Blithe Spirit (2009) Opening Night Premiere
March 15,2009
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Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 into a prominent family of the upper middle class living in the Regent's Park neighborhood of London. Her father was socialist politician Edgar Isaac Lansbury (1887-1935), a member of both the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Labour Party. Edgar served as Honorary Treasurer of the East London Federation of Suffragettes (term 1915), and Mayor of Poplar (term 1924-1925). He was the second Communist mayor in British history, the first being Joe Vaughan (1878-1938). Lansbury's mother was Irish film actress Moyna Macgill (1895-1975), originally from Belfast. During the first five years of Angela's life, the Lansbury family lived in a flat located in Poplar. In 1930, they moved to a house located in the Mill Hill neighborhood of north London. They spend their weekends vacationing in a farm located in Berrick Salome, a village in South Oxfordshire.
In 1935, Edgar Lansbury died from stomach cancer. Angela reportedly retreated into "playing characters", as a coping mechanism to deal with the loss. The widowed Moyna Macgill soon became engaged to Leckie Forbes, a Scottish colonel. Moyna moved into his house in Hampstead.
From 1934 to 1939, Angela was a student at South Hampstead High School. During these years, she became interested in films.. She regularly visited the local cinema, and imagined herself in various roles. Angela learned how to play the piano, and received a musical education at the Ritman School of Dancing.
In 1940, Lansbury started her acting education at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art, located in Kensington, West London. She made her theatrical debut in the school's production of the play "Mary of Scotland" (1933) by Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959). The play depicted the life of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587, reigned 1542-1567), and Lansbury played one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting.
Also in 1940, Lansbury's paternal grandfather, George Lansbury, died from stomach cancer. When the Blitz started, Moyna Macgill had reasons to fear for the safety of her family and few remaining ties to England. Macgill moved to the United States to escape the Blitz, taking her three youngest children with her. Isolde was already a married adult, and was left behind in England.
Macgill secured financial sponsorship from American businessman Charles T. Smith. She and her children (including Angela) moved into Smith's house in Mahopac, New York, a hamlet in Putnam County. Lansbury was interested in continuing her studies, and secured a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing. From 1940 to 1942, Lansbury studied acting at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art, located in New York City. She appeared in performances organized by the school.
In 1942, Lansbury moved with her family to a flat located in Morton Street, Greenwich Village. She soon followed her mother in her theatrical tour of Canada. Lansbury secured her first paying job in Montreal, singing at the nightclub Samovar Club for a payment of 60 dollars per week. Lansbury was 16 years old at the time, but lied about her age and claimed to be 19 in order to be hired.
Lansbury returned to New York City in August, 1942, but Moyna Macgill soon moved herself and her family again. The family moved to Los Angeles, where Moyna was interested in resurrecting her film career. Their first home there was a bungalow in Laurel Canyon, a neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills.
Lansbury helped financially support her family by working for the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles. Her weekly wages were only 28 dollars, but she had a secure income while her mother was unemployed. Through her mother, Lansbury was introduced to screenwriter John Van Druten (1901-1957), who had recently completed his script of "Gaslight" (1944). He suggested that young Lansbury would be perfect for the role of Nancy Oliver, the film's conniving cockney maid. This helped secure Lansbury's first film role at the age of 17, and a seven-year contract with the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She earned 500 dollars per week, and chose to continue using her own name instead of a stage name.
In 1945, Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell (1910-1960), who was 15 years older than she. The troubled marriage ended in a divorce in 1946. The former spouses remained friends until Cromwell's death.
In 1946, Lansbury started a romantic relationship with aspiring actor Peter Shaw (1918-2003), who was 7 years older than her. Shaw had recently ended his relationship with actress Joan Crawford (c. 1908-1977). The new couple started living together, while planning marriage. They wanted to be married in the United Kingdom, but the Church of England refused to marry two divorcees. They were married in 1949, in a Church of Scotland ceremony at St. Columba's Church, located in Knightsbridge, London. After their return to the United States, they settled into Lansbury's home in Rustic Canyon, Malibu. In 1951, both Lansbury and Shaw became naturalized citizens of the United States, while retaining their British citizenship.
Meanwhile, Lansbury continued appearing in MGM films. She appeared in 11 MGM films between 1945 and 1952. MGM at times loaned Lansbury to other film studios. She appeared in United Artists' "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" (1947), and Paramount Pictures' "Samson and Delilah" (1949). In 1948, Lansbury made her debut in radio roles, followed by her television debut in 1950.
In 1952, Lansbury requested the termination of her contract with MGM, instead of its renewal. She felt unsatisfied with her film career as an MGM contract player. She then joined the East Coast touring productions of two former Broadway plays. By 1953, Lansbury had two children of her own and was also raising a stepson. She and her family moved into a larger house, located on San Vincente Boulevard in Santa Monica. In 1959, she and her family moved into a house in Malibu. The married couple were able to send their children to a local public school.
Meanwhile she continued her film career as a freelance actress, but continued to be cast in middle-aged roles. She regained her A-picture actress through well-received roles in the drama film "The Long, Hot Summer" (1958) and the comedy film "The Reluctant Debutante" (1958). She also appeared regularly in television roles, and became a regular on game show "Pantomime Quiz" (1947-1959).
In 1957, Lansbury made her Broadway debut in a performance of "Hotel Paradiso". The play was an adaptation of the 1894 "L'Hôtel du libre échange" ("Free Exchange Hotel"), written by Maurice Desvallières (1857-1926) and Georges Feydeau (1862-1921). Lansbury's role as "Marcel Cat" was critically well received. She continued appearing in Broadway over the next several years, most notably cast as the verbally abusive mother in "A Taste of Honey". She was cast as the mother of co-star Joan Plowright (1929-), who was only four years younger.
In the early 1960s, Lansbury was cast as an overbearing mother in "Blue Hawaii" (1961). The role of her son was played by Elvis Presley (1935-1977), who was only 10 years than her. The film was a box office hit, it finished as the 10th-top-grossing film of 1961 and 14th for 1962 on the "Variety" national box office survey. It gained Lansbury renewed fame, at a difficult point of her career.
Lansbury gained critical praise for a sympathetic role in the drama film "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1960), and the role of a manipulative mother in the drama film "All Fall Down" (1962). Based on her success in "All Fall Down", she was cast in a similar role in the Cold War-themed thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962). She was cast as Eleanor Iselin, the mother of her co-star Laurence Harvey (1928-1973), who was only 3 years younger than she. This turned out to be one of the most memorable roles in her career. She received critical acclaim and was nominated for a third time for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The award was instead won by Patty Duke (1946-2016).
Lansbury made a comeback in the starring role of Mame Dennis in the musical "Mame" (1966), by Jerome Lawrence (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994). The play was an adaptation of the novel "Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade" (1955) by Patrick Dennis (1921-1976), and focused on the life and ideas of eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis. The musical received critical and popular praise, and Lansbury won her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Lansbury gained significant fame from her success, becoming a "superstar".
Her newfound fame led to other high-profile appearances by Lansbury. She starred in a musical performance at the 1968 Academy Awards ceremony, and co-hosted the 1968 Tony Awards. The Hasty Pudding Club, a social club for Harvard students. elected her "Woman of the Year" in 1968.
Lansbury's next theatrical success was in 1969 "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1945) by Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944). The play concerns an eccentric Parisian woman's struggles with authority figures. Lansbury was cast in the starring role of 75-year-old Countess Aurelia, despite her actual age of 44. The show was well received and lasted for 132 performances. Lansbury won her second Tony Award for this role.
In 1970, Lansbury's Malibu home was destroyed in a brush fire. Lansbury and her husband decided to buy Knockmourne Glebe, an 1820s Irish farmhouse, located near the village of Conna in rural County Cork.
Her film career reached a new height. She was cast in the starring role of benevolent witch Eglantine Price in Disney's fantasy film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971). The film was a box-office hit; it was critically well received, and introduced Lansbury to a wider audience of children and families.
In 1972, Lansbury returned to the British stage, performing in London's West End with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1973, Lansbury appeared in the role of Rose in London performances of the musical "Gypsy" (1959) by Arthur Laurents. It was quite successful. In 1974, "Gypsy" went on tour in the United States. with the same cast. For her role, Lanbury won the Sarah Siddons Award and her third Tony Award. The musical had its second tour in 1975.
Tired from musicals. Lansbury next sought Shakespearean roles in the United Kingdom. From 1975 to 1976, she appeared as Queen Gertrude in the National Theatre Company's production of Hamlet. In November 1975, Lansbury's mother Moyna Macgill died at the age of 79. Lansbury arranged for her mother's remains to be cremated, and the ashes scattered near her own County Cork home.
In 1976, Lansbury returned to the American stage. In 1978, Lansbury temporarily replaced Constance Towers (1933-) in the starring role of Anna Leonowens (1831-1915) in The King and I. While Towers was on a break from the role, Lansbury appeared in 24 performances.
In 1978, Lansbury appeared in her first film role in seven years, as the novelist and murder victim Salome Otterbourne in the mystery film "Death on the Nile" (1978). The film was an adaptation of the 1937 novel by Agatha Christie (1890-1976); Otterbourne was loosely based on real-life novelist Elinor Glyn (1864-1943). The film was a modest box-office hit, and Lansbury befriended her co-star Bette Davis (1908-1989).
In 1979, Lansbury was cast in the role of meat pie seller Mrs. Lovett in the musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (1979), by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler (1912-1987). The musical was loosely based on the penny dreadful serial novel "The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance" (1846-1847), which first depicted fictional serial killer Sweeney Todd. Lansbury remained in the role for 14 months, and was then replaced by Dorothy Loudon (1925-2003). Lansbury won her fourth Tony Award for this role. She returned to the role for 10 months in 1980.
Lansbury's next prominent film role was that of Miss Froy in "The Lady Vanishes" (1979), a remake of the 1938 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). She was next cast in the role of amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple in the mystery film "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980), an adaptation of the novel "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" (1962) by Agatha Christie. The novel was loosely inspired by the life of Gene Tierney (1920-1991). The film was a modest commercial success. There were plans for at least two sequels, but they ended in development hell.
In 1982, Lansbury was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame, She appeared at the time in the new play "A Little Family Business" and a revival of "Mame", but both shows were commercial failures. In film, Lansbury voiced the witch Mommy Fortuna in the animated fantasy film "The Last Unicorn" (1982). The film was critically well received, but was not a box-office hit.
Lansbury played Ruth in the musical comedy "The Pirates of Penzance" (1983), a film adaptation of the 1879 comic opera by William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900). The film was a box office bomb, earning about 695,000 dollars.
Lansbury's next film role was that of Granny in the gothic fantasy film "The Company of Wolves" (1984), based on a 1979 short story by Angela Carter (1940-1992). Lansbury was cast as the grandmother of protagonist Rosaleen (played by Sarah Patterson), in a tale featuring werewolves and shape-shifting. The film was critically well received, but barely broke even at the box office.
At about that time, Lansbury appeared regularly in television films and mini-series. Her most prominent television role was that of Jessica Fletcher in the detective series "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996). Jessica was depicted as a successful mystery novelist from Maine who encounters and solves many murders. The character was considered an American counterpart to Miss Marple. The series followed the "whodunit" format and mostly avoided depictions of violence or gore.
The series was considered a television landmark for having an older female character as the protagonist. It was aimed primarily at middle-aged audiences, but also attracted both younger viewers and senior citizen viewers. Ratings remained high for most of its run. Lansbury rejected pressure from network executives to put her character in a relationship, as she believed that Fletcher should remain a strong single female.
In 1989, Lansbury co-founded the production company Corymore Productions, which started co-producing the television series with Universal Television. This allowed Lansbury to have more creative input on the series. She was appointed an executive producer. By the time the series ended in 1996, it tied with the original "Hawaii Five-O" (1968-1980) as the longest-running detective drama series in television history.
Her popularity from "Murder, She Wrote" made Lansbury a much-sought figure for advertisers. She appeared in advertisements and infomercials for Bufferin, MasterCard and the Beatrix Potter Company.
Lansbury's highest-profile film role in decades was voicing the character of singing teapot Mrs. Potts in Disney's animated fantasy film "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Lansbury performed the film's title song, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
During the late 1980s and 1990s, Lansbury lived most of the year in California. In 1991, she had Corymore House, a farmhouse at Ballywilliam, County Cork, built as her new family home. She spend Christmases and summers there.
Following the end of "Murder, She Wrote", Lansbury returned to a career as a theatrical actress. She temporarily retired from the stage in 2001, to take care of her husband Peter Shaw, whose health was failing. Shaw died in 2003, from congestive heart failure at the couple's Brentwood, California home. Their marriage had lasted for 54 years (1949-2003).
Lansbury felt at the time that she could not take on any more major acting roles, but that she could still make cameos. She moved back to New York City in 2006, buying a condominium in Manhattan. Her first prominent film role in years was that of Aunt Adelaide in the fantasy film "Nanny McPhee" (2005). She credits her performance in the film with pulling her out of depression, a state of mind which had lasted since her husband's death.
Lansbury returned to performing on the Broadway stage in 2007, after an absence of 23 years. In 2009, she won her fifth Tony Award. She shared the record for most Tony Award victories with Julie Harris (1925-2013). In the 2010s, she continued regularly appearing in theatrical performances. In 2014, she returned to the London stage, after an absence of nearly 40 years.
In 2015, Lansbury received her first Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress. At age 89, she was among the oldest first-time winners. Also in 2015, November 2015 was awarded the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.
In 2017, she was cast as Aunt March in the mini-series "Little Women". The mini-series was an adaptation of the 1868-1869 novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888). The series lasted for 3 episodes, and was critically well received.
In 2018, Lansbury gained her next film role in Disney's fantasy film "Mary Poppins Returns" (2018), a sequel to "Mary Poppins". Lansbury was cast in the role of the Balloon Lady, a kindly old woman who sells balloons at the park. The films was a commercial hit, earning about 350 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
In 2019, Lansbury performed at a one-night benefit staging of Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895). a farce satirizing Victorian morals. She was cast in the role of society lady Lady Bracknell, mother to Gwendolen Fairfax.
By 2020, Lansbury was 95 years old, one of the oldest-living actresses. She has never retired from acting, and remains a popular icon.- Actor
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- Writer
Stylish Rupert James Hector Everett was born on May 29, 1959, in Burnham Deepdale, Norfolk, to Sara (Maclean) and Anthony Michael Everett, a Major in the British Army, who later worked in business. Of royal stock, he is of primarily English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry with a dash of German and Dutch thrown in for good measure.
Everett grew up in privileged circumstances, but the wry, sometimes arrogant intellectual was a rebel from the very beginning. At the age of seven, he was placed into the care of Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College where he trained classically on the piano. He was expelled from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London for clashing with his teachers and instead apprenticed himself at the avant-garde Glasgow Citizen's Theatre in Scotland, performing in such productions as "Don Juan" and "Heartbreak House." He moved from stage to British TV in 1982 with sophisticated appearances on such series as "Strangers" "Play for Today" and "The Agatha Christie Hour" and the more visibly seen mini-series Princess Daisy (1983) and The Far Pavilions (1984).
In 1984, Everett filmed a leading gay role in the acclaimed collegiate-themed picture Another Country (1984), which he had performed earlier on stage in 1981. Earning a BAFTA nomination and shooting to international attention, Rupert became one of England's hottest crossover stars. Top patrician roles in quality films came his way such as Dance with a Stranger (1985) opposite Miranda Richardson and Duet for One (1986) starring Julie Andrews and Alan Bates. The rebel went international instead of Hollywood, however, with top-billing in the Aussie feature The Right Hand Man (1987) with Hugo Weaving; the Italian-made Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1987) and the French drama Tolérance (1989) opposite Ugo Tognazzi.
Again, however, the wickedly sharp and suave actor doused his own star fire by clashing with the press and even his own fans in the late 1980's. In 1989, Everett openly and proudly declared his homosexuality which put an initial damper on his status as a romantic leading man. Appearing sporadically in such featured roles as the Prince of Wales in the majestic drama The Madness of King George (1994) and Lord Rutledge in the family comedy Dunston Checks In (1996), Rupert's popularity was re-energized after playing Julia Roberts' gay confidante to droll effect in the box-office comedy hit My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), earning him both BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. He continued to impress thereafter, notably in such classical-styled pieces as Shakespeare in Love (1998) (as Christopher Marlowe), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) (as Oberon), and the Oscar Wilde plays An Ideal Husband (1999) (as Lord Goring, Golden Globe nominee) and The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) (as Algy). On the lighter, fun side, his predilection for mischief was demonstrated as the cartoonish villain Dr. Claw, the nemesis of Matthew Broderick's title character, in Inspector Gadget (1999).
Into the millennium, Rupert continued to be a vibrant presence on stage with a tour of "Private Lives" (in Italian) in 2008, a 2009 Broadway revival of "Blithe Spirit" (his New York debut) and as Henry Higgins in Shaw's "Pygmalion" in Munich the following year. He went on to play Oscar Wilde in "The Judas Kiss" in 2013 and was about to play George on Broadway in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" when the play closed before it officially opened due to the COVID pandemic in 2020. On TV, he played the effortlessly suave Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004), the Marquis de Feron in the British series The Musketeers (2014) and Carroll Quinn in a second British series Adult Material (2020).
On film, Everett enhanced the royal dramas To Kill a King (2003) and Stage Beauty (2004) as King Charles I and King Charles II, respectively. Known for his aloof handsomeness and often smug, piss-elegant characters, he engagingly portrayed a jet-setter in the contemporary film People (2004); provided the voice of the unprincely Prince Charming in the animated features Shrek 2 (2004) and Shrek the Third (2007); played a British defector opposite Sharon Stone in the romantic thriller A Different Loyalty (2004); a millionaire playboy involved in a hit-and-run in Separate Lies (2005); an eccentric tycoon in Hysteria (2011); King George VI (father of Queen Elizabeth) opposite Emily Watson's Queen Mum in the romantic dramedy A Royal Night Out (2015); a monsignor in If I Had a Heart (2013); and tortured gay playwright Oscar Wilde during his last days in The Happy Prince (2018), which he wrote and directed.
A novelist on the sly with Hello, Darling, Are You Working? (1989), Rupert has also published two volumes of memoirs: Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins (2006) and Vanished Years (2012), produced documentaries .- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Jayne Atkinson was born on 18 February 1959 in Bournemouth, Dorset, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Free Willy (1993), The Village (2004) and 24 (2001). She has been married to Michel Gill since 3 October 1998. They have one child. She was previously married to Joe Urla.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Christine Ebersole was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Marian Esther (Goodley) and Robert Amos Ebersole, a steel company president. She won the 2007 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her work in "Grey Gardens". Previously, she was awarded the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama League awarded her both a citation and the Outstanding Performance of the Year, and she was named to its dais for 2007. She also received a special citation from the New York Drama Critics' Circle and the Obie for her off-Broadway turn in "Grey Gardens".- Simon Jones was born on 27 July 1950 in Charlton Park, Wiltshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981), Brideshead Revisited (1981) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show Live (2016). He was previously married to Nancy Lewis.
- Actress
- Make-Up Department
Delightfully offbeat, redheaded comedic actress Deborah Rush, from theater, films and TV, was born on April 10, 1954, in Chatham, New Jersey and developed an early interest in making people laugh as a child. Following high school, she decided to pursue acting headfirst, apprenticing with the Play-House of the Ridiculous comedy troupe for starters. She headed for New York and made her Broadway debut in the Tony-winning musical "Dance with Me" (1975) which ran nearly a year. Later in the decade she appeared winningly in a number of New York Shakespeare productions for Joseph Papp including "The Misanthrope," "All's Well That Ends Well" and as Bianca to Meryl Streep's Katherine and Raul Julia's Petruchio in "The Taming of the Shrew." She also understudied Streep as Alice in Papp's "Alice in Concert" musical, based on the popular Lewis Carroll character.
Film and TV began coming Deborah's way in the late 1970s, making her movie debut in a bit part in Oliver's Story (1978), the wan remake of the romantic tearjerker Love Story (1970). By her second film, however, she was starting to grab notice even in the smallest of contributions with just a vacant look or manipulating her trademark scratchy voice to comic effect. Who can forget her hilarious scene as the cooey-voiced dental assistant with patient Dudley Moore and Blake Edwards in 10 (1979)? Elsewhere, her stage performances in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1982) (as Hermia), and in the musical Alice at the Palace (1982) were engagingly recaptured on TV. She remained strongly rooted to her first love, the theatre, over the years. Other plays that captured her special brand of eccentrics included "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You," "Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong," "Lips Together, Teeth Apart" and "The Sisters Rosenzweig." In 1983, Deborah returned to Broadway as nascent, hilariously myopic actress Brooke Ashton in the slapstick farce "Noises Off," capturing a Tony nomination as well as Drama Desk Award. She returned to Broadway a couple of years later to co-star with Rosemary Harris and Campbell Scott in Noël Coward's "Hay Fever" (1985).
Although top character stardom proved elusive, Deborah has remained a durable comic presence for five decades and has provided amusing secondary finesse for a host of notable directors throughout the 1980's, including Woody Allen (twice, with Zelig (1983) and The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)); John Schlesinger (with Honky Tonk Freeway (1981)); John G. Avildsen (with A Night in Heaven (1983)); and Frank Perry (with Compromising Positions (1985)); Bob Balaban (with (Parents (1989)); Sidney Lumet (with Family Business (1989)); and Susan Seidelman (with She-Devil (1989)). She maintains that lovable habit of grabbing attention wherever she works.
On television Deborah played the recurring role of the Mayor's wife on the comedy series Spin City (1996) and had a regular part on the short-lived but critically-acclaimed series Strangers with Candy (1999). A prequel of sorts was made later with the feature film version of Strangers with Candy (2005). Comedy took center stage in a number of 90's film credits: My Blue Heaven (1990) headed by Steve Martin; the "eccentric relatives" ensemble movie Passed Away (1992); the zany Christmas time crimer Reckless (1995); the madcap gay farce In & Out (1997) starring Kevin Kline; and the classic Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic heart-warmer You've Got Mail (1998).
Into the millennium, Deborah has exhibited wonderfully off-kilter parts in both comedy and drama, including The Good Girl (2002) with Jennifer Aniston; the second "American Pie" sequel American Wedding (2003); and the dramatic film Half Nelson (2006) as Ryan Gosling's wacky mom; Stage sightings included a Broadway return (after a two- decade absence) in the revival of "Absurd Person Singular" in 2005 as well as an off-Broadway stage role as Henrietta Iscariot in "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" opposite Sam Rockwell's title role that same year. She also appeared in a production of "Blithe Spirit" in 2009.
Other comic outings on film have included The Good Life (2007), Julie & Julia (2009), Rhymes with Banana (2012), Women Who Kill (2016) and Accommodations (2018), while on TV she hit both funny and serious marks on such programs as "The Good Wife," "Law and Order," "Inside Amy Schumer," "The Blacklist" and recurring roles on Big Lake (2010), Orange Is the New Black (2013) (as Piper's mother), and Billions (2016).
Rush has been married since 1985 to Chip Cronkite (né Walter Leland Cronkite III), son of the iconic news anchor, and is the mother of their two sons: Walter Cronkite IV and Peter.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Think Amy Sedaris, Kathryn Hahn, Natasha Lyonne. Series regular, recurring and guest starring roles television and new media including NBC, NETFLIX and HBO. Susan debuted on Broadway with Angela Lansbury in Noel Coward's BLITHE SPIRIT, winning multiple awards. Extensive comedy and improv training and credits: The Groundlings, UCB, The Magnet. Stars and co-created, HER and HIM, a 100 percent improvised feature film. Susan also teaches acting and believes that vulnerability is a super power.- Award-winning actress Elizabeth Ashley can always be counted on to give her all. Grand in style, exotic in looks, divinely outgoing in personality and an engaging interpreter of Tennessee Williams' florid Southern-belles on stage, she was born Elizabeth Ann Cole on August 30, 1939, in Ocala, Florida. The daughter of Arthur Kingman and Lucille (Ayer) Cole, the family moved to Louisiana where Elizabeth graduated from Louisiana State University Laboratory School (University High) in Baton Rouge in 1957.
The liberal-minded Elizabeth immediately embarked upon an acting career following her education and relocated to New York. Briefly using her real name, her big breakthrough year occurred in 1959 when she made her off-Broadway debut with "Dirty Hands", played "Esmeralda" in the Neighborhood Playhouse production of "Camino Real" and took on Broadway with Dore Schary's "The Highest Tree". Now using the marquee name of Elizabeth Ashley, the 1960s proved to be even better, taking her to trophy-winning heights. After understudying the lead roles in Broadway's "Roman Candle" and "Mary, Mary", she won the role of Mollie in the delightful comedy "Take Her, She's Mine" and won both the "supporting actress" Tony and Theatre World Awards for it. Neil Simon was quite taken by the new star and created especially for her the role of Corie Bratter in 1963's "Barefoot in the Park" opposite Robert Redford. She received another Tony nomination, this time for Best Actress. In addition to these theatrical pinnacles, Elizabeth also found happiness in her private life when she met and married (in 1962) actor James Farentino, who was also on his way up. This happiness, however, was short-lived...the marriage lasted only three years. The attention she earned from Broadway led directly to film offers and she made a highly emotive debut in Harold Robbins glossy soaper The Carpetbaggers (1964), headlining handsome George Peppard. The critics trashed the movie but Elizabeth sailed ahead...temporarily.
Following intense roles in the superb all-star film epic Ship of Fools (1965) and the psychological crime drama The Third Day (1965), which again starred Peppard, the still-married Elizabeth divorced her husband and wed Peppard in 1966, taking a hiatus to focus on domestic life. The couple went on to have son Christian Peppard (born 1968), who would later become a writer.
The Peppard-Ashley marriage was a volatile one, however, and the twosome ultimately divorced in 1972. Wasting no time, Elizabeth returned to the stage and also went out for TV roles. Abandoning a film career that had just gotten out of the starting gate proved detrimental and she never did recapture the momentum she once had. Broadway, however, was a different story. The dusky-toned actress pulled out all the stops as Maggie the Cat in Tennessee Williams's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1974) co-starring Keir Dullea and as Sabina in Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth" the following year, and she was back on top. Other heralded work on the live stage would include "Caesar and Cleopatra" opposite Rex Harrison, "Vanities" and, notably, "Agnes of God", for which she received the Albert Einstein Award for "excellence in the performing arts".
Following "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" for which she won a third Tony nomination, Elizabeth struck up a close friendship with author Williams. Over time, she would play and come to define three of his (and the theater's) finest female roles: Mrs. Venable in "Suddenly, Last Summer" (1995), Alexandra Del Lago in "Sweet Bird of Youth" (1998), and Amanda Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie" (2001). In addition, she also appeared in Williams' "Eight by Tenn" (a series of his one-act plays), "Out Cry", "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" and "The Red Devil Battery Sign". In 2005, 31 years after playing Maggie, she was again a success in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", this time as Big Mama.
Elizabeth went on to sink her teeth into a number of other famous plays as well, all peppered with her inimitable trademark flourish: Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", Isadora Duncan in "When She Danced", Maria Callas in "Master Class" and the scheming Regina in "The Little Foxes", to name a few. On '90s TV, she found daytime soaps to her liking with eye-catching parts on Another World (1964) and All My Children (1970). She also appeared in the ensemble cast of Burt Reynolds' series Evening Shade (1990). Occasional serious film supports in Rancho Deluxe (1975) and Coma (1978) were often intertwined with campier, over-the-top ones such as her psychotic lesbian in Windows (1980).
Overcoming a series of tragic, personal setbacks - a third divorce, a boating accident, a NY apartment fire, and a rape incident - the still-lovely Elizabeth continues to demonstrate her mettle and maintain a busy acting schedule on stage ("Enchanted April", "Ann & Debbie"); film (Happiness (1998), Labor Pains (2000), The Cake Eaters (2007), Ocean's Eight (2018)); and TV ("Caroline in the City," "Law & Order," "Treme," "Russian Doll").
Elsewhere, her memoir "Actress: Postcards from the Road" (1978) became a best seller. She was also a founding member of the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute while serving on the first National Council of the Arts during the administrations of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and has also served on the President's Committee for the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Awards. - Actress
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In a six-decade-plus career (she started out as a radio performer at age 14), there are very few facets of entertainment that lovely singer/actress Polly Bergen has not conquered or, at the very least, touched upon. A nightclub and Columbia recording artist of the 50s and 60s, she is just as well known for her film and Emmy-winning dramatic performances as she is for her wry comedic gifts. In the leaner times, she has maintained quite well with her various businesses. Truly one for the ages, Polly has, at age 70+, nabbed a Tony nomination for her gutsy "I'm Still Here" entertainer Carlotta in Stephen Sondheim's "Follies", and was still dishing out the barbs as she recently demonstrated as Felicity Huffman's earthy mom on Desperate Housewives (2004).
Born in Knoxville, Tennessee as Nellie Burgin on July 14, 1930, her family, which included father William, mother Lucy and sister Barbra, eventually moved to Los Angeles. By the time she was 14, Polly was singing professionally on radio and managed to scrape up singing gigs with smaller bands around and about the Southern California area. She attended Compton Junior College before Paramount mogul Hal B. Wallis caught sight of her and signed her up with his studio. Having made an isolated film debut (as Polly Burgin) a year earlier in the Monogram western Across the Rio Grande (1949), Wallis showcased her as a decorative love interest in the slapstick vehicles of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, the (then) hottest comedy team in Hollywood. But At War with the Army (1950), That's My Boy (1951) and The Stooge (1951) did little for Polly although she presented herself well. MGM and Universal had the idea to cast her in a more serious vein with co-starring roles in their dramas Escape from Fort Bravo (1953), Arena (1953) and Cry of the Hunted (1953), but again she was overlooked. Disasppointed, she decided to abandon her lucrative film contract and seek work elsewhere.
That "elsewhere" came in the form of 1950s TV. Focusing on her singing, she promoted her many albums for Columbia by guest-starring on all the top variety shows of the times. This culminated in her own variety program, The Polly Bergen Show (1957). The song "The Party's Over" became her traditional show-closer and signature tune. Polly also showed some marquee mettle on the cabaret and nightclub circuits, performing at many of the top hotels and showrooms throughout the country. She made her Broadway debut along with Harry Belafonte in "John Murray Anderson's Almanac" in 1953, and went on to appear in such stage shows as "Top Man" and "Champagne Complex". A delightfully engaging game show panelist to boot, she took a regular seat on the To Tell the Truth (1956) panel for five seasons.
Polly tended to display a looser, down-to-earth personality to induce laughs but she was also was formidable dramatic player and fashion plate quite capable of radiating great charm, poise and elegance. For her role as alcoholic torch singer Helen Morgan in the special TV showcase The Helen Morgan Story (1957) , she took home the Emmy award. Unfortunately for Polly, Ann Blyth took on the role of the tragic singer in the film version (with Gogi Grant providing the vocals), in what could have been a significant return to films for her.
Instead, Polly had to wait another five years for that to happen. As the wife of Gregory Peck and designated victim of revengeful psychopath Robert Mitchum in the taut movie thriller Cape Fear (1962), her film career reignited. Other opportunities came in the form of her distraught mental patient in The Caretakers (1963), which found her at odds with nurse Joan Crawford and doctor Robert Stack; the sparkling comedy Move Over, Darling (1963), which placed her in a comedy triangle with "other wife" Doris Day and husband James Garner; and as the first woman Chief Executive of the White House in the frothy comedy tidbit Kisses for My President (1964) opposite bemused "First Gentleman" Fred MacMurray. In what was to be a tinge of deja vu, Polly again saw her movie career dissipate after only a couple of vehicles. True to form, the indomitable Polly rebounded on TV.
A mild string of TV-movies came her way as she matured into the 1970s and 1980s, most notably the acclaimed miniseries The Winds of War (1983), which reunited her with Robert Mitchum, this time as his unhappy, alcoholic wife. This, along with her participation in the sequel, War and Remembrance (1988), earned Polly supporting Emmy nominations. In the years to come, she would find herself still in demand displaying her trademark comic grit in such shows as The Sopranos (1999), Commander in Chief (2005) and Desperate Housewives (2004).
Polly returned to singing in 1999 after nearly a three-decade absence (due to health and vocal issues). Quite huskier in tone, she went on to delight the New York musical stage with stand-out performances in "Follies" (2001), "Cabaret" (2002) and "Camille Claudel" (2007). Polly still made nightly appearances and had even put together singing concert tours on occasion.
Polly has authored three best-selling beauty books outside the acting arena and has demonstrated a marked level of acumen in the business world. Founding a mail-order cosmetics business in 1965, she sold it to Faberge eight years later. She also developed her own shoe and jewelry lines.
Married (1950-1955) to MGM actor Jerome Courtland during her first movie career peak, she later wed topflight agent/producer Freddie Fields in 1957, a union that lasted 18 years and produced two adopted children, Pamela and Peter. A third marriage in the 1980s also ended in divorce. An assertive voice when it comes to women's rights and issues, her memoir "Polly's Principles" came out in 1974.
Polly played a grandmother in her last film, the dramedy Struck by Lightning (2012), and died two years later on September 20, 2013, at the age of 84.- Stunts
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Matt Birman is an actor, director, stunt coordinator and writer. He has happily been in the show biz trenches since 1977 and has enjoyed making movies and television in all of his capacities in 10 countries around the world. He is a winner of the Actra community Lifetime Achievement award in stunts and is a 5-time winning Best Director.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Michael Blakemore was born on 19 June 1928 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was an actor and director, known for Country Life (1994), Great Performances (1971) and Having a Wild Weekend (1965). He was married to Tanya McCallin and Shirley Bush. He died on 10 December 2023.- Michael Cumpsty was born on 26 February 1960 in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for The Ice Storm (1997), Eat Pray Love (2010) and Severance (2022).
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Jim Dale began his career as a stand-up comic. He sharpened his comedy skills during a stint in the army, where he organized and performed in camp shows. After his discharge he pursued a comedy career, and landed a job as the warm-up comic on a musical variety show. He did so well that the producers gave him a spot on the show as a singer, and he quickly became a recording star. He was signed for a small part in one of the "Carry On" films, Carry on Cabby (1963), but the audience reaction to him was so great the he was soon made a regular member of the cast. Unlike many comics, Dale insisted on performing his own stunts, and in fact injured his arm performing a stunt in Carry on Again Doctor (1969), his last film of the series until 1992.
After his departure from the series he returned to the stage, notably in Sir Laurence Olivier's National Theater. In the 1970s Dale moved to the US for film and stage work, achieving success in the Broadway show "Barnum" and in a string of film comedies for Disney.
He returned to Britain in 1992 for an appearance in the final "Carry On" film, Carry on Columbus (1992).- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Rachel Dratch grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts. After graduating from Dartmouth College with a degree in Drama and Psychology, she moved out to Chicago, where she studied with Del Close at Improvolympic. She was on the house team, "Victim's Family", with Adam McKay. Rachel went on to tour with the Second City Touring Company and eventually advanced to the Second City Mainstage, where she appeared in four revues: "Pinata Full Of Bees", "Citizen Gates", "Paradigm Lost" and "Promisekeepers Losers Weepers". For the latter two, she received the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Actress in a Revue. After leaving the mainstage, she wrote and performed in the 2-person sketch show, "Dratch and Fey", with Tina Fey. The show was seen at Second City, Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in NYC, and the Aspen Comedy Festival. In the fall of 1999, Rachel joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975), where she performed for 7 years. Her memorable characters include Boston teen "Denise", the "Lovers" professors with Will Ferrell, junior high school student "Sheldon" and "Debbie Downer".- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Raúl Eduardo Esparza is an American stage, screen, and voice actor. Considered one of Broadway's leading men since the 2000s, he is best known for his Tony Award-nominated performance as Bobby in the 2006 Broadway revival of Company and for his television role as New York Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Rafael Barba in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, where he had a recurring role in Season 14 and was promoted to a series regular in Seasons 15 to 19.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Terri Sue "Tovah" Feldshuh is an American actress, singer, and playwright. She has been a Broadway star for more than four decades, earning four Tony Award nominations. She has also received two Emmy Award nominations for Holocaust and Law & Order, and appeared in such films as A Walk on the Moon, She's Funny That Way, and Kissing Jessica Stein. In 2015-2016, she played the role of Deanna Monroe on AMC's television adaptation of The Walking Dead.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Penny Fuller was born on 21 July 1937 in Durham, North Carolina, USA. She is an actress, known for All the President's Men (1976), Quantum Leap (1989) and The Elephant Man (1982).- Irene Gandy is known for You're Welcome America: A Final Night With George W. Bush (2009) and Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill (2016).
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Slim, pixie-like, two-time Tony Award winner Tammy Grimes who put on marvelously quirky Cowardesque airs and captivated audiences with her inimitably throaty, raspy voice was actually not British but born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on January 30, 1934, the daughter of Eola Willard (née Niles), a naturalist and spiritualist, and Luther Nichols Grimes, an innkeeper, country-club manager, and farmer. She attended the all-girls Beaver Country Day School in nearby Chestnut Hill and later received entry at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, before relocating to New York for professional acting purposes.
Grimes studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse and made her NY debut there in "Jonah and the Whale" in 1955. Broadway offers came shortly after, first as a standby for Kim Stanley as Cherie in "Bus Stop" in June 1955. In 1956, she appeared in the off-Broadway production "The Littlest Revue," performed in a cross-country tour of "The Lark," made an Obie-winning appearance in the off-Broadway play "Clerambard," and in 1959 nabbed the lead role in Noël Coward's play "Look After Lulu!" on Broadway after the renowned playwright discovered her distinctive style of singing at Julius Monk's Downstairs at the Upstairs nightclub in New York. She won a Theatre World Award for that. She later was guest star at the New York City Opera in a revival of "The Cradle will Rock," recreating the role of Moll. On the classical side, Tammy starred with the American Shakespeare Festival at Stratford, Connecticut, as Mistress Quickly in "Henry IV", and Mopsa in 'The Winter's Tale".
Earning the role of the indomitable, rags-to-riches, Titanic-surviving Molly Brown in the 1960 musical comedy "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", Grimes won a Tony Award as "Best Featured Actress in a Musical" (due to below the title rules at the time). She followed this with the 1963 play "Rattle of a Simple Man" in 1963. On TV she appeared twice on the popular series "Route 66" and is fondly remembered for her performance in four TV specials: "Four for Tonight" with Cyril Ritchard, Beatrice Lillie and Tony Randall; "Hollywood Sings" with Eddie Albert; "The Datchet Diamonds" with Rex Harrison, and Archy and Mehitabel (1960) with Eddie Bracken.
Grimes was originally offered the part of Samantha Stevens in the sitcom Bewitched (1964) but was released from her contract when friend Noël Coward asked her to star on Broadway as Elvira in "High Spirits", a musical directed by Coward himself and based on his own comedic play, "Blithe Spirit." The role of Samantha in Bewitched (1964) went to Elizabeth Montgomery and the series was a smash hit.
1966-67 were tepid years for the actress. After "Bewitched", Grimes finally received her own ABC television series, The Tammy Grimes Show (1966), playing a wealthy heiress but the show was not well-received and dropped quickly, making it one of the shortest series shown in TV history. That same year she was featured in her first film, Three Bites of the Apple (1967), a diverting comedy starring British actor David McCallum and Italian actress Sylva Koscina. The film helped showcase Grimes's quirky talents, but it made no impression on the public and pretty much put the bite on a leading lady career. Later she was sporadically and sometimes bizarrely featured into such films as Play It As It Lays (1972), Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978), The Runner Stumbles (1979), America (1986), Mr. North (1988), Slaves of New York (1989), A Modern Affair (1995), and High Art (1998).
Grimes became the toast of New York when she appeared in a revival of Noël Coward's "Private Lives" as "Amanda", winning her second Tony Award, this time for "Best Actress". During her career, she also spent several seasons at the Stratford Festival in Canada. In addition to night clubs, she has also recorded several albums of songs, recited poetry, and hosted CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
In 2003, Grimes was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame and later that year was invited by The Noel Coward Society (she later became its vice president) to be the first celebrity to lay flowers on the statue of Sir Coward at The Gershwin Theatre in Manhattan to celebrate the playwright's 104th birthday. In 2007, the septuagenarian returned to the cabaret stage in a critically acclaimed one-woman show at the Plush Room, "An Evening with Miss Tammy Grimes."
Grimes was married three times. First to actor Christopher Plummer in August 1956, by whom she had actress Amanda Plummer. The couple were divorced in 1960. Her second husband was actor Jeremy Slate, whose marriage in 1966 lasted but a year. Her 1971 union to Canadian composer Richard Jameson Bell, was a great success and lasted until his death in 2005.
Tammy Grimes died on October 30, 2016, aged 82, in Englewood, New Jersey, from undisclosed causes. She was survived by her brother, Luther Nichols "Nick" Grimes Jr., and her Tony-winning actress/daughter Amanda.- Producer
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Brian Hargrove was born on 2 April 1956 in Tarboro, North Carolina, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Titus (2000), Caroline in the City (1995) and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994). He has been married to David Hyde Pierce since 24 October 2008.- Actor
- Producer
- Composer
Cheyenne David Jackson is an American actor and singer. His credits include leading roles in Broadway musicals and other stage roles, as well as film and television roles, concert singing, and music recordings.
After beginning his acting career in regional theatre in Seattle, Washington, Jackson moved to Manhattan and was an understudy in Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002) and Aida (2003). He next originated the role of Matthew in the workshop production of Altar Boyz (2004) for the New York Musical Theatre Festival, and was replaced by Scott Porter for the Off-Broadway run. Jackson's first leading role on Broadway was in All Shook Up (2005), which earned him a Theatre World Award for "Outstanding Broadway Debut". Since then, on the New York stage, he has starred in The Agony & the Agony (2006), Xanadu (2007; Drama League, Drama Desk nominations), Damn Yankees (2008), Finian's Rainbow (2010; Drama Desk nomination), 8 (2011), The Heart of the Matter (2012), and The Performers (2013).
He has also appeared in a number of films, including the 2006 Academy Award-nominated United 93, in which his portrayal of Mark Bingham earned him the Boston Society of Film Critics 2006 award for Best Ensemble Cast. He also had a leading role in the 2014 independent romantic comedy ensemble, Mutual Friends, and guest roles in television series such as NBC's 30 Rock and Fox's Glee. Beginning in 2015, Jackson starred in the FX horror anthology television series American Horror Story in its fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth seasons.
In concert, Jackson has sold out Carnegie Hall twice: The Power of Two in 2010 and Music of the Mad Men Era in 2011. He also performs in cabarets. In addition to his Broadway cast albums, he has released three albums of popular music, including a joint album called The Power of Two with Michael Feinstein in 2008. In 2012, Jackson released two singles, "Drive" and "Before You", from his 2013 album I'm Blue, Skies. In 2016, Jackson released his third studio album, Renaissance, an album adapted and expanded from his solo concert Music of the Mad Men Era.
He also stars as Hades in Disney Channel's Descendants 3, along with actors Booboo Stewart, Cameron Boyce, Dove Cameron, and Sofia Carson with director Kenny Ortega. In 2020, he reunited with Descendants alumni Ortega and Stewart in Netflix's Julie and the Phantoms.- Actress
- Executive
Versatile actress Isabel Keating's film roles include work with directors James Schamus, Robert Pulcini, Shari Springer Berman, and Vadim Perelman, among others. Her films include Indignation (2016) (with Logan Lerman, Sarah Gadon and Tracy Letts), which had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 (nationwide July 29, 2016); The Life Before Her Eyes (2007) (with Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood), and The Nanny Diaries (2007) (with Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans). Television episodic work includes The Path (2016) (guest star, opposite Rockmond Dunbar (NBC/Hulu)), as well as 3 lbs. (2006) (guest star opposite Stanley Tucci (CBS)), and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001) (guest star opposite Vincent D'Onofrio (NBC)). She provided her voice for the Emmy award-winning PBS American Masters Judy Garland: By Myself (2004). Isabel was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, where she demonstrated an early aptitude for the theatre. She has stated in the press that her parents' distinctive personalities instilled in her an appreciation for character (her father was a native Savannahian, her mother Spanish). She lived many years in Europe, and has said that it was her interest in foreign languages (she speaks several fluently) and her years of travel that gave her necessary life experience prior to beginning her professional career. For her work on stage, Isabel was nominated for the Tony Award and received the Drama Desk Award and the Theatre World Award for her performance as Judy Garland, starring opposite Hugh Jackman in The Boy from Oz on Broadway, for which she was also nominated for the Drama League and Outer Critics Circle Awards. She won the Helen Hayes Award for her performance in Tom Stoppard's Indian Ink, and has been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for audio narration. Isabel also appeared on Broadway with Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, F. Murray Abraham, Stockard Channing, Rupert Grint and Megan Mullally, in Terrence McNally's hit It's Only a Play, directed by Jack O'Brien. She also starred on Broadway in Hairspray (directed by Mr. O'Brien), Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark (music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge, directed by Julie Taymor), and Enchanted April (directed by Michael Wilson). Off-Broadway, she appeared opposite Jennifer Westfeldt in Cusi Cram's A Lifetime Burning for Primary Stages, and with Atlantic Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, and, notably, Watermark Theatre's U.S. premiere of Lucinda Coxon's Waiting at the Water's Edge, directed by Nela Wagman. She has appeared across the country at the Old Globe, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Long Wharf, the O'Neill Center, Paper Mill Playhouse, and more theatres, in plays by Oscar Wilde, Anton Chekhov, Tony Kushner, Donald Margulies, and many others.- Actress
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Tony Award and Emmy Award winner Judith Light made her professional stage debut in 1970 and made her Broadway debut in the 1975 revival of A Doll's House starring Liv Ullmann and Sam Waterston. She made her television breakthrough in the daytime soap opera One Life to Live (1968). She assumed the role of Karen Woleck (originated by Kathryn Breech (1976-77), and for a brief period, replaced by Julia Duffy (1977)). Light's extensive theater experience added multidimensional facets to the character, and the performance earned the actress two consecutive Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Light departed from her character in 1983 - to star in ABC's new prime-time sitcom Who's the Boss? (1984) - the role of Karen Woleck was not recast, instead, she departs for an off-screen life in Canada, coinciding with Light's departure from the series. After Light's success on daytime, she landed the leading role of assertive advertising executive Angela Bower on the ABC sitcom Who's the Boss? (1984). The actress co-starred with Tony Danza, who played her housekeeper (and eventual lover). Also featured were Alyssa Milano, Danny Pintauro and Katherine Helmond. The series ran for eight seasons and had constant success. Light also lent her craft to the short lived sitcoms Phenom (1993) and The Simple Life (2003), and several made-for-TV productions, including the biographical drama The Ryan White Story (1989) (in which she portrayed Jeanne White, the mother of HIV/AIDS positive teenager Ryan White); the actress also portrayed Alabama murderer Audrey Marie Hilley in Wife, Mother, Murderer (1991).
In 1999, Light returned to her theater roots for the off-Broadway production of Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit (2001); the actress received rave reviews as a college professor battling ovarian cancer-and reprised the role for the national tour. Light returned to television in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999); the actress assumed the recurring role of Judge Elizabeth Connelly, making her first appearance during the third season episode Guilt (2002), which was broadcast on March 29, 2009. The character appeared in 25 more episodes of the series, making her last appearance in season 12 episode Behave (2010). Light also appeared in the ABC comedy-drama Ugly Betty (2006), in which Light's performance as the recurring Claire Meade resulted in a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. In 2014, she began starring as Shelly Pfefferman in the critically acclaimed Amazon Studios dark comedy-drama series Transparent (2014), for which she received Golden Globe, Primetime Emmy, and Critics' Choice Television Award nominations.- Producer
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Rick McKay lives in New York City and is the award-winning Producer/Director/Writer/Cinematographer/Editor of the hit film Broadway: The Golden Age. For five seasons he was a segment producer on WNET13's City Arts, the most honored, locally produced show in television history, which won over 30 Emmy awards. Rick also produced the first story commissioned for the critically successful national PBS series Egg: The Arts Show, garnering another two Emmy nominations as well as helping to create the opening segment of two recent national Tony Awards broadcasts. Rick won four of the industry's prestigious Telly awards for his television work, has produced episodes for the immensely successful series Biography on the Arts and Entertainment network, and has produced for HBO and United Artists. Rick is also an on-air personality on national PBS television, hosting the incredibly successful pledge drives for "Broadway: The Golden Age" around the country and was recently seen co-hosting the non-cable premiere of Liza with a Z with Liza Minnelli on PBS.
There are two sequels of "Broadway" in production now: Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age, chronicling Broadway from 1959 to 1981 and Broadway: The Next Generation, which brings the story up to the present. Both are planned for theatrical release, followed by national television and DVD release, in 2017 and 2019 respectively. Rick recently returned from New Zealand, working at famed director Peter Jackson's Park Road Post Productions, finishing his new film, "Fay Wray", which Jackson appears in, along with Naomi Watts, Gore Vidal, Leonard Maltin, McKay and many others. The film is half documentary, chronicling Wray's legendary, iconic career in film - and half road film, as Wray and McKay, despite the half-century difference in their ages, travel the globe, becoming fast friends, while McKay was beginning his career in film and Wray was entering her tenth and last decade, The film is due for release in late 2018.
Rick is also the sole owner and proprietor of Second Act Productions, the New York City production company that produced his Broadway trilogy as well as his other films. "Broadway: The Golden Age" has won over 15 film festival awards, is on 17 critics' Top Ten Films of the year lists and was a hit in theaters around the country. The SONY/BMG DVD is still a best seller and the film premiered on US television on national PBS in March 2006 as one of their most successful national pledge drives ever. Two sequels to the film are already in production with Robert Redford, Liza Minnelli, Glenn Close, Al Pacino, Sydney Poitier, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber and 100 other stars. The sequels will bring the story up to the present and both will open theatrically prior to international TV and DVD releases.
Rick also produced, directed and shot Elaine Stritch: At Liberty for PBS. Much of this footage was also used to make the HBO documentary of the same name, which won Elaine Stritch the 2004 Emmy award, and for which Rick is credited as producer and cinematographer. Rick's first solo film project was Birds of a Feather, a documentary of his adventures searching for drag queens for the legendary director Mike Nichols to help him make his hit film Birdcage. Rick is also an award-winning print journalist with numerous magazine and newspaper articles to his credit. His story Birds of a Feather won him San Francisco's Cable Car Award for "Outstanding Journalist" for feature reporting. Rick also has a successful career as an in-demand film and theatre lecturer around the world. A born raconteur, Rick appears with his films and tells behinds the scenes stories of their creation as well as of the history of film and theatre, while showing never-before-seen out-takes and rare footage from his films and from live performances.
Recently, Rick was awarded "Best Film: Greenwich Village Portrait" for his short film, Greenwich Village: A World Apart (2015) at the first annual Greenwich Village Film Festival, and again won the same category the next year for Greenwich Village: The Times They are a Changin' (2016).
Rick was honored at the Sundance Film Festival by PBS and inducted into the PBS Producers Academy, as one of their "best and brightest documentary producer/directors" for his continuing independent film and television work. Rick has also been honored with the "Special Contribution to Film" Award from Stonybrook University Film Festival and the "Limelight Award" from Ojai Film Festival. Recently Rick was also honored with the "New England Theatre Conference Special Contribution to Theatre Award" and the Theatre Museum of New York City's "Award of Excellence for Theatre History Preservation." Rick is also a Doctor of Fine Arts, after being honored at Five Towns College in New York where McKay, Michael Feinstein and Sheldon Harnick were all presented with degrees at a special event celebrating their work.
His wealth of experience in film, television, live entertainment, and journalism has made Rick McKay one of the most prolific and well-rounded independent producer/director/writers working in the industry today.- Actress
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A Tony and Emmy Award winner, Donna Murphy has forged a career of exceptional diversity, impressing both audiences and critics with her depth and skill. This "seductive actress of major transformative powers" (NY Times) was named one of three "Legit Luminaries," alongside Joan Didion and Christine Ebersole, in Variety's Women's Impact Issue. She will next be seen on Starz' hit series Power as Lorette Walsh, the opponent of Rashad Tate, played by Larenz Tate.
Recognized as a gifted character actress in the film world, she received international critical acclaim for her performance as the mercurial Marie in Todd Solondz' Dark Horse, with Selma Blair, Christopher Walken, and Mia Farrow. In Vera Farmiga's 2011 directorial debut, Higher Ground, she co-starred with Farmiga as Kathleen, the film's troubled matriarch, creating a sensual, heartbreaking characterization. Murphy's animated feature debut, voicing the villainess Mother Gothel in Disney's mega-hit Tangled, earned her rave reviews for her scene stealing performance. She is also widely recognized for her performances as Judy Braddock, the hardworking, suburban single mom to Scarlett Johansson in The Nanny Diaries; the elegant and demanding, but ultimately sympathetic ballet instructor Juliette Simone, in Nicholas Hytner's Center Stage; and Anij, the quietly alluring and wise leader in Star Trek: Insurrection, opposite Sir Patrick Stewart. Other select film credits include: No Pay, Nudity opposite Gabriel Byrne, The Bourne Legacy with Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, Darren Aronovsky's The Fountain, Rosalie Octavius in Spider-Man 2, The Door in the Floor, The Astronaut's Wife with Johnny Depp, and Jade, directed by William Friedkin.
One of the most beloved and honored stage actresses of her generation, New York Magazine named Murphy one of "Three Living Legends" of the New York Theater and in 2003 awarded her one of their prestigious New York Awards. Murphy earned her two Tony Awards for her spellbinding performance in Stephen Sondheim's Passion and for her "resplendent, matchless" (New York Post) portrayal of Anna Leonowens in Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic The King and I. For her hilarious comic tour de force as Ruth Sherwood in the Broadway Revival of Wonderful Town, she received Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Astaire Awards, as well as a Tony® nomination. Her mesmerizing performance as the Austrian chanteuse, Lotte Lenya, in Hal Prince's production of LoveMusik, earned her Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and another Tony nomination. She garnered yet another Tony Award nomination and rave reviews for her performance as a Yiddish Theater star during the Holocaust in Roundabout Theatre Company's The People in the Picture.
Murphy's off-Broadway theater highlights include three of the most successful productions in New York City Center Encores! History: Anyone Can Whistle, Follies, and Wonderful Town; Tony Kushner's production of Helen; Lincoln Center Theater's Hello, Again and Twelve Dreams opposite Mischa Barton. For Shakespeare in the Park's 50th Anniversary season, Murphy took on the role of the Witch in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods, which also starred Amy Adams, Jessie Mueller, and Denis O'Hare. She earned Drama League and Drama Desk nominations for her performance.
Murphy returned to Broadway in 2017 when she shared the iconic role of Dolly Gallagher Levi with the legendary Bette Midler in the Tony Award winning revival of Hello, Dolly! She received great critical acclaim for the "gutsiest star turn in town" (NY Daily News) and "her own megawatt glow; her peerless musical-comedy technique, deep-dish characterization and supple vocals." (The Hollywood Reporter)
Murphy's first television film, HBO's "Someone Had to be Benny," earned her a Daytime Emmy as Best Actress in a Drama Special or Series, as well as a Cable Ace Award, and she starred as Jane Green, the matriarch of a prominent Southern family in PBS' Civil War drama series, "Mercy Street." Select recurring and guest star appearances include NBC's "The Blacklist," ABC's " Quantico", the mysterious "elegant woman" Angela Forrester in ABC's "Resurrection," include USA's "Royal Pains", "The Good Wife", "The Mentalist", "Ugly Betty", "Law & Order: Criminal Intent", "Law & Order: SVU", "Damages", "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", "CSI", "Law & Order", "The Practice", "Ally McBeal", Stephen Bochco's "Murder One" (ABC), and the PBS Broadcast of the Emmy Award winning "Sondheim! The Birthday Concert," the 2000 and 2002 Kennedy Center Honors (CBS.)
Murphy's additional starring television performances include Darlene Garretti on CBS' "Made in Jersey" alongside Janet Montgomery and Kyle McLaughlin, the steely Denise Goodman on TNT's "Trust Me" with Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanaugh, Heather Olshansky in CBS' "Hack" opposite David Morse, and her critically acclaimed comedic performance as the neurotic psychiatrist Dr. Ruby Stern on ABC's sitcom, "What About Joan." Her television films include Lifetime's "House of Versace," opposite Gina Gershon, Showtime's political drama "The Last Debate,"and Mary Todd Lincoln in "The Day Lincoln Was Shot" (TNT.)
A versatile singer, she can be heard on a number of recordings including Tangled (Disney Soundtrack), The People in the Picture (Kritzerland), LoveMusik (Ghostlight), Wall to Wall Sondheim (Symphony Space), Wonderful Town (DRG), Leonard Bernstein's New York (Nonesuch), Hello Again (RCA Victor), The King and I (Varese Sarabande), the Grammy Award winning Passion (Angel), and Over the Moon: The Broadway Lullaby Project, to benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and Young Survival Coalition.
Ms. Murphy, born in Queens, New York and raised in Hauppauge, New York and Topsfield, Massachusetts, studied with the legendary Stella Adler and at the Lee Strasberg Institute. For her contribution to the Arts, Culture and Public life, she's received special honors from New York Magazine, Symphony Space, Urban Stages, The Abingdon Theater Company, Greenwich Village's Caring Community, the Women's Project, The Little Orchestra Society, Irish America Magazine, the Breukelein Institute and Emerson College. She donates her time and efforts to a number of organizations, including the Worldwide Orphan's Foundation, Berwin Lee London New York Playwrights, Inc., The Drama League, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and The Actors Fund. She is the proud mother of one daughter and two stepdaughters, and happily resides in New York City.- Actor
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David Hyde Pierce was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA. He is the youngest child of George and Laura Pierce (both deceased) and has two older sisters (Barbara and Nancy) and an older brother (Thomas). As a child, he was very interested in music (particularly piano) and regularly played the organ at his local church (Bethesda Episcopal Church). David discovered a love of drama in high school and, upon his graduation in 1977, he received the Yaddo Medal which is to honor academic achievement and personal character. However, his love of music was still strong so he decided to study classical piano at Yale University.
Unfortunately, he soon grew bored with music history lessons and found that he wasn't dedicated enough to practice the required amount of hours to become a successful concert pianist. Instead, he returned to his love of drama and graduated in 1981 with a double major in English and Theatre Arts. He then moved to New York where he worked several menial jobs (including selling ties at Bloomingdales and working as a security guard) while acting in the theater during the late 80s and early 90s. He appeared in small roles in films such as Bright Lights, Big City (1988) before his life and career changed forever when he landed the role of "Dr. Niles Crane" in the television series Frasier (1993). Throughout the show's eleven year run (1993-2004), David was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series each year (he won four times: 1995, 1998-1999 and 2004). David resides in Los Angeles with his romantic partner, Brian Hargrove, and their two Wheaton Terriers, Maude and Mabel. He remains very close to his three siblings.- Actor
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Rex was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Louisiana. He became one of the most prolific movie critics in the country, and for decades has written entertainment columns for The New York Observer.
In 1970, Rex made his movie debut, playing Myron in Myra Breckinridge (1970) - Myron was the young man whose post sex-change operation persona was played by Raquel Welch. But Rex's success came in reviewing movies, not starring in them.
Rex currently lives in New York - at the Dakota, one of Manhattan's most expensive and exclusive apartment buildings (John Lennon was shot there). Rex also owns a spread in an elite corner of rural Connecticut, and is a single man-about-town. Movie stars may come and go, but movie reviews by Rex Reed go on forever.- Actor
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Like a number of British actors of the same generation (John Hurt and Alan Rickman, to name two), Roger Rees originally trained for the visual arts. He was born on May 5 1944 in Aberystwyth, Wales, and acted in church and Boy Scouts stage productions while growing up in South London, but studied painting and lithography at the Slade School of Art. He had to quit his studies, however, when his father died and he had to help support the family. His first paying jobs in show business were as a scenery painter. He was painting scenery, in fact, when he was asked to sub in for a part and made his acting debut. He put away his brushes for good after this.
He turned to acting on a full-time basis in the mid-1960s and appeared on both the London and Scottish stages. After his fourth audition, the Royal Shakespeare Company finally hired him as a walk-on, sword carrier and bit player in 1968. He then worked his way up through the RSC's ranks, finally achieving stardom in the early 1980s in the 8-1/2 hour stage adaptation of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby", which had a cast of 40 actors, and for which he won both an Olivier Award and a Tony Award. Rees was also nominated for an Emmy Award for the television version of the play. By this time, he had several TV movies to his name, but he did not make his big-screen debut until Star 80 (1983).
Living in the United States since 1989, Roger made a name for himself in America when he joined the cast of the TV hit comedy Cheers (1982) as the priggish Britisher Robin Colcord and later the glib British ambassador Lord John Marbury on the series The West Wing (1999). More recently, he appeared as a frequent guest in several British and American television series and in a number of independent films.
However, Roger Rees remained primarily a man of the theatre with secondary careers as a playwright and stage director. Married to theatre collaborator Rick Elice since 2011, Roger was subsequently diagnosed with cancer. Performing on Broadway in the musical "The Visit" starring Chita Rivera, he was forced to quit the show in late May of 2015. The 71-year-old actor died on July 10, 2015.- Actress
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Tony Award-winner Marian Hall Seldes, one of the premier stage actresses in America, was born on August 23, 1928 in Manhattan, New York, to writer and journalist Gilbert Seldes, and his socialite wife, the former Alice Wadhams Hall. Her paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants, and her mother was from an Episcopalian family with deep roots in the United States.
Marian studied drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner and dance with Martha Graham. She honed her craft with the legendary Broadway diva, Katharine Cornell, with whom she appeared in the play, "That Lady", in the 1949-50 season.
Seldes, herself, taught acting at The Juilliard School from 1967 to 1991 and at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus since 2002. Her students include Oscar-winners William Hurt, Kevin Kline and Robin Williams, Emmy Award-winners Kelsey Grammer and Laura Linney, and Tony Award-winner Patti LuPone.
She made her Broadway debut, in 1948, in Robinson Jeffers' adaptation of "Medea", with acting great Judith Anderson giving a legendary performance as Euripides' scorned heroine in a production directed by John Gielgud, who also played "Jason". It began a career that lasted 59 years: She last appeared on Broadway in 2007 in Terrence McNally's "Deuce". Along the way, she was nominated for a Tony Award five times, winning on her first nod for Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (1973). Seldes has long been associated with Albee, appearing in three of his plays, starting with "Tiny Alice" in 1962. (Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Three Tall Women", which starred Seldes, did not play the Great White Way but appeared off-Broadway.)
Seldes also has had an extensive career in movies, television and radio, playing everything from Emily Brontë in the 1952 TV movie, Our Sister Emily (1952), to Lucas McCain's dead wife in The Rifleman (1958) episode, The Vision (1960) in 1960, to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in Truman (1995) to Mr. Big's mother on Sex and the City (1998). She also has done extensive work as a radio actress, appearing on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater, from 1974 to 1982.
Her first marriage to Julian Claman, by whom she had a daughter, ended in divorce in 1961. She was married to screenwriter Garson Kanin from 1990 until his death in 1999.
In 2010, Marian Seldes received a Tony Lifetime Achievement Award for her great career in the theater as befits her reputation as one of America's greatest stage performers.- Liz Smith found fame as an actress at an age when most people are considering retirement. It was a long road to eventual stardom, during which she struggled to raise a family after a broken marriage. She became best known for her roles in The Vicar of Dibley (1994) and The Royle Family but her talents encompassed serious drama too. And while she made something of a name playing slightly dotty old ladies, the real Liz Smith was far removed from these on-screen personas. She was born Betty Gleadle in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire. Her early life was not happy. Her mother died in childbirth when she was just two years old and her father abandoned her when he remarried. "My father was a bit of a sod, really. He just went off with loads of women and then married one who said he had to cut off completely from his prior life and that meant me." She started going to the local cinema with her grandfather when she was four and she quickly gained a fascination for acting.
By the age of nine, she was appearing in local dramatic productions, often playing the part of elderly ladies. World War Two thwarted her plans and she joined the WRNS because, as she later told the BBC's Desert Island Discs, she loved the cut of the naval uniform. She continued appearing in plays and entertainments while serving in the Royal Navy. She met her future husband Jack Thomas while she was stationed in India and the couple married at the end of the war. Her grandmother had left her enough money to buy a house in London. Smith later remembered that she had picked it at random from a magazine and bought it without crossing the threshold.
But what had been an idyllic marriage failed shortly after the family moved to Epping Forest in Essex and she was left to bring up her two children alone. With money tight, she worked in a number of jobs including delivering post and quality control in a plastic bag factory. But her love for acting remained and she began buying the theatrical magazine, The Stage, and sending her photograph to casting agents. Eventually she became part of a group studying method acting under a teacher who had come to the UK from America.
She performed at the Gate Theatre in west London and spent many years in repertory, as well as spells as an entertainer in Butlins holiday camps. In 1970, she was selling toys in London's Regent Street when she got a call from the director Mike Leigh to play the downtrodden mother in his film Bleak Moments. Leigh cast her again in Hard Labour, part of the BBC's Play for Today series, a role that allowed her to shine. She received critical acclaim as the middle-aged housewife who endures a life of domestic drudgery, constantly at the beck and call of her demanding husband and daughter.
It was the breakthrough she had sought for years and, as she later recalled: "I never went back to grotty jobs again." She was seldom off the screen over the next 20 years, with appearances in a number of TV programmes including Last of the Summer Wine, The Sweeney, The Duchess of Duke Street and The Gentle Touch. She was cast as Madame Balls in the 1976 film The Pink Panther Strikes Again, but her scenes were left on the cutting-room floor. However, she did appear in the role six years later in The Curse of the Pink Panther. In 1984 she received a Bafta for Best Supporting Actress when she played Maggie Smith's mother in the film A Private Function.
Two years later she appeared as Patricia Hodge's alcoholic mother in the BBC drama The Life and Loves Of A She Devil. It was a part, she said, that she really enjoyed as it gave her the chance to wear more glamorous outfits than her usual roles required. And she was able to dress up again for her next film appearance, this time in the role of Grace in Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. She was still much in demand at the beginning of the 1990s, appearing in the sitcom 2point4 Children and in the series Lovejoy and Bottom.
In 1994 she became a household name with her portrayal of Letitia Cropley in the series The Vicar of Dibley (1994). The character was famous for her idiosyncratic recipes such as parsnip brownies and lard and fish paste pancakes, but was killed off in 1996. Two years later Liz Smith starred as Nana in The Royle Family, a sitcom that ran for nearly four years. She took the part again in 2006 in a special edition in which Nana died. Typically, she attributed her success to Caroline Aherne's scripts rather than her own talent.
"They were great roles," she later remembered. "I was so lucky that things did come my way then." Unlike some actors, she watched recordings of her own performances looking for ways in which she could improve her acting. She continued to appear in feature films, playing Grandma Georgina in Tim Burton's 2005 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and she was the voice of Mrs Mulch in Wallace & Gromit -The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. In 2006 she published her autobiography Our Betty and moved into a retirement home in north London but continued acting. She appeared in the BBC's Lark Rise to Candleford, finally announcing her retirement in 2008 at the age of 87. It was a belief in her own talent that drove Liz Smith on when her life was at a low ebb. "All I wanted was a chance," she told the BBC. "It was wonderful when it did happen."
Smith died on Christmas Eve 2016. She was 95. - Writer
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Joseph Stein was born on 30 May 1912 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Enter Laughing (1967) and Fiddler on the Roof. He was married to Elisa Loti and Sadie Singer. He died on 24 October 2010 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
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Richard Earl Thomas is an American actor. He is best known for his leading role as budding author John-Boy Walton in the CBS drama series The Waltons for which he won an Emmy Award from two nominations and received two Golden Globe Award nominations. He also starred in the 1990 television mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's epic horror novel It and played Special Agent Frank Gaad on FX's spy thriller series The Americans.- Actress
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Tamara Tunie was born on 14 March 1959 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Flight (2012), The Devil's Advocate (1997) and Snake Eyes (1998). She was previously married to Gregory Generet and Greg Bouquett.- Actor
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Kurt Warner was born on 22 June 1971 in Burlington, Iowa, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for American Underdog (2021), The Moment (2013) and Life in Pieces (2015). He has been married to Brenda Warner since 11 October 1997. They have seven children.