtime" (1981), the sex comedy "Soup for One" (1982), the mockumentary "Zelig" (1983), the comedy film "The Money Pit" (1986), the action thriller "Dead Bang" (1989), and the action comedy "Tango & Cash" (1989). Meanwhile he appeared in guest-star roles in then-popular television series, such as "Night Court" and "Designing Women". His first recurring role in television was that of Dr. Art Makter in the short-lived medical drama "Hothouse". He appeared in all 7 episodes of the series.
Jeter found fame and critical success when playing the nerdy Herman Stiles in the sitcom "Evening Shade". He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and the Viewers for Quality Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Quality Comedy Series. The series lasted for 4 seasons, and a total of 98 episodes
Jeter guest starred as Peter Lebeck in three episodes of "Picket Fences". For this role he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 1993, but the award was won by rival actor Laurence Fishburne (1961-). Jeter had another notable television role as Bob Ryan in an episode of "Chicago Hope". He was again nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 1996 for this role, but the award was instead won by rival actor Peter Boyle (1935-2006).
Jeter played mostly supporting roles in 1990s film. He played (amon others_ a homeless cabaret singer in "The Fisher King" (1991), Father Ignatius in the Catholic nun-themed comedy "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit" (1993), the inventor Old Gregor in the post-apocalyptic film "Waterworld" (1995), alcoholic clown Norm Snively in the sports comedy "Air Bud" (1997), and sympathetic prisoner Eduard 'Del' Delacroix in "The Green Mile" (1999).
Jeter next earned the recurring role of "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle" in "Sesame Street", His character replaced Mr. Noodle (played by Bill Irwin) in the "Elmo's World" segments of the series. Both character were silent mimes who made mistakes, but were able to correct them with the help of "enthusiastic kid voice overs". Jeter was enthusiastic about his role, and called it a career favorite. He played the role until his death.
The openly gay Jeter was HIV positive, but had been in good health for many years. In March 2003, Jeter was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. According to his life partner Sean Blue, the death was caused by an epileptic seizure. Jeter was 50-years-old at the time of death.- Actor
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David Spielberg was born on 6 March 1939 in Weslaco, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Christine (1983), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and The American Girls (1978). He was married to Janie Glassman Tutelman and Barbara Gladstone. He died on 1 June 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Mason Adams was well known for playing Pepper Young on the popular radio soap opera series Pepper Young's Family throughout the 1940 and 1950s. He was also heard on most of the successful radio programs during radio's "Golden Age." In the 1970s, Adams was frequently heard on Himan Brown's CBS Mystery Theater radio series. He had a regular running role on the Lou Grant TV series for several seasons and appeared in hundreds of other television series throughout the 1950s, '60s, '70s and '80s and '90s and can still can be seen playing featured roles in films and on TV.- Lloyd Bochner had that wonderfully sonorous type of voice that was always tailor-made for radio or for the stage. Unsurprisingly then, by the time he was eleven, Lloyd was already employed as part-time voiceover artist and reader of drama serials by radio stations in Vancouver.
Lloyd Wolfe Bochner was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Frieda (Kenen) and Charles Abraham Bochner. He was of Russian Jewish and Ukrainian Jewish descent. He made his acting debut as a youth with the Joseph Barrington Juveniles. Lloyd's education at the University of Toronto was interrupted in 1943 by wartime service in the Royal Canadian Navy. However, in 1947, he graduated with a B.A. and a few years later moved to New York to further hone his acting skills. In 1953, he returned to Canada to participate in the inaugural season of the Stratford Festival getting to enact choice Shakespearean roles from Horatio in "Hamlet" to Orsino in "Twelfth Night".
Having made his screen bow in a small Canadian production, The Mapleville Story (1946), Lloyd's first significant exposure in television was as British army officer Nicholas Lacey in the half-hour NBC serial One Man's Family (1949), which had first been performed on radio and starred Bert Lytell and Marjorie Gateson. His real breakthrough came quite a few years later, once having moved to Hollywood, as co-star of the studio-bound crime series Hong Kong (1960). He played local British police-chief Neil Campbell, solving crime in tandem with an American newspaper correspondent (played by Australian actor Rod Taylor). This, in turn, led to other key roles including his almost legendary appearance in the classic The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "To Serve Man" in 1962 (at one time voted 11th in a TV guide poll of 100 best TV episodes of all time). Based on a short story by Damon Knight written in 1950, "To Serve Man" unfolds in flashback as narrated for the viewer by Lloyd's decoding expert Michael Chambers. It has all the elements of great television, with an excellent cast (including Richard Kiel, later known as 'Jaws' from the 'James Bond' movies; and Theodore Marcuse as Citizen Grigori giving an indelible impression of Nikita Khrushchev); and an unexpected and disturbing denouement when it turns out that the supposedly altruistic alien Kanamits have come to earth to harvest humans for food. Lloyd repeated his famous punch-line, "it's a cook book!", years later as a spoof in Leslie Nielsen's The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991).
For most of the 1960s and 1970s, Lloyd was cast in supporting roles, often as mellifluous, meticulously-attired, upper-class snobs, practically guaranteed to harbour treacherous intent. He appeared in several motion pictures, notably as the malicious, smooth villain Frederick Carter who unsuccessfully tangles with Lee Marvin in Point Blank (1967), and in the same year, as homosexual drug dealer Vic Rood on the receiving end of the beating from Frank Sinatra in Tony Rome (1967). However, on the whole, Lloyd's preferred medium was television. He had a recurring role in the long-running soap-opera Dynasty (1981) as Blake Carrington's manipulative rival, Cecil Colby, in league with archvillain Alexis Carrington (Joan Collins). A versatile character actor, Lloyd's clean-cut, aquiline features and quiet air of authority lent themselves to portraying a vast gallery of medical men, soldiers, politicians and executives. Some of these were men of integrity, but like many a good actor, Lloyd rather enjoyed the challenge of playing the scoundrel.
During his half century-long acting career, Lloyd Bochner garnered two Liberty Awards as best television actor, Canada's equivalent of the Emmy Awards. He was also an active member in the Association of Canadian Radio and Television Artists. He died at age 81 of cancer on October 29, 2005 in Santa Monica, California. His children are actors Hart Bochner, Paul Bochner, and Johanna Courtleigh. - Actor
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Robert Donner was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey, Michigan and Texas. Robert joined the Navy after he graduated from high school and served almost 4 years. After he left the Navy he stayed on the West Coast and worked as a shipping clerk, salesman, bartender, commercial artist, gardener, and insurance investigator. Robert attended San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge), at nights taking courses in Art History, Psychology and speech. During this time, Robert Donner lived in Studio City and became friends with actor Clint Eastwood who lived in his apartment building. Clint urged Robert to study drama, telling him he was humorous and had a good face. When Robert was not acting he was active in athletics, and was known as one of Hollywood's most enthusiastic golfers. He was a member of the former "Hollywood Hackers" and carried a seven handicap and was the leader of a group of entertainment industry professionals known as Don Porter's Thursday Golf Group as well as joining others at many of the Celebrity Golf Tournaments who raise money for various charities around the world. Robert also played in many tennis tournaments and was frequently called upon during "Celebrity Nights" in which he performed stand-up comedy and promised not to sing. His reputation in this area also led him to become known as one of Hollywood's "in demand" Corporate Speakers.- Actor
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Michael Vincente Gazzo was born in Hillside, New Jersey, on April 5, 1923. He attended Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at the New School on the GI Bill after being demobilized from the US Army Air Force after World War II.
Gazzo's first major success was as a playwright. His play about drug addiction, "A Hatful of Rain," was a success on Broadway, running for 389 performances in 1955 and 1956 and winning Ben Gazzara and Anthony Franciosa Tony award nominations as Best Actor and Best Featured Actor, respectively. However, his second (and what would prove to be his last) Broadway play, "The Night Circus," also starring Gazzara, was a flop, lasting just 7 performances in 1958,
"A Hatful of Rain" was made into a successful film by Oscar-winning director Fred Zinnemann in 1957. Franciosa won an Oscar nomination for reprising his role in the film. Gazzo turned to screenwriting, penning the Elvis Presley hoses-opera King Creole (1958). Eventually he turned back to acting, where his stocky physique and unique screech of a voice made him a first-rate character actor by the 1970s.
His biggest and best acting gig came to him when Richard S. Castellano refused to appear in The Godfather Part II (1974) due to a money dispute. Castellano's character Clemenza was killed off and Gazzo was cast as Clemenza's successor in the Corleone crime family in New York. Gazzo was outstanding as the old-fashioned, unsophisticated mafioso who, believing he has been betrayed and marked for death by his don, turns state's evidence against him, only to honor the Mafia code of "omerta" in the end. Gazzo won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod for his performance.
Gazzo continued to work in films until his death, mostly assaying Mafia bosses and other criminal types. On film, though, he was able to break out of typecasting in his frequent television appearances and play good guys. He died of a stroke on February 14, 1995 in Los Angeles, at the age of 71.- A prolific character actor of imposing presence, Robert F. Simon drifted into acting via the Cleveland Playhouse, hoping that this would cure his natural propensity for shyness. After training at the Actor's Studio in New York he had a ten year run on Broadway (1942-52) in which he cut his teeth--both as actor and as stage manager--on anything from drama to musical comedy. In a roundabout way, he was even able to fulfill his original career goal of becoming a traveling salesman: as understudy to the great Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman".
Robert started in films in 1950, but over the years came often to be typecast in stereotypical roles of benevolent authoritarianism or grouchy executive stress. At times he drew unkind reviews from the critics. He was considerably better served by the small screen, where, for some 35 years, he became a familiar face as generals, police captains, doctors, journalists and attorneys. We may remember him most fondly as George Armstrong Custer's disapproving superior, General Alfred Terry, in Custer (1967); as the sympathetic, long-suffering father of Darrin Stephens in Bewitched (1964); or as Maynard M. Mitchell, one of the wackiest of generals ever to have served in the Korean War (or any other war), in M*A*S*H (1972). - Actor
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A man of all mediums, this veteran, Manhattan-born character actor was named after his great-grandfather, Lincolnesque Congressman William Windom. Born in 1923, the son of Paul Windom, an architect, and the former Isobel Wells Peckham, Bill attended Williams College and the University of Kentucky, among others, before serving in the Army during WWII. After the war, he studied at both Fordham and Columbia universities in New York City before settling on an acting career. Trained at the American Repertory Theatre (1946-1961), he made his minor Broadway debut with the company in November of 1946 with revolving productions of "Henry VIII", "What Every Woman Knows", "John Gabriel Borkman" and "Androcles and the Lion". The following year, he continued building up his Broadway resume with roles in "Yellow Jack" and as the "White Rabbit" in a production of "Alice in Wonderland".
In the early 1950s, a new avenue opened up to Bill: television. For the duration of the decade, he shifted between stage, which included Broadway roles in "A Girl Can Tell" (1953), "Mademoiselle Colombe" (1954), "Fallen Angels" (1956), "The Greatest Man Alive" (1957) and "Viva Madison Avenue!" (1960), and TV drama, with stalwart work in such programs as Robert Montgomery Presents (1950) and Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951).
Major attention came Windom's way on TV moving into the following decade. In addition to hundreds of guest appearances on the most popular shows of the day (Combat! (1962), The Fugitive (1963), All in the Family (1971), Dallas (1978), Highway to Heaven (1984)), his standout work included a co-starring role opposite the luminous Inger Stevens in the popular light comedy series The Farmer's Daughter (1963). On the show, Windom portrayed widower "Glen Morley", a decent congressman who eventually falls in love with his pert and pretty Swedish governess "Katy Holstrum" (played by Stevens). Prior to this success, both he and Ms. Stevens had been singularly recognized for their sterling performances on various episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959). Following this success, Windom enjoyed critical notice as the cartoonist/protagonist whose vivid imagination causes problems on the homefront on the Thurberesque weekly series My World and Welcome to It (1969). Despite the show's critical merit and Windom's "Best Actor" Emmy win, the show, years ahead of its time, lasted only one season. Decades later, Windom would play James Thurber on stage in one-man shows.
The native New Yorker went on to essay a number of loungy Southerners and down-home types with incredible ease--both heroes and villains. He offered strong support in his film debut as Gregory Peck's opposing counsel in the Alabama-based To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and went on to play prelate Norman Vincent Peale's father in One Man's Way (1964) starring Don Murray. Windom demonstrated the maturity to carry off the character even though he was only 5 years older than Murray. He also delivered a variety of pungent roles in such films as The Detective (1968) (as a closeted gay married man), Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud (1970) (as a political blowhard facing a series of murders) and The Man (1972) (as a racist politician).
Growing slier and stockier over the years, Windom provided TV audiences with a colorful gallery of characters, ranging from avuncular and ingratiating, to cantankerous and unscrupulous. He became a regular for over a decade on the Angela Lansbury whodunit series Murder, She Wrote (1984), joining the show in its second season as "Dr. Seth Hazlitt". He briefly left "Murder" to work on another series, Parenthood (1990), which was based on the highly popular 1989 movie starring Steve Martin. Here, Ed Begley Jr. took over the Martin part and Windom assumed Jason Robards's patriarchal role as Begley's father. The show was off the air within a few months, however, and Windom was invited back to the mystery series -- a semi-regular until the show folded in 1997.
In addition, Windom reprised a Star Trek (1966) portrayal as "Commodore Matt Decker," appeared in scores of mini-movies, has given voice to various book readings, presented a second one-man show (this time that of combat reporter Ernie Pyle), and continued to film at age 80+, his latest being Yesterday's Dreams (2005).
The five-times-married Windom was wed (for 36 years) to writer Patricia Veronica Tunder at the time of his death of congestive heart failure at age 88. A chess, tennis and sailing enthusiast, he is survived by four children: Rachel, Heather Juliet, Hope and Rebel Russell.Two step-daughters, Debora and Maggie as well as four grandchildren. He died at his home in Woodacre, California, on August 16, 2012.- A highly engaging, charismatic, and reliable character actor with a long and distinguished career spanning half a century, Jerry Hardin has been gracing both the big and small screen, and stage, with many enjoyable performances, highlighted by a relaxed and pleasing Southern twang. Born November 20, 1929, in Dallas, Texas, where his father was a rancher, Hardin was raised outside the city, where he first began acting in school productions. This would lead to a scholarship to Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and a Fulbright scholarship to the Royal Academy for Dramatic Art in London. He had his first (uncredited) film role in the classic drive-in flick, Thunder Road (1958), starring Robert Mitchum, and, by 1961, had racked up an impressive amount of over 75 theatre credits. He became incredibly prolific in the 1970s, when his film career really took off, and he also started appearing regularly on TV series, including Gunsmoke (1955), Starsky and Hutch (1975), The Streets of San Francisco (1972), Little House on the Prairie (1974), The Rockford Files (1974), Miami Vice (1984), L.A. Law (1986), Melrose Place (1992), Murder, She Wrote (1984) and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993). A particularly memorable performance, by Mr. Hardin in this medium, was that of Mark Twain in episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). He would also prove to be in high demand for film roles, appearing in the likes of Wolf Lake (1979), Heartland (1979), 1941 (1979), Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), Reds (1981), Missing (1982), Honkytonk Man (1982), Cujo (1983), The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), Warning Sign (1985), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Wanted: Dead or Alive (1986), The Hot Spot (1990), The Firm (1993), Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), Hidalgo (2004) and Are We There Yet? (2005). His performance as one of the subtly sinister senior partners in The Firm (1993) impressed The X-Files (1993) creator Chris Carter enough that Carter would create the character of "Deep Throat" with him in mind, and it's this role that is definitely one of Hardin's most famous. A noteworthy stage performance of his was in the play, "The Rainmaker", working alongside Jayne Atkinson, Woody Harrelson and David Aaron Baker.
Hardin's wife is actress and acting teacher Diane Hardin (her students have included Leonardo DiCaprio, Hilary Swank, Stephen Dorff, River Phoenix, Kellie Martin and Christopher Masterson), his daughter is actress Melora Hardin, and his son Shawn Hardin was chief operating officer, in-charge-of product, for NBC-1 in San Francisco. - Actor
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Harold Gould earned a Ph.D. in theater and taught speech and drama at Cornell University.
Pursuing off-Broadway work in the 1950s, he decided to practice what he preached and became a full-time professional actor in the 1960s.
He appeared in hundreds of TV programs during his distinguished performing career, usually playing a father, grandfather, or other varieties of authority figures.- Highly recognizable Irish-American character actor whose small stature and wizened features made him resemble a leprechaun (a role which he played on more than one occasion). Probably best known as Willie Stark's bodyguard in All the King's Men (1949).
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As a film character actor, Klugman was the epitome of the everyman. He was one of the pioneers of television acting in the 1950s, and is best remembered for his 1970s TV work as Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple (1970) and as the medical examiner on Quincy M.E. (1976).- Jo Ann Pflug was born on 2 May 1940 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She is an actress, known for M*A*S*H (1970), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) and The Fall Guy (1981). She has been married to Charles Stuck Young since 14 May 1988. She was previously married to Chuck Woolery.
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One of the movies' most memorable tough guys, Simon Oakland actually began his career as a concert violinist, turning to acting in the late 1940s. After a long string of roles in Broadway hits, including "Light Up the Sky," "The Shrike" and "Inherit the Wind," Oakland made his film debut as the tough but compassionate journalist who speaks up for Susan Hayward's "Barbara Graham" in I Want to Live! (1958). He would go on to play a long series of tough guy types, albeit usually on the right side of the law, in such films as The Sand Pebbles (1966), Tony Rome (1967), Psycho (1960), and, most notably, nasty Lieutenant Schrank in West Side Story (1961). He was also a frequently seen face on TV, at one point serving as a regular or semi-regular on four different series at once. Much respected by his co-workers as a total professional, he died, after a long battle with cancer, one day after his 68th birthday.- Henry Beckman was born on 26 November 1921 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He was an actor, known for Marnie (1964), Blood & Guts (1978) and The Brood (1979). He was married to Hillary Beckman and Cheryl Maxwell. He died on 17 June 2008 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
- Garry Walberg was born on 10 June 1921 in Buffalo, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Quincy M.E. (1976), King Kong (1976) and Johnny Staccato (1959). He was married to Florence M Apostol, Patsy Collett and Betty Jean Horner. He died on 27 March 2012 in Northridge, California, USA.
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William Conrad became a television star relatively late in his career. In fact, the former Army Air Corps World War II fighter pilot began his screen career playing heavies. He was Max, one of The Killers (1946) hired to finish off Burt Lancaster in his dingy lodgings. He was the corrupt state inspector Turck working for the syndicate in The Racket (1951). He was a mobster in Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), the murderous gunslinger Tallman in Johnny Concho (1956) and sleazy nightclub owner Louie Castro who claimed to be 60% legitimate in Cry Danger (1951).
When not essaying outright villainy, Bill played characters like the tough fight promoter Quinn in Body and Soul (1947) or the doom-laden province commissioner in The Naked Jungle (1954). The portly, balding, crumple-faced, self-confessed gourmand had an ever-present weight problem (at one time 260 lbs.) which proved to be a natural obstacle to progressing to more substantial leading film roles. That, however, didn't hinder a very successful career in radio. In fact, Bill himself estimated that he had played in excess of 7,000 radio parts. Even if that was an exaggeration, his gravelly, resonant voice was certainly heard on countless broadcasts from "Buck Rogers" to "The Bullwinkle Show," from portraying Marshall Matt Dillon in "Gunsmoke" on the radio (before James Arness got the part on screen) to narrating the adventures of Richard Kimball in the television program The Fugitive (1963). In "The Wax Works," an episode of the anthology series Suspense (1949) in 1956, he voiced each and every part.
Since his corpulence effectively precluded playing strapping characters like Matt Dillon, Bill began to concentrate on directing and producing by the early 1960's. This, ironically, included episodes of Gunsmoke (1955). In 1963, he contributed to saving 77 Sunset Strip (1958) for yet another season. Later in the decade, he produced and directed several films for Warner Brothers, including the thriller Brainstorm (1965) with Jeffrey Hunter and Anne Francis. He returned to acting in 1971 to become the unlikely star of the Quinn Martin production Cannon (1971), for which he is chiefly remembered. Bill imbued the tough-talking, no-nonsense character of Frank Cannon with enough humanity and wit to make the series compelling but, despite the show's popularity, he made his views clear in a 1976 Times interview that he found himself poorly served by the scripts he had been given. A planned sequel, The Return of Frank Cannon (1980) failed to get beyond the movie-length pilot, but the actor's popularity resulted in another starring role in Jake and the Fatman (1987) as District Attorney McCabe, co-starring with Joe Penny) and a brief run as eccentric detective Nero Wolfe (1981). A self-effacing man with a good sense of humor and never afraid to speak his mind, Bill Conrad died of heart failure in February 1994. He was elected to the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame and (posthumously) to the Radio Hall of Fame in 1997.- Actor
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1950s and 60s second lead actor Keith Andes fits into the tall, handsome, strapping and highly virile mold that encompassed the likes of George Nader, Guy Madison, and Jeffrey Hunter. Although he may not be as well remembered as the aforementioned, he managed to maintain a reliable career on radio (from age 12), stage, TV and films for over three decades.
Born John Charles Andes on July 12, 1920, in Ocean City, New Jersey, Keith found work on radio singing and acting throughout his high school years. While serving with the Air Force during WWII, he performed in the patriotic 1943 Broadway stage show "Winged Victory" and, after being seen by studio mogul Darryl F. Zanuck, was given a minor part in the film version the following year.
Keith returned to Hollywood in the post-war years and won the role of one of Loretta Young's brothers (the others being Lex Barker and James Arness) in the classic film The Farmer's Daughter (1947). His enviable physique and photogenic good looks made the blond looker an obvious choice to continue in both rugged adventures and beefcake drama but his output was fairly minimal. In Clash by Night (1952), one of his best roles, he dallied hot and heavy with a young Marilyn Monroe and, in Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952), he demonstrated some expert swashbuckling skills.
Meanwhile on the musical front, Keith proved he had a resilient baritone. He won a Theatre World Award for "The Chocolate Soldier" in 1947 and, subsequently, starred in "Kiss Me Kate" with Anne Jeffreys of TV's Topper (1953) fame. More notably, he appeared opposite Lucille Ball in her only Broadway musical "Wildcat" in 1960, winding things up playing "Don Quixote" for over 400 performances in "Man of La Mancha" in 1968. Ironically, the movie studios did not take advantage of Keith's musical prowess, appearing in a bland role with Jane Powell and singing one musical number in The Girl Most Likely (1957).
Beside numerous episodic appearances on such popular 60's and 70's shows as "Have Gun, Will Travel," "The Rifleman," "77 Sunset Strip," "Perry Mason," "The Outer Limits," "Daniel Boone," "The Andy Griffith Show," "Star Trek," "I Spy," "Petticoat Junction," "Gunsmoke," "Cannon" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," Keith co-starred in two television series: This Man Dawson (1959) and the sitcom Glynis (1963), the latter starring popular Brit actress Glynis Johns. Both were short-lived. He occasionally found voiceover work.
After a minor part in the film And Justice for All (1979), Keith made his final appearance as Father Adam in the TV movie drama Blinded by the Light (1980) ). He then retired, bought and lived on a boat and ran charters on trips to Catalina and Mexico. Twice married and divorced, Keith had two children (Mark and Matt) by first wife, Jean Alice Cotton. Mark Andes became a rock musician. Keith's second wife was actress/dancer/choreographer Shelah Hackett.
Sadly, his final years were marred by extreme ill health, including bladder cancer, and he committed suicide in his Santa Clarita, California home at age 85.- Actress
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Elizabeth Montgomery was born into show business. Her parents were screen actor Robert Montgomery and Broadway actress Elizabeth Allen. Elizabeth graduated from the Spence School in New York City and attended the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. After three years' intensive training, she made her TV debut in her father's 1950s playhouse series Robert Montgomery Presents (1950) and appeared in more than 200 live programs over the next decade. She once remarked, "I guess you could say I'm a TV baby." Notable early film roles included The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) and Johnny Cool (1963). However, she is best remembered for her leading role as the witch Samantha in the top-rated ABC sitcom Bewitched (1964). Her family - mother Endora (Agnes Moorehead), look-alike cousin Serena (Montgomery, wearing a dark wig) and advertising executive husband Darrin (first Dick York then Dick Sargent) - tried to suppress her supernatural skills but often turned to her tricks to solve problems. The signal of impending witchcraft was a twitch of Samantha's nose. After her first and only TV series ended she turned to made-for-TV movies, many of which won critical praise: A Case of Rape (1974), The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975), Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story (1993). She narrated the movie The Panama Deception (1992) which won an Academy Award in 1993. Reference works showed her as 62 when she died though the family said she was 57. The family did not disclose the type of cancer which caused her death.- Actor
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Lean, tall American character actor Arthur Hunnicutt was known for playing humorously wise rural roles. He attended Arkansas State Teachers College in his native state, but was forced to drop out in his third year due to lack of funds. He joined a theatre company in Massachusetts, then migrated to New York, where he began to find acting roles on Broadway and on tour. He played in numerous productions, including the leading role in "Tobacco Road", a part his rangy country persona was made for. He took a few roles in small films in the early 1940s, then returned to stage work. In 1949 he came back to Hollywood permanently and began a long career as a reliable supporting player. His wonderfully written and vibrantly played role in the Howard Hawks Western The Big Sky (1952) won him acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Supporting Actor. He continued playing similar characters, almost always sympathetic, for the remainder of his career. He was stricken with cancer of the tongue and died in 1979.- Actor
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Donald Madden was born on 5 November 1933 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for 1776 (1972), Play of the Week (1959) and The United States Steel Hour (1953). He died on 22 January 1983 in Central Islip, Suffolk, New York, USA.- Roy Poole was born on 31 March 1924 in San Bernardino, California, USA. He was an actor, known for 1776 (1972), Mandingo (1975) and Network (1976). He was married to Marie Cote. He died on 1 July 1986 in Mount Kisco, New York, USA.
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David Ford was born on 30 October 1925 in La Jolla, California, USA. He was an actor, known for 1776 (1972), Dark Shadows (1966) and Search for Tomorrow (1951). He was married to Nancy Barrett. He died on 7 August 1983 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
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Dabbs Greer was a very familiar face in films and especially on TV. He was a sort of "everyman" in his roles and played merchants, preachers, businessmen, and other "pillars of the community" types as well as assorted villains. With his plain looking face, wavy hair and mellow, distinctive voice he was a solid supporting actor.
He was born on April 2, 1917, in Fairview, Missouri, to Randall Alexander Greer and Bernice Irene Dabbs. Reared in Anderson, Missouri, he was the only child of a pharmacist father and a speech therapist mother. His first acting experience was on stage in a children's theatre production when he was eight years old. He attended Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, where he earned a BA and headed the drama department and Little Theatre in Mountain Grove, Missouri, from 1940-43. He then moved on to the famed Pasadena Playhouse in California as actor, instructor and administrator from 1943-50. He made his film debut in Reign of Terror (1949) (aka "The Black Book") in an uncredited bit part and went on to appear in many parts during the next 50 years. He is probably best remembered for his role as Rev. Alden on Little House on the Prairie (1974) but he was also a regular on the TV series Gunsmoke (1955) as a merchant, Mr. Jonas; Hank (1965) as Coach Ossie Weiss and Picket Fences (1992) as Rev. Henry Novotny. He also appeared in made-for-TV movies and guest-starred on such series as Adventures of Superman (1952); The Rifleman (1958); Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958); Trackdown (1957); Perry Mason (1957); Bonanza (1959); The Fugitive (1963) and The Brady Bunch (1969). He died in 2007, aged 90. He never married, had no children, and left no immediate relatives.- Actor
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Whit Bissell came to Hollywood in the 1940s, and by the time he retired he had appeared in more than 200 movies and scores of TV series. He is best known for playing the evil scientist who turned Michael Landon into a half beast in the 1957 cult classic film I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). Bissell specialized in playing doctors, military officers and other authority figures. On television he was a regular on Bachelor Father (1957) and The Time Tunnel (1966). He also served on the Screen Actors Guild board of directors for 18 years and represented the actors branch in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board of governors.- Actress
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Lee Remick was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, to Gertrude Margaret (Waldo), an actress, and Francis Edwin Remick, a department store owner. She had Irish and English ancestry. Remick was educated at Barnard College, studied dance and worked on stage and TV, before making her film debut as a sexy Southern majorette in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957). Her next role was also southern: Eula Varner in The Long, Hot Summer (1958). She emerged as a real star in the role of an apparent rape victim in Anatomy of a Murder (1959). And she won an Academy Award nomination for her role as the alcoholic wife of Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses (1962). After more work in TV and movies, she moved to England in 1970, making more movies there. In 1988 she formed a production company with partners James Garner and Peter K. Duchow.- Actor
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Actor and director Sam Wanamaker was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, Molly (Babell) and Maurice Wattenmaker, a tailor. He studied at Drake University, IA, then trained at Goodman Theatre, Chicago, worked with summer stock companies in Chicago as an actor and director, and made his London debut in 1952. In 1957, he was appointed director of the New Shakespeare Theatre, Liverpool, and in 1959 joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company at Stratford-upon-Avon. He produced or directed several works at Covent Garden and elsewhere in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations in 1974. He worked both as director and actor in films and television, his appearances included The Spiral Staircase (1975), Private Benjamin (1980), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), and Baby Boom (1987).
Married to Charlotte Holland, his daughter is actress Zoë Wanamaker.- Actress
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Born and trained in New York City, Julie Carmen began her acting career off-off-Broadway, dancing on Broadway in 'Zoot Suit,' but her film career was launched playing the Puerto Rican mother in John Cassavetes' 'Gloria' opposite Gena Rowlands. Julie studied extensively with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, with Uta Hagen at HB Studio and more recently with Patsy Rodenburg and Sara Mornell. Julie joined the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in the class of 2016. She was inducted into the New Mexico Film and Television Hall of Fame in 2018 for her iconic Southwestern roles in 'Milagro Beanfield War' and Gore Vidal's 'Billy the Kid.' Julie sat on the Board of Directors of IFP/West Film Independent for six years during which time Julie suggested the creation of the John Cassavetes Award, since she just finished acting in Cassavetes' film 'Gloria' and wanted to encourage filmmakers who embraced Cassavetes' experiential style of story telling. Carmen Zapata invited Julie to sit on the Board of Directors of Women in Film for four years as a way to ensure there would always be at least one Latina on the Board.
Julie is extremely grateful to have co-starred in films for John Cassavetes, Michael Mann (I), Robert Redford (I), John Carpenter (I), Nicolas Roeg, William A. Graham, Seth Zvi Rosenfeld, Franc Reyes, Tommy Lee Wallace, Carl Schultz, Dan Petrie, Jr., Michael Olmos, Tom Dolby, Tom Williams and on television for Karen Arthur (I), Betty Thomas (I), David Milch, Paris Barclay, Debbie Allen, Deborah Kampmeier and Quentin Tarantino.
Julie is known for her ageless chameleon qualities, effortlessly shape shifting into extremely diverse roles. She played Angelina Jolie's elegant plantation owner mother, fighting to free their enslaved workers; she's often remembered as sexually-insatiable environmental revolutionary Nina in the HBO series Dream On; John Leguizamo's lesbian freedom-fighting mother; the existential book editor opposite Sam Neill in John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness; but her favorite incarnation was Regine Dandridge in the horror cult classic Fright Night Part Two.
Julie holds a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology and worked for 20 years part-time as a licensed marriage and family therapist and certified yoga therapist. Her great-grandfather, Jose Manuel (Lico) Jiménez, (1851-1917) was a child protege Afro Cuban classical pianist from Trinidad, Cuba who emigrated to Europe to perform in the Jiménez Trio in 200 concerts along with his father and brother. Lico Jiménez is credited for bringing German Lied music back to his home country, Cuba. Julie is executive producing a documentary film called Lico Jiménez the Ebony Liszt.
Julie grew up with her great aunt who played Titania in Max Reinhard's Midsummer Night's Dream in Berlin and her twin sister, Julie's grandmother, an obstetric nurse. Julie's mom is a retired high school Spanish and German teacher and her dad was a prolific poet who worked as a paper salesman. Julie's only brother is a public health physician, epidemiologist and occupational medicine doctor in Manhattan. Her godmother, blacklisted character actress Lily Valenty, introduced Julie to her first agent, Walter Kohner who immediately booked her as female lead in two European films for Filmverlaug in Berlin. Julie stayed in Europe to star in Basque director, Alfonso Ungria's film Africa.
As a teenager, Julie worked as the resident choreographer at INTAR Theater in Manhattan when it was under the artistic direction of Cuban-American Max Ferra, choreographing the plays, 'Yoruba', 'Espetaculo Valle Inclan' and 'The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife' by Lorca. At age 15 she danced with a friend's transvestite theater company in Sheyla Baykal's Palm Casino Review at the Bouwerie Lane Theater in New York and Gossamer Wings at Theater for a New City on Jane Street in Greenwich Village.
Her most recent films--'Windows on the World' (2017) opposite Edward James Olmos and Ryan Guzman; 'You Can't Say No' (2018), opposite Peter Fonda (I), and 'Dawn Patrol' (2014/III) opposite Scott Eastwood (I)--mark her return to the big screen after taking some family time.
"Because the world is too troubled for any of us to rest, " Julie recently acquired the film rights to produce four films based on books and she directed her third short film, "The Unnecessary Salvation of Mary McDaniel", written by Herman Johansen with music composed by Maria Newman and Scott Hosfeld.- Actor
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Distinguished character actor David Hattersley Warner was born on July 29, 1941 in Manchester, England, to Ada Doreen (Hattersley) and Herbert Simon Warner. He was born out of wedlock and raised by each of his parents, eventually settling with his itinerant father and stepmother. He only saw his mother again on her deathbed. As an only child from a dysfunctional family, young David excelled neither at academia nor at athletics. He attended eight schools and "failed his exams at all of them." After a series of odd jobs, he was accepted against all odds at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
When he first took up acting, it was not with the notion of a prospective career, but rather to escape (in his own words) 'a messy childhood.' Warner received some early mentoring from one of his teachers, and made his theatrical debut in 1962 at the Royal Court Theatre as Snout in A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Tony Richardson. A year later, he became the youngest-ever actor to play Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Comedy may not have been his forte as much as the likes of Falstaff, Lysander and (on several occasions) Henry VI. Eventually becoming disaffected with the theatre (and plagued for some years by stage fright), Warner found himself better served by the celluloid medium. His first big break came on the strength of his small part in A Midsummer Night's Dream, courtesy of Tony Richardson who cast him in his bawdy period romp Tom Jones (1963) as the mendacious, pimple-faced antagonist Blifil, who vied with Albert Finney for the affections of Susannah York. A proper starring turn on the big screen followed in due course with the title role in Morgan! (1966), Warner playing a deranged artist with Marxist leanings who goes to absurd lengths to reclaim his ex-wife (played by Vanessa Redgrave), including blowing up his mother-in-law. In yet another off-beat satire, Work Is a Four Letter Word (1968), Warner played a corporate drop-out who grows psychedelic mushrooms in an automated world of the future. Combined with his two-year stint as Hamlet with the RSC, Warner became a star at age 24.
By the 1970s, he had become one of Britain's most sought-after character actors and went on to enjoy an illustrious and prolific career on both sides of the Atlantic, throughout which he rarely spurned a role offered him. Tall and somewhat ungainly in appearance, Warner excelled at troubled, introspective loners, outcasts and mavericks or downright sinister individuals. The latter have included SS General Reinhardt Heydrich in Holocaust (1978), Jack the Ripper in Time After Time (1979), Picard's sadistic Cardassian torturer Gul Madred in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), the villainous ex-Pinkerton man Spicer Lovejoy in Titanic (1997) and the evil geniuses of Time Bandits (1981) (a role turned down by Jonathan Pryce) and Tron (1982). He also essayed the creature to Robert Powell 's Frankenstein (1984).
Less eccentric roles saw him as the doomed photojournalist who literally loses his head in The Omen (1976) (Warner later described the experience of working alongside Gregory Peck as a career highlight), the sympathetic, but equally ill-fated Klingon Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) and the sad, likeable fantasist Aldous Gajic, searching for the Grail in Babylon 5 (1993). Warner also appeared in a trio of films for which he was handpicked by the director Sam Peckinpah. Best of these is arguably the comedy western The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), with Warner well cast as the roving-eyed, itinerant Reverend Joshua Duncan Sloane. Warner won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for his performance as the Roman Senator Pomponius Falco in the miniseries Masada (1981). Following a three-decade long absence, Warner returned to the stage in 2001 for the role of Andrew Undershaft in Shaw's Major Barbara. In 2004, he played the title role in King Lear at the Chichester Theatre Festival in England. More recently, he appeared on TV as Professor Abraham Van Helsing in Penny Dreadful (2014), as Rabbi Max Steiner in Ripper Street (2012) and as Kenneth Branagh's ailing father in Wallander (2008).
A riveting screen presence, the ever-versatile and charismatic David Warner passed away aged 80 from cancer at Denville Hall, an entertainment industry care home, in Northwood, London, on 24 July 2022.- Actor
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Jason Bernard was born on 17 May 1938 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Liar Liar (1997), WarGames (1983) and While You Were Sleeping (1995). He was married to Carol Joy Pacanda and Debra Jean Wilson. He died on 16 October 1996 in Burbank, California, USA.- John Fujioka was born on 29 June 1925 in Olaa, Hawaii, USA. He was an actor, known for Mortal Kombat (1995), American Ninja (1985) and Pearl Harbor (2001). He died on 13 December 2018 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Paulina Porizkova was born on 9 April 1965 in Prostejov, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. She is an actress and director, known for Thursday (1998), Her Alibi (1989) and Arizona Dream (1993). She was previously married to Ric Ocasek.- Stefan Schnabel was born on 2 February 1912 in Berlin, Germany. He was an actor, known for Firefox (1982), The Iron Curtain (1948) and The Counterfeit Traitor (1962). He was married to Kohler, Marion and Pittman, Joan. He died on 11 March 1999 in Rogaro, Tremezzo, Lombardy, Italy.
- The ever-impressive, chameleon-like British character actor Roy Dotrice was born on the Island of Guernsey, which is part of the United Kingdom, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France. He was the first-born child of Louis and Neva Dotrice who prospered as bakers. The Germans occupied the island in 1940 and he and his mother and brother escaped to England.
Advancing his real age, Roy joined the Royal Air Force at age 16 and was trained as a wireless operator and air gunner. In 1942 his plane was shot down and he was captured where he served out the remainder of WWII (over three years) as a prisoner of war in Germany. He was introduced to the idea of performing when he took part in various makeshift concerts in order to raise the spirits of his fellow captives.
Following WWII and his release, Roy decided to pursue his acting ambitions. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began appearing in English repertory where he met and married (1947) actress Kay Dotrice who at the time was performing under her given name of Katherine (Kay) Newman. Throughout the early post-war years, the couple performed together in repertory with Charles Denville and the Denville Players. At different times he was a member of the Liverpool, Manchester and Oldham repertory theatres. Also during this great time of productivity, Roy produced and directed some three hundred stage plays. He formed his own troupe, the Guernsey Theatre Company, in 1955. The highlight of his theatrical career, however, began in 1957 when Roy became a member of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford, England, (later the Royal Shakespeare Company). For the next nine years he performed in a lengthy succession of the Bard's works, first in small parts as various players, officers and gentlemen. He subsequently went on to become a notable Iago, Falstaff and Julius Caesar, among others. A popular performer, he had an uncanny ability to play much older than he was. He later went on to perform with the American Shakespearean Festival.
The notoriety he received from his abundant classical theatre experience led directly to radio, film, television and Broadway offers. Roy has appeared in a number of Broadway productions over the years, receiving a Tony nomination for his work in "A Life" and finally winning the trophy for his heralded performance in the 2000 revival of "A Moon for the Misbegotten" starring Cherry Jones and Gabriel Byrne. Known for his considerable success in one-man shows such as Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Will Rogers and Winston Churchill, his superb one-person show "Brief Lives", drawn from the Elizabethan diaries of John Aubrey, played for over 1,700 performances over a period of nearly a decade. At one time this set a record for a solo performance and was listed in the "Guinness Book of World Records".
Dotrice made his credited feature movie debut supporting Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris in The Heroes of Telemark (1965), and has since lent class and distinction to a spattering of films. Among his list of credits include the bawdy comedy Lock Up Your Daughters! (1969); the sumptuous biopic Nicholas and Alexandra (1971); the Oscar-winning Amadeus (1984), Milos Forman's adaptation of composer Mozart's life in which Roy portrayed Mozart's stern and domineering father Leopold; and The Cutting Edge (1992) as an Olympic skating coach.
Perhaps better remembered on the small screen, he appeared magnanimously as a host of monarchs including his Edward IV in The Wars of the Roses (1965) and King George IV in the syndicated miniseries Shaka Zulu (1986). To American audiences he is probably best known as Jacob Wells, the Beast's surrogate father, in the dramatic series Beauty and the Beast (1987). Dotrice was also cast in the recurring role of Father Barrett, a Catholic priest and confidante of Judge Henry Bone (played by Ray Walston), on the acclaimed Emmy-winning drama Picket Fences (1992).
Since the end of the 1970s he has lived and worked primarily in America. More recently he appeared on stage reviving his outstanding 1993 role as George Bernard Shaw in "The Best of Friends" in 2006. Millennium work included the films Alien Hunter (2003), These Foolish Things (2006), Played (2006), Go Go Tales (2007). Enjoying a recurring role on the British TV series Life Begins (2004), Roy made his last TV appearances on two 2012 episodes of "Game of Thrones" as Hallyne.
Roy's devoted wife Kay died on August 2, 2007, after 60 years of marriage. The couple has three daughters (Michele Dotrice, Karen Dotrice and Yvette Dotrice), all whom at one time or another were actresses. Karen, who is now primarily out of the business, became the best known perhaps for her childhood Disney portrayals, notably in Mary Poppins (1964). Combined, his daughters have presented him with seven grandchildren. Roy died on October 16, 2017. - Actor
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The star of many land and underwater adventures, Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr. was born on January 15, 1913 in San Leandro, California, to Harriet Evelyn (Brown) and Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Sr., who owned a movie theater and also worked in the hotel business. He grew up in various Northern California towns. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but young Lloyd's interests turned to acting while at the University of California at Los Angeles. (Dorothy Dean Bridges, Bridges' wife of more than 50 years, was one of his UCLA classmates, and appeared opposite him in a romantic play called "March Hares.") He later worked on the Broadway stage, helped to found an off-Broadway theater, and acted, produced and directed at Green Mans ions, a theater in the Catskills. Bridges made his first films in 1936, and went under contract to Columbia in 1941. Allegations that Bridges had been involved with the Communist Party threatened to derail his career in the early 1950s, but he resumed work after testifying as a cooperative witness before the House Un-American Activities, admitting his past party membership and recanting. Making the transition to television, Bridges became a small screen star of giant proportions by starring in Sea Hunt (1958), the country's most successful syndicated series. Trouper Bridges worked right to the end, winning even more new fans with his spoofy portrayals in the movies Airplane! (1980) and Hot Shots! (1991), and their respective sequels. Lloyd Bridges died at age 85 of natural causes on March 10, 1998.- Actor
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Actor/director/producer Mel Ferrer was born Melchor Gaston Ferrer on August 25, 1917, in Elberon, New Jersey. The son of a Cuban-born surgeon and a Manhattan socialite, he went to prep school and attended Princeton University. From the age of 15 he worked in summer stock. After Princeton he became an editor on a small Vermont newspaper and wrote a children's book, "Tito's Hats." He became a chorus dancer on Broadway in 1938 in two musicals and made his New York debut as an actor two years later. After a bout with polio he started in radio as a disc jockey in Texas and Arkansas and rose to producer-director of top-rated shows for NBC in New York. He made a modest debut as a director at Columbia with the low-budget The Girl of the Limberlost (1945), then returned to acting on Broadway to star in Lillian Smith's "Strange Fruit." He was John Ford's assistant on The Fugitive (1947).
Ferrer made his screen acting debut in Lost Boundaries (1949). He is best remembered for the role of the lame puppeteer in Lili (1953) and as Prince Andrei in War and Peace (1956). He directed Claudette Colbert in The Secret Fury (1950) and Audrey Hepburn - his wife at the time - in Green Mansions (1959). Ferrer produced the hit Wait Until Dark (1967), also with Hepburn. In the following year, the couple separated and ultimately divorced. Since 1960 had been producing and acting mainly in Europe.- Actor
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José Ferrer was a Puerto Rican actor and film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for playing the title character in Cyrano de Bergerac (1950). Ferrer was the first Puerto Rican actor to win an Academy Award, and also the first Hispanic actor to win an Academy Award.
In 1912, Ferrer was born is San Juan, the capital city of Puerto Rico. Established as a Spanish colonial city in 1521, San Juan is the third oldest European-established capital city in the Americas, following Santo Domingo (established in 1496) and Panama City (established in 1521). Ferrer's father was Rafael Ferrer, a lawyer and author who was born and raised in San Juan. Ferrer's mother was María Providencia Cintrón, a native of the coastal town of Yabucoa. Ferrer's paternal grandfather was Dr. Gabriel Ferrer Hernández, who had campaigned for Puerto Rican independence from the Spanish Empire.
The Ferrer family moved to New York City in 1914, when José was 2-years-old. As a school student, Ferrer was educated abroad at the Institut Le Rosey, a prestigious boarding school located in Rolle, Switzerland. In 1933, Ferrer was enrolled at Princeton University, located in Princeton, New Jersey. He studied architecture, and wrote a senior thesis about French Naturalism and the literary works of Spanish naturalist writer Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921). In 1934, Ferrer transferred to Columbia University, where he studied Romance languages.
In 1934, while still a college student, Ferrer made his theatrical debut in Long Island-based theatre. In 1935, he was hired as the stage manager at the Suffern Country Playhouse. Later in 1935, Ferrer made his Broadway debut in the comedy play "A Slight Case of Murder" by Damon Runyon (1880-1946) and Howard Lindsay (1889-1968). This stage production of the play ran for 69 performances, with Ferrer appearing in all of them.
Ferrer's major success as a Broadway actor was performing in the play "Brother Rat" by John Monks Jr. (1910-2004) and Fred F. Finklehoffe (1910-1977). The play had a ran of 577 performances from 1936 to 1938. Among his subsequent theatrical appearances, the most successful were staged productions of Mamba's Daughters (1938), which ran for 163 performances, and "Charley's Aunt" (1940-1941), which ran for 233 performances. His role in "Charley's Aunt" required him to perform in drag, for the first time in his career.
Ferrer had one of the greatest theatrical successes of his career when playing the villainous Iago in a Broadway production of "Othello' by William Shakespeare. The production had a ran of 296 performances, lasting from 1943 to 1944. Ferrer played his most famous role as the historical figure of Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655) in the 1946-1947 Broadway season. For this role, Ferrer won the 1947 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.
Ferrer made his film debut in the Technicolor epic "Joan of Arc" (1948). He played the historical monarch Charles VII of France (1403-1461, reigned 1422-1461), the ruler who Joan of Arc served during the Hundred Years' War. For his debut role, Ferrer was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The Award was instead won by rival actor Walter Huston (1883-1950).
Ferrer's success as a film actor, helped him gain more film roles in Hollywood-produced films. He played the "smooth-talking hypnotist David Korvo" in the film noir "Whirlpool" (1949), and dictator Raoul Farrago in the film noir "Crisis". He had a career highlight with a film adaptation of the play "Cyrano de Bergerac", where he played the title role. For this role, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
His next critically successful role was that of artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) in the historical drama "Moulin Rouge" (1952). For this role, Ferrer was again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The award was instead won by rival actor Gary Cooper (1901-1961). The film also marked a financial success for Ferrer, who received 40% of the film's profits.
Ferrer also appeared in other box office hits of the 1950s, such as the musical "Miss Sadie Thompson" (1953), the Navy-themed drama "The Caine Mutiny" (1954), and the biographical film "Deep in My Heart" (1954). Ferrer was also interested in becoming a film director. He made his directing debut with the film noir "The Shrike" (1955). His subsequent directing efforts included war film "The Cockleshell Heroes" (1955), the film noir "The Great Man" (1956), the biographical film I Accuse! (1958), and the comedy film "The High Cost of Loving" (1958). While still critically well-received, several of these films were box office flops. He took a hiatus from films productions.
Ferrer attempted a comeback as a film director with the sequel film "Return to Peyton Place" (1961) and the musical film "State Fair" (1962). Both films were box office flops. As an actor, Ferrer had a supporting role as a Turkish Bey in the historical drama "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962). While a relatively minor role, Ferrer considered the finest role of his film career.
In television, Ferrer gained a notable role as the narrator in the pilot episode of the hit sitcom "Bewitched" (1964-1972). In films, Ferrer started playing mostly supporting roles. He briefly returned to the role of Cyrano de Bergerac in the French adventure film "Cyrano and d'Artagnan". He had another notable role as a historical monarch, playing Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea (reigned 4 BC-39 AD) in the Biblical epic "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965).
Ferrer had his first notable role as a voice actor, playing the villain Ben Haramed in the Rankin/Bass Christmas "The Little Drummer Boy" (1968). But at this time, he started having legal troubles. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) accused Ferrer of still owing unpaid taxes since 1962.
Ferrer had many film roles in the 1970s, but no outstanding highlights. As a voice actor, he voiced Cyrano de Bergerac in an episode of "The ABC Afterschool Special". In the 1980s, Ferrer played a monarch again, playing Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV in the science fiction film "Dune". The film was an adaptation of the 1965 novel "Dune" by Frank Herbert (1920-1986), and Shaddam was one of the film's villains. This was among the last notable roles of Ferrer's long career.
Ferred retired from acting entirely in 1991, due to increasing health problems. His last theatrical performance was a production of the generation-gap drama "Conversations with My Father". Ferrer died in 1992, due to colorectal cancer. He was 80-years-old. He died in Coral Gables, Florida, but was buried in the Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Several of his children had acting careers of their own.- Actress
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Denise Nicholas was born on 12 July 1944 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for Let's Do It Again (1975), In the Heat of the Night (1988) and Room 222 (1969). She was previously married to Jim Hill, Bill Withers and Gilbert Moses.- William Sheppard was born and raised in London, England to an Anglo-Irish family. He is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He was an Associate Artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company for 12 years. He appeared on Broadway in 1966 with "Marat-Sade" and later in 1975 with "Sherlock Holmes". He won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award for "The Homecoming" in 1995, at the Matrix Theatre. He voiced the narrator in the popular computer game Civilization 5.
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Peter Wilton Cushing was born on May 26, 1913 in Kenley, Surrey, England, to Nellie Maria (King) and George Edward Cushing, a quantity surveyor. He and his older brother David were raised first in Dulwich Village, a south London suburb, and then later back in Surrey. At an early age, Cushing was attracted to acting, inspired by his favorite aunt, who was a stage actress. While at school, Cushing pursued his acting interest in acting and also drawing, a talent he put to good use later in his first job as a government surveyor's assistant in Surrey. At this time, he also dabbled in local amateur theater until moving to London to attend the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on scholarship. He then performed in repertory theater in Worthing, deciding in 1939 to head for Hollywood, where he made his film debut in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). Other Hollywood films included A Chump at Oxford (1940) with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Vigil in the Night (1940) and They Dare Not Love (1941). However, after a short stay, he returned to England by way of New York (making brief appearances on Broadway) and Canada. Back in his homeland, he contributed to the war effort during World War II by joining the Entertainment National Services Association.
After the war, he performed in the West End and had his big break appearing with Laurence Olivier in Hamlet (1948), in which Cushing's future partner-in-horror Christopher Lee had a bit part. Both actors also appeared in Moulin Rouge (1952) but did not meet until their later horror films. During the 1950s, Cushing became a familiar face on British television, appearing in numerous teleplays, such as 1984 (1954) and Beau Brummell (1954), until the end of the decade when he began his legendary association with Hammer Film Productions in its remakes of the 1930s Universal horror classics. His first Hammer roles included Dr. Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dr. Van Helsing in Horror of Dracula (1958), and Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959).
Cushing continued playing the roles of Drs. Frankenstein and Van Helsing, as well as taking on other horror characters, in Hammer films over the next 20 years. He also appeared in films for the other major horror producer of the time, Amicus Productions, including Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) and its later horror anthologies, a couple of Dr. Who films (1965, 1966), I, Monster (1971), and others. By the mid-1970s, these companies had stopped production, but Cushing, firmly established as a horror star, continued in the genre for some time thereafter.
Perhaps his best-known appearance outside of horror films was as Grand Moff Tarkin in George Lucas' phenomenally successful science fiction film Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986) was Cushing's last film before his retirement, during which he made a few television appearances, wrote two autobiographies and pursued his hobbies of bird watching and painting. In 1989, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his contributions to the acting profession in Britain and worldwide. Peter Cushing died at age 81 of prostate cancer on August 11, 1994.- A symbol of intelligence, leadership and moral strength in his various 1960s and 1970s roles, African-Canadian actor Percy Rodrigues rose in Hollywood stature during the late 1960s following a couple of earlier Broadway appearances. The serenely handsome, distinguished-looking actor also became notable for helping to break racial barriers on television and went on to become a voice of great distinction behind the camera.
Born to a Montreal couple on June 13, 1918 (some references list 1924 as his birth year), Percy was the oldest of four children and was of African and Portuguese descent. His father abandoned the family while he was a youth and Percy started working as a teenager to help provide for his family. By his late teens, he had become a professional boxer and started scouting out acting jobs at the same time. He joined Montreal's Negro Theater Guild and although winning a Canadian Drama Festival acting award in 1939, found job offers scarce, prompting him to work as a machinist and toolmaker for the next decade or so in order to supplement his income.
His distinctive, booming voice commanded early attention and he narrated several Canadian documentary shorts and appeared on television. He finally made his Broadway debut in middle age with Lillian Hellman's drama "Toys in the Attic" starring Jason Robards, Maureen Stapleton and Anne Revere. He followed that with a stronger role in "Blues for Mister Charlie" (1964) in which he shared the stage with African-American actors Al Freeman Jr., Lincoln Kilpatrick, Rosetta LeNoire, Otis Young and Tony nominee Diana Sands.
This attention eventually led to film and television offers and he settled permanently in Los Angeles. From the beginning, he sought out dignified roles following Sidney Poitier's emboldening Hollywood ascension and became one of just a small vanguard of 1960s black actors who was able to circumnavigate around such restrictive and negative stereotypes throughout most of his career. With just a brush of grey at his temples, he applied and projected quiet authority and inner calm to his many roles. He broke into American television with episodes of The Nurses (1965), Naked City (1958), The Wild Wild West (1965), Route 66 (1960) and (especially) Star Trek (1966) (as Commodore Stone) before making big news in 1968 for his casting as a neurosurgeon during the final season of the popular nighttime soap opera Peyton Place (1964). Co-starring with Ruby Dee as his wife, it was a breakthrough white-collar role for a black actor in a series. In the same year, Percy had an excellent supporting role in the critically-heralded film adaptation of Carson McCullers tender drama The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), in which he carried his own story line as an embittered physician at odds with daughter Cicely Tyson.
Other imposing roles came his way in the form of detectives, mayors, commissioners, lawyers, politicians, scientists, captains, ambassadors, lieutenants and doctors, which seemed to be a growing specialty. More interesting roles came with the mini-movies The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (1970), Ring of Passion (1978), Angel Dusted (1981) and Roots: The Next Generations (1979). He also had recurring roles on Sanford (1980), the one-season extended series of "Sanford and Son" (minus the son) that again starred Redd Foxx, and in Benson (1979), in which he played a judge.
He continued to remain visible in the 1980s with episodes of The Fall Guy (1981), T.J. Hooker (1982) and Dynasty (1981), but after playing a doctor in the mini-movie whodunit Perry Mason: The Case of the Sinister Spirit (1987), Percy refrained from on-camera work and focused instead on his image as "The King of Voiceovers". Among his more notable vocal projects were his eerie voicings for the ads and trailers of the film Jaws (1975) and his narration of Michael Jackson's sci-fi musical Captain EO (1986) for Disney.
Percy's marriage to his first wife Alameda produced daughter Hollis and son Gerald. Following her death, he married Karen Cook in 2003. He died of kidney problems at age 89 at his home in Indio, California on September 6, 2007. - Actor
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Allan Rich was a recognizable character actor who worked in film, television, and theatre.
In 2006, he was featured in "My Sexiest Year", opposite Frances Fisher and Frankie Muniz, and was interviewed for the documentary, "Troupers". Last year he appeared in three soon to be released features. "Rise", "Lies & Alibis", and "The Man in the Chair". Recent Independent features include "The Burial Society" (with David Paymer), "The Dog Walker", and "Intoxicating" (with John Savage). Other feature film credits include Disclosure (1994) (as Demi Moore's character's attorney), Robert Redford's Quiz Show (1994), and Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997). Additional notable performances include the role of Dr. Benfante in Jack (1996) and as Bill Adolphe (Halle Berry's character's lawyer) in The Rich Man's Wife (1996). More recent television credits include "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as a holocaust 'Survivor,' "Living With Fran", "NYPD Blue", "Judging Amy", "CSI", and "The Division".
Allan began his distinguished acting career as a teenager in New York, working with Edward G. Robinson, Claude Rains, Ralph Bellamy, Jack Palance, Kim Hunter, Milton Berle, and Henry Fonda, among others. He was enjoying the fruits of his labor until his dreams were shattered with the advent of McCarthyism and Rich was caught up in the Red Scare and blacklisted. With no income, a family to support and with little training outside of the acting profession, he cajoled his way onto Wall Street. After five years of buying and selling, he decided to open his own brokerage firm and with fervor, began to collect fine art. With the same drive and determination to master yet another field of endeavor, he soon became an expert in modern art, opening Allan Rich Galleries on Madison Avenue, where he began selling major paintings to important collectors and publishing lithographs of Miro, Calder, and Salvador Dalí. His experience with Dalí, in 1970 led him to co-write a screenplay, "Memories of Surrealism".
Rich returned to the stage in Ronald Ribman's "Journey of the Fifth Horse", with a young Dustin Hoffman. He re-launched his film career in 1973 playing the D.A. in "Serpico" with Al Pacino. One of his main scenes was shown on the Academy Awards. Rich took out ads in the trades and received one call from John Crosby at ICM, who helped re-established his reputation and went on to appear in more than 75 television shows, MOWs and 68 features that also include "Frances", "Eating Raoul", and "Guilty By Suspicion".
After years of teaching, he developed his own acting technique, described in his book "A Leap From the Method". In 1994, he co-founded We Care About Kids, a non-profit organization that produces live action educational short films for middle and high school youths on socially relevant topics.- Actress
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Jeri Ryan was born Jeri Lynn Zimmerman on February 22, 1968 in Munich, West Germany, to Gerhard Florian Zimmerman, a Master Sergeant in the United States Army, and his wife Sharon, a social worker. She and her older brother Mark grew up on several military bases, including Kansas, Maryland, Hawaii, Georgia and Texas. Finally, at age 11, her father retired from the Army and her family settled down in Paducah, Kentucky. After graduating from Lone Oak High School in 1986, she attended Northwestern University Chicago as a National Merit Scholar. While studying there, she won a number of beauty contests (a.o.- sixth annual Miss Northwestern Alpha Delta Phi Pageant in 1989).
With a B.S. degree in Theatre, she came to Los Angeles, California and since then she has been on several television series and films - including popular series like Matlock (1986), Melrose Place (1992) and Star Trek: Voyager (1995) as well as Dark Skies (1996). Her television experience also includes roles in a variety of telefilms including Nightmare in Columbia County (1991), NBC's In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco (1993), Co-ed Call Girl (1996), The Sentinel (1996), Men Cry Bullets (1998), Dracula 2000 (2000), The Last Man (2000) and Down with Love (2003). Jeri Ryan resides in an area of Los Angeles, California with her husband chef Christophe Eme, her son Alex and daughter Gisele.- Actor
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Christmas trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, gained experience in English repertory theatre in 1936, and had a principal role in the London production of Noël Coward's "Bitter Sweet" in the 1930s. During the Second World War, he was a member of Royal Air Force production units and performed in the RAF's Gang Show. After moving to Canada in 1948, he started a long association with television comedians Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster, playing the character Madam Hooperdink. His own show "Christmas is Coming" toured Canada in the 1950s. He was artistic director at the Ottawa Repertory Company in 1954 and ran the Peterborough Summer Theatre that year. He began a long association with Canada's Stratford Festival in 1957, performing in 12 seasons and 21 Shakespearean productions until 1970. It was Christmas and a group of veteran actors like William Hutt, Tony Van Bridge, Jean Gascon, Douglas Rain, Amelia Hall, and Mervyn Blake (among others) who helped define Stratford in its early years. His final appearance at Stratford was 1987, when he played Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing." Christmas also had associations over the years with the Canadian Players, San Diego's Globe Theatre, and the drama department at the University of California at San Diego. He and his first wife had two children (Robin and Stephen) two children with his second wife, six grandchildren.- Actor
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Scott was born in Los Angeles and spent a lot of his childhood with his parents on picket lines campaigning for local civil rights. His father was the executive director of the University of Southern California, Community Services Center, and his mother worked for Operation Breadbasket and other organizations dedicated to improving economic conditions of black communities. After studying electrical engineering for two years at USC, he sat in on a friends acting class, was immediately bitten by the bug and auditioned for USC's Bachelor of Fine Arts acting conservatory the next semester. He started over as a freshman and completed the program in 1986. In 1987, Scott earned his SAG card on the feature film "Punchline". After several equity waiver plays and TV guest stars, Scott landed his first TV series regular role as Whoopi Goldberg's son on the short lived "Bagdad Cafe". The show ended in 1990 and after a few more years in Hollywood, Scott decided to pack up and move to New York to pursue his first love, the theatre. In NYC he worked in off and off-off Broadway shows and was invited into the elite Drama Department Theatre Company for which he performed Tennesee Williams' three character play, "Kingdom of Earth" with Cynthia Nixon and Peter Sarsgaard, directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Scott's proudest theater moment came when he was cast by Lloyd Richards to play Walter Lee in Lorraine Hansberry's, "A Raisin in the Sun". Lloyd fell sick but the production went on to rave reviews at Fords Theater in Washington DC, directed by Seret Scott in 1995. Scott stayed in New York for a few more years working in TV, film and theatre before returning to Los Angeles in 1998. In 1999, he was cast in a guest starring role on the pilot for the CBS drama, "First Monday". Producer/creator/ director, Don Bellasario admired his work enough to create the role of 'Cmdr. Sturgis Turner' for Scott on his long running, hit series "JAG". Scott played the role from 2000 to 2004, when the show was canceled. He continues to live and work in Hollywood, recent notable credits include "The Social Network" and James Cameron's "Avatar". Upcoming credits Include J.J. Abrams next "Star Trek" feature and "The Host", directed by Andrew Niccol. Both due for release in 2013. Scott is the very proud father of two sons, Morgan and Daniel.- Actor
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Frank John Gorshin, Jr. was born on April 5, 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father was a railroad worker and his mother, Frances (Preseren), was a seamstress. His family was originally from Novo Mesto, Slovenia. While in high school, young Frank worked as an usher at the Sheridan Square Theatre and began doing impressions of some of his screen idols: Al Jolson, James Cagney, Cary Grant and Edward G. Robinson. At age 17, he won a local talent contest. The prize was a one-week engagement at Jackie Heller's Carousel nightclub, where Alan King was headlining. It was young Frank's first paid job as an entertainer and launched his show business career. Frank attended local Catholic schools and, later, Carnegie-Mellon Tech School of Drama. He acted in plays and performed in nightclubs in Pittsburgh in his spare time.
In 1953, at age 19, he was drafted into the United States Army and was posted in Germany. Frank served for two years, 1953-1955, as an entertainer attached to Special Services. In the Army, Frank met Maurice A. Bergman, who would introduce Frank to a Hollywood agent when his hitch with Uncle Sam was up. Frank quickly landed a role in The Proud and Profane (1956) and other roles in television dramas followed.
In 1957, while visiting his family in Pittsburgh, his agent phoned him to rush back to Hollywood for an audition for Run Silent Run Deep (1958). For some odd reason, instead of catching a plane, Frank decided to drive his car to Los Angeles. Driving 39 consecutive hours, he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed, suffered a fractured skull and woke up in the hospital four days later. To add insult to injury, a Los Angeles newspaper reported he was killed, and the plum movie role of Officer Ruby went to Don Rickles.
Frank appeared in a number of lovable B-movies for American-International Pictures: Hot Rod Girl (1956) and Dragstrip Girl (1957), and everybody's favorite, Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957). Frank finally got a substantial role in the A-movie, Bells Are Ringing (1960), with Dean Martin and Judy Holliday. He did a thinly-disguised Marlon Brando impression. he also appeared in Hollywood nightclubs, including the Purple Onion. He did Las Vegas engagements, opening for Bobby Darin at The Flamingo. On television, Frank appeared on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956) and had a dozen guest shots on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948).
In 1966, he gave his breakout performance, performing what has become his best-known role: The Riddler on Batman (1966), for which he received an Emmy nomination. He also played The Riddler in the movie, Batman: The Movie (1966), based on the television series. "I could feel the impact overnight", he recalled later. Because of his nationwide recognition, he was given headliner status in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand, Sahara and Aladdin Hotels. He received more good reviews for his performance in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (1969).
In 1970, Frank made his Broadway debut as the star of "Jimmy", for which he got rave reviews. He also starred in many touring company productions, such as "Promises, Promises", "Peter Pan", "Prisoner of Second Street" and "Guys and Dolls". In the 1980s, Frank served as Honorary Chairman, Entertainment Division, for the American Heart Association. Perhaps recalling his early AIP films, Frank worked with the legendary Roger Corman, appearing as Clockwise on the television series Black Scorpion (2001) and on Corman's The Phantom Eye (1999). He had appeared in over 70 movies and made over 40 guest appearances in television series.
Gorshin died at age 72 in Burbank, California on May 17, 2005. He had suffered from lung cancer, emphysema and pneumonia.- Actor
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Gary Merrill was born August 2, 1915, in Hartford, Connecticut. He began his career acting in summer stock plays. He married Barbara Leeds, an actress, and then served a brief stint in the army. After the army, he landed in New York, where he was chosen to join the already popular play "Born Yesterday". In 1950 he was cast in the part of Bill Sampson in All About Eve (1950). It would be his first time meeting Bette Davis and they became an instant couple. After their respective divorces, they were married in Mexico. She was 42 and he was 35. During their marriage they adopted two children, Margot and Michael, and after ten years of fighting and financial problems they divorced. Merrill did not marry again, though he was involved with Rita Hayworth for a time. Later in his career Merrill made a lucrative living doing voice-overs for radio and television commercials. In 1988 he published his autobiography, "Bette, Rita, And The Rest Of My Life". He died of lung cancer at the age of 74.- Actor
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Oscar-winner Edmond O'Brien was one of the most respected character actors in American cinema, from his heyday of the mid-1940s through the late 1960s. Born on September 10, 1915, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, O'Brien learned the craft of performance as a magician, reportedly tutored by neighbor Harry Houdini. He took part in student theatrics in high school and majored in drama at Fordham University, dropping out after six months. He made his Broadway debut at the age of 21 in 1936 and, later that year, played "The Gravedigger" in the great Shakespearean actor John Gielgud's legendary production of "Hamlet". Four years later, he would play 'Mercutio' to the 'Romeo' of another legendary Shakespearean, Laurence Olivier, in Olivier's 1940 Brodway production of "Romeo & Juliet".
O'Brien worked with another magician, Orson Welles, in the Mercury Theater's production of "Julius Caesar", appearing as 'Mark Antony'. He would later play 'Casca' in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's film of the play, Julius Caesar (1953).
Although it has been stated that he made his debut as an uncredited extra in the 1938 film, Prison Break (1938), the truth is that his stage work impressed RKO boss Pandro S. Berman, who brought him to Hollywood to appear in the plum supporting part of 'Gringoire' in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), which starred Charles Laughton in the title role. After returning from his wartime service with the Army Air Force, O'Brien built up a distinguished career as a supporting actor in A-list films, and as an occasional character lead, such as in D.O.A. (1949).
O'Brien won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Barefoot Contessa (1954) and also received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role as a drunken senator who ferrets out an attempted coup d'etat in Seven Days in May (1964). He also appeared as crusty old-timer 'Freddy Sykes', who antagonizes Ben Johnson's character 'Tector Gorch' in director Sam Peckinpah's classic Western, The Wild Bunch (1969). Increasingly, O'Brien appeared on television in the 1960s and '70s, but managed a turn in his old boss Welles' unfinished film, The Other Side of the Wind (2018).
He married and divorced actresses Nancy Kelly and Olga San Juan, the latter being the mother of his three children, including actors Maria O'Brien and Brendan O'Brien. He died in May of 1985 in Inglewood, California, of Alzheimer's Disease and was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.- Actor
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Born to a Czech mother and a Serbian father in Chicago as Mladen Sekulovich, on March 22, 1912, Karl Malden did not speak English until he was in kindergarten. After graduating from high school in the nearby steel town of Gary, Indiana, Malden worked in the industry for three years until 1934, when he was frustrated with the drudgery of manual labor. He left to attend the Arkansas State Teacher's College, then the Goodman Theater Dramatic School and never looked back. Three years later, he went to New York City to find fame.
Malden rapidly became involved with the Group Theater, an organization of actors and directors who were changing the face of theater, where he attracted the attention of director Elia Kazan. With Kazan directing, Karl starred in plays such as "All My Sons" by Arthur Miller and "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams. While Malden had one screen appearance before his military service in World War II, in They Knew What They Wanted (1940), he did not establish his film career until after the war. Malden won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and showed his range as an actor in roles such as that of Father Corrigan in On the Waterfront (1954) and the lecherous Archie Lee in Baby Doll (1956).
He starred in dozens of films such as Fear Strikes Out (1957), Pollyanna (1960), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), Gypsy (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and Patton (1970) as General Omar Bradley. In the early 1970s, he built a television career on the tough but honest screen persona he had created when he starred as Detective Mike Stone on The Streets of San Francisco (1972), co-starring with Michael Douglas. He also became the pitchman for American Express, a position he held for 21 years. In 1988, he was elected President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a position he held for five years. Following that he, published his memoir entitled, "When Do I Start?: A Memoir", written with his daughter Carla.
Malden also courted controversy by pushing for a special salute to Elia Kazan at the 1999 Academy Awards. Malden defended both Kazan and the award, arguing that Kazan's artistic achievements outshone any shame attached to Kazan's naming names before the Congressional committee investigating Communists in Hollywood. Marlon Brando refused to give Kazan the statuette; Robert De Niro ultimately did. Karl Malden died at age 97 of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles on July 1, 2009. He was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California.- Actor
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Christopher Cary was born on 16 June 1934 in Surrey, England, UK. He was an actor and director, known for The Time Tunnel (1966), Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985) and The Wild Wild West (1965). He was married to Elen Julie Orson, Victoria Judith Canning, Cheri Maugans, Loretta Elizabeth Dement and Maureen Bailey. He died on 1 April 2000 in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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New York-born Morrow developed an interest in the theater as a result of his studies at art school. As "Irving Morrow," he was acting on stage (in Pennsylvania) as early as 1927; he later appeared in such plays as "Penal Law", "Once in a Lifetime", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Twelfth Night", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Macbeth", treading the boards opposite stars like Katharine Cornell, Maurice Evans, Katharine Hepburn, Luise Rainer and Mae West. His film career commenced with the Biblical epic "The Robe" in 1953 and continued into the '70s. In his latter years, he worked as a commercial illustrator while taking occasional acting assignments.- Actress
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Born and raised in Dallas, Texas where she graduated Lake Highlands High School, Amy Acker is the oldest of four children; she has two sisters and one brother. An acting major at Southern Methodist University, Amy acted in several college theater productions. She appeared in various roles during the fantasy segments for the popular award-winning children's TV series Wishbone (1995), which was filmed in Texas and consisted of Dallas theater actors. Upon graduation she worked in Wisconsin and New York before winning the role of "Fred" on Angel (1999).- Ruta Gedmintas was born on 23 August 1983 in Canterbury, Kent, England, UK. She is an actress, known for A Street Cat Named Bob (2016), The Strain (2014) and The Lost Samaritan (2008).
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Born Eduard Franz Schmidt in Milwaukee, WI, this stern-faced character actor had originally planned to be a commercial artist, but a stint with a local theatrical troupe set him on the road to an acting career. In 1925 he moved to New York City and joined up with a Greenwich Village theatrical group. He returned to Wisconsin in the early 1930s and rejoined his old theatrical company, The Wisconsin Players. He accepted a position with the St. Louis Municipal Opera in 1944 and performed in many different operettas until 1947, when he headed to Hollywood. It didn't take him long to find work, and he was soon appearing in such films as The Magnificent Yankee (1950) and The Ten Commandments (1956), and even did a turn in an interesting low-budget horror flick, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959). All through his film career, however, he kept his hand in the theater, and also had an extensive list of television credits.- Actor
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Wendell Corey was a hard-working American character actor who appeared in numerous movies and television productions in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Born on March 20, 1914 in Dracut, Massachusetts, in the northeastern part of the Commonwealth near the New Hampshire border, Corey was the son of a Congregationalist clergyman. After receiving his education, Corey began his acting career in summer stock. During the Depression he worked with the Federal Theater Project, part of the Works Progress Administration that had been created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to put the unemployed to work. It was while working with the Federal Theater Project in the late 1930s that he met his wife, Alice Wiley.
He made his Broadway debut in "Comes the Revelation" in 1942, a flop that lasted only two performances. His next play, "Strip for Action" (1942-43), was more successful, lasting 110 performances. He appeared in more plays in supporting roles from 1943-45, before making his reputation as the cynical newspaperman in Elmer Rice's hit comedy "Dream Girl," which ran for 341 performances in the 1945-46 season. He was discovered during the run of the play by producer Hal B. Wallis, the former head of production at Warner Bros. who was an independent producer affiliated with Paramount Pictures. Wallis, who discovered Burt Lancaster shortly after the war, signed Corey to a Paramount contract.
It was at Paramount that he made his movie debut in Desert Fury (1947). He went on to a career as a supporting player in the '40s and '50s in A-level productions with top Hollywood stars. He also carved a niche for himself in television and in the late 1950s starred in the TV series Peck's Bad Girl (1959). In the 1960s he worked mostly in television.
Like Ronald Reagan, who was then a Democrat, the Republican Corey was interested in politics. He was elected to membership on the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild and served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1961 to 1963. As a Republican, he was elected to the City Council in Santa Monica, California, in 1965. He made a bid for the Republican nomination to contest a seat in Congress in 1966, but was defeated in the primary.
Corey was still serving on the Santa Monica City Council when he died on November 8, 1968 at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. He was 54 years old.- Susanna Thompson was born on 27 January 1958 in San Diego, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Malignant (2021), Dragonfly (2002) and Once and Again (1999). She is married to Martin B. Katz.
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Norman Lloyd was born Norman Perlmutter in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Sadie (Horowitz), a housewife and singer, and Max Perlmutter, a furniture store manager. His family was Jewish (from Hungary and Russia). He began his acting career in the theater, first "treading the boards" at Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory in New York. Aspiring to work as a classical repertory player, he gradually shed his Brooklyn accent and became a busy stage actor in the 1930s; he next joined the original company of the Orson Welles-John Houseman Mercury Theatre. Lloyd was brought to Hollywood to play a supporting part (albeit the title role) in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942). Hitchcock, who later used the actor in Spellbound (1945) and other films, made him an associate producer and a director on TV's long-running Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) (then in its third year). In the course of his eight years on the series, Lloyd became a co-producer (with Joan Harrison) and then executive producer. He has since directed for other series (including the prestigious Omnibus (1952)) and for the stage, produced TV's Tales of the Unexpected (1979) and Journey to the Unknown (1968), and played Dr. Auschlander in TV's acclaimed St. Elsewhere (1982).- Actress
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Teri Hatcher is an American actress, writer, presenter, and former NFL cheerleader. She is known for her television roles, portraying Lois Lane on the ABC series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997), and as Susan Mayer on the television series Desperate Housewives (2004-2012), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
Teri Lynn Hatcher was born in Palo Alto, California, the only child of Esther (Beshur), a computer programmer, and Owen Walker Hatcher, Jr., a nuclear physicist and electrical engineer. She has Syrian (from her immigrant maternal grandfather), Frisian, English, and Irish ancestry. Teri grew up in Sunnyvale, California, and spent her childhood dancing, and fishing with her father. While at Fremont High School, she was captain of the Featherettes, a dance team that had the look of regular cheerleaders, with the exception of the large headdresses they wore. She was voted "Most Likely to Become a Solid Gold (1980) Dancer" by her graduating class in 1982. Hatcher studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco while taking a degree course in mathematics and engineering at De Anza College in Cupertino, California. She became a member of the 1984 Gold Rush, the name of the professional cheer leading squad of the American football San Francisco 49ers.
Hatcher went to Hollywood to lend moral support to a friend during a open casting call. She, however, auditioned and won the role of the singing and dancing mermaid for the television series The Love Boat (1977). She went on to play "Penny Parker," a ditsy but sweet-hearted struggling actress on MacGyver (1985). When that show ended, she auditioned for and won the role of smart and savvy "Lois Lane" on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993), saying that she didn't want to be stuck with the pretty airhead image she had acquired as "Penny Parker."
She married actor Jon Tenney in May 1994. She gave birth to daughter Emerson Tenney on November 10, 1997. Later, she signed to play "Sally Bowles" in a road tour of Cabaret. The tour debuted in Los Angeles on March 2, 1999. Her final show was on September 4, 1999. She stayed out of the industry for a little bit before nabbing a role on the darkly comedic soap opera Desperate Housewives (2004), which could have been a huge mistake. The show turned out to be a mega-hit, which skyrocketed Hatcher to the A-list. Her portrayal of a divorced mother, "Susan Mayer," was consistently named as America's favorite "Desperate Housewife." Hatcher won both a Golden Globe for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series and the SAG Award for Female Actor in a Comedy Series before the show's first season was even over.- Actor
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Lorne Greene was born Lyon Himan "Chaim" Green on February 12, 1915, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He began acting while attending Canada's Queen's University, and after graduation got a job in radio broadcasting. His rich, deep, authoritarian voice quickly propelled him to prominence as Canada's top newscaster. He left Canada in the early 1950s for a film career in Hollywood, and soon began appearing regularly in television, films and on radio. His greatest successes came in two television series, the long-running Western Bonanza (1959), in which he played the patriarch of a wealthy frontier family, and the science-fiction series Battlestar Galactica (1978). In 1969 he was awarded Officer of the Order of Canada for his services to the performing arts and community.
Lorne Greene died at age 72 of pneumonia following heart surgery on September 11, 1987, in Santa Monica, CA.- Actor
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American character actor born in Cincinnati and raised in Louisville, Mitchell Ryan was a well known supporting actor in films and television. Joined the Navy in 1951 at age 17 and was later assigned to the Special Services Entertainment and became hooked on acting. After his term in the Navy, he appeared in dozens of plays until he received notice as playing a regular in TV's Dark Shadows (1966).
Beginning in the 1970s, he received work in motion pictures including Monte Walsh (1970), Magnum Force (1973) and in Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter (1973). He had a small part in Universal's Midway (1976) and returned to act in numerous soaps and television series, among them included a recurring guest role in Having Babies (1978), Executive Suite (1976), The Chisholms (1979) and All My Children (1970) and a growing list of television films and TV guest appearances.
He may have been best-known for portraying the villain that Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are after in Lethal Weapon (1987), but his career included several supporting roles in the past ten years including Judge Dredd (1995), Michael Myers' nemesis in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), Liar Liar (1997) (with Jim Carrey), and as Harrison Ford's chief out to get Brad Pitt in the film The Devil's Own (1997).- Actress
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Originally groomed for the theater, Sullivan worked at the National Repertory Theatre in Washington D.C. before landing a role in Broadway opposite Dustin Hoffman in "Jimmy Shine". Sullivan continued appearing in theater while working on Falcon Crest (1981) in the 1980s. In the 1960s, Susan played "Lenore Curtin" on Another World (1964) for four years, a role that gave her much experience in television, and evidently had a lot of fun from what fellow co-stars (especially Nicolas Coster) have testified. Following her role, Sullivan was acting off-Broadway when an agent spotted her and encouraged her to move to Hollywood, signing her to a contract which was conditional upon her doing so. She went on to play a dozen different parts on TV before taking on the role that would win her an Emmy nomination; that of Peter Strauss' lover in the miniseries, Rich Man, Poor Man - Book II (1976). Sullivan then played a gynecologist in two TV movies, Having Babies II (1977) and Having Babies III (1978), which led to a role in the short-run series Having Babies (1978) (aka Julia Farr, M.D.). Sullivan then went on to become a member of the ensemble cast of It's a Living (1980). She attained her greatest success during the '80s when she played the often put-upon "Maggie" on Falcon Crest (1981). Throughout FC's run, Sullivan remained devoted to the theatre appearing in "Fifth of July" at the Mark Taper Forum in L.A. and "Last Summer" at Blue Fish Cove in San Francisco. Sullivan decided to leave FC at the start of its final season after seven seasons because she felt "Maggie was repeating herself". Sullivan looks back on her days at FC with pride, especially at her gutsy work when her character had a brief bout with alcohol, drawing on her memories of being the child of an alcoholic. After leaving FC, Sullivan continued her charity association with the Blue Cross and ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics). She then got the opportunity to play comedy in a guest stint in Doctor Doctor (1989). Sullivan then recorded two pilot comedies, "Ruth Harper" and "Satellite News". She then went on to play the recurring character of George Carlin's love interest on his self-titled show. While working on GC, she played Robert Urich's ex-wife in Danielle Steel's A Perfect Stranger (1994). In 1995, Sullivan returned to drama in ABC's The Monroes (1995) as "Kathryn Monroe", wife of political aspirant William Devane. Sullivan relished the role, and despite the show folding soon after, she received rave reviews, being dubbed the season's best actress. She was also singled out in publications as the show's saving grace. Sullivan continues to stay in touch with several Falcon Crest (1981) stars, including David Selby, and is now dating author Connell Cowan whom she has been seeing since 1989. Sullivan has a sister, Brigid, an executive at WGBH-TV in Boston, and a brother, Brendan, a methadone counselor in N.Y.C. Sullivan had no qualms about working as a bunny girl in the Manhattan Playboy Club ("I had been a waitress before and I felt I would rather show my legs and make sixty dollars a night instead of twenty"), where she recited Shakespeare while serving drinks. When she was twenty-three, Sullivan dated Cary Grant. Behind the scenes, stories of Susan indicate she is big on practical jokes and works hard at cracking the cast up. Her co-star on Falcon Crest (1981), David Selby (Richard) has recalled the time Susan went into the bathroom to slip into something more comfortable for her role, and when the passion of the scene reached fever-pitch, she dropped the robe to reveal a body-stocking crammed with bottles, cans and tubes of toothpaste. David and the rest of the crew fell about laughing hysterically. Sullivan has been a spokeswoman for Tylenol for many years, and is proud to be associated with the product (pointing out the fact that she has been able to buy a beach house with the proceeds). Attractive, intelligent and outspoken, Sullivan is a well-grounded and giving actress who brings much insight into whichever role she chooses to play.- Actor
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Jane Seymour was born as Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg in 1951 in Middlesex, England, to a nurse mother and gynaecologist/obstetrician father. She is of Polish Jewish (father) and Dutch (mother) descent. She adopted the acting name of "Jane Seymour" when she entered show business as it was easier for people to remember (and the name of one of King Henry VIII's wives). She attracted the attention of the James Bond film producers when they saw her on British television. She was cast as the main Bond girl, "Solitaire", in Live and Let Die (1973). The role gained her international recognition but she was in danger of losing it all like the previous Bond girls, so she came to the U.S.
A casting director advised her to lose her English accent and acquire an American accent to land roles on American television. She did and started getting roles, earning five Emmy nominations, resulting in one win for Onassis: The Richest Man in the World (1988) for playing Maria Callas. She won Golden Globe awards for both East of Eden (1981) and the American television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993), where she played the title role for 5 years. She occasionally appeared in feature films, memorably in Somewhere in Time (1980) and in Wedding Crashers (2005).
Married and divorced four times, she gave birth to four children and is a stepmother to two. They have children of their own, making her a grandmother. As of 2018, she has been acting in television movies and making guest-appearances.- Actress
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One of the hottest stars of the mid-1980s, Virginia Madsen has since played a variety of roles that have cemented her reputation as a fantastic actress who can adapt to any part.
Virginia was born in Chicago, Illinois, and belongs to an acting family -- with her brother, Michael Madsen, also an actor, and her mother, Elaine Madsen (née Melson), an Emmy-winning writer, poet, and producer. Her paternal grandparents were Danish, and her father, Calvin Madsen, was a firefighter. Audiences first caught a glimpse of her as "Princess Irulan" in the 1984 science fiction epic Dune (1984). She followed that up with Electric Dreams (1984); however, it was in 1986 that Virginia captured the hearts of the audience with an intense portrayal of a Catholic school girl who fell in love with a boy from a prison camp in Duncan Gibbins' Fire with Fire (1986). Virginia played the role of "Lisa" and her co-star was Craig Sheffer, who played Lisa's love interest, "Joe Fisk". Kari Wuhrer also made an appearance as Virginia's best friend, "Gloria". Fire with Fire (1986) was a low-budget production, starring a bunch of fresh faces who were till then-unknown to Hollywood. However, the movie was a success and elevated its three young stars overnight. Virginia has never looked back since.
Not only did she receive amazing reviews for her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated performance in Alexander Payne's hit film, Sideways (2004), but this Independent Spirit Award-winning actress has an illustrious resume of roles alongside the most notable and respected actors in the business.
Also on Virginia's slate is her production company, with partner Karly Meola, called "Title IX Productions". Their first project was the documentary I Know a Woman Like That (2009), which previewed at the Phoenix Film Festival in April 2009 and premiered at the Chicago Film Festival in October 2009. The doc was directed by Virginia's mother, Elaine Madsen, about the lives of extraordinary women ages 64-94. Next in the company's lineup is the documentary Fighting Gravity (2010), about women ski jumpers' ongoing battle for the right to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympics. Title IX will team up with "Empire 8 Productions" and Vancouver-based "Screen Siren" on the project. The duo also has several projects in development that they're shopping around for financing including screenwriters Sebastian Gutierrez's screen adaptation of Martha O'Connor's novel "The Bitch Posse" and a remake of the 1984 film Electric Dreams (1984), in which Virginia appeared.- Jennifer Hetrick is a veteran character actor. Working steadily for over 30 years (1979 to present), mostly in Television.
She is probably most well-known in the Sci-Fi genre for the character "Vash" on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993). She was also on Sliders (1995) for two separate roles.
She has only been in 5 movies over the years. Her first movie was also her first major acting role, in 1979, titled Squeeze Play (1979). She had second billing. Her most recent movie was an uncredited part in 500 Days of Summer (2009) in 2009.
She has mostly played authoritative and independent figures. - Character actor Arnold Moss was born on January 28, 1910. Given his aristocratic bearing, perfect diction and resounding bass voice, it's not hard to believe that he was an experienced Shakespearean stage actor. It's quite rather harder to believe that he was born in Brooklyn, not London, but that's where he was from. An extremely well-educated man--Phi Beta Kappa, a Master's degree in French and a Ph.D in theater--he had originally planned to become a teacher, but the acting bug bit him and he headed for a career on the stage, eventually starting his own Shakespearean company. His stage training, and that remarkable voice, guaranteed him steady employment on radio, where he spent many years writing as well as acting.
He made his film debut in 1946, and specialized in urbane villainy in the manner of George Macready, playing everything from Arab chieftains to Mexican bandits to Indian maharajahs over his career, and did much television work from the early 1950s onward. He appeared on Star Trek (1966) as mysterious actor Anton Karidian, alter-ego of the tyrannical Kodos the Executioner, in the episode "The Conscience of the King". He also appeared in the original Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's "Follies", playing impresario Dimitri Weissman. Arnold Moss died at age 79 of lung cancer in New York City on December 15, 1989. - Actor
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A prolific young performer, child/juvenile Skippy Homeier was born George Vincent Homeier on October 5, 1930. Beginning on radio in his native Chicago at age six ("Portia Faces Life"), he came to films at age 14 with Tomorrow, the World! (1944), which was originally a 1943 Broadway drama starring Skippy, Ralph Bellamy and Shirley Booth. Recreating his role of Emil Bruchner, he received excellent reviews for his chilling portrayal of a callous Nazi youth this time opposite Fredric March and Betty Field.
The fair, oval-faced, tousled-haired blond remained an often troublesome, unsympathetic teen in post-war films such as Boys' Ranch (1946) as an incorrigible character named "Knuckles," but he also displayed his charms with his jitterbugging title teen in Arthur Takes Over (1948) and likable young character in Mickey (1948).
Growing into adult roles (now billed as Skip Homeier or G.V. Homeier), he continued at a more menacing pace in movie westerns and crime dramas, notably Halls of Montezuma (1951), The Gunfighter (1950) (as Gregory Peck's nemesis), Cry Vengeance (1954) (as an albino hit man), Stranger at My Door (1956) and The Tall T (1957).
As Homeier's film career began to bog down in the late 1950's, he turned more and more to TV parts playing a few good guys at times just as a change of pace. In addition to a number of guest roles in such anthology series such as "Schlitz Playhouse," "Playhouse 90," "Zane Grey Theatre," "The Alcoa Hour," "Lux Video Theatre," "Armstrong Theatre," "Robert Montgomery Presents" and "Studio One in Hollywood" and "Science Fiction Theatre," Skip starred in a brief TV series as Dan Raven (1960).
Skip went on to appear in a host of guest roles on such 60's series as "Wanted: Dead or Alive," "The Millionaire," "The Loretta Young Show," "The Deputy," "The Rifleman," "The Defenders," "The Addams Family," "The Virginian," "Branded," "Perry Mason," "Burke's Law," "Combat!," "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "Bonanza," "Star Trek," "Lassie," "The Wonderful World of Disney," "Mannix" and "Mission: Impossible." A few film roles did come his way co-starring with Beverly Garland in the chiller Stark Fear (1962), and supporting Audie Murphy in the westerns Showdown (1963) and Bullet for a Badman (1964) and Don Knotts in the slapstick comedy The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)
The remainder of Skip's career stuck closely to TV. He had a regular role as a doctor in the drama series The Interns (1970), and was a continuing guest star on a host of popular TV programs such as "Owen Marshall," "Police Woman, "The Blue Knight," "The Streets of San Francisco," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Bionic Woman," "Barnaby Jones," "Fantasy Island" and "Quincy." TV-movies and mini-series work included Two for the Money (1972), Voyage of the Yes (1973), Helter Skelter (1976), Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977) and The Wild Wild West Revisited (1979).
Skip phased out his career and retired completely following a featured role in the western film Quell and Co. (1982). Little was heard from him until his death on June 25, 2017 at the age of 86 from spinal myelopathy in Indian Wells, California. He was survived by his second wife, former actress Della Sharman and two sons from his first marriage.