Birthdays: May 26
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- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Stevie Nicks was born in Phoenix, Arizona. From an early age, she showed a love and aptitude for music, singing country and western duets with her grandfather when she was 4 years old. After moving to San Francisco, she began songwriting and performing at Menlo-Atherton High School, where she met her future long-time companion, Lindsey Buckingham. After smaller projects failed, she and Lindsey signed with Polydor Records, and produced their collaboration, "Buckingham-Nicks". The album flopped, and the two (who were now lovers) were dropped from the label, but not before attracting the attention of Mick Fleetwood, who invited them to join Fleetwood Mac. Two years later, in 1975, Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album topped the charts, headlined by Stevie's "Rhiannon". Success for the band, and for Stevie, was immediate. The legendary "Rumours" album followed in 1977, at the same time Stevie's relationship with Lindsey came to an end. Stevie's solo career began in 1981 and met with instant success. The stress of maintaining a solo career and remaining with Fleetwood Mac became too much for her, and she became addicted to cocaine, and then to prescription medication. After undergoing treatment for her addictions, Stevie vowed she would never perform publicly again, but was lured out of retirement for Fleetwood Mac's 1997 reunion and continues to perform, write and record.- Director
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Adam Curtis was born on 26 May 1955 in Dartford, Kent, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for The Power of Nightmares (2004), Pandora's Box (1992) and HyperNormalisation (2016).- Director
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Adam graduated from the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts.
Robitel's latest film, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, has recently been released to the delight of Escape Room fans. His three last films have been theatrical releases and have grossed 370 million dollars worldwide. Robitel is in pre-production on his forthcoming Netflix Series The Craving, produced by Darren Aronofsky, and Protozoa Pictures, for which he will serve as Co-creator / Show Runner and director.
Robitel made a big splash in the genre world as a horror auteur having co-written, directed and produced The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) (2014) a found-footage horror thriller. The Taking of Deborah Logan was named a "Netflix Horror Gem" by The Wrap and won an iHorror Award for best direct release of 2014. Paramount Studios then hired Robitel to do some rewrites on Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015) (2015).
Robitel made headlines after being tapped to direct Blumhouse's creep-fest franchise Insidious: The Last Key (2018) (2017). The Last Key opened on January 5th, to fantastic domestic box office, grossing 30 million dollars on its opening weekend and more than 167 million dollars worldwide, making it the most lucrative Insidious to date.
Robitel's latest film, Escape Room (2019) which he developed and directed for Original Films and Sony Pictures Studios, opened at number 2 in the domestic box office with a stellar haul of 18 million dollars, twice its production budget. Escape Room has now grossed 156 million dollars world wide.
Robitel's original supernatural thriller idea Liminal sparked a bidding war and sold to Fox2000 with Nina Jacobson producing. Robitel will serve as executive producer with Chris Landon writing the screenplay and directing. The scribe has also written a gritty reinvention of the slasher genre with Cropsey based on the infamous maniac who has haunted the imaginations of campers for over a hundred years for Peter Facinelli A7SLE Seven films.- Actor
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Al Jolson was known in the industry as "The World's Greatest Entertainer," for well over 40 years. After his death his influence continued unabated with such performers as Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Jackie Wilson and Jerry Lee Lewis all mentioning him as an inspiration.
Al Jolson was born Asa Yoelson in Seredzius, Lithuania, to a Jewish family, the son of Naiomi Etta (Cantor) and Moise Rubin Yoelson, who emigrated alone to Washington, D.C., to establish himself. After four years he sent for his family. Nine months later his wife died (apparently during childbirth), which devastated the eight-year-old Asa. Young Al would soon find his outlet in the theater. Soon he was singing with his older brother, Harry, for senators and soldiers. He entertained the troops that were headed for the Spanish-American War.
Jolson's career in vaudeville started with his brother in New York, but never really got off the ground. Different partners allowed Jolson to experiment, but it was as a solo act in San Francisco that he finally hit it big. He was signed eventually by Lew Dockstaders' Minstrels. It is important to note that, although performing in blackface, Dockstader's was not a minstrel show in the traditional sense of the "Tambo and Bones" variety of the previous century. It was a sophisticated, topical, Broadway-style revue. The myth lingers to this day that Jolson was a minstrel. He most certainly was not.
Jolson's stay in vaudeville was relatively short, as his talent was quickly recognized by the Shubert Brothers, who signed him to appear in the opening show of their new Winter Garden Theater on Broadway in April of 1912. Thus began what many consider to be the greatest career in the history of Broadway. Not a headliner initially, Jolson soon became "King of the Winter Garden," with shows specifically written for him. "Winter Garden" and "Jolson" became synonymous for close to 20 years. During that time Jolson received reviews that have yet to be matched. Audiences shouted, pleaded and often would not allow the show to proceed, such was the power of his presence. At one performance in Boston, the usually staid and conservative Boston audience stopped the show for 45 minutes! He was said to have had an "electric' personality, along with the ability to make each member of the audience believe that he was singing only to them.
In 1927 Jolson starred in the New York-shot The Jazz Singer (1927) and the rest is film history. But just before it was theatrically released, producer, Warner' His appearance in that film, nowadays considered a somewhat creaky, stodgy and primitive museum piece, electrified audiences and caused a sensation. Jolson was bigger than ever and Hollywood came a-calling. However, Jolson on film was a pale version of Jolson on stage. His screen appearances, with some exceptions, are stiff and wooden. Though he continued into the 1930s to star on radio, he was no longer quite the star he had been.
During World War II, Jolson entertained troops in Africa and Sicily but was cut short by a bout of malaria and pneumonia. Always a favorite with audiences, he continued to entertain in the United States when he met his fourth wife, Erle Chenault Galbraith, an x-ray technician.
By the mid-'40s, though. his stardom had faded quite a bit. Columbia Pictures, inspired by the success of Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), decided that a Jolson biography might work as well. In 1946 it released The Jolson Story (1946), with song-and-dance man Larry Parks miming to Jolson's vocals. It was the surprise smash hit of the season and the highest grossing film of the year. Parks received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Jolson was now as big, or bigger, than ever. So successful was the film that Columbia made a sequel, Jolson Sings Again (1949), which remains one of a few biography sequels in film history (Funny Girl/Funny Lady - the story of fellow Winter Garden performer Fannie Brice is another rare example). It was also quite successful at the box office. So big had Jolson's star risen that in 1948, when Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Perry Como were at their peaks, Jolson was voted "The Most Popular Male Vocalist" by a Variety poll.
In 1950, against his doctor's orders, Jolson went to Korea to entertain his favorite audience, American troops. While there his health declined and shortly after his return to the U.S. he suffered a massive heart attack and died.- Alec McCowen was born Alexander Duncan McCowan on May 26, 1925 in Tunbridge Wells, England. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he made his professional debut in 1942. He established his reputation in classical stage roles, appearing in the ensemble of Laurence Olivier's famed duo-production of William Shakespeare's "Anthony and Cleopatra" and George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra" at the 1951 Festival of Britain. McCowen transferred with the productions to New York that same year, making his Broadway debut.
McCowen made his movie debut in The Cruel Sea (1953), but for his turn as Police Inspector Oxford in Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), his reputation is rooted in his stage work. "Frenzy" led to his one lead role in a major motion picture, that of Henry Pulling in George Cukor's adaptation of 'Graham Greene's Travels with My Aunt (1972). Though the film won an Oscar for Costume Design and a Best Actress nod for co-star Maggie Smith (among its total of four nominations), the movie did not advance McCowen's career. Over a decade later, he played the title role in the Thames Television series Mr. Palfrey of Westminster (1984), which ran for two seasons on British television from 1984 to 1985. His last cinema appearance was in a small role in Gangs of New York (2002) for director Martin Scorsese; he had earlier appeared in Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993).
Though his services were in demand in movies and on television, McCowen remained wedded to the stage; he regards the character of "Astrov" in Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" as his favorite role. From 1967 to 1992, McCowen appeared nine times on Broadway, for which he garnered two Drama Desk Awards (out of four nominations) and three Tony Award nominations. One of his Tony Award nominations was for his magisterial solo performance in "St. Mark's Gospel", which debuted on Broadway in 1978 and had a return engagement on the Great White Way in 1981.
He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1972 Queen's New Years Honours and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1986 Queen's New Years Honours for his services to drama. Alec McCowan died at age 91 on February 6, 2017 in London, England. - Writer
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Alex Garland is an English novelist, screenwriter, film producer and director. He is best known for the films Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018).
Garland's others works as a writer includes The Beach (2000), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), Never Let Me Go (2011) and Dredd (2012).
He is also the co-writer on the video game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
In 2015, Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Writing, Original Screenplay category.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Alexander Karim was born on 26 May 1976 in Helsingborg, Skåne län, Sweden. He is an actor and writer, known for Dying of the Light (2014), Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and Tyrant (2014).- Alison Stern was born on 26 May 1954 in Massachusetts, USA. She is an actress, known for Private Parts (1997), The Howard Stern Show (1987) and U.S. Open Sores (1989). She has been married to David Simon since 23 November 2001. She was previously married to Howard Stern.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Antonio Prieto was a Chilean crooner who enjoyed great success as a recording artist in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s. His popularity won over film producers and he was cast in several musical comedies mainly playing himself as in "Vacaciones en Acapulco" (1961). He was also featured singing the main theme in films such "Acapulqueña" (1959) and "La novia" (1962). However he did play the leading male role in "La pérgola de las flores" (1965) filmed in Chile. He was also seen quite often singing his greatest hits on television variety shows.- Archie Duncan was born on 26 May 1914 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He was an actor, known for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955), Sherlock Holmes (1954) and Saint Joan (1957). He died on 24 July 1979 in Waltham Forest, London, England, UK.
- Actress
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Ashley Bell made her feature film debut in Lionsgate and Strike Entertainment's thriller, The Last Exorcism (2010). Her performance garnered her an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and an MTV Movie Award nomination, while the film grossed nearly $70 million, worldwide. The New York Post praised Bell's performance as "Oscar-worthy" and one of the 10 best performances of 2010 for her extraordinary portrayal of the possessed "Nell Sweetzer", which she will reprise in the highly-anticipated sequel, entitled The Last Exorcism Part II (2013), set to be released, nationwide, on March 1, 2013.
In 2012, Bell starred in Douglas Aarniokoski's post-apocalyptic thriller, The Day (2011), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Upcoming projects include Norry Niven's romantic drama, From Above (2013), opposite Danny Glover; the noir feature film, Sparks (2013), based on the graphic comic; The Marine 3: Homefront (2013), along with Neal McDonough; and the romantic comedy, Love & Air Sex (2013), directed by fellow Spirit Award nominee Bryan Poyser. Bell is passionately involved with "Elephants in Crisis", and is in pre-production to produce and direct a documentary depicting the capture of two Asian elephants from a logging facility in Cambodia, and their subsequent release into the Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary.
Bell's voice has been featured in several top-selling video games, including the lead role of "Erline" in Sony PlayStation's Sorcery (2012) and "The White Queen" in Disney's Alice in Wonderland: The Video Game (2010). Her television credits include appearances on United States of Tara (2009), "Grow" (2000) and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000).
Bell, born and raised in Los Angeles, is the daughter of actor/voice animator Michael Bell and actress/Groundlings co-founder Victoria Carroll. She studied acting and directing at Cambridge University, where she was awarded "Best Actress" for her portrayal of "Ophelia". Bell later graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts with honors, and was mentored by Oscar nominee Kathleen Turner.- Ashley Massaro was born on 26 May 1979 in Babylon, Long Island, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Smallville (2001), WWE Smackdown! (1999) and WWE Raw (1993). She died on 16 May 2019 in Smithtown, Long Island, New York, USA.
- Astrid Bergès-Frisbey was born the 26th May of 1986 in Barcelona, Spain to a Spanish Father and a French-American Mother of English descent. She is fluent in French, Spanish, and Catalan. Astrid Bergès-Frisbey made her acting debut in 2007 on French television. In 2008, she made her feature debut in the French film Un barrage contre le Pacifique (2008) and since then has made other French films. In 2011, Bergès-Frisbey made her English debut as the beautiful mermaid Syrena in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011). She was personally picked by director Rob Marshall and producer Jerry Bruckheimer after a whirlwind of auditions in France, Hollywood, and the UK.
- Barbara Stock was born on 26 May 1956 in Downers Grove, Illinois, USA. She is an actress, known for Spenser: For Hire (1985), Dallas (1978) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). She has been married to William G. Dunn since April 1988. They have one child.
- Actor
- Writer
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Starting out as a child actor in 1915, Ben Alexander's first roles were in the films of such directors as Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith. He later graduated to juvenile leads and supporting parts in sound films, most notably in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). When his acting career slowed down in the mid-'30s, he found a new career as a successful radio announcer. Alexander was more or less retired when producer Jack Webb picked him for the part of his detective partner in the TV series Dragnet (1951). Alexander later played another detective on Howard Duff's TV series The Felony Squad (1966).- Actor
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Benjamin John Gourley was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on May 26, 1978. He is the third oldest of seven children (3 girls, 4 boys). He graduated from Brigham Young University in 2003 with a degree in film production with an emphasis in screenwriting. He served a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Russia. He began acting at 22 years of age and has since contributed to many theatre and independent film productions including, Pride and Prejudice (2003), and Saints and Soldiers (2003).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Blue-eyed Benji Gregory was born in Encino, California, USA on May 26, 1978. His parents are Manny and Patti, and he has an older sister, Becky, and a younger brother, Matthew. His father, uncle and sister were all actors; his grandmother is his agent.
As a veteran of dozens of commercials, Benji literally grew up before the camera. At the age of five, he began auditioning for television and won numerous parts. His first acting job was in an episode of Fantasy Island (1977) and he followed that with guest-starring parts on The A-Team (1983), T.J. Hooker (1982), Amazing Stories (1985) and The Twilight Zone (1985). He also appeared in a TV pilot, "Fenster Hall," a Disney movie, Mr. Boogedy (1986), a TV movie, Thompson's Last Run (1986) and the feature film, Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986).
His three favorite collections are of rocks, shells and Garbage Pail Kids cards.- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Colin Vearncombe was born on 26 May 1962 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK. He was an actor and composer, known for Starter for 10 (2006), The Pier (2011) and Es ist nur eine Phase, Hase (2021). He was married to Camilla. He died on 26 January 2016 in Cork, Ireland.Black- Director
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Robert Francis 'Bobcat' Goldthwait, born May 26, 1962, is an American comedian, writer, producer, director, and star of films and television shows. He is most widely known for his at times screechy voice and scattergun delivery during his standup comedy performances and some film roles.
He was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, the son of Kathleen Ann (Welch), a department store employee, and Thomas Lincoln Goldthwait, a sheet metal worker. His family, of Irish, German, and English descent, was Catholic. He decided on a career as a comedian at an early age and was performing professionally while still in high school at the age of fifteen. He and his classmate, Tom Kenny, performed in a comedy duo, billing themselves as "Bobcat and Tomcat". Goldthwait became recognized as a solo stand-up comedian and had three televised concert specials in The 1980s: Bob Goldthwait - Is He Like That All the Time?, An Evening with Bobcat Goldthwait: Share the Warmth (1987) and Meat Bob.
Goldthwait's first major film role was in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985). He reprised the role in the next two films in the series. During the fall of 1993, Goldthwait did stand-up material as an opening act for Nirvana on what would be their final North American tour. He has made several guest appearances on talk shows as well as comedy programs including The Ben Stiller Show (1992). On May 9, 1994, he made a controversial appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992), where, on impulse, he set a couch on fire. This incident was then the basis of the plot for his subsequent appearance on The Larry Sanders Show (1992).
One of the most recognizable features of Goldthwait's performances is his voice. Goldthwait has voiced characters on the television series Capitol Critters (1992); The Moxy & Flea Show (1995); Unhappily Ever After (1995); Hercules (1998) and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2000). He has also appeared, as himself, hosting the comedy quiz show Bobcat's Big Ass Show (1998). Goldthwait has released two comedy albums: "Meat Bob" (1988) on Chrysalis Records and "I Don't Mean to Insult You, but You Look Like Bobcat Goldthwait" (23 September, 2003) on Comedy Central Records.
He made his feature film directorial debut with Shakes the Clown (1991), which he wrote and starred in as well. His film, Windy City Heat (2003), won a Comedia Award for Best Comedy Film at Montreal's Just for Laughs Film Festival in 2004.
Bobcat began directing ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2003) in the fall 2004 season. Since joining the show's crew, the ratings went up to 2 million viewers a night, with the numbers rising nearly 50% with the teenage demographic. In May of 2006, he left to pursue his film career as a filmmaker/director but has since returned to the show. Goldthwait's feature, "Sleeping Dogs Lie" (formally Sleeping Dogs Lie (2006)), starring Melinda Page Hamilton, was in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and it was part of the "Independent Dramatic Features" competition. "Sleeping Dogs Lie" is about a youthful, impulsive sexual encounter which opens the door to a dark comedy about the complexities of honesty. It was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the "Dramatic Features" category. "Sleeping Dogs Lie" was picked up in a mid-six figure deal for distribution in north America by Roadside Attractions & Samuel Goldwyn Films at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. A French film company called "Gaumont" bought it for the international rights to the film in France. "Tartan Films", a UK-based production company, also bought it for international rights in the United Kingdom. The film was released in the US on October 20, 2006.
He married Ann Luly in 1986 at the age of 24. The couple have two children (now grown), Tasha and Taylor, and divorced in May 1998. At one time, Goldthwait was engaged to his Unhappily Ever After (1995) co-star, Nikki Cox, but the couple split.- Brandi Cyrus was born on 26 May 1987 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. She is an actress, known for Old 37 (2015), Zoey 101 (2005) and Hannah Montana (2006).
- Brent Musburger was born on 26 May 1939 in Billings, Montana, USA. He is an actor, known for The Waterboy (1998), Planes (2013) and Rocky II (1979). He has been married to Arlene Clare Sander since 8 June 1963. They have two children.
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Bryan Konietzko was born on 26 May 1976 in the USA. He is a writer and producer, known for The Legend of Korra (2012), Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005) and The Last Airbender (2010).- Actress
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- Producer
Camila Briann Greenberg was born on May 26, 1988 in Tucson, Arizona. She grew up performing in theater companies and signed with Ford modeling agency at the age of 14. She booked her first TV pilot for Nickelodeon in 2007 starring alongside comedian Tim Stack. She then made appearances on shows like Entourage (2007), CSI (2007), How I met Your Mother (2008), and Brothers and Sisters (2009) before booking her first recurring role as Sara on the Emmy award-winning CW show Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight (2009). Camila then accepted the role of Lissa on ABC Family's TV spinoff series from the film 10 Things I Hate About You (2009).
The following year, Camila starred in the award-winning short film Ugly, Strong, and Dignified alongside actor Blair Redford ("Best Short", 2010) and then recurred on the CW's remake of 90210 as Kaitlyn, the girl-next-door/underage pornstar. She then appeared in multiple independent films and web series as well as network shows like Pretty Little Liars (2013), Two and Half Men (2013), and Grandfathered (2015).
Camila is also known for her role as Esther in the highly regarded bromantic comedy feature film, Ktown Cowboys (2015), produced by Ken Jeong and starring Daniel Dae Kim and Eric Roberts.- Actress
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Carmen Montejo was born on 26 May 1925 in Pinar del Río, Cuba. She was an actress and writer, known for Mujeres sin mañana (1951), Los cachorros (1973) and La infame (1954). She was married to Manuel González Ortega. She died on 25 February 2013 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Cassidy Fox was born on 26 May 1999 in Canada. She is an actress, known for Anne with an E (2017).
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Charles Stevens was born on 26 May 1893 in Solomonsville, Arizona, USA. He was an actor and assistant director, known for The Three Musketeers (1921), The Americano (1916) and Ebb Tide (1937). He was married to Lila Ethel Berry. He died on 22 August 1964 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actor
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Short, chubby-framed, twinkle-eyed, ever-huggable Charles Winninger was a veteran vaudevillian by the time he arrived in talking films. Born in a trunk to Austrian immigrant show biz folk in Athens, Wisconsin, on May 26, 1884, he was the son of Rosalia (Grassler) and Franz Winninge, a violinist. He was initially christened Karl Winninger. He left school while quite young (age 8) to join and tour with his parent's vaudeville family act which was called Winninger Family Concert Co. Upon his parents' retirement, he and his five brothers went off to play in various stock and repertory companies. On film Charlie found an "in" with silent comedy shorts between 1915-1916 but never truly settled into the movie business until the advent of sound.
In the meantime Broadway made great use of his musical comedy talents, marking his debut with "The Yankee Girl" in 1910 which also featured actress (and later stage star) Blanche Ring. He married Blanche in 1912 and the couple went on to star together quite frequently in vaudeville and on Broadway, including the musical "When Claudia Smiles" (1914) in which Blanche played the title role. Throughout the 1920s there were plenty of roles for Charlie on the Great White Way including a stint with the Ziegfeld Follies (1920), several Winter Garden productions, and in such musical comedy showcases as "The Broadway Whirl" (1921) (with Blanche), "The Good Old Days" (1923), "No, No, Nanette" (1925) and "Yes, Yes, Yvette" (1927). His most significant contribution was originating the role of beloved Cap'n Andy in "Showboat" (1927). Playing the Kern/Hammerstein musical for two years straight, he eagerly returned to the role on Broadway in 1932.
With the success of "Show Boat," Hollywood started taking more of an interest in the grey-haired song-and-dance man for character roles. Such early talking movies included the slapstick comedy Soup to Nuts (1930) with Ted Healy and The Three Stooges. Though Charlie was known for adding his immeasurable touch to the comedy genre (Flying High (1931) and Woman Chases Man (1937)), he was also a warm-hearted presence in heavier pictures as well, including the melodramas Bad Sister (1931) with Bette Davis and The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) with Helen Hayes, and rugged adventures Gun Smoke (1931) and White Fang (1936). Although he did not play his famous stage role in the 1929 version, Charlie was thankfully able to preserve his beloved Cap'n Andy to film in the superb Irene Dunne/Allan Jones remake of Show Boat (1936). He became so associated with the riverboat captain that he was asked to create several variations of the character on radio.
Charlie was relied upon for his benign, errant dads, old-theater entertainers, lovable drunks and other rather wanderlust types in film, characters that usually represented old-fashioned common sense or mores. He was quite entertaining in such classics as Nothing Sacred (1937), Three Smart Girls (1936) and Destry Rides Again (1939). In the 1940s he brightened up a number of MGM comedies and musicals including Babes in Arms (1939), Little Nellie Kelly (1940), Ziegfeld Girl (1941), When Ladies Meet (1941), Broadway Rhythm (1944), and Living in a Big Way (1947). One of his last important roles was playing Will Rogers' Judge Priest role in director John Ford's film The Sun Shines Bright (1953), is only leading film role. He and wife Blanche never appeared together in a film although Blanche did play herself in the film If I Had My Way (1940), a film that featured Charlie. His Broadway swan song was in "Music in the Air" in 1951 and his final film occurred about a decade later with Raymie (1960). He also played Santa Claus in the hour-long entertainment The Miracle of the White Reindeer (1960) that same year.
TV roles dominated much of his work in the 50s. On the one-season The Charles Farrell Show (1956) he played the star's dear old dad. Divorced from wife Blanche in 1951, Charlie subsequently married stage actress-turned-novelist and screenwriter Gertrude Walker whom he originally met on Broadway when he returned to "Show Boat" in 1932 (Gertrude played the role of Lottie). Retired for many years, Charlie died in 1969 following an extended illness at the age of 84.- Danny Green was born on 26 May 1903 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Ladykillers (1955), Wideawake (1957) and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). He died in 1973.
- Dayle was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. As a child she was enrolled in dancing classes to develop her physique. It worked well enough that she became a member of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens at 13 and Miss Montreal at 18.
Her elfin good looks provided an easy entree to modeling and she quickly became a highly successful fashion model. She moved to Hollywood in her early twenties to be with a boyfriend and decided to try out for movies. She quickly landed a role in a Disney movie The World's Greatest Athlete (1973). Disney saw her a future for her in ingenue roles, but Dayle had other ideas. To Disney's shock, she promptly did a nude pictorial in '"Playboy" (USA)', took off for Europe and landed a string of steamy roles. Her best known role is in Just Jaeckin's Madame Claude (1977). She has worked primarily in Europe, cropping up occasionally in small roles in American movies. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Danielle B. Roter was born on May 26, 1948 in Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of Tovia and Bella Roter. Along with her younger brother, Michel, the family departed from Cherbourg, France in early December 1948 on the Queen Elizabeth, arriving in New York, New York, USA on December 13, 1948. Diane's father, Tovia, was an actor and director credited as Theodore/Ted Roter and Peter Balakoff. In 1952 the family officially moved to the United States and in 1957 became American citizens. After her first role as a little French speaking girl on Ronald Reagan's General Electric Theater in 1959 Diane was sent to a Brussels, Belgium school for the 1961-62 school year. She was multi-lingual and fluent in Dutch and French. Danielle's father became the executive director of the Santa Monica Playhouse giving her progressively larger parts in every play they produced until she reached starring role status. Danielle left school at the conclusion of her junior year (1965) at Venice High School in the west side of Los Angeles. Venice High is a foreign language and international studies magnet school. She accepted the role of Judge Garth's niece, Jennifer Sommers, at the start of The Virginian's fourth season for NBC. She replaced Roberta Shore who left the series to be married. After NBC changed her first name to Diane, she remained in the role of Jennifer for twenty-five episodes (1965-1966). Sara Lane replaced Diane after one season, appearing in over one hundred episodes (1966-1970). Diane has taught mime, movement, and acting in numerous private classes and schools. She has been a journalist and art critic in numerous newspapers. Diane earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Bio-Psychology at UCLA. As 2014 ends Diane is in the process of writing a novel.- Donald Losby was born on 26 May 1951 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is an actor, known for The Twilight Zone (1959), The Mating Game (1959) and Tower of London (1962).
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Born as Dorothea Seltzer in Reading, Pennsylvania, Dorothy Christy was an American actress who worked with film greats such as Will Rogers, Buster Keaton, the Marx brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and many others. She even worked with the singing cowboy himself, Gene Autry. She died in Santa Monica, California, aged 70.- Actor
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Doug grew up in Detroit and Minneapolis and eventually moved to New York City and briefly attended the Juilliard School. After studying with Sanford Meisner for two years and working at a plethora of oddball jobs (including dressing as a giant Citibank card to hand out flyers in Times Square), he worked in regional and Off-Broadway theater before landing his first feature supporting role in Fresh Horses (1988).- Actress
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Elisabeth was born in Detroit in 1979 and grew up in Los Angeles. An actress since the age of 3, she co-starred at the age of 5 in two movies (One Magic Christmas (1985) and Where Are the Children? (1985)). She did numerous TV commercials until being chosen by Disney Productions to star as Alice in the Adventures in Wonderland (1992) series. Since then, she has guest starred on several TV shows and in 1997 she co-starred in two TV movies The Osiris Chronicles (1998) and (My Date with the President's Daughter (1998)) Elisabeth drew on her nearly twenty years experience as a child actress in delivering her critically acclaimed portrayal of the mentally unstable Kate in Carl Colpaert's Facade (1999). A multi-talented and strikingly attractive blue eyed natural blond, she was the female lead in Swimming Upstream (2002).- Writer
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Fernando León de Aranoa was born on 26 May 1968 in Madrid, Spain. He is a writer and director, known for A Perfect Day (2015), The Good Boss (2021) and Mondays in the Sun (2002).- Genie Francis was born on May 26, 1962 in Englewood, New Jersey to actors Ivor Francis and Rosemary Daley. She grew up in Long Island, New York and California. She has an older brother, Ivor Francis, and a younger brother, Kenneth Francis, and a half-sister, Shelley Francis. The attractive, blonde Ms. Francis got her start in television on General Hospital (1963), as a teenager (following a guest appearance on ABC's prime-time series, Family (1976)) and literally grew up in the enormously popular role of "Laura". As portrayed by Genie Francis, Laura has become one of the most beloved characters in daytime television. In 1981, after five years on General Hospital (1963), Ms. Francis left the show and returned, briefly, two years later and again in 1984 and, finally, on October 29, 1993. The wedding of Laura to "Luke Spencer" (played by Anthony Geary) in November 1981, remains the most-watched daytime drama event in the history of television. The fictional couple's romance even garnered a cover story in Newsweek magazine. Genie's extensive television work also included recurring appearances on Murder, She Wrote (1984). She starred in the prime-time series, "Bare Essence" (1982), and the television miniseries, "North and South", both with actor Jonathan Frakes, who went on to become her husband. She successfully battled substance abuse problems. Francis created the role of "Diana Colville" on NBC's daytime serial, Days of Our Lives (1965), in 1987 and played the role for two years, but she didn't like it and she left. Soon she originated the role of "Ceara Connor" on ABC's daytime drama, All My Children (1970), in 1990. Her portrayal of an adult incest survivor earned her critical and viewer plaudits. On the stage she has appeared in "Crimes of the Heart" and "See How They Run". In 1991 Ms. Francis appeared in the Williamstown Festival Theater Production of "Defying Gravity". That same year Genie made her New York City debut in "The Baby Dance" at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village. She also appeared in a Comedic Curtain Raiser at Manhattan Class Company for their festival of One Acts, called "The Group". In 1988, Genie married actor/director Jonathan Frakes, who starred in the popular syndicated television series, Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). They maintain residences in both Los Angeles and Manhattan. Their first child, Jameson Ivor Frakes, was born on August 20, 1994. Their second child, Elizabeth Francis, was born on May 30, 1997. Ms. Francis has been with "General Hospital" on-and-off over the years, winning the much-coveted Emmy award as Best Supporting Actress for her role as "Laura" in 2007. But she stated she didn't want to play a wounded dove like Laura anymore and wanted to play stronger characters. In 2011 she got her wish when she started playing the role of the manipulative "Genevieve Atkinson" on another daytime drama, The Young and the Restless (1973). Although she earned an Emmy nomination for the role, she was let go in 2012 for economic reasons. Soon after she closed her store called "The Cherished Home" in Belfast, Maine, where had she sold cottage furnishings and home accessories. In 2013 she returned to her role as "Laura" on General Hospital (1963).
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Goeffrey Unsworth was one of the great cinematographers of the 20th Century, the winner of two Oscars, five BAFTA awards, and three awards from the British Society of Cinematographers for his work as a director of photography. Born in 1914 in Lancashire, England, Unsworth started in the industry in 1932 at Gaumont-British before joining Technicolor in 1937. He worked as a camera assistant and operator on a many of the most important color movies made in England.
In contrast to the Technicolor aesthetic, when Unsworth became a director of photography (starting in 1946 with the musical The Laughing Lady (1946), he used a somber palette. Moving to Rank at Pinewood Studios, he shot adventure films, comedies, and thrillers in black and white.
His breakthrough into the top ranks of cinematographers was Becket (1964) in 1964, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. He did not get Oscar-nominated for his spectacular work on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) because Stanley Kubrick generally was given credit for the visual style of the film, but his ability to integrate cinematography and special effects was put to great effect with Superman (1978) (1978). He was in demand for period pieces, winning his first Oscar for Bob Fosse's Cabaret (1972) and his second Oscar posthumously for shooting Roman Polanski's Tess (1979).
Geoffrey Unsworth died in Brittany on the set of "Tess" after suffering a heart attack. He was 64 years old.- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Born George Hoy Booth in Wigan, Lancashire on 26 May 1904, he later took his father's stage name of George Formby. He briefly attended school where he failed to learn to read or write so was removed from formal education and sent to become a stable boy in Middleham, North Yorkshire, where he later became an apprentice jockey. In 1915 with the closure of the English racing season because of the First World War he moved to Ireland and continued as a jockey until the end of hostilities. Returning to England he raced for Lord Derby's Newmarket stables where he never won a race. Following his father's death in 1921 he gave his professional two week appearance at the Hippodrome in Lancashire where he was paid £5 a week and soon after hired to appear on the Moss Empire chain of theatres at £17 10 shillings a week. Touring around venues in Northern England his act didn't go down well resulting in bouts of unemployment. In 1923 he made two career changing decisions - he bought a ukulele and married Beryl Ingham, an Acrington, Lancashire, born champion champion clog dancer and actress who transformed his act. She insisted he appear on stage formally dressed and introduce his ukulele to his performance.. By June 1926 he'd started his recording career and from 1934 he was increasingly working in films developing into a major star by the late '30's and becoming the U.K.'s most popular and highest paid entertainer. During WWII he worked extensively for the ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) entertaining civilians and troops and touring factories, theatres and concert halls. By 1946 it was estimated that he had performed in front of three million service personnel. After the war his career declined although he toured the commonwealth and continued to appear in variety and pantomime. His last television appearance was in December 1960, two weeks before the death of Beryl. Seven weeks after her funeral he announced his engagement to a school teacher but died in Preston three weeks later at the age of 56. He was buried in Warrington alongside his father.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Randall Hank Williams was born the son of the legendary Hank Williams and Audrey Williams. After the death of his father in 1953, Hank Jr. began his career in country music. The early years of his career were spent trying to overcome the legacy of his father and come into his own. This did not happen until the 1980s when he became one of country music's top performers, selling millions of albums and winning the title of Entertainer of the Year five consecutive times.- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Helena Bonham Carter is an actress of great versatility, one of the UK's finest and most successful.
Bonham Carter was born May 26, 1966 in Golders Green, London, England, the youngest of three children of Elena (née Propper de Callejón), a psychotherapist, and Raymond Bonham Carter, a merchant banker. Through her father, she is the great-granddaughter of former Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith, and her blue-blooded family tree also contains Barons and Baronesses, diplomats, and a director, Bonham Carter's great-uncle Anthony Asquith, who made Pygmalion (1938) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), among others. Cousin Crispin Bonham-Carter is also an actor. Her maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was a Spanish diplomat who was awarded the honorific Righteous Among the Nations, by Israel, for helping save Jews during World War II (Eduardo's own father was a Czech Jew). Helena's maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was from an upper-class Jewish family from France, Austria, and Germany, and later converted to her husband's Catholic faith.
Bonham Carter experienced family dramas during her childhood, including her father's stroke - which left him wheelchair-bound. She attended South Hampstead High School and Westminster School in London, and subsequently devoted herself to an acting career. That trajectory actually began in 1979 when, at age thirteen, she entered a national poetry writing competition and used her second place winnings to place her photo in the casting directory "Spotlight." She soon had her first agent and her first acting job, in a commercial, at age sixteen. She then landed a role in the made-for-TV movie A Pattern of Roses (1983), which subsequently led to her casting in the Merchant Ivory films A Room with a View (1985), director James Ivory's tasteful adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel, and Lady Jane (1986), giving a strong performance as the uncrowned Queen of England. She had roles in three other productions under the Merchant-Ivory banner (director Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala): an uncredited appearance in Maurice (1987), and large roles in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) and Howards End (1992).
Often referred to as the "corset queen" or "English rose" because of her early work, Bonham Carter continued to surprise audiences with magnificent performances in a variety of roles from her more traditional corset-clad character in The Wings of the Dove (1997) and Shakespearian damsels to the dark and neurotic anti-heroines of Fight Club (1999). Her acclaimed performance in The Wings of the Dove (1997) earned her a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination, a BAFTA Best Actress nomination, and a SAG Awards Best Actress nomination. It also won her a Best Actress Award from the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics, the Boston Society Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Texas Society of Film Critics, and the Southeastern Film Critics Association.
In the late 1990s, Bonham Carter embarked on the next phase of her career, moving from capable actress to compelling star. Audiences and critics had long been enchanted by her delicate beauty, evocative of another time and place. Her late '90s and early and mid 2000s roles included Mick Jackson's Live from Baghdad (2002), alongside Michael Keaton, receiving a nomination for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe; Paul Greengrass' The Theory of Flight (1998), in which she played a victim of motor neurone disease; Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night (1996), in which she played Olivia; opposite Woody Allen in his Mighty Aphrodite (1995); Mort Ransen's Margaret's Museum (1995); Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein (1994); and Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990).
Other notable credits include her appearance with Steve Martin in Novocaine (2001), Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes, in which she played an ape, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's The Heart of Me (2002), opposite Paul Bettany, and Big Fish (2003), her second effort with Tim Burton, in which she appeared as a witch.
In between her films, Helena has managed a few television appearances, which include her portrayal of Jacqui Jackson in Magnificent 7 (2005), the tale of a mother struggling to raise seven children - three daughters and four autistic boys; as Anne Boleyn in the two-parter biopic of Henry VIII starring Ray Winstone; and as Morgan Le Fey, alongside Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson, in Merlin. Earlier television appearances include Michael Mann's Miami Vice (1984) as Don Johnson's junkie fiancée, and as a stripper who wins Rik Mayall's heart in Dancing Queen (1993). Helena has also appeared on stage, in productions of Trelawney of the Wells, The Barber of Seville, House of Bernarda Alba, The Chalk Garden, and Woman in White.
Bonham Carter was nominated for a Golden Globe for the fifth time for her role in partner Tim Burton's film adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), for which Burton and co-star Johnny Depp were also nominated. For the role, she was awarded Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards 2008. Other 2000s work includes playing Mrs Bucket in Tim Burton's massive hit Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), providing the voices for the aristocratic Lady Campanula Tottington in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and for the eponymous dead heroine in Tim Burton's spooky Corpse Bride (2005), and co-starring in Conversations with Other Women (2005) opposite Aaron Eckhart.
After their meeting while filming Planet of the Apes (2001), Bonham Carter and Tim Burton made seven films together. They lived in adjoining residences in London, shared a connecting hallway, and have two children: Billy Ray Burton, born in 2003, and Nell Burton, who was born in 2007. Ironically, a mutual love of Sweeney Todd was part of the initial attraction for the pair. Bonham Carter has said in numerous interviews that her audition process for the role of Mrs. Lovett was the most grueling of her career and that, ultimately, it was Sondheim who she had to convince that she was right for the role.- Hernán Lirio is known for Crónicas delirio (2018), De 1 a 5 (2012) and Colección Bernardo Stamateas (2019).
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Hrach Titizian was born on 26 May 1979 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Rookie (2018), S.W.A.T. (2017) and Homeland (2011).- Inge Borkh was born on 26 May 1917 in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She was an actress, known for Die Frau ohne Schatten (1963), Lieder, Arien und Geschichten (1964) and Drama Into Opera: Oedipus Rex (1961). She was married to Alexander Welitsch and Robert Lenz. She died on 26 August 2018 in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
- Controversial pathologist, writer and inventor, Jack Kevorkian was the only son of Levon Kevorkian a former auto-factory worker who owned an excavating company and his homemaker wife. He had 2 sisters. Kevorkian's parents were Armenian refugees, whose relatives were among the 1.5 millon victims of Turkish atrocities in World War I. As a young boy he quit Sunday school because he did not believe in Armenian Orthodox teachings. He taught himself German and Japanese in high school during World war II. Kevorkian graduated from Pontiac High School with honors in 1945 at 17. He then enrolled at the University of Michigan from where he graduated from Medical school in 1952. Kevorkian completed an internship in Pathology at Henry Ford hospital in Detroit, during which period he had an epiphany when he saw a woman who was dying of cancer. It was then that he began to think of ways to alleviate suffering in his patients. In 1953 he got his medical license for Michighan state. He then did a 15 month stint in Korea as an Army Medical Officer during the Korean War. He returned and completed his residency at Pontiac General Hospital, Michigan. He got his nickname 'Dr. Death' in 1956 when he started photographing the retinas of patients at the moment of death to differentiate between coma and death. From 1956-57 he did research in West Germany. In 1957 he obtained his California medical license. In 1958 he presented a paper on 'Capital Punishment or Capital Gain' at the American Association for the Advancement of Science' at Washington, DC. He suggested the harvesting of organs from death row prisoners. This was considered controversial because death row inmates don't necessarily have any rights. By 1960 he was licensed in Pathological Anatomy and in 1965 in Clinical Pathology. In April 1960 he testified before a Joint Judicial Committee in Columbus, Ohio to revise the death penalty and to legalize medical experimentation on condemned inmates. In 1976 he moved to Los Angeles, California. He changed jobs frequently. Between 1982 to 86 he mainly did his writing and research. In 1988, even the pro-suicide Hemlock Society founder, Derek humphry rebuffed his methods as "too perilous and risky". In 1989 after reading about a patient who had asked for euthanasia he began working on a lethal-injection machine that would be able to do the task at the 'flip of a switch'. It was called the Thanatron (and later Mercitron). He got a lot of publicity because of this. On June 4, 1990 he performed the first of his 'medicides' as he liked to call physician-assisted suicide. His 'client' was a 54 year old woman suffering from Alzheimer's. She had contacted him herself after reading his ads in the papers. It was performed in the back of his VW van. She received sodium pentothal (an anesthetic) and potassium chloride (to stop the heart). By the time of this 3rd medicide his medical licemse was revoked for violating Michigan state laws regarding euthanasia. One of his 'clients' was even found on autopsy not to have any major pathology. He continued to do his medicides by giving his clients carbon-monoxide. There were reports that one patient had asked her mask to be removed twice (maybe a change of mind) but Kevorkian had continued with his task. On August 17, 1993 he was formally charged with violating the law. By then he had already helped 20 clients to their peaceful deaths. He was jailed first in November 1993 and then again in December 1993. Kevorkian went on a liquid only fast for 18 days and was acquitted in May 1994. By now he had even gained several supporters in the general community. By 1998 he hed committed over 100 medicides. Relatives of some of his clients claimed that he had continued despite protests from his 'victims'. He was now charged with 2nd degree murder. During his trial he was defended by the flamboyant lawyer Geoffrey Fieger. In March 1999 Dr. Kevorkian was sentenced by a Michigan jury to 10-25 years for his crime.
- Jacques Bergerac was born on 26 May 1927 in Biarritz, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. He was an actor, known for Gigi (1958), Missione speciale Lady Chaplin (1966) and Un homme se penche sur son passé (1958). He was married to Dorothy Malone and Ginger Rogers. He died on 15 June 2014 in Anglet, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France.
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- Producer
- Additional Crew
American leading man famed as the star of one of the longest-running shows in U.S. television history, Gunsmoke (1955). Born of Norwegian heritage (the family name, Aurness, had formerly been Aursness) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Rolf and Ruth Duesler Aurness. His father was a traveling salesman of medical supplies and his mother later became a newspaper columnist. James attended West High School in Minneapolis. Although he appeared in school plays, he had no interest in performing, and dreamed instead of going to sea. After high school, he attended one semester at Beloit College before receiving his draft notice in 1943. He entered the army and trained at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, before shipping out for North Africa. At Casablanca, Arness joined the 3rd Infantry Division in time for the invasion of Anzio. Ten days after the invasion, Arness was severely wounded in the leg and foot by German machine-gun fire. His wounds, which plagued him the rest of his life, resulted in his medical discharge from the army.
While recuperating in a hospital in Clinton, Iowa, Arness was visited by his younger brother Peter (later to gain fame as actor Peter Graves), who suggested he take a radio course at the University of Minnesota. James did so, and a teacher recommended him for a job as an announcer at a Minneapolis radio station. Though seemingly headed for success in radio, he followed a boyhood friend's suggestion and went with the friend to Hollywood to find work as a film extra. Arness studied at the Bliss-Hayden Theatre School under actor Harry Hayden, and while appearing in a play there was spotted by agent Leon Lance. Lance got the actor a role as Loretta Young's brother in The Farmer's Daughter (1947). The director of that film, H.C. Potter, recommended that he drop the "u" from his last name and soon thereafter the actor was officially known as James Arness.
Little work followed this break, and Arness became sort of beach bum, living on the shore at San Onofre and spending his days surfing. He began taking his acting career more seriously when he began to receive fan mail following the release of the Young picture. He appeared in a production of "Candida" at the Pasadena Community Playhouse, and married his leading lady, Virginia Chapman. She pressed him to study acting and to work harder in pursuit of a career, but Arness has been consistent in ascribing his success to luck. He began to act small roles with frequency, often due to his size, and mostly villainous characters. Most notable among these was that of the space alien in The Thing from Another World (1951).
While playing a Greek warrior in a play, Arness was spotted by agent Charles K. Feldman, who represented John Wayne. Feldman introduced Arness to Wayne, who put the self-described 6', 6" actor under personal contract. Arness played several roles over the next few years for and with Wayne, whom he considered a mentor. In 1955, Wayne recommended Arness for the lead role of Matt Dillon in the TV series Gunsmoke (1955). (Contrary to urban legend, Wayne himself was never offered the role.) Arness at first declined, thinking a TV series could derail his growing film career, but Wayne argued for the show, and Arness accepted. His portrayal of stalwart Marshal Dillon became an iconic figure in American television and the series, aired for 20 seasons, is, as of 2008, the longest-running dramatic series in U.S. television history. Arness became world-famous and years later reprized the character in a series of TV movies.
After the surprising cancellation of "Gunsmoke" in 1975, Arness jumped immediately into another successful (though much shorter-lived) Western project, a TV-movie-miniseries-series combination known as "How The West Was Won." A brief modern police drama, McClain's Law (1981), followed, and Arness played his mentor John Wayne's role in Red River (1988), a remake of the Wayne classic.
Following the aforementioned "Gunsmoke" TV movies (the last in 1994, when Arness was 71), Arness basically retired. His marriage to Virginia Chapman ended in divorce in 1960. They had three children, one of whom, Jenny Lee, committed suicide in 1975. Arness subsequently married Janet Surtrees in 1978.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Jason Manford was born on 26 May 1981 in Salford, Lancashire, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Ordinary Lies (2015), Ideal (2005) and Little Crackers (2010). He has been married to Lucy Dyke since 23 December 2017. They have one child. He was previously married to Catherine.- Jay Silverheels was born on Canada's Six Nation's Reserve and was one of 10 children. He was a star lacrosse player and a boxer before he entered films as a stuntman in 1938. He worked in a number of films through the 1940s before gaining notice as the Osceola brother in a Humphrey Bogart film Key Largo (1948). Most of Silverheels' roles consisted of bit parts as an Indian character. In 1949, he worked in the movie The Cowboy and the Indians (1949) with another "B movie" actor Clayton Moore. Later that year, Silverheels was hired to play the faithful Indian companion, Tonto, in the TV series The Lone Ranger (1949) series, which brought him the fame that his motion picture career never did.
Silverheels recreated the role of Tonto in two big-screen color movies with Moore,The Lone Ranger (1956) and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958). After the TV series ended in 1957, Silverheels could not escape the typecasting of Tonto. He would continue to appear in an occasional film and television show but became a spokesperson to improve the portrayal of Indians in the media. - Jean-François Casanovas was born on 26 May 1949 in Paris, France. He was an actor, known for Tetro (2009), Todo o nada (1984) and La pluma del ángel (1992). He died on 29 April 2015 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- John Dall was born John Dall Thompson on May 26, 1920, the younger son of Mr. Charles Jenner Thompson and Mrs. Henry (née Worthington) Thompson. He made his Broadway debut in Norman Krasna's comedy, 'Dear Ruth', directed by Moss Hart, in 1944. The show was a hit, running for over a year and a half and 680 performances.
He next appeared on Broadway in Jean-Paul Sartre's 'Red Gloves' in 1948. The show ran for 113 performances. Dall's penultimate stint on Broadway, in the 1950 revival of 'The Heiress', was a flop, closing after 16 performances. He had the role of the callow fortune hunter Morris Townsend, played so memorably by Montgomery Clift in William Wyler's 1949 movie version, The Heiress (1949).
Dall received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for The Corn Is Green (1945), his debut film. He reached the height of his movie career in 1948, playing one of the two students modeled after the 1920s' thrill killers Leopold & Loeb in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948). Unfortunately for Dall, "Rope" was an interesting flop. The other role for which he is best remembered, the firearms fetishist in Gun Crazy (1950) (originally released as "Deadly is the Female", the name of the short story the movie was based on), earned him a place in the film noir pantheon. It was a B-movie and, like "Rope", also flopped. The only prominent film he appeared in subsequently was Stanley Kubrick-Kirk Douglas' Spartacus (1960) in 1960, which--like "Gun Crazy"--was scripted by Dalton Trumbo.
Dall, whose career started out so promisingly in the 1940s, getting an Oscar nod for his movie debut, never gained any traction. He appeared in only eight movies from 1945 to 1961, though he did many TV acting gigs. He died in 1971, aged 50, of a heart attack due to underlying myocarditis, according to his death certificate. - Producer
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- Writer
John Hamburg was born on 26 May 1970 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Little Fockers (2010), Why Him? (2016) and I Love You, Man (2009). He has been married to Christina Kirk since 24 September 2005.- Actor
- Producer
- Art Department
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.
Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. Until the ranch failed, Marion and his younger brother Robert E. Morrison swam in an irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school. When the ranch failed, the family moved to Glendale, California, where Marion delivered medicines for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named "Duke" (the source of his own nickname). He did well at school both academically and in football. When he narrowly failed admission to Annapolis he went to USC on a football scholarship 1925-7. Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop man in exchange for football tickets. On the set he became close friends with director John Ford for whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, some billed as John Wayne. His first featured film was Men Without Women (1930). After more than 70 low-budget westerns and adventures, mostly routine, Wayne's career was stuck in a rut until Ford cast him in Stagecoach (1939), the movie that made him a star. He appeared in nearly 250 movies, many of epic proportions. From 1942-43 he was in a radio series, "The Three Sheets to the Wind", and in 1944 he helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Conservative political organization, later becoming its President. His conservative political stance was also reflected in The Alamo (1960), which he produced, directed and starred in. His patriotic stand was enshrined in The Green Berets (1968) which he co-directed and starred in. Over the years Wayne was beset with health problems. In September 1964 he had a cancerous left lung removed; in 1977 when Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope was being made, John Waynes archive voice was used for the character Garindan ezz Zavor, later in March 1978 there was heart valve replacement surgery; and in January 1979 his stomach was removed. He received the Best Actor nomination for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and finally got the Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). A Congressional Gold Medal was struck in his honor in 1979. He is perhaps best remembered for his parts in Ford's cavalry trilogy - Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950).- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Jolene Anderson was born on 26 May 1980 in Kempsey, New South Wales, Australia. She is an actress and producer, known for All Saints (1998), Rush (2008) and The Dustwalker (2019).- Josefina Robirosa was born on 26 May 1932 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Josefina is known for The City of Your Final Destination (2009). Josefina died on 20 May 2022 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Julianna Rose Mauriello was born in Irvington, New York on a glorious spring morning, May 26, 1991. Always singing, she appeared as a child in Party Scene of The Nutcracker at SUNY Purchase, asleep under the Christmas tree. Her fascination with performing continued to grow as she first watched her sisters and brother participate in Pleasantville High School's musical theater productions, and later joined them on stage as one of the Snow children in a performance of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. A summer at French Woods Performing Arts Festival cemented her affection for the stage, leading to an introduction to prominent theatrical agent, Nancy Carson, and her first professional role as Li'l Titch in the 2002 revival of another Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, Oklahoma!.
To be closer to her work, she and the family moved into Manhattan. Julianna began attending Professional Performing Arts School where she is currently an honor student. Following her first professional stage experience, further appearances included Gypsy: A Musical Fable with Bernadette Peters, understudying several roles including Baby June, and New York City Center Encores!®, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. In addition to her stage work, she made commercials and specialty films, working for Volvo, Wendy's, AstraZeneca (Nexium), and Disney Entertainment.
In a twist worthy of entertainment lore, the original girl cast to star in a new Nickelodeon TV show declined to continue with the project. As a result, her agent put Julianna up for the role of 'Stephanie' in LazyTown, a fresh, funny show blending music, movement and healthful messages for young children, now a mainstay of Nick Jr.'s pre-school programming. The show's creator, Icelander Magnus Scheving, selected Julianna for her unique mix of talent and energy as an ideal nucleus for the show's positive messages. In connection with her work on LazyTown, Ms. Mauriello relocated to Iceland to shoot episodes for three seasons, learning Icelandic in the process; appeared as a presenter on Iceland's Edda Awards; and has made live and/or broadcast appearances in 70 countries on 5 continents.
In 2006, she was selected by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences as a nominee for its Daytime Emmy Award, "Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series". The world continues to reward LazyTown's upbeat message with many accolades and awards, the most recent being a nomination in the 'International' category by the British Academy of Film & Television Arts for its upcoming 2006 Children's' BAFTA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kerry's first professional stage role was in Oliver! at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. She then went on to play the lead role of Matilda Wormwood in Matilda, a Musical in Stratford Upon Avon's Courtyard Theatre. The show was a success and It then transferred to West End and Kerry was the only original Matilda to transfer. Kerry won an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the role. She then went on to film a small part in the film adaptation of the musical Les Miserables, however, her role was cut from the final edit. In June 2012, she announced for the role of Shireen Baratheon in HBO'S Game of Thrones and has since filmed the 3rd 4th and 5th season.
Other works include playing the queen of years for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary proms where Ingram sang 'The rings of akhaten' along side Alan Clayton at the royal Albert hall July 2013 and has recently announced playing a small role in the new BBC adaptation of Wolf Hall starring Mark Rylance, Damien Lewis and Thomas Brodie-Sangster which is to air in 2015.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Kevin Franklin Gaede, who later changed his name to Kevin Gage, was born and raised in northern Wisconsin. He was physically active, working on his grandparents' dairy farm and excelling in school sports, including basketball, baseball, football, hockey, and track. He also enjoyed fishing and other outdoor activities.
After graduating high school, Kevin headed to Florida to see the ocean. After a few months he turned his sights on California, planning to find work in construction, and landed in Hollywood. There Kevin worked for a security company, drove delivery trucks, and (still only 18 years old) went to bartending school and became a bartender. The job paid well. Life was good.
When Kevin was 21, tending bar at a local steakhouse, he was approached by a theatrical agent, who had him read for a part and then recommended that he take an acting class. He became a regular in local plays and within a few years he was picking up small roles in films and television, including Highway to Heaven, Steele Justice, and High Mountain Rangers.
It was in acting class that he started seeing Kelly Preston. After a couple of years of dating, they were married in Hawaii in 1985. Kevin's first movie part was in Space Camp, where Preston had a leading role. Unfortunately his lines ended up on the cutting room floor. Two years later, the marriage fell apart and they went their separate ways. Kevin continued to find small acting roles, and in 1989 he appeared opposite Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern and Brother Theodore in The 'Burbs.
Kevin's first big role, and still one of his most memorable, was as "Waingro" in Heat, released in 1995. Competition for the role was tough, requiring twelve meetings over two months with casting director Bonnie Timmerman and director Michael Mann. Kevin was elated to be chosen, saying that he had dreamed for 13 years of being able to work with talent of Robert DeNiro's caliber.
His performance in Heat resulted in many offers, and Kevin continued to work in more A-list films, TV episodes, and lower budget films. He played opposite leading actors including Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen in G.I. Jane, Nicholas Cage in Con Air and Johnny Depp in Blow.
Kevin's career was temporarily derailed in 2002 after he and two partners set up a licensed business to grow and distribute medicinal marijuana. Though legal in California and encouraged by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (who declared SF to be a medicinal marijuana-friendly city), the Federal government disagreed and arrested them. After serving two years of his 41-month sentence in a minimal security facility, Kevin was released early for good behavior in September 2005.
Kevin married Perris Knight on a Santa Barbara beach in the spring of 2006, and their son Ryder Jay Gage was born in January 2007. Sadly, Perris was diagnosed in late 2008 with inoperable brain cancer. Kevin's focus became caring for her and Ryder, with help from her parents. Perris passed away in July 2014.
As of 2020, Kevin lives with his teenage son in southern California and continues to complete several acting projects each year.- Actor
- Soundtrack
RADA-trained Laurence Fox is the third son of the actor James Fox and his wife Mary. He is a British actor who has appeared in several important films, plays, and television programs.
He is also active in politics, founding a new political party named "Reclaim" in 2020 and he presents an opinion show on GB News.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Lauryn Hill, a native of South Orange, New Jersey, first came to attention with the multi-talented Fugees. Their first album, "Blunted On Reality", went virtually unnoticed by the public; their real breakthrough came with the sophomore album, "The Score", which featured "Killing Me Softly". That album stills remains the worldwide top-selling rap album of all time (17 million units shipped). She earned two Grammys (Best Rap Album and Best R&B Performance by a duo or group) in 1996 and gave birth to Zion (alleged father is Bob Marley's son) before releasing her self-written and self-produced solo album, "The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill", which topped Billboard charts the moment it came out.- Actor
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Regarded as one of the preeminent rock musicians of our time, Lenny Kravitz has transcended genre, style, race, and class over the course of a three decade-plus musical career. Reveling in the soul, rock, and funk influences the sixties and seventies, the writer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has won four consecutive Grammy® Awards as well as setting the record for the most wins in the "Best Male Rock Vocal Performance" category.
In addition to his eleven studio albums, which have sold 40 million worldwide, this multidimensional artist has segued into film, appearing as Cinna in the box-office hits, The Hunger Games and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Kravitz can also be seen in the critically-acclaimed films Precious and The Butler. His creative firm Kravitz Design Inc. touts an impressive portfolio of noteworthy ventures, including hotel properties, condominium projects, private residences, and high-end legendary brands like Rolex, Leica and Dom Perignon. In 2022, he launched his own ultra-premium spirits brand, Nocheluna Sotol-a distillate from Chihuahua, Mexico derived from the sotol plant. He was also recognized by the CFDA in 2022 with their "Fashion Icon Award" for his role as not only one of rock's most esteemed musicians, but also a major fashion influence.
Kravitz is also the author of Flash, a book which showcases unique rock photography. His recent memoir, Let Love Rule, landed on The New York Times' Best Sellers List.
Lenny released his eleventh full-length album, Raise Vibration, in 2018. He serves as the brand ambassador and global face for YSL Beauty's Y cologne. Most recently, he was selected as a 2023 Hollywood Walk of Fame inductee.- Director
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- Additional Crew
Leon Marr was born on 26 May 1948 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a director and writer, known for Dancing in the Dark (1986), The Second Time Around (2016) and The Hitchhiker (1983). He died on 22 July 2019 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Music Department
Levon Helm was in the right place at the right time. He saw the birth of rock and roll and, though he was too much of a gentleman to say it, his role in helping to keep that rebellious child healthy was more than just instrumental.
On May 26, 1940, Mark Lavon Helm was the second of four children born to Nell and Diamond Helm in Elaine, Arkansas. Diamond was a cotton farmer who entertained occasionally as a musician. The Helms loved music and often sang together. They listened to The Grand Ole Opry and Sonny Boy Williamson and his King Biscuit Entertainers regularly on the radio. A favorite family pastime was attending traveling music shows in the area. According to his 1993 autobiography, "This Wheel's On Fire", Levon recalled seeing his first live show, Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, at six years old. His description: "This really tattooed my brain. I've never forgotten it." Hearing performers like Monroe and Williamson on the radio was one thing; seeing them live made a huge impression.
Levon's father bought him his first guitar at age nine. At ten and 11, whenever he wasn't in school or at work on the farm, the boy could be found at KFFA's broadcasting studio in Helena, Arkansas, watching Sonny Boy Williamson do his radio show, "King Biscuit Time". Helm made his younger sister Linda a string bass out of a washtub when he was 12 years old. She would play the bass while her brother slapped his thighs and played harmonica and guitar. They would sing songs learned at home and popular hits of the day, and billed themselves as "Lavon and Linda." Because of their fresh-faced good looks, obvious musical talent and Levon's natural ability to win an audience with sheer personality and infectious rhythms, the pair consistently won talent contests along the Arkansas 4-H Club circuit.
In 1954 Levon was 14 years old when he saw Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins do a show at Helena. Also performing was a young Elvis Presley, with Scotty Moore on guitar, and Bill Black on stand-up bass. They did not have a drummer. The music was early jazz-fueled rockabilly, and the audience went wild. In 1955 he saw Elvis once more, before Presley's star exploded. This time Presley had D.J. Fontana with him on drums and Black was playing electric bass. Helm couldn't get over the difference and thought it was the best band he'd seen. The added instruments gave the music solidity and depth. People jumped out of their seats dancing to the thunderous, heart-pumping rhythms. The melting pot that was the Mississippi Delta had boiled over and evolved. Its magnificently rich blues was uniting with all the powerful, new, spicy-hot sounds and textures that became rock and roll.
Natural progression led Levon to form his own rock band as a high-school junior, called The Jungle Bush Beaters. While Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis were making teens everywhere crazed, Levon would practice, play, watch and learn. After seeing Jerry Lee's drummer Jimmy Van Eaton, he seriously began thinking of playing the drums himself. Around this same time the 17-year-old musician was invited by Conway Twitty to share the stage with Twitty and his Rock Housers. He had met Twitty when "Lavon and Linda" opened for him at a previous show. Helm was a personable, polite teen who took his music seriously, so Twitty allowed him to sit in whenever the opportunity arose.
Ronnie Hawkins came into Levon Helm's life in 1957. A charismatic entertainer and front-man, Hawkins was gathering musicians to tour Canada, where the shows and money were steady. He had a sharp eye for talent. He needed a drummer and Levon fit the bill. Fulfilling a promise to Nell and Diamond to finish high school, Levon joined Ronnie and his "Hawks" on the road. The young Arkansas farm boy, once a tractor driving champion, found himself driving Hawkins' Cadillac to gigs, happily aware that all the unknown adventures of rock and roll would soon be his destiny.
In 1959 Ronnie got The Hawks signed to Roulette Records. They had two hits, "Forty Days" and "Mary Lou", sold 750,000 copies and appeared on Dick Clark's American Bandstand (1952). Hawkins and Helm recruited four more talented Canadian musicians in the early 1960s--Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Robbie Robertson. Under Ronnie's tutelage they would often perform until midnight and rehearse until four in the morning. Other bands began emulating their style; now they were the ones to watch and learn from.
Eventually the students surpassed their teacher. Weary of Ronnie's strict regulations and eager to expand their own musical interests, the five decided to break from Hawkins. They called themselves "Levon and the Hawks."
About 1965 Bob Dylan decided to change his sound. He was ready to "go electric" and wanted Levon and The Hawks to help him fire it up. The boys signed on to tour with Dylan, but unfortunately Dylan's die-hard folk fans resisted. Night after night of constant booing left Levon without the pleasure of seeing his audience enjoy themselves. He called his drummer's stool "the best seat in the house," because he could see his fellow musicians and his audience simultaneously. What pleased him most, always, was that his audience had a good time. He temporarily left the group and eventually landed back home in Arkansas. Dylan and the rest of the band took up residence in Woodstock, NY. They rented a large, pink house where they wrote and rehearsed new material. Danko called for Helm to join them when Capitol Records gave them a recording contract.
Woodstock residents called them "the band," so they kept the moniker. The name The Band fit. The sound was no-frills rock-and-roll, but far from simplistic. They fused every musical influence they were exposed to over the years as individuals and as a unit. The result was brilliant. Their development as musicians was perfected by years of playing. Living together at "Big Pink" allowed complete collaboration of their artistic expression. Americana and folklore themes, heart-wrenching ballads filled with naked emotion, majestic harmonies, hard-driving rhythms and exquisite instrumentation made critics, peers and fans realize that this music was unlike any heard before. Their first album, "Music from Big Pink", released in July of 1968, made them household names, and as a result they were invited to appear on Ed Sullivan's The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) in autumn of '69. Following "Big Pink"'s success the next album, called simply "The Band", is considered by some as their masterpiece. They made seven albums total, including one live recording in 1972, "Rock of Ages". Many of their hits--such as "The Weight", "W.S. Walcott's Medicine Show" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"--were spawned from stories of Levon's beloved South.
Helm was working in Los Angeles in 1974, at a Sunset Blvd. hotel, when he spotted a beautiful young brunette taking a dip in the pool. Her name was Sandra Dodd and when she looked up at him smiling, she didn't recognize him at first. The charming musician offered to take the lovely lady for sushi and never looked back. They were married on September 7, 1981, in Woodstock.
The barn and studio Helm built in Woodstock, which became his permanent home, was just about complete in 1975. He invited Muddy Waters to his new studio and they recorded "Muddy Waters in Woodstock". To the delight of everyone involved, it won a Grammy.
The Band held a farewell concert at Winterland in San Francisco on Thanksgiving 1976. It was a bittersweet time for many, who felt the group's demise was too soon. They called it "The Last Waltz", which included Ronnie Hawkins,Dr. John, Muddy Waters, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and an all-star guest list of peers and friends that read like the "Who's Who" of rock and roll. The event eventually sold as a triple album and was also filmed--The Last Waltz (1978) became the first historical "rockumentary."
Group members went on to individual pursuits. Levon cut his debut album, "The RCO All-Stars", in 1977. His next effort was the self-titled "Levon Helm", followed by "American Son", released in 1980. That same year was pivotal, as Helm turned his attention to acting. He played Loretta Lynn's father in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), winning great reviews for his first film appearance. He did another self-titled album and Hollywood again came knocking in 1983, giving him a role in The Right Stuff (1983). The authenticity he brought to his characters earned him numerous movie roles from 1980 until 2009. Levon gave a sensitive, convincing portrayal of a destitute blind man in the 2005 Tommy Lee Jones vehicle, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005). In 2007 he filmed Shooter (2007) with Mark Wahlberg. His last role was in 2009. where he portrayed Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood in In the Electric Mist (2009), again with his friend Tommy Lee Jones.
Rick Danko and Levon reunited to play music after Danko had been living in California. Rick moved back to Woodstock and the friends did an acoustic tour in early 1983. In San Jose the following year, they received excellent reviews when Hudson and Manuel joined them for their first U.S. appearance as The Band since 1976. They continued playing together until the tragic death of their dear friend and comrade, the 42-year-old Manuel.
During the 1990s three more Band albums were recorded: "Jericho", "High on the Hog" and "Jubilation". In 1998 Levon was diagnosed with throat cancer and the famous voice with the rich Southern nuances was silenced to a whisper. He still played the drums, mandolin and harmonica, often performing with his daughter, Amy Helm, also a vocalist and instrumentalist. A great emotional support to her father during this time, Amy appeared with him regularly at Levon Helm Studios. In 1999 Helm endured another tragic loss when Rick Danko passed away 19 days before his 56th birthday. His death marked the end of an era.
Miraculously, Levon's voice slowly returned. He felt comfortable enough to sing again live. With imagination and vision, he conceived The Midnight Ramble Sessions, a series of live performances at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock. Named for the traveling minstrel shows of his youth, the first Midnight Ramble was held in January, 2004. It featured one of the last performances by great blues pianist Johnnie Johnson. Friends old and new joined Levon on his stage, including Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, John Sebastian, Allen Toussaint, Elvis Costello, Phil Lesh, Jimmy Vivino, Hubert Sumlin, Little Sammy Davis, Billy Bob Thornton and The Boxmasters, The Muddy Waters Band, The Swell Season, Donald Fagen, Steve Jordon, Hot Tuna, Kris Kristofferson, The Black Crowes, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Norah Jones, The Bacon Brothers, Robbie Dupree, My Morning Jacket, Shemekia Copeland, The Wood Brothers, Steve Earle, Jackie Greene, Sam Bush, Brewer & Shipley, Carolyn Wonderland, Ollabelle and The Alexis P. Suter Band. The monthly Rambles at "The Barn" were wildly successful, drawing a worldwide audience.
Releases produced by Levon Helm Studios from Helm's personal "vault," were Volume I and II of "The Midnight Ramble Sessions", plus a live RCO All-Stars performance from New Year's Eve 1977, at the Palladium. The vitality and magnetism of these recordings speak for themselves. In September of 2007, Dirt Farmer Music and Vanguard Records released "Dirt Farmer", Levon's first solo, studio album in 25 years. A project particularly close to his heart, the CD contains music reminiscent of his past, and songs handed down from his parents. "Dirt Farmer" was awarded a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album in February 2008 and landed Levon a spot in Rolling Stone's The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. That same year he was also recognized by the Recording Academy with a lifetime achievement award as an original member of The Band and was given the "Artist of the Year" Award by the Americana Music Association. In 2009 Levon released "Electric Dirt", which marked his highest debut in Soundscan era at #36 and spent six consecutive weeks at #1 on the Americana Radio Chart. He won a second Grammy for "Electric Dirt" in the inaugural category of Best Americana Album in 2010. In September 2008 Levon took "The Midnight Ramble" on the road to Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium. Buddy Miller, John Hiatt, Sheryl Crow, George Receli, Sam Bush and Billy Bob Thornton helped The Levon Helm Band create an evening of unforgettable musical joy. "Ramble at the Ryman - Live CD and DVD" (sold individually) won him his third consecutive Grammy, again as Best Album in the Americana category, in February 2012. Sadly, Levon's cancer returned shortly after this last triumph. He passed away on April 19, 2012. His funeral was a tearful, joyful, musical celebration of his life.
The intimacy of the shows performed at Levon's hearth offered a hospitality and warmth found in no other venue, not to mention the excellence of the performances themselves, hosted by a man whose gifts were truly legendary. Though always an enthusiastic and passionate performer, with sheer joy and gratitude, he effortlessly captivated his audience, young and old, with a rhythmic power all his own. During a career that spanned over five decades, Levon Helm nurtured a tradition of professionalism with a deep respect for his craft and remained refreshingly genuine in a world that often compromised integrity. He was a master storyteller who wove his tales with the magic thread of universality that ties us all. He beckoned us to come in, sit awhile and enjoy. We see ourselves in his stories and we are home.
--Dawn LoBue Copyright © 2006 ~ 2012 All Rights Reserved.- Actress
- Director
- Additional Crew
Lisa Niemi was born on 26 May 1956 in Houston, Texas, USA. She is an actress and director, known for One Last Dance (2003), She's Having a Baby (1988) and Super Force (1990). She has been married to Albert DePrisco since 25 May 2014. She was previously married to Patrick Swayze.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Luis Felipe Noé was born on 26 May 1933 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is an actor, known for Carne (1991), Tintarella di luna (1985) and Tres en la deriva del acto creativo (2021).- Maite Zumelzú was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is known for Por amarte así (2016), Premios Martín Fierro 2017 (2017) and El encanto de las ballenas (2021).
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- Visual Effects
Makoto Ogino was a writer, known for Radiant Silvergun (1998), Peacock King (1988) and Sin and Punishment (2000). He died on 29 April 2019.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Marcus Nispel was born on 26 May 1963 in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany. He is a director and producer, known for Friday the 13th (2009), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and Pathfinder (2007).- Margaret Colin was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised on Long Island. She graduated from Baldwin Senior High School in 1976. Margaret began acting in The Edge of Night (1956) (her character was a heiress and former terrorist, with seven murder attempts), and was employed next on As the World Turns (1956), portraying character Margo Montgomery. Margaret's first film appearance were as a teacher in John Hughes's Pretty in Pink (1986), followed by a role in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (1986), where she played Irene, girlfriend to Ray Liotta's character. The following year, she had supporting roles in Like Father Like Son (1987), and Three Men and a Baby (1987). In film, Margaret either had minor, or supporting, roles; it's her work in television that perhaps makes her most memorable. Ms Colin continued acting with parts in Chicago Hope (1994), and The Wright Verdicts (1995). In 2000, Margaret earned a Saturn Award for Best Genre TV Actress for her role as Lisa Wiseman in the series Now and Again (1999). From 2007 to 2013, she played Eleanor Waldorf in the series Gossip Girl (2007).
- Composer
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- Music Department
Marian Gold was born on 26 May 1954 in Hereford, Germany. He is a composer and actor, known for Son of a Gun (2014), Three Steps Above Heaven (2010) and Burlesque (2010).- Writer
- Actress
- Producer
Marieke Hardy was born on 26 May 1976 in Melbourne, Australia. She is a writer and actress, known for Laid (2011), Short Cuts (2002) and Blue Heelers (1994).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Masaharu Morimoto was born on 26 May 1955 in Hiroshima, Japan. He is an actor, known for Morimoto's Sushi Master (2023), Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine (2008) and Hawaii Five-0 (2010).- Music Department
- Writer
- Producer
Matthew Stone is a Jewish-American actor, writer, director, musician and animator who frequently collaborates with Trey Parker. They created and voiced in the South Park franchise. Matt voiced Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, Butters Stotch and other characters. He and Parker also worked on The Book of Mormon, Baseketball, Cannibal the Musical, Team America: World Police and Orgazmo.- Director
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Matthew Currie Holmes is a multi-award-winning screenwriter, director, and actor; having appeared in over 40 films and television series, most notably Firewall (Harrison Ford), The Fog (Maggie Grace) and Wrong Turn 2 (Henry Rollins).
Currie Holmes' feature film directorial debut, the supernatural thriller The Curse of Buckout Road, starring screen legend Danny Glover, and Evan Ross and winner of the Best Feature Film at The Pasadena International Film Festival , Best Feature & Best Screenplay at both Blood in The Snow Film Fest and Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival, as well as Best Thriller at Hot Springs International Horror Film Festival, was released by Vertical Entertainment September 27th 2019 in theaters across the country and on VOD.
Currie Holmes recently wrote, directed and composed the title track to Traces, a coming-of-age drama set in the ever-changing world of the music industry. The movie stars Pablo Schreiber, Sosie Bacon and rock 'n' roll icon Rick Springfield.
His vampire screenplay Self Storage won Best Screenplay at Creation International Film Festival and placed in the top 3 at Buffalo Dream Fantastic Film Fest, Malta International, and Filmmatic Film Festival, putting Matthew Currie Holmes in the director's chair for the third time. Production on Self Storage is slated for 2021 in Canada.
Currie Holmes' subversive, female-led, revenge thriller Never Alone is in development with an anticipated shoot, summer 2021. Matthew Currie Holmes is slated to direct.- Writer
- Animation Department
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Monkey Punch was born on 26 May 1937 in Hamanaka, Hokkaido, Japan. He was a writer, known for Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus (1995) and Lupin III: Dead or Alive (1996). He died on 11 April 2019 in Sakura, Chiba, Japan.- Actress
- Editor
A Dutch South African, Musetta Vander was raised without that most basic of modern conveniences--television! Radio programming, childhood books and weekend trips to the drive-in introduced her to the magical world of movies. It was not until the mid-'70s that South Africa finally got television, and the big black box in the family living room "miraculously" sprang to life.
However, as the daughter of a ballet teacher, Musetta was no stranger to the entertainment world and debuted on stage at the age of four. Her childhood was filled with numerous dance performances including "Giselle", "Coppelia", "The Student Prince" and "Showboat", and, shortly after completing school, she qualified as a ballet teacher herself.
After earning a BA in Communications and Psychology, she landed the plum job as anchor host for an MTV-like television show in South Africa. One day, a handsome visiting American, Jeff Celentano, spotted her on television, made her his bride, and whisked her off to the very place she had always dreamed of--Hollywood.
Shortly after her arrival, she became part of the very world she used to host, appearing as the "dream girl" in more than 20 music videos for such top recording artists as Rod Stewart, Amy Grant, Tina Turner, Elton John and Chris Isaak.
It was her critically acclaimed stage performance in the original South African play "Soweto's Burning", about the trials of an interracial friendship in that racially segregated country, that provided her transition to the big screen. Musetta has since performed in numerous feature films, including collaborating with her husband on Under the Hula Moon (1995) and Gunshy (1998). She has also worked alongside such screen veterans as Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh and Will Smith in Wild Wild West (1999), George Clooney and John Turturro in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and John Hurt and Louis Gossett Jr. in Monolith (1993). She's also added a slew of television credits to her arsenal, including guest appearances on the hit shows Star Trek: Voyager (1995), Stargate SG-1 (1997) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).
Recently Musetta made a return to the stage, combining both her dance and acting background in an extremely successful adaptation of Molière's "The Bourgeois Gentleman" at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.- Actress
- Producer
Nanrisa Lee was born in Alameda County, California, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Quantum Leap (2022), CSI: Vegas (2021) and Bosch (2014).- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Ned Dowd was born on 26 May 1950 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He is a producer and assistant director, known for Apocalypto (2006), The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) and The Last of the Mohicans (1992).- Nick Michaels is known for Friday Night (1983) and Barcelona '92: 16 Days of Glory (1993).
- Actress
- Composer
Nicki Aycox lived a full artistic life since the age of nine, when she fell in love with the family piano and began playing music. By the time she had reached her preteens Nicki was performing Beethoven for audiences all around Oklahoma, until her family had a huge financial setback and was forced to sell her piano. Nicki said that this sad circumstance played a major role in her shift to the theater. Like a lot of kids her age she began performing in her high school theater, and also in drama competitions. She won state titles in different categories, and became very comfortable with being in front of an audience. She once said that she was on stage long before she ever actually sat in an audience. After high school graduation she attended the University of Oklahoma and began serious academic study. Soon, however, she found herself driving to California to enroll in the theater department at Long Beach State. While working two jobs and participating in the theater department, Nicki found little time to study and take a full class load. In her second year at Long Beach State Nicki was able to sign with a small agency in Hollywood, and thus began her career as a professional performer - a career which began relatively quickly compared to most. She was working small bit parts on several popular networks and shows within a year of making the move from Oklahoma to Los Angeles. In the beginning of her career Nicki acted opposite actor Stephen Rae in an HBO film called "Double Tap", as well as appearing in shows like "Third Rock from the Sun", NBC's "Providence", David Kelley's "Ally McBeal", and in the X-Files episode "Rush" in 1999. That role from the TV show led to a role in the second "X-Files" film "I Want to Believe" in 2008. In a time when an unspoken difference between "film" actors and "television" actors existed, Aycox did not allow this rule to apply to her.
Her work during these early years included guest spots on "CSI", and "Dark Angel", a recurring role n NBC's "ED" playing the wild and crazy sister of Julie Bowen. At some points Nicki would be pulling double duty playing roles on different shows. She played the sister of Katherine Morris on CBS's "Cold Case", while shooting the series "LAX" with Heather Locklear. By 2005, Aycox was made a series regular on shows such as FX's "Over There" created by Steven Bochco and Chris Gerolmo. She moved on from there to play a very memorable role as a psychotic serial killer in an episode of "Criminal Minds" titled "The Perfect Storm". The following year Nicki appeared in the Halle Berry film "Perfect Stranger". One of her most widely known roles was that of Meg Masters in "Supernatural".
In the years 2009-2013 Aycox enjoyed success as a series regular as Jamie Allen in the Bruckheimer series "Dark Blue". Next she was cast as Lisa Matthews in the Indie film "Lifted", directed by Oscar nominated director Lexi Alexander. Around this time she also awarded a best actress award by the Buffalo Niagara film festival for her portrayal as a German woman fighting to save her sanity in the World War II film "Christina". Her co-star, Stephen Lang, was also awarded for his role as Inspector Reinheart. Aycox spent her final years reclaiming her love of music, playing the guitar and singing for audiences, as well as continuing her acting career.
Aycox revealed on Instagram that she had been diagnosed with leukemia in March 2021. She passed away on November 16th, 2022.- Actress
- Casting Department
- Casting Director
Nicole Dionne was born in Dighton, Massachusetts, USA. She is an actress and casting director, known for Two Distant Strangers (2020), The Oak Room (2020) and Vicious Fun (2020).- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Norma Talmadge was born on May 26, 1895, in Jersey City, New Jersey. The daughter of an unemployed alcoholic and his wife, Norma did not have the idyllic childhood that most of us yearn for. Her father left the family on Christmas Day and his wife and three daughters had to fend for themselves. Her mother, Peggy, took in laundry to help make ends meet. By the time Norma was 14 she took up modeling. She was successful enough that she attracted the attention of studio chiefs in New York City (where the Vitagraph studio was located at the time). Norma landed a small role in The Household Pest (1910). With her mother's prodding, she landed other small roles with the studio in 1910, such as Uncle Tom's Cabin (1910), Love of Chrysanthemum (1910), A Dixie Mother (1910) and A Broken Spell (1910). By 1911 she was improving as an actress, so much so that she landed a good part in A Tale of Two Cities (1911). By 1913 she was Vitagraph's most promising young actress. In August of 1915 Norma and her mother left for California and the promise of success in the fledgling film industry there. Her first film in Hollywood was Captivating Mary Carstairs (1915). The film was not only a flop but the studio that made it, National Pictures, went out of business.
During this time her sister, Constance Talmadge, was working for legendary director D.W. Griffith. Constance managed to get Norma a contract with Griffith's company. Over the following eight months Norma made seven feature films and a few shorts. After the contract ran out, the family returned to the East Coast. In 1916 she met and married producer and businessman Joseph M. Schenck. With his backing they formed their own production company and turned out a number of films, the first of which was Panthea (1917). It was a tremendous hit, as was Norma. In 1920 the production company moved to Hollywood, where the big hits of the day were being produced. Her company produced hits such as The Wonderful Thing (1921), The Eternal Flame (1922) and The Song of Love (1923).
By 1928 Norma's popularity had begun to fade. Her film The Woman Disputed (1928) was a flop at the box-office. Her final film was Du Barry, Woman of Passion (1930). By that time "talkies" were all the rage, but Norma's voice did not lend itself to sound and she was out of work. She divorced Schenck and married George Jessel. Jessel had his own radio show and Norma was added to the cast to help its sagging ratings. She thought this might be the vehicle by which she would revive her stalled film career, but the show continued its decline and was ultimately canceled, and with it the hopes of rebuilding her shattered career. She was finished for good.
She divorced Jessel in 1939 and married Dr. Carvel James in 1946. She remained with him until she died of a stroke on Christmas Eve of 1957 in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was 62 and had been in a phenomenal 250+ motion pictures.- Writer
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Ole Bornedal was born 1959 in Noerresundby, Denmark. From the time he was fourteen he knew he wanted to become a filmmaker. However, not being able to get into The Danish Film School, he had to create his own career and after a few years of University Studies in Film, he started working for The National Danish Broadcasting Company doing radio-dramas and radio-features. Within a few years, Ole was awarded the "Oscar" in Radio: The Prix Italia and acknowledged as one of the most outstanding Radio-Feature directors in the world.
Later Ole worked in television making both Comedies and Dramas and subsequently won The Prix Italia for Best Television Drama in 1996. At the age of 33 he was appointed Head of Television Drama and was the youngest Executive ever but only held the job for one and a half years as he was invited to the United States to do a remake of his International film debut: the thriller, "Nightwatch."
Ole went on to work in New York and Los Angeles for two years as a director, script-developer and Producer.
In 1997, Ole moved back to Denmark and started writing and directing for the stage. In addition, he continued to write and develop feature films and television. In 2001, Ole started his own theater - The Aveny. During the next four years, The Aveny became the most popular best-selling theater in Copenhagen. In 2004, Ole left to restart his international film career and made three movies back-to-back.
Bornedal's movies have been critically acclaimed all over the world and is acknowledged as one of the most influential creators of "The New Danish Cinema."
Ole lives in Copenhagen and has four children: Johan, Claudia, Fanny and Little Peter.- Actress
- Publicist
- Executive
Olivia Pascal was born on 26 May 1957 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany. She is an actress and publicist, known for The Fruit Is Ripe (1977), Sunshine Reggae auf Ibiza (1983) and The Joy of Flying (1977). She has been married to Peter Kanitz since 2009.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Pam Grier was born in Winston-Salem, NC, one of four children of Gwendolyn Sylvia (Samuels), a nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier Jr., an Air Force mechanic. Pam has been a major African-American star from the early 1970s. Her career started in 1971, when Roger Corman of New World Pictures launched her with The Big Doll House (1971), about a women's penitentiary, and The Big Bird Cage (1972). Her strong role put her into a five-year contract with Samuel Z. Arkoff of American-International Pictures, and she became a leading lady in action films such as Jack Hill's Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), the comic strip character Friday Foster (1975) and William Girdler's 'Sheba, Baby' (1975). She continued working with American-International, where she portrayed William Marshall's vampire victim in the Blacula (1972) sequel, Scream Blacula Scream (1973).
During the 1980s she became a regular on Miami Vice (1984) and played a supporting role as an evil witch in Ray Bradbury's and Walt Disney Pictures' Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), then returned to action as Steven Seagal's partner in Above the Law (1988). Her most famous role of the 1990s was probably Jackie Brown (1997), directed by Quentin Tarantino, which was an homage to her earlier 1970s action roles, She occasionally did supporting roles, as in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996), In Too Deep (1999) and a funny performance in Jawbreaker (1999). She also appeared in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (2001) and co-starred with Snoop Dogg in Bones (2001). Her entire career of over 30 years has brought only success for this beautiful and talented actress.
A sister of Grier's died from cancer in 1990 and the son of that sister committed suicide because of his mother's illness. Pam herself was diagnosed with cancer in 1988 and given 18 months to live, which has had an effect on how she has chosen to live. She has never been wed, although she has been romantically linked to Richard Pryor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the past.- Patricia Viggiano is known for Cops (1997), Secret Voices (2021) and Los secretos de papá (2004). She has been married to Diego Chornogubsky since 1986. They have two children.
- Actress
- Producer
Born Julie Anne Harris, the youngest child of Albert and Pat Harris, Patsy Palmer was born for stardom. She spent her childhood in Bethnal Green, London with her whole family close by. She was particularly close to her maternal parents, whom she affectionately called "Farvey" and "Nor." Her parents separated when she was 8 and her father, to whom she never felt close, remarried and moved to America.
Palmer was bitten by the acting bug at the tender age of six when her older brother Albert auditioned for a part in the West End production of "Joseph and the Amazing Techni-Colored Dreamcoat". Accompanying him to the audition along with their mother, Patsy demanded to be allowed to audition despite being too young and, to the amazement of her family and herself, she was given a chorus role - and was the youngest member of the entire show! This prompted a young Julie Harris to audition for the free-paying Anna Scher Theatre School and, because there was already an accomplished film and theatre actress by the name of Julie Harris, she was given the stage name Patsy Palmer, her mother's maiden name. Whilst there Palmer extended her talents to writing plays, resulting in her winning an award at the London Festival of Plays at the age of just 12 for writing her own play about prostitution.
Patsy began her career on television by starring as an extra in an episode of The Bill (1984) in 1988 at 16. That year she had a prominent part as an acne-ridden teenager in a TV commercial for Clearasil. Further small roles in TV series such as Tricky Business (1989), Making News (1990), Clarissa (1991), Love Hurts (1992) and Drop the Dead Donkey (1990) followed before Patsy Palmer became an iconic household name with her famous portrayal of feisty red-head Bianca Jackson in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders (1985), making her first appearance in November 1993 at 21. During her time on the soap opera Palmer tackled various demanding storylines, such as her turbulent romance with Ricky Butcher, played by real-life best friend Sid Owen, the discovery of her father David Wicks, the premature death of her disabled daughter Natasha, for which she became the first- ever soap actress to be nominated for Best Actress at the Royal Television Society Awards, the death of her best friend Tiffany Mitchell, and the revelation of her affair with Dan Sullivan, her mother Carol Jackson's fiancé. In April 1997 she commanded the soap's biggest-ever audience draw with more than 22 million people tuning in to watch Ricky and Bianca's wedding. Her role in the show also prompted a meeting between her and Queen Elizabeth II, which she declared was one of the biggest highlights of her life. But after 6 years in the soap opera, Palmer bowed out to try new things, making her last appearance in September 1999.
Following her departure Palmer got involved in various projects, such as the detective series McCready and Daughter (2001), Do or Die (2001) and the period drama He Knew He Was Right (2004), as well as cameo appearances in short films Another Green World (2005) and Trapped (2008). Patsy also reprised her role as fiery Bianca Jackson in a special spin-off show Ricky and Bianca (2002), reuniting her with Sid Owen for the first time in three years, which detailed Bianca's life away from Walford, where she struggled to raise her son Liam and attend fashion college in Manchester as well as working in a seedy club in order to make ends meet. The show was extremely popular with Palmer's fans and resulted in her being invited to return to the show, but Palmer declined in order to spend time with her family. Later on in October 2007 it was announced that Patsy Palmer would be returning to EastEnders (1985) after 8 years away and, along with Sid Owen, her returning scenes were aired in April 2008. Palmer's second stint in the soap opera as Bianca portrayed her still as a struggling single mother, this time being thrown out of her residence for failing to pay rent and being made homeless along with her children. Palmer has also tackled the difficult storyline of sexual abuse, with her jailbird boyfriend Tony King grooming her stepdaughter Whitney.
Outside her career, Palmer is a mother to four children: Charley (born in February 1992, fathered by an ex-boyfriend); and Fenton (born in June 2000), Emilia (born in July 2001), and Bertie (born in December 2010), fathered by her husband, taxi-driver Richard Merkell. She was married to director Nick Love, who directed her in her role as a pregnant drug-addicted prostitute in Love Story (1999), but they separated after just five months of marriage. She lives in Brighton with Merkell, to whom she's been married since August 2000, and her four children. She is the active patron of Children's Cancer Charity CLIC Sargent.
Patsy Palmer is an incredible talent and a British icon from humble beginnings, a shining example to all Britons that no matter their background, there is hope for everyone that their dreams will come true. Hers did.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Oscar-winning actor Paul Lukas was born in Hungary and graduated from the School for Dramatic Arts. In 1916 he went to Kosice (Kassa) to be an actor; in 1918 he became an actor specializing in comedy. For ten years he was the most popular character player and romantic lead of the company. In 1918 he began making movies in Budapest and in the 1920s he began appearing in films in Austria as well. He journeyed to Hollywood in 1927, where he finally settled down. He wasn't untrue to the stage--he played Dr. Rank to Ruth Gordon's Nora in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" in the Morosco Theatre in New York in 1937--but concentrated on films until 1948. In the '50s he started appearing on stage more and more, and worked in films and on TV only sporadically.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Paul Wallace was born as Paul Norton Willens in Los Angeles, California, to Samuel and Anna (Goldstein) Willens. Paul studied drama at Horace Mann High School in Los Angeles, and in the summer of 1952 he enrolled in a dance course at the Nick Castle Studio along with classmates including future Mouseketeers Sharon Baird, Lonnie Burr and Doreen Tracy. His training prepared him for a career on stage and film, beginning with a role in "Season in the Sun" at the Geller Theater in the fall of 1954.
Robert Young was impressed with Paul's performance as Dutch in "Best Foot Forward" at the Civic Playhouse in 1956, and this led to a three-year stint as Kippy on the series "Father Knows Best". After acting in the films "Johnny Trouble" and "Crime in the Streets", and regional theatre productions of "Kiss Me, Kate", "Damn Yankees" and "The Pajama Game", Paul made his Broadway debut as Tulsa in "Gypsy" in 1959. His performance as Tulsa in the 1962 film yielded him a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Male Newcomer.
Paul died on November 30, 2001 in Cathedral City, California at the age of 63.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Music Department
Peggy Lee was Born Norma Dolores Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, on May 26, 1920. At age four her mother died. Peggy's father, a railroad station agent, remarried but later left home, leaving Peggy's care entrusted to a stepmother who physically abused her. Peggy later memorialized this in the calypso number "One Beating a Day", one of 22 songs she co-wrote for the autobiographical musical "Peg", in which she made her Broadway debut in 1983 at the age of 62. As a youngster Peggy worked as a milkmaid, later turning to singing for money in her teens. While singing on a local radio station in Fargo, the program director there suggested she change her name to Peggy Lee. Peggy's big break came when Benny Goodman hired her to sing with his band after hearing her perform. Peggy shot to stardom when she and Goodman cut the hit record "Why Don't You Do Right?" and went out on her own to record such classics as "Fever", "Lover", "Golden Earrings", "Big Spender" and "Is That All There Is?" - the latter winning her a Grammy Award in 1969. Peggy's vocal style provided a distinctive imprint to countless swing tunes, ballads and big band numbers. She was considered the type of performer equally capable of interpreting a song as uniquely as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith. Her 1989 album, "Peggy Sings the Blues", was a Grammy Award nominee. Peggy was a prolific songwriter and arranger and her 1990 "The Peggy Lee Songbook" contained four songs she wrote with guitarist John Chiodini. Peggy also wrote for jazz greats Duke Ellington, who called her "The Queen", and Johnny Mercer, and composer Quincy Jones. Also in 1990 Peggy was awarded the coveted Pied Piper Award presented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). She made her mark in Hollywood as an actress, winning an Academy Award nomination for her role as the hard-drinking singer in the jazz saga, Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) and composed songs for the 1955 Walt Disney animated classic Lady and the Tramp (1955). The animated film featured a character named Peg, a broken-down old showgirl of a dog, whose provocative walk was based on the stage-prowl of Peggy Lee. Later she sued Disney and won a landmark legal judgment for a portion of the profits from the videocassette sale of the film. Peggy's private life was racked by physical ailments, a near-fatal fall in 1976, diabetes and a stroke in 1998. She was married four times, all ending in divorce. She and first husband, guitarist Dave Barbour, had a daughter, Nicki, her only child. Peggy and Dave were on the verge of a reconciliation in 1965, but he died of a heart attack before the couple got back together. Peggy has left a vast legend of music that is constantly finding new generations of fans.- Actor
- Writer
- Art Department
Peter Wilton Cushing was born on May 26, 1913 in Kenley, Surrey, England, to Nellie Maria (King) and George Edward Cushing, a quantity surveyor. He and his older brother David were raised first in Dulwich Village, a south London suburb, and then later back in Surrey. At an early age, Cushing was attracted to acting, inspired by his favorite aunt, who was a stage actress. While at school, Cushing pursued his acting interest in acting and also drawing, a talent he put to good use later in his first job as a government surveyor's assistant in Surrey. At this time, he also dabbled in local amateur theater until moving to London to attend the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on scholarship. He then performed in repertory theater in Worthing, deciding in 1939 to head for Hollywood, where he made his film debut in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). Other Hollywood films included A Chump at Oxford (1940) with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Vigil in the Night (1940) and They Dare Not Love (1941). However, after a short stay, he returned to England by way of New York (making brief appearances on Broadway) and Canada. Back in his homeland, he contributed to the war effort during World War II by joining the Entertainment National Services Association.
After the war, he performed in the West End and had his big break appearing with Laurence Olivier in Hamlet (1948), in which Cushing's future partner-in-horror Christopher Lee had a bit part. Both actors also appeared in Moulin Rouge (1952) but did not meet until their later horror films. During the 1950s, Cushing became a familiar face on British television, appearing in numerous teleplays, such as 1984 (1954) and Beau Brummell (1954), until the end of the decade when he began his legendary association with Hammer Film Productions in its remakes of the 1930s Universal horror classics. His first Hammer roles included Dr. Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dr. Van Helsing in Horror of Dracula (1958), and Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959).
Cushing continued playing the roles of Drs. Frankenstein and Van Helsing, as well as taking on other horror characters, in Hammer films over the next 20 years. He also appeared in films for the other major horror producer of the time, Amicus Productions, including Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) and its later horror anthologies, a couple of Dr. Who films (1965, 1966), I, Monster (1971), and others. By the mid-1970s, these companies had stopped production, but Cushing, firmly established as a horror star, continued in the genre for some time thereafter.
Perhaps his best-known appearance outside of horror films was as Grand Moff Tarkin in George Lucas' phenomenally successful science fiction film Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986) was Cushing's last film before his retirement, during which he made a few television appearances, wrote two autobiographies and pursued his hobbies of bird watching and painting. In 1989, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his contributions to the acting profession in Britain and worldwide. Peter Cushing died at age 81 of prostate cancer on August 11, 1994.- Actor
- Writer
- Composer
Philip Michael Thomas - the multi-talented performer best known as Detective Rico Tubbs in the iconic 1980s TV series Miami Vice (1984) - made his Broadway debut in 1971 in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play No Place to Be Somebody...and hasn't looked back since.
In a remarkable career that spans nearly four decades, PMT has worked with some of the top stage, screen, and recording personalities in the world.
He first guest starred on TV in 1973 in the pilot for the series Pilot (1973), followed by parts in Good Times (1974), Police Woman (1974), Medical Center (1969), Wonder Woman (1978)_, _Starsky and Hutch (1978)_, and Trapper John, M.D. (1979) before landing the role on Miami Vice (1984) in 1984 that made him a household name - and took him on a whirlwind tour of the globe and into the presence of heads of state (including President Ronald Reagan and Nelson Mandela), fellow celebrities, and countless adoring fans.
Despite world-wide stardom as an actor of both stage and screen, it is music that is PMT's biggest passion. He wrote his first song at the age of 11 and, over the next 40 years, wrote, composed, and sung everything from Gospel to R&B to pop standards to rock. One long-time friend recently referred to the musical side of PMT as "an undiscovered diamond."
During the stratospheric years of Miami Vice (1984-1989), PMT released two highly regarded albums: Livin' the Book of My Life (1985) and Somebody (1988), both on his own Starship Records label, with distribution by industry giant Atlantic Records. Although much loved by fans to this day, his albums didn't sell as well as expected (perhaps due to a wide range of musical styles that defied pigeonhole) and remain out of print, although they often fetch a tidy sum on eBay. PMT is considering reissuing his solo albums with bonus tracks sometime in 2007 or 2008.
The power of imagination and love to overcome circumstances is a theme that runs through the fabric of his life. He cites singing "The Impossible Dream" (from Man of La Mancha) while at Oakwood College in 1967 as a turning point for him.
Considered by long-time friends and family members alike to be one of the most compassionate, spiritual, and generous men they've ever known, PMT credits his uplifting, positive outlook on life to a vegetarian diet, regular exercise, life-long learning, friends he's made through the years, and books such as The Holy Bible, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, and Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, among many others.
PMT loves Florida and has chosen to make his home there instead of L.A. or New York as do most of his colleagues. Naturally, this keeps him out of the limelight, but it's a mistake to assume that just because his name isn't regularly splashed across the tabloids that he's not keeping himself busy. In fact, he is working (2007) on his autobiography, his official web site, reading scripts, performing, writing music, and helping young performers reach the heights he has reached - and doing it all with characteristic charm, grace, vitality...and with his trademark banner, "Treasure beyond measure!" flying proudly overhead.- Queen Mary was born Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes Mary in Kensington Palace on May 26, 1867 to Duke Francis and Duchess Mary of Teck. Young Mary was the great-granddaughter of George III and a second cousin to Queen Victoria.
She and her family lived a quiet life in England, forced to exist on the money that Duchess Mary's mother the Duchess of Cambridge was able to give them. Unfortunately the money was not enough to keep the creditors away and in 1883 the family moved around Europe, settling in Italy for awhile.
They went around Europe for two years before settling again in London. After this Mary, as she was called, became her mother's unofficial secretary. Mary spent much of her time corresponding with her family including her Aunt who lived in Germany. She also corresponded with her cousin (and future sister-in-law) Maude (the daughter of future King Edward VII).
In 1891, at the behest of Queen Victoria, Mary was engaged to Queen Victoria's grandson Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence. Unfortunately Albert died shortly afterwards. Queen Victoria, however, suggested that Mary marry Albert's brother George.
Although it was an arranged marriage George and Mary fell deeply in love and on July 6, 1893 they were married.
Over the course of their marriage the Yorks (they were Duke and Duchess of York until his father became King) had six children: Prince Edward in 1894, Prince Albert in 1895, Mary in 1897, George, Duke of Kent in 1902, and Prince John in 1905.
In January 1901 Queen Victoria died and Mary's father-in-law became King Edward VII. This led Mary and George to be Prince and Princess of Wales about a year later.
In 1910 her father-in-law died and Mary became Queen Mary. As Queen she helped her husband with his new role as King. She was the Queen Consort for about 25 years before her husband died in January of 1936.
Her oldest son Edward became Edward VIII after the death of George V. Shortly afterwards she was shocked and saddened to hear that her son would renounce his throne to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson.
Her second son, Albert, then became King choosing to name himself King George VI. She supported her son and his wife in their new role being the first dowager Queen to go to a successor's coronation. While the new King and Queen traveled around the British Commonwealth, Queen Mary helped look after their two young daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret.
During World War Two, the King was worried about his mother's safety and he suggested that she move somewhere in the country where it would be safer. She did what he asked and went to live with her niece, only leaving the house shortly after the war in Europe was over.
She spent the remaining years of her life devoting herself to charities. She also liked obtaining jewels including the jewels of Empress Marie of Russia (Nicholas II's mother). During this time she also spent time with her great-grandchildren, Charles and Anne, helping look after them when their parents (Elizabeth and Prince Phillip) were away helping the ailing king.
In 1952 her son King George VI died of lung cancer. She was sick at the time with lung cancer as well, and shortly before the coronation of her granddaughter Elizabeth, she died. - Rachael Blake was born on 26 May 1971 in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. She is an actress, known for Sleeping Beauty (2011), Lantana (2001) and Gods of Egypt (2016). She has been married to Tony Martin since 21 December 2003.
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
The mighty, musclebound actor Richard Harrison was one of a slew of handsome American pectoral hunks whose 1950's career in Hollywood amounted to little more than brawny bits but, after, being lured to Italy, became a popular sword-and-sandal star of the early 1960's. Unlike many others, Harrison managed to sustain his action star status, making over 100 European/Asian films due thanks to his impulsive trek abroad.
Born on May 26, 1936 in Salt Lake City, Richard relocated to sunny Southern California in his late teens where his blond, tanned, chiseled good looks (he was sometimes mistaken for handsome actor Guy Madison) landed him modeling work both on runways and in beefcake magazines such as "Body Beautiful," "Adonis" and "Physique Pictorial."
It didn't take long for Richard to be noticed by Hollywood casting agents. At first cast in he-man bit roles wearing a uniform (or less), he can be obscurely seen in Jeanne Eagels (1957), his film debut starring Kim Novak, Kronos (1957) with Jeff Morrow, Too Much, Too Soon (1958) starring Dorothy Malone, South Pacific (1958), in which he can be glimpsed as a co-pilot, and Battle Flame (1959) with Scott Brady and a young Robert Blake. While filming another minor role in Master of the World (1961), he met producer James H. Nicholson's daughter, Loretta (actress Loretta Nicholson) and married her within six months. The couple produced three children.
Frustrated at not being able to secure meatier roles in Hollywood, Richard jumped at the chance when offered the lead role in the peplum spectacle The Invincible Gladiator (1961) which filmed in Europe. He wound up settling in Italy for the next two decades. His first role, of course, immediately typed him as another Steve Reeves mythological hero type and it was followed by other warriors such as Darius in Gladiators 7 (1962), Perseus in Perseo l'invincibile (1963), Glaucus in Messalina vs. the Son of Hercules (1964), Crassus in The Two Gladiators (1964), Rufo in The Revolt of the Pretorians (1964) and Claudius in Giants of Rome (1964).
Once the Herculean craze waned in the mid 1960s, Richard sought other starring parts in both Italian "spaghetti" westerns (One Hundred Thousand Dollars for Ringo (1965), 28 minuti per 3 milioni di dollari (1967), Vengeance (1968), God Was in the West, Too, at One Time (1968), Day After Tomorrow (1968)) and crime/spy intrigue (Secret Agent Fireball (1965), Killers Are Challenged (1966), Master Stroke (1967), Fantabulous Inc. (1968)). He then maintained a sturdy steadiness into the 1970's with title roles in Sheriff of Rock Springs (1971), Jesse & Lester - Two Brothers in a Place Called Trinity (1972) and Hand of the Godfather (1972).
As work thinned out, Richard managed to dig up work outside Italy -- with low-budget features in Hong Kong (Marco Polo (1975), Ba guo lian jun (1976)), Turkey (Anasinin Gözü (1974), Yankesici (1975), Sahit (1978)), Germany (Natascha - Todesgrüße aus Moskau (1977) (Natascha: The Deadly Drop)), and Yugoslavia (Alpha Beta (1974)). In the 1980's, Richard found a profitable market in Hong Kong with his series of "Ninja Master" films (as Ninja Master Gordon) in such representative actioneers as Ninja Terminator (1986), Ninja Dragon (1986), Ninja Operation: Licensed to Terminate (1987), Ninja: Silent Assassin (1987), The Ninja Showdown (1988), Ninja Powerforce (1988).
Occasionally delving into writing, producing and directing as he did with Terror Force Commando (1986), Richard's status as a European action star continued with lead roles as renegade cops in both Terminal Force (1989) and Highway to Hell (1990). As he aged, he then began turning more and more to featured parts for other stars such as Dan Haggerty in The Channeler (1991) and Erik Estrada in Angel Eyes (1993). He retired by the millennium.
After his divorce from Loretta, Richard married actress Maria Francesca in 1978. They had one more child. Two of Richard's sons went into film acting -- Robert Harrison and Sebastian Harrison.- 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.- Stunts
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Rochelle is a Professional Hollywood Stunt Woman, Actress, Best Selling Author, Motivational Speaker and Co-Owner of Tristar Vancouver Martial Arts. She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and began her gymnastics career at the very early age of 2. When Rochelle was 7 yrs old, both her parents decided to uproot the family and move to Leeds, England, where her father finished his PhD at Cambridge and Oxford University.
Rochelle became a member of and competed internationally for the Great Britain Gymnastics Team at the age of 9. In 1996, she became the Great Britain National Gymnastics Champion and retained the title for 3 consecutive years.
Rochelle was also nominated and awarded 'The Top Sports Person in England under the age of 13 category,' for 2 consecutive years. At the age of 14, BBC produced and aired a one hour documentary called 'Going for Gold,' focusing primarily on her goals of competing in the 2000 Olympics. Unfortunately, her dreams fell short when the International Gymnastics Federation (FGI) announced that a competitor must now be 16 years of age to compete in the Olympics. Rochelle was turning 15, and sadly, was one year shy of being eligible to qualify.
With the Olympics another 4 years out of her reach, her family decided the best thing to do was pack it in and return to Canada, in the hopes that she would continue her career on the Canadian National team. Rochelle, however had other plans. She resigned from gymnastics, attained a B.Sc. degree in Psychology from the University of Northern British Columbia in 2006. She graduated among her peers a year early, both at high school and University. After completion of her degree and graduation, Rochelle worked with and counselled children and youth with developmental disabilities, mental illnesses and behavioral issues in and outside the school system for several years.
In an effort to keep challenging herself physically and mentally, Rochelle journeyed into the world of martial arts; training and competing in the disciplines of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai and fulfilling an amateur and professional Boxing career and went down in history as having the first, female professional boxing bout in British Columbia. She also attained a Personal Training Diploma and began helping others achieve their fitness goals. Rochelle is now the co-owner of a successful and very well known MMA gym located in Vancouver, BC, Canada known as, Tristar Vancouver Martial Arts. It is home to some of Canada's greatest MMA talent and home to UFC athletes and National Champions. Tristar Vancouver Martial Arts is also the National Training Center for the Canadian National MMA team.
Rochelle's books and motivational talks focus on guiding others, on how to stand in their power through overcoming their adversities and turn their pain into purpose. After facing and conquering a life full of hardships and adversity and succeeding, Rochelle is an advocate for women empowerment and helping to heal humanity; she speaks to our youth, future generations and adults and is a walking example of how you can turn a life of adversity into a life of diversity, peace and abundance. She teaches others that light can only be understood through the wisdom of darkness, and through introspection and self-love we are all capable of becoming the best versions of ourselves. You can purchase her Best Selling book, 'With Every Damn Brick,' on Amazon and watch her Tedx Talk on the official Tedx YouTube channel, under the title, 'How to turn your pain into power" or at, http://www.ted.com
With Every Damn Brick : https://www.amazon.ca/Every-Damn-Brick-Discover-Authentic/dp/1988925363/ref=sr_1_1?crid=36CWLO0FL7QGA&keywords=with+every+damn+brick&qid=1560300877&s=gateway&sprefix=with+every+damn%2Caps%2C350&sr=8-1
Website: http://www.tristarvancouver.com
Instagram: @rochelle_okoye @thirdeye.vibez @tristar_vancouver