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Prodigy was born on 2 November 1974 in Hempstead, New York, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Bulworth (1998), Any Given Sunday (1999) and 8 Mile (2002). He was married to Ikesha Dudley. He died on 20 June 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Abner Biberman was born on 1 April 1909 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. He was a director and actor, known for His Girl Friday (1940), The Golden Mistress (1954) and Winchester '73 (1950). He was married to Sibil Kamban (editor), Helen Churchill Dalby and Tolbie Snyderman. He died on 20 June 1977 in San Diego, California, USA.- Angela Browne was infatuated with cinema from early childhood, imagining herself in the the part of the screen heroine during her frequent visits to the pictures. Aged thirteen, she left her Catholic convent school to study at the Cone-Ripman Drama Academy in London. After four years, she earned herself a scholarship to RADA. She then joined repertory companies in Worthing, York and Scarborough, eventually making her West End debut as an uninhibited Swedish girl in the 1959 comedy, "The Marriage Go-Round", alongside John Clements and Kay Hammond. She was serious enough about her newly acquired craft to study the films of Ingmar Bergman in order to appear as 'authentically Swedish' as possible. By 1960, after further theatrical success in both comedy and drama, Angela came to be regarded as one of the most promising up-and-coming actresses of the stage.
A vivacious blonde of uncommon and exquisite beauty, Angela inevitably attracted the attention of television producers. After a few early bit parts she co-starred with Patrick McGoohan as the titular "Girl in Pink Pajamas" in the The Girl in Pink Pajamas (1960) episode of the cult series, Danger Man (1960). She got on extremely well with McGoohan who proved very supportive on the set. Years later, Angela jumped at the chance -- when offered -- to appear with him again in the aptly-titled A Change of Mind (1967) episode of The Prisoner (1967). Her role as "No. 86", a mind-control specialist tasked with 'rehabilitating' "No. 6" (McGoohan) by means of a pre-frontal lobotomy, has become the one for which she is best-remembered. In a later interview, Angela confessed that she never quite understood the intricacies of the plot and simply 'got on with it' by following an old axiom she had learned from Noël Coward: "learn your lines and don't bump into the furniture".
Gainfully employed within Britain's ITV network, Angela had a recurring part in the crime series Ghost Squad (1961) and made appearances in The Saint (1962) and The Avengers (1961). She was also the obligatory romantic interest in the Norman Wisdom farce Press for Time (1966), a rare role in a feature film. Guesting on television -- which meant a less rigorous schedule than either films or the stage -- became, for several years, her preferred means of deriving a living from her profession. After her marriage to actor Francis Matthews (best known as the urbane lead of Paul Temple (1969)), Angela took a step back from performing to raise a family, in essence eschewing any further chance of stardom. By the early 1970s, she had eased into character roles, turning up at auditions in deliberately un-glamorous attire in order to snare more interesting assignments. While her screen appearances became fewer, she remained active on the stage in plays by Noël Coward, Henrik Ibsen and Alan Ayckbourn. She retired from acting altogether in 1990 and devoted her sadly few remaining years to her family and to charity work. - April Love Jordan was born on 10 April 1988 in the Philippines. She died on 20 April 2019 in Phillipines.
- Bill Collins was born on 4 December 1934 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was an actor, known for Prisoner (1979), Blue Fire Lady (1977) and Howling III (1987). He was married to Joan Margaret Thrupp. He died on 20 June 2019 in Berry, New South Wales, Australia.
- Bugsy Siegel (born Benjamin Siegelbaum) came out of the tough Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn, and was involved in criminal activities from an early age. As a teenager he struck up a friendship with another local gangster, Meyer Lansky, that would last the rest of their lives, and in fact one of their first business dealings together was the formation of a gang of local toughs called the "Bugs and Meyer Mob". Siegel, unlike many of his contemporaries, didn't fit the stereotype of a typical gangster. He was tall, had thick wavy hair, movie-star good looks and clear, piercing blue eyes. While Lansky - as always - was the brains and financial genius behind the mob, Siegel was the brawn, always preferring to use his fists, his knife or his gun whenever an obstacle appeared, and soon got a reputation as a vicious and fearless killer. It was during this period that he acquired the nickname "Bugsy". While that name often was used as a term of respect or honor, in Siegel's case it was used as a synonym for "crazy" in recognition of his penchant for explosive, senseless violence (he hated the nickname and was known to physically assault anyone unwise enough to use it in his presence).
Siegel is most famous for his transformation of Las Vegas, Nevada, into a gambling mecca, although in reality that isn't quite true. Gambling had been legal in Nevada for quite some time and there were already gambling establishments in Las Vegas when Siegel got there. A Los Angeles businessman was trying to build a huge luxury hotel and casino to which he was hoping to attract wealthy film-industry and businesspeople from Los Angeles, but he was running into financial problems. Siegel, who had been unsuccessfully trying to gain a foothold in the gambling business in Las Vegas, seized the opportunity and bought a controlling interest in the project. He renamed the hotel "The Flamingo", after his nickname for his girlfriend, actress Virginia Hill. Siegel convinced many of his organized-crime friends and associates to put both the mob's money and their own into the venture, and he soon had more than a million dollars to work with. Unfortunately, Siegel's lack of business experience and his unfamiliarity with Las Vegas and the construction industry in general resulted in huge overruns as costs escalated, much of it due to theft, double-billing and other fraudulent business practices by many of the resort's contractors and suppliers. Soon the estimated price tag of the complex had ballooned from $1 million to $6 million, with no end in sight and no revenue coming in. The casino finally opened at the end of 1946, but opening night was a disaster. The weather was awful and kept many potential customers away, few of the locals showed up, and since the hotel wasn't finished yet, the customers who did gamble there took their lodgings at several of the other downtown casinos, thereby cutting into the hotel's profits on food and services. A few days after it opened the Flamingo was basically empty, and shortly thereafter Siegel closed it in order to finish up the hotel.
Siegel's mob "friends" were furious and wanted to put out a contract on his life, but were persuaded by Siegel's friend Lansky to let him have more time to finish the complex. In March the hotel was finally finished and the casino opened up again, and since gamblers were now able to stay in the hotel and avail themselves of food and entertainment in addition to the gambling, the casino began to make money, By the middle of 1947 it was showing a $250,000 profit for the year.
However, if Siegel thought he was off the hook, he was mistaken. On June 20, 1947, he was sitting on the couch at his home in Beverly Hills when gunmen standing outside his living room window opened fire on him. He was killed instantly. Although it has never been established who had ordered the hit, conventional wisdom is that his mob associates, even though they were now making money from the casino, were still angry with him for the financial losses they incurred during the construction phase, especially since much of the money came out of their own pockets. - Actor
- Director
- Writer
While Charley Chase is far from being as famous as "The Big Three" (Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd) today, he's highly respected as one of the "greats" by fans of silent comedy.
Chase (real name Charles Parrott) was born in Maryland, USA, in 1893. After a brief career in vaudeville, burlesque, and musical comedy he appeared with Al Christie at Universal Studios as a comedian in 1913 before moving to the Mack Sennett Studios the following year. His career in films did not start off with remarkable success. He played bit parts in a large number of short comedies, coming to notice in 'The Knockout' with Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Edgar Kennedy and The Keystone Cops. This was followed by appearing in a number of films written and directed by Chaplin. At the end of 1914 he was one of the stars in the spectacular Tillie's Punctured Romance featuring all the stars on the lot, and which took 14 weeks to shoot. He spent another year with Sennett starring in his own shorts, one of his first being Settled at the Seaside co starring Mae Busch. In 1915he started directing films using his real name and switching to his stage name when starring. He moved to Fox Studios in 1916 where he directed, wrote and starred in comedies some of which featured Chester Conklin. After a couple of further studio moves he rejoined Sennett then went to Paramount before arriving at Hal Roach Studios in 1920 as a director, before Roach realized what a gifted performer he had hired. "I can play anything!" Chase told Roach, and eventually his claim was confirmed. Although Mack Sennett's Keystone studio has earned legendary status as the ultimate factory of comic invention, it can hardly be denied that Roach developed a more refined style of comedy which obviously fitted Chase better (indeed, Sennett's unsophisticated product increasingly lost favor with the movie-going public by the early 1920s, while Roach's studio flourished). During five years, 1924-29, he starred in nearly a hundred two-reelers, most of which were directed by Leo McCarey.
Chase usually portrayed an apparently gentle and charming man who in reality, it eventually turned out, was quite a loser after all. His character was largely inspired by Lloyd Hamilton, another neglected comedian whom Chase had directed in several two-reelers. Among Charley's most memorable shorts are Innocent Husbands, Mighty Like a Moose, and Movie Night.
From the beginning, Charley Chase was a "critics' darling," but none of his movies were remarkably successful at the box office. There is no official "explanation" to this, but one reason may be that Chase, in contrast to the more popular clowns, never starred in any feature during the silent period. On a personal level, Chase was severely hobbled by alcoholism, which is unapparent in his films.
Chase made several promising appearances after the talkies arrived, in 1929-30, especially in Laurel and Hardy's highly acclaimed feature Sons of the Desert (1933). Despite this, he was never offered any further appearances in features. But he continued to perform in shorts and did also direct some of the Three Stooges' early movies. He died in 1940, not yet 47 years of age, of a heart attack. It is reasonable to believe that his early death was to a large extent caused by his addiction to alcohol, a problem which had troubled his family for several years. His brother James, also an actor, had died the year before. The two brothers had been close throughout their lives, although their personal problems frequently affected each other (or perhaps that was the reason for their being so close.) Chase was married to Bebe Eltinge from 1914, a marriage that lasted until his death and produced two daughters, Polly and June.
Chase's silent work was celebrated on DVD in two volumes from Kino Video. At long last his comic genius is being recognized.- Sound Department
- Soundtrack
David Bianco is known for Pump Up the Volume (1990), The Runaways (2010) and The Jazz Singer (1980).- Actress
- Soundtrack
In a situation that closely recalls the Fannie Hurst story "Imitation of Life" in which a girl strives to pass for white, beautiful light-skinned African-American actress/singer/dancer/bandleader Dona (pronounced "dough-nuh") Drake, for the sake of her career, denied her heritage and passed for white (in her case Mexican) for the duration of it. While it did not make her a true star, her zesty talents and charm went a long way in the field of war-time music. Unlike the story, Dona, however, did not abandon her parents or deny her parentage.
Dona was born Eunice (nicknamed "Una") Westmoreland in Jacksonville (some references say Miami), Florida, on November 15, 1914, of African-American parents (Joseph Andrew Westmoreland and Novella Smith Westmoreland). A gifted child musically, her father moved his family and later opened a restaurant in Philadelphia. Five year old Eunice started to perform and play musical instruments there as entertainment. Following schooling, she moved to the Big Apple where (billed as Una Villon) she caught the fetching eye of Broadway and nightclub talent ("Murder at the Vanities" (1930)) and worked as various chorines on stage, nightclubs and Earl Carroll revues. Claiming she was Latino, she even went so far as to learn Spanish.
In 1935 Dona changed her name to Rita Rio to emphasize her "ethnicity" and spiced up her image even further when she earned a featured spot in Eddie Cantor's film Strike Me Pink (1936). While it did not lead to more film work, it did enable her to form her own glitzy and glamorous all-girl band, Rita Rio and Her Rhythm Girls [aka The Girlfriends], which toured successfully.
On her own, Dona did a few short films and two-reelers, sang on the airwaves and revved up her image signing on radio. Good friend Dorothy Lamour assisted in getting her signed up to Paramount, where the studio changed her name to "Dona Drake" and built up her Latino background by sending out studio resumes that she was christened Rita Novella, was of Mexican, Irish and French descent and born and raised in Mexico City. Dona's first picture for the studio was in the Dorothy Lamour vehicle Aloma of the South Seas (1941). She then pepped up the Bob Hope starrer Louisiana Purchase (1941) as well as an Arab girl in the Hope/Crosby/Lamour comedy Road to Morocco (1942). Unable to break out of her typecasting as a spicy singing support, her contract was dropped after a sparkling big band singing lead loanout to Monogram entitled Hot Rhythm (1944). Around this time she married the Oscar- and Emmy-winning costume designer William Travilla.
Dona freelanced in Without Reservations (1946), co-starred with Kent Taylor in Dangerous Millions (1946) and was featured in Another Part of the Forest (1948) (as a girlfriend to weaselly Dan Duryea), Beyond the Forest (1949) (as Bette Davis' Indian maid), The Girl from Jones Beach (1949) (as Eddie Bracken's paramour) and as the gold-digging second lead in So This Is New York (1948). After her marriage and a daughter, Nia Novella, was born, she toned down her filmmaking but returned in the mid-1950s to some film and TV parts before retiring in 1957 due to health and emotional issues (heart ailment, seizures/epilepsy). She and Travilla separated in 1956, but never divorced and still appeared together at functions on occasion. Dona died of pneumonia and respiratory failure in 1989 with Travilla dying one year later.- Actor
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Eddie Garcia was born on 2 May 1929 in Juban, Sorsogon, Philippines. He was an actor and director, known for Atsay (1978), Saan nagtatago ang pag-ibig? (1987) and Bwakaw (2012). He died on 20 June 2019 in Makati, Philippines.- Edgar Barrier was born on 4 March 1907 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Cyrano de Bergerac (1950), Phantom of the Opera (1943) and Macbeth (1948). He died on 20 June 1964 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Errikos Briollas was born on 19 October 1933 in Athens, Greece. He was an actor, known for Peiraias, ora 7:30 (1967), Sharp as a Needle (1961) and A Storm in a Child's Heart (1965). He died on 20 June 2018.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
When Estelle saw the girl on a white horse at the circus, she then decided that she wanted to be an actress. And she was from the age of 5, to the disapproval of her father. Her mother had her train with the Liverpool Repertory Company, and Estelle performed in many plays and many roles in the West End. In 1916, she made her debut on Broadway and worked with a number of acclaimed stage actors. Estelle spent the rest of the 'teens and '20s working in plays on both sides of the Atlantic. Being an actor in the theater, Estelle was not about to be one of those who acted in flicks and held out for a very long time. In fact, besides a small role in a few English films in the early 1930s, her real debut was Quality Street (1937), a picture that she undertook when she was in her 50s. Anyway, that was enough as it would be almost two decades before she would return to the big screen. She appeared on the stage in the plays "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "Ten Little Indians," and "The Importance of Being Earnest." But, in 1955, Estelle did return to the movies as Leslie Caron's "fairy godmother" in The Glass Slipper (1955). Estelle would spend the next 10 years appearing in films, often cast as eccentric, frail old ladies, some of whom could be deadly. Not to be left out, Estelle also would work on Television, doing guest spots in a number of shows. At 84, Estelle played a woman who was enamored by crooked Zero Mostel in the comedy The Producers (1967). Her last film would be the detective spoof Murder by Death (1976). When Estelle was asked, on the occasion of her 100th birthday, how she felt to have lived so long, she replied, "How rude of you to remind me!".- Gino Pasqualotto was an Italian ice hockey player. He played for almost all his career with the Bolzano Hockey Club jersey, with which he won the Italian championship ten times.
He also played for a long time with the jersey of the Italian national team, playing nine editions of the World Championships and the 1984 Olympic Games.
In February 2019, Hockey Club Bolzano retired his jersey number, #33. In the following June he died of cancer. - Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Gordon Jones was born on 5 April 1911 in Alden, Iowa, USA. He was an actor, known for Flying Tigers (1942), The Green Hornet (1940) and My Sister Eileen (1942). He was married to Lucile Van Winkle. He died on 20 June 1963 in Tarzana, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Brooklyn-native actress Ina Balin (née Rosenberg) was born on November 12, 1937, into a Jewish family of entertainers. Her parents were Betty (nee Friedman) and Sam Rosenberg, who divorced when she was 9 years old. Her father was a dancer/singer/comedian who worked the Borscht Belt. He later quit show business to join his family's furrier business. Her mother was a Hungarian-born professional dancer who escaped a troubled family life by marrying at age 15. Sam was her third husband at age 21. They divorced when Ina and her brother, Richard Balin, were still quite young and the children were placed in boarding schools (she at the Montessori Children's Village in Bucks County, Pennsylvania) until their mother married a fourth time to wealthy shoe magnate Harold Balin, who later adopted Betty's two children, who took his surname.
Ina always wanted to be an actress and her mother encouraged her to take ballet lessons while young. Her first big break occurred in NewvYork at age 15 when she appeared on Perry Como's 1950s TV show. She went on to attend New York University majoring in theater and also studied with Actors Studio exponents Lonny Chapman and Curt Conway while gathering additional experience on the summer stock stage. She made an auspicious Broadway debut in a female lead with "Compulsion" in 1957. Two years later, the dark-haired, olive-skinned beauty won a Theatre World Award for her outstanding performance in the Broadway comedy, "A Majority of One", starring Gertrude Berg. Producer Carlo Ponti saw her Broadway performance in "Compulsion" and requested her for a prime role in his film The Black Orchid (1958).
Starring Ponti's wife, Sophia Loren, and Anthony Quinn, Ina received impressive notices as Quinn's sensitive, grown daughter. Considered one of 20th Century Fox's most promising new talents, she received a special "International Star of Tomorrow" Golden Globe for this early work. A major career disappointment occurred when the film version of Compulsion (1959) was made and Ina's ethnic role of "Ruth Goldenberg" was transformed into a non-ethnic part (Ruth Evans) that wound up starring Diane Varsi. Ina was given an unbilled part in the movie. The sting of that studio transgression was somewhat softened when she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for "Best Supporting Actress" for her intensive performance in the Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward soaper, From the Terrace (1960), as Newman's love interest. She found herself typecast by the studio and eventually felt compelled to leave.
A soft, slender, but intent-looking actress who could play various types of ethnicities (Jewish, Italian, Mexican, Spanish, Greek, et al.), she had a lovely, quiet glow but could easily display the fiery temperament of an Anna Magnani when called upon. In the 1960s, however, she was overshadowed by a number of her leading men in their respective showcases. She appeared in many Westerns, often as the girlfriend or love interest of the hero. There was little room for any actor to generate interest upon themselves when playing opposite the likes of an Elvis Presley, Jerry Lewis and/or John Wayne. In other situations, her roles were merely decorative, less showy, or proved less integral to the main plot, such as her secondary role as "Martha" in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). While Ina maintained a fine balance of TV roles ranging from the dramatic (Bonanza (1959), Mannix (1967), Quincy M.E. (1976), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964)) to the humorous (The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Get Smart (1965)), the one big acting role which could have set her apart from the others never materialized.
Subsequent pictures such as the cult film The Projectionist (1970) and The Don Is Dead (1973) and her assorted appearances in several TV-movies failed to advance her status in Hollywood. And then her life changed...dramatically. As the first woman to ever participate in a handshake tour of a South Vietnam military hospital in the late 1960s, Ina toured Vietnam with the USO in 1970 and was greatly affected by the entire experience. It also triggered a series of trips back to the war-torn region. As a Board Member of the An Lac orphanage in Saigon, she courageously took part in the full-scale evacuation of nearly 400 orphans in 1975 during the fall of the city to the Communists. She eventually adopted three of the 219 children who managed to be flown out of the country. In 1980, the dramatic rescue was replayed via a TV film in which Balin portrayed herself. The well-received The Children of an Lac (1980) also starred Shirley Jones (as fellow rescuer "Betty Tisdale") and Beulah Quo (as the concerned Vietnamese woman who ran the orphanage).
From this point on, Ina's professional career took a back seat to the raising of her children and her ongoing interest in foreign relief. She appeared throughout the 1980s with a sprinkling of guest shots on TV's Battlestar Galactica (1978), Murder, She Wrote (1984) and As the World Turns (1956), among others. As for film, her last movies (The Comeback Trail (1982), Vasectomy: A Delicate Matter (1986) and That's Adequate (1989)) were unworthy of her talents.
Ina never managed to fulfill her promising, Golden Globe-winning potential for she was diagnosed and eventually succumbed, at the age of 52 from pulmonary hypertension. A single parent, she was survived by her three children.- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Soundtrack
James Victor was born on 27 July 1939 in Santiago, Dominican Republic. He was an actor and assistant director, known for Stand and Deliver (1988), Rolling Thunder (1977) and Zorro (1990). He died on 20 June 2016 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Juan Carlos Cambón was born on 24 January 1912. He was an actor, known for Locuras, tiros y mambos (1951), Cuidado con las imitaciones (1948) and Cinco grandes y una chica (1950). He died in 1955.
- Judy Carmen was born on 14 March 1963 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for Cyber Bandits (1995), Star Time (1992) and Married... with Children (1987). She died on 20 June 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- The son of actor Roberto Contreras, character actor Luis Contreras was born on September 18, 1950. Lean and wiry, often sporting a mass of curly hair and drooping mustache, with his piercing dark eyes and angular face Contreras was frequently cast as bums, bikers, criminals, or gang members. Contreras made his film debut as a Federale in Steven Spielberg's wonderful science fiction classic "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." He also popped up as a zoot suiter in Spielberg's hilarious all-star comedy "1941." Luis went on to work profusely throughout the 1980's and 1990's. Contreras frequently acted in movies for director Walter Hill: "The Long Riders," "48 HRS.,""Extreme Prejudice," "Red Heat," "Geronimo: An American Legend," and "Last Man Standing." Contreras was especially memorable as a grocery store security guard in the cult classic sci-fi black comedy "Repo Man," the vicious ringleader of a gang of cocaine cowboys in "Stand Alone," a hostile eye-patched biker in the delightfully madcap "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," and a deranged homeless man who terrorizes a trio of teenage girls in the "A Night on the Town" episode of the hugely enjoyable horror anthology "After Midnight." Contreras also did guest appearances on the TV shows "CHiPs," "Quincy M.E.," "T.J. Hooker," "Knight Rider," "Riptide," "Hill Street Blues," "Simon & Simon," "Night Court," "Hunter," "Matlock," and "Carnivale." Luis Contreras died of cancer at the tragically young age of 53 on June 20, 2004. He was survived by his daughter Marissa.
- Director
- Producer
- Editor
Mark Robson studied political science and economics at the University of California. He then took a law course at Pacific Coast University, and, at one time, also attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Ultimately, his interests led him elsewhere, since he ended up in the movie business as a part-time assistant set dresser in the property department of 20th Century Fox. Asking studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck for a promotion turned out to be a bad move, since he was promptly fired. Playing golf with RKO executive Herman Zobel, conversely, opened the door to a position at the studio's film library, where he was to earn a meager 66 cents per hour. Undeterred, Robson eventually moved up to the position of assistant editor and worked (uncredited) on Orson Welles' s Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) for $1.25 per hour, but slaving over a gruelling 110 to 120 hour-week. When "Ambersons" and Journey Into Fear (1943) ran into production difficulties, Welles and his Mercury Group fell out of favour at RKO and Robson was re-assigned by Lou L. Ostrow to a B-unit, headed by Val Lewton.
Within the relaxed atmosphere of Lewton's company, Robson was employed as full-time editor between 1941 and 1943. He became noted for his outstanding work on Cat People (1942). In one famous scene, he originated a technique called 'the bus', abruptly cutting from the face of a person in terror (in this case Simone Simon) to a bus stopping violently with hissing airbrakes, thus effectively jolting the audience in their seats. The 'bus', of course, could be substituted for any other sudden event, intended as a red herring in order to shock the viewer. It is still a widely used practice today, particularly in horror movies or thrillers.
After editing I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Leopard Man (1943), Robson was promoted by Lewton to director as a replacement for Jacques Tourneur. Robson's first film was The Seventh Victim (1943), a tale of Satanists operating in Greenwich Village. This was followed by three more entries in Lewton's series of low budget horror thrillers: The Ghost Ship (1943), Isle of the Dead (1945) and Bedlam (1946). All of these modest ventures recouped their investment fourfold. In the long run, however, it was not enough to save struggling RKO. Robson lost his job and found himself on the bread line for the next two years. In 1949, he was head-hunted by independent producer Stanley Kramer to direct the boxing drama Champion (1949), starring Kirk Douglas as a callous boxing champ on his way to the top. This prestige production marked the turning point in Robson's career. Bosley Crowther, the leading New York Times reviewer, praised the director for providing "a wealth of pictorial interest and exciting action of a graphic, colourful sort" (NY Times, April 11 1949). Robson made another film for Kramer, Home of the Brave (1949), which dealt with the results of racial prejudice.
Suddenly finding himself much in demand, Robson worked briefly under contract for Samuel Goldwyn, before launching the second phase of his career as a director of big budget commercial hits, among them the charismatic The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954); another hard-hitting tale of corruption in the world of boxing, The Harder They Fall (1956); the stylishly-made small-town melodrama Peyton Place (1957); and the unabashedly sentimental, romanticised 'true-life' story of an English missionary in China, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) (filmed in North Wales !). One of his best later films was the Paul Newman thriller The Prize (1963), directed by Robson in a style entirely reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock, filled with rollicking action and witty dialogue. That same year, Robson established his own production company, Red Lion. He made several patchy films under this banner, including a stodgy, fictionalised account of the Ghandi assassination Nine Hours to Rama (1963); and a dull, forgettable anti-war drama, Lost Command (1966). The lurid, but slickly-made melodrama Valley of the Dolls (1967) rekindled Robson's career, which was rounded out with the all-star blockbuster disaster movie Earthquake (1974), filmed in 'Sensurround' for greater impact. A massive box-office hit, it eventually grossed in excess of 80 million dollars. Robson died of a heart attack just weeks after completing work on the action thriller Avalanche Express (1979).- Nelly Meruane was born on 20 December 1927 in Toltén, Región de La Araucanía, Chile. She was an actress, known for Machos (2003), La madrastra (1981) and Playa salvaje (1997). She died on 20 June 2018 in Providencia, Santiago, Metropolitan Region, Chile.
- Norma Kennedy was born in 1933 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was an actress, known for Escenas de la Historia de un País (2011). She died on 20 June 2017 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Peter Matic was born on 24 March 1937 in Vienna, Austria. He was an actor, known for Wahnfried (1986), Everyone Dies Alone (1976) and Die Wicherts von nebenan (1986). He was married to Louise. He died on 20 June 2019 in Vienna, Austria.- Peter Thomson was born on 23 August 1929 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He was married to Mary Kelly and Lois Brauer. He died on 20 June 2018 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Born on May 21, 1899 in Springfield, Massachusetts, veteran character actor Ralph Sanford came from a theatrical family. His parents were in the business, although not as actors.
An actor and stage manager on the Broadway stage in the early years of his career, Sanford appeared in such productions as "Half a Widow" (1927), "The Constant Sinner" (1931) and "Between Two Worlds" (1934). He began his screen work in 1937 at Vitaphone Pictures working in shorts, as a burly foil to such established two-reeler comics as Shemp Howard, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle and Fritz Feld. He found steady employment in primarily unbilled bits (truck driver, guard, etc.), notably for Paramount. He upgraded to occasional featured parts in such films as Undercover Agent (1939), Wildcat (1942), A Night for Crime (1943) and My Pal Trigger (1946), but for the most part he was utilized solely in "tough guy" parts. He would play minor roles for other studios as well, usually typed as a two-bit gangster or hassled cop. He continued his busy schedule throughout the 1950s with TV work and had a recurring part as Jim "Dog" Kelly on Hugh O'Brian's The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955) series for the 1958-59 season.
The heavyset actor died at the age of 64, succumbing to a heart ailment on June 20, 1963.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Robin Raymond was born on 4 October 1916 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956), Rogues Gallery (1944) and Johnny Eager (1941). She died on 20 June 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Rubén Suñé was born on 7 March 1947 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina. He died on 20 June 2019 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina.
- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Ryan Dunn (June 11, 1977 - June 20, 2011) was an American reality television personality, actor and stunt man. He was a member of the Jackass and Viva La Bam crew.
Ryan Matthew Dunn was born in Medina, Ohio, to Linda Sue (Reese) and Ronald James Dunn. He came to prominence as a member of the CKY Crew along with long-time friend Bam Margera for their extreme stunts and pranks recorded on camera which led to the rise of MTV's Jackass and its three later feature films, which have all been commercial successes. Aside from Jackass, Dunn also hosted Homewrecker and Proving Ground and appeared in feature films such as Street Dreams and Blonde Ambition, as well as in Margera's films Haggard: The Movie and Minghags: The Movie.
Dunn died in an alcohol-related automobile accident in West Goshen Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, on the morning of June 20, 2011, alongside his friend Zachary Hartwell.- Sophie Gradon was born on 25 October 1985 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, England, UK. She died on 20 June 2018 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK.
- Susana Brunetti was born on 25 October 1941 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina. She was an actress, known for Las píldoras (1972), El caradura y la millonaria (1971) and La fin del mundo (1963). She died on 20 June 1974 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina.
- Herbert Timberg was the son of popular vaudeville comedian/musician/recording artist Herman Timberg (1892-1952). Although the elder Timberg worked occasionally in motion pictures, usually behind the scenes as a writer, it is his son who became familiar to movie audiences of the 1930s. Adopting the professional name of Herman Timberg. Jr., he teamed with Pat Rooney Jr., another "stage brat", in 1936. Timberg and Rooney worked in vaudeville and co-starred in 10 short subjects for New York-based Educational Pictures. Timberg left the movies in 1937 to produce stage revues, and Rooney traded his tap shoes for the life of a New Hampshire farmer in 1940.
In the 1940s, Herbert Timberg was featured in Broadway productions, including the Gertrude Niesen-Jackie Gleason revue "Follow the Girls". By now, he was using the stage name "Tim Herbert", which he retained for the rest of his career. Tim Herbert became a familiar face in TV sitcoms (he is memorable as an anxious songwriter in "Bupkis", a 1965 episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961)). He also played small roles in full-length features. - Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Her father, Hans-Georg Klamroth, was a businessman, Wehrmacht officer and NSDAP member. After the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944, Klamroth was sentenced to death on August 15, 1944 as an accomplice and executed on August 26, 1944. Bruhn's mother had to raise the five children alone and joined the diplomatic service of the young Federal Republic in 1949. Bruhns therefore grew up in Stockholm, Berlin and London, where she attended boarding schools. Bruhns completed his high school diploma in Berlin. This was followed by studying history and politics at the University of Hamburg. Bruhns completed a traineeship at the BILD newspaper in 1960, but she dropped out for political reasons. She then moved to NDR television in Hamburg as a freelancer. Then in 1962 she joined the ZDF studio in Hamburg as a youth editor, where, among other things, she moderated the "Drehscheibe". From 1968 to 1971, Bruhns worked as a freelancer for the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit", NDR radio and ZDF.
In May 1971, Bruhns hosted the ZDF program "heute" for the first time. As the first and then only woman on this show, the journalist became known to a wider audience. In the run-up to the 1972 federal election, Bruhns was involved in the "Social Democratic Voters' Initiative" for Willy Brandt as Chancellor, which brought her massive criticism from the right. After 380 "heute" broadcasts, Bruhns moved to WDR at the beginning of 1973, where she attracted attention in the following years with, among other things, critical articles for the political magazine "Panorama". Here, too, she repeatedly made the headlines because of her socially critical commitment. From 1974, Bruhns also worked for the magazine "stern" and as a reporter for the SWF. She had two daughters and was married to the late actor Werner Bruhns until 1977.
Bruhns then worked for the "stern" as a correspondent in Jerusalem from 1979 to 1983. In this context, her first book, "My Jerusalem" (1982), was written, which received positive reviews from critics. Following her work in Israel, the journalist was a correspondent in Washington for the same magazine for four years. She was awarded the Egon Erwin Kisch Prize in 1989 for a "Geo" report on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington that she produced there. After her return, Bruhns initially presented "Three Before Midnight" for WDR from 1989 onwards, together with Gisela Marx. In 1993 she then temporarily moved to the private broadcaster Vox, where she worked as presenter of the news program "Weltvox". From 1995 to 1998, Bruhns was head of the cultural department of the Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandeburg (ORB). On the occasion of the World Exhibition in Hanover, Bruhns acted as spokesperson for Expo 2000 from February 2000.
In connection with the deficit at the world exhibition, the Expo spokeswoman criticized the incorrect calculation templates from the federal and state governments. After completing the Expo project, Bruhns devoted himself primarily to freelance writing. In 2004, the journalist went public with her own family story: the focus of her book "My Father's Country - History of a German Family" is the upper-middle-class merchant family Klamroth and their fate in the Weimar Republic and National Socialism. In 2006 she was awarded the Friedrich Schiedel Literature Prize. In 2007 she received the Hedwig Dohm certificate from the Association of Journalists for her journalistic life's work.
Wibke Bruhns died on June 20, 2019 in Hamburg.