My Hall of Fame Character Actors
Men who appeared in cinema and television who almost always delivered sterling performances.
List activity
1.3K views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
55 people
- Director
- Actor
- Producer
Oklahoma-born Lou Antonio is English-French-German on his mother's side and Greek on his father's side. A talented baseball player as a teenager, he was scouted by the Boston Red Sox while in high school, but an injury ended his dreams of playing professional baseball. He attended Oklahoma University on a journalism scholarship and graduated with a degree in French, all the while acting in school plays.
Accepted into the prestigious Actors Studio in 1958, Antonio was a working actor through much of the 1960s, doing summer stock, plays, TV guest roles, and the occasional movie, most notably Cool Hand Luke (1967).
After moving to Hollywood, TV work became more consistent over the next 40+ years, both as an actor, such as in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (1969), and even more as a director.- Actor
- Soundtrack
American character actor who achieved considerable fame in the last decade of his life. A native of Kokomo, Indiana, Strother Martin Jr. was the youngest of three children of Strother Douglas Martin, a machinist, and Ethel Dunlap Martin. His family moved soon after his birth to San Antonio, Texas, but quickly returned to Indiana. Strother Jr. grew up in Indianapolis and in Cloverdale, Indiana. He excelled at swimming and diving, and at 17 won the National Junior Springboard Diving Championship. He attended the University of Michigan as diving team member. He served in the U.S. Navy as a swimming instructor in World War II. Nicknamed "T-Bone" Martin for his diving style, his 3rd place finish in the adult National Springboard Diving Championships cost him a place on the 1948 Olympic team. He moved to California to become an actor, but worked in odd jobs and as a swimming instructor to Marion Davies and the children of Charles Chaplin. He found work as a swimming extra in several films and as a leprechaun on a local children's TV show, "Mabel's Fables." Bit parts came his way, leading to television work with Sam Peckinpah, which led to a lifelong relationship. He also found memorable roles for John Ford and by the 1960s was a familiar face in American movies. With Cool Hand Luke (1967) in 1967 came new acclaim and a place among the busiest character actors in Hollywood. He worked steadily and in substantial roles throughout the 1970s and seemed at the peak of his career when he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1980.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Lee J. Cobb, one of the premier character actors in American film for three decades in the post-World War II period, was born Leo Jacoby in New York City's Lower East Side on December 8, 1911. The son of a Jewish newspaper editor, young Leo was a child prodigy in music, mastering the violin and the harmonica. Any hopes of a career as a violin virtuoso were dashed when he broke his wrist, but his talent on the harmonica may have brought him his first professional success. At the age of 16 or 17 he ran away from home to Hollywood to try to break into motion pictures as an actor. He reportedly made his film debut as a member of Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals (their first known movie appearance was in the 1929 two-reeler Boyhood Days), but that cannot be substantiated. However, it's known that after Leo was unable to find work he returned to New York City, where he attended New York University at night to study accounting while acting in radio dramas during the day.
An older Cobb tried his luck in California once more, making his debut as a professional stage actor at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1931. After again returning to his native New York, he made his Broadway debut as a saloonkeeper in a dramatization of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but it closed after 15 performances (later in his career, Dostoevsky would prove more of a charm, with Cobb's role as Father Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (1958) garnering him his second Oscar nomination),
Cobb joined the politically progressive Group Theater in 1935 and made a name for himself in Clifford Odets' politically liberal dramas Waiting for Lefty and Til the Day I Die, appearing in both plays that year in casts that included Elia Kazan, who later became famous as a film director. Cobb also appeared in the 1937 Group Theater production of Odets' Golden Boy, playing the role of Mr. Carp, in a cast that also included Kazan, Julius Garfinkle (later better known under his stage name of John Garfield), and Martin Ritt, all of whom later came under the scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the heyday of the McCarthy Red Scare hysteria more than a decade later. Cobb took over the role of Mr. Bonaparte, the protagonist's father, in the 1939 film version of the play, despite the fact that he was not yet 30 years old. The role of a patriarch suited him, and he'd play many more in his film career.
It was as a different kind of patriarch that he scored his greatest success. Cobb achieved immortality by giving life to the character of Willy Loman in the original 1949 Broadway production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. His performance was a towering achievement that ranks with such performances as Edwin Booth as Richard III and John Barrymore as Hamlet in the annals of the American theater. Cobb later won an Emmy nomination as Willy when he played the role in a made-for-TV movie of the play (Death of a Salesman (1966)). Miller said that he wrote the role with Cobb in mind.
Before triumphing as Miller's Salesman, Cobb had appeared on Broadway only a handful of times in the 1940s, including in Ernest Hemingway's The Fifth Column (1940), Odets' "Clash by Night" (1942) and the US Army Air Force's Winged Victory (1943-44). Later he reprised the role of Joe Bonaparte's father in the 1952 revival of Golden Boy opposite Garfield as his son, and appeared the following year in The Emperor's Clothes. His final Broadway appearance was as King Lear in the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center's 1968 production of Shakespeare's play.
Aside from his possible late 1920s movie debut and his 1934 appearance in the western The Vanishing Shadow (1934), Cobb's film career proper began in 1937 with the westerns North of the Rio Grande (1937) (in which he was billed as Lee Colt) and Rustlers' Valley (1937) and spanned nearly 40 years until his death. After a hiatus while serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Cobb's movie career resumed in 1946. He continued to play major supporting roles in prestigious A-list pictures. His movie career reached its artistic peak in the 1950s, when he was twice nominated for Best Supporting Actor Academy Awards, for his role as Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront (1954) and as the father in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). Other memorable supporting roles in the 1950s included the sagacious Judge Bernstein in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), as the probing psychiatrist Dr. Luther in The Three Faces of Eve (1957) and as the volatile Juror #3 in 12 Angry Men (1957).
It was in the 1950s that Cobb achieved the sort of fame that most artists dreaded: he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee on charges that he was or had been a Communist. The charges were rooted in Cobb's membership in the Group Theater in the 1930s. Other Group Theater members already investigated by HUAC included Clifford Odets and Elia Kazan, both of whom provided friendly testimony before the committee, and John Garfield, who did not.
Cobb's own persecution by HUAC had already caused a nervous breakdown in his wife, and he decided to appear as a friendly witness in order to preserve her sanity and his career, by bringing the inquisition to a halt. Appearing before the committee in 1953, he named names and thus saved his career. Ironically, he would win his first Oscar nomination in On the Waterfront (1954) directed and written by fellow HUAC informers Kazan and Budd Schulberg. The film can be seen as a stalwart defense of informing, as epitomized by the character Terry Malloy's testimony before a Congressional committee investigating racketeering on the waterfront.
Major films in which Cobb appeared after reaching his career plateau include Otto Preminger's adaptation of Leon Uris' ode to the birth of Israel, Exodus (1960); the Cinerama spectacle How the West Was Won (1962); the James Coburn spy spoofs, Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967); Clint Eastwood's first detective film, Coogan's Bluff (1968); and legendary director William Wyler's last film, The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970).
In addition to his frequent supporting roles in film, Cobb often appeared on television. He played Judge Henry Garth on The Virginian (1962) from 1962-66 and also had a regular role as the attorney David Barrett on The Young Lawyers (1969) from 1970-71. Cobb also appeared in made-for-TV movies and made frequent guest appearances on other TV shows. His last major Hollywood movie role was that of police detective Lt. Kinderman in The Exorcist (1973).
Lee J. Cobb died of a heart attack in Woodland Hills, California, on February 11, 1976, at the age of 64. He is buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Though he will long be remembered for many of his successful supporting performances in the movies, it is as the stage's first Willy Loman in which he achieved immortality as an actor. Bearing in mind that the role was written for him, it is through Willy that he will continue to have an influence on American drama far into the future, for as long as Death of a Salesman is revived.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
John Cullum was born on 2 March 1930 in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Northern Exposure (1990), All Good Things (2010) and 1776 (1972). He has been married to Emily Frankel since 5 May 1959. They have one child.- Martin Henry Balsam was born on November 4, 1919 in the Bronx, New York City, to Lillian (Weinstein) and Albert Balsam, a manufacturer of women's sportswear. He was the first-born child. His father was a Russian Jewish immigrant, and his mother was born in New York, to Russian Jewish parents. Martin caught the acting bug in high school where he participated in the drama club. After high school, he continued his interest in acting by attending Manhattan's progressive New School. When World War II broke out, Martin was called to service in his early twenties. After the war, he was lucky to secure a position as an usher at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. By 1947, he was honing his craft at the Actors Studio, run at that time by Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. His time at the Actors Studio in New York City allowed him training in the famous Stanislavsky method. Despite his excellent training, he had to prove himself, just like any up and coming young actor. He began on Broadway in the late 1940s. But, it was not until 1951 that he experienced real success. That play was Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo". After his Broadway success, he had a few minor television roles before his big break arrived when he joined the cast of On the Waterfront (1954). In the 1950s, Martin had many television roles. He had recurring roles on some of the most popular television series of that time, including The United States Steel Hour (1953), The Philco Television Playhouse (1948), Goodyear Playhouse (1951) and Studio One (1948). In 1957, he was able to prove himself on the big-screen once again, with a prominent role in 12 Angry Men (1957), directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda. All of Martin's television work in the 1950s did not go to waste. While starring on an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), Hitchcock was so impressed by his work, that he offered him a key supporting role of Detective Milton Arbogast in Psycho (1960). His work with Hitchcock opened him up to a world of other acting opportunities. Many strong movie roles came his way in the 1960s, including parts in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Cape Fear (1962) and The Carpetbaggers (1964). One of the proudest moments in his life was when he received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Thousand Clowns (1965). It was soon after that he began accepting roles in European movies. He soon developed a love for Italy, and lived there most of his remaining years. He acted in over a dozen Italian movies and spent his later life traveling between Hollywood and Europe for his many roles. After a career that spanned more than fifty years, Martin Balsam died of natural causes in his beloved Italy at age 76. He passed away of a stroke at a hotel in Rome called Residenza di Repetta. He was survived by his third wife Irene Miller and three children, Adam, Zoe and Talia.
- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Howard da Silva was one of 324 actors, writers and directors who fell victim to the Hollywood blacklisting of the early 1950s, and had his career halted in the blink of an eye. Originally was a steelworker before making his stage debut at age 20 in New York. He made a name for himself on Broadway before going to Hollywood, but kept up his stage work after making the move to films. His most memorable performance came in the 1943 Broadway production of Oklahoma!. In Hollywood, he became a well-liked character actor, appearing in such films as Sergeant York (1941), The Big Shot (1942) and The Lost Weekend (1945). In 1947, his career was threatened when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began its investigation into alleged Communist influence of Hollywood. Actor Robert Taylor, called as a "friendly witness", accused many of his fellow actors and writers of either being communists or having communist sympathies. When questioned about da Silva, Taylor said, "I can name a few who seem to sort of disrupt things once in a while. Whether or not they are communists I don't know. One chap we have currently, I think is Howard da Silva. He always seems to have something to say at the wrong time." On November 25, 1947, a meeting of Hollywood executives held in New York released a statement known as the Waldorf Statement, in which they announced a blacklist would be immediately imposed aimed at anyone named or suspected as a communist. "We will forthwith discharge or suspend without compensation those in our employ and we will not re-employ any of the ten until such time as he is acquitted or has purged himself of contempt and declares under oath that he is not a communist." Howard appeared in a few more films before he was called before HUAC, refused to answer any of the committee's questions and was promptly blacklisted by the studios. He continued working in the theatre, and once the blacklist was lifted in the early 1960s made a return to film and television. He passed away two years after making his last movie.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
WWII veteran, dance instructor and diversely talented stage & screen actor were all inclusions on the resume of this perpetually busy US actor who didn't get in front of the cameras until around the time of his fortieth birthday. The stockily built Charles Durning was one of Hollywood's most dependable and sought after supporting actors.
Durning was born in Highland Falls, New York, to Louise Marie (Leonard), a laundress, and James Gerald Durning. His father was an Irish immigrant and his mother was of Irish descent. Durning first got his start in guest appearances in early 1960's TV shows. He scored minor roles over the next decade until he really got noticed by film fans as the sneering, corrupt cop "Lt. Snyder" hassling street grifter 'Robert Redford' in the multi award winning mega-hit The Sting (1973). Durning was equally entertaining in the Billy Wilder production of The Front Page (1974), he supported screen tough guy Charles Bronson in the suspenseful western Breakheart Pass (1975) and featured as "Spermwhale Whalen" in the story of unorthodox police behavior in The Choirboys (1977).
The versatile Durning is equally adept at comedic roles and demonstrated his skills as "Doc Hopper" in The Muppet Movie (1979), a feisty football coach in North Dallas Forty (1979), a highly strung police officer berating maverick cop Burt Reynolds in Sharky's Machine (1981), and a light footed, dancing Governor (alongside Burt Reynolds once more) in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). Durning continued a regular on screen association with Burt Reynolds appearing in several more feature films together and as "Dr. Harlan Elldridge" in the highly popular TV series Evening Shade (1990). On par with his multitude of feature film roles, Durning has always been in high demand on television and has guest starred in Everybody Loves Raymond (1996), Monk (2002) and Rescue Me (2004). Plus, he has appeared in the role of "Santa Claus" in five different television movies.- He was David Thayer Hersey from an upper crust Winchester, Massachusetts family. After secondary school he began attending Harvard University. Along with several students he founded the Brattle Theatre Company in 1946. After working closely on Brattle with fellow Harvard graduates and his father,Thayer Frye Hersey, David took the stage name Thayer David in honor of his father.
Thayer David was tall and heavy-set with a prominent beetling brow and protruding lips (a somewhat intimidating demeanor) which inevitably bound him to character roles. But he had no false illusions about leading man roles and whatnot other than applying a consummate passion for being a good actor in those parts allotted him. To this he brought a forceful if pursed and imperious voice and a knack for developing voice characterizations to fit any part.
By late 1950 he was on Broadway in a revival of the comedy play "The Relapse" Through most the 1950s he was busy with theater roles rounded with returns to Broadway for the next two decades in some great dramas, including stepping in as a replacement to play Cardinal Wolsey in "A Man for All Seasons" (1961-63). Like many a trained actor looking beyond the stage, David saw the potential of the small screen as a new acting vehicle. By 1957 he had launched his TV career amid the television playhouse phenomenon which had been established by 1950. He would revisit perennially through most of the 1960s, but he had about the same time been discovered by filmdom as well.
His first role was in the quite well done Baby Face Nelson (1957), part of the body of serious dramas that Mickey Rooney (as the machine gun-happy 1930s gangster) was amassing since his early days as one of Hollywood's biggest juvenile stars. David next film had the clumsy and long forgotten title A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958), but it was a much more substantial part with young John Gavin as German friends who become World War II officers and confront humanity versus the Nazi war mentality. As was usual with his roles, David was the veiled (if not overt) antagonist-always intellectual but with a brutish shadow. Within a year the chance to play a really melodramatic villain came with his casting in the film version of Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) from the novel by the visionary French 19th century sci-fi author Jules Verne. Although the film substantially strayed from the novel, the latter plodded along, while the script was fast-paced and engaging. And where there was no villain except nature herself, the film had David as the self-serving-downright nasty - Count Saknussem. With James Mason heading the cast and-then-teen heartthrob Pat Boone drawing in as well a young female audience, the film and its special effects made for a rousing good time.
Into the 1960s David's opportunities focused most on television. And among these was a fad TV acting goal of being a guest super villain on the highly popular and inventive The Wild Wild West (1965 to 1969). David had the even better fortune of being cast in two episodes (1967 and 1969). In the meantime David had hit some more substantial TV pay dirt. The smash daytime horror soaper Dark Shadows had premiered in 1966, and David was in on the ground floor as perfect for several characters to emerge through the series run (1966 to 1971). He played seven characters in the course of the show, the most prominent being Professor T. Elliot Stokes. He reprised this role in the substantially more potent in-a-nutshell film version of the story House of Dark Shadows (1970), considered by horror aficionados as one of best blood and gore vampire romps. David returned in the studio-butchered and thus unsuccessful film sequel Night of Dark Shadows (1971) as his eighth characterization, the Reverend Strack. In all cases David was intimately involved and delighted in meshing makeup and costumes with the voices he invented for all these roles (most of which he developed) for the series.
If not from an already dependable track record, David's longevity on the series marked him as a veteran trooper in the casting halls of Hollywood. But he later recalled that his time invested in doing voice over commercials could often come close to DS production schedule conflicts. His commercial work marked the inevitable practical side of acting. Even the best known actors and actresses have stooped to such business over art, for the money is always good.
David was thereafter quite in demand through the decade of the 1970s in both film and TV. Although he might be best recalled from the era as the crooked fight manager in historic Rocky (1976), his most character of character roles was by far his Dragon in the Clint Eastwood adventure/thriller The Eiger Sanction (1975). Based on the novel by American author Rod Whitaker who used the pseudonym Trevanian to come off European, there is much name wordplay, for instance, Dragon's full name in the novel is Uras S. Dragon (say it fast). David's Dragon is head of CIA-like shadow hit unit which employed Eastwood's character, and Dragon is an extreme albino (can't tolerate normal environment). David gives him a rather strident rasping voice with a hint of menace that along with his nearly colorless eyes and figure bathed in the dramatic red light of an infrared-controlled environment easily makes him the most memorable character in the film.
David guest-starred on some of the most watched episodic fare of the 1970s, and he was especially busy between 1975 and 1977. Amid two to three films per year he made the rounds of TV production at the major studios. Universal had continued using his talents during this period when this contributor met and worked with Thayer David in early 1977. He was an engaging person who enjoyed good conversation - the more obscure the better - and a good cigar. Among outside pursuits he was also a rare book collector with varied interests and enjoyed entertaining at home.
A big man, he was nonetheless at that time overweight and the demands of production visibly put a strain on him - he looked ill. But an actor must work, and he carried on into the next year and lost some weight as well. It was then that Paramount television offered him a potentially great opportunity. This was the lead role in the TV pilot movie for a series on the preoccupied but brilliant, corpulent - and most important, rich - detective Nero Wolfe. The script was good, and Thayer lent his accumulated and considerable characterization talents to make Wolfe his own, although his loss of weight was now much more noticeable and was rumored to be cancer. The success of the TV pilot looked promising, as would the subsequent go-ahead for the series. But in one of the ironic twists of fate, Thayer David suddenly died of a heart attack, perhaps a complication of the purported advancing cancer - he was only 51 years old. The pilot was shelved for over a year, ending up premiering as a late night TV offering (Dec 1979). A Nero Wolfe series did appear (1981), but it was short-lived.
One can only wonder if Thayer David had remained hale. A Nero Wolfe series with such a dedicated and creative actor may have thrived with a long run - the Holy Grail of any actor - the dream of security and the opportunity to contribute thoroughly to on-going success. Oh well - the stuff of dreams - posterity has to settle for the filmed record of Thayer David as is - and that is a very substantial offering indeed. - Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Location Management
Herb Edelman was born on 5 November 1933 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor and assistant director, known for The Odd Couple (1968), The Golden Girls (1985) and The Way We Were (1973). He was married to Louise Sorel. He died on 21 July 1996 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.Adept as a lead, but shined in character roles.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Norman Fell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1924. He graduated from Temple University with a bachelor's degree in drama. During World War II, he was an Air Force tail gunner in the Pacific. After the war, he studied acting and obtained small parts in television and on stage. His first regular TV appearance was in the comedy series Joe & Mabel (1956). His best known TV role was that of Stanley Roper, the landlord in the very popular Three's Company (1976), which debuted in 1977, and its short lived spin-off, The Ropers (1979).
Norman Fell died at the Motion Picture and Television Fund's retirement home in Woodland Hills CA, aged 74, survived by two daughters.- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Hillerman, who most famously played the impeccably urbane Englishman Jonathan Quayle Higgins III (VC !) -- Tom Selleck's sophisticated majordomo in Magnum, P.I. (1980) --, was of French, German and Austrian descent, raised in a small Texas town and educated at a Catholic high school. He majored in journalism at the University of Texas, enlisted in the Air Force and spent the period from 1953 to 1957 stationed at Ft. Worth. There, he unexpectedly landed a choice role in a community theatre production of "Death of a Salesman" and discovered acting to be to his liking. Having a photographic memory benefited Hillerman greatly, as it enabled him to learn his lines quickly. He professed to be able to memorize a page of dialogue in the space of a minute. There remained the problem of his Texas accent, however. Following demobilization, he traveled to New York where it took him a year to lose his drawl, studying elocution under the tutelage of voice coach Fanny Bradshaw (who encouraged him to listen to recordings of Laurence Olivier reciting "Hamlet"). All the while, Hillerman lived the life of a typical struggling actor, having taken up residence in a lower East Side tenement and living on home-made turkey soup. After fifteen years of stage work and with a meager $700 to his name, he decided to try to change his luck by making the journey to Hollywood.
His first major break came when he was picked for a small part in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971)). From then on he was rarely out of work, although initially tasked with only smallish supporting roles. By the mid-70s, after memorable back-to-back turns in Blazing Saddles (1974) and Chinatown (1974), Hillerman had established his credentials. His first opportunity to shine in a recurring TV role was as pompous radio sleuth Simon Brimmer ("Policemen snoop, without a glimmer. To solve the case, call Simon Brimmer...") who persistently got it all very wrong in TV's Ellery Queen (1975). A self-declared Anglophile with a solid acting background in plays by Noël Coward, he fairly jumped at the chance to portray Selleck's genteel sidekick Higgins in "Magnum" which was to become his personal favorite and career-defining role.Excellent at characters with a cigarette holder in his teeth and a board up his ass.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
This tall, sandy-haired, mustachioed actor from Texas, born Justus McQueen, adopted the name of the character he portrayed in his first film, Battle Cry (1955). Jones, with his craggy, gaunt looks, first appeared in minor character roles in plenty of WWII films including The Young Lions (1958), The Naked and the Dead (1958), Hell Is for Heroes (1962) and Battle of the Coral Sea (1959). However, 1962 saw him team up with maverick director Sam Peckinpah for the first of Jones' five appearances in his films. Ride the High Country (1962) saw Jones play one of the lowlife Hammond brothers. Next he appeared alongside Charlton Heston in Major Dundee (1965), then Peckinpah cast him, along with his real-life friend Strother Martin, as one of the scummy, murderous bounty hunters in The Wild Bunch (1969). Such was the chemistry between Jones and Martin that Peckinpah teamed them again the following year in The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and Jones' final appearance in a Peckinpah film was in another western, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973). Two years later Jones directed the cult post-apocalyptic film A Boy and His Dog (1975) starring a young Don Johnson. He has continued to work in Hollywood, and as the lines on his craggy face have deepened, he turns up more frequently as crusty old westerners, especially in multiple TV guest spots. He turned in an interesting performance as a seemingly good ol' boy Nevada cowboy who was actually a powerful behind-the-scenes player in state politics who leaned on Robert De Niro's Las Vegas mob gambler in Martin Scorsese's violent and powerful Casino (1995).Delightful at playing *beep* also noted as a director and producer.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Bill Quinn was born on 6 May 1912 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and The Birds (1963). He was married to Mary Catherine Roden. He died on 29 April 1994 in Camarillo, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Veteran character actor Richard B. Shull was born on February 24, 1929 in Evanston, Illinois and raised in the Midwest. He attended the University of Iowa, then served with the U.S. Army in 1953. Finding work as a stage manager following his release, he finally made his Broadway debut in the Marx Brothers musical bio "Minnie's Boys" starring Shelley Winters on Broadway in 1970. His hangdog demeanor, puffy features and bemused manner proved an excellent scene stealer in comedy roles and he moved easily into film and TV in mid-career. Following his film debut in the very obscure Watch the Birdie (1965), Richard came into his own starting in 1971 with regular roles in such movies as The Anderson Tapes (1971), Klute (1971), Made for Each Other (1971), Slither (1973), Hail (1972), Hearts of the West (1975), The Big Bus (1976), Splash (1983), Garbo Talks (1984), HouseSitter (1992), Trapped in Paradise (1994) and, his last, Private Parts (1997) with Howard Stern. On TV, he was probably best known for his title role on the silly, short-lived series Holmes and Yoyo (1976) as Det. Alexander Holmes, opposite John Schuck who played Yoyo, a robotic cop. The recipient of a Tony nomination for his Broadway work on "Goodtime Charlie" in 1975, Richard's later career included such theater notables as "The Marriage of Bette and Boo" (1985), for which he won an off-Broadway Obie award, and the ever-popular "Victor/Victoria" starring a resurgent Julie Andrews, in 1995. Married four times, Richard was appearing in the stage production of "Epic Proportions" in New York when he suffered a fatal heart attack on October 14, 1999 at age 70.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Famed acting teacher Lee Strasberg was born Israel Strassberg in Budzanov, Austria-Hungary (now Budanov, Ukraine). Brought to America as a child, he had a brief acting career, before becoming one of the founders of the Group Theatre in 1931, directing a number of plays there. His greatest influence, however, was through the Actors Studio, where he became director in 1950. A proponent of "method" acting, which he adapted from the "system" brought to America by Konstantin Stanislavski's disciple--and Marlon Brando's mentor--Stella Adler, he influenced several generations of actors, from James Dean to Dustin Hoffman. Film audiences would know him best as gangster Hyman Roth in The Godfather Part II (1974).Acting late in life, the esteemed acting coach excelled when called to perform.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Vic Tayback was born on 6 January 1930 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Alice (1976), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989). He was married to Sheila McKay Barnard. He died on 25 May 1990 in Glendale, California, USA.- Michael Murphy was born in Los Angeles, California, to Georgia Arlyn (née Money), a teacher, and Bearl Branton Murphy, a salesman. After a hitch in the Marine Corps, Murphy attended the University of Arizona, Tucson, and then went to U.C.L.A. for his California teaching credential. From 1962 to 1964, he taught high school English and drama in Los Angeles.
Murphy's most notable appearance was as Woody Allen's best friend Yale, the self-tortured adulterer, in Allen's masterpiece Manhattan (1979). The two had acted together earlier in Martin Ritt's The Front (1976) and had become good friends. Surprisingly, despite the excellent performance Murphy gave in the film, Allen hasn't used him again.
Murphy's career as a first-rate supporting player began in 1962 and has continued for over five decades, with major parts in Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman (1978), which he calls "the first of the whining yuppies," Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), and Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986). He also has worked with such significant directors as Elia Kazan in The Arrangement (1969), Tim Burton in Batman Returns (1992), and Paul Thomas Anderson in Magnolia (1999). Murphy co-starred in John Sayles' Silver City (2004), as a U.S. Senator who is the father of a gubernatorial candidate played by Oscar-winner Chris Cooper, standing-in for the pre-presidential George W. Bush.
Murphy is perhaps best known for his long collaboration with director Robert Altman that stretches back to the beginning of his career.
"I was right out of the University of Arizona," Murphy reminisced during a 2004 interview, "and a friend said, 'Go over to MGM and meet Bob Altman. He's using a lot of young guys for this Army thing he's doing.'" Altman was directing the World War II television series Combat! (1962), and Altman cast him in the show without an audition. "We became immediate friends. He told me, 'You may not turn out to be a movie star, but you'll get to do some interesting work.' Bob was in his thirties when we met. He had been a young bomber pilot in World War II and was wise beyond his years. From the very beginning, he never played it safe when it came to making movies. He had amazing fortitude and guts."
In addition to Combat! (1962) and the Altman-directed TV movie Nightmare in Chicago (1964), Murphy has appeared in seven theatrical movies directed by Altman between 1968 and 1996: Countdown (1967), That Cold Day in the Park (1969), M*A*S*H (1970), Brewster McCloud (1970), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Nashville (1975), and Kansas City (1996). Murphy has also appeared in Altman's TV adaptation of Herman Wouk's play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988) and in two cable-TV mini-series for him: Tanner '88 (1988) and Tanner on Tanner (2004).
About Altman, Murphy says, "I adored the guy. If you were getting married or divorced, or, really, if anything momentous was happening in your life, you'd want to seek him out to talk about it. He was very strong when it came to life's dilemmas...could always see the big picture...was always helpful. An extraordinary man."
Murphy played the title role of Michigan Congressman Jack Tanner in Altman's ground-breaking HBO series Tanner '88 (1988), which was scripted by Garry Trudeau of "Doonesbury" fame. The fictional Tanner ran for president in the Democratic Party primaries of 1988, alongside George Bush (whom Murphy himself "plays" in Silver City (2004)), Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and Pat Robertson, with some "guest appearances" by Ronald Reagan along the way. The "candidate" Tanner actually interacted on-camera with candidates Gary Hart, Bob Dole, and Jesse Jackson, and with the journalists Linda Ellerbee and Chris Matthews.
During the progress of the series' eleven episodes, Tanner increasingly became alienated as the grueling political marathon went on. He was portrayed as an intellectual troubled by sound-bite politics and the public persona he was compelled to create for the media-fueled electoral machine that vetted the candidates for the public at the other end of the cathode-ray tube. Tanner eventually realizes he lacks the all-consuming drive to be a successful presidential candidate under such a system.
A caustic look at American politics from a liberal-left-anarchist point of view, "Tanner '88" won the prize for best television series at the Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels in Cannes in the fall of 1988. The mini-series ranks among the best and most important of television programs. Altman-Murphy-Trudeau reprised Tanner with "Tanner on Tanner" (2004), in which the character did not run but commented on the political process and on the media circus accompanying the pursuit for the nation's highest office.
About the cable mini-series, Murphy says, "Yes, Bob shows some of the nastiness behind all campaigns, but I don't think it's a polemic. In Bob's case, you vote for the Democrat, but be careful of what you wish for. He is very cynical."
In 2019, Murphy's Jack Tanner found himself back on the silver screen in "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese". In this movie, Tanner gets to go to a Dylan concert at the behest of President Jimmy Carter...a mutual friend.
Despite decades of solid performances in a plethora of movies, Murphy remains somewhat anonymous to the public at large. Arriving in a limousine at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival premiere of Silver City (2004), he got out of the car and was unrecognized. When the publicists eventually realized he was a star of the film, Murphy was ordered back into the limousine so that he could exit it again, and the paparazzi could photograph him.
"I'm in this kind of fun position where I'm not especially recognizable," Murphy said when recounting the incident. "This sometimes allows me to stand back and watch the circus...even though I'm a part of it it. You wind up with an interesting perspective."
In 1988, Michael Murphy married the co-star of his short-lived television show Hard Copy (1987), the actress Wendy Crewson. She has also appeared with her husband in Tanner '88 (1988) and in the theatrical films Folks! (1992) and Sleeping Dogs Lie (1998). They have two children, a daughter, Maggie Murphy, born in 1989, and a son, John ("Jack") Branton Murphy, born in 1992.From Woody Allen films to cheesy fare, he excelled. I especially love his work in "An Unmarried Woman." - Actor
- Production Manager
- Soundtrack
John Vernon was a prolific stage-trained Canadian character player who made a career out of convincingly playing crafty villains, morally-bankrupt officials and heartless authority figures in American films and television since the 1960s. Vernon was directed by some stellar filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock (Topaz (1969)); George Cukor (Justine (1969)); Don Siegel (Dirty Harry (1971)) and Clint Eastwood (The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)). After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and honing his skills in Canadian theatre and television, Vernon made his US film debut in John Boorman's noir/gangster classic Point Blank (1967) as a trusted friend who betrays Lee Marvin. He again failed to inspire confidence as the ineffectual mayor of San Francisco in Dirty Harry (1971). Vernon may be best remembered as the sinister Dean Vernon Wormer in John Landis' National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), a role he reprised for the TV spin-off Delta House (1979). This led to more film comedy roles, a highlight being Mr. Big in the blaxploitation spoof I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988).- Tough, gruff, thick-browed, volatile-looking character actor Alex Rocco was born Alessandro Federico Petricone, Jr. on February 29, 1936, to Italian immigrants in Cambridge, Mass. He grew up a member of Boston's Winter Hill gang (his nickname was "Bobo") and was briefly detained regarding a murder at one point after an alleged personal incident triggered the Boston Irish Gang War (1961-1967). Rocco decided to straighten his life and relocated to Hollywood in 1962 following his detainment and release.
Developing an interest in acting, Alex initially trained with such notable teachers as Leonard Nimoy and Jeff Corey in order to curb his thick Boston accent. Working as a bartender during the lean years, his film and TV career finally kick-started in 1965, immediately relying on his sly, lethal menace, toothy toughness, and prior gangland past to realistically portray gritty anti-heroes and villains. He made an effective movie debut, co-starring as a vengeful veterinarian and Vietnam vet who goes after motorcycle "bad boys" following his wife's beating and rape in the exploitation flick Motorpsycho! (1965) directed by Russ Meyer. Despite this bold beginning, it was followed by a disappointing gangster bit in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967) and a nothing role as a police Lieutenant in The Boston Strangler (1968). On TV, he found sporadic work playing thugs and other unsavory types on such TV shows as "Run for Your Life," "Batman" and "Get Smart."
Rocco came into his own in the early 1970s. After featured roles in such violent exploitation like Blood Mania (1970) and Brute Corps (1971), he received a huge boost in an Oscar-winning "A" film. He made a brief but potent impact essaying the role of Las Vegas syndicate boss Moe Green who gets a bullet in the eye during the violently explosive "christening sequence" of Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1972). From there he found a comfortable supporting niche playing various swarthy-looking cronies, hoods and cops in such crime films as The Outside Man (1972), Slither (1973), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) (in which he made good use of his Boston criminal past), Freebie and the Bean (1974), Three the Hard Way (1974) and A Woman for All Men (1975). Similar urban roles followed him on TV with yeoman work on such 1970s cop shows as "The Rookies", "Get Christie Love", "Kojak", "Cannon", "The Blue Knight", "Police Story", "The Rockford Files", "Barnaby Jones", "Dog and Cat", "Baretta", "Starsky and Hutch", "Delvecchio", "CHiPs", "Matt Houston", "Hardcastle and McCormick", and "Simon & Simon", along with the TV movies or miniseries A Question of Guilt (1978), The Gangster Chronicles (1981) and Badge of the Assassin (1985).
In the midst of all this, Alex was handed the starring role of his own series Three for the Road (1975) in which he played a new widower photographer with two teenage sons (played by Vincent Van Patten and Leif Garrett) who assuage their grief by leaving town and "discovering America" together. Although well-received, it was short-lived (13 episodes) as a result of poor scheduling. The actor returned to series TV in the late 1980s and was much more successful as a slick Hollywood agent in The Famous Teddy Z (1989) for which he won a "Supporting Actor" Emmy Award. Other regular comedy series work, such as Sibs (1991), The George Carlin Show (1994), The Division (2001) and Magic City (2012), added to his healthy resume over the years, with over 400 TV appearances racked up in all. Recurring roles on such programs as The Simpsons (1989) and The Facts of Life (1979) (as Nancy McKeon's father) also kept his career going at a steady pace. Other memorably flashy film roles include Freebie and the Bean (1974), The Stunt Man (1980), Lady in White (1988), Get Shorty (1995) and Just Write (1997).
Twice married, Rocco's first wife, Sandra Garrett, a nightclub performer and screenwriter, died of cancer in 2002. He married actress Shannon Wilcox in 2005 and together they appeared in the film Scammerhead (2014). Rocco appeared in two films helmed by his adopted son, screenwriter and director Marc Rocco: Scenes from the Goldmine (1987) and Dream a Little Dream (1989), who died in 2009. Two other children by his first wife were Lucian, a poet, and Jennifer, an attorney. Alex Rocco died of pancreatic cancer on July 18, 2015 at age 79.This was a great man; a man with vision and guts; and there isn't even a plaque or a signpost or a statue of him...Adept at drama; hilarious at comedy. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Originally a student of playwriting at Columbia University, Richard Mulligan began his acting career in regional theater and soon after made his Broadway debut in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "All the Way Home". In addition to his continuing Broadway career, Mulligan had successfully transferred his unique comedic talents to film and television. On the big screen, he had appeared in such films as Little Big Man (1970), The Big Bus (1976), Teachers (1984) and The Heavenly Kid (1985). He had also performed in a number of Blake Edwards' films, including S.O.B. (1981), Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), Micki + Maude (1984) and A Fine Mess (1986). Mulligan had made numerous guest-starring television appearances, but it was his role as Burt Campbell in Witt-Thomas-Harris' offbeat sitcom Soap (1977) that earned him his first Emmy Award. He also starred in the short-lived sitcom Reggie (1983). His movie-of-the-week and miniseries credits include Pueblo (1973), Poker Alice (1987), Harvey (1996) and the acclaimed Guess Who's Coming for Christmas? (1990) with Beau Bridges. He was the brother of director Robert Mulligan.- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
Wonderfully talented, heavyset character actor (from New York, but regularly playing Southerners) M. Emmet Walsh has made a solid career of playing corrupt cops, deadly crooks, and zany comedic roles since the early 1970s.
Michael Emmet Walsh was born in Ogdensburg, to Agnes Katharine (Sullivan) and Harry Maurice Walsh, a customs agent. He is of Irish descent. Walsh first appeared in a few fairly forgettable roles both on TV and onscreen before cropping up in several well remembered films, including a courtroom police officer in What's Up, Doc? (1972), as the weird Dickie Dunn in Slap Shot (1977), and as a loony sniper hunting Steve Martin in The Jerk (1979). On-screen demand heated up for him in the early 1980s with attention-grabbing work in key hits, including Brubaker (1980), Reds (1981), and as Harrison Ford's police chief in the futuristic thriller Blade Runner (1982). Walsh then turned in a stellar performance as the sleazy, double-crossing private detective in the Joel Coen and Ethan Coen film noir Blood Simple (1984), and showed up again for the Coens as a loud-mouthed sheet-metal worker bugging Nicolas Cage in the hilarious Raising Arizona (1987). As Walsh moved into his fifties and beyond, Hollywood continued to offer him plenty of work, and he has appeared in over 50 movies since passing the half-century mark. His consistent ability to turn out highly entertaining portrayals led film critic Roger Ebert to coin the "Stanton-Walsh Rule," which states that any film starring Walsh or Harry Dean Stanton has to have some merit. And the "M" stands for Michael!- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Richard Stahl was born on 4 January 1932 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Overboard (1987), The American President (1995) and Private School (1983). He was married to Kathryn Ish. He died on 18 June 2006 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
As might be said for the late and great comedians Harvey Korman and Madeline Kahn, it seems that Mel Brooks was the only director on the planet who knew how to best utilize this funnyman's talents on film. Brooks once remarked that, whenever he cast Dom in one of his films he'd add an extra two days to the shooting schedule because of delays between takes due to the constant laughter from cast and crew at Dom's improvisations.
The lovable, butterball comedian was a mainstay on 1960s and '70s TV variety as a "second banana," or comic-relief player. While his harsher critics believed his schtick would be better served in smaller doses, Dom nevertheless went on to find some range in a few moving, more restrained projects. Those few glimpses behind all the mirth and merriment revealed a dramatic actor waiting to be unleashed. As they say, behind every clown's smile, one finds tears.
He was born Dominick DeLuise on August 1, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, to parents John, a sanitation engineer, and Vicenza (DeStefano) DeLuise, both Italian immigrants. A natural school-class clown, his irrepressible sense of humor helped Dom fit in at school, and he started drawing belly laughs fairly young in his very first school play that had him portraying an inert copper penny! He later attended New York's High School of Performing Arts, but when it came to college, he decided to major in biology at Tufts University, outside Boston. That decision failed to expunge the idea of being a comedian from his head and heart, however, and that determination finally prevailed.
Dom's formative years as an actor were spent apprenticing at the Cleveland Playhouse, where which he gamely played roles in everything from contemporary shows like "Guys and Dolls" and "Stalag 17" to classics like "The School for Scandal" and even "Hamlet." He earned his first professional paycheck playing the titular Bernie the dog in "Bernie's Last Wish." Dom also got a taste of what it was like in front of the camera in Cleveland, appearing on the local TV kiddie's show "Tip Top Clubhouse."
Back in NYC, he took over the lead role of Tinker the toymaker in another children's local program, Tinker's Workshop (1954), for one season in 1958. He also started making noise on the off-Broadway scene. Appearing in the plays "The Jackass" and "All in Love," he became part of the featured ensemble of the 1961 musical revue "An Evening with Harry Stoones," which included 19-year-old Barbra Streisand. More outlandish musical roles came his way in the early 1960s with "Little Mary Sunshine" (as Corporal Billy Jester) and "The Student Gypsy, or the Prince of Liederkrantz" (his Broadway debut as Muffin T. Raggamuffin). While appearing in the lighthearted summer stock spoof "Summer & Smirk" in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Dom met fellow performer Carol Arthur (née Carol Arata). They married on November 23, 1965. Their three sons, Peter DeLuise, Michael DeLuise and David DeLuise all eventually found their way into show business. In 1971, Dom returned successfully to Broadway in a perfectly-suited Neil Simon vehicle, "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers."
Dom was first noticed on the smaller screen, creating the sketch character of Dominick the Great, a magician who tries in vain to mask his inept prestidigitations with feigned dignity on Garry Moore's popular show. The comedian truly thrived in this TV variety atmosphere and soon began popping up seemingly everywhere: (The Hollywood Palace (1964), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967), The Jackie Gleason Show (1966)). Balding, blushing, dimpled and moon-faced (comparisons to a ripe tomato were not wide of the mark), he was readily equipped with a high-wattage, Cheshire Cat smile that became his trademark. At his best, looking embarrassed or agitated, the laughs usually came at his own expense, whether playing a panic-stricken klutz or squirming nervous-Nelly type. Dom took his magician character to the ensemble comedy show The Entertainers (1964), which also showcased Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart, and found more regular employment as a bumbling private eye in puppeteer Shari Lewis' daytime children's program, and as a foil for Dean Martin on the entertainer's regular and summer replacement shows. Dom again repeated his Dominick the Great character on Martin's show and received great reception. He later found himself part of Martin's "in-crowd" of comedians on his "celebrity roasts."
Dom's obvious comic genius was more readily evident, and succeeded better, in tandem with other performers than it was on its own. Hosting duties for his very first comedy/variety program The Dom DeLuise Show (1968), which featured wife Carol as part of the regular roster, lasted only one summer. The sitcom Lotsa Luck! (1973), which showcased Dom as bachelor Stanley Belmont having to contend with a live-in mother (a harping Kathleen Freeman) and sister (an ungainly Beverly Sanders), was canceled after its first season. He gave it a rest for awhile before trying once again with the sketch-like sitcom The Dom DeLuise Show (1987), but it, too, quickly faded. Another brief stint was as host of a revamped Candid Camera (1991).
While Dom made an unlikely film debut as a high-strung Air Force technician in the gripping nuclear drama Fail Safe (1964) starring Henry Fonda, it was in zany, irreverent comedy that he found his true calling. Appearing in support of others such as Sid Caesar and Mary Tyler Moore, respectively, in the so-so comedies The Busy Body (1967) and What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968), he proved a delight as an inept, dim-witted spy in the Doris Day caper The Glass Bottom Boat (1966).
Mel Brooks first cast Dom as the miserly Russian Orthodox priest, Father Fyodor, in his film The Twelve Chairs (1970), and found plenty of room for the comedian after that -- as campy director Buddy Bizarre in Blazing Saddles (1974), the silly-ass director's assistant in Silent Movie (1976), Emperor Nero in History of the World: Part I (1981), the voice of the cheese-oozing Pizza the Hutt in the "Star Wars" parody Spaceballs (1987), and as Sherwood Forest's very own puffy-cheeked Godfather, Don Giovanni, in Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993).
A very close friend of action star Burt Reynolds, Dom romped through a number of Reynolds' freewheeling films as well, including Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). One of his finest scene-stealing film roles, in fact, was as Reynolds' schizo pal in The End (1978). Dom went on to direct a number of stage productions for his close friend at the Burt Reynolds Theatre in Jupiter, Florida -- among them "Butterflies Are Free," "Same Time, Next Year" (starring Burt and Carol Burnett), "Brighton Beach Memoirs" (starring son Peter), and the musical "Jump" (featuring wife Carol). Still another comic buddy, Gene Wilder, handed Dom the roles of the indulgent opera star in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975) and harassed movie mogul Adolf Zitz in The World's Greatest Lover (1977). Dom later joined Wilder once again, along with Wilder's wife Gilda Radner, in the leaden comedy Haunted Honeymoon (1986), a clumsy haunted-house spoof that even Dom, in full drag, could not salvage.
Change-of-pace roles were few and far between. One that did come Dom's way was the compulsive-eating protagonist in Fatso (1980). Directed by and co-starring Brooks' wife Anne Bancroft, Dom managed to mix comedy with pathos. Obesity was also a chronic, real-life problem for the comedian and, at one point in 1999, it was reported that he had tipped the scales at 325 lbs. On a positive note, this passion for food actually fed into a more lucrative sideline -- as a respected chef and culinary author ("Eat This" and "Eat This Too") in which he appeared all over the tube cooking and demonstrating his favorite recipes. He also found time to write children's books on the side.
Dom tackled broad comedy films with great abandon -- a wallflower he was not -- but they were hit-or-miss. Some of his biggest misses were the Mae West disaster Sextette (1977), the Dudley Moore showcase Wholly Moses! (1980) (although Dom was arguably the best thing in it), Loose Cannons (1990), in which he appeared as portly pornographer Harry "The Hippo" Gutterman, Driving Me Crazy (1991), which filmed far away in Germany, and The Silence of the Hams (1994), a parody on the horror genre in which he played Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza.
Films could also be a family affair. True to life, Dom played a sympathetic kiddie show host in the moving TV-movie Happy (1983). Also the executive producer, he was joined by wife Carol and all three sons in the cast. In addition, Dom offered a cameo in Between the Sheets (2003), a film written by Peter, directed, edited and executive-produced by Michael, and featuring roles for the rest of the family.
Dom's voiceover skills did not go untapped, either, in films including the animated features The Secret of NIMH (1982), An American Tail (1986) and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), plus all of their offshoots. The heavily-bearded DeLuise even displayed scene-stealing antics on the operatic scene, once playing the speaking part of Frosch the Jailer in Johann Srauss II's operetta "Die ," at the Metropolitan Opera.
Suffering from various physical ailments in later years, some of which were exacerbated by his chronic obesity and diabetes, Dom's health declined, and he died in 2009 at age 75. His wife and three children survive him, as do three grandchildren.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions.
He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinow on April 16, 1921 in Swiss Cottage, London, the son of Nadezhda Leontievna (née Benois) and Jona Freiherr von Ustinow. His father was of one-quarter Polish Jewish, one-half Russian, one-eighth Ethiopian, and one-eighth German descent, while his mother was of one-half Russian, one-quarter Italian, one-eighth French, and one-eighth German ancestry. Ustinov had ancestral connections to Russian nobility as well as to the Ethiopian Royal Family. His father, also known as "Klop Ustinov", was a pilot in the German Air Force during World War I. In 1919, Jona Freiherr von Ustinow joined his own mother and sister in St Petersburg, Russia, where he met his future wife, artist Nadia Benois, who worked for the Imperial Mariinsky Ballet and Opera House in St Petersburg.
In 1920, in a modest and discreet ceremony at a Russian-German church in St Petersburg, Ustinov's father married Nadia. In February 1921, when she was seven months pregnant with Peter, the couple emigrated from Russia in the aftermath of the Communist Revolution. Young Peter was brought up in a multilingual family. He was fluent in Russian, French, Italian and German, as well as English. He attended Westminster College (1934-37), took the drama and acting class under Michel St Denis at the London Theatre Studio (1937-39), and made his stage debut in 1938 at the Stage Theatre Club in Surrey. He wrote his first play at the age of 19. In 1939, he made his London stage debut in a revue sketch, then had regular performances with the Aylesbury Repertory Company. The following year, he made his film debut in Hullo, Fame! (1940).
From 1942-46, Ustinov served with the British Army's Royal Sussex Regiment. He was batman for David Niven, and the two became lifelong friends. Ustinov spent most of his service working with the Army Cinema Unit, where he was involved in making recruitment films, wrote plays and appeared in three films as an actor. At that time he co-wrote and acted in The Way Ahead (1944) (aka "The Immortal Battalion").
Ustinov had a stellar film career as actor, director, and writer. Among his numerous screen acting gems were his unparalleled, Academy Award-nominated interpretation of Nero in Quo Vadis (1951) and roles in Max Ophüls's masterpiece Lola Montès (1955), Barefoot in Athens (1966), The Comedians (1967), Robin Hood (1973) and Logan's Run (1976). He also wrote and directed such brilliant films as Billy Budd (1962), Lady L (1965) and Memed My Hawk (1984). He was awarded two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, one for his role in Spartacus (1960) and one for his role in Topkapi (1964), and received two more Oscar nominations as an actor and writer. His career slowed down a bit in the 1970s, but made a comeback as Hercule Poirot in Death on the Nile (1978) by director John Guillermin. In the 1980s, Ustinov recreated Poirot in several subsequent television movies and theatrical films, including Evil Under the Sun (1982) and Appointment with Death (1988), while his cinema work in the 1990s also includes his superb performance as Professor Gus Nikolais in George Miller's excellent dramatic film, Lorenzo's Oil (1992), a character partially inspired by Hugo Wolfgang Moser, a research scientist who had been director of the Neurogenetics Research Center at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University.
His expertise in dialectic and physical comedy made him a regular guest of talk show hosts and late-night comedians. His witty and multidimensional humor was legendary, and he later published a collection of his jokes and quotations summarizing his wide popularity as a raconteur. He was also an internationally acclaimed TV journalist. Ustinov covered over 100,000 miles and visited more than 30 Russian cities during the making of his well-received BBC television series Russia (1986).
In his autobiographies, "Dear Me" (1977) and "My Russia" (1996), Ustinov revealed his observations on his life, career, and his multicultural and multi-ethnic background. He wrote and directed numerous stage plays, successfully presenting them in several countries. His drama, "Photo Finish", was staged in New York, London and St. Petersburg, Russia, where Ustinov directed the acclaimed production, starring Elena Solovey and Petr Shelokhonov. Ustinov also served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and a president of WFM, a global citizens movement. Ustinov served as Rector of Dundee University for six years. He was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Royal Society of Arts in 1957 and was knighted in 1990.
From 1971 until his death in 2004, Ustinov's permanent residence was a château in Bursins, Vaud, Switzerland. He died of heart failure on March 28, 2004, in a clinic in Genolier, also in Vaud. His funeral service was held at Geneva's historic Cathedral of St. Pierre, and he was laid to rest in the village cemetery of Bursins. He was survived by three daughters (Tamara, Pavla, and Andrea) and one son (Igor). His epitaph may be gleaned from his comment, "I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World".- Veteran character actor John Marley was one of those familiar but nameless faces that television and filmgoers did not take a shine to until the late 1960s, when he had already hit middle age. Quite distinctive with his dour, craggy face, dark bushy brows and upswept silvery hair, John started life in Harlem, Manhattan, New York as Mortimer Marlieb on October 17, 1907. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, he was a City of New York College dropout heading for trouble when he avoided his omnipresent gangland trappings by joining a theater group.
His young, lackluster career was interrupted after joining the Army Signal Corps during World War II. Upon his return to civilian life, he pursued his acting interest and earned minor roles in the Broadway plays "Skipper Next to God" (1948), "An Enemy of the People" (1950), "Gramercy Ghost" (1951) and "Dinosaur Wharf" (1951). Looking for on-camera work at the same time, Marley obtained atmospheric bits (crooks, reporters, cabbies, etc.) in such post-war films as Kiss of Death (1947), The Naked City (1948), Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950) and Guilty Bystander (1950).
In the mid-1950s, Marley started slowly moving up into featured roles that were often ethnic (Greek, Italian) in origin. He appeared in a number of TV anthologies such as "Colgate Theatre," "Philco Television Playhouse," "Armstrong Circle Theatre," "Omnibus," "Goodyear Playhouse," "The Alcoa Hour" and "Robert Montgomery Presents." As for film work, he seemed best suited for urban drama, earning roles in The Mob (1951), My Six Convicts (1952), The Joe Louis Story (1953), The Square Jungle (1955) and I Want to Live! (1958).
Finding stronger roles on Broadway with "The Strong Are Lonely" (1953), "Sing Till Tomorrow," Marley went on to appear in "Compulsion" (1957) and "The Investigation" (1966). In the late 1950s he became a steady, sobering presence playing both sides of the legal fence with guest parts on "The Red Skelton Show," "The Jackie Gleason Show," "The Phil Silvers," "Cheyenne," "Peter Gunn," "Rawhide," "Maverick," "Hawaiian Eye," "The Untouchables," "Sea Hunt," "Perry Mason," "Dr. Kildare," "The Twilight Zone," "Gunsmoke," "The Wild, Wild West" and "Peyton Place." He was an infrequent player, however, on films -- Pay or Die! (1960), A Child Is Waiting (1963), The Wheeler Dealers (1963), America America (1963) and as Jane Fonda's father in the comedy western Cat Ballou (1965).
A stage director on the side, Marley finally earned acclaim for his starring role as a middle-aged husband who leaves his long-time wife Lynn Carlin for another woman Gena Rowlands in John Cassavetes' stark, improvisational indie Faces (1968). HIs intense, sterling work in the social drama earned him the Venice Film Festival Award for "Best Actor." Thereafter he became more in demand, earning Oscar and Golden Globe support nominations as Ali MacGraw's mournful, blue-collar dad in the box-office smash Love Story (1970) and cult fame as the mouthy movie titan who becomes unexpected bedmates with a horse's head after refusing Mafia Don Marlon Brando's offer in the Oscar-winning epic The Godfather (1972). Thanks to those two pictures alone, Marley, now in his mid-60s, would become a sturdy Hollywood fixture, although none of his subsequent roles would measure up to the importance or fame of the last three pictures mentioned.
Marley was seen frequently on '70s and '80s TV, including "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," "Hawaii Five-O," "SCTV Network," "The Incredible Hulk" and "Hardcastle McCormick," and also played Moses in the TV biblical series Greatest Heroes of the Bible (1978). On film, he found work as a sheriff who becomes victim to the murderous title vehicle in The Car (1977); a doctor in The Paris Hat (1908)'s life's drama The Greatest (1977); a father figure producer to aging stuntman Burt Reynolds in Hooper (1978); a business partner to Jack Lemmon's talent agent in Tribute (1980), for which he won a Canadian "Genie" Award; a blackmailing journalist in the crime thriller The Amateur (1981); and an wilderness dweller in the adventure drama Mother Lode (1982). Marley's last film, the marathon sporting drama On the Edge (1985), was released posthumously.
John died on May 22, 1984, following open-heart surgery at age 76. He was survived by second wife, script supervisor Every Move You Make: Part 2 (1992) and his four children, three of them by first wife, TV actress Allergic to Macedonian Dodo Birds (1967). - Actor
- Writer
- Director
Bushy-browed, triple-chinned and plummy-voiced English actor and raconteur of wide girth and larger-than-life personality. The son of a career army officer, Morley was expected to join the diplomatic corps. As a 'compromise', he tried his hand as a beer salesman. However, bitten by the acting bug since first performing in a kindergarten play, he prevailed over the wishes of his parents and enrolled at RADA. He made his theatrical debut at London's Strand Theatre, in a 1929 production of "Treasure Island", playing the part of a pirate for $5 a week. During the next few years, Morley honed his craft by touring regional theatres, writing or co-writing the occasional play, and, when money was hard to come by, selling vacuum cleaners. For a while, he managed his own repertory company in tandem with fellow actor Peter Bull in the Cornish seaside resort of Perranporth. Morley eventually returned to the London stage in a much acclaimed performance as "Oscar Wilde", a role he took to Broadway in October 1938.
On the strength of this, he was invited to Hollywood and garnered an Oscar nomination for his first screen role as the effete, simple-minded monarch Louis XVI, in MGM's lavish production of Marie Antoinette (1938). Back in Britain, he then played the armaments millionaire Andrew Undershaft in George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara (1941), a performance praised by Bosley Crowther as "deliciously satanic, profoundly suave and tender" (NY Times, May 15 1941). Happily managing to avoid military participation in the Second World War, Morley spent the remainder of the decade acting in such prestigious theatrical showpieces as "The Man Who Came to Dinner", and as star and co-author of "Edward, My Son". His defining performance in the play led the critic Brooks Atkinson to comment on his "studied authority ... which might sound like an affectation in an actor of inferior style"(NY Times, June 4 1992).
Morley acted on screen in a variety of very British, sometimes eccentric, sometimes giddy, often pompous, but rarely dislikeable characters. At his best, he was the expatriate Elmer Almayer, at once pitiable and overbearing, in Outcast of the Islands (1951); the Sydney Greenstreet parody Peterson in John Huston's Beat the Devil (1953); as another languid monarch, George III in the colourful period drama Beau Brummell (1954); as Oscar Wilde (1960), recreating his original stage triumph; and as a food critic in the hugely enjoyable Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978). He also performed occasionally in TV movies and miniseries. His wit was much appreciated on chat shows, both in Britain and the U.S., where was a frequent and popular guest. He was also the voice of British Airways in commercials of the 70's and early 80's, promising "we'll take good care of you" -- something he did with his acting for over half a century. Robert Morley was awarded a CBE in 1957. He died as the result of a stroke in Reading, Berkshire, at the age of 84.- Fair complexioned, cold-eyed actor Richard Bright notched up an impressive array of character performances of often shifty, or deadly characters on the wrong side of the law. He first came to attention as a burglar in the engrossing The Panic in Needle Park (1971), and then followed it the following year playing a slick con artist hustling naive Ali MacGraw for the bank robbery loot in The Getaway (1972), before Steve McQueen pummels Bright to get the money back.
In 1972, he made his first appearance as bodyguard/enforcer "Al Neri", protecting Al Pacino in The Godfather (1972), and returned in the same role in The Godfather Part II (1974) and, 16 years later, he was back once again still protecting mob boss Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III (1990). The actor's features endeared him to casting agents looking for both criminals and cops. He also appeared in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Sam Raimi's crazy Crimewave (1985), the union tale Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story (1992) and Witness to the Mob (1998). In addition, he appeared regularly on TV in police/drama shows such as Hill Street Blues (1981), Houston Knights (1987), Third Watch (1999) and The Sopranos (1999). - Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Lead and supporting actor of the American stage and films, with sandy colored hair, and pale complexion. He won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Deer Hunter (1978), and has been seen in mostly character roles, often portraying psychologically unstable individuals, though that generalization would not do justice to Walken's depth and breadth of performances.
Walken was born in Astoria, Queens, New York. His mother, Rosalie (Russell), was a Scottish emigrant, from Glasgow. His father, Paul Wälken, was a German emigrant, from Horst, who ran Walken's bakery. Christopher learned his stage craft, including dancing, at Hofstra University & ANTA, and picked up a Theatre World award for his performance in the revival of the Tennessee Williams play "The Rose Tattoo". Walken then first broke through into cinema in 1969 appearing in Me and My Brother (1968), before appearing alongside Sean Connery in the sleeper heist movie The Anderson Tapes (1971). His eclectic work really came to the attention of critics in 1977 with his intense portrayal of Diane Keaton suicidal younger brother in Annie Hall (1977), and then he scooped the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award in 1977 for his role as Nick in the electrifying The Deer Hunter (1978). Walken was lured back by The Deer Hunter (1978) director Michael Cimino for a role in the financially disastrous western Heaven's Gate (1980), before moving onto surprise audiences with his wonderful dance skills in Pennies from Heaven (1981), taking the lead as a school teacher with telepathic abilities in the Stephen King inspired The Dead Zone (1983) and then as billionaire industrialist Max Zorin trying to blow up Silicon Valley in the 007 adventure A View to a Kill (1985). Looking at many of Walken's other captivating screen roles, it is easy to see the diversity of his range and even his droll comedic talents with humorous appearances in Biloxi Blues (1988), Wayne's World 2 (1993), Joe Dirt (2001), Mousehunt (1997) and America's Sweethearts (2001). Most recently, he continued to surprise audiences again with his work as a heart broken and apologetic father to Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can (2002).An icon and often a lead, but has been sterling in loads of character roles.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
George Gaynes was born in Helsinki in May, 1917, which was then the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland. The Grand Duchy was part of the Russian Empire, which was in a state of collapse at the time of Gaynes' birth. The Emperor Nicholas II of Russia had abdicated the throne on March 15, two months prior to Gaynes' birth, and the Empire was in the process of splintering.
His family left the country, and George was primarily raised in France, England, and Switzerland. Neither of his parents was Finnish. His father Gerrit Jongejans was a Dutch businessman, and his mother Iya Grigorievna de Gay was a Russian artist. George attended college in the vicinity of Lausanne, Switzerland and graduated in 1937. He then attended a music school in Milan, Italy for about a year.
In 1940, George Gaynes was living in France, during the time of the Battle of France in World War II. The Battle ended in defeat for the French Third Republic and the country was occupied by Nazi Germany. George attempted to flee the occupation authorities, by crossing the Pyrenees mountains into neutral Spain. He was arrested by the Spanish authorities for illegally crossing the border, but was soon released.
In 1943, George joined the Royal Netherlands Navy. With the Netherlands under German occupation, the headquarters of the Navy had moved to London, in the United Kingdom. George had no previous military experience, but he was noticed for multilingual skills. He fluently spoke Dutch, English, French, Italian and Russian. He was soon detached to the (British) Royal Navy to serve as a translator.
During his naval service in World War II, George took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily, the Battle of Anzio in the Italian Campaign, and the Adriatic Campaign. The War ended in 1945 and George was honorably discharged in July, 1946. His highest military rank was that of a sergeant.
In 1946, George briefly returned to living in France. He was approached by an American theater director with the offer to play a part in a musical. He took the offer and moved to New York City, where he started appearing in Broadway musicals. He applied for American citizenship and officially became a citizen in 1948.
From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, George Gaynes was primarily a theatrical actor. His roles included various musicals, dramas, and comedies. One of his better-known roles was that of Henry Higgins in the theatrical version of ''My Fair Lady'', which went on a successful tour in 1964.
In the early 1960s, George started appearing as a character actor in various television series. He was also offered a number of film roles. His career unexpectedly took off in the 1980s, with a major part in the television series Punky Brewster (1985) and another one in the then-popular film series "Police Academy" from 1984 to 1994. In Police Academy (1984), his role was that of Commandant Eric Lassard, the titular leader of the Academy. He played the role in all 7 films of the series, though he only had a featured part in the fifth film. This was probably his most memorable role and gained him celebrity recognition for the first time.
In the 1990s, his career slowed down again, with only a few film appearances. He only played in a single film through the 2000s, Just Married (2003), and then retired. He was 86-years-old and could no longer play physically demanding roles. He spend 13 years in retirement before he died of natural causes in 2016."Does Jeff Know?"- Actor
- Writer
Fulton Mackay was born on August 12, 1922 in Paisley, Scotland. He was an actor and writer, best known for his portrayal of authoritarian prison warder Mr Mackay in one of the BBC's most popular sitcoms, Porridge (1974), as well as appearing in Local Hero (1983), Defense of the Realm (1985) and Doing Time (1979). He was married to Sheila Manahan. He died on June 6, 1987 in London, England.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Len Lesser was an American character actor, from the Bronx, New York City. His most famous role was that of Uncle Leo, the maternal uncle of protagonist Jerry Seinfeld in the sitcom "Seinfield". Lesser played this role from 1991 to the series finale in 1998.
Lesser was the son of a Polish-Jewish immigrant, who worked as a grocer in New York City. Lesser was educated at the City College of New York. He graduated in 1942 with a bachelor's degree, at the age of 19. Shortly after, Lesser enlisted in the United States Army which was mobilizing for World War II. He served in the China Burma India Theater of the War.
Lesser was primarily a theatrical actor until the mid-1950s. From 1955 onward, he appeared regularly on television series in minor or guest star roles. He also appeared as a character actor in films such as "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962), "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" (1965), and "Kelly's Heroes" (1970).
Lesser did not achieve a regular role until cast as Uncle Leo in "Seinfeld", at the age of 69. Afterwards he was cast in the recurring role of Garvin in the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" (1996-2005). Both Uncle Leo and Garvin were friendly and overly enthusiastic acquaintances of the respective protagonists of each sitcom. For the first time in his career, Lesser became a household name with these sitcom roles.
In his last years, Lesser was struggling with cancer. He died of cancer-related pneumonia in 2011, at the age of 88. His former cast-mate Jerry Seinfield mourned his death and described Lesser as "a very sweet guy".- Actor
- Director
- Editor
John Carroll Lynch was born August 1, 1963 in Boulder, Colorado, and was raised in Denver. It was there John found a passion for acting and became a Denver Broncos fan. He graduated in the mid-80s with a B.F.A. in theatre from the The Catholic University of America / Hartke Theatre Acting program. From then, he continued to work in theatre around the country, but concentrated mostly on his work at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, acting in many plays from Shakespeare to Shaw to Chekhov. In the early nineties, John was able to find time away from the theatre to work in film, as productions came through Minnesota. In 1996, he received critical acclaim for his role as Marge Gunderson's simple husband Norm Gunderson in Fargo (1996). He went on to make two more films that year, both of which were conveniently set in Minnesota, the acclaimed Beautiful Girls (1996) and Feeling Minnesota (1996). Since then, John's film career has been on an amazing climb. Much like other well respected actors from the theatre, such as John Malkovich and Gary Sinise, he chooses to play very interesting and diverse roles.- Ji-Tu Cumbuka is one of the many U.S. African actors who overcame walls of adversity in the 60s. Born in Montgomery County, Alabama on March fourth, 1940 in an era of oppression, Ji-Tu did not let social norms hold him back from what he loved. Opportunities were slim; a U.S. African actor of the 40s and 50s held roles as house maids or were confined to the parody roles of minstrel shows. Being born in a society of black and white, Ji-Tu defined what the basis of the Civil Rights Movement was.
He saw his first movie "Shane" at the age of twelve years old which stimulated his desire to become an actor. Receiving discouragement from all sides, from teachers laughing at his aspirations and suggesting he be more realistic to his father, a Baptist minister who believed acting was "the devil's work". Inspired by his mother who believed he could achieve any dream with God's help, he left home and moved to New York. After several difficult years he joined the Army where he played football and ran track. Ji-Tu made All-Army in both sports. He was offered many college scholarships, but chose to attend Texas Southern University. After Texas Southern he felt it was time to move to California to continue to pursue his acting dreams. While working as an actor, Ji-Tu continued his education earning a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and a Masters Degree in Cinematography.
After three years of attending acting classes and acting in community plays and workshops he landed his first top role in the movie "Uptight" directed by the late director Jules Dassin. Cumbuka is famed for roles in movies such as the epic film "Roots", "Harlem Nights", "Brewster's Millions", "Mandingo" and "Bound for Glory", as well as minor appearances in thirty other films. In television, Cumbuka is acclaimed for roles in major shows as "Knots Landing", "The A-Team", "The Dukes of Hazard", "Walker Texas Ranger" and "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation". In total Ji-Tu has appeared in over a hundred films and television series.
Ji-Tu Cumbuka's journey is a reflection of fiery passion and strength that will burn everlasting. He is the author of several screenplays and is presently pursuing opportunities as a writer, producer and director. - Burly, coarse, raspy-voiced Mike Kellin was often cast as a tough cop, gangster, or soldier, usually a corporal or sergeant, so it may be surprising to some that during his stint in the US Navy during World War II he was a Lieutenant Commander.
Though he seemed to be straight out of the tenements of New York City, he was born in upscale Hartford, Connecticut, and received his education at Boston College. After his discharge from the Navy, he enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. He appeared in more than 50 plays, winning an Obie award and being nominated for a Tony. He made his film debut in the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy At War with the Army (1950)--as, of course, a sergeant. He turned in a first-rate performance as a tough infantry soldier with a soft spot for a young Polish refugee in the WWII film Hell Is for Heroes (1962). He died of cancer in Nyack, New York, in 1983. - 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.
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Rip Torn was born Elmore Rual Torn Jr. on February 6, 1931 in Temple, Texas, the son of Thelma Mary (Spacek) and Elmore Rudolph Torn, who was an agriculturalist and economist, credited with popularizing the custom of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. "Rip" is a family name, taken by generations of Torn men and bestowed on Elmore by his father, who was also called "Rip." He was of German, Austrian, Bohemian, and Moravian descent. His mother was an elder sister of actress Sissy Spacek's father, Edwin Spacek.
Torn attended Texas A&M and the University of Texas, where he joined Sigma Chi Fraternity. He majored in animal husbandry. Extremely naïve when he was young, Torn hitchhiked to Hollywood with the idea of becoming a movie star; he wanted to make enough money in order to buy a ranch. Success did not come overnight, as he had hoped, and Torn had to work many odd jobs while occasionally being cast in television roles. He made his feature film debut in Elia Kazan's Baby Doll (1956) in a small part.
Serious about learning his craft, he moved to New York City where he studied under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Torn also studied dance with Martha Graham. His serious acting career began on the small screen, where he made a name for himself in the Golden Age of Television; between 1957 and 1960, he appeared regularly on such prestigious live shows as Omnibus (1952) and Playhouse 90 (1956).
Torn made his Broadway debut in Kazan's staging of Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" on March 10, 1959, in support of Paul Newman, Sidney Blackmer and Geraldine Page, who would become his second wife. The play was a hit, closing on January 30, 1960 after 375 performances. He won a 1960 Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Play and a Theater World award for his role as "Tom, Jr.", a role he recreated in the 1962 film. (Torn also starred as "Boss Finley" in a later television adaptation of the play).
Torn earned a reputation as an actor's actor on stage, both Broadway and off-Broadway, as well as on screen. He continued to work in the New York theater despite his demanding TV and movie schedule as both an actor and director. He won two Obie awards for his work off-Broadway, for Distinguished Performance in Norman Mailer's "The Deer Park" (for the 1966-67 season), and for Distinguished Direction for "The Beard" (1967-68). He had his own stage company, and directed his daughter Angelica Page (by Geraldine Page) in John Paul Alexander's "Strangers in the Land of Canaan" at the Actors Studio. Torn made his feature film directorial debut with The Telephone (1988).
He was constantly in demand as a character actor, in supporting, second lead and occasional lead roles. Arguably his best performance on film came in Payday (1973), and he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for Cross Creek (1983). Most of Torn's roles were in drama, though he was adept at comedy. His role in Albert Brooks' comedy Defending Your Life (1991) led to his being cast in The Larry Sanders Show (1992), on which he played talk show producer "Artie." Torn won six consecutive Emmy nominations for the role, winning once for Best Supporting Actor in a comedy series in 1996.
Torn was married to actress Ann Wedgeworth from 1956-61, whom he divorced to marry Geraldine Page. They remained married until her death in 1987. He was married to Amy Wright until his death. Torn helped his first cousin, Oscar-winner Sissy Spacek, to make her way as an actress, seeing to it that she was accepted by the Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and then the Lee Strasberg Institute.
Rip Torn died in on July 9, 2019 in Lakeville, Connecticut, aged 88.- Blustery, stocky, loud although often genial character actor who has created a niche for himself playing often frustrated and fast talking Southern characters... most noticeably as Sheriff J.W. Pepper alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond adventures Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
He may have perfected a Southern drawl, however Clifton James was actually born on May 29, 1921 in Spokane, Washington. A graduate of the Actors Studio, he regularly appeared in guest roles on television series, including Gunsmoke (1955), Bonanza (1959) and The Virginian (1962). He was also busy in the cinema with minor roles in classy productions, such as Cool Hand Luke (1967), Will Penny (1967) and The New Centurions (1972). After his 007 escapades, James remained busy putting in a great dramatic performance in The Deadly Tower (1975), played another loud-mouthed Sheriff in the action comedy Silver Streak (1976) and was superb as team owner Charles Comiskey in the dramatization of the 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal, Eight Men Out (1988).
His other roles include that of a wealthy Montana baron whose cattle are being rustled in Rancho Deluxe (1975), and as the source who tips off a newspaper reporter (Bruce Willis) to a potentially explosive story in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990). He had been quieter in his later years, but showed he could still contribute an enjoyable performance in the wonderful John Sayles movie Sunshine State (2002). James died at age 96 from complications of diabetes at his home in Gladstone, Oregon on April 15, 2017. - Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Leslie William Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and raised in Tulita (formerly Fort Norman), Northwest Territories. His mother, Mabel Elizabeth (Davies), was Welsh. His father, Ingvard Eversen Nielsen, was a Danish-born Mountie and a strict disciplinarian. Leslie studied at the Academy of Radio Arts in Toronto before moving on to New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. His acting career started at a much earlier age when he was forced to lie to his father in order to avoid severe punishment. Leslie starred in over fifty films and many more television films. One of his two brothers became the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. On October 10, 2002, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) in recognition of his contributions to the film and television industries. On November 28, 2010, Leslie Nielsen died at age 84 of pneumonia and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.- Burton Gilliam was born on 9 August 1938 in Dallas, Texas, USA. He is an actor, known for Blazing Saddles (1974), Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Paper Moon (1973). He has been married to Susan Michelle Sandlin since 17 December 1975. He was previously married to Sheila Katherine Brown, Carolyn M. Reed and Kathryn Diane Miles.
- Peter McRobbie was born on 31 January 1943 in Hawick, Borders, Scotland, UK. He is an actor, known for The Visit (2015), Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Lincoln (2012). He has been married to Charlotte Susan Bova since 10 September 1977. They have two children.
- Slim Pickens spent the early part of his career as a real cowboy and the latter part playing cowboys, and he is best remembered for a single "cowboy" image: that of bomber pilot Maj. "King" Kong waving his cowboy hat rodeo-style as he rides a nuclear bomb onto its target in the great black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Born in Kingsburg, near Fresno in California's Central Valley, he spent much of his boyhood in nearby Hanford, where he began rodeoing at the age of 12. Over the next two decades he toured the country on the rodeo circuit, becoming a highly-paid and well-respected rodeo clown, a job that entailed enormous danger. In 1950, at the age of 31, Slim married Margaret Elizabeth Harmon and that same year he was given a role in a western, Rocky Mountain (1950). He quickly found a niche in both comic and villainous roles in that genre. With his hoarse voice and pronounced western twang, he was not always easy to cast outside the genre, but when he was, as in "Dr. Strangelove", the results were often memorable. He died in 1983 after a long and courageous battle against a brain tumor. He was survived by his wife Margaret and children.
- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
As a child growing up in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Ernie Hudson wrote short stories, poems and songs, always thinking that his words might one day come to life on stage. After a short stint in the Marine Corps, he moved to Detroit where he became the resident playwright at Concept East, the oldest black theatre in the country. In addition, he enrolled at Wayne State University to further develop his writing and acting skills and found time to establish the Actors' Emsemble Theatre, where he and other talented young black writers directed and appeared in their own works. After graduating with a B.A. from Wayne State, he was rewarded a full scholarship to the M.F.A. program at the prestigious Yale School of Drama. While performing with the school's repertory company, he was asked to appear in the Los Angeles production of Lonne Elder III's musical "Daddy Goodness," which led to his meeting Gordon Parks, who gave Hudson the costarring role in his first feature film, Leadbelly (1976). Unfortunately, all that followed "Leadbelly" was a year of "bit parts and some harsh lessons about Hollywood," which led Hudson to enroll in another academic doctorate program at the University of Minnesota. He did not complete the program. Through his experience, he learned another vital lesson: "There are those who spend their lives studying it and those who spend their lives doing it." Hudson definitely wanted to be in the second group. Keeping in mind this self-revelation, Hudson accepted the starring role of Jack Jefferson in the Minneapolis Theatre In The Round's production of "The Great White Hope," a role that he put "everything he had into," including shaving his head. A series of starring and guest roles followed on such television shows as Fantasy Island (1977), The Incredible Hulk (1978), Little House on the Prairie (1974), Diff'rent Strokes (1978), Taxi (1978), One Day at a Time (1975), Gimme a Break! (1981), The A-Team (1983) and Webster (1983), as well as costarring roles in the TV movies White Mama (1980) with Bette Davis, Roots: The Next Generations (1979), Women of San Quentin (1983), California Girls (1985), Mad Bull (1977) and Love on the Run (1985). Other feature film credits include The Jazz Singer (1980), The Main Event (1979), Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983), Penitentiary II (1982), Going Berserk (1983), Joy of Sex (1984) and, of course, the mega-hit Ghostbusters (1984).- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Towering 7' 2" tall actor who cornered the market on playing giants, intimidating henchmen, bayou swamp monsters and steel toothed villains! Kiel worked in numerous jobs including as a night club bouncer and a cemetery plot salesman, before breaking into film & TV in several minor roles in the late 1950s / early 1960s. Noted among these was the alien "Kanamit" in the classic The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "To Serve Man", and terrorizing Arch Hall Jr. while clad in a loincloth in the prehistoric caveman meets virile teenage drama Eegah (1962).
Kiel turned up in two episodes of the classic horror TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974). On one occasion playing a Native American evil spirit with the ability to transform into various animals. On his second appearance, Kiel was unrecognizable as a Spanish moss covered, Louisiana swamp monster brought to life by a patient involved in deep sleep therapy.
However, his biggest break came in 1977 when he was cast as the unstoppable, steel toothed henchman "Jaws" in the finest Roger Moore film of the Bond series The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Such was Kiel's popularity with movie audiences, that his character was brought back for the next Bond outing Moonraker (1979). However, audiences were quite split on opinions when Kiel's "Jaws" character changes sides near the film's conclusion and assists 007, Roger Moore, in saving the Earth.
Over the next few years, Kiel appeared in relatively non-demanding comedy or fantasy type films taking advantage of his physical stature and presence. Kiel then decided to try his hand behind the camera and co-wrote and produced, plus took the lead role, in the well received family movie The Giant of Thunder Mountain (1990). Demand for Kiel's unique attributes dropped very sharply in the 1990's, leading to only a handful of roles including reprising his "Jaws" character in the Matthew Broderick film Inspector Gadget (1999). In 2002, Kiel penned his informative autobiography entitled "Making it BIG in the movies". He passed away in 2014.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Dub Taylor was born on 26 February 1907 in Richmond, Virginia, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Getaway (1972), The Wild Bunch (1969) and You Can't Take It with You (1938). He was married to Florence Gertrude Heffernan. He died on 3 October 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Character actor Kenneth McMillan was born on July 2, 1932 in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to becoming an actor, McMillan was a manager at Gimbels Department Store. At age 30, McMillan decided to pursue an acting career. He attended the LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts and took acting lessons from Uta Hagen and Irene Dailey. He made his film debut at age 41 with a small role in Sidney Lumet's superbly gritty police drama Serpico (1973). Portly and ruddy-faced, with an often aggressive and cantankerous demeanor, McMillan was usually cast as gruff, hostile and unfriendly characters. McMillan's most notable parts include the borough commander in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), a cowardly small-town sheriff in Tobe Hooper's excellent miniseries Salem's Lot (1979), William Hurt's bitter paraplegic father in Eyewitness (1981), a racist fire chief in Ragtime (1981), a wily old safecracker in The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), the vile and grotesquely obese Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Dune (1984), Aidan Quinn's pathetic drunken father in Reckless (1984) and a sleazy high-roller gambler in "The Ledge" episode of the hugely enjoyable horror anthology Cat's Eye (1985).
Moreover, McMillan was equally adept at comedy, giving especially funny and engaging performances as a baseball club manager in Blue Skies Again (1983), Meg Ryan's corrupt police chief father in Armed and Dangerous (1986), and a dotty senile veterinarian in Three Fugitives (1989). McMillan had a steady recurring role as Valerie Harper's irate boss on the situation comedy Rhoda (1974). Among the television series McMillan guest-starred on are Dark Shadows (1966), Ryan's Hope (1975), Kojak (1973), Starsky and Hutch (1975), The Rockford Files (1974), Moonlighting (1985), Magnum, P.I. (1980) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). Outside of his substantial film and television credits, McMillan also frequently performed on stage at the New York Shakespeare Festival. He acted in the original Broadway productions of "Streamers" and "American Buffalo". He won an Obie for his performance in the off-Broadway play, "Weekends Like Other People". Kenneth McMillan died of liver disease at age 56 on January 8, 1989 in Santa Monica, California.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Stephen Root, one of today's most prolific character actors, is currently starring in HBO's hit series Barry, for which he received a Best Supporting Actor Emmy Nomination. Barry has been nominated for multiple Emmy's and Golden Globes, and has been renewed through season four. Stephen recently starred in Amazon's drama Uncle Frank (2020) and plays a role in the Michael Morris feature directorial debut To Leslie (2020).
Stephen starred opposite of Nicole Kidman in the Roger Ailes, Fox News sexual harassment scandal, Bombshell (2019). Stephen a pivotal role in the AFI Film Festival winner On the Basis Sex (2018), the Ruth Bader Ginsberg biopic and starred opposite Melissa McCarthy in the New Line hit comedy Life of the Party (2018). Stephen was also part of the talented ensemble in Netflix's The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), reuniting with directors Joel & Ethan Coen. Stephen was part of Jordan Peele's box office hit Get Out (2017). Aside from his feature films, Stephen can be seen in his recurring role on HBO's drama Perry Mason (2020), also renewed for a second season, and Amazon's hit drama series The Man in the High Castle (2015).
Root has earned rave reviews for bringing a variety of characters to life in such films as O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Selma (2014), No Country for Old Men (2007), Leatherheads (2008), J. Edgar (2011), Cedar Rapids (2011), and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004). He was catapulted into the realm of cult hero when he starred as the put-upon Milton Waddams in Mike Judge's Office Space (1999). His animated features include Rango (2011), Finding Nemo (2003), Finding Dory (2016), Ice Age (2002) & Ice Age: The Melt Down (2006), and The Country Bears (2002).
Root starred as the eccentric station owner, Jimmy James, for five seasons on NBC's NewsRadio (1995-99). Stephen has also recurred on FX's Justified (2010), Boardwalk Empire (2010), Turn: Washington's Spies (2014), Idiotsitter (2016), True Blood (2008), 24 (2001), West Wing (1999) and Pushing Daisies (2007). His many memorable guest appearances include Veep (2012), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2017), Big Bang Theory (2018), Angie Tribeca (2016), Fringe (2008), Raising Hope (2010), Children's Hospital (2010), CSI (2000), and Louie (2010).
Root was the voice of Bill Dauterieve and Mr. Strickland on FOX's Emmy-winning hit animated series King of the Hill (1997) for an impressive 13 seasons. He has also lent his voice to several animated series including Kevin Smith's revival of Masters of the Universe (2021), Amphibia (2019), BoJack Horseman (2019), Adventure Time (2010), Gravity Falls (2012), American Dad (2005), The Cleveland Show (2009), DreamWorks' Dragons: Riders of Berk (2012), Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness (2011), The X's (2005), and SyFy's Tripping the Rift (2004).
Born in Sarasota, Root received his initial training in the BFA program at the University of Florida and remains a die-hard Gators fan. After three years of touring the U.S. and Canada with the National Shakespeare Company, Root settled in New York, honing his craft in many regional theaters and starring off-Broadway in Journey's End and The Au Pair Man. His Broadway debut came in So Long on Lonely Street, which was followed by the Tony award-winning production of All My Sons, with Richard Kiley. A starring role as Boolie in the Broadway national touring company of Driving Miss Daisy with Julie Harris, brought Root to Los Angeles where he currently resides.- Actor
- Soundtrack
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.- Dark-haired, Ivy League-looking Bradford Dillman, whose white-collar career spanned nearly five decades, possessed charm and confident good looks that were slightly tainted by a bent smile, darting glance and edgy countenance that often provoked suspicion. Sure enough, the camera picked up on it and he played shady, highly suspect characters throughout most of his career.
The actor was born in San Francisco on April 14, 1930, to Dean and Josephine Dillman. Yale-educated, he graduated with a B.A. in English Literature. Following this he served with the US Marines in Korea (1951-1953) before focusing on acting as a profession. Studying at the Actors Studio, he spent several seasons apprenticing with the Sharon (CT) Playhouse before making his professional acting debut in "The Scarecrow" in 1953.
Dillman took his initial Broadway bow in Eugene O'Neill's play "Long Day's Journey Into Night" in 1956, originating the author's alter ego character Edmund Tyrone and winning a Theatre World Award in the process. This success put him squarely on the map and 20th Century-Fox took immediate advantage by placing the darkly handsome up-and-comer under contract. Cast in the melodrama A Certain Smile (1958), he earned a Golden Globe for "Most Promising Newcomer" playing a Parisian student who loses his girl (Christine Carère) to the worldly Italian roué Rossano Brazzi. He followed this with a strong ensemble appearance in In Love and War (1958), which featured a cast of young rising stars including Hope Lange and Robert Wagner. More acting honors followed after completing the film Compulsion (1959), which told the true story of the infamous 1920s kidnapping/murder case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. He went on to share a "Best Actor" award at the Cannes Film Festival with fellow co-stars Dean Stockwell, who played the other youthful murderer, and veteran Orson Welles.
Though he was a magnetic player poised for stardom, Dillman's subsequent films failed to serve him well and were generally unworthy of his talent. Though properly serious and stoic as the title character in Francis of Assisi (1961), the film itself was stilted and weakly scripted. Circle of Deception (1960) was a misguided tale of espionage and intrigue, but it did introduce him to his second wife, supermodel-cum-actress Suzy Parker. While A Rage to Live (1965) with Suzanne Pleshette was trashy soap material, The Plainsman (1966) was rather a silly, juvenile version of the Gary Cooper western classic. As a result of these missteps--and others--he began to top-line lesser quality projects or play supporting roles in "A" pictures. His nothing role as Robert Redford's college pal-turned Hollywood producer in The Way We Were (1973) and his major roles in the ludicrous The Swarm (1978) and Lords of the Deep (1989) became proof in the pudding. His last good film role was in O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1973), although he did play an interesting John Wilkes Booth in the speculative re-enactment drama The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977) and had a fun leading role in the Jaws (1975)-like spoof Piranha (1978).
Dillman bore up very well on TV over the years, subsisting on a plethora of mini-movies and guest spots on popular series, playing everything from turncoats to frauds and from adulterers to psychotics. He earned a Daytime Emmy for his appearance in Last Bride of Salem (1974) and starred in two series--Court Martial (1965), as a military lawyer, and King's Crossing (1982), as an alcoholic parent and teacher attempting to straighten out. He also spent a season on the established nighttime soap Falcon Crest (1981) in 1982.
A narrator, director and teacher of acting in later years. Bradford launched a late-in-the career sideline as an author. The football fan inside him compelled him to write "Inside the New York Giants" (1995), a book that rated players drafted by the team since 1967. Two years later he published his memoirs, the curiously-titled "Are You Somebody?: An Actor's Life." He retired from the screen after a few guest star shots on "Murder, She Wrote" in the mid-90s.
From 1956 to 1962, Dillman was married to Frieda Harding, and had two children, Jeffrey and Pamela. Following their divorce, he met well-known model-turned-actress Suzy Parker during the production of Circle of Deception (1960) and the couple married on April 20, 1963. They had three children, Dinah, Charles, and Christopher. Daughter Pamela Dillman has worked as an actress. Dillman was made a widower when Parker died on May 3, 2003. He lived for many years in Montecito, California, and helped raise money for medical research. He died in Santa Barbara, California on January 16, 2018, aged 87, from complications of pneumonia. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Born in 1919 in Jerusalem, Nehemiah Persoff emigrated with his family to America in 1929.
Following schooling at the Hebrew Technical Institute of New York, he found a job as a subway electrician doing signal maintenance until an interest in the theater altered the direction of his life.
He joined amateur groups and subsequently won a scholarship to the Dramatic Workshop in New York. This led to what would have been his Broadway debut in a production of "Eve of St. Mark", but he was fired before the show opened. He made his official New York debut in a production of "The Emperor's New Clothes" in 1940.
WWII interrupted his young career in 1942, when he was inducted into the United Sates Army, returning to the stage after his hitch was over in 1945, three years later. He sought work in stock plays and became an intern of Stella Adler and, as a result, a strong exponent of the Actor's Studio. Discovered by Charles Laughton and cast in his production of "Galileo" in 1947, Persoff made his film debut a year later with an uncredited bit in The Naked City (1948).
Short, dark, chunky-framed and with a distinct talent for dialects, Persoff became known primarily for his ethnic villainy, usually playing authoritative Eastern Europeans.
In a formidable career which had him portraying everything from cab drivers to Joseph Stalin, standout film roles would include Leo in The Harder They Fall (1956) with Humphrey Bogart, Gene Conforti in Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man (1956), Albert in This Angry Age (1958) and gangster Johnny Torrio in Al Capone (1959). That same year he played another gangster, the small role of Little Bonaparte, in Some Like It Hot (1959).
He was a durable performer during TV's "Golden Age" (Gunsmoke (1955), The Twilight Zone (1959)) and well beyond (Chicago Hope (1994), Law & Order (1990)), playing hundreds of intense, volatile and dominating characters.
In later years, his characters grew a bit softer as Barbra Streisand's Jewish father in Yentl (1983) and the voice of Papa Mousekewitz in the An American Tail (1986) will attest. Later stage work included well-received productions of "I'm Not Rappaport" and his biographical one-man show "Sholem Aleichem".
After declining health and high blood pressure forced him to slow down, Persoff took up painting in 1985, studying sketching in Los Angeles. Specializing in watercolor, he created more than 100 works of art, many of which have been exhibited up and down the coast of California. He celebrated his 100th birthday in 2019.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
American character actor and playwright Wallace Shawn has one of those fun, delightfully mischievously gnomish faces made for entertaining. Though he got out of the acting starting gate rather late, he quickly excelled film and TV while managing to turn himself into comedy egghead or loser types. Woody Allen's slightly threatened character in the movie Manhattan (1979) amusingly describes Wallace's benign gent as "a homunculus", which may be a pretty fair description of this predominantly bald, wan, pucker-mouthed, butterball-framed, slightly lisping gent. Shawn made his movie debut at age 36 in Allen's heralded classic in a brief but telling scene as Diane Keaton's ex-husband.
The 5'2" Jewish actor was born Wallace Michael Shawn into privilege on November 12, 1943 in New York City, as the son of Cecille (Lyon) (1906-2005), a journalist, and William Shawn (1907-1992), renowned and long-time editor of The New Yorker. His brother, Allen Shawn, went on to become a composer. Wallace was educated at both Harvard University, where he studied history, and Magdalen College, Oxford. Wallace initially taught English in India on a Fulbright scholarship, and then English, Latin and drama back in New York. However, a keen interest in writing and acting soon compelled him to leave his cushy position and pursue a stage career as both playwright and actor.
During his distinguished career, Wallace churned out several plays. "Our Late Night", the first of his works to be performed, was awarded an off-Broadway Obie in 1975. This was followed by "A Thought in Three Parts" (1976);, "The Mandrake" (1977) (which he translated from the original Italian and made his acting debut), "Marie and Bruce" (1979), "Aunt Dan and Lemon" (1985) and "The Fever," for which he received his second Obie for "Best New Play" during the 1990-91 season.
A popular supporting player of comedy and the occasional drama, Shawn's assorted kooks, creeps, brainiacs and schmucks possessed both endearing and unappetizing qualities. He earned his best early notices partnered with theatre director/actor Andre Gregory in the unique Louis Malle-directed film My Dinner with Andre (1981). Shawn co-wrote the improvisatory, humanistic piece with brother Allan as the composer. Shawn and Gregory would collaborate again for Malle in another superb, original-concept film Vanya on 42nd Street (1994).
Among Shawn's offbeat films have been Bruce Paltrow's A Little Sex (1982); James Ivory's The Bostonians (1984); Stephen Frears' Prick Up Your Ears (1987); Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride (1987); Alan Rudolph's The Moderns (1988) and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994); and Paul Bartel's Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989). He also appeared in several other Woody Allen offerings including Radio Days (1987), Shadows and Fog (1991), The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), Melinda and Melinda (2004) and the title role in Rifkin's Festival (2020).
Since the 1990s, he has lent his vocal talents to a considerable number of animated pictures including A Goofy Movie (1995), Toy Story (1995) (and its sequels), The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story (1998), The Incredibles (2004), Chicken Little (2005), Happily N'Ever After (2006), Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010) and Animal Crackers (2017). TV voices have included The Pink Panther (1993), The Lionhearts (1998), Family Guy (1999), Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness (2011), The Stinky & Dirty Show (2015) and The Bug Diaries (2019).
Millennium films graced with Shawn's participation include Southland Tales (2006), Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008), Jack and the Beanstalk (2009), The Speed of Thought (2011) and Vamps (2012). He co-starred as Halvard Solness and wrote the screen adaptation for Ibsen's classic play A Master Builder (2013) co-starring Julie Hagerty, and went on to appear in Don Peyote (2014), Maggie's Plan (2015), Robo-Dog (2015), Drawing Home (2016), Another Kind of Wedding (2017), Book Club (2018) and Marriage Story (2019).
Over the decades, Shawn has scurried about effortlessly with a number of television guest appearances including "Taxi," "Homicide: Life on the Streets," "Ally McBeal," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Sex and the City," "Desperate Housewives," "The Daily Show," "The 7D," "Life in Pieces," "The Good Fight," "Mr. Robot" and "Search Party. He has also drummed up a few recurring roles for himself in the process, including The Cosby Show (1984), Murphy Brown (1988), Clueless (1996) (based on the hit film Clueless (1995), revisiting his teacher role), Murphy Brown (1988), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), Crossing Jordan (2001), The L Word (2004), Gossip Girl (2007), The Good Wife (2009), Mozart in the Jungle (2014), and, more recently, as Dr. Sturgis in the comedy Young Sheldon (2017).- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Kevin Dunn was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1956. He is an American actor who has made over 100 appearances in both TV and film.
One of his earliest roles was in the Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning (1988) with Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe. He followed this up with Kathryn Bigelow's Blue Steel (1990), Ghostbusters II (1989), and the Brian De Palma hit The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).
He has since appeared in a number of box office hits, such as Hot Shots! (1991), Chain Reaction (1996), and Godzilla (1998). He also appeared in the Oliver Stone epic, Nixon (1995) and the Ridley Scott fantasy film 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992).
Dunn is able to fit into various roles in diverse genres with ease, whether the role in question be a political thriller like 'Robert Redford (I)'s Lions for Lambs (2007), an action film such as Tony Scotts Unstoppable (2010), or a romantic drama like Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). He is an established and reliable supporting - and character - actor.
He has gained considerable fame as the father in the hit movies Transformers (2007), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), and Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011).- Actor
- Additional Crew
Gary Michael Cole is an American television, film and voice actor. Cole began his professional acting career on stage at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1985. On television, he has had starring roles in the TV series Midnight Caller, American Gothic, The West Wing, Crusade, The Good Wife, The Good Fight, Veep, Chicago Fire, and Mixed. In film, he has appeared in The Brady Bunch Movie, One Hour Photo, Office Space, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Breach, and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. He is also known for voicing the title character on the Adult Swim series Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, Principal Shepherd on Family Guy, and James Timothy Possible on Kim Possible. As of season 19, Cole joined NCIS, taking over from Mark Harmon, who left the show, as FBI Special Agent, and new head of Gibbs' team, Alden Parker.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jack Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter, Jr. on September 18, 1920 in Newark, New Jersey, to Laura M. (Costello) and John Warden Lebzelter. His father was of German and Irish descent, and his mother was of Irish ancestry. Raised in Louisville, Kentucky, at the age of seventeen, young Jack Lebzelter was expelled from Louisville's DuPont Manual High School for repeatedly fighting. Good with his fists, he turned professional, boxing as a welterweight under the name "Johnny Costello", adopting his mother's maiden name. The purses were poor, so he soon left the ring and worked as a bouncer at a night club. He also worked as a lifeguard before signing up with the U.S. Navy in 1938. He served in China with the Yangtze River Patrol for the best part of his three-year hitch before joining the Merchant Marine in 1941.
Though the Merchant Marine paid better than the Navy, Warden was dissatisfied with his life aboard ship on the long convoy runs and quit in 1942 in order to enlist in the U.S. Army. He became a paratrooper with the elite 101st Airborne Division, and missed the June 1944 invasion of Normandy due to a leg badly broken by landing on a fence during a nighttime practice jump shortly before D-Day. Many of his comrades lost their lives during the Normandy invasion, but the future Jack Warden was spared that ordeal. Recuperating from his injuries, he read a play by Clifford Odets given to him by a fellow soldier who was an actor in civilian life. He was so moved by the play, he decided to become an actor after the war. After recovering from his badly shattered leg, Warden saw action at the Battle of the Bulge, Nazi Germany's last major offensive. He was demobilized with the rank of sergeant and decided to pursue an acting career on the G.I. Bill. He moved to New York City to attend acting school, then joined the company of Theatre '47 in Dallas in 1947 as a professional actor, taking his middle name as his surname. This repertory company, run by Margo Jones, became famous in the 1940s and '50s for producing Tennessee Williams's plays. The experience gave him a valuable grounding in both classic and contemporary drama, and he shuttled between Texas and New York for five years as he was in demand as an actor. Warden made his television debut in 1948, though he continued to perform on stage (he appeared in a stage production in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1966)). After several years in small, local productions, he made both his Broadway debut in the 1952 Broadway revival of Odets' "Golden Boy" and, three years later, originated the role of "Marco" in the original Broadway production of Miller's "A View From the Bridge". On film, he and fellow World War II veteran, Lee Marvin (Marine Corps, South Pacific), made their debut in You're in the Navy Now (1951) (a.k.a. "U.S.S. Teakettle"), uncredited, along with fellow vet Charles Bronson, then billed as "Charles Buchinsky".
With his athletic physique, he was routinely cast in bit parts as soldiers (including the sympathetic barracks-mate of Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra in the Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity (1953). He played the coach on TV's Mister Peepers (1952) with Wally Cox.
Aside from From Here to Eternity (1953) (The Best Picture Oscar winner for 1953), other famous roles in the 1950s included Juror #7 (a disinterested salesman who wants a quick conviction to get the trial over with) in 12 Angry Men (1957) - a film that proved to be his career breakthrough - the bigoted foreman in Edge of the City (1957) and one of the submariners commended by Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in the World War II drama, Run Silent Run Deep (1958). In 1959, Warden capped off the decade with a memorable appearance in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode, The Lonely (1959), in the series premier year of 1959. As "James Corry", Warden created a sensitive portrayal of a convicted felon marooned on an asteroid, sentenced to serve a lifetime sentence, who falls in love with a robot. It was a character quite different from his role as Juror #7.
In the 1960s and early 70s, his most memorable work was on television, playing a detective in The Asphalt Jungle (1961), The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965) and N.Y.P.D. (1967). He opened up the decade of the 1970s by winning an Emmy Award playing football coach "George Halas" in Brian's Song (1971), the highly-rated and acclaimed TV movie based on Gale Sayers's memoir, "I Am Third". He appeared again as a detective in the TV series, Jigsaw John (1976), in the mid-1970s, The Bad News Bears (1979) and appeared in a pilot for a planned revival of Topper (1937) in 1979.
His collaboration with Warren Beatty in two 1970s films brought him to the summit of his career as he displayed a flair for comedy in both Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). As the faintly sinister businessman "Lester" and as the perpetually befuddled football trainer "Max Corkle", Warden received Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actor. Other memorable roles in the period were as the metro news editor of the "Washington Post" in All the President's Men (1976), the German doctor in Death on the Nile (1978), the senile, gun-toting judge in And Justice for All (1979), the President of the United States in Being There (1979), the twin car salesmen in Used Cars (1980) and Paul Newman's law partner in The Verdict (1982).
This was the peak of Warden's career, as he entered his early sixties. He single-handedly made Andrew Bergman's So Fine (1981) watchable, but after that film, the quality of his roles declined. He made a third stab at TV, again appearing as a detective in Crazy Like a Fox (1984) in the mid-1980s. He played the shifty convenience store owner "Big Ben" in Problem Child (1990) and its two sequels, a role unworthy of his talent, but he shone again as the Broadway high-roller "Julian Marx" in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994). After appearing in Warren Beatty's Bulworth (1998), Warden's last film was The Replacements (2000) in 2000. He then lived in retirement in New York City with his girlfriend, Marucha Hinds. He was married to French stage actress Wanda Ottoni, best known for her role as the object of Joe Besser's desire in The Three Stooges short, Fifi Blows Her Top (1958). She gave up her career after her marriage. They had one son, Christopher, but had been separated for many years.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ray Walston started his acting career as a spear carrier with a local stock company. When the family moved to Houston, Texas, Walston's father wanted to teach him the oil business, but Walston instead joined a traveling repertory company (selling tickets as well as acting). He went on to associate with Margo Jones at the Houston Civic Theater for six years, then spent three seasons with the Cleveland Playhouse before arriving in New York in 1945. He has won a Tony Award for his performance as the Devil in Broadway's "Damn Yankees", two Emmy Awards for Picket Fences (1992), and become a household name playing the extraterrestrial "Uncle Martin" on My Favorite Martian (1963). Ray Walston died at age 86 of lupus on New Year's Day 2001 in Beverly Hills, California.- Hailing from Long Beach, California, talented character actor Anthony Zerbe has kept busy in Hollywood and on stage since the late 1960s, often playing villainous or untrustworthy characters, with his narrow gaze and unsettling smirk. Zerbe was born May 20, 1936 in Long Beach, and served a stint in the United States Air Force before heading off to New York to study drama under noted acting coach Stella Adler. He made his screen debut as Dutchie, one of Charlton Heston's fellow cowhands in the western Will Penny (1967), played a miner in The Molly Maguires (1970), was a post-apocalyptic, lunatic messiah in The Omega Man (1971), hustled a naive Paul Newman in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), played a leper colony leader in Papillon (1973) and a former lawman gone bad in Rooster Cogburn (1975).
Zerbe also starred alongside David Janssen in the television series Harry O (1973) as the urbane, nattily dressed Lieutenant K.C. Trench, Janssen's sometime nemesis, for which he picked up an Emmy Award. Definitely in strong demand for sinister roles, Zerbe played a crazed scientist in the corny Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978), was an arrogant father in The Dead Zone (1983), made a great General Ulysses S. Grant in North & South: Book 2, Love & War (1986), starred in the military drama Opposing Force (1986) and suffered a grisly demise in an airlock full of money in the James Bond thriller Licence to Kill (1989). Most recently, Zerbe has been seen as Councillor Hamann in The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003).
In addition to his extensive television and film appearances, Zerbe has appeared in Broadway productions including "The Little Foxes", "Terra Nova" and "Solomon's Child". He was in residence for five summer seasons at The Old Globe Theatre playing several key Shakespearean characters to strong critical acclaim. He has also held residencies at the Theatre of the Living Arts in Philadelphia, the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. In 2003, he toured across several states with Roscoe Lee Browne in their production of "Behind the Broken Words", a performance of 20th-century poetry, comedy and drama.He can play the gamut of roles and has. Also teaches acting and has taken several actors "under his wing."