Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) UK Premiere
October 13,1967
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- Soundtrack
James Fox is the second of three sons, born to the theatrical agent Robin Fox and his actress wife Angela Worthington - aka Angela Fox. His brothers are the actor Edward Fox and the producer Robert Fox. He started acting as a child actor and used his real name, until he reached his early 20s. He trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He left for nine years from 1970 to 1979 to pursue Christian vocational work. His niece is the actress Emilia Fox and he has a half-brother to the actor Daniel Chatto. From his marriage to Mary Piper, he has four sons: Thomas Fox, born 1975; Robin Fox, born 1976; the actors Laurence Fox, born 1978; Jack Fox, born 1985, and one daughter, Lydia Fox, born 1979. He published a book, "Comeback: An Actor's Direction", in 1983.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Mary Tyler Moore was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on December 29, 1936. Moore's family relocated to California when she was eight. Her childhood was troubled, due in part to her mother's alcoholism. The eldest of three siblings, she attended a Catholic high school and married upon her graduation, in 1955. Her only child, Richard Meeker Jr., was born soon after.
A dancer at first, Moore's first break in show business was in 1955, as a dancing kitchen appliance - Happy Hotpoint, the Hotpoint Appliance elf, in commercials generally broadcast during the popular sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952). She then shifted from dancing to acting and work soon came, at first a number of guest roles on television series, but eventually a recurring role as Sam, Richard Diamond's sultry answering service girl, on Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1956), her performance being particularly notorious because her legs (usually dangling a pump on her toe) were shown instead of her face.
Although these early roles often took advantage of her willowy charms (in particular, her famously-beautiful dancer's legs), Moore's career soon took a more substantive turn as she was cast in two of the most highly regarded comedies in television history, which would air first-run for most of the '60s and '70s. In the first of these, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Moore played Laura Petrie, the charmingly loopy wife of star Dick Van Dyke. The show became famous for its very clever writing and terrific comic ensemble - Moore and her fellow performers received multiple Emmy Awards for their work. Meanwhile, she had divorced her first husband, and married advertising man (and, later, network executive) Grant Tinker.
After the end of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Moore focused on movie-making, co-starring in five between the end of the sitcom and the start of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), including Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), in which she plays a ditsy aspiring actress, and an inane Elvis Presley vehicle, Change of Habit (1969), in which she plays a nun-to-be and love interest for Presley. Also included in this mixed bag of films was a first-rate television movie, Run a Crooked Mile (1969), which was an early showcase for Moore's considerable talent at dramatic acting.
After trying her hand at movies for a few years, Moore decided, rather reluctantly, to return to television, but on her terms. The result was The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), which was produced by MTM Enterprises, a company she had formed with Tinker, and which later went on to produce scores of other television series. Moore starred as Mary Richards, who moves to Minneapolis on the heels of a failed relationship. Mary finds work at the newsroom of WJM-TV, whose news program is the lowest-rated in the city, and establishes fast friendships with her colleagues and her neighbors. The sitcom was a commercial and critical success and for years was a fixture of CBS television's unbeatable Saturday night line-up. Moore and Tinker were determined from the start to make the sitcom a cut above the average, and it certainly was - instead of going for a barrage of gags, the humor took longer to develop and arose out of the interaction between the characters in more realistic situations. This was also one of the earliest television portrayals of a woman who was happy and successful on her own rather than simply being a man's wife. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) is generally included amongst the finest television series ever produced in America.
Moore ended the sitcom in 1977, while it was still on a high point, but found it difficult to flee the beloved Mary Richards persona - her subsequent attempts at television series, variety programs, and specials (such as the mortifying disco-era Mary's Incredible Dream (1976)) usually failed, but even her dramatic work, which is generally excellent, fell under the shadow of Mary Richards. With time, however, her body of dramatic acting came to be recognized on its own, with such memorable work as in Ordinary People (1980), as an aloof WASP mother who not-so-secretly resents her younger son's survival; in Finnegan Begin Again (1985), as a middle-aged widow who finds love with a man whose wife is slowly slipping away, in Lincoln (1988), as the troubled Mary Todd Lincoln, and in Stolen Babies (1993), as an infamous baby smuggler (for which she won her sixth Emmy Award). She also inspired a new appreciation for her famed comic talents in Flirting with Disaster (1996), in which she is hilarious as the resentful adoptive mother of a son who is seeking his birth parents. Moore also acted on Broadway, and she won a Tony Award for her performance in "Whose Life Is It Anyway?"
Widely acknowledged as being much tougher and more high-strung than her iconic image would suggest, Moore had a life with more than the normal share of ups and downs. Both of her siblings predeceased her, her sister Elizabeth of a drug overdose in 1978 and her brother John of cancer in 1991 after a failed attempt at assisted suicide, Moore having been the assistant. Moore's troubled son Richie shot and killed himself in what was officially ruled an accident in 1980. Moore was diagnosed an insulin-dependent diabetic in 1969, and had a bout with alcoholism in the early 1980s. Divorced from Tinker in 1981 after repeated separations and reconciliations, she married physician Robert Levine in 1983. The union with Levine proved to be Moore's longest run in matrimony and her only marriage not to end in divorce. Despite the opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), in which she throws a package of meat into her shopping cart, Moore was a vegetarian and a proponent of animal rights. She was an active spokesperson for both diabetes issues and animal rights.
On January 25, 2017, Mary Tyler Moore died at age 80 at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut, from cardiopulmonary arrest complicated by pneumonia after having been placed on a respirator the previous week. She was laid to rest during a private ceremony at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Fairfield, Connecticut.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dubbed "the funniest woman in the world", comedienne Beatrice Lillie was born the daughter of a Canadian government official and grew up in Toronto. She sang in a family trio act with her mother, Lucy, and her piano-playing older sister, Muriel. Times were hard and the ambitious mother eventually took the girls to England to test the waters. In 1914, Bea made her solo debut in London's West End and was an immediate hit with audiences. A valuable marquee player as a droll revue and stage artiste, she skillfully interwove sketches, songs and monologues with parody and witty satire. In 1924, she returned to America and was an instant success on Broadway, thus becoming the toast of two continents. For the next decade, she worked with the top stage headliners of her day, including Gertrude Lawrence, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley. Noël Coward and Cole Porter wrote songs and even shows for her. A top radio and comedy recording artist to boot, Bea's success in films was surprisingly limited, although she did achieve some recognition in such productions as Exit Smiling (1926) and Doctor Rhythm (1938). During the Second World War, Bea became a favourite performer with the troops and, in her post-war years, toured with her own show "An Evening with Beatrice Lillie". Her rather eccentric persona worked beautifully on Broadway and, in 1958, she replaced Rosalind Russell in "Auntie Mame". In 1964, she took on the role of "Madame Arcati" in the musical version of "Blithe Spirit", entitled "High Spirits". This was to be her last staged musical. Sadly, her style grew passé and outdated in the Vietnam era, and she quickly faded from view after a movie appearance in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). At this point, she had already begun to show early signs of Alzheimer's disease, although she managed to publish her biography in 1973. A year later, Bea suffered the first of two strokes and lived the next decade and a half in virtual seclusion. She died in 1989 at age 94.- Producer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Noted Hollywood producer Ross Hunter served in Army intelligence during World War II. After the war he signed with Columbia Pictures and appeared in a number of forgettable B-movies. He then became a producer and produced more than 60 films. Most of his films tended to be bright confections, many for Universal Pictures, with stars such as Debbie Reynolds and Julie Andrews. He also produced his share of "three-hankie weepers", including such fare as Imitation of Life (1959), a remake of an earlier film (Imitation of Life (1934)) that resurrected the career of Lana Turner. His production principle was that audiences should leave the theater either laughing or crying. His biggest success was Airport (1970), for which he received his only Oscar nomination. It was such a hit that in 1973 he remarked, "For three years, Universal's been living on 'Airport'." He ended his long career at Universal, joining Columbia in 1971 and then Paramount in 1974, where he produced made-for-TV movies.- Music Department
- Writer
- Actor
The son of a Jewish Tailor in London's working class East End young Lionel had no formal musical education and never learned musical notation but his music teacher at school declared him to be a genius. He gained a scholarship to St Martin's School of Art at age 16 and started work as a set painter in the theatre. When he saw a notice asking for song writers it was to change his life. His new name was inspired on a bus journey past St. Bartholomew's Hospital (affectionately known as Barts). He wrote his first musical in 1958, Wally Pone of Soho. It was not a success. However, the songs he wrote for the early British rock'n'rollers Tommy Steele (Rock With the Caveman and Little White Bull) and Cliff Richard (Living Doll - at No. 1 for 6 weeks in 1959) brought Lionel his first taste of success. His first musical success was with "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be". By the end of 1959 both "Fings" and "Lock Up Your Daughters" were running successfully in London's West End. In June 1960 he opened "Oliver!" which had been turned down by a dozen promoters and had to be financed by Bart himself. An immediate hit it received 16 curtain calls on the opening night and had advanced sales of 30,000 in the first week. Oliver! was followed by other fairly successful shows such as Blitz and Maggie May. Bart was just 30 and earning £16 a minute! To finance his next musical "Twang!!" (based on the Robin Hood story) he signed away all rights to Oliver! The new show flopped badly and Bart estimated he lost about one million pounds in that and in the lost rights to Oliver! He filed for bankruptcy in 1972 with debts of £73,000. By the late 1970s his heavy drinking had brought on diabetes. He stopped drinking but one third of his liver had been destroyed. Lionel Bart died aged 68 after suffering cancer for 6 months.- Costume Designer
- Art Department
- Camera and Electrical Department
Cecil Beaton was born on 14 January 1904 in London, England, UK. He was a costume designer, known for My Fair Lady (1964), Gigi (1958) and Anna Karenina (1948). He died on 18 January 1980 in Broadchalke, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, UK.- Producer
- Location Management
- Production Manager
Thomas Clyde was born in 1917 in Battle, East Sussex, England, UK. He was a producer and production manager, known for Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958), Guns of Darkness (1962) and The Hostage (1956). He died in 1999 in Wandsworth, London, England, UK.- Zena Dare was born on 4 February 1887 in London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for BBC Play of the Month (1965), No. 5 John Street (1921) and Over the Moon (1939). She was married to Maurice Vyner Baliol Brett. She died on 11 March 1975 in London, England, UK.
- Actress
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Beautiful sophisticated blonde with pale face, Snowqueen of Texas Deborah Dixon, was a very popular model of the cult 1960s. Her beautiful face and perfect figure graced in fashion magazines, such as Harper's Bazaar. In the photos of Frank Horvat model Deborah Wood Dixon is accompanied by famous European painters, actors, directors, writers - Marcello Mastroianni, Federico Fellini, playwright Giuseppe Patroni Griffi. She was a real inspiration for later cult Scottish director Donald Cammell.
Deborah met Donald Cammell in New York. He moved with Deborah to Paris, where she continued to model and where he began to try his hand at writing scripts. Now she has been a very successful international model, and, in fact Cammell lived for her money for a few years. After living together for ten years, their long relationship (by the standards of fashion and film industry) ended shortly before the start of filming "Performance" (1970). Cammell earned a reputation as cult director just because of his debut film "Performance", costume designer for which was Deborah Wood Dixon.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Edith Evans was the greatest actress on the English stage in the 20th century, treading the boards for over half-a-century. She made her professional stage debut in 1912 and excelled in both classic and modern roles in the West End of London and on Broadway, as well as the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon and the Old Vic. She was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (the equivalent of a knighthood) in 1946.
Laurence Olivier has written in his memoirs that Evans's power on stage began to falter in the early 1960s, as her memory dimmed with age. It was about this time that she made a transition to the screen, after generally ignoring the medium for the first two decades of talking films. (After making her movie debut in 1915, Evans appeared in no films at all between 1916 and 1949, when she came back to the screen in support of a young Richard Burton in Emlyn Williams's Woman of Dolwyn (1949).) In the 1950s, she had made memorable appearances in film in The Queen of Spades (1949), The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Fred Zinnemann's The Nun's Story (1959) (1959), and in Tony Richardson's film version of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (1959), but it was her performance as Miss Western in Richardson's Oscar-winning Best Picture Tom Jones (1963) that established her as a major film presence. She won her first Oscar nomination for "Tom Jones", and her second the following year for The Chalk Garden (1964). She won a Golden Globe and the New York Film Critics Circle Award as Best Actress for her performance as the frightened old lady in Bryan Forbes's The Whisperers (1967). The role also brought her a 1967 Oscar nomination for Best Actress, though she lost the trophy to Katharine Hepburn, who had recently lost her long-time lover Spencer Tracy and rode a wave of Hollywood sentiment to victory.
Dame Edith Evans continued to act in films until her death, though the material generally was beneath her great talent. She died on October 14, 1976, at the age of 88.- Actor
Stanley Hall was born on 21 June 1917 in Birmingham, England, UK. He was an actor. He died on 21 June 1994 in Austin, Texas, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Beautiful, auburn-haired Virginia Gayle Hunnicutt was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the daughter of Sam Lloyd Hunnicutt, an army colonel, and his wife Mary (née Dickerson). Already in her teens, Gayle was determined to become a serious actress. She attended Texas Christian University in her home town and then won a scholarship to study theatre arts at the University of California. One of her visiting lecturers was the noted French film director Jean Renoir who further encouraged her acting ambitions. Gayle made her first appearances on the stage in college productions and at the Cahuenga Playhouse while supporting her studies financially, working at an advertising agency. Also at the same time, she began to shed her Texan drawl by attending a speech clinic.
Having been 'discovered' by a Warner Brothers talent scout, Gayle was offered a small part in an episode of the TV navy comedy Mister Roberts (1965) and then had a minor role in the Roger Corman-produced and directed outlaw biker counterculture classic The Wild Angels (1966). After that, she attracted attention as a featured guest star on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) (as a con artist) and in Get Smart (1965) (as Octavia, an alluring KAOS agent). The actor George Peppard was sufficiently impressed by her to persuade director John Guillermin to co-star her as the femme fatale in his private eye thriller P.J. (1967). Another glamour part was to follow as leading lady to James Garner in the neo film noir Marlowe (1969), in which Gayle played a TV star involved with a mob boss.
In 1968, she married the English actor and producer David Hemmings after a whirlwind romance. They appeared together in Fragment of Fear (1970) and he subsequently directed her in Running Scared (1972). Her turbulent union with Hemmings ended in divorce after seven years. Gayle, nonetheless, remained based in London. Having lost all trace of her Texas accent, she could effectively pass for being British. She appeared on the stage in several noted productions, including in the title role of Hedda Gabler at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury and as Peter Pan at the Shaftesbury. On the big screen, she co-starred as the wife of a physicist (Roddy McDowall) investigating The Legend of Hell House (1973). Her most significant impact, however, was to be on British television with her strongest showing as Charlotte Stant in The Golden Bowl (1972) (adapted from the 1904 novel by Henry James) and as the Tsarina Alexandra in the excellent miniseries Fall of Eagles (1974). In the French miniseries Fantômas (1980), she featured as the exotic mistress of the eponymous master criminal (portrayed in this version by Austrian actor Helmut Berger). In similar vein, she essayed Irene Adler -- nemesis of the great detective -- in the premier episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984) and took on the mantle of femme fatale once more opposite Powers Boothe in an episode of Philip Marlowe, Private Eye (1983).
Gayle's second husband (from 1978) was the author, political journalist and BBC broadcaster Simon Jenkins. This union, like her first, produced one son. She divorced Jenkins in 2009. By then, Gayle had already been retired from screen acting for ten years. In 2004, she published a selection of letters her father wrote to her mother while stationed with the 112th Cavalry in the South Pacific, entitled 'Dearest Virginia'. Gayle Hunnicutt passed away on 31 August 2023, aged 80.- Additional Crew
Radie Harris was born on 24 October 1904 in New York City, New York, USA. She is known for Stage Door Canteen (1943), The 15th Annual Tony Awards (1961) and The Mike Douglas Show (1961). She died on 22 February 2001 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
David Hemmings, one of the great English cinema icons of the 1960s, was born in Guildford, Surrey, on November 18, 1941, to a cookie merchant and his wife. He was educated at Glyn College, Epsom, but while still a child, Hemmings made his first forays into the world of entertainment. An accomplished singer, he toured as a boy soprano with the English Opera Group, famed for his performances of the works of Benjamin Britten. Britten, who befriended the youngster, wrote some roles specifically for Hemmings, including that of "Miles" in "The Turn of the Screw". Hemmings subsequently took up painting after his career as a soprano was ended by his transit through puberty. He studied painting at the Epsom School of Art, where he staged the first exhibition of his work at the school when he was 15 years old.
Hemmings made his film debut in 1954, with The Rainbow Jacket (1954) for Ealing Studios. He also had bit part in Otto Preminger's 1957 version of Saint Joan (1957). In his 20s, he returned to singing, appearing at nightclubs before concentrating on the stage and the cinema. As the youth culture hit Britain in the late 50s (the Notting Hill race riots of August 1958 limned in Julien Temple's 1986 film Absolute Beginners (1986) being a kind of bookmark signaling its arrival), Hemmings was in the right place at the right time to capitalize on his skills and looks. Boyish-looking, with large, protuberant blue eyes covered with heavy lids, his face was at once startling and decadent while simultaneously conveying an air of fragility. He starred in pop music movies Sing and Swing (1963) and Be My Guest (1965), as well as co-starring in one of Michael Winner's first films, The Girl-Getters (1964), with Oliver Reed.
The 24-year-old Hemmings desperately wanted what would become his career-defining role, as the morally jaded fashion photographer Thomas in master-director Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966). He was up against the crème of British actors, including Terence Stamp, who already had an Oscar nomination under his belt and was conventionally handsome.
Hemmings thought he had blown his audition as Antonioni shook his head constantly throughout his audition. However, he later found out the great director had a mild form of Tourette's which caused him to move his head from side to side.
The role made him a star and, for a while, a darling of the pop culture filmmaking that was expected to revolutionize the English-speaking cinema in the 1960s, after the 1964 Best Picture Oscar-win of Tony Richardson's Tom Jones (1963). He was cast as Mordred in the big-screen adaptation of Lerner & Lowe's musical Camelot (1967) with Richard Harris and Hemmings Blow-Up (1966) co-star Vanessa Redgrave to critically panned results. The same year that "Camelot" was released (1967), he put out a pop single ("Back Street Mirror") and an album, "David Hemmings Happens", recorded in Los Angeles. His album was produced by Jim Dickinson, the early producer of The Byrds, and featured instrumental backing by several members of group. It was re-released on CD in 2005.
In 1968, he appeared as Dildano opposite Jane Fonda (in her incarnation as a sexpot) in Roger Vadim's kitsch classic Barbarella (1968).
However, to reduce stereotyping and his identification with pop culture filmmaking, he took on the role of the anti-hero Captain Nolan in Tony Richardson's masterful satire The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) and later, the eponymous role in Alfred the Great (1969). While both films were imbued with the counter-cultural attitudes of their times, the roles themselves were rather straightforward. Hemmings had reached the summit of his career as an actor. These were the heights he never reached again.
As the quality of his roles declined, Hemmings turned more to directing. He had directed his first film in 1972, helming the thriller Running Scared (1972) which starred Gayle Hunnicutt, his wife from 1968 to 1974. Hemmings also co-wrote the script. In the 1970s, he had relocated to Malibu, California to live with Hunnicutt, and the fabled beach community which was his home for the next generation. In 1975, he starred as Bertie Wooster in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, "Jeeves", one of Lord Webber's few flops.
Hemmings formed the independent production company Hemdale Corp. with his business partner, John Daly, in the early 1970s as a tax shelter. He was able to use Hemdale and his role as a producer to vivify his directing career. In 1979, Hemmings the director first attracted major attention with Just a Gigolo (1978), but the film was a flop in spite of its interesting cast. After directing the 1981 adventure film Treasure of the Yankee Zephyr (1981) and an adaptation of James Herbert's novel "The Survivor", he focused on TV directing. He soon became one of the top directors of American action TV programs, including The A-Team (1983), Airwolf (1984), Magnum, P.I. (1980) and Quantum Leap (1989).
However, in the nineties, he abandoned directing, and returned to live in the UK. The role of "Cassius" in Gladiator (2000) heralded his full-time return to acting. He was also memorable in a small role in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002). But it was his last major role, in the cinema adaption of Graham Swift's Last Orders (2001), that showed Hemmings at the top of his talent. Unrecognizable from the boy-man of 1966-70, he was memorable as the ex-boxer who ruefully remembers the past with his remaining buddies as they travel to throw the ashes of a departed friend into the sea. That two of the other major roles were filled by Michael Caine and Tom Courtenay, two other British actors whose careers first flourished in the 1960s, added to the poignancy of this tale of men trying to recapture lost time. He also appeared, less memorably, in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) opposite the ultimate 60s male British cinema icon, Sean Connery.
David Hemmings died of a heart attack on December 3, 2003, in Bucharest, Romania, on the set of Blessed (2004), after playing his scenes for the day. He was 62 years old. His autobiography, "Blow Up... and Other Exaggerations" was published in 2004.- Jay Kanter was born on 12 December 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is a producer, known for Fear Is the Key (1972), Villain (1971) and Ferrari. He was previously married to Kit Bennett and Judy Balaban.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Roger Moore will perhaps always be remembered as the man who replaced Sean Connery in the James Bond series, arguably something he never lived down.
Roger George Moore was born on October 14, 1927 in Stockwell, London, England, the son of Lillian (Pope) and George Alfred Moore, a policeman. His mother was born in Calcutta, India, to a British family. Roger first wanted to be an artist, but got into films full time after becoming an extra in the late 1940s. He came to the United States in 1953. Suave, extremely handsome, and an excellent actor, he received a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His initial foray met with mixed success, with movies like Diane (1956) and Interrupted Melody (1955), as well as The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954).
Moore went into television in the 1950s on series such as Ivanhoe (1958) and The Alaskans (1959), but probably received the most recognition from Maverick (1957), as cousin Beau. He received his big breakthrough, at least internationally, as The Saint (1962). The series made him a superstar and he became very successful thereafter. Moore ended his run as the Saint, and was one of the premier stars of the world, but he was not catching on in America. In an attempt to change this, he agreed to star with Tony Curtis on ITC's The Persuaders! (1971), but although hugely popular in Europe, it did not catch on in the United States and was canceled. Just prior to making the series, he starred in The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970), which proved there was far more to Moore than the light-hearted roles he had previously accepted.
He was next offered and accepted the role of James Bond, and once audiences got used to the change of style from Connery's portrayal, they also accepted him. Live and Let Die (1973), his first Bond movie, grossed more outside of America than Diamonds Are Forever (1971); Connery's last outing as James Bond. He went on to star in another six Bond films, before bowing out after A View to a Kill (1985). He was age 57 at the time the film was made and was looking a little too old for Bond - it was possibly one film too many. In between times, there had been more success with appearances in films such as That Lucky Touch (1975), Shout at the Devil (1976), The Wild Geese (1978), Escape to Athena (1979) and North Sea Hijack (1980).
Despite his fame from the Bond films and many others, the United States never completely took to him until he starred in The Cannonball Run (1981) alongside Burt Reynolds, a success there. After relinquishing his role as Bond, his work load tended to diminish a little, though he did star in the American box office flop Feuer, Eis & Dynamit (1990), as well as the comedy Bullseye! (1990), with Michael Caine. He did the overlooked comedy Bed & Breakfast (1991), as well as the television movie The Man Who Wouldn't Die (1994), and then the major Jean-Claude Van Damme flop The Quest (1996). Moore then took second rate roles such as Spice World (1997), and the American television series The Dream Team (1999). Although his film work slowed down, he was still in the public eye, be it appearing on television chat shows or hosting documentaries.
Roger Moore was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire on December 31, 1998 in the New Years Honours for services to UNICEF, and was promoted to Knight Commander of the same order on June 14, 2003 in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to the charities UNICEF and Kiwanis International.
Roger Moore died of cancer on 23 May, 2017, in Switzerland. He was 89.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Mary Peach was born on 20 October 1934 in Durban, South Africa. She is an actress, known for Cutthroat Island (1995), Scrooge (1970) and The Projected Man (1966).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in India to South African parents, Juliet studied to be a dancer from the age of 4. Attending the Royal Academy of Dance, by the time Juliet was 14, she was deemed too tall to enter the world of ballet. She signed as a chorus dancer with the London Palladium and then pursued a career as a dancer in European nightclubs. While dancing in Paris, she was spotted by Hollywood choreographer Hermes Pan and signed to a role in the movie Can-Can (1960). While rehearsing for the movie, Soviet Premier Khrushchev was invited to watch the then-unknown Prowse and others rehearsing their steps. The next day, he denounced the dance as immoral and it was Prowse's photo that accompanied the news across newspapers worldwide. An instant celebrity, Juliet shot to stardom with her acting and dancing and the tabloids filled with her romance with star Frank Sinatra. That same year, she also appeared with Elvis Presley in G.I. Blues (1960) and again the tabloids followed her.
She appeared in more films the next year but, as her celebrity status waned, so did her movie career. Her engagement to Sinatra in 1962 fueled her nightclub act, but did nothing for her movie career. In 1965, she moved to television with the series Mona McCluskey (1965), playing a nutty Hollywood starlet, but the show soon ended. Her big-screen career ended with Run for Your Wife (1965) and she, thereafter, appeared on the stage and on the nightclub circuit. Some of her stage shows included "Sweet Charity", "Kismet", "Irma La Douce", "Mame" and "The Pajama Game". She also appeared as a guest on Television but, most of the time, she worked in her nightclub act. In 1994, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.- Composer
- Soundtrack
Sharon Sheeley holds the distinction of being one of the first and most successful female songwriters to hit the rock'n'roll scene during its burgeoning years in the late 50's. Sharon was born into an Irish family on April 4, 1940 in Los Angeles, California. Sheeley attended Harbor High School in Newport Beach, California and briefly worked as a teen model before becoming a songwriter. She was still a teenager when she penned "Poor Little Fool", which was a #1 smash for Ricky Nelson in 1958. This, in turn, made Sheeley the youngest woman to have ever written a major hit song at that time. Moreover, Sharon was the girlfriend of rockabilly singer Eddie Cochran, whom she was first introduced to by Don Everly of The Everly Brothers. She co-wrote Cochran's 1959 Top 30 hit "Somethin' Else". Other songs Sheeley either wrote or co-wrote for Cochran are "Love Again", "Think of Me", "Cherished Memories" and "Lonely". Among the songs she wrote for other artists are "Hurry Up" for Ritchie Valens and "Runnin' on Back" for Del Shannon. In 1960, Sharon and fellow rockabilly singer Gene Vincent survived the unfortunate automobile accident in England which killed Cochran. After returning to the United States, Sheeley formed a partnership with singer/songwriter Jackie DeShannon; the distaff duo collaborated on such songs as the Brenda Lee hits "Dum Dum" and "Heart in Hand", Irma Thomas's "Breakaway", 'the Fleetwoods'' "(He's) The Great Imposter", "The Kalin Twins"' "Trouble", DeShannon's "You Won't Forget Me" and "Can't Help Forgiving You", "Each Time", and "Till You Say You'll Be Mine" for The Searchers. In 1961, Sharon married Los Angeles disc jockey and Shindig! (1964) TV series emcee Jimmy O'Neill; the couple divorced five years later, but remained friends. She was also a mentor to singer P.J. Proby. Sheeley largely retired from the music business in the mid 60's. Sharon Sheeley died at age 62 from complications following a cerebral hemorrhage on May 17, 2002 in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Nancy Sandra Sinatra was born the first child of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Barbato Sinatra on June 8, 1940 in Jersey City, New Jersey. Her first television appearance was with her father and Elvis Presley in 1959. She first appeared as a film actress in For Those Who Think Young (1964) and Get Yourself a College Girl (1964). Nancy appeared alongside Elvis in the musical comedy Speedway (1968). She also had a successful career as a singer with two United States chart-toppers ("These Boots Are Made for Walking" and the duet with her father called "Somethin' Stupid") as well as numerous other chart entries including the John Barry / Leslie Bricusse penned theme song to the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967). Lee Hazlewood wrote many of her songs and sang with her on some of them. By the early 1970s, she was covering new ground by recording songs from other writers such as Bob Dylan, Smokey Robinson, Lynsey de Paul and Roy Wood. In recent years, Nancy has made a comeback also not hindered by the recent successful re-recording of "Somethin' Stupid" by Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman.