The Sons of Katie Elder 1965 premiere
Thursday June 24th, Roosevelt Theater
110 N. State Street, Chicago, IL 60602
110 N. State Street, Chicago, IL 60602
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John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.
Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. Until the ranch failed, Marion and his younger brother Robert E. Morrison swam in an irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school. When the ranch failed, the family moved to Glendale, California, where Marion delivered medicines for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named "Duke" (the source of his own nickname). He did well at school both academically and in football. When he narrowly failed admission to Annapolis he went to USC on a football scholarship 1925-7. Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop man in exchange for football tickets. On the set he became close friends with director John Ford for whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, some billed as John Wayne. His first featured film was Men Without Women (1930). After more than 70 low-budget westerns and adventures, mostly routine, Wayne's career was stuck in a rut until Ford cast him in Stagecoach (1939), the movie that made him a star. He appeared in nearly 250 movies, many of epic proportions. From 1942-43 he was in a radio series, "The Three Sheets to the Wind", and in 1944 he helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Conservative political organization, later becoming its President. His conservative political stance was also reflected in The Alamo (1960), which he produced, directed and starred in. His patriotic stand was enshrined in The Green Berets (1968) which he co-directed and starred in. Over the years Wayne was beset with health problems. In September 1964 he had a cancerous left lung removed; in 1977 when Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope was being made, John Waynes archive voice was used for the character Garindan ezz Zavor, later in March 1978 there was heart valve replacement surgery; and in January 1979 his stomach was removed. He received the Best Actor nomination for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and finally got the Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). A Congressional Gold Medal was struck in his honor in 1979. He is perhaps best remembered for his parts in Ford's cavalry trilogy - Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950).- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, to Gaetano Alfonso "Guy" Crocetti, an Italian immigrant and barber, and his Ohio-born wife, Angela (Barra) Crocetti. He spoke only Italian until age five. Martin came up the hard way, with such jobs as a boxer ("Kid Crochet"), a steel mill worker, a gas station worker and a casino croupier/dealer. In 1946, Martin got his first ticket to stardom, as he teamed up with another hard worker who was also trying to succeed in Hollywood: Jerry Lewis. Films such as At War with the Army (1950) sent the team toward super-stardom. The duo were to become one of Hollywood's truly great teams. They lasted 11 years together, and starred in 16 movies. They were unstoppable, but personality conflicts broke up the team. Even without Lewis, Martin was a true superstar.
Few thought that Martin would go on to achieve solo success, but he did, winning critical acclaim for his role in The Young Lions (1958) with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, and Some Came Running (1958), with Shirley MacLaine and Frank Sinatra. Movies such as Rio Bravo (1959) brought him international fame. One of his best remembered films is in Ocean's Eleven (1960), in which he played Sam Harmon alongside the other members of the legendary Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. Martin proved potent at the box office through the 1960s, with films such as Bells Are Ringing (1960) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), again with Rat Pack pals Sammy Davis Jr. and Sinatra. During much of the 1960s and 1970s, his film persona of a boozing playboy prompted a series of films as secret agent Matt Helm and his own television variety show. Airport (1970) followed, featuring Martin as a pilot. He played a phony priest in The Cannonball Run (1981).
In 1965, Martin explored a new method for entertaining his fans: Television. That year he hosted one of the most successful TV series in history: The Dean Martin Show (1965), which lasted until 1973. In 1965, it won a Golden Globe Award. In 1973, he renamed it "The Dean Martin Comedy Hour", and from 1974 to 1984 it was renamed again, this time "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts". It became one of the most successful TV series in history, skewering such greats as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, James Stewart, George Burns, Milton Berle, Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller, and Joe Namath.
His last public role was a return to the stage, for a cross-country concert tour with Davis and Sinatra. He spoke affectionately of his fellow Rat Packers. "The satisfaction that I get out of working with these two bums is that we have more laughs than the audience has", Martin said. After the 1980s, Martin took it easy until his son, Dean Paul Martin, was killed in a plane crash in March 1987.
Devastated by the loss, from which he never recovered, he walked out on a reunion tour with Sinatra and Davis. Martin spent his final years in solitude, out of the public light. A heavy smoker most of his life, Martin died on Christmas Day 1995 at age 78 from complications to lung cancer.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Martha Hyer was born on August 10, 1924 in Fort Worth, Texas. Once she finished her formal schooling, Martha played a bit role in 1946's The Locket (1946). Slowly, Martha began picking up roles with more and more substance. The best years for the beautiful actress began in 1954 when she played in films such as Down Three Dark Streets (1954), Showdown at Abilene (1956) and Battle Hymn (1957). Perhaps the best role of her long career was as "Gwen French" in 1958's Some Came Running (1958) in which she starred opposite Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. As a result of her stellar role, Martha received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, but she lost out to Wendy Hiller in Separate Tables (1958). Afterwards, Martha's stint on the US silver screen's trailed off some. She did make a handful of foreign films, returning to appear in the US from time to time, but nothing compared to the pace she had in the fifties. Her last film was in 1973 in the film The Day of the Wolves (1971). In 1966, she married producer Hal B. Wallis and remained with him until his death in 1986.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Michael Anderson Jr. was born on 6 August 1943 in Hillingdon, Middlesex, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Logan's Run (1976), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).- Ruggedly handsome, slack-jawed actor Earl Holliman was born on September 11, 1928, in northeastern Louisiana amid meager surroundings. His father, a farmer named William Frost, died several months before Earl's birth, forcing his poverty-stricken mother to give up seven of her ten children. He was adopted as a baby by an oil-field worker named Henry Earl Holliman and his waitress wife Velma, growing up in the Louisiana and Arkansas areas. Though Henry died when Earl was 13, the adoptive parents were a source of happiness and inspiration growing up.
Entertaining became an early passion after ushering at a local movie house and Earl at one point was a magician's assistant as a young teen. Hoping to discovered, Earl ran away from home hoping to be discovered in Hollywood. Following that aborted attempt, the teenager returned to Louisiana and immediately enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II by lying about his age (16). Assigned to a Navy communications school in Los Angeles, this re-stimulated his passion for acting, spending much of his free time at the Hollywood Canteen.
Discharged from the Navy a year after enlisting when his true age was discovered, he returned home to work in menial jobs and complete his high school education. Reenlisting in the Navy, he was cast as the lead in several Norfolk (Virginia) Navy Theatre productions. This led to a trek back to Hollywood after his (this time) honorable discharge[ where he attended USC and studied acting at UCLA Drama School and the Pasadena Playhouse, working as a Blue Cross file clerk and airplane builder at North American Aviation.
Earl started off apprenticing in uncredited film bits in several films --Destination Gobi (1953) and Scared Stiff (1953). He soon rose in rank and gained clout playing jaunty young rookies and tenderfeet and young stud types in rugged westerns, war drama and rollicking comedy. His swaggering characters in such films as Tennessee Champ (1954), Broken Lance (1954), The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), The Big Combo (1955), I Died a Thousand Times (1955), Forbidden Planet (1956), The Burning Hills (1956) and Giant (1956) ranged from dim and good-natured to impulsive and threatening.
Holliman won a Golden Globe for his support performance as a girl-crazy brother in The Rainmaker (1956), holding his own against stars Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn. Without progressing to star roles, he continued to provide durable late 50's support to big name stars including Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) starring Lancaster and Kirk Douglas; Trooper Hook (1957) starring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck; Don't Go Near the Water (1957) starring Glenn Ford; Hot Spell (1958) starring Shirley Booth, Anthony Quinn and Shirley MacLaine; The Trap (1959) starring Richard Widmark; and Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) again with Douglas and Quinn.
Although film offers began drying up in the 1960s, Earl was enjoyable boorish in his dealing with innocent alien Jerry Lewis in the wacky comedy Visit to a Small Planet (1960); had a touching final scene in a park with Geraldine Page in the somber Tennessee Williams period piece Summer and Smoke (1961); played one of John Wayne's younger punch-drunk brothers in the freewheeling western The Sons of Katie Elder (1965); portrayed a salesman on trial for murdering his wife in A Covenant with Death (1967); and was a platoon sergeant in command in Anzio (1968).
Holliman found a highly accepting medium in TV with a lead series role as reformed gunslinger "Sundance" (not The Sundance Kid) in the short-lived western series Hotel de Paree (1959), plus showed off a virile stance in episodes of "The Twilight Zone," "Bus Stop," "Checkmate," "Bonanza," "Dr. Kildare," "The Fugitive," "Marcus Welby, M.D.," "It Takes a Thief," "Alias Smith and Jones," "Gunsmoke," "Medical Center," "Ironside," "The Magical World of Disney" and "The F.B.I." He also appeared in a number of TV movies that became popular in the late 1960's. He played hard-ass, redneck types in the action adventure The Desperate Mission (1969) and in the military drama The Tribe (1970), but did a complete turnaround as a good guy psychologist trying to help get a kid hooker off the streets in Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn (1977). This all culminated in his most popular series program, a four-year stint as the macho partner to sexy Angie Dickinson in Police Woman (1974), a role that helped make him a household name.
On the side, the never-married Holliman found a brief, yet successful, career in the late 1950's as a singer and copped a record deal with Capitol Records at one point, while scoring as Curly in a tour of the musical "Oklahoma" in 1963. Other non-musical roles included "Sunday in New York," "The Country Girl," "The Tender Trap," "Camino Real," "A Streetcar Named Desire" (as Mitch) and "A Chorus Line" (as Zach). He also owned the Fiesta Dinner Playhouse for a decade in the late 1970's and performed there, between film and TV assignments, in such shows as "Mister Roberts," "Arsenic and Old Lace" and "Same Time, Next Year."
An intermittent presence in later years, Earl was seen primarily on TV including the acclaimed miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983), as well as the TV programs "Empty Nest," "In the Heat of the Night," "Murder, She Wrote" and "Caroline in the City." regular roles on three drama series: the urban drama P.S.I. Luv U (1991); the comedy series Delta (1992) (Golden Globe nomination) which starred Delta Burke in a short-lived follow-up to her "Designing Women" exit; and the sci-fi action adventure NightMan (1997).
A conservative political activist and animal rescuer on the side, Earl retired from the screen into the millennium -- shortly after appearing in the movies Bad City Blues (1999) and The Perfect Tenant (2000). - Actor
- Writer
Born by the Atlantic Ocean, Jeremy Slate also had a Pacific Ocean view when he lived in Malibu, California. In between oceans he has traveled the world.
He attended a military academy, joined the US Navy at 16 and was barely 18 when his destroyer joined the invasion of Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944). Aboard that destroyer at Omaha Beach that day, he vowed if he survived the attack he would make his life a never-ending series of adventures. He has lived up to that promise with adventures as a lifeguard, a swimming instructor, the first person to swim across the Long Island Sound after the war, college graduate with honors in English, writer, songwriter, screenwriter, a radio announcer, actor and director.
After the war he attended St. Lawrence University, graduating with honors. He was president of the student body, editor of the college literary magazine, a football player and backfield coach of the only undefeated freshman team in the school's history. A campus radio personality in his senior year, he married the queen of his fraternity's ball. Chosen for the school's honor society, he was a big man on campus. After graduating, he became a professional radio sportscaster and DJ for CBS and ABC affiliates while beginning a family that ultimately included three sons and two daughters, but unfortunately the marriage ended in divorce.
As a young man with a growing family, he had a promising career as a public relations executive with W.R. Grace and Co. For six years he worked for Grace as travel manager for its president, Peter Grace. He then joined the Grace Steamship Line and moved with his family to Lima, Peru.
While in Peru he joined a professional theater group and became involved with the production of "The Rainmaker" at the Professional English Language Theater in Lima. He was awarded the Tiahuanacothe, the Peruvian equivalent of the Tony award, for his portrayal of the character Starbuck. After a year of training, he left W.R. Grace to pursue a theatrical career and was cast in a small, significant role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Look Homeward, Angel" on Broadway and did 254 performances.
Known as one of the more talented members of Hollywood's beach boy set of the 1960s, Slate sent feminine hearts aflutter as the star of the 1960 TV series The Aquanauts (1960). His career included numerous guest-starring roles in popular television programs of the 1950s and 1960s. He guest-starred in nearly 100 television shows as well as appearing in 20 feature films.
While about half of his portrayals have been heavies, Jeremy is equally adept at comedy and has worked with some of Hollywood's best. He was punched out by Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), Frankie Avalon broke a guitar over his head in I'll Take Sweden (1965), he was knocked silly by Van Johnson in Wives and Lovers (1963), was shot by John Wayne in True Grit (1969), died spectacularly while trying to save the Duke's life in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), was shot between the eyes by Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin in The Born Losers (1967) and went up in flames in The Lawnmower Man (1992). Jeremy wrote the screen story for Hell's Angels '69 (1969). During the filming of this biker film (which he described as a "western on wheels") he broke his leg, and never rode a motorcycle again.
An accomplished country-and-western songwriter and a BMI member, Jeremy wrote the lyrics to the Tex Ritter top-ten song "Just Beyond the Moon" and also wrote the lyrics for "Every Time I Itch (I Wind Up Scratchin' You)" recorded by Glen Campbell on Capitol Records.
Jeremy Slate died on November 19, 2006, from complications following surgery for esophageal cancer.- Actor
- Editor
- Producer
New York-born James Gregory gave up a career as a stockbroker for one as an actor, and began on the Broadway stage. He made his film debut in 1948. Gregory specialized in playing loud, brash, tough cops or businessmen. One of his better roles was as the detective out to get Capone in Al Capone (1959). He also played Dean Martin's boss in three of the four cheesy "Matt Helm" spy films. Memorable as the opinionated, loudmouthed Inspector Luger in the television series Barney Miller (1975).- Actor
- Writer
Paul Fix, the well-known movie and TV character actor who played "Marshal Micah Torrance" on the TV series The Rifleman (1958), was born Peter Paul Fix on March 13, 1901 in Dobbs Ferry, New York to brew-master Wilhelm Fix and his wife, the former Louise C. Walz. His mother and father were German immigrants who had left their Black Forest home and arrived in New York City in the 1870s. (The name "Fix" is of Latin/Germanic origin, and is derived from St. Vitus and means "animated" or "vital").
Besides Peter Paul, the Fix family consisted of two girls and three boys, the youngest of whom was six years older than the future actor. Peter Paul's childhood was a happy one. He and his family lived on the 200-acre property on which the Manilla Anchor Brewery, where his father was brew-master, was situated. Such was the importance of the senior Fix to the brewery that when he died at the age of 62 on the eve of America's entry into the First World War (two years after his 54-year old wife had died), the brewery closed.
The orphaned Peter Paul, who kept to himself a lot and had a vivid imagination, was sent to live with his married sisters, first one who lived nearby in Yonkers, and then to another in Zanesville, Ohio. The just-turned-17-year-old Peter Paul Fix joined the U.S. Navy on March 12, 1918, and spent his state-side service time during World War I in Newport, Rhode Island and Charleston, South Carolina. He first tread the boards as an actor while a sailor stationed in Newport, when the baby-faced salt (who looked much younger than his age) was one of six gobs chosen to play female roles in the Navy Relief Show "HMS Pinafore". The Navy staging of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta was a big hit and chalked up a run of several weeks in Providence and Boston.
Fix was assigned as an able-bodied seaman to the troopship U.S.S. Mount Vernon, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of France but did not sink as it was run aground. The rest of Fix's naval career was less exciting, and he was demobilized on September 5, 1919. After his discharge, Fix went back to his girlfriend Frances (Taddy) Harvey, whom he had left behind in Zanesville. He and Taddy were married in 1922 and they moved to California as Fix had always wanted to live in a warm climate.
Fix and his bride settled in Hollywood, not so much because he had set ideas about becoming an actor but because he didn't know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He liked writing and acting in local plays, and soon became friends with the fellow tyro actor Clark Gable, who was his own age. Fix and Gable were discovered by the stage actress Pauline Frederick, who hired them to be members of her touring troupe that traveled by train the length of the West Coast putting on plays. In all, Fix - who had informally renamed himself Paul Peter - appeared in 20 plays with Gable.
Paul Fix had one of his earliest acting roles on celluloid in the mid-1920s, appearing in a silent Western starring William S. Hart. The Western genre eventually would become the one he was most identified with. He played uncredited bit parts and small roles in silents before getting his first credited role in an early talkie (which was part-silent and part-talking), The First Kiss (1928), which starred future Hollywood superstar Gary Cooper and the dame that drove King Kong ape, Fay Wray. In all, Fix appeared in 300-400 films. The Western programmers of the silent and early talkie days could be shot in less than a week.
In 1925, Taddy gave birth to their daughter Marilyn Carey, who eventually would marry Harry Carey Jr., the son of one of the first great Western superstars. They would have three more children and become part of the extended family gathered around the director John Ford. In his career, Paul Fix would appear with another Western legend, John Wayne, in 26 films, starting in 1931 with Three Girls Lost (1931). Urged on by Loretta Young, Fix became an acting coach for the young actor, and Wayne later paid him back when he became a star by having Fix appear in his movies. (The Duke also was a part of the close-knit group that collected around John Ford). With the Duke's patronage, the kinds of roles that Fix played changed. He had been typed as villains in the 1930s but, in the 40s, he began assaying a better class of character.
Paul Fix was also a screenwriter, and is credited as the writer on three films: Tall in the Saddle (1944), Ring of Fear (1954) and The Notorious Mr. Monks (1958). His favorites parts included playing the stricken passenger in the John Wayne picture The High and the Mighty (1954), Elizabeth Taylor's father in George Stevens' classic Giant (1956), the grandfather of the eponymous The Bad Seed (1956) and the judge in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). His last screen appearance was in the Brooke Shields movie Wanda Nevada (1979), but he is most famous for appearing in the recurring role of "Marshal Micah Torrance" in the popular Western TV series The Rifleman (1958). As of 1981, the 80-year old Fix was still getting mail from all over the world from "Rifleman" fans.
Paul Fix died October 14, 1983 of kidney failure. He was survived by his daughter Marilyn Carey and son-in-law Harry "Dobe" Carey, three grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
George Harris Kennedy, Jr. was born on February 18, 1925 in New York City, to Helen (Kieselbach), a ballet dancer, and George Harris Kennedy, an orchestra leader and musician. Following high school graduation, Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army in 1943 with the hope to become a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps. Instead, he wound up in the infantry, served under General George S. Patton and distinguished himself with valor. He won two Bronze Stars and four rows of combat and service ribbons.
A World War II veteran, Kennedy at one stage in his career cornered the market at playing tough, no-nonsense characters who were either quite crooked or possessed hearts of gold. Kennedy notched up an impressive 200+ appearances in both television and films, and was well respected within the Hollywood community. He started out on television Westerns in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), Rawhide (1959), Maverick (1957), Colt .45 (1957), among others) before scoring minor roles in films including Lonely Are the Brave (1962), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965).
The late 1960s was a very busy period for Kennedy, and he was strongly in favor with casting agents, appearing in Hurry Sundown (1967), The Dirty Dozen (1967) and scoring an Oscar win as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cool Hand Luke (1967). The disaster film boom of the 1970s was also kind to Kennedy and his talents were in demand for Airport (1970) and the three subsequent sequels, as a grizzled police officer in Earthquake (1974), plus the buddy/road film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) as vicious bank robber Red Leary.
The 1980s saw Kennedy appear in a mishmash of roles, playing various characters; however, Kennedy and Leslie Nielsen surprised everyone with their comedic talents in the hugely successful The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), and the two screen veterans exaggerate themselves again, in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). From 1988-1991, he also played Ewing family nemesis Carter McKay on the CBS prime-time soap opera Dallas (1978).
Kennedy also played President Warren G. Harding in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House (1979) and had a long standing role on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless (1973). He remained busy in Hollywood and lent his distinctive voice to the animated Cats Don't Dance (1997) and the children's action film Small Soldiers (1998). A Hollywood stalwart for nearly 50 years, he is one of the most enjoyable actors to watch on screen. His last role was in the film The Gambler (2014), as Mark Wahlberg's character's grandfather.
George Kennedy died of natural causes in Middleton, Idaho on February 28, 2016, only ten days after his 91st birthday.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Multi-talented and unconventional actor/director regarded by many as one of the true "enfant terribles" of Hollywood who led an amazing cinematic career for more than five decades, Dennis Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas. The young Hopper expressed interest in acting from a young age and first appeared in a slew of 1950s television shows, including Medic (1954), Cheyenne (1955) and Sugarfoot (1957). His first film role was in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), quickly followed by Giant (1956) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Hopper actually became good friends with James Dean and was shattered when Dean was killed in a car crash in September 1955.
Hopper portrayed a young Napoléon Bonaparte (!) in the star-spangled The Story of Mankind (1957) and regularly appeared on screen throughout the 1960s, often in rather undemanding parts, usually as a villain in westerns such as True Grit (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968). However, in early 1969, Hopper, fellow actor Peter Fonda and writer Terry Southern, wrote a counterculture road movie script and managed to scrape together $400,000 in financial backing. Hopper directed the low-budget film, titled Easy Rider (1969), starring Fonda, Hopper and a young Jack Nicholson. The film was a phenomenal box-office success, appealing to the anti-establishment youth culture of the times. It changed the Hollywood landscape almost overnight and major studios all jumped onto the anti-establishment bandwagon, pumping out low-budget films about rebellious hippies, bikers, draft dodgers and pot smokers. However, Hopper's next directorial effort, The Last Movie (1971), was a critical and financial failure, and he has admitted that during the 1970s he was seriously abusing various substances, both legal and illegal, which led to a downturn in the quality of his work. He appeared in a sparse collection of European-produced films over the next eight years, before cropping up in a memorable performance as a pot-smoking photographer alongside Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen in Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now (1979). He also received acclaim for his work in both acting and direction for Out of the Blue (1980).
With these two notable efforts, the beginning of the 1980s saw a renaissance of interest by Hollywood in the talents of Dennis Hopper and exorcising the demons of drugs and alcohol via a rehabilitation program meant a return to invigorating and provoking performances. He was superb in Rumble Fish (1983), co-starred in the tepid spy thriller The Osterman Weekend (1983), played a groovy school teacher in My Science Project (1985), was a despicable and deranged drug dealer in River's Edge (1986) and, most memorably, electrified audiences as foul-mouthed Frank Booth in the eerie and erotic David Lynch film Blue Velvet (1986). Interestingly, the offbeat Hopper was selected in the early 1980s to provide the voice of "The StoryTeller" in the animated series of "Rabbit Ears" children's films based upon the works of Hans Christian Andersen!
Hopper returned to film direction in the late 1980s and was at the helm of the controversial gang film Colors (1988), which was well received by both critics and audiences. He was back in front of the cameras for roles in Super Mario Bros. (1993), got on the wrong side of gangster Christopher Walken in True Romance (1993), led police officer Keanu Reeves and bus passenger Sandra Bullock on a deadly ride in Speed (1994) and challenged gill-man Kevin Costner for world supremacy in Waterworld (1995). The enigmatic Hopper continued to remain busy through the 1990s and into the new century with performances in All the Way (2003), The Keeper (2004) and Land of the Dead (2005).
As well as his acting/directing talents, Hopper was a skilled photographer and painter, having had his works displayed in galleries in both the United States and overseas. He was additionally a dedicated and knowledgeable collector of modern art and had one of the most extensive collections in the United States. Dennis died of prostate cancer on May 29, 2010, less than two weeks after his 74th birthday.- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Sheldon Allman was born on 8 June 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for George of the Jungle (1997), Bio-Dome (1996) and Monster Mash: The Movie (1995). He was married to Lorraine Snedden Wilms. He died on 22 January 2002 in Culver City, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Litel's tough, no-nonsense demeanor on screen was not entirely due to his skill as an actor--when World War I broke out he enlisted in the French army, not wanting to wait until the US entered, and was twice decorated for bravery. Returning to the US after the war, he enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and toured with various stage companies, making his film debut in 1929. He was one of what was called the "Warner Bros. Stock Company" in the 1930s--with such character actors as Ward Bond, Frank McHugh, Joan Blondell, George Tobias, Henry O'Neill and Alan Hale, among others--and he appeared in dozens of films there, often as a tough police captain, hard-nosed district attorney, no-nonsense business executive and other such authority figures. He could also convincingly play villains, as when he played the evil "Scorpion" in the classic serial Don Winslow of the Navy (1942). Always a solid, dependable character actor, Litel appeared in more than 200 films, sometimes playing leads but mainly as a supporting actor. From 1952-53 he played Robert Cummings' brooding boss Mr. Thackery in the NBC-TV sitcom My Hero (1952).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Stocky, balding American character actor with a rich, deep voice, equally adept at Western bad guys and Shakespeare. He began his career in films in minor roles, primarily as gangland henchmen, and progressed to become widely familiar as a figure in a variety of dramas and occasional comedies. Although a stalwart and reliable supporting player, he was not of a type to essay leading roles in films, but remained a well-respected actor whose face, if not name, is familiar to a generation of film and television viewers.- James Westerfield was born on 22 March 1913 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for On the Waterfront (1954), True Grit (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968). He was married to Alice Gertrude Fay (Fay Tracey) and Rosemary Doris Deveson. He died on 20 September 1971 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Moviegoers can be forgiven if they thought that stocky, jaunty Rhys Williams was a jovial Irishman, as he often played that type of character, but his role as a Welsh miner in John Ford's classic How Green Was My Valley (1941) (his film debut) was much closer to home for him, as he was born and raised in Wales. In fact, he served as a technical advisor and Welsh language consultant on the film. He began his career on the British stage, and traveled the country as a member of various Shakespearean stock companies, even joining the famed Globe Theater company for a spell. Once he began his career in Hollywood, though, he became one of the busiest supporting actors in the business. He appeared in everything from action pictures to mysteries to westerns to musicals. One of his few villainous roles was as a weaselly American reporter in Tokyo on the payroll of the Japanese government just prior to World War II in Blood on the Sun (1945). In addition to his prolific film work, he did much television over the years, appearing in everything from Maverick (1957) to Mission: Impossible (1966). He died in Santa Monica, California, in 1969, shortly before his last film, Skullduggery (1970), was released.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
One of the best and most familiar character actors of the first four decades of sound films, although few who knew his face also knew his name, John Qualen was born in Canada to Norwegian parents. His father was a minister. The family moved to the United States and Qualen (whose real name was Kvalen) grew up in Elgin, Illinois. He won an oratory contest and was given a scholarship to Northwestern University. His interest in acting was piqued there, and he began appearing in tent shows on the Lyceum-Chautauqua circuit and in stock. He went to New York in 1929 and got his big break as the Swedish janitor in Elmer Rice's Street Scene. He repeated the role two years later in the film version. That same year he first worked for director John Ford in Arrowsmith (1931). He became a member of Ford's famed stock company and had prominent roles for Ford for the next thirty-five years. He became a most familiar character player, specializing in Scandinavians of various nationalities, but frequently playing a wide variety of other ethnicities. Perhaps his greatest work among many memorable roles was as the pitiful Muley, who recounts the destruction of his farm by the bank in Ford's masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Although plagued in his later years by failing eyesight, he continued to work steadily into his final years. He was treasurer of The Authors Club and historian of The Masquers, Hollywood's famed social group for actors. He had three children, Elizabeth, Kathleen, and Meredith. Qualen died in 1987.- Mexican character actor Rodolfo Acosta (born Rodolfo Acosta Pérez) achieved his greatest success in the US, primarily as a villain in westerns. He was born in Chamizal, a section of land disputed by Mexico and Texas due to changes in the Rio Grande river which forms the border. At the time of Acosta's birth, the area was generally accepted by both Mexican and Texas governments as U.S. territory, and Acosta was born an American citizen, despite the fact that his birthplace is now in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. He served in the U.S. Navy in naval intelligence during World War II and married Jeanine Cohen, a woman he met in Casablanca during the North African campaign. They had four children. She filed for divorce when she found out Acosta was having an affair and sharing an apartment in Mexico City with actress Ann Sheridan in the 1950s.) They divorced in 1957. Rodolfo Acosta married again on September 18, 1971 to Vera Martinez and they had one child. She divorced him in 1974 a few weeks before his death at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. After the war, Acosta worked in Mexico in films of the great director Emilio Fernández, which led to a bit in John Ford's film The Fugitive (1947). He came to the US and was signed by Universal for a small role in One Way Street (1950). He stayed in the US and his sharp, ruthless features led him to a long succession of roles as bandits, Indian warriors and outlaws. In The Tijuana Story (1957), he actually had a sympathetic leading role, but in general he spent his career as a very familiar western bad guy.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
American character actor who achieved considerable fame in the last decade of his life. A native of Kokomo, Indiana, Strother Martin Jr. was the youngest of three children of Strother Douglas Martin, a machinist, and Ethel Dunlap Martin. His family moved soon after his birth to San Antonio, Texas, but quickly returned to Indiana. Strother Jr. grew up in Indianapolis and in Cloverdale, Indiana. He excelled at swimming and diving, and at 17 won the National Junior Springboard Diving Championship. He attended the University of Michigan as diving team member. He served in the U.S. Navy as a swimming instructor in World War II. Nicknamed "T-Bone" Martin for his diving style, his 3rd place finish in the adult National Springboard Diving Championships cost him a place on the 1948 Olympic team. He moved to California to become an actor, but worked in odd jobs and as a swimming instructor to Marion Davies and the children of Charles Chaplin. He found work as a swimming extra in several films and as a leprechaun on a local children's TV show, "Mabel's Fables." Bit parts came his way, leading to television work with Sam Peckinpah, which led to a lifelong relationship. He also found memorable roles for John Ford and by the 1960s was a familiar face in American movies. With Cool Hand Luke (1967) in 1967 came new acclaim and a place among the busiest character actors in Hollywood. He worked steadily and in substantial roles throughout the 1970s and seemed at the peak of his career when he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1980.- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of the most familiar faces and voices in Hollywood films of the 1950s. Percy Helton acted almost from infancy, appearing in his father's vaudeville act. The famed Broadway producer David Belasco cast Helton in a succession of child roles over several years, giving the boy an invaluable grounding in the technique and spirit of the theatre. George M. Cohan took Helton under his wing and used him in a number of plays.
Helton served in the United States Army in Europe during World War I in the American Expeditionary Forces, with the 305th Field Artillery, and at war's end returned to acting on the stage, carving out a substantial career as a juvenile in plays such as "One Sunday Afternoon" and "Young America". In one of these plays he was required to shout and scream for much of the performance, and by the end of the run his voice had become permanently hoarse. He moved by necessity into character roles, working primarily on the stage until the late 1940s. Despite some early work as a juvenile in silent films, it was not until his brief but memorable appearance as a drunken Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) that he began to shift primarily into film work. His diminutive physique and unmistakable voice made him a fixture in a wide range of films and TV programs throughout the next two decades.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Of Swedish descent, burly, light-haired character actor Karl Swenson was born in Brooklyn and started his four-decade career on radio. Throughout the late 30s and 40s, his voice could be heard all over the airwaves, appearing in scores of daytime serials ("Lorenzo Jones") and mystery dramas ("Inner Sanctum Mysteries"). He gave visual life to one of his serial characters, Walter Manning, in "Portia Faces Life" when it went to TV in 1953. It was during his lengthy work in this medium that he met his wife, stage and radio actress Joan Tompkins. They appeared together throughout their careers on TV and in a few films. In the 1950s, he kept afloat on TV in rugged guest spots (Dr. Kildare (1961), Gunsmoke (1955), Maverick (1957), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Hawaii Five-O (1968)). He didn't appear in films until age 50+ with minor roles in Kings Go Forth (1958), North to Alaska (1960), The Birds (1963) and The Sons of Katie Elder (1965). His voice was also well utilized in such animated features as The Sword in the Stone (1963) as the voice of Merlin. Karl met actor Michael Landon on the set of Bonanza (1959), appearing in four separate episodes over time. Landon remembered him when he began to film Little House on the Prairie (1974). Cast in the recurring role of lumber mill owner Lars Hanson, he remained with the show until his death in 1978 of a heart attack. His character on the show also died.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Art Department
Henry Hathaway, son of a stage actress and manager, started his career as a child actor in westerns directed by Allan Dwan. His movie career was interrupted by World War I. After his discharge he briefly tried a career in finance but returned to Hollywood to work as an assistant director under such directors as Frank Lloyd, Paul Bern, Josef von Sternberg and Victor Fleming, whom Hathaway credited for his eventual success. In 1932 he directed his first picture, Heritage of the Desert (1932), a western. His approach has been described as uncomplicated and straightforward, while at the same time noted for their striking visual effects and unusual locations. He had a reputation as being difficult on actors, but stars such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe benefited under his direction. Although Hathaway was a highly successful and reliable director working within the Hollywood studio system, his work has received little attention from critics.- Producer
- Casting Director
- Casting Department
Paul Nathan was born on 18 December 1912. He was a producer and casting director, known for True Grit (1969), The Don Is Dead (1973) and Barefoot in the Park (1967). He died on 16 November 1977 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Actor
Legendary producer Hal B. Wallis was born in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles when he was in his early 20s. He got a job managing a theater owned by Warner Bros., and his success at the job caught the eye of studio head Jack L. Warner, who gave him a job in the studio's publicity department. Within a few months Wallis had worked his way up to head of the department. He was named studio manager in 1928 and production manager shortly thereafter, but was pushed aside by another legendary producer, future 20th Century-Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck. In 1933 Zanuck left Warner and Wallis moved back to his old position. He oversaw the production of many of Warners' most famous films, including Little Caesar (1931), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Casablanca (1942). In 1944 Wallis left Warner and formed his own production company, and achieved even more success, being responsible for such films as The Rose Tattoo (1955), Becket (1964), and a string of Elvis Presley movies, most of which were economically produced and all of which made a fortune. Wallis' last picture was the John Wayne western Rooster Cogburn (1975).- Producer
- Writer
- Additional Crew
William H. Wright was born on 25 April 1902 in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for Burke's Law (1963), The Adventures of Jim Bowie (1956) and Mannix (1967). He died on 23 July 1980 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- In a way Allan Weiss made a incredible successful career in Hollywood. He almost never got good reviews for the movie he wrote, but all seven feature films written by him were big moneymakers.
"Blue Hawaii" (1961) was his first screenplay. Producer Hal B. Wallis used his screenplays for five other Elvis Presley films which all proved to be commercially successful. Writer's Guild of America nominated him for Best Written American Musical award in 1965 for the film "Roustabout" (1964).
His only non-Elvis Presley film screenplay was "The Sons of Katie Elder" (1965) which was directed by Henry Hathaway. Starring John Wayne and Dean Martin it got best reviews ever for a Allan Weiss film. - Writer
- Director
- Producer
New York-born Harry Essex planned on a writing career throughout his young life. Among his first jobs were stints on the New York newspapers "The Daily Mirror" and "The Brooklyn Eagle", short stories for "Collier's" and "The Saturday Evening Post" and even a Broadway play titled "Something for Nothing" (which Essex later called "a resounding failure"). Writing for the movies was uppermost in Essex's mind throughout the period (and he DID co-write the original story for Universal's Man Made Monster (1941)), but "the big break" never came, and World War II intervened. Five or six days after Essex's discharge, he ran into an old acquaintance whose new job was finding playwrights to turn into screenwriters for Columbia Pictures. Essex wrote or co-wrote dozens of movies and numerous TV shows during his lengthy Hollywood career.- Music Department
- Composer
- Additional Crew
Elmer Bernstein was educated at the Walden School and New York University. He served in the US Army Air Corps in World War II, writing scores for the service radio unit. He also wrote and arranged musical numbers for Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band. A prolific and respected film music composer, he was a protégé of Aaron Copland, who studied music with Roger Sessions and Stefan Wolpe. Bernstein worked in various artistic endeavors, including painting and the theatre and also performed as an actor and dancer. Among his early composition work were scores for United Nations radio programs and television and industrial documentaries. His original scores for films range over an enormous variety of styles, with his groundbreaking jazz score for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), light musical comedies such as his Oscar-winning Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) score, and perhaps his most familiar score, for the western The Magnificent Seven (1960). Between 1963 and 1969, Bernstein served as vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
A few years before before his death, he acquired something of a cult status among fans of English football when his familiar main theme for The Great Escape (1963) was adopted by them and hummed and played, lustily, during matches.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Lucien Ballard, the cinematographer best known for his collaboration with director Sam Peckinpah on such films as The Wild Bunch (1969), was born in Miami, Oklahoma. Ballard became a wanderer after dropping out of the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oklahoma, journeying to China in search of opportunity. When he returned to the United States after not finding any, Ballard gained employment in the lumber business, working in a mill sawing trees and surveying land.
Near the end of the decade known as the Roaring Twenties, Ballard visited a woman friend who worked as a script clerk at Paramount, and that was the connection that brought him into show business. He was hired by Paramount as a manual laborer loading trucks and worked his way onto a camera crew, starting as a camera assistant. He eventually served a five year apprenticeship, during which he moved his way up the hierarchy to camera operator, the member of the camera crew second-in-seniority to the cinematographer (or lighting cameraman, also known as the director of photography) that actually operates the camera, working with directors Victor Milner, Charles Rosher, and others. He also became experienced as as a film editor at Paramount. Ballard eventually was assigned to the cinematography unit assigned to director Josef von Sternberg, who used him as a camera operator and later as a lighting cameraman. (It was on the set of Von Sternberg's Morocco (1930) that Ballard first worked with Henry Hathaway, then an assistant director but who later, as a director, used Ballard extensively.)
Von Sternberg, who oversaw and constructed the visuals on his early films, was credited as cinematographer for The Devil Is a Woman (1935). Though Ballard did not receive credit as a lighting cameraman on the film, this is usually credited (despite the non-credit) as his first film as a director of photographer (a more honored title for a lighting cameraman; just as "Written By" is a privilege for screenwriters to be credited with, so is "Director of Photography" for the cinematographer). Indeed, Ballard and Von Sternberg jointly were cited by the 1935 Venice Film Festival award for "Best Cinematography" for The Devil Is a Woman (1935), though officially, Ballard received his first credit for cinematography on B.P. Schulberg's production of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (1935), which also was directed by Von Sternberg.
Ballard and Von Sternbereg collaborated once more on the musical The King Steps Out (1936), but parted ways after falling out, likely over control of the visuals. Ballard moved over to Columbia in 1935, where he worked as a director of photography for five years, primely for the B-movie unit on their less-prestigious low-budgeted "B-pictures" and on two-reel shorts. After quitting Columbia in 1940, he went to work for Howard Hughes on the eccentric multi-millionaire's attempted-smut fest, The Outlaw (1943). Hughes wanted to show off the twin assets of Jane Russell, which -- for his taste -- required innovative camera angles of her cleavage, one of the then-wonders of the then (natural) world. Ballard shot test scenes for the flick and worked as an assistant on the first-unit crew of the great cinematographer Gregg Toland and as the lighting cameraman on the second unit. Though the film was shot in 1940 and 1941, due to Hughes' perfectionism and censorship troubles, the film, though completed and screened in 1943, was be distributed until after World War II, in 1946.
After Hughes, Ballard shot two pictures for R.K.O., and then moved on to 20th Century Fox for the war period (1941-45). It was at Fox, working on A-pictures, that Ballard first established his reputation, as a master of motion pictures shot on studio sets. On the set of the 1944 movie The Lodger (1944), Ballard met actress Merle Oberon, whom he married in 1945. After Oberon sustained facial scarring after a near-fatal automobile accident, Ballard invented a key light to be mounted by the side of the camera. The light, nicknamed the "Obie" after his wife, directed light onto the subject's face to wash out blemishes and wrinkles so they would not be caught on film. Ballard and Oberon divorced in 1949.
After the war, Ballard spent two years at Universal and another two years at R.K.O. (working again for Hughes, who now owned the studio), before returning to 20th Century Fox for a six-year stint. Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck had committed the studio to turning out pictures shot in the widescreen CinemaScope process and in Technicolor. The widescreen anamorphic process based on the the "hypergonar" lens called "Anamorphoscope" that 20th Century-Fox bought and redubbed "CinemaScope" had actually been invented by the Frenchman 'Henri Chrétien' in the late 1920s.
It was at Fox that Ballard gained his renowned experience in shooting both widescreen and color, particularly with his Westerns, establishing his reputation as a first-rate D.P. anew in these "new" media. His mastery of the wide-screen was fully evident when he shot +The Wild Bunch), a film in which he completely used the widescreen frame. (By the mid-1970s, due to the insistence of television, most widescreen films were shot by bunching the main action in a center frame approximating the Academy aperture of 4:3, thus obviating the expense of creating "pan and scan" movies for TV-broadcast. This eventually led to faux widescreen, when the industry jettisoned the entire use of the frame, which was squeezed onto the negative, and merely masked a camera, producing a simulation of widescreen without the need for squeezing that did not use the full frame. Thus, a film could be shown theatrically by masking a screen at the theater, and the unmasked film could be shown on TV in the 4:3 aspect. However, men like Ballard and Freddie Young were masters of the "true" widescreen.)
His old friend Henry Hathaway, now a major director, used Ballard extensively in the early 1950s. They collaborated on Diplomatic Courier (1952), O. Henry's Full House (1952), and Prince Valiant (1954) in that decade, though by 1956, Ballard was sufficiently established to go freelance. This meant their next collaborations did not come until the 1960s: The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), and True Grit (1969). Ballard was also able to establish a long-time collaboration -- and friendship -- with director Budd Boetticher, shooting the director's The Magnificent Matador (1955), The Killer Is Loose (1956) (1956), the pilot episode for the television show Maverick (1957), and the Randolph Scott Buchanan Rides Alone (1958). In 1959, he shot The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960), Boetticher's last film before the quixotic director pursued his monumental cinema biography of the Mexican matador Carlos Arruza, a decade-long labor of love. Boetticher later told of how when the "Legs Diamond" producer saw the flat look Ballard had created for the film, after discussions with Boetticher, to recreate an authentic look and feel of the 1920s by mimicking the cinematography of that era, the producer criticized Ballard's footage. Not understanding what they were after, he complained to Boetticher, "I thought you said Ballard was a good cameraman!"
In addition to much of the bull-fighting footage contained in the docudrama Arruza (1972), Ballard shot Boetticher's last feature film, A Time for Dying (1969). As a favor to his friend, Ballard also shot Boetticher's documentary about his horse farm, My Kingdom for... (1995), after having retired seven years before.
One collaboration that didn't stick was with Stanley Kubrick, who was 20 years Ballard's junior, though their joint effort produced a memorable look and atmosphere for Kubricks's breakthrough work, the seminal crime drama The Killing (1956). (This film was the true inspiration for the time-shifts favored by '90s cinema wunderkind 'Quentin Tarrantino' .) The experienced and respected Ballard returned to his Black + Whites roots as the cinematographer on The Killing (1956), but Kubrick always experienced friction with his directors of photography as he, a very talented photographer, essentially considered himself his own D.P.
The relationship that Ballard is most famous for was with Sam Peckinpah. They first worked together on the 'Brian Keith' TV series _The Westerner (1960)_ , which had been created by Peckinpah but only lasted half-a-season, and then on the classic 'Randolph Scott' -Joel McCrea Western Ride the High Country (1962). However, it was their next collaboration, The Wild Bunch (1969), that elevated Peckinpah into the pantheon of great directors and made Ballard well-known outside the small circle of professional cinematographers and cult cineastes. Ballard also shot The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), The Getaway (1972), and Junior Bonner (1972) for Peckinpah, becoming a principle collaborator with the emotionally troubled and producer-plagued director during the period of his greatness.
Surprisingly, though he worked as director of photography on almost 130 films during his career as a lighting cameraman from 1935 to 1978, Lucien Ballard was nominated just once for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, in 1964 for for his Black + White work on The Caretakers (1963). The oversight is inexplicable, particularly as there were two awards for cinematography (B+W and color) during the bulk of his career. In 1970, he was honored by the National Society of Film Critics with its "Best Cinematography" for his great widescreen work on Peckinpah's epic masterpiece The Wild Bunch (1969), which somehow failed to generate an Oscar nomination. (The American Society of Cinematographers was a tightly controlled clan that provided the bulk of the voters for the Oscar nominations. The Oscar voters also inexplicably blackballed the great Gordon Willis during his career.)
Lucien Ballard died near his Rancho Mirage, California, home in a car accident on October 1, 1988. He was 80 years old.- Editor
- Editorial Department
Warren Low was born on 12 August 1905 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an editor, known for The Letter (1940), True Grit (1969) and The Rose Tattoo (1955). He died on 27 July 1989 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Actor
Johnny Cash was born February 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas, to Carrie Cash (Rivers) and Raymond Cash. He made his first single, "Hey Porter", for Sun Records in 1955. In 1958 he moved to Columbia Records. He had long periods of drug abuse during the 1960s, but later that decade he successfully fought his addiction with the help of singer June Carter Cash, whom he married in 1968. In 1971 he appeared in the western A Gunfight (1971) with 'Kirk Douglas (I)'. Cash made only a few films, but quite a few appearances on television, both in series and made-for-TV films, and was especially effective as a rural Southern sheriff in the 1930s determined to bring to justice a wealthy landowner who committed murder because he believed he was above the law in Murder in Coweta County (1983), a drama based on a true story. In 1975 Cash wrote his autobiography, "Man In Black", which is now out of print. In the late 1980s he moved from Columbia Records to Mercury, then in the next decade moved again to American Recordings. Amongst his biggest hit records were "I Walk the Line", "Ring of Fire" and "A Boy Named Sue". After several years of ill health, he died of complications from diabetes on 12 September 2003, only a few months after the death of his beloved wife.- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Ernie Sheldon was born on 24 January 1930 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is a composer, known for Licorice Pizza (2021), A Dandy in Aspic (1968) and Brother John (1971).