Well I just happen to think that they're pretty DAMN AWESOME!¡!¡!
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Ben Crompton was born in 1974 in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for Kill List (2011), Game of Thrones (2011) and 102 Dalmatians (2000). He has been married to Liv Lorent since 2008. They have two children.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Actor, writer, director and producer, Eugenio Derbez has a degree in Film Directing from the Mexican Institute of Cinematography and Theater, as well as a degree in Acting from Televisa's Acting School. He has also studied and is trained in the arts of Dance, Music and Singing, and still today he continues prepping himself in L.A. and in New York City. His latest feature film "Instructions Not Included" became the most successful Spanish-language film ever in the US and worldwide, and broke numerous box office records everywhere, earning over $100M. Variety recently recognized him as the "#1 most influential Hispanic male in the world".
Eugenio is the star, writer, director and producer of some of the most popular TV shows including "Al Derecho y al Derbez", "XHDRBZ" and "La Familia P.Luche" which ran from 1994-2012 and is one of Univision's longest running and most successful sitcoms ever. Reruns continue to air every week in Mexico and all over Latin America, and in the US on Univision.
Eugenio also broke through to English-speaking audiences as a star on the CBS sitcom "¡ROB!" and on Broadway in the play "Latinologues" that ran at the Helen Hayes Theater.
As a film actor, Eugenio has appeared in a number of successful and critically acclaimed films including "Sangre de mi Sangre", which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2007, the indie smash hit "Under the Same Moon" ("La Misma Luna"), Adam Sandler's "Jack and Jill", and "Girl in Progress" with Eva Mendes. Eugenio just wrapped shooting "Geostorm", directed by writer and producer Dean Devlin ("Independence Day"), and voices the role of "Rico" in the upcoming animated feature "Underdogs"
Eugenio resides in Los Angeles, where he just opened his TV and film production company 3Pas Studios, which has a features first look deal with Lionsgate and Pantelion Films, and a first look TV deal with NBC Universal. REPLACE WITH: Actor, writer, director, producer, and philanthropist Eugenio Derbez is one of the most influential creative forces in Latin America, and is the most recognized and actor among the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S.
Having launched his career with a string of the highest rated comedy shows on Televisa and Univision, Derbez segued into movies where he has become the most successful Latino leading man in the U.S., starring in the two highest grossing Latino live-action films of all time, "Instructions Not Included" and "How to be a Latin Lover." Variety recently named him the #1 most influential Hispanic male in the world, and Expansión named him the #1 social media influencer in Mexico due to his more than 28 million followers across all social media.
On April 2018, Derbez will hit the big screen in the MGM/Pantelion feature "Overboard," a gender swapping re-imagining of the classic 1980's romantic comedy, starring alongside Anna Faris, Eva Longoria and Mel Rodriguez. The film is written by Rob Greenberg and Bob Fisher, and was directed by Rob Greenber. Bob Fisher produces alongside Derbez and producing partner Ben Odell under their 3Pas Studios banner.
Derbez also stars in Disney's upcoming "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" also starring Helen Mirren, Keira Knightly and Morgan Freeman, directed by Lasse Hallström, which premieres in December 2018. He will also be seen in Spanish-language films "El Complot Mongol" directed by Sebastian del Amo and "Rock n' Cola" directed by Jorge Ulloa.
Derbez starred in the Lionsgate/Pantelion feature "How to Be a Latin Lover" alongside Salma Hayek, Rob Lowe, Kristen Bell, Raquel Welch, Rob Riggle, Linda Lavin and Rob Huebel. The film was written by Chris Spain and Jon Zack and directed by Ken Marino with Derbez producing along with his producing partner Benjamin Odell. The film opened in the US to 12M debut, breaking Lionsgate's Pantelion Films's box office record for highest opening weekend, and debuted in #1 in Mexico, holding this position for several weeks and defeating big budget summer blockbusters Guardians of the Galaxy, Alien Covenant and King Arthur. It made over 60M USD worldwide.
Derbez made his U.S. crossover with "Instructions Not Included" which he directed, co-wrote and starred in. It became the most successful Spanish-language film ever in the U.S. and worldwide, and broke numerous box office records, earning over $100M.
Derbez also starred in Sony's, "Miracles From Heaven," opposite Jennifer Gardner (directed by Patricia Riggen), and "Geostorm," directed by Dean Devlin and starring Gerard Butler.
Derbez has appeared in a number of successful and critically acclaimed films including "Sangre de mi Sangre," which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2007; the indie smash hit, "Under the Same Moon" ("La Misma Luna"); Adam Sandler's "Jack and Jill"; and "Girl In Progress," with Eva Mendes. Derbez also starred in the CBS sitcom "Rob!" and on Broadway in "Latinologues" at the Helen Hayes Theater.
Prior to his transition to U.S, Derbez was the single most influential comedy TV actor and producer. He was the star, writer, director and producer of some of the most popular Spanish language TV shows of all time including "Al Derecho y Al Derbez", "XHDRBZ", and "La Familia P. Luche."
Derbez has consolidated his place in Hollywood history. On March 9, 2016, Derbez was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, becoming the 88th Latino performer to receive the honor.
Derbez resides in Los Angeles. His TV and film production company 3Pas Studios has a first look features deal with Lionsgate / Pantelion Films.- Actor
- Producer
John Hannah is the youngest child of his family, having two older sisters. Before he decided on a career as an actor, John was an apprentice electrician for four years. He gave up his work as an electrician after being accepted to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. After years of struggling, he finally got his 'big break' when he was cast as Matthew in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). He currently lives in London with his wife Joanna Roth and their two children.- Director
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Known for his creative stage direction, Elia Kazan was born Elias Kazantzoglou on September 7, 1909 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey). Noted for drawing out the best dramatic performances from his actors, he directed 21 actors to Oscar nominations, resulting in nine wins. He directed a string of successful films, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), On the Waterfront (1954), and East of Eden (1955). During his career, he won two Oscars as Best Director and received an Honorary Oscar, won three Tony Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards.
His films were concerned with personal or social issues of special concern to him. Kazan writes, "I don't move unless I have some empathy with the basic theme." His first such "issue" film was Gentleman's Agreement (1947), with Gregory Peck, which dealt with anti-Semitism in America. It received 8 Oscar nominations and three wins, including Kazan's first for Best Director. It was followed by Pinky (1949), one of the first films in mainstream Hollywood to address racial prejudice against black people. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), an adaptation of the stage play which he had also directed, received 12 Oscar nominations, winning four, and was Marlon Brando's breakthrough role. In 1954, he directed On the Waterfront (1954), a film about union corruption on the New York harbor waterfront. In 1955, he directed John Steinbeck's East of Eden (1955), which introduced James Dean to movie audiences.
A turning point in Kazan's career came with his testimony as a witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1952 at the time of the Hollywood blacklist, which brought him strong negative reactions from many liberal friends and colleagues. His testimony helped end the careers of former acting colleagues Morris Carnovsky and Art Smith, along with ending the work of playwright Clifford Odets. Kazan later justified his act by saying he took "only the more tolerable of two alternatives that were either way painful and wrong." Nearly a half-century later, his anti-Communist testimony continued to cause controversy. When Kazan was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1999, dozens of actors chose not to applaud as 250 demonstrators picketed the event.
Kazan influenced the films of the 1950s and 1960s with his provocative, issue-driven subjects. Director Stanley Kubrick called him, "without question, the best director we have in America, and capable of performing miracles with the actors he uses." On September 28, 2003, Elia Kazan died at age 94 of natural causes at his apartment in Manhattan, New York City. Martin Scorsese co-directed the documentary film A Letter to Elia (2010) as a personal tribute to Kazan.- Robert Eddison was born on 10 June 1908 in Yokohama, Japan. He was an actor, known for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Theban Plays by Sophocles (1986) and The Eustace Diamonds (1959). He died on 14 December 1991 in London, England, UK.
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Lilla Crawford was a series regular on Netflix's The Who Was? Show; starred in the recent ABC pilot, Relatively Normal; and voiced the lead role of Sunny in Nickelodeon's animated series, Sunny Day. Lilla made her feature film debut as Little Red in Disney's film adaptation of Into the Woods opposite Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp. She made her Broadway debut as Debbie in Billy Elliott and then was cast from a nationwide search of over 5,000 young performers in the title role of the 35th anniversary revival of Annie directed by James Lapine.
Lilla is attending New York University studying Film and TV Production at the Tisch School for the Arts. She can be seen at NYU performing once a month on Hammerkatz: NYU's premier sketch comedy group and Pasadena Golf Club Improv: Lilla along with her team were the winners of the 2019-20 College Improv Tournament Big Apple Regional and went on to win the 2019-20 College Improv Tournament Nationals. A "first ever" accomplishment for the improv teams in New York University history.
She was born in Los Angeles, California. She has a younger sister, Savvy Crawford who is also a Broadway, TV, voice and screen actress.- Actor
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Brian Cox is an Emmy Award-winning Scottish actor. He was born on June 1, 1946 in Dundee, Scotland, to Mary Ann Guillerline Cox, maiden surname McCann, a spinner, and Charles McArdle Campbell Cox, a shopkeeper and butcher. His father was of Irish ancestry and his mother was of Irish and Scottish descent.
Cox first came to attention in the early 1970s with performances in numerous television films. His first big break was as Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter (1986). The film was not overly successful at the box office, although Cox's career prospects and popularity continued to develop. Through the 1990s, he appeared in nearly 20 films and television series, as well as making numerous television guest appearances. More recently, Cox has had roles in some major films, including The Corruptor (1999), The Ring (2002) and X2 (2003). He was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2003 Queen's New Year's Honours List for his services to drama.- Actor
- Art Department
Hugo Redwood was born on 5 July 1960 in the USA. He is an actor, known for Yesterday's Not Tomorrow (2004) and Families Like Yours (2019). He has been married to Denis O'Hare since 28 July 2011. They have one child.- Frank Campanella was born on 12 March 1919 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Pretty Woman (1990), Overboard (1987) and Raising Helen (2004). He died on 30 December 2006 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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- Soundtrack
Will Patton was born in Charleston, South Carolina. His father, Bill Patton, is a playwright, acting/directing instructor, and Lutheran minister. Patton attended the North Carolina School of the Arts. He has won two OBIE awards for Best Actor -- for the off-Broadway plays "Fool for Love" (by Sam Shepard) and the Public Theatre production of "What Did He See?" (by Richard Foreman).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Dan Hedaya is a familiar face from his work in films and on TV, where he often plays a villain (although he had a good comic turn as the charmingly sleazy Nick Tortelli, Carla's ex-husband, in Cheers (1982) and its short-lived spin-off The Tortellis (1987)). He has also done much stage work, appearing opposite Alien: Resurrection (1997) star Sigourney Weaver in "The Conjuring an Event" at the American Place Theater. Other stage performances include Broadway roles such as "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel" and many New York Shakespeare Festival productions.- Actor
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Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for playing wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD.
Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, to a German mother, Marlene Kassel, and an American father, David Andrew Willis (from Carneys Point, New Jersey), who were then living on a United States military base. His family moved to the U.S. shortly after he was born, and he was raised in Penns Grove, New Jersey, where his mother worked at a bank and his father was a welder and factory worker. Willis picked up an interest for the dramatic arts in high school, and was allegedly "discovered" whilst working in a café in New York City and then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions. While bartending one night, he was seen by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role.
After countless auditions, Willis contributed minor film appearances, usually uncredited, before landing the role of private eye "David Addison" alongside sultry Cybill Shepherd in the hit romantic comedy television series Moonlighting (1985). His sarcastic and wisecracking P.I. is seen by some as a dry run for the role of hard-boiled NYC detective "John McClane" in the monster hit Die Hard (1988), in which Willis' character single-handedly battled a gang of ruthless international thieves in a Los Angeles skyscraper. He reprised the role of McClane in the sequel, Die Hard 2 (1990), set at a snowbound Washington's Dulles International Airport as a group of renegade Special Forces soldiers seek to repatriate a corrupt South American general. Excellent box office returns demanded a further sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), this time co-starring Samuel L. Jackson as a cynical Harlem shop owner unwittingly thrust into assisting McClane during a terrorist bombing campaign on a sweltering day in New York.
Willis found time out from all the action mayhem to provide the voice of "Mikey" the baby in the very popular family comedies Look Who's Talking (1989), and its sequel Look Who's Talking Too (1990) also starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Over the next decade, Willis starred in some very successful films, some very offbeat films and some unfortunate box office flops. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) and Hudson Hawk (1991) were both large scale financial disasters that were savaged by the critics, and both are arguably best left off the CVs of all the actors involved, however Willis was still popular with movie audiences and selling plenty of theatre tickets with the hyper-violent The Last Boy Scout (1991), the darkly humored Death Becomes Her (1992) and the mediocre police thriller Striking Distance (1993).
During the 1990s, Willis also appeared in several independent and low budget productions that won him new fans and praise from the critics for his intriguing performances working with some very diverse film directors. He appeared in the oddly appealing North (1994), as a cagey prizefighter in the Quentin Tarantino directed mega-hit Pulp Fiction (1994), the Terry Gilliam directed apocalyptic thriller 12 Monkeys (1995), the Luc Besson directed sci-fi opus The Fifth Element (1997) and the M. Night Shyamalan directed spine-tingling epic The Sixth Sense (1999).
Willis next starred in the gangster comedy The Whole Nine Yards (2000), worked again with "hot" director M. Night Shyamalan in the less than gripping Unbreakable (2000), and in two military dramas, Hart's War (2002) and Tears of the Sun (2003) that both failed to really fire with movie audiences or critics alike. However, Willis bounced back into the spotlight in the critically applauded Frank Miller graphic novel turned movie Sin City (2005), the voice of "RJ" the scheming raccoon in the animated hit Over the Hedge (2006) and "Die Hard" fans rejoiced to see "John McClane" return to the big screen in the high tech Live Free or Die Hard (2007) aka "Die Hard 4.0".
Willis was married to actress Demi Moore for approximately thirteen years and they share custody to their three daughters.- Writer
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Songwriter ("New York, New York", "The Party's Over", "Just in Time", "Make Someone Happy"), author and actor, educated at City College of New York. While he was a student, he acted with the Washington Square Players and had a part in the road company of "Having a Wonderful Time". A member of The Revuers with Betty Comden (with whom he also appeared on stage in "A Party" and on TV") and Judy Holliday, he appeared with the troupe in night clubs. His Broadway stage score for "Wonderful Town" won Drama Critics and Tony awards in 1953. His other stage scores included "Peter Pan" and "Do Re Mi", and he was the co-librettist for "On the Town", "Billion Dollar Baby", "Two on the Aisle", "Bells Are Ringing", "Subways Are For Sleeping", and "Fade Out - Fade In". His chief collaborator in lyrics, libretto and screenplay work was Betty Comden, and his chief musical collaborators included Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, André Previn and Morton Gould. His popular-song compositions also included "I Get Carried Away", "I Can Cook, Too", "Some Other Time", "Lonely Town", "Lucky to Be Me", "Bad Timing", "Ohio", "A Little Bit in Love", "It's Love", "A Quiet Girl", "The French Lesson", "If You Hadn't But You Did", "Give a Little, Get a Little", "There Never Was a Baby Like My Baby", "Long Before I Knew You", "Never-Never Land", "Something's Always Happening on the River", "Dance Only With Me", "Adventure", "Fireworks", "Ride Through the Night", "Comes Once in a Lifetime", "I'm Just Taking My Time", "Now", "Fade Out - Fade In", and "Get Acquainted".- Actor
- Producer
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Rhys Ifans was born and raised in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales, the son of teacher parents, Beti Wyn (Davies) and Eirwyn Evans. He was educated in two Welsh language schools - Ysgol Pentrecelyn, where his mother taught, and Ysgol Maes Garmon. During his childhood, Ifans showed an interest in performing and attended youth acting school. He went on to train at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
Ifans made his small screen debut as the host of Welsh children's TV show, Stwnsh. Various roles in theater and Welsh language television also followed. His breakthrough on the big screen came in the British hit Twin Town (1997), where he acting alongside his younger brother Llyr Ifans. More film success followed, notably as Hugh Grant's scruffy housemate in Notting Hill (1999). Other projects include Dancing at Lughnasa (1998) , Little Nicky (2000), Enduring Love (2004), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012).
In 2004, he played iconic British comedian Peter Cook in the TV film Not Only But Always (2004). His performance earned him an Emmy nomination and a BAFTA award for Best Actor.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Forrest Tucker, best known to the Baby Boom generation as Sergeant O'Rourke on the classic TV sitcom F Troop (1965), was born on February 12, 1919, in Plainfield, Indiana. He began his performing career at age 14 at the 1933 Chicago "Century of Progress" World's Fair, pushing big wicker tourists' chairs by day and singing at night. His family moved to Arlington, Virginia, where he attended Washington-Lee High School in 1938.
Big for his age, as a youth Tucker was hired by the Old Gayety Burlesque Theater in Washington, DC, to serve as a Master of Ceremonies for the burly-cue after consecutively winning Saturday night amateur contests. He was fired when it was found out that he was underage. When he turned 18, he was rehired by the Old Gayety.
After graduating from high school in 1938, the 6'4", 200-lb. Tucker played semi-pro football in the Washington, DC, area. He also enlisted in the National Guard and was assigned to a cavalry unit in Ft. Myers, Virginia. He started at the top when he entered the movies, in a supporting role in William Wyler's The Westerner (1940) opposite Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan, who won his third Oscar for portraying Judge Roy Bean in the picture. He got the role during his 1939 vacation from the Old Gayety, which shut down due to the District of Columbia's horrible summers in the days before air conditioning was common.He was signed to the part in the Wyler picture, which required a big fellow with enough presence for a fight scene with the 6'3" superstar Cooper.
Tucker moved to California and began auditioning for parts in films. After "The Westerner", it was off to Poverty Row, where he appeared in William Beaudine's Emergency Landing (1941) at rock-bottom PRC (Producers Releasing Corp.). He was soon signed by Columbia and assigned to the B-pictures unit, though he was lent to MGM for the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn vehicle Keeper of the Flame (1942), his last film before going off to World War II.
Tucker served as an enlisted man in the Army during the war, being discharged as a second lieutenant in 1945. He returned to Columbia and resumed his acting career with an appearance in the classic film The Yearling (1946). He signed with Republic Pictures in 1948, which brought him one of his greatest roles, that of the Marine corporal bearing a grudge against gung-ho sergeant John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). At Republic Tucker was top-billed in many of the "B' pictures in the action and western genres the studio was famous for, such as Rock Island Trail (1950), California Passage (1950) and Ride the Man Down (1952), among many others. In 1958 he broke out of action / western pictures and played Beauregard Burnside to Rosalind Russell's Auntie Mame (1958), the highest grossing US film of the year. It showed that Tucker was capable of performing in light comedy.
Morton DaCosta, his director on "Auntie Mame", cast Tucker as "Professor" Harold Hill in the national touring production of The Music Man (1962), and he was a more than credible substitute for the great Broadway star Robert Preston, who originated the role. Tucker made 2,008 appearances in The Music Man over the next five years, then starred in "Fair Game for Lovers" on Broadway in 1964.
However, it was television that provided Tucker with his most famous role: scheming cavalry sergeant Morgan O'Rourke in "F Troop", which ran from 1965 to 1967 on ABC. Ably supported by Larry Storch, Ken Berry and James Hampton, Tucker showed a flair for comedy and he and Storch had great chemistry, but the series was canceled after only two seasons. It has, however, remained in syndication ever since.
Following "F Troop", Tucker returned to films in supporting parts (having a good turn as the villain in the John Wayne western Chisum (1970)) and character leads (The Wild McCullochs (1975)). On television he was a regular on three series: Dusty's Trail (1973) with Bob Denver; The Ghost Busters (1975), which reunited him with Larry Storch; and Filthy Rich (1982). Tucker was also a frequent guest star on TV, with many appearances on Gunsmoke (1955) and in the recurring role of Jarvis Castleberry, Flo's estranged father, on Alice (1976) and its spin-off, Flo (1980). He continued to be active on stage as well, starring in the national productions of Plaza Suite (1971), Show Boat (1936), and That Championship Season (1982). He also toured with Roy Radin's Vaudeville Revue, a variety show in which, as a headliner, he told Irish stories and jokes and sang Irish songs.
Tucker returned to the big screen after an absence of several years in 1986, playing hero trucker Charlie Morrison in the action film Thunder Run (1985). His comeback to features was short-lived, however, as he died on October 25, 1986, in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, of complications from lung cancer and emphysema. He was 67 years old. Tucker was buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.- Stunts
- Actress
Stuntwoman and actress Mary Katherine Peters was born in California. The youngest daughter of a California policeman, Mary ran track and field in high school. Peters began her career in the entertainment industry as a model for 20th Century Fox. Mary's big break as an actress happened after she was cast as an extra for five years on the hit TV series M*A*S*H (1972). Peters attended various professional schools to learn all about performing stunts whenever M*A*S*H (1972) was on its six month filming hiatus and began her career as a stuntwoman in 1976. Among the notable actresses that Mary has doubled for are Vanessa Redgrave, Sigourney Weaver,, Joan Cusack, Mary Gross, Delia Sheppard, Lindsay Wagner, and Lynn Redgrave. Peters moved with her husband Stewart to Oklahoma in 2000. Moreover, her son Matthew Senour works as an aerospace engineer for the global security company Northrup Grumman. Mary spends her spare time playing golf when she isn't doing either community work or interior design.- Actor
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Robert Coote (1909-1982) was an English actor who had a thriving career for 50 years. He is best remembered for originating the role of Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady (1964), Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe's musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1938), for which he was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 1957. He also originated the role of King Pellinore in Lerner & Loewe's 1960 Broadway musical Camelot (1967).
Coote played Colonel Pickering on Broadway and London, but Wilfrid Hyde-White was cast in the Oscar-winning 1964 movie despite Coote's extensive movie career. In fact, Coote had specialized in playing aristocrats and military men in countless films, most notably as Sergeant Bertie Higginbotham in George Stevens's 1939 classic Gunga Din (1939). (In real life, Coote served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War Two, becoming a squadron leader.)
He possibly was overlooked for the movie (as was Julie Andrews, more notably) due to a strained relationship with star Rex Harrison, who stole business originated by Coote during the original Broadway production. Harrison resented Coote after unsuccessfully demanding to take over a famous piece of business created by Coote, Colonel Pickering's telephone call. Coote recreated the role in the 1976 Broadway revival.- Actor
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Laurence Olivier could speak William Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles Bennett, who met Olivier in 1927. Laurence Kerr Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, England, to Agnes Louise (Crookenden) and Gerard Kerr Olivier, a High Anglican priest. His surname came from a great-great-grandfather who was of French Huguenot origin.
One of Olivier's earliest successes as a Shakespearean actor on the London stage came in 1935 when he played "Romeo" and "Mercutio" in alternate performances of "Romeo and Juliet" with John Gielgud. A young Englishwoman just beginning her career on the stage fell in love with Olivier's Romeo. In 1937, she was "Ophelia" to his "Hamlet" in a special performance at Kronborg Castle, Elsinore (Helsingør), Denmark. In 1940, she became his second wife after both returned from making films in America that were major box office hits of 1939. His film was Wuthering Heights (1939), her film was Gone with the Wind (1939). Vivien Leigh and Olivier were screen lovers in Fire Over England (1937), 21 Days Together (1940) and That Hamilton Woman (1941).
There was almost a fourth film together in 1944 when Olivier and Leigh traveled to Scotland with Charles C. Bennett to research the real-life story of a Scottish girl accused of murdering her French lover. Bennett recalled that Olivier researched the story "with all the thoroughness of Sherlock Holmes" and "we unearthed evidence, never known or produced at the trial, that would most certainly have sent the young lady to the gallows". The film project was then abandoned. During their two-decade marriage, Olivier and Leigh appeared on the stage in England and America and made films whenever they really needed to make some money.
In 1951, Olivier was working on a screen adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie" (Carrie (1952)) while Leigh was completing work on the film version of the Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She won her second Oscar for bringing "Blanche DuBois" to the screen. Carrie (1952) was a film that Olivier never talked about. George Hurstwood, a middle-aged married man from Chicago who tricked a young woman into leaving a younger man about to marry her, became a New York street person in the novel. Olivier played him as a somewhat nicer person who didn't fall quite as low. A PBS documentary on Olivier's career broadcast in 1987 covered his first sojourn in Hollywood in the early 1930s with his first wife, Jill Esmond, and noted that her star was higher than his at that time. On film, he was upstaged by his second wife, too, even though the list of films he made is four times as long as hers.
More than half of his film credits come after The Entertainer (1960), which started out as a play in London in 1957. When the play moved across the Atlantic to Broadway in 1958, the role of "Archie Rice"'s daughter was taken over by Joan Plowright, who was also in the film. They married soon after the release of The Entertainer (1960).- Actor
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Scatman Crothers was born Benjamin Sherman Crothers on May 23, 1910 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Songwriter ("Dearest One"), actor, composer, singer, comedian, and guitarist who, after high school, appeared in nightclubs, hotels, and films, and on television. He made many records, including his own compositions. He joined ASCAP in 1959, and his popular-song compositions also include "The Gal Looks Good", "Nobody Knows Why", "I Was There", "A Man's Gotta Eat", and "When, Oh When". Scatman Crothers died at age 76 of pneumonia and lung cancer at his home in Van Nuys, California on November 22, 1986.- Crahan Denton was born on 20 March 1914 in Seattle, Washington, USA. He was an actor, known for The Parent Trap (1961), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and The Young One (1960). He was married to Eleanor Brown and Frances Elizabeth Reavis. He died on 4 December 1966 in San Francisco, California, USA.
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Denholm entered RADA at the age of 17, but dropped out after a year having hated every minute being there. He joined the RAF in 1940, trained as a gunner/radio operator, and was shot down over Germany in 1942. In the POW camp he and his fellow prisoners staged various productions in a theatre constructed out of old packing cases. After the war he joined a London repertory company and his career took off particularly when Laurence Olivier chose him for the starring role in Venus Observed, for which he won a Clarence Derwent award. When another Olivier production Ring Around the Moon transferred to New York Denholm replaced Paul Schofield in what became a Broadway hit. Returning to Britain he was signed to a film contract and appeared in such movies as The Cruel Sea, The Sound Barrier, Alfie, King Rat, and others in addition to appearing on television and making countrywide theatre tours. In 1983 he won a BAFTA Award for his role as the butler in Trading Places and followed it with a Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in A Private Function. Prior to that he won an Evening Standard Best Actor award for Bad Timing.- Actress
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Red-haired actress Claudette Nevins was raised in Brooklyn, the daughter of fur salesman Joseph Weintraub and his wife Anna (Lander) who worked in the garment industry. She attended the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan and later graduated Phi Beta Kappa from New York University. Claudette made her first appearance on stage in a 1958 production of Waltz of the Toreadors at the Woodstock Playhouse. Two years later she debuted on Broadway in The Wall, opposite George C. Scott. In the course of the next four decades she went on to act in numerous plays in New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles. A seasoned and versatile character actress, Claudette's work encompassed roles in many notable plays, including The Iceman Cometh, Wait until Dark, Plaza Suite (again on Broadway and starring George C. Scott), Twelfth Night, The Little Foxes, Blithe Spirit, The Great White Hope and The Philadelphia Story. From 1994, Claudette was a regular member of the Los Angeles Matrix Theatre Company. Her equally prolific screen career began with a leading role in the cult horror flic The Mask (1961) and was followed by guest spots on numerous TV shows, her parts ranging from a cop's wife in episodes of the crime anthology Police Story (1973) to a villainous night club proprietress in the spoof series Police Squad! (1982); from a Red Cross nurse 'mock marrying' Charles Emerson Winchester III in M*A*S*H (1972) to an alien officer in Star Trek: Insurrection (1998). She was also an accomplished voice-over actress, her credits including dual roles in the animated science fiction series Return to the Planet of the Apes (1975).
Claudette retired from acting in 2005. She had two daughters by her second husband, real estate investor Benjamin L. Pick, who predeceased her in 2017.- Actor
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Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood, except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. However, the real truth was that she had been placed in a mental institution, where she would remain for years, and he was never told about it (he would not see his mother again until he was in his late 20s).
He left school at age 14, lying about his age and forging his father's signature on a letter to join Bob Pender's troupe of knockabout comedians. He learned pantomime as well as acrobatics as he toured with the Pender troupe in the English provinces, picked up a Cockney accent in the music halls in London, and then in July 1920, was one of the eight Pender boys selected to go to the United States. Their show on Broadway, "Good Times", ran for 456 performances, giving Grant time to acclimatize. He would stay in America. Mae West wanted Grant for She Done Him Wrong (1933) because she saw his combination of virility, sexuality and the aura and bearing of a gentleman. Grant was young enough to begin the new career of fatherhood when he stopped making movies at age 62.
One biographer said Grant was alienated by the new realism in the film industry. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he had invented a man-of-the-world persona and a style - "high comedy with polished words". In To Catch a Thief (1955), he and Grace Kelly were allowed to improvise some of the dialogue. They knew what the director, Alfred Hitchcock, wanted to do with a scene, they rehearsed it, put in some clever double entendres that got past the censors, and then the scene was filmed. His biggest box-office success was another Hitchcock 1950s film, North by Northwest (1959) made with Eva Marie Saint since Kelly was by that time Princess of Monaco.
Although Grant retired from the screen, he remained active. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed. Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle - Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Airlines in 1987) and MGM.
Grant expressed no interest in making a career comeback. He was in good health until almost the end of his life, when he suffered a mild stroke in October 1984. In his last years, he undertook tours of the United States in a one-man-show, "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. On November 29, 1986, Cary Grant died at age 82 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Davenport, Iowa.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second male star of Golden Age of Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). Grant was known for comedic and dramatic roles; his best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963).- Producer
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Jeffrey Jacob Abrams was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, the son of TV producer parents. At 15, he wrote the music for Don Dohler's Nightbeast (1982). In his senior year of college, he and Jill Mazursky teamed up to write a feature film, which became Taking Care of Business (1990). He went on to write and produce Regarding Henry (1991) and Forever Young (1992). He also co-wrote Gone Fishin' (1997) with Mazursky. Along with other Sarah Lawrence alumni, he experimented with computer animation and was contracted to develop pre-production animation for Shrek (2001).
Abrams worked on the screenplay for Armageddon (1998) and co-created (as well as composing the opening theme of) Felicity (1998), which ran for four seasons. He founded the production company Bad Robot in 2001 with Bryan Burk. He created and executive-produced Alias (2001) and Lost (2004), composing the theme music for both, and co-writing episodes of "Lost". He also co-wrote and produced thriller Joy Ride (2001). He made his feature directing debut with Mission: Impossible III (2006), reinvigorating the series. He produced the hit mystery film Cloverfield (2008) and co-created Fringe (2008).
He directed the Star Trek (2009) reboot, proving successful with fans and newcomers to the franchise. He next directed Super 8 (2011), co-produced by Steven Spielberg and produced Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). He returned to direct the follow-up to his reboot, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). Disney and Lucasfilm announced J.J. as their choice for director of the first episode in the new 'Star Wars' trilogy, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015). He initially resisted, as he didn't want to travel away from his family to London, but Kathleen Kennedy convinced him that his voice would be the best to reinvigorate this franchise, as he had done with two others before. He also produced Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) and Star Trek Beyond (2016), and executive-produced Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017). When it was announced that Colin Trevorrow would no longer direct Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019), it was announced that J.J. would return to complete the trilogy he started.- Actress
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A supremely gifted, versatile player who could reach dramatic depths, as exemplified in her weary-eyed, good-hearted waitress in The Last Picture Show (1971), or comedy heights, as in her sadistic drill captain in Private Benjamin (1980), Eileen Brennan managed to transition from lovely Broadway singing ingénue to respected film and television character actress within a decade's time. Her Hollywood career was hustling and bustling at the time of her near-fatal car accident in 1982. With courage and spirit, she recovered from her extensive facial and leg injuries, and returned to performing... slower but wiser. On top of all this, the indomitable Eileen survived a bout of alcoholism and became recognized as a breast cancer survivor, having had a mastectomy in 1990. On camera, she still tosses out those trademark barbs to the delight of all her fans, as demonstrated by her more-recent recurring roles as the prying Mrs. Bink on 7th Heaven (1996) and as Zandra, the disparaging acting coach, on Will & Grace (1998).
She was born with the highly unlikely marquee name of Verla Eileen Regina Brennan in Los Angeles, California, the child of Irish-Catholic parents Regina ("Jeanne") Manahan (or Menehan), a minor silent film player, and John Gerald Brennan, a doctor. Following grade school education, she attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and appeared in plays with the Mask and Bauble Society during that time. She then went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Her lovely soprano coupled with a flair for comedy was the winning combination that earned her the break of her budding career as the not-so-dainty title role in the off-Broadway, tongue-in-cheek operetta "Little Mary Sunshine". For this 1959 endeavor, Eileen not only won an Obie Award, but was among an esteemed group of eight other thespians who won the Theatre World Award that year for "Promising New Personality", including Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda, Carol Burnett and a very young Patty Duke.
Unwilling to be pigeonholed as a singing comedienne, Eileen took on one of the most arduous and demanding legit roles a young actress could ask for when she portrayed Annie Sullivan role in a major touring production of "The Miracle Worker" in 1961. After proving her dramatic mettle, she returned willingly to the musical theatre fold and made a very beguiling Anna in a production of "The King and I" (1963). She took her first Broadway bow in another comic operetta, "The Student Gypsy" (1963). In the musical, which was an unofficial sequel to her "Mary Sunshine" hit, she played a similarly-styled Merry May Glockenspiel, but the show lasted only a couple of weeks. Infinitely more successful was her deft playing of Irene Malloy alongside Carol Channing's Dolly Levi Gallagher in the original Broadway production of "Hello, Dolly!" (1964). Eileen stayed with the role for about two years.
By this time, Hollywood beckoned and Eileen never looked back... or returned to sing on Broadway. After a support role in the film comedy Divorce American Style (1967) starring Debbie Reynolds and Dick Van Dyke, Eileen's talents were selected to be showcased on the irreverent variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967). But what seemed to be an ideal forum to show off her abilities didn't. Overshadowed by the wackier talents of Goldie Hawn, Ruth Buzzi and Jo Anne Worley, who became television comedy stars from this, Eileen seemed out of sync with the knockabout slapstick element. She left the cast before the show barely got off the ground. "Laugh-In" (1968-1973) went on to become a huge cult hit.
In retrospect, this disappointment proved to be a boon to Eileen's dramatic film career. Set in a dusty, barren town, she played up her hard looks and earned terrific reviews for her downbeat role of Genevieve, the careworn waitress, in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971). As part of a superb ensemble cast, her hard-knocks vulnerability and earthy sensuality added authenticity to the dreary Texas surroundings. Following this, she scored great marks for her brothel madam/confidante in George Roy Hill's ragtime-era Oscar winner The Sting (1973). Bogdanovich himself became a fan and used Eileen again and again in his subsequent films -- the ambitious but lackluster Daisy Miller (1974) and At Long Last Love (1975). At least, the latter movie allowed her to show off her singing voice. Her comedic instincts were on full display too in the all-star mystery spoofs Murder by Death (1976) and The Cheap Detective (1978) where she fared quite well playing take-it-on-the-chin dames.
Eileen hit the apex of her comic fame playing the spiky and spiteful drill captain who mercilessly taunts and torments tenderfoot Goldie Hawn in the huge box-office hit Private Benjamin (1980). She deservedly earned a "best supporting actress" Oscar nomination for her scene-stealing contribution and was given the chance to reprise the role on the television series that followed. Starring Lorna Patterson in the Hawn role, Private Benjamin (1981) was less successful in its adaptation to the smaller screen but Eileen was better than great and earned both Emmy and Golden Globe Awards in the process.
During the show's run in 1982, Brennan had dinner one evening with good friend Goldie Hawn at a Los Angeles restaurant. They had already parted ways when Brennan was hit and critically injured by a car while crossing a street. Replaced in the television series (by "Alice" co-star Polly Holliday), her recovery and rehabilitation lasted three years, which included an addiction to painkillers. She returned to the screen in another amusing all-star comedy whodunit, Clue (1985), in which she played one of the popular game board suspects, Mrs. Peacock. While looking weaker and less mobile, she showed she had lost none of the disarming causticity that made her a character star.
Forging ahead, Eileen went on to recreate her tough luck waitress character in Texasville (1990), the sequel to The Last Picture Show (1971), and also appeared with Bette Midler in the overly mawkish Stella (1990). However, for the most part, she lent herself to playing eccentric crab apples in such lightweight fare as Rented Lips (1987), Sticky Fingers (1988), Changing Habits (1997), Pants on Fire (1998), Jeepers Creepers (2001), Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous (2005) and Naked Run (2011). She has also provided crotchety animated voices for series cartoons.
Eileen Brennan died at age 80 on July 28, 2013 at her Burbank, California home after a battle with bladder cancer. She is survived by her two sons, Patrick (formerly a basketball player, now an actor) and Sam (a singer), from her first and only marriage in the late 1960s to mid-1970s.- Actress
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Mary Debra Winger was born May 16, 1955 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Ruth (Felder), an office manager, and Robert Jack Winger, a meat packer. She is from a Jewish family (originally from Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire). Her maternal grandparents called her Mary, while her parents called her Debra (her father named her Debra after his favorite actress, Debra Paget). The family moved to California when Debra was five. She fell in love with acting in high school but kept it a secret from her family. She was a precocious teenager, having graduated high school at an early age of 15. She enrolled in college, majoring in criminology. She worked part-time in the local amusement park when she got thrown from a truck and suffered serious injuries and went temporarily blind for several months. She was in the hospital when she vowed to pursue her passion for acting.
After she recovered, she abandoned college and studied acting. Like any struggling actor, she did commercials and guest-starred on 70s TV shows like Task Force: Part I (1976) and Wonder Woman (1975), where she performed as Diana's little sister, Wonder Girl. She also made her feature film debut in the embarrassing soft-core porn film, Slumber Party '57 (1976). (Years later on Inside the Actors Studio (1994), host James Lipton asked her to name her first film, and she refused to answer him.) Her next two films, French Postcards (1979) and Thank God It's Friday (1978), did absolutely nothing for her career. When Sissy Spacek said no to playing the character Sissy in Urban Cowboy (1980), almost every young actress in Hollywood pursued the role. Debra won the role over a then-unknown Michelle Pfeiffer and gave a star-making performance as John Travolta's wife. Her handling of the mechanical bull made her a new kind of sex symbol. She would always remain grateful to her director James Bridges for threatening to quit the film if the studio didn't cast her. However, she followed it up with a flop, Cannery Row (1982). But, she became part of one of the top-grossing films of all time by providing her deep, throaty voice to the title character of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) as a favor to the film's director Steven Spielberg (Note: IMDB cast list for E.T. indicates Pat Welsh as the voice for that character.). She also appeared in the film for a few seconds in the Halloween scene, where she is wearing a zombie mask and carrying a poodle. She received her first Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for the huge hit, An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), where her on-screen love scenes with Richard Gere became just as legendary as her off-screen fights with him and with director Taylor Hackford.
Debra's reputation as a great talent, as well as her reputation as a difficult actress grew with her next film, Terms of Endearment (1983), which not only earned her a second Oscar nomination as Best Actress but also won the Best Picture as well. She also earned the Best Actress Award from the National Society of Film Critics. Debra was at the top of her game and was the most sought-after actress in Hollywood, but she turned down quality roles and lucrative offers for three years. Some speculated that the reason was her romantic involvement with Bob Kerrey, then-governor of Nebraska, while others have stated it was her back problems. Whatever her reasons were, her career lost its heat. Her long-delayed film Mike's Murder (1984), reuniting her with her "Urban Cowboy" director James Bridges, didn't help matters either when it became a critical and financial flop. Debra tried to revive her career by starring in the big-budget comedy Legal Eagles (1986), but she disliked the film so much that she publicly stated that the director, Ivan Reitman, was one of the two worst directors she worked with, the other director being Taylor Hackford (An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)). She also walked out on her agency, CAA, but returned several years later.
Her personal life made headlines when she left Bob Kerrey and eloped with Oscar-winning actor Timothy Hutton in 1986. In 1987, she gave birth to their son, Noah Hutton. She also starred in Black Widow (1987), which wasn't a hit, and acted alongside Hutton as a male angel in Made in Heaven (1987) which flopped. She followed that up by starring in another flop, Betrayed (1988), which featured a fleeting cameo by Hutton. She separated from Hutton in 1988 and they divorced in 1990, at which time she had two more bombs, Everybody Wins (1990) and The Sheltering Sky (1990). However, she relished the experience on The Sheltering Sky (1990) so much that she stayed in the Sahara desert long after filming wrapped. She came back to US and filmed a Steve Martin vehicle, Leap of Faith (1992), which did nothing for her career. But, she found love on the set of her next film, Wilder Napalm (1993) when she co-starred opposite Arliss Howard, who became her next husband. The film flopped but their marriage lasted. She received good notices for A Dangerous Woman (1993), but it was Shadowlands (1993) which finally brought her renewed respectability and her third Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. She followed that up with a forgettable comedy, Forget Paris (1995). Then, she signed to do "Divine Rapture" with Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp in a small village in Ireland, but two weeks into filming, financing fell apart, and the film was never completed. Winger was never paid for her work, and neither were the poor villagers, and Winger said she was devastated for them. Now 40, Debra felt that there were no good roles for her and she concentrated on motherhood by having a second son, Babe Howard, in 1997. Her six-year absence from films inspired a documentary by Rosanna Arquette titled Searching for Debra Winger (2002), which is about sexism and ageism in Hollywood. In 2001, she returned to acting in her husband's film, Big Bad Love (2001), which she also co-produced. It renewed her love for acting, and she has ventured out into television as well by earning her first Emmy nomination as Best Actress for Dawn Anna (2005), directed by her husband. In 2008, she wrote a well-written book, based on her personal recollections, titled "Undiscovered". And she followed that up by winning rave reviews as Anne Hathaway's mother in Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married (2008). However, it wasn't enough to reignite her feature film career, so she ventured towards television in 2010 with a guest-starring role on "Law and Order" titled Boy on Fire (2010), to a seven-episode stint on In Treatment (2008), to a two-part miniseries The Red Tent (2014), to a regular role on The Ranch (2016) . Her television exposure reignited her feature film career, and she was cast in her first romantic lead in 22 years in The Lovers (2017). And she had also mellowed with age, presenting an award to Richard Gere in 2011 and saying kind things about director Taylor Hackford in 2017, after having fought with both of them during An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). Nobody can deny that Debra Winger is one of the best American actresses ever. Her fans hope that Hollywood will finally reward her talent with a long-overdue Academy Award.- Actress
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Ann Doran appeared in over 500 motion pictures and 1000 television shows, by one count. Starting at the age of four, she appeared in hundreds of silent films under assumed names so her father's family wouldn't find out. Rarely a featured player (although Charles Starrett's Rio Grande (1938) is a notable exception), she provided many a wonderful performance in support of the leads.- Actor
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Along with fellow actors Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff is recognized as one of the true icons of horror cinema, and the actor most closely identified with the general public's image of the Frankenstein Monster from the classic 1818 Mary Shelley novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus". William Henry Pratt was born on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell, London, England, UK, the son of Edward John Pratt Jr., the Deputy Commissioner of Customs Salt and Opium, Northern Division, Indian Salt Revenue Service, and his third wife, Eliza Sarah Millard.
He was educated at London University in anticipation that he would pursue a diplomatic career; however, he emigrated to Canada in 1909, joined a touring company based out of Ontario and adopted the stage name of "Boris Karloff." He toured back and forth across the U.S. for over 10 years in a variety of low budget theater shows and eventually ended up in Hollywood, reportedly with very little money to his name. Needing cash to support himself, Karloff secured occasional acting work in the fledgling silent film industry in such films as The Deadlier Sex (1920), Omar the Tentmaker (1922), Dynamite Dan (1924) and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927), in addition to a handful of film serials (the majority of these, sadly, are all lost films). Karloff supplemented his meager film income by working as a truck driver in Los Angeles, which allowed him enough time off to continue to pursue acting roles.
His big break finally came when he was cast as the Frankenstein Monster in the Universal production of Frankenstein (1931), which was directed by James Whale, one of the studio's few remaining auteur directors. The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?". The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. He quickly appeared in several other sinister roles, including Scarface (1932) (filmed before Frankenstein (1931)), as the black-humored The Old Dark House (1932), as the titular Chinese villain of Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu novels in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), as the living mummy Im-ho-tep in The Mummy (1932) and as the misguided Prof. Morlant in The Ghoul (1933). He thoroughly enjoyed his role as a religious fanatic in John Ford's film The Lost Patrol (1934), although contemporary critics described it as a textbook example of overacting.
He donned the signature make-up, neck bolts and asphalt spreader's boots to play the Frankenstein Monster twice more, the first time in the sensational Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and the second time in the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (1939). Karloff, on loan to Fox, appeared in one of the best of the Warner Oland Charlie Chan films, Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), before beginning his own short-lived detective film series as Mr. Wong. He was a wrongly condemned doctor in Devil's Island (1938), the shaven-headed executioner Mord the Merciless in Tower of London (1939), another misguided scientist in The Ape (1940), a crazed scientist surrounded by monsters, vampires and werewolves in House of Frankenstein (1944), a murderous cab-man in The Body Snatcher (1945) and a Greek general fighting vampirism in the Val Lewton thriller Isle of the Dead (1945).
While Karloff continued to appear in a plethora of films, many of them were not up to the standards of his previous efforts, including his appearances in two of the hokey Bud Abbott and Lou Costello monster films (he had appeared with both of them in an earlier, superior film, Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949), of which theater owners often added his name to the marquee) at the low point of the Universal-International horror film cycle. During the 1950s he was a regular guest on many high-profile TV shows, including The Milton Berle Show (1948), Tales of Tomorrow (1951), The Veil (1958), The Donald O'Connor Show (1954), The Red Skelton Hour (1951) and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1956), just to name a few, and he appeared in a mixed bag of films, including Sabaka (1954) and Voodoo Island (1957). On Broadway, he appeared as the murderous Jonathan Brewster in the hit play "Arsenic and Old Lace" (his role, or rather the absence of him in it, was amusingly parodied in the play's 1944 film version) and 10 years later he enjoyed a long run in another hit play, "Peter Pan," perfectly cast as both Captain Hook and Mr. Darling.
His career experienced something of a revival in the 1960s thanks to hosting the TV anthology series Thriller (1960) and independent film director Roger Corman, with Karloff contributing wonderful performances in The Raven (1963), The Terror (1963), the ultra-eerie Black Sabbath (1963) and the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Die, Monster, Die! (1965). Karloff's last great film role before his death was as Byron Orlok, an aging and bitter horror film star on the brink of retirement who confronts a modern-day sniper in the Peter Bogdanovich-directed film Targets (1968). After this, he played Professor John Marsh in The Crimson Cult (1968), in which he co-starred with Sir Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele; it was the last film that he starred in that was released in his lifetime. Before these two films, he played the blind sculptor Franz Badulescu in Cauldron of Blood (1968) which was produced, directed and written by Edward Mann, who had also come to the art of film from the stage and the theater; it was released in the U.S. in 1971 after his death. His TV career was topped off by achieving Christmas immortality as both the voices of the titular character and the narrator of Chuck Jones' perennial animated favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). Four low budget horror films that were made in Mexico and starred an ailing Karloff, whose scenes for all four of them were shot on a soundstage in Hollywood, were released theatrically in Mexico in 1968 and then were released directly to television in the U.S. after his death between 1971 and 1972; however, they do no justice to this great actor. In retrospect, he never took himself too seriously as an actor and had a tendency to downplay his acting accomplishments. Renowned as a refined, kind and warm-hearted gentleman with a sincere affection for both children and their welfare, Karloff passed away on February 2, 1969 from emphysema. Respectful of his Indian roots and in true Hindu fashion, he was cremated at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, England, UK, where he is commemorated by a plaque in Plot 2 of the Garden of Remembrance.- Actor
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James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth Ruth (Johnson) and Alexander Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store. He was of Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and some English descent. Stewart was educated at a local prep school, Mercersburg Academy, where he was a keen athlete (football and track), musician (singing and accordion playing), and sometime actor.
In 1929, he won a place at Princeton University, where he studied architecture with some success and became further involved with the performing arts as a musician and actor with the University Players. After graduation, engagements with the University Players took him around the northeastern United States, including a run on Broadway in 1932. But work dried up as the Great Depression deepened, and it was not until 1934, when he followed his friend Henry Fonda to Hollywood, that things began to pick up.
After his first screen appearance in Art Trouble (1934), Stewart worked for a time for MGM as a contract player and slowly began making a name for himself in increasingly high-profile roles throughout the rest of the 1930s. His famous collaborations with Frank Capra, in You Can't Take It with You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and, after World War II, It's a Wonderful Life (1946) helped to launch his career as a star and to establish his screen persona as the likable everyman.
Having learned to fly in 1935, he was drafted into the United States Army in 1940 as a private (after twice failing the medical for being underweight). During the course of World War II, he rose to the rank of colonel, first as an instructor at home in the United States, and later on combat missions in Europe. He remained involved with the United States Air Force Reserve after the war and officially retired in 1968. In 1959, he was promoted to brigadier general, becoming the highest-ranking actor in U.S. military history.
Stewart's acting career took off properly after the war. During the course of his long professional life, he had roles in some of Hollywood's best-remembered films, starring in a string of Westerns, bringing his everyman qualities to movies like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)), biopics (The Stratton Story (1949), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), and The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), for instance, thrillers (most notably his frequent collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock), and even some screwball comedies.
On June 25, 1997, a thrombosis formed in his right leg, leading to a pulmonary embolism, and a week later on July 2, 1997, surrounded by his children, James Stewart died at age 89 at his home in Beverly Hills, California. His last words to his family were, "I'm going to be with Gloria now".- Actor
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Matthew Staton Bomer was born in Webster Groves, Greater St. Louis, Missouri, to Elizabeth Macy (Staton) and John O'Neill Bomer IV, a Dallas Cowboys draft pick. Matt was raised in Spring, Texas, and educated at Klein High School, near Houston. After school, he attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Bomer then relocated to New York to forge a career in acting.
Theater work followed, but his television break came with a small part in All My Children (1970). This lead to a reoccurring role in Guiding Light (1952) as murderous Ben Reade. Further success in TV followed including parts in Tru Calling (2003), Chuck (2007) and the lead role in Traveler (2007). Bomer also scored film roles in projects such as Flightplan (2005) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006). In 2009, he was cast in the lead role of criminal mastermind Neal Caffrey in Fox's White Collar (2009).- Andy Mackenzie is known for Sushi Girl (2012), Euphoria (2019) and True Blood (2008). He was previously married to Angela Little.
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Robert Mitchum was an underrated American leading man of enormous ability, who sublimated his talents beneath an air of disinterest. He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Ann Harriet (Gunderson), a Norwegian immigrant, and James Thomas Mitchum, a shipyard/railroad worker. His father died in a train accident when he was two, and Robert and his siblings (including brother John Mitchum, later also an actor) were raised by his mother and stepfather (a British army major) in Connecticut, New York, and Delaware. An early contempt for authority led to discipline problems, and Mitchum spent good portions of his teen years adventuring on the open road. He later claimed that on one of these trips, at the age of 14, he was charged with vagrancy and sentenced to a Georgia chain gang, from which he escaped. Working a wide variety of jobs (including ghostwriter for astrologist Carroll Righter), Mitchum discovered acting in a Long Beach, California, amateur theater company. He worked at Lockheed Aircraft, where job stress caused him to suffer temporary blindness. About this time he began to obtain small roles in films, appearing in dozens within a very brief time. In 1945, he was cast as Lt. Walker in Story of G.I. Joe (1945) and received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. His star ascended rapidly, and he became an icon of 1940s film noir, though equally adept at westerns and romantic dramas. His apparently lazy style and seen-it-all demeanor proved highly attractive to men and women, and by the 1950s, he was a true superstar despite a brief prison term for marijuana usage in 1949, which seemed to enhance rather than diminish his "bad boy" appeal. Though seemingly dismissive of "art," he worked in tremendously artistically thoughtful projects such as Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955) and even co-wrote and composed an oratorio produced at the Hollywood Bowl by Orson Welles. A master of accents and seemingly unconcerned about his star image, he played in both forgettable and unforgettable films with unswerving nonchalance, leading many to overlook the prodigious talent he can bring to a project that he finds compelling. He moved into television in the 1980s as his film opportunities diminished, winning new fans with The Winds of War (1983) and War and Remembrance (1988). His sons James Mitchum and Christopher Mitchum are actors, as is his grandson Bentley Mitchum. His last film was James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) with Casper Van Dien as James Dean.- Actor
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Ray Bidwell Collins was an American actor in film, stage, radio and television. One of his best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason (1957). Collins was born in Sacramento, California, to Lillie Bidwell and William C. Collins, a newspaper drama editor. He started acting on stage at the age of 14. In the mid 1930s, now an established stage and radio actor, Collins began working with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre (Welles himself called Collins "the finest actor I've ever worked with"), leading to some of his most memorable roles. Having already appeared on radio with Welles in "The Shadow" (a regular as Commissioner Weston) and in Welles' serial adaptation of "Les Miserables" from 1937, Collins became a regular on "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" program; through the run of the series, he played many roles in literary adaptations, from Squire Livesey from "Treasure Island" and Dr. Watson in "Sherlock Holmes" to Mr. Pickwick in an adaptation of "The Pickwick Papers". Collins' best known (albeit uncredited) work on this series, however, was in the infamous "The War of the Worlds" broadcast, playing three roles, including Mr. Wilmuth (on whose farm the Martian craft lands) and the newscaster who describes the destruction of New York. Along with other Mercury Theatre players, Collins made his first notable screen appearance in Citizen Kane (1941), as ruthless Boss Jim Gettys. He would also play key roles in Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) and Touch of Evil (1958). Collins appeared in over 90 films in all, including Leave Her to Heaven (1945), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and Crack-Up (1946), A Double Life (1947), two entries in the "Ma and Pa Kettle" series (as in-law Benjamin Parker), and The Desert Song (1953), in which he played the non-singing role of Kathryn Grayson's father. He displayed comic ability in The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) and The Man from Colorado (1948). He may be best remembered for his work on television. He was also a regular as John Merriweather on the television version of The Halls of Ivy (1954) starring Ronald Colman.- Actress
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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.- Actor
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Robert Conrad was a graduate of Northwestern University, spending his first few years out of school supporting himself and his family by driving a milk truck and singing in a Chicago cabaret. Conrad befriended up-and-coming actor Nick Adams during this period, and it was Adams who helped Conrad get his first Hollywood work in 1957. A few movie bit parts later, Conrad was signed for a comparative pittance by Warner Bros. studios, and in 1959 was cast as detective Tom Lopaka on the weekly adventure series Hawaiian Eye. Upon the 1963 cancellation of this series, Conrad made a handful of Spanish and American films and toured with a nightclub act in Australia and Mexico City. Cast as frontier secret agent James West in The Wild Wild West (1965) in 1965, Conrad brought home $5000 a week during the series' first season and enjoyed increasing remunerations as West remained on the air until 1969. There are those who insist that Wild Wild West would have been colorless without the co-starring presence of Ross Martin, an opinion with which Conrad has always agreed. The actor's bid to star in a 1970 series based on the venerable Nick Carter pulp stories got no further than a pilot episode, while the Jack Webb-produced 1971 Robert Conrad series The D.A. was canceled after 13 episodes. When Roy Scheider pulled out of the 1972 adventure weekly Assignment: Vienna, Conrad stepped in--and was out, along with the rest of Assignment: Vienna, by June of 1973. Conrad had better luck with 1976's Baa Baa Black Sheep, aka Black Sheep Squadron, a popular series based on the World War II exploits of Major "Pappy" Boyington. Cast as a nurse on this series was Conrad's daughter Nancy, setting a precedent for nepotism that the actor practiced as late as his tenth TV series, 1989's Jesse Hawkes, wherein Conrad co-starred with his sons Christian and Shane.
Though few of his series have survived past season one, Conrad has enjoyed success as a commercial spokesman and in the role of G. Gordon Liddy (whom the actor admired) in the 1982 TV movie Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy (1982). As can be gathered from the Liddy assignment, Conrad's politics veered towards conservatism; in 1981, he and Charlton Heston were instrumental in toppling Ed Asner and his liberal contingent from power in the Screen Actors Guild.
As virile and athletic as ever in the 1990s, Robert Conrad continued to appear in action roles both on TV and in films; he also maintained strong ties with his hometown of Chicago, and could be counted on to show up at a moment's notice as a guest on the various all-night programs of Chicago radio personality Eddie Schwartz.- Actress
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Actress and singer Ann-Margret is one of the most famous sex symbols and actresses of the 1960s and beyond. She continued her career through the following decades and into the 21st century.
Ann-Margret was born Ann-Margret Olsson in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland County, Sweden, to Anna Regina (Aronsson) and Carl Gustav Olsson, who worked for an electrical company. She came to America at age 6. She studied at Northwestern University and left for Las Vegas to pursue a career as a singer. Ann-Margret was discovered by George Burns and soon afterward got both a record deal at RCA and a film contract at 20th Century Fox. In 1961, her single "I Just Don't Understand" charted in the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Her acting debut followed the same year as Bette Davis' daughter in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles (1961). She appeared in the musical State Fair (1962) a year later before her breakthrough in 1963. With Bye Bye Birdie (1963) and Viva Las Vegas (1964) opposite Elvis Presley, she became a Top 10 Box Office star, teen idol and even Golden Globe nominated actress. She was marketed as Hollywood's hottest young star and in the years to come got awarded the infamous nickname "sex kitten." Her following pictures were sometimes ripped apart by critics (Bus Riley's Back in Town (1965) and The Swinger (1966)), sometimes praised (The Cincinnati Kid (1965)). She couldn't escape being typecast because of her great looks. By the late 1960s, her career stalled, and she turned to Italy for new projects. She returned and, by 1970, she was back in the public image with Hollywood films (R.P.M. (1970) opposite Anthony Quinn), Las Vegas sing-and-dance shows and her own television specials. She finally overcame her image with her Oscar-nominated turn in Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge (1971) and succeeded in changing her image from sex kitten to respected actress. A near-fatal accident at a Lake Tahoe show in 1972 only momentarily stopped her career. She was again Oscar-nominated in 1975 for Tommy (1975), the rock opera film of the British rock band The Who. Her career continued with successful films throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s. She starred next to Anthony Hopkins in Magic (1978) and appeared in pictures co-starring Walter Matthau, Gene Hackman, Glenda Jackson and Roy Scheider. She even appeared in a television remake of Tennessee Williams's masterpiece play "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1983. Another late career highlight for her was Grumpy Old Men (1993) as the object of desire for Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. She continues to act in movies today.- Actress
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Lake Siegel Bell is an American actress, screenwriter and director. She has starred in various television series, including Boston Legal (2004-2006), Surface (2005-2006), How to Make It in America (2010-2011), Childrens Hospital (2008-2016), and Bless This Mess (2019-2020) and in films including Over Her Dead Body (2008), What Happens in Vegas (2008), It's Complicated (2009), No Strings Attached (2011), Million Dollar Arm (2014), No Escape (2015), Man Up (2015), The Secret Life of Pets (2016), Shot Caller (2017) and Home Again (2017).
She wrote and directed the short film Worst Enemy, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012, followed by her 2013 feature film directing debut In a World..., in which she also starred. In 2017, she directed, wrote, co-produced and starred in I Do... Until I Don't. As of 2021, Bell starred as the voice of Poison Ivy in the HBO Max series Harley Quinn (2019-present), and Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow in the Disney+ series What If...? (2021).- Actress
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As a baby, she was winning beauty contests; as a teenager, with good looks and an attractive contralto voice, she was singing with big bands (most notably Enric Madriguera's orchestra in Latin Club Del Rio in Washington, D.C.. She met Rudy Vallee, her first husband, on the radio where she also enjoyed a brief stint as a singer. At age 15, an attack of palsy left her face partially paralyzed. She claimed that it was through facial exercises to overcome the paralysis that she learned the efficacy of facial expression in conveying human emotion, a skill she was renowned for using in her acting.- Additional Crew
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After her school education, she initially attended a school for secretaries, but in 1957, at the invitation of a former schoolmate, she realized her long-held dream of getting to know Africa and traveled to Kenya. She found a job at the Kenya National Museum and came into contact with its director Louis Leakey. Although Goodall had no academic training at the time, Leakey suggested that she participate in a field study of wild chimpanzees. She then began working as an assistant for Leakey. In 1960, Goodall, accompanied by her mother, traveled to Lake Tanganyika in what is now Gombe National Park. There she began researching primates, which are genetically closely related to humans. Through her "participatory observation method" she was able to gain new insights into the animals. Goodall discovered that chimpanzees make and use tools. Their work also helped to differentiate bonobos from chimpanzees.
In 1965, the researcher temporarily interrupted her studies to do her doctorate at the University of Cambridge. She received an exemption and was therefore able to do a doctorate even though she had never studied. As Dr. Jane Goodall returned to Tanzania, where she founded the "Gombe Stream Research Center" in Gombe in 1967. With funding from the American National Geographic Society, the first texts and images from her studies appeared. Goodall gained worldwide fame with the publication of her book "Wild Chimpanzees". From 1971 to 1975 she taught as a visiting professor at Stanford University in California. In 1977, the researcher founded the "Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation" in the USA to ensure the protection of the chimpanzees in Gombe and her research activities. In 1987 Goodall retired from field research. Since then she has been committed to protecting chimpanzees.
As an "ambassador for chimpanzees" she travels around the world, giving lectures on environmental pollution and climate change. She also campaigns against the illegal animal trade. Goodall also coordinates various scientific projects carried out in Gombe. In her published autobiography "Reason for Hope" she writes about the motives of her work and the leitmotif of her life. For Jane Goodall, there seems to be no contradiction between belief in God and the Darwinian theory of evolution. Goodall has since moved back to England, to her childhood home. In 2002 she was appointed UN Messenger of Peace. Jane Goodall is also committed to environmental projects with young people, for which purpose she launched the "Roots & Shoots" project. In 2005 she became an officer of the French Legion of Honor. In 2018, the documentary "Jane" by American director Brett Morgan was released in cinemas. In 2020 she received the Tang Prize in the "Sustainable Development" category.- Actor
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Of Greek descent on both sides, the son of immigrants, Savalas was a soldier during World War II, although most of his enlistment records were destroyed in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973. He later studied psychology at Columbia University under the GI Bill.
Iconically bald, he often played character roles, sometimes as sadists or psychotics. He became famous in the 1970s when his role as Det. Theo Kojak in the TV movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973) was expanded into the gritty Kojak (1973) TV series (1973-78).- Actor
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Kal Penn was born and raised in Montclair, New Jersey, to Asmita, a fragrance evaluator, and Suresh Modi, an engineer. His parents are Gujarati immigrants to America from India. He attended the Freehold Regional High School District's Performing Arts High School where he participated in the school's theater productions. In 1995, he moved to Los Angeles to study at the UCLA's prestigious School of Theatre, Film and Television. He majored in film and sociology. He began his acting career in several indie films. His breakthrough film role came in the comedy Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004). Several Harold & Kumar films have followed. He went on to appear for 2 years in the television series House (2004). He developed an interest in politics from his grandparents who marched for India's independence. In 2009, he joined the Obama administration as an Associate Director.- Actress
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Kate Mara is an American actress. She starred in the Netflix political drama House of Cards (2013) as Zoe Barnes and appeared in the Fox TV series 24 (2001) as computer analyst Shari Rothenberg. She appeared in Brokeback Mountain (2005), We Are Marshall (2006), Shooter (2007), Transsiberian (2008), Stone of Destiny (2008), The Open Road (2009), Transcendence (2014), and Fantastic Four (2015) as the Invisible Woman. She also appeared in the FX horror mini-series American Horror Story (2011) as Hayden McClaine. Mara's film debut was in Random Hearts (1999), with Harrison Ford in 1999, directed by Sydney Pollack. In 2015, she also had a supporting role as astronaut "Beth Johanssen" in director Ridley Scott's film The Martian (2015). In the same year, she also starred as Ashley Smith in the movie Captive (2015).
Mara also starred in Morgan (2016), Megan Leavey (2017) and My Days of Mercy (2017).
Kate was born in Bedford, New York. She is one of four children of Kathleen McNulty (Rooney) and NFL football team New York Giants executive Timothy Christopher Mara. Her younger sister is actress Rooney Mara.
Her grandfathers were Wellington Mara, co-owner of the Giants, and Timothy Rooney, owner of Yonkers Raceway, and her grand-uncle is Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney, the former US Ambassador to Ireland. She is the great-granddaughter of Art Rooney Sr., the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers football franchise. She often sings the national anthem at Giants home games. Her father has Irish, German, and French-Canadian ancestry, and her mother is of Irish and Italian descent.
Mara graduated from high school a year early. She was accepted at the prestigious NYU Tisch School of the Arts but deferred her admission for three consecutive years.- Actress
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Barbara Feldon was born on 12 March 1933 in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress, known for Get Smart (1965), Fitzwilly (1967) and Smile (1975). She was previously married to Lucien Verdoux-Feldon.- Actress
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Zendaya (which means "to give thanks" in the language of Shona) is an American actress and singer born in Oakland, California. She began her career appearing as a child model working for Macy's, Mervyns and Old Navy. She was a backup dancer before gaining prominence for her role as Rocky Blue on the Disney Channel sitcom Shake It Up (2010) which also includes Bella Thorne, Kenton Duty and Roshon Fegan. Zendaya was a contestant on the sixteenth season of the competition series Dancing with the Stars. She went on to produce and star as K.C. Cooper in the Disney Channel sitcom K.C. Undercover (2015) She made her film breakthrough in 2017, starring as Michelle "MJ" Jones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and as Anne Wheeler in the musical drama film The Greatest Showman (2017) alongside actors such as Tom Holland, Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron. Besides acting, singing and dancing she is an ambassador for Convoy of Hope. She has written a book, launched her own clothing line (Daya by Zendaya) and proved herself to be a great role model for young girls all around the world.- Actress
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Susan Ker Weld was born on August 27, 1943 (Friday), in New York City. When her father, Lathrop Motley Weld, died three years later at the age of 49, the cute little girl, whose name by then had somehow been transmogrified into "Tuesday", took over the role of the family breadwinner. She became a successful child model, posing for advertisements and mail-order catalogs. Her work and the burden of responsibility estranged her from her mother Aileen, her two elder siblings, and catapulted the preteen girl into adulthood. At nine years of age, she suffered a nervous breakdown; at ten, she started heavy drinking; one year later, she began to have love affairs, all of which led to a suicide attempt at age twelve. In 1956 she debuted in the low-budget exploitation movie Rock Rock Rock! (1956) and decided to become an actress. After numerous TV appearances in New York she went to Hollywood in 1958 and was cast for Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958), something of a breakthrough for her. Over the next few years Tuesday became Hollywood's queen of teen, playing mainly precocious sex kittens. Her wild private life added to the entertainment of her fans. Critics acknowledged her talent, directors approved of her professionalism, and in the mid-1970s she even managed to grow out of her child/woman image and find more demanding roles - she had been "sweet little 16" for about 16 years. However, Tuesday Weld didn't achieve first-magnitude stardom. Maybe she was just unlucky with her selection of jobs (she turned down Lolita (1962), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), True Grit (1969), Cactus Flower (1969), among others); maybe her independence-loving mind made her instinctively shrink back from the restraints of super stardom. In any case, she kept on performing well in films that had either not much flair or not much success. From the early '80s on she focused more and more on made-for-TV movies, which was ironic in that the best (Once Upon a Time in America (1984)) and the most successful (Falling Down (1993)) films that came her way happened as her big-screen career was already petering out.- Actress
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Born in Boise City, Oklahoma, Vera Miles attended school in Pratt, Kansas and Wichita, Kansas. The patrician beauty of Miss Miles won her the title of "Miss Kansas" in 1948, leading soon to small roles in Hollywood films and television series. Fame came to the forthright, spirited Miles when she attracted the attention of two master directors, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford. Ford cast her in the classic western The Searchers (1956) and Hitchcock, who put her under personal contract and hailed her as his "new Grace Kelly", paired her with the great Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man (1956). Hitchcock cast Miles in the potentially star-making role of Judy Barton in Vertigo (1958), but Miles withdrew from the film when she became pregnant. Hitchcock gave Miles a supporting role in another masterpiece Psycho (1960), as did Ford when he cast her opposite John Wayne and James Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), She also starred in such films as Beau James (1957) opposite Bob Hope, The FBI Story (1959) opposite Stewart, Back Street (1961) opposite Susan Hayward and John Gavin and Sergeant Ryker (1968) opposite Lee Marvin, as well as showing her consistently remarkable and versatile talent on dozens of popular television movies and series including The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), The Twilight Zone (1959), The Outer Limits (1963), The Fugitive (1963), My Three Sons (1960), Bonanza (1959), Columbo (1971) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). In 1983, she reprised her role as "Lila Crane" in the film sequel Psycho II (1983), starring Anthony Perkins. Although, too often, the stunningly beautiful Miles' gifts were underutilized, before her retirement in 1995, hers was a most intriguing and enduring Hollywood career.- Actor
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Evan Peters was born in 1987 in St. Louis, Missouri to Phil and Julie Peters. When his father's job was transferred, the family moved to Grand Blanc, Michigan. There, Evan began taking acting classes and at age 15, he moved with his mother to Los Angeles in hopes of pursuing a career in the entertainment industry. His breakthrough role came when he was cast as the controversial Tate Langdon in American Horror Story (2011).- Actor
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Nick Nolte was born in Omaha, Nebraska and began his career on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse and in regional theatre productions. His breakthrough role was in the TV miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), playing the role of "Tom/Tommy Jordache". Nick Nolte said that when he played a young man in the early scenes of the project, he weighed about 160 pounds. When he played a middle-aged man in the later scenes, he weighed over 180 pounds.- Actor
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Josh Rosenthal is known for Warrior (2011), UFC on Fox (2011) and EliteXC Saturday Night Fights (2008).- Actor
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Thomas Brodie-Sangster was born on 16 May 1990 in London, England, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015), The Maze Runner (2014) and Love Actually (2003).- Actor
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One of the British theatre's most famous faces, Daniel Craig, who waited tables as a struggling teenage actor with the National Youth Theatre, has gone on to star as James Bond in Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).
He was born Daniel Wroughton Craig on March 2, 1968, at 41 Liverpool Road, Chester, Cheshire, England. His father, Timothy John Wroughton Craig, was a merchant seaman turned steel erector, and then became landlord of the "Ring O'Bells" pub in Frodsham, Cheshire. His mother, Carol Olivia (Williams), was an art teacher. Craig has English, as well as Irish, Scottish and Welsh, ancestry. His parents split up in 1972, and young Daniel was raised with his older sister, Lea, in Liverpool, then in Hoylake, Wirral, in the home of his mother. His interest in acting was encouraged by visits to the Liverpool Everyman Theatre arranged by his mother. From the age of six, Craig started acting in school plays, making his debut in the Frodsham Primary School production of "Oliver!", and his mother was the driving force behind his artistic aspirations. The first Bond movie he ever saw at the cinema was Roger Moore's Live and Let Die (1973); young Daniel Craig saw it with his father, so it took a special place in his heart. He was also a good athlete and was a rugby player at Hoylake Rugby Club.
At age 14, Craig played roles in "Oliver", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Cinderella" at Hilbre High School in West Kirby, Wirral. He left Hilbre High School at age 16 to audition at the National Youth Theatre's (NYT) troupe on their tour in Manchester in 1984. He was accepted and moved down to London. There, his mother and father watched his stage debut as Agamemnon in Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida". As a struggling actor with the NYT, he was toiling in restaurant kitchens and as a waiter. Craig performed with NYT on tours to Valencia, Spain, and to Moscow, Russia, under the leadership of director Edward Wilson. He failed at repeated auditions at the Guildhall, but eventually his persistence paid off, and in 1988, he entered the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the Barbican. There, he studied alongside Ewan McGregor and Alistair McGowan, then later Damian Lewis and Joseph Fiennes, among others. He graduated in 1991, after a three-year course under the tutelage of Colin McCormack, the actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company. From 1992-1994, he was married to Scottish actress Fiona Loudon, their daughter, named Ella Craig (born 1992).
Craig made his film debut in The Power of One (1992). His film career continued on television, notably the BBC2 serial Our Friends in the North (1996). He shot to international fame after playing supporting roles in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Road to Perdition (2002). He was nominated for his performances in the leading role in Layer Cake (2004), and received other awards and nominations. Craig was named as the sixth actor to portray James Bond, in October 2005, weeks after he finished his work in Munich (2005), where he co-starred with Eric Bana under the directorship of Steven Spielberg. Craig's reserved demeanor and his avoidance of the showbiz-party-red-carpet milieu makes him a cool 007. He is the first blond actor to play Bond, and also the first to be born after the start of the film series, and also the first to be born after the death of author Ian Fleming in 1964. Four of the past Bond actors: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan have indicated that Craig is a good choice as Bond.
He was appointed Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) by Queen Elizabeth II at the 2022 Queen's New Years Honours for his services to Film and Theatre.- Actress
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Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France, to British parents, Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers. She moved to Oxfordshire when she was five, where she attended the Dragon School. From the age of six, Emma knew that she wanted to be an actress and, for a number of years, she trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing and acting. By the age of ten, she had performed and taken the lead in various Stagecoach productions and school plays.
In 1999, casting began for Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001), the film adaptation of British author J.K. Rowling's bestselling novel. Casting agents found Emma through her Oxford theatre teacher. After eight consistent auditions, producer David Heyman told Emma and fellow applicants, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, that they had been cast for the roles of the three leads, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. The release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) was Emma's cinematic screen debut. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. Critics praised the film and the performances of the three leading young actors. The highly distributed British newspaper, 'The Daily Telegraph', called her performance "admirable". Later, Emma was nominated for five awards for her performance in the film, winning the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film.
After the release of the first film of the highly successful franchise, Emma became one of the most well-known actresses in the world. She continued to play the role of Hermione Granger for nearly ten years, in all of the following Harry Potter films: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). Emma acquired two Critics' Choice Award nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for her work in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. The completion of the seventh and eight movies saw Emma receive nominations in 2011 for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award, and for Best Actress at the Jameson Empire Awards. The Harry Potter franchise won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in February 2011.
2011 saw Emma in Simon Curtis's My Week with Marilyn (2011), alongside a stellar cast of Oscar nominees including Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier, in addition to Eddie Redmayne, Dame Judi Dench, Dougray Scott, Zoe Wanamaker, Toby Jones and Dominic Cooper. Chronicling a week in Marilyn Monroe's life, the film featured Emma in the supporting role of Lucy, a costume assistant to Colin Clark (Redmayne). The film was released by The Weinstein Company and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. In 2012 Emma was seen in Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), starring opposite Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller. This independent drama centered around Charlie (Lerman), an introverted freshman who is taken under the wings of two seniors (Watson and Miller) who welcome him to the real world. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and received rave reviews. The film won the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie and Emma also picked up the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie Actress. Emma was awarded a second time for this role with the Best Supporting Actress Award at the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards where the film also won the Best Ensemble Performance Award.
In summer 2013, Emma starred in Sofia Coppola's American satirical black comedy crime film, The Bling Ring (2013), opposite Katie Chang and Israel Broussard. The film took inspiration from real events and followed a group of teenagers who, obsessed with fashion and fame, burgled the homes of celebrities in Los Angeles. The film opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Emma also appeared in a cameo role as herself in Seth Rogen's apocalypse comedy This Is The End (2013). The film tells the story about what happens to some of Hollywood's best loved celebrities when the apocalypse strikes during a party at James Franco's house.
In 2014, Emma was seen in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), opposite Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins. The film told the epic, biblical tale of Noah and the ark. Emma plays the role of Ila, a young woman who develops a close relationship with Noah's son, Shem (Booth). Noah made an outstanding $300m since its release in March. In 2015, Emma starred in Regression (2015), written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar and Occultum Luciferus. Also headlined by Oscar-nominated Ethan Hawke, and set in Minnesota in 1990, Regression tells the story of Detective Bruce Kenner (Hawke), who investigates the case of young Angela, played by Emma, who accuses her father of sexual abuse.
In 2012, Emma was honored with the Calvin Klein Emerging Star Award at the ELLE Women in Hollywood Awards. In 2013, Emma was awarded the Trailblazer Award at the MTV Movie Awards in April and was honored with the GQ Woman of the Year Award at the GQ Awards in September. Further to her acting career, Emma is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Emma graduated from Brown University in May 2014.
In 2017, Emma starred in the live-action Disney fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017), one of the biggest movies of all time in the U.S., and the dramatic thriller The Circle (2017).- Actor
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Jack Henry Quaid is an American actor. He made his acting debut with a minor role in the dystopian film The Hunger Games (2012) before his breakout role as vigilante Hughie Campbell in the Amazon Prime Video superhero series The Boys (2019). Among other roles, he was part of the main cast of HBO's Vinyl (2016) and had numerous voice acting roles such as Brad Boimler in Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020). He also played Richie Kirsch in the slasher film Scream (2022).- Actress
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This attractive, happy go lucky blonde actress, educated at the University of Kansas and a former ballet soloist, first broke into both TV and cinema screens in the mid 1970s and through her appearances in several well remembered horror and sci-fi films, and Dee quickly gained a cult following among the fantasy film fans. Poor Dee always seemed to be on the wrong side of some malevolent person or evil creature....she was pursued by a clan of cannibal killers in The Hills Have Eyes (1977), terrorized by a pack of werewolves in the superb The Howling (1981), got a break from the horror, as a sympathetic mom in the mega sci-fi hit E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and nearly ends up lunch for a rabid St. Bernard in the heart stopping Cujo (1983).
In the early 1980s, Wallace-Stone actually shared the screen several times with her then husband Christopher Stone before his unfortunate, early demise from a heart attack in October, 1995.
However, typecasting Dee Wallace-Stone as a horror heroine does not do her justice, as unlike some other scream queens whose careers quickly faded, Dee has gone on to have a very busy and varied acting career, appearing in over 90 feature films to date! Her All-American looks and easy going demeanor has seen Dee often cast as a typical suburban mother, a sympathetic friend, or a trusted ally. Fans warm to her endearing smile and natural warmth, and Dee continues to find herself in constant demand in front of the camera, plus she has her own much visited website.- Actor
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William James Pullman was born in Hornell, New York, one of seven children of Johanna (Blaas), a nurse, and James Pullman, a doctor. He is of Dutch (mother) and English, Northern Irish, and Scottish (father) descent. After high school, Bill went into a building construction program at SUNY Delhi in New York. He transferred to State University of New York College at Oneonta where he received his BA in Theater. He received both his MFA in Theater/Directing and an honorary PHD from University of Massachusetts at Amherst. While teaching Directing at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, one of Bill's students was the soon-to-be film director John Dahl, who later cast Mr. Pullman in "The Last Seduction".
Moving to New York City, he worked with Kathy Bates in the acclaimed stage production of "Curse of the Starving Class". However, it was his first work in three strikingly diverse films that brought him to the attention of his audience: "Ruthless People" with Danny DeVito and Bette Milder, the Mel Brooks hit "Spaceballs" and the Oscar-nominated (and winner for Best Supporting Actress Geena Davis) "The Accidental Tourist". Still attracted to the art and study of building construction, Bill has designed and/or restored three "barns": In Montana, he converted a 1933 barn at his ranch into his family home. In Los Angeles, he built a Truss barn in the style of LA's 1910 fruit storage barns. In western New York State, he restored a '3-bay' barn that sometimes serves as a community center near his hometown of Hornell, New York. Focused more on neighborhoods than show business-based charities and societies, Pullman has defined himself by his work with his local communities. He works to bridge communities of Los Angeles through his board work with Cornerstone Theater. Pullman continues to work with his neighbors who formed "Concerned Citizens Montana" to secure a place at the table regarding the national need for a smart grid for energy transmission. He also works with the local university (Alfred University, New York) as well as supports local health services ("The Pullman Women's Health and Birthing Center" at St James Hospital, Hornell, NY).
Pullman is also an MS Society Ambassador. Based in Los Angeles, New York City and Western Montana, Pullman is married to dancer Tamara Hurwitz Pullman, and they have three children, daughter singer/songwriter Maesa Rae and multi-talented sons Jack and Lewis Pullman, who is now also an actor.- Actor
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While he's never been a typical leading man, Crispin Glover has distinguished himself as one of the most intriguing personalities in the movie business. His unusual characters and personal projects have inspired a cult-like following that has dubbed him both madman and genius.
The son of actress and dancer Betty Glover and actor Bruce Glover, Crispin Hellion Glover was born in New York City and raised in Southern California. He was named after the Saint Crispin's Day speech in Shakespeare's Henry V. His middle name, Hellion, was also used by his father. Crispin picked up his father's trade while still in elementary school--by age thirteen, he already had an agent scouting out parts. A lead in a stage production of "The Sound of Music" (starring Florence Henderson) led to guest spots on the TV shows Happy Days (1974), Hill Street Blues (1981) and Family Ties (1982), which in turn led to roles in made-for-TV movies. The adolescent Glover felt "confined" by TV work, however, so he opted to stick to movie parts. He made his big-screen debut in the teen hi-jinx movie in My Tutor (1983), then followed up with a supporting role in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984).
Glover's most defining Hollywood moment happened the next year, when he appeared as George McFly (Michael J. Fox's father) in the instant classic Back to the Future (1985). The underdog character struck a chord with moviegoers. Oddly enough, the actor delivered one of his favorite performances around the same time--playing a small-town kid obsessed with Olivia Newton-John in the indie The Orkly Kid (1985)--but the smaller film was completely overshadowed by his commercial success. Glover did, however, receive critical praise for his next indie role, a starring turn as a high-strung murder witness in River's Edge (1986). Glover and the producers did not come to a financial agreement for him to reprise the role of George McFly in Back to the Future Part II (1989). The producers brought the character back to life by splicing together archived footage and new scenes (using an actor in prosthetic makeup). Glover, who hadn't given permission for his likeness to be used, sued the film's producer, Steven Spielberg, and won. The case prompted the Screen Actors Guild to devise new regulations about the use of actors' images.
In 1990 Glover teamed up with fellow eccentric David Lynch to play the maniacal Cousin Dell in Wild at Heart (1990). He filled the next decade with similarly quirky, peripheral roles, including a turn as Andy Warhol in The Doors (1991) and a cameo as a train fireman in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1995). His small but memorable appearances in films like What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993) and The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) often outshone the main action.
When he's not stealing scenes from Hollywood hotshots, Glover pours his considerable energy into other creative endeavors. He wrote his first book, "Billow Rock", before age 18, and since then he's gone on to create a library of peculiar titles (several of which have been published through his family's Volcanic Eruptions press). Among his most famous volumes are "Rat Catching" and "Oak-Mot", both Victorian-era stories updated with macabre illustrations and cut-up text. In 1989 he released an album of spoken word readings and cover tunes (including a rendition of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'") entitled "The Big Problem [does not equal] the Solution. The Solution = Let it be."
In 1995 Glover began shooting his directorial debut, What Is It? (2005), a surreal film populated entirely by actors with Down's Syndrome. He tours with the film and its sequel It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine. (2007) and his show, "Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Slide Show," which is a one hour dramatic narration of eight different profusely illustrated books. The artist in Glover has been said to be inspired by "the aesthetic of discomfort," a theme which seems to have been carried over into an artistic public performance on David Letterman's NBC show in 1987, Glover emerged wearing a wig and platform shoes, then delivered a swift kick toward Letterman's head that prompted the producers to cut to a commercial. Late 2000 saw him hitting the multiplex with roles in Nurse Betty (2000) and Charlie's Angels (2000), and the titular Willard (2003). He re-teamed with Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis as Grendel in Beowulf (2007) and has worked with Johnny Depp for the third time in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010). Other Glover projects loom on the not-too-distant horizon.- Actress
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Emma was born Emma Gwynedd Mary Chambers born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire in 1964 to John, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, and Noelle (nee Strange). The family moved around and, while attending St Swithun's school, Winchester, Chambers acted in Winchester college productions - saying she "enjoyed showing off" - and played lacrosse for Hampshire. Her parents eventually split up and she trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where the former EastEnders actor Ross Kemp was one of her contemporaries.
Her best remembered film role, in Curtis's 1999 romcom Notting Hill, was the eccentric Honey Thacker, star-struck and overawed at meeting the Hollywood actor (played by Julia Roberts) who has fallen for her bookshop-owner brother (Hugh Grant). Honey explains her own difficulties in finding a partner: "I don't have hair - I've got feathers - and I've got funny, goggly eyes, and I'm attracted to cruel men and no one will ever marry me because my boosies have actually started shrinking." She eventually becomes engaged to her brother's slovenly housemate (Rhys Ifans).
Her sister, Sarah Doukas, and brother, Simon, went on to run Storm Model Management, which discovered Kate Moss at the age of 14.
Chambers made her television debut as Margaret, one of the young Brangwen children, in a 1988 BBC adaptation of the DH Lawrence novel The Rainbow. In between one-off roles on TV, she played Charity Pecksniff in a six-part serialisation of Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, which began in the same week as The Vicar of Dibley (1994).
The popular BBC sitcom, written by Richard Curtis with Paul Mayhew-Archer, ran for two series, from 1994 to 1998, finishing with Alice's marriage to Hugo Horton (played by James Fleet), her second cousin once removed. Geraldine described both as having the intellectual capacity of a cactus and the wedding was notable for the two bridal attendants dressed as Teletubbies. Chambers won the 1998 British Comedy Award for best actress and returned as Alice in various Vicar of Dibley specials between 1999 and 2007.
She had significant supporting roles in the sitcom How Do You Want Me? (1998-99) as Helen Yardley, sister of the newlywed Lisa (Charlotte Coleman) returning from London to be near her family in the countryside, and Take a Girl Like You (2000), Andrew Davies's adaptation of Kingsley Amis's comic novel, as Martha Thompson, the bored housewife hostile to her beautiful, northern lodger.
Chambers' West End theatre debut came with the part of Geain, estranged daughter of Ian McKellen's composer Jerome, in Alan Ayckbourn's comedy Henceforward... (Vaudeville theatre, 1988-89) after appearing in the original 1987 production at the Stephen Joseph theatre, Scarborough. In his casting notes for Geain, Ayckbourn stipulated: "Not a child, please. Just a very small actress." Chambers lodged with McKellen for a while and said she regarded him as a father figure.
When, in 1989, she starred in the Scarborough premiere of Ayckbourn's Invisible Friends as another teenage daughter, Lucy Baines, who has an imaginary companion to relieve the awfulness of living with her family, the critic Harry Eyres praised Chambers' skill in "conveying Lucy's kaleidoscopic emotional states with startling immediacy" and negotiating the tricky device of also acting as the play's narrator. She reprised the role in London at the Cottesloe during two stints with the National Theatre company (1991-92) that included appearances in productions such as Franz Kafka's The Trial and Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III.
She gave a hilarious performance as Orgon's daughter Mariane in Tartuffe (Almeida theatre, 1996) and starred as Sheila in Michael Frayn's Benefactors (Albery theatre, 2002), a performance described by one critic as "a touching study in parasitic helplessness".
Chambers who suffered from asthma, attacks of which were often brought on by an acute allergy to animals, withdrew largely but not entirely from public life after the final episode of The Vicar of Dibley (1994) in 2007, which was also to remain her final television role. On the evening of 21st February 2018 Chambers suffered a heart attack and died at her home in Lymington, Hampshire, England at the age of just 53. Her death was announced three days later by her agent John Grant.
Chambers was survived by her husband, the actor Ian Dunn, whom she married in 1991, and by her siblings.- Actor
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Curtis Stone began cooking at The Savoy Hotel, in his hometown of Melbourne Australia, at the age of 18. After completing his qualifications as a Chef, he took on his next challenge and set off to Europe seeing what Italy, France and Spain had to offer before finally arriving in London. In London, he started cooking alongside Marco Pierre White, who was the youngest man in the world to be awarded 3 Michelin stars. Curtis started the same afternoon at Marco's restaurant, The Grill Room, Café Royal.
Curtis then went on to work at the Mirabelle as Sous Chef and assisted in creating the "Mirabelle Cookbook". He worked there for an additional year and, during his time there, the restaurant was awarded a Michelin Star. He eventually became head chef at Marco's Quo Vadis, receiving critical acclaim for his work.
Curtis was included in a book about London's finest chefs titled "London on a Plate". The book led to Curtis getting an agent and a number of opportunities within the media. The acknowledgment helped the restaurant, as well, increasing the length of the waiting list.
Curtis has been based in Los Angeles, California hosting Take Home Chef (2005) for the Discovery Networks' "TLC" (The Learning Channel). Previously, Curtis filmed his first major TV series in Australia in 2003 called "Surfing the Menu", he went on to film three series, altogether. In 2004, Curtis hosted a major Channel 7 restaurant reality series in Australia titled, "My Restaurant Rules". He's also hosted a number of shows including "Dinner in a Box", "Good Food Live" and "Saturday Kitchen".
Curtis has appeared twice on NBC's The Today (1952) Show. He has also recently appeared on Martha Stewart's show, Martha Stewart Living (1996) (where he announced he was single), preparing two of his signature dishes. He also appeared on Stacy London's talk show Fashionably Late with Stacy London (2007), as well as The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003), the Fox Morning Show and Entertainment Tonight (1981).- Actor
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Kerwin grew up in the Chicago suburb of Flossmoor, Illinois. After graduating from USC's Film School in 1972, he moved to New York City to pursue acting on the stage. After several off-off Broadway productions, he was cast for a brief stint on "The Young and the Restless", in Los Angeles. He ended up staying in LA for the next 15 years, working steadily in films, TV and on stage.
He worked regularly in TV, from standard network fare to recurring roles in Roseanne (1988), The West Wing (1999), and HBO's The Knick (2014). He appeared in numerous TV movies and miniseries and starred in Showtime's critically acclaimed series, Beggars and Choosers (1999).
In feature films Kerwin landed the role of the errant ex of Sally Field in Murphy's Romance (1985), and he played opposite Harvey Fierstein in the groundbreaking film, Torch Song Trilogy (1988) (a role he also played in the Tony Award winning play). He starred with Robin Williams in Jack (1996), Michelle Pfeiffer in Love Field (1992), and Sissy Spacek in Hard Promises (1991). He also appeared in 27 Dresses (2008) and played the father of Emma Stone in The Help (2016).
The focus of Kerwin's work has always been the stage. He has performed in regional theatres throughout the country, including South Coast Rep, San Diego's Old Globe, The Seattle Rep and The Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. He and his wife, Jeanne, a theatrical producer, moved to Manhattan's Upper West Side in 1993, where they raised their three children. While there, he worked extensively both on and off Broadway, culminating with his 19 month run in Tracy Lett's Tony and Pulizer Award winning play, August: Osage County.
Widowed in 2016, Kerwin resides in NYC.- Actress
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This stunning and resourceful actress has been primarily a film player thus far. Only recently has she been opening herself up more to doing television (the series Gemini Division (2008), which she executive-produced), and animated voice-overs. Dawson's powerhouse talent stands out the most in edgy, urban filming that dates back to 1995 when she was only sixteen.
A rags-to-riches article entitled "Rosario Dawson: From Tenement to Tinseltown" probably says it all. Rosario was born on May 9, 1979 in New York City. Her mother, Isabel Celeste, of Puerto Rican and Afro-Cuban descent, is a singer, and her stepfather, who raised her, Greg Dawson, of Irish descent, is a construction laborer. Her parents, who married when both were teenagers, eventually divorced. Rosario and her younger brother, Clay Dawson, had it hard while growing up, and were cared for by family members, most of whom were poverty-stricken, and some of whom were HIV-positive.
Her career actually started as a child when she made a minor showing on the children's show, Sesame Street (1969). As the story goes, she was "discovered" as an adolescent on her front porch step by two photographers. One of them, Harmony Korine, was an aspiring screenwriter who thought the inexperienced sixteen-year-old was ideal for the controversial cult film Kids (1995), in which she would portray a sexually active adolescent. It took time for Rosario's film career to kick in after that, but by the late 1990s, she had nabbed several independent films. Since then, she has moved into main-stream hits (and misses) and has surprised viewers with her earthy, provocative, uninhibited approach to her roles.
Reflecting New York's tougher, tawdrier side as assorted streetwalkers, homeless mothers, drug addicts, etc., her film highlights have included Light It Up (1999), Edward Burns' Sidewalks of New York (2001), Spike Lee's 25th Hour (2002) and Shattered Glass (2003). For Oliver Stone, she portrayed the duped bride of Colin Farrell's famed B.C. Macedonian warrior, Alexander (2004) (as in "...the Great"), which featured a notoriously violent-tinged nude/sex scene.
Expanding her horizons beyond film, she has always expressed interest in singing. She hooked up with Prince for the re-release of his 1980s hit "1999" and appeared in The Chemical Brothers' video for the song "Out of Control" from the album "Surrender". She is also featured on the Outkast track, "She Lives in My Lap". On stage, she co-starred as Julia in a revival of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" at the Public Theater's "Shakespeare in the Park" and appeared in "The Vagina Monologues".
She lucked into and got to show off her singing chops in the film adaptation of the hit New York musical Rent (2005), when Daphne Rubin-Vega, the original Mimi, became pregnant and was unable to reprise her exotic dancer role. Rosario also appeared as a prostitute in the adaptation of the graphic novel Sin City (2005). Of late, she has turned to producing. One of those, Descent (2007), had her playing a college coed who is brutally attacked and raped by a fellow student. Her more popular ventures have thus far included the role of Valerie Brown in the live-action version of the comic strip Josie and the Pussycats (2001), the Will Smith starrer Men in Black II (2002), Eagle Eye (2008) with Shia LaBeouf and Seven Pounds (2008), again with Smith, in which she offered one of her more tender-hearted performances as a woman with a potentially fatal heart condition.
More recent millennium films opposite some of Hollywood's top leading movie men include the tense actioneer Unstoppable (2010) with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine; the comedy/fantasy Zookeeper (2011) opposite Dalekmania (1995); romantic dramedy 10 Years (2011) with Channing Tatum; crime drama Fire with Fire (2012) with Bruce Willis; romantic comedy Top Five (2014) with Chris Rock; and action adventure Zombieland: Double Tap (2019) with Woody Harrelson. She has also top-lined independent films with her own feisty characters such as the thriller Unforgettable (2017) and the title role in the dramedy Krystal (2017).
Focusing also on TV projects, Rosario has graced such action series/mini-series as Daredevil (2015), Iron Fist (2017) and The Defenders (2017), as well as the comedy Jane the Virgin (2014) and animated cartoon series The Last Kids on Earth (2019).
Off-camera, the still-single Dawson is highly active in political, social and environmental causes and has been involved with such organizations/charities/campaigns as the Lower East Side Girls Club, Global Cool, the O.N.E. Campaign, Oxfam, Amnesty International, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Control Arms, International Rescue Committee, Voto Latino (which she founded), Conservation International, Doctors Without Borders, National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy and Save the Children. In October 2008, she lent her voice to the RESPECT! Campaign, a movement aimed at preventing domestic violence.- Producer
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Kevin Patrick Smith was born in Red Bank but grew up in Highlands, New Jersey, the son of Grace (Schultz) and Donald E. Smith, a postal worker. He is very proud of his native state; this fact can be seen in all of his movies. Kevin is of mostly German, with some Irish and English, ancestry.
His first movie, Clerks (1994), was filmed in the convenience store in which Smith worked. He was only allowed to shoot at night after the store closed. This movie won the highest award at the Sundance film festival and was brought to theaters by Miramax. The movie went over so well that Smith was able to make another movie, Mallrats (1995). This movie, as Kevin has said, was meant to be a "smart Porkys". Although it didn't do well at all in the box office, it has done more than well on video store shelves and is usually the favorite among many Smith fans.
During filming for the movie, Smith met his new close friends and stars of his next movie, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, and his new girlfriend, Joey Lauren Adams. Smith has said that his relationship with Adams has been much of an inspiration for his next movie, Chasing Amy (1997), Smith's comedy drama which won two independent Spirit awards: Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Role (for Jason Lee). Around the time that Chasing Amy (1997) was wrapping, Smith broke up with Adams and, then when the Spirit awards were approaching, he met his soon-to-be wife, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith. After Chasing Amy (1997), Smith started on Dogma (1999), a controversial film about Christianity. Around this time, Smith's wife gave birth to their first baby girl, Harley Quinn Smith. Harley Quinn and Jennifer both have roles in Smith's next film,Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001). In this road trip comedy, the cult heroes, Jay and Silent Bob, go on an adventure to stop the production of a movie being made about them, find true love, and save an orangutan.
In 2004, he wrote and directed Jersey Girl (2004), starring Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler. Although there were some disappointing reviews and the movie was a disappointment at the box office, Smith says it did alright going up against the "Bennifer Massacre" known as Gigli (2003).
In 2005, Smith wrote the screenplay for Clerks II (2006), which he planned to start shooting in January of 2005. But then he got a call from Susannah Grant, who wanted Smith to audition for her new film. Smith went into the audition and, five minutes after finishing, he got a call saying he got the part. Filming began in January 2005 so Smith had to delay the filming of Clerks II (2006). After Catch and Release (2006) finished filming, Smith shot "Clerks II" in September 2005. After cutting "Clerks II", they submitted it to the Cannes film festival. It got accepted and, at Cannes, it got an 8 minute standing ovation.
In 2006, Smith also got offered a part in the fourth "Die Hard" film, Live Free or Die Hard (2007). Smith got to film a scene with one of his idols, Bruce Willis, the scene was supposed to take one day of filming, it ended up taking a week. In 2007, Smith was also hired to direct the pilot for the show Reaper (2007), which garnered favorable reviews.
In 2007 and 2008, Smith wrote two scripts: a comedy, Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), and a horror film called Red State (2011). Harvey Weinstein green-lighted "Zack and Miri", based just off the title, although they passed on "Red State", Smith plans to get "Red State" independently funded. Smith filmed "Zack and Miri" with comedy starSeth Rogen. The film did not meet expectations at the box office but got good reviews. It is Smith's highest grossing movie, although he says he was crushed by the disappointing box office of the film.
Smith was offered the chance to direct a film which was written by Robb Cullen and Mark Cullen called Cop Out (2010). Smith accepted, it would be two firsts; the first feature Smith has directed but not written and the first feature of Smith's that Scott Mosier has not produced (Mosier is trying to find a film to direct). Smith hired Bruce Willis for the film.- Actor
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New Jersey born and bred actor, who burst onto cinema screens in 1994, playing the grass smoking, fast talking, foul mouthed and over sexed,...but very likable "Jay" in Kevin Smith's hilarious low budget hit Clerks (1994). The off beat & philosophical drug dealing characters of "Jay and Silent Bob" (Mewes and Smith) cropped up again in four more films directed by the talented Smith.....the tepidly received Mallrats (1995), was followed by more street wisdom in the scintillating romantic comedy Chasing Amy (1997), they tackled theological issues in the quirky religious comedy Dogma (1999) and then took on Hollywood, in the road trip epic Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001). There was also a short-lived animated series Clerks (2000). Their characters also made a cameo appearance in Scream 3 (2000).
Mewes has since kicked on to appearing in other non-Smith projects including Hot Rush (2002), R.S.V.P. (2002), High Times Potluck (2002), Pauly Shore Is Dead (2003), My Big Fat Independent Movie (2005) and Feast (2005). His last Kevin Smith's films are Clerks II (2006) and Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008). Mewes has appeared in every film directed by Smith except Jersey Girl (2004), Cop Out (2010), and Red State (2011).- Actress
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Malin was born in Stockholm, Sweden and raised in Toronto, Canada. Her mother, Pia (Sundström), is a model and aerobics instructor, and her father, Magnus Åkerman, is an insurance broker. They moved to Toronto when she was age 2. At age 5, she began appearing in TV commercials. Her parents divorced when she was 6 and her father returned to Sweden.
At age 17, she won the Canadian title of Ford Supermodel. This enabled her to spend 3 years as a catwalk model in Europe. She decided to become a child psychologist and enrolled in York University but she was offered a guest role in Earth: Final Conflict (1997) so she turned her attention back to acting. She moved to Los Angeles in 2001 and won roles in both TV and film. Her breakthrough role came when she was cast as Silk Spectre II in Watchmen (2009).- Madeline Wise was born on 1 March 1988. She is an actress, known for So Help Me Todd (2022), Crashing (2017) and Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000).
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Jessica Biel, has become one of Hollywood's most sought-out actresses. She was born in Ely, Minnesota, to Kimberly (Conroe) and Jonathan Edward Biel, who is a business consultant and GM worker. Biel was raised in Boulder, Colorado. She is of Hungarian Jewish, Danish, English, and German descent.
As a child, Biel initially pursued a career as a vocalist, performing in musical theater. Beginning at age nine, she starred in such productions as "Annie," "The Sound of Music," and "Beauty and the Beast." Biel soon turned to modeling and commercial work by competing in The International Modeling and Talent Association's Annual Conference in 1994.
Her Film debut was in the Kid's Rock Opera It's a Digital World (1994) where she demonstrated her acting and singing abilities. Her television series acting debut, playing Mary Camden on the WB's #1-rated show, 7th Heaven (1996), helped her emerge as a breakout star. She terrified moviegoers with her portrayal of Erin, "Leatherface's" greatest nemesis to date, in New Line Cinema's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), a remake of the original. Having finished filming, Blade: Trinity (2004) in Vancouver with Wesley Snipes, Ryan Reynolds, and Kris Kristofferson, she the portrayed a jet-fighter pilot in Stealth (2005), starring Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx, and Sam Shepherd, for director Rob Cohen. Biel's film career began at age 14 when she played alongside Peter Fonda in his Golden Globe-winning performance in Ulee's Gold (1997). Her other film credits include I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998), Summer Catch (2001), Roger Avary's The Rules of Attraction (2002), and Cellular (2004), which stars Chris Evans, Kim Basinger, and William H. Macy.
In her spare time, Biel is involved with charities such as Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and PETA. Her hobbies include ballet, soccer, running, yoga and hiking with her dog "East." She resides in Los Angeles.
In 2012, she married actor and singer Justin Timberlake. The two have a son.- Actor
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Rahzel Manely Brown is an American rapper from New York City. Rahzel was featured on the album True Love by Toots and the Maytals, which won the Grammy Award in 2004 for Best Reggae Album, and showcased many notable musicians including Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Trey Anastasio, Gwen Stefani / No Doubt, Ben Harper, Bonnie Raitt, Manu Chao, The Roots, Ryan Adams, Keith Richards, Toots Hibbert, Paul Douglas, Jackie Jackson, Ken Boothe, and The Skatalites.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Tim Matheson is an American actor, director and producer perhaps best known for his portrayal of the smooth talking 'Eric "Otter" Stratton' in the 1978 comedy, National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), but has had a variety of other well-known roles both before and since, including critical accolades for his playing "Vice President John Hoynes" on the television series, The West Wing (1999), which garnered him two Primetime Emmy award nominations for Best Guest Star in a Drama Series.
From 2011 to 2015, Matheson starred as 'Dr. Brick Breeland' in The CW series, Hart of Dixie (2011), opposite Rachel Bilson. He has and continues to direct several episodes each season throughout the series. Not limited to "Hart of Dixie", Matheson has made a career of directing an array of episodic projects on some of television's most prominent shows, including "The Last Ship," "Burn Notice," "Criminal Minds," "Without a Trace," "Cold Case," "Numbers," "Drop Dead Diva," "Suits," "Eureka" and "White Collar," as well as pilots for Fox's "The Good Guys" and the USA Network successful original series "Covert Affairs."
Beginning his career at the age of 13, Matheson appeared in Robert Young's CBS nostalgia comedy series, Window on Main Street (1961), during the 1961-1962 television season. In 1964, he provided the voice of the lead character in the cartoon program Jonny Quest (1964), as well as the voice of "Jace" in the original animated series, Space Ghost (1966). Additionally, he played the role of the oldest son, "Mike Beardsley", in the film Yours, Mine and Ours (1968), which starred Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.
In 1969, Matheson joined the cast of NBC's western series, The Virginian (1962), in its eighth season, as "Jim Horn". During the final season of the television western Bonanza (1959) in 1972-1973, Matheson played "Griff King", a parolee who tries to reform his life as a worker at the Ponderosa Ranch under Ben Cartwright's watch. Following that, he portrayed young motorcycle cop "Phil Sweet", in the 1973 film, Magnum Force (1973).
In the fall of 1976, Matheson was seen opposite Kurt Russell in the NBC series, The Quest (1976), the story of two young men in the American West seeking the whereabouts of their sister, a captive of the Cheyenne. In 1978, he co-starred in the acclaimed National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), opposite John Belushi; the following year, he appeared alongside Belushi again in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979). Matheson and Catherine Hicks played "Rick Tucker" and "Amanda Tucker", who operate a detective agency in Laurel Canyon in CBS' Tucker's Witch (1982), which aired during the 1982-1983 season. He then appeared in the 1983 To Be or Not to Be (1983), starring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft and went on to star in the 1984 comedy, Up the Creek (1984) and 1985's Fletch (1985).
Matheson, along with business partner 'Dan Grodnik', bought National Lampoon in 1989, when the magazine was facing financial decline. They took the stock from two dollars to over six dollars, and sold it in 1991. In 1996, Matheson took on the role of a con man who claims to be Carol Brady's thought-to-be-dead husband in A Very Brady Sequel (1996). Matheson was seen opposite Ryan Reynolds in the feature comedy National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002) in 2002, playing the father of the title character, who was inspired by his own character in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), as a nod to the original film.
Tim was born Timothy Lewis Matthieson in Glendale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, the son of Sally and Clifford Matthieson, a training pilot. He has three wonderful children with former wife Megan Murphy Matheson.- Actor
- Producer
2022. New Yorker, Al Sapienza best known for his award-winning portrayal of Mikey Palmice on "The Sopranos" began his career four months after graduating NYU when he landed a role in the first Broadway Juke Box Musical "Beatlemania" at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1977, playing Ringo Starr.
Sapienza took up the drums in 2nd grade, the day after he saw the Beatles perform on the "Ed Sullivan Show". He formed his first rock band in the 5th grade. Then when he was 12, he decided to become an actor while being mesmerized by the film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".
Saving up his money from "Beatlemania" Al moved out to Los Angeles, where he studied with the legendary acting teacher Milton Katselas for 14 years. (It was in that acting class where he met his future Singing partner Deborah Rennard of "Dallas" Fame.) During that time Al landed roles in "Pretty Woman", "Under Siege 2", "Free Willy 2", "Knotts Landing", "Falcon Crest," "Cagney & Lacey", "Melrose Place", among many others. He was one of the founding members of the "Alliance Repertory Company" in Burbank where he starred in and produced many award winning West Coast Premiers.
In 1998, "The 'Sopranos" propelled Sapienza into many Recurring and Series Regular roles on TV such as "Brotherhood" (5 years as Mayor Frank Panzerella) CBS's "Person Of Interest" ( 5 years as Teragi Hanson's partner Det. Raymond Terney), and season 1 of "Prison Break'" ( as Philly Falzone), along with numerous Guest Starring Roles in "24", "NCIS", "The OC", "NYPD" and many more. Most Recently Al Starred on 2 seasons of "Suits" playing Tommy Bratton. Some film credits include "The Big Short", "Godzilla", "The Art of Racing in the Rain", "Taken 3", "Margin Call", "Shock and Awe" and "Million Dollar Arm" .
Most recently Al was on 2 seasons of "Suits" playing Tommy Bratton, Season 1 of "Jack Ryan" (as Secretary of Defense Marcus Trent) and guest starred in "Queen Of The South", "Dopesick", and "The Good Fight". He just wrapped on a Sony Pictures Bio pic "Heart Of A Lion" the George Foreman Story in which AL plays legendary Sports announcer Gil Clancy. Al is currently filming Season 2 of "Reacher" for Amazon Prime Video.
Al Sapienza was born in New York City. Started studying music at the age of eight. Got hit with the acting bug when he was twelve. Five months after graduating NYU he landed a role in the Broadway musical "Beatlemania". Stayed in that show for five years and headed out to Los Angeles. He studied with Milton Katselas until 1998 when he landed the role of Mikey Palmice in "The Sopranos" which brought him back to NY. Being a bi-costal "local" actor from that point he just kept working. And now resides in Toronto , NY and LA. "I am the happiest when I am working and creating"