Birthdays: July 1
List activity
3.5K views
• 1 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
149 people
- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Pamela Denise Anderson was born on July 1, 1967 in Ladysmith, British Columbia, Canada at 4:08 PST, to young newlywed parents, Barry Anderson and Carol Anderson. Her ancestry includes Finnish, English, Irish, and Volga German. During her childhood, she moved to the city of Vancouver. She has a younger brother Gerry, born 1971. As a teenager, Pamela went to Highland Secondary School. She was an acrobat and gymnast ages 7-12 and an athlete throughout school. She waitressed ages 16 to 19. Pamela was first "discovered" at a British Columbia Lions football game, when her image was shown on the stadium screen. The fans cheered her and she was brought down to the football field. Because of her fame in Vancouver, she signed a commercial contract with Labatt's beer to be the Blue Zone girl. More advertising assignments followed, and soon Playboy approached her. In October 1989, Pamela was on the cover of Playboy magazine.
With success from Playboy, Pamela Anderson moved to Los Angeles, California in 1990. In 1991, she made her television debut on Home Improvement (1991), where she starred as Lisa, the Tool Time Girl. Soon, she got attention from viewers nationwide, which got her the role of C.J. Parker on Baywatch (1989). She was on one of the most viewed television series worldwide. She made her big screen debut on Raw Justice (1994). Soon after, Pamela met Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee on New Year's Eve 1994 in New York City. In February 1995, they got married in Cancun, Mexico. They both returned to Los Angeles and stunned the world.
In the spring of 1996, Pamela starred as the title role of Barb Wire (1996). While filming, she suffered a miscarriage. Pamela and Tommy were devastated, but there was hope for the couple when, on June 6, 1996, Brandon Thomas Lee was born. Soon later, a pornographic video of Pamela and Tommy was stolen from their home. Both of them sued an Internet website for stealing the video. Their case was not settled and the video is still on the Internet. Meanwhile, Pamela and Tommy were having a rocky marriage, but, on December 29, 1997, Dylan Jagger Lee was born. Two months later, Pamela filed for divorce when her husband assaulted her. Tommy was sentenced to six months in jail. In late 1998, she starred on a television series called V.I.P. (1998). Soon later, she stunned the world again by removing her breast implants.
In fall 2001, she started to date singer Kid Rock, they announced their engagement in the spring of 2002. Then, Pamela announced that she was infected with hepatitis C. The cause of it was that Pamela shared a needle with her ex-husband Tommy for a tattoo. Immediately, Pamela went into treatment and her series was canceled. In the fall of 2003, she broke up with Kid Rock and starred on a animated series by Stan Lee called Stripperella (2003). A lifelong animal rights advocate, Pamela soon joined PETA, working on many issues, including fur, slaughter of chickens and supporting vegetarians. In 2005, she starred on a FOX comedy series called Stacked (2005). Pamela also teaches at her sons' Sunday school and still poses for magazines.
at BC Lion's football game by the Jumbo-tron camera man. Quickly became known as "The Blue Zone girl" commercial campaign, face of trendsetters Gym. Playboy called (said no- too shy). Phone rang at home during a fight with ex-fiancé, she decided to spontaneously accept an offer to shoot a cover only- Asked mom... She agreed ... The family agreed after speaking with Mr. Hefner. 14 American Playboy covers. Worked with many photographers and artists worldwide. Home Improvement (3 seasons). Baywatch (5 seasons). VIP (5 seasons). Barb Wire, Borat. Theater - Aladdin (Panto) (Wimbledon and Liverpool).
She founded the Pamela Anderson Foundation, is an activist for Animal and Human Rights, NDVH and Environmental Issues, and is on the board of the Sea Shepherd. Pamela loves architecture and is designing Eco-friendly prefab small dwellings. She has a collection of linens, and shares time between the beaches of California and Vancouver Island equally. She is a 2013 New York City Marathon runner.- Stunts
- Actress
Aja was born in Seattle, Washington. Her athletic ability was evident from a young age. By elementary school she was racing and beating all the boys on the playground. Born to Soun Frary, a ballerina dancer and her father, Lee Leavy, California State High School Wrestling Champion; Aja's athletic genes set the stage for her future. Aja excelled as a 3 sport high school athlete and by college earned a full scholarship as a Track and Field Heptathlete at San Diego State University.
Aja went onto become a Division 1 NCAA Bronze Medalist and earned All-American Honors by her senior year. In 2000, while still a collegiate athlete, Aja was one of the youngest competitors at the Olympic Trials, placing 9th. After college Aja was accepted into the United States Olympic Training Center program where she was able to train full time and compete across the country and the world. In 2004 an injury struck just before her most promising Olympic Trails competition. Unable to compete and after more than a decade of high-level competition she decided to take time off to heal. Aja traveled to New York City to visit her dad's side of the family for the summer. The big city life quickly mesmerized Aja and her summer trip turned into a year. It was then a college friend knew she would make an ideal stunt double and stunt performer. Her first movie was on a film called American Gangster in 2006. Her career took off after her first film and since then has become one of the countries most sought after Stuntwoman.
In 2016 she became a member of the Stuntwomen's Association of Motion Picture, one of Aja's highest career highlights.
Aja married Philip Silvera in 2016, who is a Stunt Coordinator and 2nd Unit Director. They reside in New York City.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Alan Ruck was born on July 1, 1956 in Cleveland, Ohio, and has made over 100 appearances in films and television, and on stage. He is best known for his role as the friend of Matthew Broderick and hopeless hypochondriac Cameron Frye, in John Hughes's Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).
During the 1980s he appeared in films such as Class (1983) with Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy and Three for the Road (1987) with Charlie Sheen. The 1990s included Young Guns II (1990) with Emilio Estevez and Lou Diamond Phillips, Star Trek: Generations (1994), Speed (1994) with Keanu Reeves and Twister (1996) (the latter two films are directed by Jan de Bont).
Ruck's television appearances include Tales from the Crypt (1989) opposite Lou Diamond Philips, Mad About You (1992) with Helen Hunt (his co-star in Twister), and Spin City (1996) with Michael J. Fox.
Ruck made an appearance in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998) which reunited him with his Twister co-star Cary Elwes.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
The world's first female filmmaker, French-born Alice Guy entered the film business in 1896 as a secretary at Gaumont, a manufacturer of movie cameras and projectors who had purchased a "cinématographer" from its inventors, the Lumiere brothers. The next year Gaumont became the world's first motion picture production company when they switched to creating movies, and Guy became its first film director. She impressed the company so much with the output (she averaged two two-reelers a week) and quality of her productions that by 1905 she was made the company's production director, supervising its other directors. In 1907 she married Herbert Blaché, an Englishman who ran Gaumont's British and German offices. The pair went to the U.S. to set up the company's operations there. In 1910 Mme. Guy set up her own production company, Solax, in New York and with her husband built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After a period of critical and financial success, the couple's fortunes declined when Thomas Alva Edison's trust hindered film production in the East coast, and they eventually shut down the studio in 1919. Although her husband secured work directing films for several major Hollywood studios, Guy was never able to secure any directorial jobs there, never made a film again, most of her films were lost, some were credited to other film directors, and she did no receive recognition for her pioneering work in France and the United States. She returned to France in 1922 after her divorce from Blaché, and in 1964 returned to the U.S. and lived in Mahwah, New Jersey - not far from where her original studios were - with her daughter, where she died in 1968.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Amanda Seales, formerly Amanda Diva, (born July 1, 1981 in Los Angeles, California) is a Comedian, host, DJ, content creator, and more. Moving to Orlando at age 8, she attended Dr. Phillips High School, before going to SUNY Purchase for undergrad then acquiring her master's degree in African American studies with a concentration in hip hop from Columbia University. She began her career on the now cult famous Nickelodeon sitcom, My Brother and Me (1994) in the role of Deonne, later becoming widely known to the public as a VJ Amanda Diva, the face of hip-hop on MTV2 Sucker Free Sundays. Though spending some time as a recording artist and spoken word poet, in 2011, she changed her name from Amanda Diva back to Amanda Seales, also returning to television and soon after adding stand up comedian to her credits. She is the CEO of DivaWorks Inc her production company under which she performs and produces smart funny content for the stage and screen. She is very involved in work targeting the empowerment of young women, the end of racial discrimination, and is the social media ambassador for her mother's home island of Grenada, W.I.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Many actors have attempted to crack both genres of drama and comedy. Few have succeeded, among them the genial Andre Braugher (pronounced 'Ahn-drey Braw-ger'). A two-time Emmy Award winner, he is especially remembered for two seminal roles: as the intense, often explosive Detective Frank Pembleton (signature character in the first six seasons of NBC's gritty drama Homicide: Life on the Street (1993)), and, in stark contrast, as droll, deadpan father figure Captain Ray Holt in eight seasons of the hilarious spoof Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013). The latter got him nominated for another four Primetime Emmys as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. What made the Holt character special was Braugher's unerringly perfect comic timing, great punchlines and moments of endearing pathos.
A Chicago native, Braugher was an alumnus of Stanford University and a 1988 Juillard graduate with a Master of Fine Arts degree. Originally a Shakespearean actor (noted for his portrayal of Henry V on the New York stage), he debuted on screen in the Civil War drama Glory (1989), as an erudite corporal, the first volunteer to enlist in one of the Union Army's African-American regiments. His inaugural portrayal of a police officer was as Kojak's sidekick, Detective Winston Blake, in a slew of made-for-TV movies. From there, Braugher became a popular casting choice for determined, no-nonsense authority types. To name but a few: Lt. Col. Benjamin O. Davis, commanding officer of The Tuskegee Airmen (1995); Detective Satch de Leon in Frequency (2000); General Hager, who falls victim to arch villain Dr. Doom in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007); Army General George Mancheck in The Andromeda Strain (2008), the miniseries; the Secretary of State in Salt (2010). Then there was, of course, his defining role in Homicide, as the compelling, intense interrogation expert Frank Pembleton.
Braugher had a leading non-military role as an angel named Cassiel (no, not Castiel!) in the romantic fantasy City of Angels (1998), starring Nicolas Cage. He then headlined as the title character in the medical drama Gideon's Crossing (2000), loosely based on the career of a real-life professor of medicine, Jerome Groopman. His performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination. Braugher next co-starred in Hack (2002), another crime drama, in which he played a Philadelphia cop who aids his former partner (David Morse), who, after having left the force under a cloud, has turned into a hero vigilante.
For once on the wrong side of the law, he starred as a master criminal in the acclaimed miniseries Thief (2006) for which he won an Emmy for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor. His first major foray into comedy was with Men of a Certain Age (2009), the story of three friends, each experiencing their own mid-life crisis. Braugher's character (Owen) was an angst-ridden diabetic father who hated his job as a car dealer. This was yet another strong performance which resulted in two further Emmy nominations, perhaps because Braugher abandoned his stock-in-trade authoritarian persona by playing someone insecure and vulnerable. He explained in another interview on Today, that he needed new challenges in order to grow as an artist.
It also set the scene for his famous role as Raymond Holt on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Curiously, the actor remained oddly reticent and self-deprecating about his comedic prowess. He confessed to an interviewer that he considered himself merely "a voyeur at the funny person's table". Yet, some of the show's funniest moments arise from Holt's relationships: those with his team (an excellent ensemble cast led by Andy Samberg (the Halloween specials rock!), with his partner Kevin (played by the very funny Marc Evan Jackson, who also featured memorably in Michael Schur's other off-beat comedy hit, The Good Place (2016)) and with his corgi named Cheddar.
Andre Braugher's unexpected death on December 11, 2023, at the age of 61, was a great loss to the entertainment industry.- Andrew Cavarno was born on 1 July 1992 in San Bernardino, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Party of Five (1994) and The X-Files (1993).
- Director
- Writer
Andrew Getty was born on 1 July 1967 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was a director and writer, known for The Evil Within (2017). He died on 31 March 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Ángel De Brito is known for I Married a Dumbass (2016), Los profesionales de siempre (2003) and Bien de Verano (2008).
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Anthony Dalton was born on 1 July 1980 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Without a Paddle (2004), How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You and The Cure (2014).- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Atilio Stampone was born on 1 July 1926 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was a composer, known for Tango Bar (1987), The Official Story (1985) and El terrorista (1962). He was married to Lucia Marco. He died on 2 November 2022 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.- Ben Roberts was born on 1 July 1950 in Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales, UK. He was an actor, known for Jane Eyre (2011), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) and Another Year (2010). He was married to Helen Lloyd. He died on 7 June 2021 in the UK.
- Writer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Bill Stern was born on 1 July 1907 in Rochester, New York, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for The Pride of the Yankees (1942), We've Never Been Licked (1943) and XIVth Olympiad: The Glory of Sport (1948). He died on 19 November 1971 in Rye, New York, USA.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Birgitta Ulfsson was born on 1 July 1928 in Helsinki, Finland. She was an actress and director, known for Rikos ja rangaistus (1967), Lysistrate (1963) and Niin on - jos siltä näyttää (1963). She was married to Iwar Wiklander and Lasse Pöysti. She died on 8 October 2017 in Helsinki, Finland.- Actor
- Writer
Bo Poraj is an actor and writer. He trained at RADA and has worked extensively in theatre in the West End, Broadway, Royal National Theatre and RSC but is perhaps best known for his television work in Miranda, Musketeers and Newark, Newark. Film credits include The Boat That Rocked, Enigma and The Queen Of Sheeba's Pearls. He has written for Eastenders (BBC), Doctors (BBC) and Ransom (CBS.)- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Bobby Day was born on 1 July 1928 in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. He is known for The Iron Giant (1999), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) and Stand by Me (1986). He died on 27 July 1990 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
The youngest of four siblings, Brian George was born in Jerusalem to Jewish parents in July 1952. Both of his parents had immigrated to Israel from India. His father was born in Iraq but raised in Bombay and his mother was born and raised in India. When Brian was a year old, the family immigrated to London. Brian attended an all-boys school in London. In 1966, the family moved to Toronto and he attended public high school, followed by the University of Toronto, where he became involved in theater. George left before graduation and formed an unsuccessful theater group. He joined The Second City, where he trained with comedy greats including John Candy, among others. His career in acting and voice-over work has flourished ever since.- Brynn Rumfallo was born as Brynn Adela Rumfallo on July 1, 2003 in Phoenix, Arizona. She is the oldest daughter of Ashlee Allen and Aaron Rumfallo.
Brynn started dance at the age of two. Brynn's current studio is Club Dance Studio in Mesa, Arizona.
In 2013, Brynn began one-fifth of dance group, Fresh Faces, where her fame began. Her group went on America's Got Talent but didn't make it past semi-finales.
Just a year later, Brynn won a very prestigious dance title, Mini Female Best Dancer. She later went on and toured for the 2014-15 dance season for one of her prizes
Brynn became a model for Miss Behave Girls in 2014, and has been modeling for them ever since. Brynn also became the brand ambassador for their company, Miss Fit by Miss Behave, in July 2016. Both companies sell stylish and comfy clothing for girls and dancers.
In October of 2015, Brynn was cast as a member of hit reality show, Dance Moms. Brynn came in as a replacement for fellow dancer, Maddie Ziegler, while she was filming a movie. Brynn quickly became a fan favorite, and later a permanent member of the team. Brynn and her mother Ashlee left the show in March of 2017.
Brynn designed a clothing line that came out on her 14th birthday, July 1st. The line is called Brynn Rumfallo Collection.
As of right now (August 2017), Brynn is attending High School and working in Los Angeles. - Actress
- Writer
- Stunts
Caitlin Thompson was born on 1 July 1987 in Avon Lake, Ohio, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for This Is Us (2016), Christmas Perfection (2018) and 90210 (2008). She has been married to Dan Fogelman since 13 June 2015. They have one child.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Frederick Carlton "Carl" Lewis (born July 1, 1961) is an American former track and field athlete, who won 10 Olympic medals, including nine gold, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. His career spanned from 1979 to 1996 when he last won an Olympic title and subsequently retired.
Lewis was a dominant sprinter and long jumper who topped the world rankings in the 100 m, 200 m and long jump events frequently from 1981 to the early 1990s. He set world records in the 100 m, 4 × 100 m and 4 × 200 m relays, while his world record in the indoor long jump has stood since 1984. His 65 consecutive victories in the long jump achieved over a span of 10 years is one of the sport's longest undefeated streaks. Over the course of his athletics career, Lewis broke ten seconds for the 100 meters 15 times and 20 seconds for the 200 meters 10 times.- Composer
- Writer
- Actor
Born in Valencia, Spain in 1940, composer Carles Santos studied piano in Barcelona and eventually established a discography steeped in the practices of avant garde colleagues Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg, and John Cage. From the latter, Santos showed a preoccupation with silence as a part of music.His main working relationship was, beginning in 1968, on most of the films of director Pere Portabella. His soundtracks were not limited to piano but also included classical and jazz influenced rock excerpts, and in "Vampir Cuadecuc" such elements as an organ drone, knock knock Foley sounds, background murmurs, church bells, pneumatic drilling and an overhead jet engine.- Actress
- Soundtrack
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Charles D. Brown was born on 1 July 1887 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Big Sleep (1946), The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936). He was married to Nellie V. Tallman (actress). He died on 25 November 1948 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, to Eliza (Conlon) and Robert Laughton, hotel keepers of Irish and English descent, respectively. He was educated at Stonyhurst (a highly esteemed Jesuit college in England) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (received gold medal). His first appearance on stage was in 1926. Laughton formed own film company, Mayflower Pictures Corp., with Erich Pommer, in 1937. He became an American citizen 1950. A consummate artist, Laughton achieved great success on stage and film, with many staged readings (particularly of George Bernard Shaw) to his credit. Laughton died in Hollywood, California, aged 63.- Actress
- Composer
- Director
Chloe Bailey was born on 1 July 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for Praise This (2023), Last Holiday (2006) and A Wrinkle in Time (2018).- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Claude Berri was born on 1 July 1934 in Paris, France. He was a producer and actor, known for Jean de Florette (1986), Germinal (1993) and The Two of Us (1967). He was married to Sylvie Gautrelet and Anne-Marie Rassam. He died on 12 January 2009 in Paris, France.- Claude Flagel was born on 1 July 1932 in Paris, France. He was a composer, known for Le chantier des gosses (1956). He was married to Louise Matlet. He died on 25 February 2020 in Brussels, Belgium.
- Claude Gingras was born on 1 July 1931 in Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada. He died on 30 December 2018 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.
- Clemency Burton-Hill has an extensive career in acting, writing, journalism and music. The multi-faceted native of London, England was born to TV presenter and writer Humphrey Burton and Gillian Hawser, an agent (who had married Robert I. Hill in 1970). Clemency attended several schools including St Paul's Girls' School, Westminster School and later attended Magdalene College in Cambridge, England. Her career in acting began in 1992 with credits heavily involved with television series and television-films. Among her credits, she has been in several films and television series. She is best known from the sequel film Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God (2005), playing the fledgling mage who became the unlikely heroine who ultimately saved the kingdom from a menacing dragon. She also appeared in the disaster drama Supernova (2005) starring Luke Perry, Tia Carrere, Lance Henriksen and Peter Fonda. In 2006, she played a Princess in the video sequel The Prince & Me II: The Royal Wedding (2006). Her television credits include Party Animals (2007), The Palace (2008) Poirot (1989) in 2008 and Plum Daily (2010). She lent her voice to an animated feature A Fox's Tale (2008).
In addition to her acting career, Clemency is also a musician having attended the Royal College of Music. Her writing and journalistic works include writing for "Vogue" and several British publications including "The Economist", "The Guardian" among many more titles. In other media, Clemency has been a presenter for numerous BBC shows and programs including more recent work in 2010 for the BBC Young Musician 2010 show on BBC Four during the months of April and May of that year. She reprised her presenter role in 2012 for the same program. Showing her generous nature, Clemency has extended her interest in the charitable program called Dramatic Need, designed to bring the creative arts to underprivileged children. - Constance Ford began her career in television in the 1950s, performing in live television dramas on Studio One (1948), Armstrong Circle Theatre (1950), Goodyear Playhouse (1951), and other acclaimed series, and playing recurring characters in four afternoon serials; "Rose Peabody" in Search for Tomorrow (1951), "Lynn Sherwood" in Woman with a Past (1954), "Eve Morris" in The Edge of Night (1956) and "Ada Davis Downs Hobson" in Another World (1964).
Ford's assertive style made her a favorite of TV casting directors, and she was often featured in episodes of Ponds Theater (1953), Bat Masterson (1958), Rawhide (1959), Gunsmoke (1955), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Twilight Zone (1959), and other series, as tough but sensible career women. - Cyron Melville was born on 1 July 1984 in Denmark. He is an actor, known for Love and Rage (2009), A Royal Affair (2012) and Fighter (2007).
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Dale Midkiff attended Edgewood high school and Salisbury University in Salisbury, Maryland, before moving to New York to work as a waiter while pursuing his acting career. His breakthrough role was when he landed the role of Elvis in the made-for-TV movie Elvis and Me (1988). He later starred in Pet Sematary (1989) with Fred Gwynne and Love Potion No. 9 (1992) with Sandra Bullock. He was also the lead in 'Time Trax', which he shot for two years in Surfers Paradise, Australia. Midkiff played Buck Wilmington in the CBS series 'The Magnificent Seven' with Michael Bien, Eric Close and Ron Perlman. He has portrayed Clark Davis in 'Love Comes Softly', winning a Camie award and the Grace award for his performance.
He has a home in Los Angeles and Chance, Maryland.- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Daniel Edward Aykroyd was born on July 1, 1952 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Lorraine Hélène (Gougeon), a secretary from a French-Canadian family, and Samuel Cuthbert Peter Hugh Aykroyd, a civil engineer who advised prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Aykroyd attended Carleton University in 1969, where he majored in Criminology and Sociology, but he dropped out before completing his degree. He worked as a comedian in various Canadian nightclubs and managed an after-hours speakeasy, Club 505, in Toronto for several years. He worked with Second City Stage Troupe in Toronto and started his acting career at Carleton University with Sock'n'Buskin, the campus theater/drama club. Married to Donna Dixon since 1983, they have three daughters. His parents are named Peter and Lorraine and his brother Peter Aykroyd is a psychic researcher. Dan received an honorary Doctorate from Carleton University in 1994 and was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998.- Actor
- Producer
Daryl Anderson was born in Seattle, Washington, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Lou Grant (1977), The Monster Squad (1987) and The People Across the Lake (1988). He has been married to Kathy Connell since 28 July 1984. They have one child.- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
David Gulpilil is a legendary Yolngu actor, a First Nations person of Northern Australia, born around 1953. The local missionaries gave him his birthdate of July 1, 1953, just as they gave him his Christian name David, although he admits he liked that name from the start. His last name, Gulpilil, was a totem, the kingfisher. He'd never seen a white person until he was 8 when he visited the mission school, but he never really allowed them to teach him anything.
In 1969, the British film director Nicolas Roeg, scouting locations in the Outback, appeared at a mission in the north and asked if anyone knew a boy who can throw a spear, who can hunt, and who can dance, and everyone pointed at David.
David's easy smile made him a natural, and it quickly became obvious that he was unlike anyone the white man had met in the outback. He was not reserved or suspicious of strangers, and carried song on his lips and rhythm in his legs. David Gulpilil was fearless.
Looking back over his career, he tells us in the documentary, My Name is Gulpilil (2021), filmed while dying of terminal lung cancer, that he never acted, that acting wasn't something he had to do because it was natural. "I know how to walk across the land in front of a camera, because I belong there," Standing on stage, before a camera, or before the Queen of England, David felt comfortable in his own skin whether it was barely dressed in a loin cloth, or stuffed into the white man's dinner jacket.
Roeg quickly cast the charismatic Gulpilil in Walkabout (1971), a film based upon Donald G Payne's 1959 novel about a boy who cheerfully leads children to safety. Without really knowing it, Roeg broke new ground in Australian cinema, and redefined the way that Indigenous people were represented in Australian cinema. The film was an international success everywhere but in Australia, where First Nation peoples had been previously portrayed only by white people wearing blackface. And to top it off, the film broke cultural barriers, presenting on the wide screen a sexually attractive young Black man.
David Gulpilli was, overnight, hurled in to high society as an instant, international celebrity and presented before Queen Elizabeth, who found him quite charming and humorous. She in turn introduced David to John Lennon and that was just the beginning. Before long he was soon shaking hands with Muhammad Ali, Marlon Brando, Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Marley, who would help contribute to David's downfall. David taught Bob Marley to play the didgeridoo. Marley taught David to smoke ganja. But it was while filming Mad Dog Morgan (1976) that he got his crash course in hellraising by Dennis Hopper. Later in his one-man stage show he'd say, "If you're working with people like Dennis Hopper and [John] Meillon, well, you gotta learn all about drinking and drugs."
David enjoyed being in front of the camera, and he well knew the importance of his work because it was history and it would "remember to generation to generation," shining a spotlight on his people who had been murdered, exploited, and corralled into camps. The collective history of his people meant everything to him and these films, he claimed, "Won't rub it out."
He was a dancer, a singer, an artist, and a story teller, and fell lovingly into the role of ambassador of his culture to the white man's world, which ironically would eventually divorce him from his culture, as he took to drink and drugs and wound up in trouble with the law, racking up four drink-driving arrests, and one drunken escapade that landed him in jail again, but this time for assaulting his wife. As he admitted in his biopic, "Left side, my country. Right side, white man's world. This one tiptoe in caviar and champagne, this one in the dirt of my Dreamtime."
When he'd been discovered, he spoke no English, though he knew a few dialects of the First People's language, and he was such a quick learner. He began picking up English while just listening during the making of the film, Walkabout, and afterwards as he travelled about the world.
In his one man show, "Gulpilli," he tells the story of trying to use a knife and fork while sitting next to the queen. He cut and cut but couldn't get any meat as he just moved the plate around the table. He gave up and finally picked it up with his hands. Whether true or not, he tells how the Royal Family joined in, eating their meat as he did.
After his sudden fame in Walkabout, David found his way onto Australian television in episodes of Boney (1972), Homicide (1964), Rush (1974), The Timeless Land (1980), and more, and even got a bit part in The Right Stuff (1983).
He was quickly recognized as the most renowned tribal dancer in Australia, and he choreographed the traditional First People's dance in Crocodile Dundee (1986). His love of dance inspired him to organize dancing troupes and musicians that won the Darwin Australia Day Eisteddfod dance competition four times.
His breakthrough role came in the mid-seventies with Storm Boy (1976), one of David's personal favorites, followed up by a lead role in The Last Wave (1977). In fact, his last appearance as an actor was in the remake of Storm Boy (2019), playing the father of Fingerbone Bill, the character he'd played in the original version.
Despite his fame, his earnings were never substantial and he was subjected to racism from agents and film crews. He was often homeless, sleeping in parks. He wound up living in a corrugated iron hut in the community of Raminginig that had no electricity or running water, where he hunted kangaroos, cooking bush meat over an open fire. "I was brought up in a tin shed. I wandered all over the world - Paris, New York - now I'm back in a tin shed," Gulpilil said.
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) is the story of Australia's Lost Generations, in which mixed race First Nation children were removed from their families and placed in church-run missions in order to breed the "black" out of them and integrate them into society. Many of the children ran away from these camps and trackers were sent out after them. David Gulpilil played the formidable tracker in Rabbit-Proof Fence, and that led to a leading role in The Tracker (2002), directed by Rolf de Heer. David referred to this role as the best performance in his career. He won best actor at the Australian Film Institute Awards, the Inside Film Awards, and the Film Critics' Circle Awards.
He teamed up with Rolf de Herr a few more times, but their most unique production was the first film scripted entirely in the Yolngu language, called Ten Canoes (2006). Gulpilil narrated the film and it won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It was after this time that David's life took a downhill turn and landed him in prison because of his drinking and assaulting his then partner Miriam Ashley. After his release he went into treatment and got sober.
Clean and sober he went to work again with Rolf de Herr and co-wrote the film Charlie's Country (2013), the true to life story of an ageing man who yearned to return to his cultural roots. Gulpilil gave the performance of his career, winning four best actor awards, including best actor at the Cannes Film Festival. At the Australian Film Critics Association Awards, he shared with Rolf de Heer the best screenplay award.
Released six months before his passing, My Name is Gulpilil (2021) is, as David put it, the story of his story. Though very ill, David gives us insight into his charismatic life and charm as we witness the full spectrum of his talents. We see him dancing, singing, celebrating, and even painting. One of his paintings, "King brown snake with blue tongue lizard at Gulparil waterhole" hangs in The Art Gallery Of South Australia. He spins wool from his hair, something his ancestors handed down that his father taught him. He takes us for a walk through his land, along the rivers, in the shadows of the mountains, and knowing he's dying, he admits he really doesn't yet grasp it, but tells us, "I'm walking like across the desert of the country, a long, long way. Until the time comes . . . for me."- Actor
- Additional Crew
David "Dave" Prowse was born into a working class family on 1 July, 1935 in Bristol, England, UK. He was raised by his mother and never knew his father. As a child, David was disadvantaged and a poor student, he found a passion for bodybuilding and weight training in his early teens, as a young adult, David often entered weightlifting competitions and contested in the famous Mr. Universe contest. Eventually, David won the British heavyweight weightlifting title and gained status as a highly regarded and respected member of the fitness community. Over this period of competitive weightlifting, David became lifelong friends with actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, who at the time were not professional actors but rival competitors. After appearing on various broadcast sporting events, David was offered a role in the feature film Casino Royale (1967) as "Frankenstein's Monster". Although the casting was based on David's stature, David developed a strong interest in acting and decided to pursue it further.
From 1967 to 1977, David enjoyed a quiet, but very successful career within film and television starring in such films as A Clockwork Orange (1971), Up Pompeii (1971) and numerous Hammer House of Horror films, gaining a vast and bulky CV. In 1975, David's popularity as a respected fitness guru landed him with the role and duty of the Green Cross Code Man, a superhero designed by the British road safety committee to teach road safety to children. The persona saw David traveling the world to give talks, demonstrations and shoot short television spots based on the hero's message. Proving successful the Green Cross Code Man continued to be a side project throughout David's busy career until the 1990s. He considers this role to be of great importance, and has stated many times that it is possibly the most rewarding job he has held.
It was not until 1977 when David attended an audition for a film entitled Star Wars. The film was not considered to be a big thing at the time and the audition was held by director George Lucas. At the meeting, George offered David either the part of Chewbacca or Darth Vader. Instantly turning away the role of Chewbacca, David insisted he play the lead villain Darth Vader. George asked David why he wanted to play Vader and he replied "Everyone remembers the villain, George." David also had a wealth of experience playing villains in previous films, and was the obvious choice. David played the role of Darth Vader for the entirety of the original Star Wars trilogy: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). Although David does not voice the character, he is the physical body. Star Wars was perhaps David's most important role and a role that has enlisted him as one of the most memorable character villains of all time.
There have been many rumors, disputes and discussions about David's relationship with Star Wars and its staff. Regarding the apparent misled information David received about Vader's voice, promotional neglect and general mistreatment from Lucasfilm. This feud resulted in David being banned from all official Star Wars events. A statement from George Lucas read "He has burnt too many bridges." David stated that a majority of the rumors in circulation regarding the topic are fabricated and false including those of respectable actors involved, and has openly admitted his support of James Earl Jones as the voice of Vader and claims Lucas film were too concerned with keeping Vader a character than letting David receive deserved credit. The topic is covered in detail, in David's autobiography "Straight from the Force's Mouth". After Star Wars, David continued to work in television and film, making numerous appearances with the legendary Benny Hill. He continued to tour as the Green Cross Code Man and became the personal fitness trainer of many celebrities including Daniel Day-Lewis and Vanessa Redgrave.
David was loyal to Star Wars fans and participated in a number of fan-films as various characters spoofing Star Wars. Towards the end of David's busy acting period, his health declined due to a serious inflammation of arthritis, leaving him unable to stand for long periods of time and inflicting agonizing pain on his knees and hips. Undergoing treatment with hip replacement operations, it was discovered that David had prostate cancer in 2009. After a series of radiotherapy treatments at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, David made a full recovery in a remarkably short period of time. David was awarded Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2000 Queen's Millennium Honours List for his contributions to charity and spokesmanship for road safety, the disabled and other various charities. From 2004, David began writing his autobiography entitled "Straight from the Force's Mouth," which covers his career in showbiz and documents an unedited diary account of the Star Wars production. The book was published officially in hardback by Apex Publishing in 2011, and David toured Europe to attend book signings and personal appearances.
Over the course of his career, between acting and touring the world both as the Green Cross Code Man and David Prowse, David trained actors for films including Christopher Reeve for Superman (1978), wrote fitness books "Fitness is Fun", supported charity and even became the head of fitness for superstore Harrods. In the 2000s, David spent his time attending unofficial Star Wars events, conventions and film events where he signed photos, spoke to the fans and was in high demand as a public speaker all over the world.- Actress
- Composer
- Producer
Deborah Harry was born Angela Trimble on July 1, 1945 in Miami, Florida. At three months, she was adopted by Catherine (Peters) and Richard Smith Harry, and was raised in Hawthorne, New Jersey. In the 1960s, she worked as a Playboy Bunny and hung out at Max's Kansas City, a famous Warhol-inhabited nightspot. Her professional singing career started in 1968 with a folk band called The Wind in the Willows. She sang backup on their first (and only) album. The band broke up shortly after failing to achieve commercial success or critical acclaim. In 1973, she met Chris Stein, who became her longtime boyfriend. They created Blondie in 1974 after they both were in the Stilletoes, a theatrical "girl group" band. Blondie struggled for a few years, then went on to be one of the most successful bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but the group broke up in 1982.
Harry has released five solo albums, acted in several movies and television series and a few commercials (Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans, Sara Lee, Revlon). She has done many benefit shows in support of AIDS charities, a Broadway show ("Teaneck Tanzi"), poetry readings, and been one of the most notorious characters in the New York downtown scene. As of 1995, she was doing shows in the United States and Europe with the Jazz Passengers and Elvis Costello, filming two new movies (Heavy (1995) with Liv Tyler and Evan Dando and Drop Dead Rock (1995) with Adam Ant) and topping the dance charts with two newly remixed Blondie singles ("Rapture" and "Atomic"). Several Blondie tribute albums have been released and a Blondie remix album titled "Remixed, Remade, Remodeled" came out in 1995.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Delmar Watson was born on 1 July 1926 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Heidi (1937) and Clipped Wings (1937). He was married to Antoinette. He died on 26 October 2008 in Glendale, California, USA.- Actress
- Director
- Cinematographer
Denice Duff was born on 1 July 1965 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Dark Vengeance (1992), Frogtown II (1992) and Bloodlust: Subspecies III (1994). She is married to Michael Duff. They have one child.- Writer
- Actor
- Music Department
Denis Johnson, the acclaimed novelist, short story writer, poet and playwright, was born in Munich in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 and raised in Tokyo, Manila, and Washington, D.C., the son of a U.S. State Department employee. A chronicler of substance abusers living at the margins of society, Johnson himself began abusing alcohol at the age of 14, drinking rum while his family was stationed in the Philippines.
His substance abuse problem eventually graduated from alcohol to hard drugs, including heroin, the drug of choice by the anonymous protagonist of the story cycle that made Johnson's reputation, Jesus' Son (1999). Alcohol was a constant crutch until he finally managed to slough off his demons.
He published his first book of poetry, "The Man Among the Seals" when he was 20 years old. A second collection, "Inner Weather", followed in 1976. He earned his masters' degree at the University of Iowa, the oldest and arguably most prestigious writing program in the U.S. While at Iowa, he drank regularly with one of his teachers, Raymond Carver, a prodigious alcoholic himself. During his first marriage, Johnson's alcoholism resulted in a second hospitalization, and then a third.
He said one of the reasons he did not take control of his problem was that he was afraid it would adversely affect his creativity.
His first novel, "Angels" - a fictive chronicle of two down-and-out drifters - was published in 1983 and attracted the attention of the literary elite. His second novel, "Fiskadoro" (1985), also garnered glowing reviews. He published his third novel, "The Stars at Noon" in 1986. However, while his reputation was high among the cognoscenti, his sales to the general public were not. He began writing the stories about substance abuse that formed "Jesus Son" after going through a second divorce and being hit by a tax bill by the Internal Revenue Service.
For the basis of the short stories, he turned to some memories he'd written down during his druggie days, memories he had never considered turning into publishable prose. But with his back against the wall, he developed several of the vignettes and they were published by The New Yorker. The publication of the stories gave him not only confidence, but an income, and he struck a deal with Farrar, Straus & Giroux for a book of short stories in return for their paying off his IRS debt in lieu of an advance.
The result, published in 1992 (a year after his fourth novel, "Resuscitation of a Hanged Man"), was a modern classic that made Johnson a cult writer on par with Charles Bukowski and William S. Burroughs. The short stories have inspired a generation of younger writers, including Dave Eggers. He published the novels "Already Dead" and "The Name of the World" in 1997 and 2000, respectively.
Johnson, who once described himself as a "criminal hedonist" turned "citizen of life," describes himself as an unconventional Christian. His world view, as limned in his fiction, is leavened with humor.
Johnson currently is the Mitte Chair at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Didi Gutman is known for What Just Happened (2008), Pecados de mi padre (2009) and Love the Hard Way (2001).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Dominic Keating was born on 1 July 1961 in Leicester, Leicestershire, England, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for Beowulf (2007), Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (2012) and Star Trek: Enterprise (2001).- American character actor. Raised in New York City and Cincinnati, Ohio, Beddoe was the son of a professor at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music who happened also to be the world-famous Welsh tenor, Dan Beddoe. Although Don Beddoe intended a career in journalism, he took an interest in theatre and became involved first with amateur companies and then with professional theatre troupes. He debuted on Broadway in 1929 and kept up a decade-long career on the stage. Although said to have made some minor appearances in silent films, Beddoe made his real transfer to film work in 1938. He appeared in a wide range of supporting roles in literally scores of films, often as either a fast-talking reporter or as a mousey sort. He became one of the most readily familiar faces in Hollywood movies, despite remaining almost unknown by name outside the industry. Following service in the Army Air Corps during the Second World War, he continued to work steadily in small roles, complementing them with television work. Despite advancing (and very ripe old) age, he remained quite active, supplementing his acting work with a second career in real estate. He died in 1991.
- Actress
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Elizabeth Thai was born on 1 July 1979. She is an actress and director, known for Saved! (2004), Man of Steel (2013) and Firewall (2006).- Evan Ellingson began to forge a varied career that spanned from comedy to drama. After landing guest spots on Mad TV (1995), Evan's television career began to take shape with a series regular role on the FOX sitcom Titus (2000). Then, in 2004, Evan was chosen to play "Kyle Savage," son of single dad Keith Carradine in the Mel Gibson/Simpson's Producers in an ABC sitcom Complete Savages (2004). Although the series was short lived, Evan wasted no time in finding other ways to expand his dramatic acting as Josh Bauer in 24 (2001) and Kyle Harmon (David Caruso's son) on CSI: Miami (2002). Evan finished his next project, My Sister's Keeper (2009), playing the son of Cameron Diaz & Jason Patric, brother to Abigail Breslin. In 2006, Evan was cast by Clint Eastwood in Letters from Iwo Jima (2006).
Evan Ellingson grew up in La Verne, California with his three brothers. He was an active sports enthusiast/extremist, who enjoyed surfing, snowboarding, skating and was exploring mountain climbing and scuba diving. In fact, it was Evan's love of sports that put him on the road to stardom. At ten, Evan was discovered at a skate park and was asked to not only skate for the Vans PeeWee team, but to do a commercial for the Vans Company. It was Evan's unmistakable charisma and talent which prompted him to be asked to do a trilogy of short films playing a character that was written specifically for him. This short led to the start of his rapidly developing career. - Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
R&B and disco singer Evelyn King was born on July 1, 1960 in the Bronx, New York and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was a member of the groups the Orioles and the Harptones and her mother managed a band called Red Quality. Evelyn was discovered by music producer Theodore Life while working part time as a cleaning woman for the recording studio Sigma Sound Studios. She began her professional singing career at age sixteen. King scored her biggest and most famous smash success with the groovy disco anthem "Shame," which peaked at #9 on the Billboard pop charts in 1978. The follow-up song "I Don't Know If It's Right" likewise did well; it went all the way to #23 on the Billboard pop charts. Both "Love Come Down" and "I'm In Love" were #1 R&B radio hits in the early 80's. Moreover, such equally funky and infectious songs as "Don't Hide Our Love," "Betcha She Don't Love You," "Just for the Night," "High Horse," "Your Personal Touch," and "Flirt" were all substantial successes on the R&B radio charts throughout the early to mid 80's. The 1983 single "Get Loose" was a Top 10 hit in Europe and cracked the UK Top 40. Evelyn has done work for various charities that include L.A. Cares and the 2008 March of Dimes Fundraiser. More recently Evelyn King has made a very successful comeback: Her latest single "The Dance" climbed all the way to #12 on the Billboard Dance Club charts in the summer of 2008 and she released the album "Open Book" on August 19, 2008.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Farley Earle Granger was born in 1925 in San Jose, California, to Eva (Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger, who owned an automobile dealership. Right out of high school, he was brought to the attention of movie producer Samuel Goldwyn, who cast him in a small role in The North Star (1943). He followed it up with a much bigger part in The Purple Heart (1944) and then joined the army. After his release he had to wait until Nicholas Ray cast him in the low-budget RKO classic They Live by Night (1948) with Cathy O'Donnell, and then he was recalled by Goldwyn, who signed him to a five-year contract. He then made Rope (1948) for Alfred Hitchcock and followed up for Goldwyn with Enchantment (1948) with David Niven, Evelyn Keyes and Teresa Wright. Other roles followed, including Roseanna McCoy (1949) with Joan Evans, Our Very Own (1950) with Ann Blyth and Side Street (1949), again with Cathy O'Donnell. He returned to Hitchcock for the best role of his career, as the socialite tennis champ embroiled in a murder plot by psychotic Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951). He then appeared in O. Henry's Full House (1952) with Jeanne Crain, Hans Christian Andersen (1952) with Danny Kaye, The Story of Three Loves (1953) with Leslie Caron and Small Town Girl (1953) with Jane Powell. He went to Italy to make Senso (1954) for Luchino Visconti with Alida Valli, one of his best films. He did a Broadway play in 1955, "The Carefree Tree", and then returned to films in The Naked Street (1955) with Anthony Quinn and Anne Bancroft and The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) with Joan Collins and Ray Milland. Over the next ten years Granger worked extensively on television and the stage, mainly in stock, and returned to films in Rogue's Gallery (1968) with Dennis Morgan. He then returned to Italy, where he made a series of films, including The Challengers (1970) with 'Anne Baxter (I)', The Man Called Noon (1973) with Richard Crenna and Arnold (1973) with Stella Stevens. More recent films include The Prowler (1981), Death Mask (1984), The Imagemaker (1986) and The Next Big Thing (2001). Since the 1950s he has continued to work frequently on American television and, in 1980, returned to Broadway and appeared in Ira Levin's successful play "Deathtrap". In 2007 he published his autobiography, "Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway" with Robert Calhoun. A longtime resident of New York, Granger has recently appeared in several documentaries discussing Hollywood and, often, specifically Alfred Hitchcock.- Actress
- Director
- Soundtrack
Florence Stanley was born Florence Schwartz on July 1, 1924 in Chicago. She enjoyed a prolific career in the theatre before achieving fame on television as Abe Vigoda's long-suffering, neglected wife, Bernice, on Barney Miller (1975), and later, as Bernice Fish in the short-lived spinoff Fish (1977). Other notable performances include small roles in, Robert Mulligan's Up the Down Staircase (1967), Mike Nichols's The Day of the Dolphin (1973), and The Fortune (1975).- Writer
- Actress
- Producer
Stand-up comedian, writer, and actor, Fortune Feimster, is one of the busiest women working today. She first became known as a writer and panelist on E's hit show Chelsea Lately, and then starred as a series regular on The Mindy Project for Hulu and Champions for NBC. She has gone on to have many guest appearances on TV shows including Claws, 2 Broke Girls, Workaholics, Glee, Dear White People, and Tales of the City, as well as recurring roles on Showtime's The L Word: Generation Q and CBS's Life In Pieces.
She's had memorable roles in the movies Office Christmas Party with Jennifer Aniston, Yes Day with Jennifer Garner, and Lionsgate's Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. Her voiceover work includes Pixar's Soul, The Simpsons, the Cartoon Network's Summer Camp Island and Craig of the Creek, and a series regular on Fox's Bless the Harts.
When not acting, Fortune tours the world doing stand-up. She most recently released a one-hour special on Netflix called "Sweet & Salty," which was nominated for a Critics Choice Award. She's done late night TV sets on Conan and Late Night with Seth Meyers, and she has half hour specials on Comedy Central and as part of Netflix's season one of The Standups.
As a writer, Fortune spent seven years as a professional entertainment journalist while she pursued comedy. She later created and starred in the Tina Fey produced pilot Family Fortune for ABC. Additionally, Amblin, recently acquired two features Fortune wrote, Bad Cop, Bad Cop and Field Trip, both of which she is attached to star.
Fortune can be seen as a recurring guest star on the NBC sitcom, Kenan. She also co-hosts the series, The Netflix Afterparty, alongside David Spade and London Hughes. She can be heard every morning on Netflix is a Joke's radio show, "What a Joke with Papa and Fortune," on Sirius XM, and she hosts the popular podcast, Sincerely Fortune, which features fan favorites; her wife Jax and her mother Ginger.- Frank Parker was born on 1 July 1939 in Darby, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for Battlestar Galactica (1978), Wonder Woman (1975) and Days of Our Lives (1965). He was married to Mary Jean Dunning Garofalo and Nola Donnell Rajcok. He died on 16 September 2018 in Vacaville, California, USA.
- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
Fred Schneider was born on 1 July 1951 in Newark, New Jersey, USA. He is an actor and composer, known for Rising Sun (1993), Mystery Men (1999) and Paul (2011).- Actress
- Writer
- Music Department
Genevieve Bujold spent her first twelve school years in Montreal's oppressive Hochelaga Convent, where opportunities for self-expression were limited to making welcoming speeches for visiting clerics. As a child she felt "as if I were in a long dark tunnel trying to convince myself that if I could ever get out there was light ahead." Caught reading a forbidden novel, she was handed her ticket out of the convent and she then enrolled in Montreal's free Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique. There she was trained in classical French drama and shortly before graduation was offered a part in a professional production of Beaumarchais' "The Barber of Seville." In 1965 while on a theatrical tour of Paris with another Montreal company, Rideau Vert, Bujold was recommended to director Alain Resnais (by his mother) who cast her opposite Yves Montand in The War Is Over (1966). She then made two other French films in quick succession, the Philippe de Broca cult classic King of Hearts (1966) and Louis Malle's The Thief of Paris (1967). She was also very active during this time in Canadian television where she met and married director Paul Almond in 1967. They had one child and divorced in 1974. Two remarkable appearances - first as the titular Saint Joan (1967) on television, then as Anne Boleyn in her Hollywood debut Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), co-starring Richard Burton - introduced Bujold to American audiences and yielded Emmy and Oscar nominations respectively. Immediately after "Anne," while under contract with Universal, she opted out of a planned Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) ("it would be the same producer, the same director, the same costumes, the same me") prompting the studio to sue her for $750,000. Rather than pay, she went to Greece to film The Trojan Women (1971) with Katharine Hepburn. Her virtuoso performance as the mad seer Cassandra led critic Pauline Kael to prophesy "prodigies ahead" but to assuage Universal, Bujold eventually returned to Hollywood to make Earthquake (1974), co-starring Charlton Heston, which was a box office hit. A host of other films of varying quality followed, most notably Obsession (1976), Coma (1978), The Last Flight of Noah's Ark (1980), and Tightrope (1984), but she managed nevertheless to transcend the material and deliver performances with her trademark combination of ferocious intensity and childlike vulnerability. In the 1980s she found her way to director Alan Rudolph's nether world and joined his film family for three movies including the memorable Choose Me (1984). Highlights of recent work are her brave performance in the David Cronenberg film Dead Ringers (1988) and a lovely turn in the autumnal romance Les noces de papier (1990).- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Germán Dehesa was born on 1 July 1944 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor and writer, known for Cilantro y perejil (1996), El show de Eduardo II (1976) and Fuera de cuadro (2002). He died on 2 September 2010 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gunnar Möller was born on 1 July 1928 in Berlin, Germany. He was an actor, known for Mussolini: The Untold Story (1985), Die Post geht ab (1962) and Dny zrady (1973). He was married to Christiane Hammacher and Brigitte Rau. He died on 16 May 2017 in Berlin, Germany.- Guy Raymond was born on 1 July 1911 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Undefeated (1969), Bandolero! (1968) and Gypsy (1962). He was married to Ann Morgan Guilbert and Evelyn L. Scher. He died on 26 January 1997 in Santa Monica, California, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Hannah Murray is an English actress known for portraying Gilly in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011) and Cassie Ainsworth in the E4 teen drama series Skins (2007), from 2007 to 2008 (and again in 2013). In 2014, Murray starred in God Help the Girl (2014). In 2015, she played Sara in the Danish film Bridgend (2015).
Hannah was born in Bristol, England. Her father is a University professor and her mother is a research technician in the same field. When she was a teenager she began taking drama lessons, and she fell for acting. At the age of sixteen, Hannah decided to pursue acting and she auditioned for Skins (2007), the debut series for new channel E4. She won the role of Cassie Ainsworth, a gentle, "spacey", yet self-destructive teenager with an eating disorder. The role lasted two seasons on the show, when her generation was replaced with a new one. But until today, her character remains one of the greatest icons of the series. Murray can also be seen in Chatroom (2010), Womb (2010), and Dark Shadows (2012).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Harald Zwart was born in Leiden, Netherlands, and his family moved to Norway where he grew up. He made his first film when he was 8 years and was active with Super8 and stop motion animation for years. He was accepted into the highly acclaimed Dutch Film Academy in Amsterdam, NL, where he spent 4 years, specializing in Directing, Script and Editing. Harald's exam film "Garbriel's Surprise" (about a young man who was given a second chance by Gabriel to correct the wrong), was screened on all Scandinavian TV stations and Harald was quickly headhunted into doing commercials in Norway. He met his wife and partner Veslemoey Ruud Zwart and they've worked together since. She started managing his deals and started the company Zwart Arbeid A/S
After a few years of producing and directing award winning commercials all over Europe, they did their first feature, "Commander Hamilton" [tt0119249/], and then they got "the call" from Hollywood where were invited to have lunch with Steven Spielberg. He had seen the commercials and was impressed by the concise story telling and humor. Shortly after the couple moved permanently to Los Angeles where Veslemoey started Motion Blur. A commercial film production company where they continued to make ads for the world wide market.
Their first feature was "One Night At McCool's" with Michael Douglas producing, starring Liv Tyler, John Goodman, Matt Dillon, Paul Reiser, Reba McIntyre and more.
Since then they have continued producing under the Zwart Arbeid banner, and opened Motion Blur films and commercials in Norway where they have steadfast produced films, TV shows and commercials. Harald travels all over the world to direct commercials for all the markets, and in the US he's most known for the Capital One Commercials with the Vikings. He's most known for the movies The Karate Kid with Will Smith and Overbrook/SONY producing, and "The 12th Man" which they produced under their own company Zwart Arbeid with Nordisk Film distributing.
Their latest Norwegian Movie "Lange Flate Ballær" went straight to #1 and is the highest grossing Norwegian movie so far in 2022.- The most famous henchman of the entire James Bond series of spy thrillers, Harold Sakata will forever be remembered as the villainous "Odd Job" in the ultimate Bond film, Goldfinger (1964), with his lethal martial arts and steel-brimmed bowler hat. He was born Toshiyuki Sakata in Hawaii, of Japanese descent. From a young age he was a proficient sportsman who developed a keen interest in wrestling, and won a Silver Medal in weightlifting for the light heavyweight division of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. Sakata then went on to become a professional wrestler, and appeared under the name "Tosh Togo" where he became a "bad guy" wrestler who allegedly threw salt in his opponent's eyes.
Although he had no acting background, Sakata came to the attention of Bond producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli when they were casting for the key role of the mute Asian villain "Odd Job". Sakata's steely gaze and powerful physique made him perfect for the role as Auric Goldfinger's (Gert Fröbe) deadly bodyguard, and the fight sequence between Sean Connery and Sakata in a glittering, gold-filled Fort Knox remains one of the highlights of the Bond series.
Unfortunately, Sakata never broke free of the "Odd Job" stereotype, and his remaining film appearances saw him cast as military figures, muscle-bound brutes or further mute bodyguards. He died from cancer in 1982, but had assured himself a very unique place in modern film history. - Actor
- Producer
Henry Simmons was born in Stamford, Connecticut, one of three children to Aurelia, a school teacher, and Henry Simmons, Sr., an IRS agent. One of his sisters is his twin. Simmons earned a basketball scholarship at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire. He graduated with a business degree and went to work for a Stamford financial firm. He quickly realized that was not his calling and left to pursue acting.
He moved to New York City to study and pursue a career in acting. His first acting job was the movie Above the Rim (1994), starring Tupac Shakur. He made his TV debut in a 1994 Saturday Night Live (1975) skit, that infamously starred Martin Lawrence. He then got numerous guest star roles on television, roles in film, as well as making his New York theater debut in William Inge's "Boy In The Basement". After working six years in New York, he then moved to Los Angeles to pursue more opportunities. He went on to star on "NYPD Blue" for six seasons, CBS drama "Shark", and has been featured in The Cleaner (2008), Raising the Bar (2008), Bones (2005) and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013). He most recently was the lead for the Ava DuVernay series, "Cherish The Day".- Actress
- Producer
- Art Director
Hilarie was born and raised in Sterling Park, Virginia. She is the oldest of four children and describes her family as tight-knit. Hilarie developed a passion for acting early in life. Shortly after moving to New York to go to school and pursuing her acting dream, she landed the coveted job of VJ at MTV. She won a guest spot interviewing on the red carpet for MTV and did so well she ended up with a job.- Actress
- Additional Crew
She became interested in acting at the age of 13 and started work at the age of 15 with her first assignment being for a Dr Pepper commercial. Hillary has also been featured in many other, both national and international, advertisements since including Kelloggs, IBM and AT&T. Hillary has many off screen talents including being fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) and is an accomplished Jazz and Modern dancer. Hillary supports the Hands Across Communications Organisation, currently Directed by US Comedian CJ Jones. This Organisation supports deaf and hard of hearing people, especially children, across America. Hands Across Communications is mainly involved in entertaining and communication, and makes videos and TV shows for the deaf. Hillary also spends time working with, and supporting, deaf children.- Hugh Stuckey was born on 1 July 1928 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He was a writer, known for Blue Heelers (1994), The Howerd Confessions (1976) and A Country Practice (1981). He was married to Shirley. He died on 21 June 2018 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
- Writer
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Irna Phillips was born on 1 July 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was a writer and producer, known for Days of Our Lives (1965), The Brighter Day (1954) and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1967). She died on 23 December 1973 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
James Cotton was born on 1 July 1935 in Tunica, Mississippi, USA. He was an actor, known for Michael (1996), Taking Woodstock (2009) and House (2004). He was married to Jacklyn Hairston. He died on 16 March 2017 in Austin, Texas, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
One of the most prolific character actors of his time starting with his role of Santini in the Blackboard Jungle (1955). Since then has appeared in iconic shows as the Twilight Zone, the Red Skelton Hour, the Dick Van Dyke Show, the Danny Kaye Show, Hazel, My Three Sons, Ben Casey, The Lucy Show, I Dream of Jeannie, The Andy Griffith Show, My Favorite Martian, F Troop, Get Smart. Gomer Pyle, The Flying Nun, The Blue Knight, Barnaby Jones, The Love Boat, Diagnosis Murder and of course M*A*S*H.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Jared Keeso is a Canadian actor, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for creating and starring in the comedy series Letterkenny (2016-present), which won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Comedy Series in 2017. He is also known for his roles as Ben Chartier in the 2014 series 19-2 (2014-2017), for which he won a Canadian Screen Award, and Don Cherry in the television films Keep Your Head Up Kid: The Don Cherry Story (2010) and The Wrath of Grapes: The Don Cherry Story II (2012), for which he won a Leo Award and Gemini Award. He married Magali Brunelle Keeso, a Canadian corporate lawyer, in July 2018.- Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Born in London, Jean Marsh became interested in show business while taking dancing and mime classes as therapy for a childhood illness. After attending a charm school and working as a model, she started acting in repertory and took voice lessons. Her repertory work was supplemented by a number of film appearances as a dancer. She then spent three years in America, appearing in Sir John Gielgud's Broadway production of "Much Ado About Nothing" and numerous TV shows, including an episode of The Twilight Zone (1959). Returning to London, she won roles on stage, film and TV. It was during this period that she appeared in Doctor Who (1963), first as Princess Joanna in "The Crusade" and then as Sara Kingdom in "The Daleks' Master Plan." In the early 1970s she co-created and starred in LWT's Upstairs, Downstairs (1971). Since then she has maintained a very busy career in the theatre, on TV - including a starring role in the US sitcom Nine to Five (1982) and films such as Return to Oz (1985) and Willow (1988). She also co-created another successful series, The House of Eliott (1991).- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
John Farnham is regarded as Australia's top performing artist, with a career spanning three decades. Born in Essex, England, John immigrated to Australia in 1959 at the age of 10. Since his debut in 1967 he has had numerous successes as a solo performer. His solo album Whispering Jack (1986) continues to be Australia biggest selling album of all time by a local artist, with sales in excess of 1.4 million, and for which Farnham was awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award by the Australian Record Industry Association. In addition to local success, Whispering Jack and the single You're the Voice were chart-topping hits throughout Europe, England and Canada. The multi-award winning singer was named Australian of the Year in 1988. In 1989, Farnham was invited to launch the Greenpeace's 'Rainbow Warriors' album in Moscow. In 1992, he recorded the role of Jesus for the Australian cast of Jesus Christ Superstar - The Album then toured with the stage production. In the same year, he was awarded the coveted Australian Music Awards' Crystal Trophy for Outstanding Contribution to the Industry, On Australia Day 1996, he was honoured with the Order of Australia for Services to Music and Charity. Farnham has undertaken numerous local and international tours throughout his career, including a national Australian tour with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra amongst his achievements. His Australian tours are renowned for breaking attendance records, specifically the Chain Reaction Tour in 1990 during which there were eight sell-out performances at Melbourne Park. His 1996 Jack of Hearts- Live in the Round Australian tour, a $5 million production, was
- John Peakes was born on 1 July 1933. He was an actor, known for Evil Dead II (1987), 6 Souls (2010) and Cold Case (2003). He was married to Judith Gentry and Connie Villiers. He died on 26 January 2017 in the USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Director
One of Spain's best-recognized artistic personalities, Jordi Mollà is an actor, director, painter and a writer.
Jordi Mollà Perales was born in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Jordi was trained as an actor at the Barcelona Institute of Theatre and he also studied in Italy, Hungary and England. As an actor, he has worked in more than fifteen films, with prestigious directors like Bigas Luna, Montxo Armendáriz, Pedro Almodóvar, Ricardo Franco and Fernando Colomo.
Jordi first received in acclaim in Bigas Luna's "Jamón, Jamón", in 1992. Since then Jordi has appeared in "Historias del Kronen" (1994), Director: Montxo Armendáriz; "La Flor de mi secreto" (1994), Director: Pedro Almodóvar; "La Celestina" (1996), Director: Gerardo Vera; "La buena Estrella" (1997), Director: Ricardo Franco (Nominated for the GOYA Awards); "Los años bárbaros" (1998), Director: Fernando Colomo; "Volavérunt" (1999), Director: Bigas Luna; "Nadie conoce a nadie" (1999), Director: Mateo Gil; "Segunda piel" (1999), Director: Gerardo Vera and "Son de Mar", (1999), Director: Bigas Luna.
Critically acclaimed "Blow" with Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz, was Jordi's debut film in Hollywood.
Jordi has also directed two short films: "Walter Peralta" (Alcalá De Henares Award, Generalitat De Cataluña National Cinematographic Award) and "No me importaria irme contigo". His first feature film as a director, "No somos nadie", produced by Lola Films, will be realised in 2002.
Additionally, Jordi has written two books: "Las primeras veces" and "Agua estancada".
In addition to regularly exhibiting at PicassoMio Galleries, Jordi has exhibited at Sotheby's Gallery, Madrid (2007) and Galeria Carmen DE la Guerra, Madrid. This multi-faceted artist is a self-trained painter, for whom painting is an act of spontaneity. His works often surprise the viewer both with his ability to manage the media and with his power to express himself on canvas or paper.- Jorge Arandes was born in 1929 in Barcelona, Spain. He is an actor, known for Canciones para su recuerdo (1962).
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Juan Carlos Onetti was born on 1 July 1909 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He was a writer, known for El infierno tan temido (1975), El infierno tan temido (1980) and Mal día para pescar (2009). He was married to Dorothea "Dolly" Muhr, Elizabeth Maria Pekelharing, Maria Julia Onetti and Maria Amalia Onetti. He died on 30 May 1994 in Madrid, Spain.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Nicholson was born and raised in Medford, Massachusetts (outside Boston), and is the eldest of four siblings. She is the daughter of Kate (Gilday) and James O. Nicholson, Jr., and is of Irish heritage. Nicholson moved to New York which led to a modeling career in Paris. She attended Hunter College as a General Studies Major. She is married to British actor Jonathan Cake. The couple met playing a couple in an HBO pilot "Marriage" directed by Michael Apted.- Editorial Department
- Actress
Julija Steponaityte was born on 1 July 1992 in Lithuania. She is an actress, known for The Summer of Sangaile (2015), Personal Shopper (2016) and Man Dvim Keli (2014).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jüri Pootsmann is known for Jüri Pootsmann: Play (2016), Topelt Turbo (2022) and Eesti Laul 2016 (2016).- Actress
- Writer
- Composer
Karen entered Northwestern University at 18 and left two years later. She studied under Lee Strasberg in New York and worked in a number of off-Broadway roles. She made a critically acclaimed debut on Broadway in 1965 in "The Playroom". Her first big film role was in You're a Big Boy Now (1966), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Shortly after wards, she appeared as Marcia in the TV series The Second Hundred Years (1967).
The film that made her a star was Easy Rider (1969), where she worked with Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and a supporting actor named Jack Nicholson. She appeared with Nicholson again the next year when they starred in Five Easy Pieces (1970), which garnered an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Karen. Her roles mainly consisted of waitresses, hookers and women on the edge. Some of her later films were disappointments at the box office, but she did receive another Golden Globe for The Great Gatsby (1974). One role for which she is well remembered is that of the jewel thief in Alfred Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot (1976). Another is as the woman terrorized in her apartment by a murderous Zuni doll come to life in the well received TV movie Trilogy of Terror (1975). After a number of forgettable movies, she again won rave reviews for her role in Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). Since then, her film career has been busy, but the quality of the films has been uneven.- Actress
- Producer
Has worked as an actress since the age of 3, until she attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1995. She graduated in May 1999 and went back to acting with a role in COME ON GET HAPPY: The Partridge Family Story.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kellie Bright was born on 1 July 1976 in Brentwood, Essex, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Ali G Indahouse (2002), EastEnders (1985) and Xenoblade Chronicles (2010). She has been married to Paul Stocker since 5 July 2014. They have three children.- Actress
- Producer
Kiera Chaplin was born on 1 July 1982 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for The Importance of Being Earnest (2002), The Year That Trembled (2002) and The Professional (2003).- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Canadian TV actor, musician, dancer and songwriter Kolton James Stewart was born on Canada Day, or July 1st, 1999 in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and has had a keen interest in performing from a very early age. As a TV Actor, he is very well known for his role on the television series Some Assembly Required in the role of Jarvis, he played a lead singer in the feature film Isabelle Dances Into the Spotlight. He is also a recording artist and dancer. Though born in Toronto, Canada, He grew up in a small rural town in Ontario, Canada before coming back to Toronto as a preteen. Kolton was born to a musical family. He is a multi-talented actor originally from Toronto, Ontario who already has quite a background in the entertainment world as an actor, musician, dancer, and singer. He won "Best Performance in a TV Series - Leading Young Actor" this year at the 36th Annual Young Artist Awards (YAA) in Los Angeles, joining the likes of Brad Pitt, Zac Efron, and Leonardo DiCaprio as a recipient of the prestigious award. Kolton is an accomplished musician, dancer and actor.
Kolton's first memory of music was conducting along to The Lawrence Welk Show. Around the same time, he began drumming and was competing in a pipe band by age four. While most kids were playing with toys or at the park, Kolton spent three or more hours a day "doing music," as he called it, whether it was drumming along with The Monkees or playing a toy guitar to The Wiggles. When Kolton was five-years-old, he won the Ontario All-Star Talent Show by performing a drum solo he had composed. By the time he was seven, he advanced to international competitions with an adult pipe band and had joined the local high school band as a percussionist. It wasn't always easy for Kolton to be the young one in a talented pool but his enthusiasm and love for music helped him overcome the challenges he encountered.
When he was 13 years old he began making YouTube Videos on his official YouTube channel KoltonStewart and it caught the eye of Ellen DeGeneres. Kolton was asked by Ellen DeGeneres to perform on her show with his friend Myles in 2012 after she saw his first YouTube video, singing a cover of "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz which went viral, garnering several thousand hits its first week. Kolton is best known for his roles in Some Assembly Required, The Next Step, and I Declare War.
Kolton has garnered several accolades as a musician and actor over the years. Before fame, Kolton began playing the drums at age two. He won several talent contests and awards, like the internationally renowned Percussive Arts Society's Larrie Londin Scholarship, and competed around the world with youth and adult pipe & drum bands before his tenth birthday. When Kolton was 5, he entered a local talent competition and won the Ontario All-Star Talent Show by composing and performing his very own drum solo. When Kolton was 8 he entered an International Drumming competition at the prestigious Percussive Arts Society (17 and under) and won! He used the money he won and took some drumming lessons. All of this happened before his on screen fame. He won an International Drumming Award with the Percussive Arts Society in 2008. He was interested in sports from a young age and also extremely athletic but he was devastated by a season-ending football injury in 2007 that ended his dream and returned his focus to music. As gifted athletically as he is musically, Kolton formerly played many sports, including football. A broken leg on the field when he was eight not only ended his season but also changed the course of his life; not one to sit still, yet sidelined from sports, Kolton auditioned for The Stratford Festival Theatre's production of Music Man in a full leg cast. Finding his voice in that show, he was next cast in West Side Story and Macbeth before being seen by a talent scout who encouraged him to audition for The Lion King, where he became the first Canadian child to be cast in the Broadway musical, joining the North American Tour as Young Simba. While sidelined, he decided to pursue the theater, auditioning for The Stratford Festival Theater's production of Music Man in a full leg cast. In 2010, after landing that part and a few others, he became the first Canadian child in the history of The Lion King to join the Broadway musical as Young Simba. Shortly after his tour concluded, he decided to audition for television and movies and was soon cast in both mediums
Kolton was inspired by the multi-talented actors he met through the theater, particularly the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story, and decided to add dance to his performance repertoire. He now has an extensive background in tap, jazz, contemporary, ballet, and hip hop, including five years of competition experience, which also enables him to move naturally and rhythmically around any stage he encounters.
After his run with The Lion King, Kolton began to audition for film and TV roles and has worked steadily in both mediums since. He stars as Jarvis in the YTV series Some Assembly Required, which can also be seen outside of Canada on Netflix. The show gives Kolton the best of both worlds in that it is filmed both on a closed set and in front of a live studio audience once a week as well. Kolton also sings the show's opening theme, "Here We Go," which he recorded in LA at the same studio used by Michael Jackson.
Inspired in his youngest years by artists like Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, The Monkees and Elton John, Kolton now also looks to more recent musical influences such as Justin Timberlake - for his versatility and seamless transitions between music and acting - as well as Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, and John Mayer.
In addition to singing and percussion, Kolton also plays guitar, bass, and keyboards; his original music reflects his eclectic taste and is a mix of various styles and rhythms ranging from pop to soul. Kolton's YouTube page includes cover versions of many of his favorite artists' music, including Jason Mraz's "I Won't Give Up," which led to a performance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Kolton continues to hone his songwriting skills and is currently working on his debut album.
Kolton has done a fair share of theatre as well, acting at The Stratford Shakespeare Festival and Disney's The Lion King. He performed at The Stratford Festival for 2 seasons and was cast as an actor and soloist in several productions including The Music Man, MacBeth and West Side Story. During one of his performances, a talent scout suggested that Kolton audition for The Lion King National Broadway Tour. Kolton was hired as the first Canadian child to ever join The Lion King family as Young Simba. He was featured in the dance movie Make Your Move, starring Derek Hough. In an amazing trivia, he appeared in four episodes of The Family Channel hit series The Next Step.
Whether it is singing, dancing, playing an instrument, or acting, Kolton is passionate about his artistry as a performer. "I knew as soon as I stepped on stage that I was hooked for life," he said. "There was no turning back." Kolton is passionate about his artistry as a performer. He says as soon as he stepped on the stage he knew he was hooked for life and there was no turning back.
In addition to his continued role on Some Assembly Required, now in its third season, Kolton recently finished filming two upcoming movies, Angels in the Snow and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, and is also working on his debut album. Kolton has had an amazing journey and is grateful for the incredible experiences he has had so far. The sky is (not) the limit for Kolton as he continues to pursue his dreams.
When he is not performing, Kolton is as typical a teen as possible; he enjoys playing video games with his friends, sports, and working out as well as writing scripts and making movies. When he is not on-set, he lives in Lynedoch, Ontario, Canada and in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Kym Jackson was born in Bath, England, UK. Kym is an actor and producer, known for The Secrets She Keeps (2020), S.W.A.T. (2017) and Wish Man (2019). Kym is married to Andrew Steel.- Princess Diana was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, and the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry. Diana's activism and glamour made her an international icon and earned her an enduring popularity.
Diana was born into the British nobility and grew up close to the royal family on their Sandringham estate. She did not distinguish herself academically, but was talented in music, dance, and sports.
Diana came to prominence in 1981 upon her engagement to Prince Charles, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II, after a brief courtship. Their wedding took place at St Paul's Cathedral in 1981 and made her Princess of Wales, a role in which she was enthusiastically received by the public. The couple had two sons, the princes William and Harry, who were then second and third in the line of succession to the British throne. The couple separated in 1992, soon after the breakdown of their relationship became public knowledge. The details of their marital difficulties became increasingly publicized, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1996.
As Princess of Wales, Diana undertook royal duties on behalf of the Queen and represented her at functions across the Commonwealth realms. She was celebrated in the media for her unconventional approach to charity work. Her patronages initially centered on children and youth but she later became known for her involvement with AIDS patients and campaign for the removal of landmines. She also raised awareness and advocated ways to help people affected with cancer and mental illness. Considered to be very photogenic, she was a leader of fashion in the 1980s and 1990s. Media attention and public mourning were extensive after her death in a car crash in a Paris tunnel in 1997 and televised funeral. Her legacy has had a deep impact on the royal family and British society.Lady Di - Actress
- Writer
Laura Heisler was born in the suburbs of Chicago, and raised outside Washington DC. She made her film debut in the short film Wrist (2000), and since then has appeared in Coverage (2008) as well as the independent features Coach (2009), Cold Souls (2009), Forged (2010), and YellowBrickRoad (2010), which had its premiere at Slamdance.
A veteran stage actor, Laura has appeared in numerous world premieres Off-Broadway and regionally, including Sarah Ruhl's "Eurydice," Elizabeth Meriwether's "The Mistakes Madeline Made," David Adjmi's "Stunning" and Mark Schultz's "Everything Will Be Different." In 2007, she made her Broadway debut as Edward Ashbrook in "Coram Boy," directed by Melly Still.
In 2011, she was nominated for both a Lucille Lortel Award and a Drama League Award for her work in "Kin" (written by Bathsheba Doran and directed by Sam Gold), Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons.- Actress
- Producer
Laura Jacobs was born in the heart of the Canadian prairies. Her upbringing included classical Opera training, violin lessons and theatre acting training. Laura attended McGill University and with a dual degree in classical theatre studies and psychology. She got her start in the entertainment business as an internationally represented fashion model and worked all over the world, garnering success in Asia, New York, and Europe. Moving to the USA in 2010, Laura then began acting and singing in major productions earning notable performances in Daydream Nation with Kat Dennings, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Muck with Kane Hodder, and the last season of iZombie.
Becoming a mom has been a new and exciting recent chapter of her life, her and her husband welcomed healthy and beautiful twin baby boys in June of 2022, and have another set of twin boys on the way in November 2023!
Laura also appeared in the Roku Original Series "Match Me in Miami" in June of 2023 as she is also a top Celebrity Matchmaker and has gained notoriety in this field.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
French actress Léa Seydoux was born in 1985 in Paris, France, to Valérie Schlumberger, a philanthropist, and Henri Seydoux, a businessman. Her grandfather, Jérôme Seydoux, is chairman of Pathé, and her father is a great-grandson of businessman and inventor Marcel Schlumberger (her mother also descends from the Schlumberger family). Her parents are both of mixed French and Alsatian German descent, with more distant Venezuelan (Spanish, Basque) roots on her father's side.
Léa began her acting career in French cinema, appearing in films such as The Last Mistress (2007) and On War (2008). She first came to attention after she received her first César Award nomination for her performance in The Beautiful Person (2008), and won the Trophée Chopard, an award given to promising actors at the Cannes Film Festival. Since then, she has appeared in major Hollywood films including Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (2010), Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011), and Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). In French cinema, she was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for a second time for her role in Belle Épine (2010) and was nominated for the César Award for Best Actress for the film Farewell, My Queen (2012).
In 2013, Seydoux came to widespread attention when Seydoux and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos, alongside director Abdellatif Kechiche, were awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, for their involvement in the critically acclaimed film Blue Is the Warmest Colour (Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013)). As a special prize for their roles, Along with Jane Campion, Seydoux and Exarchopoulos are the only women to have ever won a Palme d'Or.
That same year, she also received the Lumières Award for Best Actress for the film Grand Central and, in 2014, she was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award and starred in the films Beauty and the Beast, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Saint Laurent. In 2015 she played Madeleine Swann in the 24th James Bond film Spectre.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
French ballet dancer Leslie Caron was discovered by the legendary MGM star Gene Kelly during his search for a co-star in one of the finest musicals ever filmed, the Oscar-winning An American in Paris (1951), which was inspired by and based on the music of George Gershwin. Leslie's gamine looks and pixie-like appeal would be ideal for Cinderella-type rags-to-riches stories, and Hollywood made fine use of it. Combined with her fluid dancing skills, she became one of the top foreign musical artists of the 1950s, while her triple-threat talents as a singer, dancer and actress sustained her long after musical film's "Golden Age" had passed.
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron was born in France on July 1, 1931. Her father, Claude Caron, was a French chemist, and her American-born mother, Margaret Petit, had been a ballet dancer back in the States during the 1920s. Leslie herself began taking dance lessons at age 11. She was on holidays at her grandparents' estate near Grasse when the Allies landed on the 15th of August 1944. After the German rendition, she and her family went to Paris to live. There she attended the Convent of the Assumption and started ballet training. While studying at the National Conservatory of Dance, she appeared at age 14 in "The Pearl Diver," a show for children where she danced and played a little boy. At age 16, she was hired by the renowned Roland Petit to join the Ballet des Champs-Elysees, where she was immediately given solo parts.
Leslie's talent and reputation as a dancer had already been recognized when on opening night of Petit's 1948 ballet "La Rencontre," which was based on the theme of Orpheus and featured the widely-acclaimed dancer 'Jean Babilee', she was seen by then-married Hollywood couple Gene Kelly and Betsy Blair. Leslie did not meet the famed pair at the end of the show that night as the 17-year-old went home dutifully right after her performance, but one year later Kelly remembered Leslie's performance when he returned to Paris in search for a partner for his upcoming movie musical An American in Paris (1951). The rest is history.
Kelly and newcomer Caron's touching performances and elegant and exuberant footwork (especially in the "Our Love Is Here to Stay" and "Embraceable You" numbers, as well as the dazzling 17-minute ballet to the title song) had critics and audiences simply enthralled. The film, directed by Vincente Minnelli, won a total of six Oscar awards, including "Best Picture," plus a Golden Globe for "Best Picture in a Musical or Comedy". Leslie was put under a seven-year MGM contract where her luminous skills would also be featured in non-musical showcases.
While Leslie's dramatic mettle was tested as a New Orleans nightclub entertainer opposite Ralph Meeker's boxer in Glory Alley (1952) and as a French governess in The Story of Three Loves (1953), it was as the child-like urchin who falls for a cruel carnival puppeteer (Mel Ferrer) in Lili (1953) that finally lifted Leslie to Academy Award attention. The film, which went on to inspire the Tony-winning Broadway musical "Carnival," earned Leslie not only an Oscar nomination, but the British Film Award for "Best Actress" as well. At her waif-like best once again in the musical Daddy Long Legs (1955), Leslie was paired this time with the "other" MGM male dancing legend Fred Astaire. The story, which unfolded in an appealing Henry Higgins/Eliza Dolittle style, was partly choreographed by Roland Petit, who founded the Ballet des Champs-Elysees, Leslie's former dance company.
While the actress gave poignant life to the ugly-duckling-turned-swan tale, The Glass Slipper (1955), choreographed by Petit and co-starring Britisher Michael Wilding as Prince Charming, Leslie also played a ballerina in love with WWII soldier John Kerr in Gaby (1956), a lukewarm remake of the superior Waterloo Bridge (1940). It took another plush musical classic, Gigi (1958), to remind audiences once again of Leslie's unique, international appeal. Audrey Hepburn, who had played the title part on Broadway, was keen on doing the film, but producer Arthur Freed wrote the part expressly for Leslie. It was also Freed who called up Fred Astaire to suggest her as his leading lady in Gigi (1958). Leslie tried the role out on the London stage prior to doing the film version. The musical wound up receiving nine Academy Awards, including "Best Picture," and Leslie herself was nominated for a Golden Globe as "Best Musical/Comedy Actress".
A few more forgettable film roles came and went until she returned triumphantly in a non-musical adaptation of a highly successful 1954 Broadway musical. The film version of Fanny (1961) was more adult in nature for Leslie and was blessed with gorgeous cinematography, a touching script and the continental flavor of veterans, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, and Horst Buchholz. At the movie's centerpiece is a child-like Leslie (at age 30!) who is mesmerizing as a young girl with child who is deserted by her sailor/boyfriend. Even more adult in scope was the shattering British drama The L-Shaped Room (1962) wherein the actress plays a pregnant French refugee who is abandoned yet again. She earned her a second British Academy Award and a second Oscar nomination for this superb performance.
On stage in London with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Leslie earned applause in another Audrey Hepburn Broadway vehicle, "Ondine," in 1961. While the mid-1960s and 1970s saw her film career take a Hollywood detour into breezy comedy with a number of lightweight fare opposite the likes of Rock Hudson, Cary Grant and Warren Beatty, she managed to shine with a complex working class mother role in the remarkable Italian film Il padre di famiglia (1967) starring Nino Manfredi and Ugo Tognazzi, and was spotted in the popular crossover film Valentino (1977) starring iconic Russian ballet star Rudolf Nureyev.
In the 1980s, Leslie appeared in stage productions of "Can-Can", "On Your Toes" and "One for the Tango". She also was invited and accepted to appear on American TV. At the age of 75, the actress won her first Emmy Award with her very moving portrayal of an elderly woman and closeted rape victim in a 2006 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999). More recent filming have included Damage (1992) by Louis Malle, Chocolat (2000) by Lasse Hallström, and the Merchant Ivory romantic comedy/drama The Divorce (2003).
Leslie's private life has been more turbulent than expected. She is divorced from the late meat packing heir and musician Geordie Hormel; from avant-garde Royal Shakespeare director Peter Hall, by whom she has two children, Christopher and Jennifer (both of whom have careers in the entertainment field); and from her Chandler (1971) movie producer Michael Laughlin.
One of the few MGM post-musical stars to enjoy a long, lasting and formidable dramatic career, Leslie Caron is still continuing today though on a much more limited basis. In 2008, the actress published her memoirs, "Thank Heaven," later translated to French as "Une Francaise à Hollywood". In 2010, she triumphed on the Chatelet Theater stage in Paris with her portrayal of Madame Armfeldt in Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music. More recently the still mesmerizing octogenarian had a recurring role as a countess in the British TV series The Durrells (2016). Over the years, she has received a number of "Life Achievement" awards for her contributions to both film and dance.- Actress
- Producer
Lisa Blount was an actress who appeared in numerous films and television shows, most notably as Lynette Pomeroy in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Along with her husband, actor Ray McKinnon, she received an Academy Award for the 2002 short film The Accountant (2001).
Lisa Suzanne Blount was born in Fayetteville (Washington County) to Glen Roscoe Blount and Louise Martin Blount, natives of Floral (Independence County); she had one brother, Greg. The family moved to Jacksonville (Pulaski County). Blount graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1975 and attended the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville, beginning classes there when she was sixteen; she left UA before graduating in order to pursue an acting career.
Blount's movie career began in earnest at age nineteen when she was chosen to play a lead role in September 30, 1955 (1977), which was shot in Conway (Faulkner County) and released in 1977. Written and directed by James Bridges, it starred Richard Thomas, Dennis Quaid, and Tom Hulce. Though surrounded by accomplished actors, Blount's vivid portrayal of a James Dean-obsessed girl named Billie Jean stood out among her more well-known co-stars.
Blount married cinematographer actor Christopher Tufty on March 19, 1982; they later divorced. She married Ray McKinnon in 1998. She had no children.
Blount is best remembered for her 1982 role in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). The movie won two Academy Awards and was nominated for four others. Her screen character-the ambitious, cynical, and insecure Lynette Pomeroy-is the best friend of Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger). As a result of her performance in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Blount was voted "Favourite Female Newcomer" in 1983 by a US magazine readers' poll.
Blount added television roles to her repertoire. She received critical plaudits for her appearance in the second season of Moonlighting (1985) in the episode Sleep Talkin' Guy (1986). She played a high-class call girl named Toby, whose client talked in his sleep, revealing details of planned murders. Another memorable role was that of Jim Profit's outrageous stepmother Bobbi Stakowski in the short-lived but critically acclaimed Fox series Profit (1996). She appeared in eight episodes in 1996 and 1997.
Blount was given a key role in director John Carpenter's horror film Prince of Darkness (1987), in which she appeared as the love interest to Jameson Parker. As a result of her appearance in this and a few other horror movies, she was sometimes referred to by the press as a "scream queen" star.
Blount and McKinnon received an Academy Award in 2002 for a live-action short film she produced and he directed titled The Accountant, which concerned the plight of American family farms. Many critics believe that Blount's most poignant role was in the 2004 movie Chrystal (2004), which was written, directed, and co-produced by McKinnon, who also played the character Snake in the film. The movie co-starred fellow Arkansan Billy Bob Thornton and was shot in the Eureka Springs (Carroll County) area.
Following the making of Chrystal (2004), Blount and McKinnon moved back to her home state of Arkansas after several years of living in Los Angeles, California. This was in part due to Blount's failing health. She continued to be active and was working on several projects. She shot a pilot for the FX television network series Outlaw Country (2012) with fellow Arkansan Mary Steenburgen, recorded demos for a music project on which she had been working, performed on stage with Eddie Vedder at a rally for the West Memphis Three, and continued the work of designing and remodelling her historic home in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Her last big-screen appearance was as Charlotte Pearson in Randy and the Mob (2007), her husband's crime comedy shot in Atlanta, Georgia.
Blount died at her home in Little Rock after spending seventeen years fighting a chronic illness called idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). She is buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Floral. She had been inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame on September 9, 2010, shortly before her death.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Liv Tyler is an actress of international renown and has been a familiar face on our screens for over two decades and counting. She began modelling at the age of fourteen before pursuing a career in acting. After making her film debut in Bruce Beresford's Silent Fall, she was cast by fledgling director James Mangold (who would go on to direct such hits as Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line and Logan) in his first feature Heavy, a critical and commercial success that went on to gain cult status. This was followed by another indie cult hit, Empire Records, but it was the leading role in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty that catapulted her to stardom at the age of eighteen.
Liv was next seen in Tom Hanks' hugely successful passion project That Thing You Do!, his paean to the glory days of 1960s rock 'n' roll (as the child of a rock 'n' roll background, this was a film whose subject was also dear to Liv's heart). This was followed by Michael Bay's action blockbuster Armageddon, starring alongside Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Steve Buscemi, who would later go on to direct Liv in Lonesome Jim.
Liv had come to the attention of director Robert Altman in Stealing Beauty and the late, great auteur went on to cast her in two of his final projects, Cookie's Fortune and Dr T and the Women, describing her as "very serious, very prepared and very professional...I am crazy about her."
In between her work for Altman, Liv starred opposite Ralph Fiennes in Onegin, directed by his sister Martha, from the classic novel by Alexander Pushkin. Ralph Fiennes said of Liv, "We tested a lot of actresses but Liv has an acute sense of emotional truth that's not performed or projected, but just is."
In 2001, Liv portrayed Arwen in the ground-breaking epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
Nothing if not eclectic, Liv then defied expectations by starring in cult director Kevin Smith's gentle low-budget comedy Jersey Girl, re-uniting her with her Armageddon co-star Ben Affleck, before playing Betty, the female lead to Edward Norton's Bruce Banner in Marvel's The Incredible Hulk.
An actress who consistently refuses to be pigeonholed, Liv's career is one that cuts across genres; she cannot be defined by the roles she has chosen and is led, above all, by what speaks to her on an instinctual and emotional level. "It's very difficult to say no to whatever comes along," Tom Hanks has said of her, "...But she's saying no to all the right things."
In addition to her acting work, Liv has forged a decade-long relationship with Givenchy as the spokesperson for their fragrance and cosmetics line. Liv is also a brand ambassador for Triumph lingerie, developing a capsule collection that celebrates the company's commitment to body confidence, as exemplified by Liv herself, "a modern woman in every sense, a mother and actress with a fierce sense of femininity that women across the world can relate to."
Liv's previous design collaboration was with Belstaff, resulting in two capsule collections for the iconic British heritage brand. Liv has also been the face of commercial campaigns for several global brands, including Visa and Pantene.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lorna Patterson was born on 1 July 1956 in Whittier, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Airplane! (1980), Goodtime Girls (1980) and Beane's of Boston (1979). She has been married to Michael Lembeck since 13 April 1990. They have two children. She was previously married to Robert Ginty.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Lynsey Bartilson was born in Edina, Minnesota on July 1, 1983, and moved to Los Angeles with her family at four. A dancer from a very young age, Lynsey won her first talent competition at the age of seven, in solo dance. She discovered her love for comedy in a summer drama class, when she was cast as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz, even though she was the smallest child in the class. With a soon-revealed instinct for comedic timing, Lynsey had 'Dorothy' shaking with fear, and the audience roaring with laughter.
Lynsey began acting professionally at the age of 9, with guest appearances on television and video. At the same time, she was performing in professional musical theater productions across Los Angeles. She played Annie in three different productions; starred as Ramona Quimby, and got great notices as Effie Lou in the world premiere of Amelia Bedelia. She won a Dramalogue Award for her performance as Young Maxine in Situation Tragedy. She also continued dancing professionally, appearing twice in the Joffrey Ballet's annual Nutcracker. All of that musical theater experience paid off when CBS began looking for a young triple-threat to star opposite Angela Lansbury in the Hallmark Christmas musical special, Mrs. Santa Claus. Lynsey was chosen from more than 500 girls who auditioned for the part.
Lynsey enjoys helping others achieve their goals. The director and choreographer for Celebrity Centre's Kids on Stage for a Better World, Lynsey works with 40-50 youngsters to create positive-message benefit concerts for the disadvantaged. Under Lynsey's direction, the group was awarded the Young Artists Awards Michael J. Landon Community Service Award. In addition, Lynsey is currently the International Spokesperson for Youth for Human Rights. The purpose of this group is: "To teach youth around the globe about human rights, thus helping them to become valuable advocates for the promotion of tolerance and peace."- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lovely Madge Evans was the perennial nice girl in films of the 1930s. By then, she had been in front of the camera for many years, starting with Fairy Soap commercials at the age of two (she sat on a bar of soap holding a bunch of violets with the tag line reading "have you a little fairy in your home?"). 'Baby Madge' also lent her name to a children's hat company. In 1914, aged five, she was picked out by talent scouts to appear in the William Farnum movie The Sign of the Cross (1914), followed by The Seven Sisters (1915) with Marguerite Clark.
By the end of the following year, she had amassed some twenty film credits, appearing with such noted contemporary stars as Pauline Frederick or Alice Brady. All of her early films were made on the East Coast, at studios in Ft.Lee, New Jersey. In 1917 (aged eight), Madge made her Broadway debut in Peter Ibbetson with John Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore. She resumed her stage career in 1926 as an ingenue with Daisy Mayme and the following year appeared with Billie Burke in Noël Coward's costume drama The Marquise (1927).
Her pleasing looks and personality soon attracted the attention of Hollywood and she was eventually signed by MGM in 1931. During the next decade, she appeared in several A-grade productions, notably as Lionel Barrymore's daughter in MGM's Dinner at Eight (1933) and as the dependable Agnes Wickfield in one of the best-ever filmed versions of David Copperfield (1935). She co-starred opposite James Cagney in the gangster movie The Mayor of Hell (1933), Spencer Tracy in The Show-Off (1934) and listened to Bing Crosby crooning the title song in Pennies from Heaven (1936). Madge received praise for her performance as the star of Beauty for Sale (1933) and The New York Times review of January 13 1934 described her acting in Fugitive Lovers (1934) (opposite Robert Montgomery ) as 'spontaneous and captivating'. Many of her 'typical American girl' roles did not allow her to express aspects of the greater acting range she undoubtedly possessed. Too often she was cast as the 'nice girl' - and those rarely make much of a dramatic impact. On the few occasions she was assigned the role of 'other woman', such as the Helen Hayes-starrer What Every Woman Knows (1934), audiences found her character difficult to believe and disassociate from her all-round wholesome image. When her contract with MGM expired in 1937, Madge wound down her film career and, following her 1939 marriage, concentrated on being the wife of celebrated playwright Sidney Kingsley. She last appeared on stage in one of his plays, "The Patriots", in 1943.- Blue-eyed, pretty, popular heroine of seventies TV series like Carmiña and Jacinta Pichimahuida. In show business since childhood, she married producer Roberto Franco in 1974 and established herself in the United States in the mid-eighties. She returned to Argentina in the early nineties, and starred in a theatrical version of Death and the Maiden (La muerte y la doncella) and in the TV series Ricos y famosos. Divorced, now she lives in Spain.
- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Marisa Monte was born on 1 July 1967 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is a music artist and actress, known for Marisa Monte: Diariamente (1991), Marisa Monte: Segue o Seco (1995) and Tribalistas: Já Sei Namorar (2002).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Marlayne was born on 1 July 1971 in Baarn, Utrecht, Netherlands. She is an actress, known for New Kids Nitro (2011), Hart Van Nederland (1995) and Pittige tijden (1996). She has been married to Danny Sahupala since 1998.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Actress, Melissa Peterman, is from Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. After graduating from Minnesota State University with theater as one of her majors, she was cast as "Madeline Monroe" in Hey City Theater's production of "Tony & Tina's Wedding". After more than 600 performances, she went on to work as a writer and performer at the improvisational comedy theater, "The Brave New Workshop". While with "The Brave New Workshop", she also performed at the "Chicago Improv Festival" and the "Big Stink Comedy Festival" in Austin, Texas. She made her film debut, with character role, "Hooker #2" in the Coen brothers' Oscar-winning movie, Fargo (1996). On TV, she appeared in the Oxygen sketch comedy show, Running with Scissors (2000) and guest-starred on Just Shoot Me! (1997). Actress, Melissa Peterman lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband & actor, John Hayden Brady + their son, Riley David Brady. The duo became parents on Thursday, October 20th, 2005. Their parenthood began 2,329 days, (332 weeks & 5 days), after their matrimony occurred on Saturday, June 5th, 1999.
Melissa Peterman's date of birth, Thursday, July 1st, 1971, & her motherhood date, Thursday, October 20th, 2005, differs 12,600 days, equaling 1,800 weeks exactly.- Producer
- Director
- Additional Crew
Award-winning director/producer Michael Pressman has, by design, worked across most entertainment genres and mediums, including comedies, dramas, social commentaries, short films, feature length studio and indie films, series television and movies, Broadway stage productions, and regional theater.
The projects he has been privileged to choose have, notably, tended toward socially relevant subjects, a direction to which he gravitated naturally in light of his young family life with two dynamic parents impacted directly by the notorious McCarthy Blacklist.
A native of Manhattan, Pressman was born into a theatrical family. His mother, Sasha, a modern dancer, was an original member of Martha Graham's renowned first dance troupe. His father, David Pressman, was a well-known theatrical and television director who helped launch Boston University's distinguished school of theater and helmed Broadway plays, including The Disenchanted, Jason Robards' first Broadway appearance; and the original Actor's Studio Anthology Series in the late 1940's, for which he discovered and cast an unknown Grace Kelly. David Pressman's pioneer career in live television in the early 1950's was suddenly derailed when he was targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy during his blacklisting of alleged communist sympathizers. Unable to work in television for close to 15 years, he survived the blacklist by teaching. When the Blacklist itself derailed in the early 1960's, he began working regularly in television directing soap operas. He directed the popular One Life to Live for twenty-eight years, and for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy and ten Daytime Emmys, winning three times.
Michael Pressman graduated from Manhattan's famed high school of Music and Art. He then went on to study drama at Carnegie-Mellon University (with classmates of the likes of Ted Danson). He subsequently moved to Los Angeles where he received his B.F.A. in film from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and studied with the acclaimed British film director, Alexander Mackendrick.
Pressman's interest in filmmaking was directly motivated, if not provoked, by his family's persecution for their early political sympathies, not unlike others of his era, including those in entertainment (Dalton Trumbo, et al) and in sciences (Robert Oppenheimer). It led him to pursue projects, when professionally and financially viable to do so, that were politically, socially and racially compatible with his personal perspectives.
Of course, young filmmakers must make a living, and Pressman knew he needed to establish his bona fides first. His first feature film as a director was the raucous indie comedy The Great Texas Dynamite Chase, made in collaboration with producers and fellow film school students Sean Daniel and David Kirkpatrick, both who went on to forge successful producing careers of their own. With that modest success, Pressman was categorized as a comedy director, and was offered films like the Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, the sequel to the immensely popular original starring Walter Matthau, the Dan Aykroyd comedy Doctor Detroit, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. These films, though successful, represented but one side of his ambition and talent.
Pressman was able to break this cycle the studios had seemingly mapped out for him, and very early in his career directed the ground-breaking dramatic cult hit Boulevard Nights, the first Latino gang movie of the era which was recently selected for preservation by the Library of Congress. He followed that with Those Lips, Those Eyes, a love letter to the theater about the life of the actor in summer stock, with a lead star-making performance by Frank Langella.
With these successes behind him, Pressman chose to follow up not with another feature, which he had been offered, but with a 1985 short film entitled And The Children Shall Lead, which, for its time, was a racially progressive story starring Danny Glover, Beah Richards and LeVar Burton. He was next courted to direct a resurgent Richard Pryor in post Vietnam War drama, Some Kind of Hero, co-starring the then top box office grossing actress Margot Kidder. However, the studio had other ideas about the film being a drama, not to mention its explicit love scene between the interracial leads, and took the film away from the filmmakers and recut it. It was a lesson Pressman learned the hard way: studios at that time were not interested in taking any kind of progressive posture with its movie stars.
It was time for a change. Television at that time was offering young directors a variety of dramatic content, and Pressman gravitated to directing more than a dozen films for television in quick succession during that medium's heyday. His most successful television movie was To Heal a Nation, about the building of the Vietnam memorial starring Eric Roberts. He also directed the famed Anne Tyler novel Saint Maybe, starring a young Tom McCarthy, Blythe Danner and Mary-Louise Parker for Hallmark Hall of Fame. His notoriety as a top director of dramatic content earned him an offer from David Kelley to co-executive produce and direct a much-anticipated new TV series called Picket Fences, which lasted four seasons and won him two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Drama Series. He next went on to launch Kelley's next show, Chicago Hope, which earned him another Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series.
Since then, Pressman has produced and directed numerous network series, including multiple episodes of the Emmy Award-winning series Law & Order SVU, and two seasons of the then new series Blue Bloods. Pressman also directed the final two hours of the Emmy-nominated TV mini-series Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, starring Edie Falco and Heather Graham. Most recently, Pressman executive produced the fifth and sixth season of NBC's Chicago Med, earning that show its highest ratings to date. He left the series after the first year of the pandemic.
Pressman's stage work includes directing the Los Angeles premiere of To Gillian on her 37th Birthday, which he then directed as a feature film starring Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeifer, and Peter Gallagher and a Los Angeles equity waiver production of Frankie and Johnny in the Claire De Lune, which he also later adapted into the independent film Frankie and Johnny are Married. He also directed the 2008 Broadway revival of Come Back, Little Sheba, for which he cast the indomitable S. Epatha Merkerson, in the role of the lead character Lola, which had previously been played by only white actresses, and depicted an interracial relationship on stage. Merkerson went on to be Tony nominated for her performance in this role, which the New York Times called, "a performance that stops the heart." Pressman won Best Director that year by the NAACP Artist Awards.
In between series projects, Pressman also directed the play Finks in Los Angeles. It was a very personal story for him as it is about the blacklisting of comic actor Jack Gilford during the McCarthy witch-hunt. Joe Gilford, the author of the play, was a childhood friend and they were able to share and embrace their pasts as children of the Blacklist and how it affected both of their creative lives.
Pressman recently married Maia Danziger, an Emmy Winning actress of television and Broadway theater and feature films, and is also a creator of Relax and Write, a meditative writing program that she teaches around the world. They knew each other as children, having grown up in the same building on the upper west side of Manhattan. They re-connected six years ago, and married four years ago.- Actress
- Stunts
Michele Krasnoo was born on 1 July 1974 in Culver City, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor (1994), Full Contact (1993) and Death Match (1994). She is married to Stephen Lax. They have three children.- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Mikael Håfström was born on 1 July 1960 in Lund, Skåne län, Sweden. He is a writer and director, known for Evil (2003), 1408 (2007) and The Rite (2011).