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- Actress
- Composer
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Exene Cervenka was born on 1 February 1956 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for The Kids Are All Right (2010), Kalifornia (1993) and G.I. Jane (1997). She has been married to Jason Edge since 18 August 2002. She was previously married to Viggo Mortensen and John Doe.- Actress
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Juliette Lewis has been recognized as one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile actors of her generation since she first stunned audiences and critics alike with her Oscar-nominated performance as "Danielle Bowden" in Cape Fear (1991). To date, she has worked with some of the most revered directors in the industry, including Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Lasse Hallström, Oliver Stone, and Garry Marshall. Whether lending dramatic authenticity or a natural comedic flair to her roles, Lewis graces the screen with remarkable range and an original and captivating style.
Lewis was born in Los Angeles, Californa, to Glenis (Duggan) Batley, a graphic designer, and Geoffrey Lewis, an actor. By the age of six, she knew she wanted to be a performer. At twelve, Lewis landed her first leading role in the Showtime miniseries Home Fires (1987). After appearing in several TV sitcoms including The Wonder Years (1988), she made her move to film, starring with Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) and with Jennifer Jason Leigh in the drama Crooked Hearts (1991). At 16, Lewis starred opposite Brad Pitt in the critically acclaimed television movie Too Young to Die? (1990), catching the attention of Martin Scorsese, who cast her in his thriller Cape Fear (1991). Her powerful scenes with Robert De Niro captured the quiet complexities of adolescence and earned her an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe nomination for "Best Supporting Actress". Her auditorium scene with De Niro went down in movie history as one of cinema's classic scenes.
Lewis next worked with Woody Allen in Husbands and Wives (1992), playing a self-assured college coed with a penchant for older men and, particularly, her married professor. She quickly followed suit with a succession of starring roles in a variety of blockbusters and critically acclaimed projects including Kalifornia (1993), Romeo Is Bleeding (1993), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), and Natural Born Killers (1994), Oliver Stone's controversial media satire about two mass murderers who become legendary folk heroes. Lewis's other credits include the Nora Ephron comedy Mixed Nuts (1994), with Steve Martin and Adam Sandler; the sci-fi action film Strange Days (1995) with Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett; Quentin Tarantino's vampire tale From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) with George Clooney; The Evening Star (1996) with Shirley MacLaine; the Garry Marshall-directed The Other Sister (1999), and Todd Phillips' Old School (2003), co-starring opposite Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Will Ferrell as well as Starsky & Hutch (2004). In addition to her film career, Lewis has continued to add roles to her growing list of television credits with a performance in Showtime's My Louisiana Sky (2001), for which she secured an EMMY nomination, and a starring role in the Mira Nair-directed HBO's film Hysterical Blindness (2002), alongside Uma Thurman and Gena Rowlands.
After a six-year hiatus from film to pursue her burgeoning music career exclusively, Lewis announced her return to acting with a handful of upcoming movies. Juliette starred alongside Elliot Page, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig and Jimmy Fallon in the comedy Whip It (2009). The film was released by Fox Searchlight on October 2nd, 2009. Directed by Drew Barrymore, the film tells the story of an ex-beauty pageant contestant that leaves her crowns behind after joining a roller derby team. Lewis plays "Iron Maven", the star of a top derby team. Next, she joined the cast of the acclaimed European animated thriller Metropia (2009), as the voice of "Nina". She also appeared in the romantic comedy The Switch (2010), opposite Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, and Patrick Wilson. The film tells the story of a single mother (Aniston) who decides to have a child using a sperm donor. Juliette plays "Debbie Epstein", the best friend of Aniston's character. Lewis also appears in Sympathy for Delicious (2010), Mark Ruffalo's directorial debut. The film follows a paralyzed DJ, struggling to survive on the streets of LA who turns to faith healing and mysteriously develops the ability to cure the sick. Juliette plays "Ariel", costarring alongside Orlando Bloom, Mark Ruffalo, and Laura Linney. The film took home the US Dramatic Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Most recently, Juliette Lewis appears in the indie-drama Conviction (2010), which stars Hilary Swank, Melissa Leo, Minnie Driver, and Sam Rockwell. She plays "Roseanna Perry" in the true story of an unemployed single mother (Swank) who saw her brother begin serving a life sentence in 1983 for murder and robbery. The role has won Lewis praise from audiences and critics, alike, for her performance, with USA Today saying, "Juliette Lewis has an indelible role" and the San Francisco Chronicle saying "Her character work should be studied in schools. Just remarkable". In addition to Conviction (2010), Lewis also makes a cameo in Todd Phillips's comedy, Due Date (2010), starring Robert Downey Jr., Michelle Monaghan, and Zach Galifianakis.
Beginning in 2004, Juliette took a hiatus from acting to embark on a musical journey. After six years, two full length albums and countless high profile tours and festival gigs with her band, 'Juliette & the Licks', Juliette set out on a solo career. Releasing "Terra Incognita" last fall, the album has taken her all across the world from Europe to Japan to Turkey, Australia, North America and Canada. For more information on Juliette Lewis' music, please visit her MySpace page. Juliette Lewis resides in Los Angeles.- Actress
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- Producer
Mariette Hartley was born Mary Loretta, a name she dislikes, in Weston, Connecticut. She was raised in accordance with the principles espoused by her behavioral psychologist grandfather, John B. Watson, who believed that children should never be held or cuddled. She says that the lack of warmth at home is what drove her to the theatre. She studied with John Houseman at the Repertory Stratford and with Eva Le Gallienne at Lucille Lortel's White Barn Theatre. It took her six years to get her first movie, Ride the High Country (1962) with Joel McCrea. She then made a series of TV appearances and sitcoms. She is most known, however, for her series of Polaroid commercials with James Garner. Mariette's father committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot in 1962. Her family kept it a secret for 25 years, but she eventually revealed the incident. This brought her considerable acclaim for speaking out about her devastation. She co-founded a suicide prevention foundation based on her own past situation. She continues to work in the theatre and, in 2000, was hosting the syndicated Wild About Animals (1995). Her children, Justine E. Boyriven (b. 1978) is an actress and singer, and Sean Boyriven (b. 1975) is a film-school graduate.- Actress
- Director
Talia Balsam was born in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Mad Men (2007), Divorce (2016) and No Strings Attached (2011). She has been married to John Slattery since 30 December 1998. They have one child. She was previously married to George Clooney.- Actor
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George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney spent most of his youth in Ohio and Kentucky, and graduated from Augusta High School. He was very active in sports such as basketball and baseball, and tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, but was not offered a contract.
After his cousin, Miguel Ferrer, got him a small role in a feature film, Clooney began to pursue acting. His first major role was on the sitcom E/R (1984) as Ace. More roles soon followed, including George Burnett, the handsome handyman on The Facts of Life (1979); Booker Brooks, a supervisor on Roseanne (1988); and Detective James Falconer on Sisters (1991). Clooney had his breakthrough when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross on the award-winning drama series ER (1994), opposite Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle and Julianna Margulies.
While filming "ER" (1994), Clooney starred in a number of high profile film roles, such as Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and One Fine Day (1996), opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1997, Clooney took on the role of Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin (1997). The film was a moderate success in the box office, but was slammed by critics, notably for the nipple-laden Batsuit. Clooney went on to star in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999).
In 1999, Clooney left "ER" (1994) (though he would return for the season finale) and appeared in a number of films, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Perfect Storm (2000) and Ocean's Eleven (2001). Collaborating once again with Steven Soderbergh, Ocean's Eleven (2001) received critical acclaim, earned more than $450 million at the box office, and spawned two sequels: Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).
In 2002, Clooney made his directorial debut with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), an adaptation of TV producer Chuck Barris' autobiography. This was the first film under the banner of Section Eight Productions, a production company he founded with Steven Soderbergh. The company also produced many acclaimed films, including Far from Heaven (2002), Syriana (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005). Clooney won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana (2005), and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).
In 2006, Section Eight Productions was shut down so that Soderbergh could concentrate on directing, and Clooney founded a new production company, Smokehouse Productions, with his friend and longtime business partner, Grant Heslov.
Clooney went on to produce and star in Michael Clayton (2007) (which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor), directed and starred in Leatherheads (2008), and took leading roles in Burn After Reading (2008), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009). Clooney received critical acclaim for his performance in Up in the Air (2009) and was nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award. He didn't win that year, but took home both Best Actor awards (as well as countless nominations) for his role as a father who finds out his wife was unfaithful as she lays in a coma in Alexander Payne's The Descendants (2011). Through his career, Clooney has been heralded for his political activism and humanitarian work. He has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since 2008, has been an advocate for the Darfur conflict, and organized the Hope for Haiti telethon, to raise money for the victims of the 2010 earthquake. In March 2012, Clooney was arrested for civil disobedience while protesting at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C.
Clooney was married to actress Talia Balsam, from 1989 until 1993. After their divorce, he swore he would never marry again. Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman bet him $10,000 that he would have children by the age of 40, and sent him a check shortly after his birthday. Clooney returned the funds and bet double or nothing he wouldn't have children by the age of 50. Although he has remained a consummate bachelor, Clooney has had many highly publicized relationships, including with former WWE wrestler Stacy Keibler. In 2014, he married lawyer and activist Amal Clooney, with whom he has two children, twins.- Actress
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From the age of five, Linda Blair had to get used to the spotlight, first as a child model and then as an actress, when out of 600 applicants she was picked for the role of Regan, the possessed child, in The Exorcist (1973). Linda quickly rose to international fame, won the Golden Globe, and seemed to be set to take the Academy Award for that role, but when it leaked how some parts of the role were not performed by her (the demonic voice was dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge, and eight seconds of a stunt dummy were used) that dream broke, and with that disappointment probably came the first blow to what looked like the beginning of an A-list career.
Over the next few years she had no trouble securing lead roles in a number of pictures, including the highly successful television films Born Innocent (1974) (the #1 TV movie of that year) and Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (1975), as well as the Exorcist sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). However, when she was peer pressured into buying cocaine at the age of 18, it led to an arrest and subsequent sentencing to three years probation. The much-publicized drug bust caused Linda to be blacklisted in Hollywood, and her career was soon reduced to B-movies and occasional TV guest appearances only.
Although her career never returned to its former glory, Linda proved to be a good sport about embracing the change, and out of the '80s emerged lead roles in two cult classics: the women-in-prison film Chained Heat (1983) and the femme fatale vigilante action film Savage Streets (1984). She continued acting in numerous films throughout the '80s and '90s, including the Exorcist spoof Repossessed (1990). In 1997, she also took to the Broadway stage and starred as "Rizzo" in the revival of "Grease." She received widespread mainstream attention again in the 2000's with the theatrical re-release of the Exorcist, followed by a hosting job on the hit Fox Family TV series Scariest Places on Earth (2000), which ran for six years and followed Linda as she visited notorious "haunted" locations around the world.
Linda was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Elinore, a real estate agent, and James, an executive headhunter. She has a brother, Jimmy, and a sister, Debbie. Linda has been a Hollywood icon for over 40 years, but it is her first love of animals that has ultimately taken center stage in her life. She now runs the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, a non-profit 501C3 tax deductible organization dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating abused, neglected, and abandoned animals from the harsh streets of the Los Angeles area, as well as from the overcrowded and overwhelmed city and county animal shelters. She works and lives on the 2-acre rescue sanctuary full-time in California, which was featured on The Today Show in a segment titled "From Devil to Angel." Of course, she also makes frequent appearances at horror fan conventions to celebrate the legacy of The Exorcist (1973) .- Actress
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- Soundtrack
A New York stage actress in the 1950s, McClanahan was plucked from the stage by Norman Lear for roles on All in the Family (1971) and later Maude (1972). For two years (1982 - 1984), she played "Aunt Fran" on Mama's Family (1983) until her character was killed off and she joined the cast of The Golden Girls (1985), in which she hit her comedic stride as a sharp tongued oversexed Southern belle.- Milo is known for Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye (2002) and The 10 Minute Run!!! (2001).
- Actor
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Jesse Renfro is known for Most Wanted (2011) and Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye (2002).- Director
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Dian Fossey was born on 16 January 1932 in San Francisco, California, USA. She was a director and writer, known for Gorillas in the Mist (1988), The World About Us (1967) and The American Sportsman (1965). She died on 26 December 1985 in Karisoke, Rwanda.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Moretz is best known for her work in the sci-fi thriller series The Peripheral, created by Scott B. Smith; the Mattson Tomlin-directed sci-fi thriller Mother/Android; Neil Jordan's thriller Greta; Roseanne Liang's Shadow in the Cloud, which claimed the Midnight Madness People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival in 2020; The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which won both critical acclaim and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2018; Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, which went on to claim the Independent Spirit Awards' Robert Altman Award after world premiering in Venice; MGM's The Amityville Horror; Marc Webb's 500 Days of Summer; the Kick-Ass franchise; Matt Reeves' English-language remake of Let Me In; Martin Scorsese's Oscar winner Hugo; Warner Bros' If I Stay and Dark Shadows; Kimberly Peirce's remake of the Stephen King classic Carrie; and Sony's The Equalizer with Denzel Washington. She also exec produced the Snapchat Discover series Coming Out, which premiered in 2021.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, classical and jazz musician Hazel Scott became one of America's premier pianists of her time. Born on June 11, 1920, this child prodigy first started tickling the ivories at age 3 under the guidance of her mother. She moved with her family to the U.S. in 1924 where she started performing in New York City and receiving scholarships to study classical music at the Juilliard School of Music -- all of this by age 8. Her mentors in jazz technique were Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson. Topping her talents off with a warm singing voice to complement her glamorous presence, she was a club and radio star by the late 30s and performed with such notables as Count Basie. She gained some attention for her swinging versions of classical themes. Hazel appeared in the productions "Singing Out the News" and "Priorities of 1942" on Broadway and played twice at Carnegie Hall. As a sometime actress, Hazel became a noted specialty performer in musical motion pictures, including "Something to Shout About" (1943), "I Dood It" (1943) and "Broadway Rhythm" (1944) during the war-era while releasing dozens of albums during her prime. Her most famous hit was "Tico Tico" and her catchy boogie-woogie style proved quite popular during the 40s, while her versatility and ability to shift from jazz to classical to blues was incomparable. Hazel married the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., noted Congressman, preacher and editor in 1945. She became the first black woman to host her own television show in 1950 but, within months, the show was canceled. An outspoken personality all her life, she was subsequently accused of being a Communist sympathizer. She refused to perform in segregated theaters and became a vocal critic of both McCarthyism and racial injustice. Following her divorce from Powell, she lived in Paris where she performed and enjoyed racial freedom during the 1960s. Her return to the U.S. marked a second career on TV with guest parts on such shows as Julia (1968) and The Bold Ones: The New Doctors (1969) coming her way. Scott continued to perform in clubs until her death from cancer in 1981.- Writer
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Isadora Duncan was an American dancer and innovative educator known for interdisciplinary and cross-cultural projects, and a hectic marriage to the famous Russian poet Sergei Esenin.
She was born Isador 'Dora' Angela Duncan on May 26, 1877, in San Francisco, California. Her father, Joseph Duncan, was a cultured man, a poet and an art connoisseur, who worked for the Bank of California. Her mother, an amateur pianist, after divorcing her father, lived a high-principled Victorian lady's life with four children an very little money. Young Isadora was raised in Oakland, California. She was obsessed with dancing from an early age. Although she was not exposed to rigorous classical ballet practice, she achieved recognition in San-Francisco. There, she started teaching a dance class for children when she was just 14 years old.
She began her professional career in Chicago in 1896, under producer and playwright Augustin Daly. He cast Duncan as Titania in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', and she traveled with his company to Europe. Back in the USA, Duncan performed solo dances at the homes of wealthy patrons. She called her program The Dance and Philosophy and performed it to the waltzes of Johann Strauss. In 1899, she left America with her mother and siblings to settle in London. There she met Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the idol of the London stage, who introduced Duncan to London society.
From 1899-1907, Duncan lived in London, Paris and Berlin. She began using the music of Frédéric Chopin and Ludwig van Beethoven for her dance. In 1903 she moved to Berlin. There Duncan was introduced to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. She formulated her own philosophy of The Dance of the Future modeled after the ancient Greeks: natural and free. Duncan called for abolition of ballet. She accused ballet of "deforming the beautiful woman's body" and depriving it of human naturalness. "The Dance of the Future will have to become again a high religious art as it was with the Greeks. For art which is not religious is not art, it is mere merchandise" - stated Duncan. Her school of dance in a suburb of Berlin was the start of her famous dance group, later known as the Isadorables.
Duncan made several tours of Russia and met with directors Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko at the Moscow Art Theatre. In St. Petersburg, she also attracted the attention of Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina among other leading ballerinas of the Mariinsky Ballet. Having established good connections with Russian intellectuals, she Returning to the US, her performances were poorly received by critics, who bashed Duncan for her "physical interpretation" of music on stage. She left America in 1909, after less than a year, and never lived there again, returning only for tours.
From 1909 to 1913, Duncan lived in Palais Biron in Paris, where her neighbors were artist Henri Matisse, writer Jean Cocteau, and sculptor Auguste Rodin. Eventually she established three schools in France, Germany, and Russia, and gained tremendous popularity across Europe. Her personal life was marked with as much freedom as was her dancing. Duncan had a child by designer Gordon Craig, and another child by Paris Singer, the heir to the sewing machine fortune. Her both children drowned in an accident on the Seine River in 1913. By that time, she was an acclaimed performer in Europe. She danced to the Ninth Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven. Her face was carved in the bas-relief by sculptor Antoine Bourdelle in the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, and was painted in the murals by artist Maurice Denis.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Duncan moved to Moscow. There she married the popular poet Sergei Esenin who was 17 years her younger. This was her one and only official marriage. She took Esenin on tour to the US in 1922-1923. At that time her appearances were marked by baring her breasts on stage and shouting, "This is red! So am I!" The following year, Esenin left Duncan and returned to Moscow, where he suffered a mental breakdown and sought psychiatric help. Meanwhile, her apprentice, Irma Duncan, remained in the Soviet Union and ran the Duncan Dancing School there. At that time, Duncan evolved as a follower of Friedrich Nietzsche and remained anti-religious for the rest of her life.
Duncan's ex-husband Esenin was found dead in a hotel in St. Petersburg, on December 28, 1925. His mysterious death was never completely explained. Isadora Duncan died on September 14, 1927, in Nice, France. She was killed by her long neck scarf caught in the wheel of an open automobile in which she was a passenger. She was pulled from the car and dragged before the driver could stop. Duncan was cremated and her ashes were laid in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France.
Her highly popular Russian school was closed in 1939, under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin, and many of her Russian partners were repressed and exiled.
Isadora Duncan was portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave in the 1968 film Isadora (1968).- Actress
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Karen entered Northwestern University at 18 and left two years later. She studied under Lee Strasberg in New York and worked in a number of off-Broadway roles. She made a critically acclaimed debut on Broadway in 1965 in "The Playroom". Her first big film role was in You're a Big Boy Now (1966), directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Shortly after wards, she appeared as Marcia in the TV series The Second Hundred Years (1967).
The film that made her a star was Easy Rider (1969), where she worked with Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, and a supporting actor named Jack Nicholson. She appeared with Nicholson again the next year when they starred in Five Easy Pieces (1970), which garnered an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Karen. Her roles mainly consisted of waitresses, hookers and women on the edge. Some of her later films were disappointments at the box office, but she did receive another Golden Globe for The Great Gatsby (1974). One role for which she is well remembered is that of the jewel thief in Alfred Hitchcock's last film, Family Plot (1976). Another is as the woman terrorized in her apartment by a murderous Zuni doll come to life in the well received TV movie Trilogy of Terror (1975). After a number of forgettable movies, she again won rave reviews for her role in Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). Since then, her film career has been busy, but the quality of the films has been uneven.- Actress
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Downtown Julie Brown was born on 27 August 1963 in Bedfordshire, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Spy Hard (1996), B*A*P*S (1997) and Fist of the North Star (1995). She has been married to Martin Schuermann since 5 September 1987. They have one child.- Actress
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Caroline Catz is an English film, television and theatre actress and narrator, best known for her role as Louisa Glasson in Doc Martin since 2004. Her other roles have included Detective Inspector Kate Ashurst in Murder in Suburbia, Detective Inspector Helen Morton in DCI Banks, and PC Cheryl Hutchins in The Vice.- Actress
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The #1 Grammy-winning "I Am Woman" became not only THE anthem of the feminist movement during the radical 1970s, but also the signature song for its lovely, crop-haired, reddish-haired composer and singer Helen Reddy. Many decades later this is the hit people still remember her for, despite the fact she had a host of other "top ten" records over the course of her long career.
Helen Maxine Lamond Reddy was born in Melbourne, Australia, to showbiz parents, comedy actor/producer/writer Max Reddy and singer/soap opera actress Stella Lamond, and is the half sister to singer/actress Toni Lamond. Of English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry, Helen began performing at the age of four at the Tivoli Theatre in Perth, Australia, touring much of her native country with her parents. She left boarding school at age 15 to work on the road singing and acting. Her musical style is best described as a light amalgam of rhythm and blues, easy rock and jazz. Her soothing, quivery vocals and equally warm appeal was instantly embraced, eventually earning her own Australian radio show. "Helen Reddy Sings" aired twice weekly on the Australian Broadcasting Commission.
In 1966 Helen won a trip to New York in an Australian Bandstand International contest and, though she met with little success during this excursion, did meet and marry second husband Jeff Wald, a manager and an agent with the William Morris talent agency. They married the following year and went to Los Angeles. Helen converted to Judaism before the marriage.
Wald worked Helen into a few performances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), fifteen appearances total, and the resulting attention earned her her first hit with a top version of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from the Broadway rock musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" in February 1972, peaking at #13 on the Billboard hit list. Signed by Capitol Records, she enjoyed hit after hit throughout the early 1970s, with "Delta Dawn" (1973) and "Angie Baby" (1974) reaching #1.
In 1973, Helen had her own summer-replacement variety show and was a popular hostess for a time on NBC's late-night variety show The Midnight Special (1972). She tried to parlay her singing success into a film career starting with a featured role as a nun in the disaster film Airport 1975 (1974). This led to a wholesome starring role in the promising Disney children's film Pete's Dragon (1977), but it was only mildly received. . During this time, she also appeared on TV in episodes of "The Love Boat," "Fantasy Island," "The Jeffersons" (as herself), "Beast Master," "Diagnosis Murder" and a guest voice on "Family Guy." She appeared in only two more films -- a cameo in the raucous "Fat Boys" comedy Disorderlies (1987) and a featured role in the comedy crime chiller The Perfect Host (2010). A third film, a comedy "mockumentary" entitled Senior Entourage (2021), has yet been released.
In 1982, she divorced Wald and married a third time the following year to drummer Milton Ruth. Helen has ventured on into the concert and symphony orchestra forums as well as becoming a popular cabaret and nightclub attraction. In recent years she has graced a number of musical theater productions both on Broadway and in London's West End.
Over the years she was considered a primary interpreter of English playwright Willy Russell, having appeared in four productions of his one-woman show "Shirley Valentine." Other live musical productions have included "Anything Goes," "Call Me Madam," "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and Russell's "Blood Brothers," in which she made her Broadway debut.
In 2002 she retired from the business, and moved to her native Australia to work as a practicing hypnotherapist and motivational speaker, but returned from time to time before the camera both here and abroad. In 2017, Helen was diagnosed with dementia, and then resided at the Motion Picture and Television Fund's Samuel Goldwyn Center for Behavioral Health in Woodland Hills, California. She died on September 29, 2020, in Los Angeles.- Actress
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While TV audiences best remember Regina Taylor for her empathetic portrayal of housekeeper Lilly Harper in the critically lauded series I'll Fly Away (1991), which rewarded her with a Golden Globe for best actress, an NAACP Image Award, and two Emmy nominations, this Dallas-born talent has made even greater strides in recent years as a playwright.
Born on August 22, 1960, Regina was raised in Oklahoma where she became acutely aware of racial bias while attending a newly integrated school in Muskogee. She went on to study at Southern Methodist University and graduated in 1981, subsequently moving to New York. She made her professional acting debut in the CBS made-for-TV movie Crisis at Central High (1981).
On Broadway Taylor became the first Black woman to play William Shakespeare's Juliet thanks to the non-traditional casting efforts of Joseph Papp. She also played Cecilia in "As You Like It" and the First Witch in "Macbeth" during the same season. Other on- and off-Broadway work included "Machinal," "A Map of the World," "The Illusion," and "Jar the Floor." On the West Coast, she won an L.A. Dramalogue award for her work in "The Tempest."
Making her film debut with Lean on Me (1989), she became known for her quiet intensity and human dignity in both social drama and the more popular action-oriented films such as Losing Isaiah (1995), Clockers (1995), Spirit Lost (1996), and The Negotiator (1998).
Taylor furthered her career on TV as well in such series as Law & Order (1990) and earned notice for her portrayal of Anita Hill opposite Delroy Lindo's Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the made-for-TV movie Strange Justice (1999). She was particularly moving in her portrayal of another maid in the superlative period piece Cora Unashamed (2000), co-starring the equally versatile Cherry Jones. After her breakout success in I'll Fly Away (1991), she moved into other series such as Feds (1997), The Education of Max Bickford (2001) starring Rory Robert Knepp and Dig (2015), although they were not as well received. She also appeared as a guest on "Grey's Anatomy," "Elementary," The Blacklist," "The Good Fight," "The Red Line" and "Lovecraft Country."
As a playwright Taylor has won the American Critics' Association new play award for "Oo-Bla-Dee," which detailed the story of Black female jazz musicians of the 1940s. "Drowning Crow" was an adaption of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull," which made it to Broadway in 2004. Others works include "A Night in Tunisia," "Escape from Paradise," "Watermelon Rinds," and "Inside the Belly of the Beast." She conceived and appeared in the 2001 one-woman play "Millennium Mambo," which included selections of works from various African American female writers. She is an esteemed member and Artistic Associate of the Goodman Theater, where many of her plays have come to fruition.- Actress
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Alexandra Roach was born in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire in Wales and was already a veteran of the Welsh television soap 'Pobol Y Cwm' by her early teens. In 2003 whilst studying for her GCSE exams at the local comprehensive school she learned that she had beaten out players in national soaps to win the award for the best juvenile actor in a soap at the Children in Entertainment Awards. Leaving 'Pobl Y Cwm' in 2005 she spent time with the National Youth Theatre of Wales before going on to R.A.D.A. from where she graduated with a B.A, in acting in 2010. A number of high profile roles followed including television series and the role of the younger Margaret Thatcher in the biopic 'The Iron Lady' with Meryl Streep.- Actress
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Elizabeth Rodriguez is a Manhattan born and raised native New Yorker and a graduate of Lehman College in the Bronx. After graduation from Lehman, Rodriguez studied for two years under acclaimed acting teacher Maggie Flanigan at William Esper Studios in NYC. While still at the studio she began working professionally with appearances in the feature films Fresh (1994), Dead Presidents (1995) and I Think I Do (1997), as well as in TV shows such as Law & Order (1990), and recurring roles on both Oz (1997) and New York Undercover (1994).
Rodriguez has since appeared in numerous shows, including a recent recurring role as Aleida Diaz on the upcoming Netflix Original Series Orange Is the New Black (2013). Other TV credits include roles as series regulars on both NBC's Prime Suspect (2011), opposite Maria Bello, and ABC's All My Children (1970), in addition to recurring roles on The Shield (2002) and ER (1994). Other credits include Six Feet Under (2001), Flashforward (2009), Cold Case (2003), Just Shoot Me! (1997), NYPD Blue (1993) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999). Her made-for-TV movies include Inflammable (1995) and P.O.W.E.R.: The Eddie Matos Story (1994). Some of her feature films include Return to Paradise (1998), Four Lane Highway (2005), Acts of Worship (2001), Blow (2001), All Things Fall Apart (2011), Pound of Flesh (2010), Tonight at Noon, A Line in the Sand (2008), Jack Goes Boating (2010), directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Michael Mann's Miami Vice (2006), opposite Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Other notable films include Tio Papi (2013), Glass Chin (2014) and The Drop (2014), with Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini.
In addition to her work on screen, Rodriguez remains extremely active in the theater. She has starred in "Beauty of the Father" (Manhattan Theatre Club), "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" (NY's Public Theater), "Roger and Vanessa" (Actors' Gang), "Den of Thieves" (Black Dahlia), "Robbers" (American Place Theater), "A View From 151st Street" (NY's Public Theater) and "Unconditional" (NY's Public Theater). Rodriguez is a longtime member of NY's acclaimed Labyrinth Theater Company.- Emily Procter is a native of Raleigh, N.C. who attended East Carolina University. "I tried to get in the theatre department," she says, "but it was full." After graduation, however, she moved to Los Angeles and landed a number of small roles in films such as Jerry Maguire (1996). "Then I got the chance to audition for The West Wing (1999) and I got the part," she says.
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Jennifer O'Neill was born on 20 February 1948 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is an actress, known for Scanners (1981), Summer of '42 (1971) and The Innocent (1976). She has been married to Mervin Sidney Louque, Jr. since 1996. She was previously married to Richard Alan Brown, Neil Leonard Bonin, John Lederer, Jeff Barry, Nick De Noia, Joseph Roster and Deed Rossiter.- Actress
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Tamlyn Tomita was born on 27 January 1966 in Okinawa, Japan. She is an actress and writer, known for The Day After Tomorrow (2004), The Karate Kid Part II (1986) and The Eye (2008). She is married to Daniel Blinkoff.- Actress
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Barbara Bain was born in Chicago, graduating from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology. She then relocated to New York City where she gained work as a dancer and high-fashion model. Ms. Bain studied with Martha Graham, permanently cementing her love of dance; however, it was with Lee Strasberg at the prestigious Actors Studio that she discovered her true first love - acting. She is probably best known for her work in the landmark television series Mission: Impossible (1966), created by Bruce Geller, where she created the pivotal role of Impossible Missions Force Agent "Cinnamon Carter", and, in the process, became the first actress in the history of television to receive three consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Dramatic Actress. Ms. Bain followed with the role of "Dr. Helena Russell" in the now classic British syndicated science fiction television series Space: 1999 (1975), created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson. Her stage work has garnered her Los Angeles Critic's Circle and DramaLogue Awards for her work on Arthur Kopit's "Wings", Samuel Beckett's "Happy Days" and Eugène Ionesco's "The Chairs". Ms. Bain has worked on behalf of numerous charitable causes and is the founder of the Screen Actors Guild's "BookPals" Program which currently has some 300 of her colleagues reading to children in Los Angeles schools. Following the success of the program there, she helped the program to develop in other major cities throughout North America.- Nicole DeHuff was born on 6 January 1975 in Oklahoma. She began her acting studies at the prestigious Carnegie Mellon Acting Conservatory. Her first screen role was in the comedy hit Meet the Parents (2000), in which she co-starred with Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller. Her character (Deborah Byrnes) was the sister whose wedding caused chaos for her family. She subsequently appeared in a guest capacity in such television programs as CSI: Miami (2002), Monk (2002) and The Practice (1997). Nicole married in 2000 to Ari Palitz, but had no children. She passed away from pneumonia on 16 February 2005 in Los Angeles. She was 30 years old.
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Patricia Cornwell was born on 9 June 1956 in Miami, Florida, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Kay Scarpetta, The Front (2010) and Untitled Kay Scarpetta Project. She has been married to Staci Gruber since 24 February 2005. She was previously married to Charles L. Cornwell.- Actress
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Christine Garver is known for Mad Men (2007), Madam Secretary (2014) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013). She has been married to Alexander Maggio since 9 November 2013.- Actress
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Tatum Beatrice O'Neal is an American actress and author. She is the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award, winning at age 10 for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon (1973) opposite her father, Ryan O'Neal. She also starred as Amanda Wurlitzer in The Bad News Bears (1976), followed by Nickelodeon (1976), and Little Darlings (1980). O'Neal later appeared in guest roles in Sex and the City, 8 Simple Rules and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. From 2006 to 2007, she portrayed Blythe Hunter in the My Network TV drama series Wicked Wicked Games.- Actress
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Lisa Vidal was born on 13 June 1965 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Star Trek (2009), Being Mary Jane (2013) and Mighty Aphrodite (1995). She has been married to Jay Cohen since 6 January 1990. They have three children.- Actress
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Kate Beckinsale was born on 26 July 1973 in Hounslow, Middlesex, England, and has resided in London for most of her life. Her mother is Judy Loe, who has appeared in a number of British dramas and sitcoms and continues to work as an actress, predominantly in British television productions. Her father was Richard Beckinsale, born in Nottingham, England. He starred in a number of popular British television comedies during the 1970s, most notably the series Rising Damp (1974), Porridge (1974) and The Lovers (1970). He passed away tragically early in 1979 at the age of 31.
Kate attended the private school Godolphin and Latymer School in London for her grade and primary school education. In her teens she twice won the British bookseller W.H. Smith Young Writers' competition - once for three short stories and once for three poems. After a tumultuous adolescence (a bout of anorexia - cured - and a smoking habit which continues to this day), she gradually took up the profession of acting.
Her major acting debut came in a TV film about World War II called One Against the Wind (1991), filmed in Luxembourg during the summer of 1991. It first aired on American television that December. Kate began attending Oxford University's New College in the fall of 1991, majoring in French and Russian literature. She had already decided that she wanted to act, but to broaden her horizons she chose university over drama school. While in her first year at Oxford, Kate received her big break in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (1993). Kate worked in three other films while attending Oxford, beginning with a part in the medieval historical drama Royal Deceit (1994), cast as Ethel. The film was shot during the spring of 1993 on location in Denmark, and she filmed her supporting part during New College's Easter break. Later in the summer of that year she played the lead in the contemporary mystery drama Uncovered (1994). Before she went back to school, her third year at university was spent at Oxford's study-abroad program in Paris, France, immersing herself in the French language, Parisian culture and French cigarettes.
A year away from the academic community and living on her own in the French capital caused her to re-evaluate the direction of her life. She faced a choice: continue with school or concentrate on her flourishing acting career. After much thought, she chose the acting career. In the spring of 1994 Kate left Oxford, after finishing three years of study. Kate appeared in the BBC/Thames Television satire Cold Comfort Farm (1995), filmed in London and East Sussex during late summer 1994 and which opened to spectacular reviews in the United States, grossing over $5 million during its American run. It was re-released to U.K. theaters in the spring of 1997.
Acting on the stage consumed the first part of 1995; she toured in England with the Thelma Holts Theatre Company production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". After turning down several mediocre scripts "and going nearly berserk with boredom", she waited seven months before another interesting role was offered to her. Her big movie of 1995 was the romance/horror movie Haunted (1995), starring opposite Aidan Quinn and John Gielgud, and filmed in West Sussex. In this film she wanted to play "an object of desire", unlike her past performances where her characters were much less the siren and more the worldly innocent. Kate's first film project of 1996 was the British ITV production of Jane Austen's novel Emma (1996). Her last film of 1996 was the comedy Shooting Fish (1997), filmed at Shepperton Studios in London during early fall. She played the part of Georgie, an altruistic con artist. She had a daughter, Lily, in 1999 with actor Michael Sheen.- Music Artist
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The remarkable, hyper-ambitious Material Girl who never stops re-inventing herself, Madonna has sold over three hundred million records and CDs to adoring fans worldwide. Her film career, however, is another story. Her performances have consistently drawn scathing or laughable reviews from film critics, and the films have usually had tepid, if any, success at the box office. Born Madonna Louise Ciccone in August 1958 in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York in 1978 and studied with renowned choreographer Alvin Ailey, joined up with the Patrick Hernandez Revue, formed a pop/dance band called Breakfast Club and began working with then-boyfriend Stephen Bray on recording several disco-oriented songs. New York producer/D.J. Mark Kamins passed her demo tapes to Sire Records in early 1982 and the rest is history. The 1980s was Madonna's boom decade, and she dominated the music charts with a succession of multimillion-selling albums, and her musical and fashion influence on young women was felt around the globe. Madonna first appeared on screen in two low-budget films marketed to an adolescent audience: A Certain Sacrifice (1979) and Vision Quest (1985). However, she scored a minor cult hit with Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) starring alongside spunky Rosanna Arquette. Madonna's next effort with then husband Sean Penn, Shanghai Surprise (1986), was savaged by critics, although the resilient star managed to somewhat improve her standing with her next two films, the offbeat Who's That Girl (1987) (although she did receive decidedly mixed reviews, they weren't as negative as those of her previous effort) and the quirky Damon Runyon-inspired Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989). The big-budget and star-filled Dick Tracy (1990) had her playing bad girl "Breathless Mahoney" flirting with Warren Beatty, but the epic failed to catch fire at the box office. Taking an earthier role, Madonna was much more entertaining alongside Tom Hanks and Geena Davis in A League of Their Own (1992), a story about female baseball players during W.W.II. However, she again drew the wrath of critics with the sexy whodunit Body of Evidence (1992). Several other minor screen roles followed, then Madonna starred as Eva Perón in Evita (1996), a fairly well received screen adaptation of the hugely successful Broadway musical, for which she received a Golden Globe for Best Actress. The Material Girl stayed away from the movie cameras for several years, returning to co-star in the lukewarm romantic comedy The Next Best Thing (2000), followed by the painful Swept Away (2002). If those films weren't bad enough, she was woefully miscast as a vampish fencing instructor in the James Bond adventure Die Another Day (2002). After finally admitting that her acting days were over, Madonna began a directing career in 2008 with the barely remembered Filth and Wisdom (2008) and a year later she reunited with Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) director Alek Keshishian to develop a script about the relationship between the Duke of Windsor and the Duchess of Windsor that led to his abdication in 1936: the result, a movie named W.E. (2011), starring James D'Arcy and Andrea Riseborough as the infernal but still royal couple, was released in 2011 to lukewarm critics but it gathered one Oscar nomination for costumes and won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song for "Masterpiece".- Actress
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Penny Marshall was born Carole Penny Marshall on October 15, 1943 in Manhattan. The Libra was 5' 6 1/2", with brown hair and green eyes. She was the daughter of Marjorie (Ward), a tap dance teacher, and Anthony "Tony" Marshall, an industrial film director. She was the younger sister of filmmakers Garry Marshall and Ronny Hallin. Her father was of Italian descent, originally surnamed "Masciarelli," and her mother was of German, Scottish, English, and Irish ancestry.
Penny was known in her family as "the bad one"... because not only did she walk on the ledge of her family's apartment building, but she snuck into the movies as a child and even dated a guy named "Lefty." She attended a private girls' high school in New York and then went to the University of New Mexico for two and a half years. There, Penny got pregnant with daughter, Tracy Reiner, and soon after married the father, Michael Henry, in 1961. The couple divorced two years later in 1963. She worked as a secretary for awhile. Her film debut came from her brother Garry Marshall, who put her in the movie How Sweet It Is! (1968) with the talented Debbie Reynolds and James Garner. She also did a dandruff commercial with Farrah Fawcett - the casting people, of course, giving Farrah the part of the "beautiful girl" and Penny the part of the "plain girl." This only added to Penny's insecurity with her looks.
She then married Rob Reiner on April 10, 1971, shortly after getting her big television break as Oscar Madison's secretary, Myrna Turner, on The Odd Couple (1970). She also played Mary Richards' neighbor, Paula Kovacks, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) for a couple of episodes. However, her Laverne & Shirley (1976) fame came when her brother needed two women to play "fast girls" who were friends of Arthur Fonzarelli and would date Fonzie and Richie Cunningham on Happy Days (1974). Penny had been working on miscellaneous writing projects ("My Country Tis Of Thee", a bicentennial spoof for Francis Ford Coppola and "Paper Hands" about the Salem Witch Trials) with writing partner Cindy Williams. Cindy happened to be a friend and ex-girlfriend of Henry Winkler's, so Garry asked the two to play the parts of these girls. The audience saw their wonderful chemistry, and loved them so much, a spin-off was created for them.
Penny was well-known as Laverne DeFazio. She and Rob had divorced in 1980. The show ended three years later, half a year after Cindy Williams left the show due to pregnancy (her first baby, Emily, from now ex-husband Bill Hudson)... they wanted Williams to work the week she was supposed to deliver.
Soon after, Penny began directing such films as Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), Big (1988) and A League of Their Own (1992). Her hobbies included needlepoint, jigsaw puzzles and antique shopping. She was best friends with actress Carrie Fisher and was godmother to Carrie's daughter, Billie.
Penny died at 75 in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
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Gina Brillon was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. The Puerto Rican actress, comedian, and writer, has been a stand up comic since she was 17 years old. Her first one hour special, Pacifically Speaking, was produced by Gabriel Iglesias and aired on NuvoTV (2014). She had a featured role in Gabriel Iglesias' theatrical film, The Fluffy Movie. She's made appearances on Comedy Central's Live at Gotham, E!'s Chelsea Lately, AXS' Gotham Comedy Live, The View, Late Night with Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel Live. You have also seen her on Kevin Can Wait on CBS and The Conners on ABC. In 2012, she became the first (and only) Latina winner of NBC's Stand up for Diversity Showcase. She was selected to be part of Montreal's Just For Laughs New Faces Showcase. Gina is also a singer, published writer, and poet. Her pieces have appeared in the New York Post and Daily News, among others. In 2019, she was featured on Gabriel Iglesias' "Beyond the Fluffy Tour" - hitting 46 cities around the US and gaining thousands of new fans along the way. Her newest half hour special for HBO Latino, titled Easily Offended is now streaming on all HBO Digital Platforms.- Actress
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Shyko Amos is known for Death in Paradise (2011) and A Very English Scandal (2018).- Music Artist
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The Bangles are a hugely popular and successful all-female rock group from Los Angeles, California. The band first formed in 1981. The original line-up was: Susanna Hoffs (vocals/guitar), Victoria Peterson (vocals/guitar), Vicki's sister Debbi Peterson (drums/vocals) and Annette Zilinskas (bass/vocals). They initially called themselves Colours, The Supersonic Bangs, and The Bangs, prior to settling on the name, The Bangles. The group hailed from the 80's L.A. Paisley Underground music scene and released their self-titled debut EP in 1982. Zilinskas subsequently left the band and was replaced by singer/bassist Michael Steele. The group's first full-length album "All Over the Place" was released in 1984. The 1986 follow-up album "Different Light" beget two smash songs: the plaintive lament "Manic Monday" peaked at #2 on the US Billboard pop charts and the dynamic "Walk Like an Egyptian" soared all the way to #1 not only in America, but also in Britain, Australia, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands as well. ("Manic Monday" was written by none other than Prince). The band scored a #2 US Billboard chart hit in 1987 with a cover of the Simon & Garfunkel song "Hazy Shade of Winter". In 1989, The Bangles had another massive smash with the lovely ballad "Eternal Flame", which peaked at the #1 spot in the United States, England, Norway, Sweden, Australia and the Netherlands. Alas, tensions amongst the band members steadily mounted and the group broke up in 1989. In 1999, The Bangles got back together to record the song "Get the Girl" for the soundtrack of the hit comedy Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999). The group then embarked on a brief tour in 2000 and released the comeback album "Doll Revolution" in 2003. The Bangles continue to tour and perform in concert all over America and Europe.- Frances Tomelty was born on 6 October 1948 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. She is an actress, known for The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006), Bullshot Crummond (1983) and Vanity Fair (1998). She was previously married to Sting.
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Sting was born Gordon Matthew Sumner on 2 October, 1951 in Wallsend, North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England, the eldest of four children of Audrey (Cowell), a hairdresser, and Ernest Matthew Sumner, an engineer and milkman. He received his name from a striped sweater he wore which looked like a bee. He grew up in the turmoil of the ship-building industry and wanted to become a musician very early. He played cruise ships, backing strippers in cabarets, and developed a love for the bass guitar. Having played in jazz/rock bands like "Last Exit" and other various groups, including a dixieland jazz group, he settled down with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers for a decade-long tenure with the smashing rock trio, The Police.
In 1984, he went on to record solo albums, and holds a reputation as one of the most literate songwriters and talented musicians in the world. He has also delved into acting, having starred in such films as Quadrophenia (1979), Radio On (1979), Plenty (1985), Julia and Julia (1987) (aka Julia and Julia), Dune (1984), Bring on the Night (1985) (a documentary about the formation of his Blue Turtles jazz group), most recently, Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets (1995), where he plays a bisexual, conniving butler.
He received an honorary Doctorate of Music degree from Northumbria University in October 1992, and from Berklee College of Music in May 1994. He plays guitar, bass guitar, mandolin, piano, harmonica, saxophone and pan-flute, and he gave a name to his bass (Brian).
Sting is married to film producer Trudie Styler, and has six children with Trudie and ex-wife, actress Frances Tomelty. Sting owns a Jacobian castle in Wiltshire, which he calls "Lake House", where he records his albums, as well as a place in London, an apartment in New York, a place on the beach in Malibu, California, and a Renaissance Florentine Villa called "Palagio" in Figline Valdarno, Tuscany, Italy. Along with his wife Trudie and a Brazilian Indian, he started the Rainforest Foundation in 1989 to help save rainforests.- Actress
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Trudie Styler was born on 6 January 1954 in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Filth (2013), Moon (2009) and The Next Three Days (2010). She has been married to Sting since 20 August 1992. They have four children.- Actress
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Founding member of Charity & Chastity, a comedic duo that sings wicked naughty humor.
Ingrid is trained classically. Has played Lady Anne (Richard III), The Duchess (The Duchess of Malfi), Theresa (Brendan Behan's The Hostage) & Paulina (Jason Sherman's Enemies).
Graduate of Ryerson Theatre School (BFA) & Claude Watson School for the Arts.
Hired straight out of theatre school to join the Blyth Festival as a company member.
Is good friends with actor and fellow Ryerson graduate Chad Connell.- Actress
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Joan Jett rose to fame in the 1970s all-girl rock band The Runaways. Her cover of "I Love Rock and Roll" was a number one hit in 1982; "Crimson and Clover" was another hit for her. Jett has appeared as Columbia in the Broadway production of "The Rocky Horror Show".- Composer
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A classmate of director Sergio Leone with whom he would form one of the great director/composer partnerships (right up there with Eisenstein & Prokofiev, Hitchcock & Herrmann, Fellini & Rota), Ennio Morricone studied at Rome's Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he specialized in trumpet. His first film scores were relatively undistinguished, but he was hired by Leone for A Fistful of Dollars (1964) on the strength of some of his song arrangements. His score for that film, with its sparse arrangements, unorthodox instrumentation (bells, electric guitars, harmonicas, the distinctive twang of the jew's harp) and memorable tunes, revolutionized the way music would be used in Westerns, and it is hard to think of a post-Morricone Western score that doesn't in some way reflect his influence. Although his name will always be synonymous with the spaghetti Western, Morricone has also contributed to a huge range of other film genres: comedies, dramas, thrillers, horror films, romances, art movies, exploitation movies - making him one of the film world's most versatile artists. He has written nearly 400 film scores, so a brief summary is impossible, but his most memorable work includes the Leone films, Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966) , Roland Joffé's The Mission (1986), Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987) and Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso (1988), plus a rare example of sung opening credits for Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966).- Actress
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Lili Taylor is a well-known and successful American actress. She acts in film, TV and stage. She was born in Glencoe, Illinois, to Marie (Lecour) and George Park Taylor, an artist and hardware store operator. Lili graduated from New Trier High School in 1985. Then, she attended the Theatre School at DePaul University and the Piven Theatre Workshop. Lili first earned fame for acting in the 1988 movie, Mystic Pizza (1988), which co-starred Julia Roberts. Then, she acted in a number of successful movies, including Dogfight (1991) and Short Cuts (1993). But, she was more highly recognized for appearing in the 1996 film, I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), for which she was nominated for several awards. Lili's notable works for television include the TV series, Six Feet Under (2001), and in the television movies, Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) and Live from Baghdad (2002). In 2009, she played "Sheriff Lillian Holley" in the movie, Public Enemies (2009). The movie co-starred Johnny Depp, with whom Lili also appeared in the 1993 movie, Arizona Dream (1993). Lili is also a successful stage actress. She has appeared in a number of plays staged on Broadway, including "The Three Sisters" (1997). Lili Taylor continues to act in stage, TV and film. She is married to Nick Flynn and they have a daughter.- Actress
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Sidné Anderson was born on September 28, 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts. In the 1970's, her adoptive father, Eddie Anderson (Reno) who worked as a musician and singer with the R&B band Soul Brothers Six, moved the family to Canada, where she was raised in Hamilton, Ontario. In 1982, her mother, Carolyn Anderson, who worked as a nurses aid, moved the family back to Boston, where she attended the Jeremiah E. Burke High School and developed a love for acting. She studied theater as an English/Communications major at North Adams State College and was educated at the prestigious Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut. Sidné is an actress and producer, known for The Savages (2007), Big Fan (2009) and Blue Ruin (2014) as well as many episodes of the Law & Order franchise.- Actress
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Doris Roberts was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Ann (Meltzer) and Larry Green. She was raised in New York, and took her stepfather's surname. Roberts was a 20-year veteran of the Broadway stage before she began appearing steadily in character roles in film and on television during the 1970s. A versatile player with an inescapably "mom-like" presence, she was adept at playing sympathetic roles but made her most memorable mark as hard-boiled dames, gossips, and nags who were often too savvy of the ways of the world to be fooled by anyone. Roberts built up some face recognition with regular appearances in the sitcoms Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) (syndicated) and Angie (1979) (ABC), but truly came into her own as a widely known comedienne when she was cast as the meddling, strong-willed family matriarch on Everybody Loves Raymond (1996) (CBS). The show became of the best-loved sitcoms in history, and Roberts earned seven Emmy nominations and four wins for her colorful characterization. Well past the common age of retirement and well past the show's celebrated end, Roberts maintained a reputation as one of the big and small screen's most iconic mothers, and she continued to be a welcome sight as a television guest star and film player.- Music Artist
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Meat Loaf was born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Texas, to Wilma Artie (Hukel), a teacher and gospel singer, and Orvis Wesley Aday, a police officer. He moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to play in local bands. In 1970, he moved to New York and appeared in the Broadway musicals "Hair", "Rockabye Hamlet" and "The Rocky Horror Show," and Off Broadway in "Rainbow", "More Than You Deserve", "National Lampoon Show" and the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of "As You Like it;" as well as other productions at the famed New York Public Theatre. He made his film debut with a memorable role in the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).
In 1977, he and lyricist Jim Steinman released an operatic rock album called "Bat Out Of Hell"; the record was huge and has sold 50,000,000 copies worldwide and is tied with AC/DC for the 2nd best selling record of all time. The tour and promoting the album took a toll on Meat Loaf's voice and left him unable to sing for 2 years, but with months of rehabilitation, he was able to get back in the studio and record the album "Dead Ringer". Meat Loaf stayed in the dark through the 1980s in the US, recording 4 records which got very little airplay or high chart positions in the US but continued to have major chart success in Europe and Australia. The 1981 Single "Dead Ringer for Love", a duet with Cher, was a top 10 single in many countries outside the US, but which American radio refused to play.
Meat Loaf had many film and TV roles, including the lead character Travis Redfish in Roadie (1980); a pilot in Out of Bounds (1986); in The Squeeze (1987) with Michael Keaton; and Fred in Focus (2001) (based on the Arthur Miller book by the same name), with Laura Dern and William H. Macy. When Meat Loaf and Steinman got back together in 1993, they delivered a powerful sequel, "Bat Out Of Hell II", which went to #1 in the US and UK and 26 other countries. Bat II sold over 22,000,000 copies.
He appeared in many films, including Crazy in Alabama (1999), Formula 51 (2001) (with Samuel L. Jackson), and Fight Club (1999) (with Brad Pitt). TV credits included guest starring roles as a soldier being held prisoner in Vietnam in Lightning Force (1991), a newspaper reporter in the hit series Glee (2009), a slick landlord of a restaurant who ends up on the menu in HBO series Tales from the Crypt (1989) a blacksmith on Showtime's Dead Man's Gun (1997), as fur trader Jake in Masters of Horror (2005) episode Pelts (2006), in House (2004) as caring husband Eddie, and, most recently, in the supporting role of Doug in the SYFY series Ghost Wars (2017). Hugh Laurie (star of "House") played piano on the song "If I Can't Have You" on Meat Loaf's album "Hang Cool Teddy Bear", which was produced by award-winning music producer Rob Cavallo. (Jack Black also sang on the album.)
Marvin Lee Aday died on January 20, 2022 in Austin, Texas from COVID-19 complications.- Lorraine Burroughs was born in 1981 in Birmingham, West Midlands, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Doctor Who (2005), DCI Banks (2010) and Fast Girls (2012).
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Though most famous for her role as Isabella "Bella" Swan in The Twilight (2008) Saga, Kristen Stewart has been a working actor since her early years in Los Angeles, California. Her parents, John Stewart and Jules Stewart, both work in film and television. The family includes three boys, Kristen's older brother Cameron Stewart and two adopted brothers Dana and Taylor. Kristen is of English, Scottish, and Ashkenazi Jewish descent.
After a talent scout caught her grade school performance in a play at the age of eight, she appeared on television in a few small roles. Her first significant role came when she was cast as Sam Jennings in The Safety of Objects (2001). Soon after that, she starred alongside Jodie Foster in the hit drama, Panic Room (2002) and was nominated for a Young Artist Award.
Praised for her Panic Room performance, she went on to join the cast of Cold Creek Manor (2003) as the daughter of Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone. Though the film did not do well at the box office, she received another nomination for a Young Artist Award. After appearing in a handful of movies and a Showtime movie called Speak (2004), Stewart was cast in the role of a teenage singer living in a commune in Sean Penn's Into the Wild (2007), a critically acclaimed biopic. A third Young Artist Award nomination resulted in a win for this role. She also appeared in Mary Stuart Masterson's The Cake Eaters (2007) that same year.
Just 17, Stewart took on the starring role in Twilight (2008) which was based on a series of the same name written by Stephenie Meyer, the novel already had a huge following and the film opened to fans anxious to see the vampire romance brought to life. Awarded the MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance, Stewart's turn as Bella continued in the sequels The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010). The final installments of the series started filming in late 2010, and were released the following years, as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011) and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012).
Despite her stratospheric launch into stardom with the Twilight films, she stayed true to her roots by working on a number of indie projects, including Adventureland (2009) (filmed prior to the Twilight series) and Welcome to the Rileys (2010). And she took on the daunting task of playing hard rocker Joan Jett in Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways (2010) alongside Dakota Fanning. Stewart received praise for her acting and musical performances and later won the 2010 BAFTA Rising Star Award and best actress at the Milan International Film Festival for Welcome to the Rileys (2010).
Stewart worked on several other leading roles between the Twilight Saga installments including the #1 summer box office hit, Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), and the Cannes selection On the Road (2012). She also performed in the Sundance drama Camp X-Ray (2014), Cannes selection Clouds of Sils Maria (2014), for which she won a César Award, and the Lionsgate action comedy, American Ultra (2015), also starring Jesse Eisenberg, the Adventureland duo. She also delivered an acclaimed turn opposite Academy Award-winner Julianne Moore in Still Alice (2014). For the remainder of the decade, Kristen alternated choice supporting roles, such as Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016) and Café Society (2016), with starring roles in films about historical figures, including Lizzie (2018) and Seberg (2019), and special effects/action thrillers Charlie's Angels (2019) and Underwater (2020).
Kristen had a change-of-pace role in the romantic comedy Happiest Season (2020), about an LGBT+ couple, and received universal acclaim, and her first Oscar nomination, for Best Actress, for her performance as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín's Spencer (2021). Moving deeper into the 2020s, she is working on David Cronenberg's thriller Crimes of the Future (2022).
Stewart lives in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
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Tamara Braun was born on 18 April 1971 in Evanston, Illinois, USA. She is an actress and director, known for General Hospital (1963), Days of Our Lives (1965) and Kombucha Cure (2023).- Actress
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Polly Shannon grew up in Aylmer, Quebec, with her mother, a Canadian scriptwriter for children's television, and father, Director-General of Health Canada. She was given a deadline of the age of 25 to make it or break it as an actress, and she's more than met that quota. In 1999, alone, she's had hits with The Girl Next Door (1998) (with Henry Czerny) and The Sheldon Kennedy Story (1999) (with Jonathan Scarfe of Madison (1993) and ER (1994) fame), coming a long way from her first role as Nina in the Canadian teen series Catwalk (1992) in the early nineties.- Music Artist
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Sara Bareilles was born on 7 December 1979 in Eureka, California, USA. She is a music artist and actress, known for Little Voice (2020), Battle of the Sexes (2017) and She's Out of My League (2010).- Actress
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Martina Navratilova is a Czechoslovak-born American former professional tennis player and coach.
When Navratilova was four, she was hitting a tennis ball off a concrete wall and started to play tennis regularly at age seven. In 1972, at the age of 15, Navratilova won the Czechoslovakia national tennis championship. In 1973, aged 16, she made her debut on the United States Lawn Tennis Association professional tour but did not turn professional until 1975. Although perhaps most renowned for her mastery of fast low-bouncing grass, her best early showing at majors was on the red clay at the French Open, where she would go on to reach the final six times.
Navratilova won her first professional singles title in Orlando, Florida in 1974, at the age of 17.
Navratilova won her first major singles title at Wimbledon in 1978, where she defeated Chris Evert in three sets in the final and captured the world No. 1 ranking for the first time on the WTA computer, a position she held until Evert took it back in January 1979. Navratilova successfully defended her Wimbledon title in 1979, again beating Evert in the final in straight sets, and earned the World No. 1 ranking at the end of the year for the first time. In 1981, Navratilova won her third major singles title by defeating Chris Evert in the final of the Australian Open. Navratilova also defeated Evert to reach the final of the US Open, where she lost a third set tiebreak to Tracy Austin. Navratilova won both Wimbledon and the French Open in 1982.
From 1982 through 1990, she reached the Wimbledon final nine consecutive times. She reached the US Open final five consecutive times from 1983 through 1987 and appeared in the French Open final five out of six years from 1982 through 1987.
She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2000.- Actress
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Elisabeth Shue was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to Anne Brewster (Wells), who worked for the Chemical Banking Corporation, and James William Shue, a lawyer and real estate developer. She is of German and English ancestry, including descent from Mayflower passengers. Shue's parents divorced while she was in the fourth grade. Owing to the occupational demands of her parents, Shue and her siblings found plenty of time to get into trouble in their suburban neighborhood, but Elisabeth soon enrolled in Wellesley College, an all-female institution which kept her out of trouble.
During her studies, she found a way to make a little extra money by acting in television commercials. Elisabeth became a common sight in ads for Burger King, DeBeers diamonds, and Hellman's mayonnaise. In 1984, she landed a role in the The Karate Kid (1984) as the on-screen girlfriend of Ralph Macchio and a role as the teenage daughter of a military family in the short-lived series Call to Glory (1984). At this time, Shue got herself an acting coach and transferred to Harvard, where she began studying political science.
She continued her acting work with Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Cocktail (1988), Soapdish (1991) and The Marrying Man (1991). Unfortunately, time was catching up with the impressive girl-next-door. Her brother Andrew Shue had almost eclipsed her own fame by landing a starring role in the hit TV series Melrose Place (1992). It was at this time that Elisabeth took a chance on a low-budget, high-risk project entitled Leaving Las Vegas (1995), directed by Mike Figgis. Her gutsy portrayal of a prostitute mixed up with a suicidal alcoholic paid off as she was recognized with a Best Actress nomination at the Academy Awards that year. This was the turning point of her career. What followed was a barrage of film roles, including The Saint (1997), Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997), Palmetto (1998) and Hollow Man (2000).- Actress
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Born in Bristol, England, Veronica is the older sister of the popular child actress Angela Cartwright. In her early career, Veronica was cast in a number of popular movies such as William Wyler's The Children's Hour (1961), Spencer's Mountain (1963) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). As such, she was cast as "Jemima Boone" in the popular television series Daniel Boone (1964), which ran from 1964 to 66. Her career after "Daniel Boone" may have been influenced by Hitchcock, since she appeared in both the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and the horror classic Alien (1979). On television, she appeared twice as Lumpy's younger sister, "Violet Rutherford" and once as "Peggy MacIntosh" on Leave It to Beaver (1957) and had a small role in the television movie Still the Beaver (1983).
Cartwright also appeared in Robert Kennedy and His Times (1985), Tanner '88 (1988) and had a recurring role on L.A. Law (1986). Her big screen features included The Right Stuff (1983), Flight of the Navigator (1986) and The Witches of Eastwick (1987). Veronica worked on the stage in "Electra", "Talley's Folly", "Homesteaders", "Butterflies are Free" and "The Triplet Connection". Alternating between television and big screen movies in the 90s, Cartwright has appeared in such films as Hitler's Daughter (1990) and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995).- Actress
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Jennifer Marie Morrison was born in Chicago, Illinois, the oldest child of teachers David and Judy Morrison. She was raised in Arlington Heights, IL, with a younger sister and brother. She attended the same school her parents taught at, Prospect High School. As a child, she did some work as a model. After graduating from high school, she attended Loyola University in Chicago, where she studied Theater and English. She then moved on to study at the Steppenwolf Theater Company, before relocating to Los Angeles, California to pursue her acting career. Morrison's movie debut came in 1994, playing the daughter of Richard Gere and Sharon Stone in Intersection (1994). Success followed with various film and television roles, including the lead in Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000). She came to wide scale public attention in 2004 for her role as Dr. Allison Cameron in the television series House (2004), for which she was nominated for a prestigious Screen Actors Guild Award. Since leaving "House M.D.", her career has continued to progress with roles in Star Trek (2009), How I Met Your Mother (2005) and Warrior (2011).- Actress
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As a testament to her passion and talent, former 1950s pig-tailed moppet star Patty McCormack has remained a consistent presence on film and TV for over five decades. While the lovely and talented blonde suffered her share of hard knocks and obvious stereotypes in adjusting to an adult career, she did not fade away into oblivion or self destruct as other vulnerable child stars before her did.
Born Patricia Ellen Russo in Brooklyn, New York, to Frank Russo, a firefighter, and the former Elizabeth McCormack, a roller skating pro, the young girl found herself modeling at age 4. Two years later, she had progressed to films with bits in Two Gals and a Guy (1951) and Here Comes the Groom (1951). Soon thereafter she made her Broadway debut (at age 6) in the short-lived play "Touchstone" starring Ossie Davis.
While simultaneously appearing in the live television series Mama (1949) [aka "I Remember Mama"], the by-now 8-year-old returned to Broadway a second time and created the role that would make her a cult sensation -- "Rhoda Penmark", the tiny, braided little demon with murderous intentions in "The Bad Seed". Starring Nancy Kelly as her put-upon, overly-trusting mother, the show became a certifiable hit. The two actors were invited to recreate their famous roles in the film version, The Bad Seed (1956), and achieved equally fine results. No child before her had ever been given such a deliberately evil, twisted role and Patty chewed up the scenery with courteous malevolence. Though the film today may come off as extremely stagy and overly mannered to some, its fascination cannot be denied. Audiences took readily to Patty and her wicked ways and the young actress earned both Oscar and Golden Globe "Best Supporting Actress" nominations.
The film would be a hard act to follow or forget. So strongly identified with the role, Patty found it difficult for audiences to see her any other way. She tried finding some variance as a pioneer girl in All Mine to Give (1957), a testy child star in Kathy O' (1958) and a tomboy in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960) but the memory of "Rhoda Penmark" would not be so easily wiped away. She suffered typical teen angst in the film The Explosive Generation (1961) with William Shatner and had to make do as a young adult in such low-level movies as The Mini-Skirt Mob (1968), Maryjane (1968) and The Young Animals (1968).
By the 1970s Patty, who had spent so much time as a child doing live television, found herself again relying on the medium for steadier work. Billed now as a more grown-up "Patricia McCormack", she also appeared in a variety of legit stage productions and, on occasion, found roles in independent films. Appearing in more than 250 episodes of some of the most successful programs around, audiences may remember her giving sensible, wifely support to Jeffrey Tambor on The Ropers (1979), the short-lived spin-off of the Three's Company (1976) sitcom, or from her recurring role as "Evelyn Michaelson" on Dallas (1978). More recently on film and TV, she played "Adrianna"'s mother, "Liz LaCerva", on HBO's hit The Sopranos (1999) and appeared in guest form on NYPD Blue (1993), Cold Case (2003), Grey's Anatomy (2005), Entourage (2004) and What About Brian (2006). She also played former "First Lady" "Pat Nixon" in the film Frost/Nixon (2008).
In 1995, Patty's devoted fans reveled when she felt comfortable enough to embrace again her "Bad Seed" behavior by starring in the low-budget horror feature Mommy (1995) and its sequel Mommy's Day (1997) [aka "Mommy 2"]. She came full circle as a most pernicious homemaker who created violent, Rhoda-worthy ends for those unlucky enough to cross her path.
Patti's millennium films, a variety of comedy, drama and, of course, horror films, would include The Medicine Show (2001), Choosing Matthias (2001), Shallow Ground (2004), Frost/Nixon (2008) (as First Lady Pat Nixon), Soda Springs (2012), Buttwhistle (2014), Chicanery (2017) and a lead in the lowbudget mystery House of Deadly Secrets (2018). As for TV, in addition to guest parts on such shows as "The D.A.," "N.Y.P.D. Blue," "Grey's Anatomy," "Entourage," "Criminal Minds," "Shark," "Private Practice," "Citizen Jane," "Desperate Housewives," "Prime Suspect," "Hawaii Five-0, she had recurring roles on The Sopranos (1999), Have You Met Miss Jones? (2012), Hart of Dixie (2011) and the daytime series General Hospital (1963) as Dr. Monica Quartermaine. She also played the small role of a doctor in a remake of her cult film The Bad Seed (2018).
A mother herself with two children, Robert and Danielle, Patty was once married to Bob Catania, a restaurateur. She was also an eight-year companion to screenwriter and playwright Ernest Thompson of On Golden Pond (1981) fame.- Music Department
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Claire Elise Boucher (born March 17, 1988), better known by the stage name Grimes, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer and music video director. Born and raised in Vancouver, she first became involved with the underground music scene and began recording her own experimental music while attending McGill University in Montreal.
Boucher released the studio albums Geidi Primes and Halfaxa through Arbutus Records in 2010, and signed a secondary recording contract with 4AD in 2011. Her third studio album Visions (2012) and its singles "Genesis" and "Oblivion" received widespread critical acclaim; it was hailed as "one of the most impressive albums of the year so far" by The New York Times was nominated for the Polaris Prize, and received the Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year. Her fourth studio album Art Angels was released in 2015 and has since become her highest-charting project in the United States peaking at number 36.
Grimes' music has been noted by critics and journalists for its atypical combination of vocal elements, as well as a wide array of influences across electronica and pop, hip hop and R&B, experimental and medieval music. In 2013, Grimes was awarded the Webby Award for Artist of the Year.- Tania Coleridge was born on 22 January 1966 in Cherwell, Oxfordshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Days of Thunder (1990), Hard Time on Planet Earth (1989) and The Rain Killer (1990). She was previously married to Willie Harcourt-Cooze.
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Lily Jane Collins was born in Guildford, Surrey, England. Her father is English musician Phil Collins, while her mother, Jill Tavelman, who is from Los Angeles, California, was president of the Beverly Hills Women's Club for three terms. Lily moved with her mother to LA at the age of five, after her parents split up. She is of Russian Jewish (from her maternal grandfather), English, and German descent.
Her first screen role was at the age of two in the BBC series Growing Pains, in 1992. Collins performed at the Youth Academy for Dramatic Arts as a child, but her main interest was journalism. She graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School, and attended the USC, where she majored in broadcast journalism. She began writing a column ("NY Confidential") for the British magazine Elle Girl in her teens as well as contributing to Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and the Los Angeles Times magazines.
After some early television appearances as a presenter/reporter (for instance, covering the 2008 US Presidential campaign as a host on the Nickelodeon show, Kids Pick the President (2000)), she made a couple of appearances on 90210 (2008) in 2009. She co-starred as the daughter of Tim McGraw and Sandra Bullock's characters in the massive box office hit The Blind Side (2009). More dramatic roles followed, and she came to worldwide attention when she played the starring role in Mirror Mirror (2012), following it up by headlining The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) and Love, Rosie (2014).- Rose is known for Lady and the Tramp (2019).
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Patricia Belcher was born on 7 April 1954 in Helena, Montana, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Jeepers Creepers (2001), Flatliners (1990) and 500 Days of Summer (2009).- Producer
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Marie Osmond has spent 5 iconic decades in the entertainment business performing as a successful singer, television performer and talk show host, dancer, actor, author, entrepreneur and public speaker. She has continued to maintain relevance, remaining an instantly recognizable figure across the globe.
Her debut single Paper Roses reached the #1 spot on two Billboard charts, a feat that not only placed her among an elite class of musical royalty, but instantly catapulted her into international superstardom. She is a multiple gold and platinum selling artist and CMA winner, garnering numerous Billboard chart-topping singles and albums, and three New York Times Bestselling books. She has entertained millions throughout the world through television, radio, film, literature, live concerts and Broadway performances. As a philanthropist, she co-founded Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, which has raised over 7 billion dollars for children to date. Marie was recently awarded "The Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service" by 4-Star General Bob Brown, US Army Pacific (representing Secretary of Defense James Mattis), during her Birthday concert in Hawaii. In 2019 the Hollywood Beauty Awards gave Marie the "Timeless Beauty Award" which is an honor bestowed upon a public figure that has maintained their grace and remained a positive influence and role model to their fans throughout their career. Following the announcement that her Flamingo residency with her brother Donny will come to an end in November 2019 her fans and the city gave them a proper send off. In August of 2019 Marie and Donny received the Key to the Las Vegas Strip and in October they cemented their legacy with a star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars. In September 2019, Marie joined the award-winning daytime show "The Talk" as a co-host.
Music is Medicine marks her latest and perhaps most important studio release, encompassing a lifetime of experience, music, love, loss, hope and joy as a representation of her remarkable life. It reached the top 10 on both Billboard Country Charts and iTunes Country charts. Marie recently sang alongside the Utah Symphony as part of the Deer Valley Music Festival. Her performance received rave reviews. Marie continues to perform and raise money for children's hospitals, research and awareness. Her celebrity has influenced countless audiences and benefited an innumerable amount of lives worldwide.
Marie has always had great affection for her countless fans and personally keeps in touch daily with them on social media.- Actress
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Monica Calhoun has been acting since the age of 13. As a child actress, she worked for Walt Disney Family in "She Stood Alone", and starred on CBS's series "Bagdad Café", "Getting Straight" and "Taking a Stand", ABC's "Where I Live", "The Ditchdigger's Daughter", and "The Ernest Green Story". She later ventured into drama with roles showing her as the "voice of reason" both on the big and small screens. Examples include "The Best Man", "The Best Man Holiday", "Love and Basketball", NBC's "Sweet Justice" and HBO's "Rebound". She is often the figurehead of the group that keep everyone mellow and going down the righteous path. She also appeared on Apple TV's "Diary of a Single Mom", produced by Robert Townsend, co-starring Billie D. Williams, Richard Roundtree and Diahann Carroll. Comedy is also Calhoun's strong suit in "Bagdad Café", AFI Friends, "Everybody Hates Chris", "The Jamie Foxx Show", "A Different World", "Amen", "Fame", "Wayans Brothers" and "Gang of Roses".
Calhoun is not new to theater, television or feature films. She starred in many BET dramatic roles such as "Imitate Betrayal", and as well as CBS's "Getting Straight", "Younger and Younger" and "What about Your Friends". Other feature films include Disney's "Where I Live" and "Sister Act II", Fox's "Jack the Bear" and "Park Day", ABC's "Heart and Soul" and "Where I Live", Fox's "Dirt", ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and "NYPD Blue", Lionsgate's "Civil Brand", and BET's "New Edition" as Patricia Tresvant, mother of group member Ralph Tresvant. She has also appeared on "The Jacksons: An American Dream", "Pacific Station", "Children of the Night" and "Love Chronicles".
Elsewhere on the stage and screen, Calhoun has appeared in "The Player's Club", "Friends and Lovers", "You Don't Know Me But I'm Famous", "Children of the Universe", "The Salon", "Joan"; "The African American" and "Everything But A Man". Calhoun earned her first credit as co-producer with "No Regrets". Other credits are paving the way for dramatic roles in film and television and many have copied her form of acting through the years. A quiet, shy girl with hidden talents and she comes alive during filming. Monica Calhoun does not disappoint.- Actress
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Janeane, the petite woman with the acerbic wit, was born in Newton, New Jersey, in 1964, to Joan, a secretary, and Carmine Garofalo, an Exxon executive. She is of Italian and Irish descent. Janeane had many jobs before breaking into show biz. She worked as a bike messenger, a shoe saleswoman, waitress and temp secretary. Watching David Letterman on TV inspired her to write comedy, and by 1985 she was doing stand up comedy. As such, Janeane has become a cult figure, giving a voice to a generation, venting her frustration at T.V., romance, life in general and anything that ticks her off in particular. Janeane did sketches on The Ben Stiller Show (1992) (an Emmy-winning, but canceled show). She would continue to collaborate with Ben Stiller in future projects. Janeane received 2 Emmy nominations for her work on The Larry Sanders Show (1992), developing her signature character: a smart, cynical woman with a razor wit. She was not happy with her Saturday Night Live (1975) stint in 1994, and was vocal about it (of course). Transferring her persona from TV to the big screen, she moved on to movies, basically playing the character she had defined for herself. In Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997) she portrayed a smart, cynical, successful businesswomen with a razor wit, and this time with swear words (in the movie she had developed a brand of cigarettes with fast-burning paper, for the gal on the go; in real life it is alleged she smokes Marlboros). Janeane continues to work in TV and movies, often collaborating with Ben Stiller in a number of movies like Mystery Men (1999), his easygoing style being a counterpoint to her caustic nature.- Actress
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The dark and classically beautiful British actress and social activist Julia (Karin) Ormond was born on January 4, 1965, in Surrey, into England, the second of five children. Born of privilege as the daughter of a well-to-do laboratory technician, her parents divorced when she was young. Julia attended Guildford High School and Cranleigh, a private school, where she showed interest in theatre at that time appearing in a couple of their musicals.
Julia's grandparents were artists, and she initially intended to be one herself but, after one year of art school, renewed her dedication to acting and transferred to Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where she graduated in 1988.
Appearing in the play "Wuthering Heights" as Catherine, she met and eventually married her Heathcliff (actor Rory Edwards) in real life. In 1989 she won the London Drama Critic's Award for her performance in "Faith, Hope and Charity" as "best newcomer." Julia also made an immediate impression on TV with her debuting role as a young drug addict in the series Traffik (1989)
She earned star-making attention in the TV-movie Young Catherine (1991), in which she portrayed Catherine the Great (also featuring husband Edwards). She then portrayed wife Nadya in the TV movie Stalin (1992) starring Robert Duvall in the title role. She made the jump into feature films scoring a top-billed debut opposite Ralph Fiennes in The Baby of Mâcon (1993), a drama about a woman giving an "immaculate birth." She followed this this with lead or second lead roles in such films as the European biopic Nostradamus (1994); the romantic drama Captives (1994) co-starring Tim Roth; and the period war drama Legends of the Fall (1994) as the object of affection for both Brad Pitt and Aidan Quinn. It was around the time of this career rise (1994) that her marriage ended.
With Hollywood now taking a firm notice, Julia was given the fetching role of Queen Guinevere alongside Sean Connery's King Arthur and Richard Gere's Lancelot in First Knight (1995) and, more importantly, was entrusted with Audrey Hepburn's title role in the revival of Sabrina (1995), her radiant presence nearly stealing the picture away from handsome co-stars Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear.
Strangely, Julia's major rise led her in a different direction. From there she instead went on to grace a number of independents and foreign features. She played the title role in the Danish/German/Swedish co-production Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997) as a woman who gets involved with a strange murder mystery; the Russian period drama The Barber of Siberia (1998) as a lovely American who gets dangerously involved with a young Russian cadet; and involved herself in another messy affair with Vince Vaughn in the indie drama The Prime Gig (2000). On stage, she appeared in David Hare's "My Zinc Bed," for which she received a 2001 Olivier Award nomination for "Best Actress."
Into the millennium, Julia found herself busy film-wise with the political drama Resistance (2003), cult filmmaker David Lynch's thoroughly offbeat Inland Empire (2006), I Know Who Killed Me (2007), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), The Music Never Stopped (2011), Albatross (2011), My Week with Marilyn (2011) (as Vivien Leigh), Chained (2012), Ladies in Black (2018) and Son of the South (2020). On TV she appeared in the mini-series Beach Girls (2005), and had recurring roles on CSI: NY (2004), Nurse Jackie (2009), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), Mad Men (2007), Gold Digger (2019), plus a series starring role as one of Witches of East End (2013). She also co-starred in the short-lived series Incorporated (2016).
In 1999, she married a second time to political activist Jon Rubin. They had one daughter, Sophie, before their divorce. On a political front, Julia has been involved fighting human trafficking since the mid-1990s. In 2005, she was appointed United Nations Goodwill Ambassador with a focus on anti-human-trafficking initiatives and awareness.- Actress
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One of the greatest Latin Hip Hop/Freestyle/Pop Divas to come out of the 1980's music scene is the legendary Lisa Velez also known as Lisa Lisa of the 80's super group Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam. Produced by Full Force, Lisa Lisa's break out hits such as "I wonder If I Take You Home", "Can You Feel The Beat" and "All cried out" helped to launch the underground genre of "Freestyle Music" into mainstream.
Later Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam crossed over on to the pop charts with their second album "Spanish Fly" with mega hits like "Head to Toe" and "Lost In Emotion". She was the first Puerto Rican / Latino artist to cross over to the Pop and R&B charts. Both albums shot straight up the charts to platinum status several times over with most of the albums singles going gold at the same time. Just as the 90's rolled in Lisa Lisa's C&C Music Factory produced hit 'Let the beat hit em" took off to the top of the dance charts! Soon after Lisa began an acting career. She played the mother on Nickelodeon's TV series "Taina", then later made appearances on NBC's Law and Order SVU.
Some of her biggest hits have been re-recorded by "Allure & 112, Nina Sky, and The Black Eye Peas. Not only did Lisa Lisa set the music bar high for those to come later but she set fashion trends as well. Born and raised in the "Hell's Kitchen" section of New York City, Lisa's hair flipped over one eye and her unique style caught fire in the urban community. Soon after she hit the airwaves young girls everywhere were dressing and singing like the 80's icon.
Lisa Lisa paved the way for an entire generation of Latino American artist to follow in her footsteps such as Selena, J-Lo, Fat Joe, Big Pun, Cardi B and many more. She is defiantly a pioneer and a trendsetter of an entire generation.
After more than 30 years of being a trailblazer in the music business, gracing the acting world and setting the bar for her Latino community, Lisa's journey is far from over. Lisa and her power house management team "Uncle Snoops Army" (Snoop Dogg), "Bobby Dee Presents" (Bobby Dee) and Menage Works Inc (Toni Menage) are working on bringing some amazing things to her long time supporters, fans and friends.
Lisa Lisa continues to tour the world with her band SoDisrespectful Music along with her incredible dance ensemble. She continues to embark on new adventures with new tours, new music, television, merchandising and much more. Stay tuned!- Born July 10, 1966. A resident of New York. Former celebrity personal trainer turned accomplished actor. Has also appeared on- and off-Broadway, including "Aunt Dan and Lemon". As of Summer, 2006 he can be seen nightly on Broadway in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of "The Three Penny Opera" (a new translation by Wallace Shawn).
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Jackée Harry was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and reared from the age of nine in Harlem, New York, by her mother, Flossie. At the tender age of fourteen, Jackée landed the lead role of the King in her school's production of The King and I. Upon graduation from New York City's High School of Music and Art with a distinction in Opera, Jackée attended the University of Long Island, where she earned her B.A. degree in education.
Jackée began her career as a history teacher at Brooklyn Technical High School but left after two years to pursue a career in acting. She studied acting at the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side and made her professional acting debut in 1973 in Richard Wesley's Goin' Through Changes; not long afterward, she made her Broadway debut in A Broadway Musical as Melinda Bernard.
In 1983, Jackée made her television debut opposite Morgan Freeman in the daytime soap opera Another World. A year later, she landed her iconic role of Sandra Clark on the NBC sitcom 227. As the breakout star of the series, Jackée became the first African American to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and was also nominated for a Golden Globe. Her performance on 227 inspired NBC producers to create a television pilot for her entitled Jackée. After departing 227 in 1989, she starred opposite Oprah Winfrey in the critically acclaimed adaptation of Gloria Naylor's novel The Women of Brewster Place.
In 1991, Jackée joined an all-star cast led by Della Reese when she played the role of Ruth 'CoCo' Royal in The Royal Family. From 1994-1999, she starred as the adoptive mother of Tia and Tamara Mowr and y's characters on the ABC/WB sitcom Sister, Sister, winning the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for two consecutive years in 1999 and 2000. Jackée also made guest appearances on Amen, Designing Women, Dave's World, Hollywood Squares, 7th Heaven, and That's So Raven, before joining the cast of Everybody Hates Chris in 2006.
Hollywood success did not lead Jackée to turn her back on theater; in 1994 she returned to the stage as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, and in 2003 she played the role of the Madam in The Boys From Syracuse on Broadway. More recently, Jackée performed before sold-out audiences across the nation in the J.D. Lawrence stage play The Cleanup Woman.
More recently Jackée has starred in The First Family on Centric and has had a recurring role on BET's Let's Stay Together.- Actress
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Jennifer Coolidge is a versatile character actress and experimental comedienne, best known for playing Stifler's mom in American Pie (1999).
She was born on August 28, 1961, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, to Gretchen (Knauff) and Paul Constant Coolidge, a plastics manufacturer. Young Coolidge was dreaming of becoming a singer. She attended Norwell High School and Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and earned her bachelor's degree in theatre in 1985. She moved to New York and joined the Gotham City improv group. Then, she headed to Los Angeles where she became a long-running member of "The Groundlings" comedy troupe. Coolidge made her television debut in a guest role on NBC's Seinfeld (1989), playing a voluptuous masseuse who won't offer her professional services to boyfriend Jerry in a 1993 episode. The following year, she had a regular gig on ABC's short-lived sketch series She TV (1994), then briefly became a cast member and writer on another short-lived sketch comedy series, Fox's Saturday Night Special (1996) produced by Roseanne Barr.
Coolidge made her big screen debut as a nurse in Not of This Earth (1995), then in the courtroom comedy Trial and Error (1996). Then, she appeared in small roles in several more feature films, and also continued her television work. Coolidge had her breakthrough role in American Pie (1999), as a boozed-up and sultry mom who seduces her son's classmate with the comment that she liked her scotch and men the same way: aged 18 years. She recreated the character in the sequel American Pie 2 (2001). Then, she reprized her role as "Paulette" opposite Reese Witherspoon in the "Legally Blonde" franchise. Although, she lost the part of "Lynette Scavo" on Desperate Housewives (2004) to Felicity Huffman, Coolidge graced several TV comedies as well, with major guest appearances on Frasier (1993) and Sex and the City (1998). Then, she landed a recurring role in the ABC sitcom Joey (2004), as "Bobbie Morgenstern", Joey's agent, appearing in 37 episodes over two seasons.
Eventually, Coolidge emerged as a versatile character actress with her no-holds-barred approach to comedy and her vanity-free comfort with playing uninhibited, unappealing characters, and delivering lines with sexual innuendo. Her talent shines in a range of characters, from a gold-digging dog owner in Best in Show (2000), to a scheming wife of an elderly mogul in Down to Earth (2001), to an opportunistic mother in American Dreamz (2006). Coolidge's gift for altering her appearance and manner, as well as her mastery of timing, shines in her perfectly hideous performance as "Fiona", a wicked stepmother in A Cinderella Story (2004) opposite Hilary Duff, for which Coolidge won a 2005 Teen Choice Award. Her lasting collaboration with director Christopher Guest continues in For Your Consideration (2006).
She has been sharing her time between her two homes, one is in Hollywood, California, and one in New Orleans, where she bought a historic mansion before the Hurricane Katrina hit the city, and then became involved in its restoration.- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Lenny Bruce was born Leonard Alfred Schneider on October 13, 1925, in Mineola, Long Island, New York. His British-born father, Myron, was a shoe clerk, his mother, Sadie, was a dancer. Lenny's parents were divorced when he was a child. To support herself and her son, Sadie Schneider pursued a career in show business and sent Lenny to live with various aunts, uncles and grandparents.
Dropping out of high school, Lenny enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942, which he almost disliked. He got himself discharged after convincing a team of Navy psychologists that he was experimenting with homosexual urges. With some help from his mother, Lenny began doing impressions, one-liners and movie parodies in small nightclubs. In 1948, he obtained some booking as a result of his appearance on the TV show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. Lenny married a red-headed stripper named Honey Harlow in 1951, but they were divorced five years later. After Honey was arrested and sent to jail for a narcotics violation, Lenny raised their daughter, Kitty, by himself.
Slowly, Lenny began working his way up from performing stand-up comedy in seedy New York City strip clubs and jazz clubs. Gradually his act evolved into something wholly different from that of other comics. Onstage, he was a dark, slender, and intense figure who prowled around like a caged animal and spoke into a hand-held microphone. His monologues were peppered with four-letter curse words and Yiddish expressions. In his act, Lenny liked to expose racist attitudes by forcing his audiences to examine their own racial prejudices. In another act bashing religions, Lenny acted out a conversation between Oral Roberts and the Pope, with both talking in the vernacular of glib show-business personalities. When jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wrote about Lenny, be began to get the recognition he so badly wanted. Unfortunately, the seedy subculture of strip joints, clubs, and dives had introduced him to hard drugs and fast times.
Through his nightclub acts and record albums, Lenny became the hipster saint of the comedy world, crossing into the line of propriety where others feared to tread. But his foul-speaking acts began to catch up with him when he was arrested in 1961 on obscenity charges following an appearance at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, but a jury found him not guilty. Problems with the authorities and religious groups trying to silence him began to plague him as he appeared in clubs all over the country. In 1964, he was arrested again in New York City on more obscenity charges. During his trial a police officer read notes about Lenny's profane act, which caused the desperate comic to ask the judge to let him do the act in court so the judge could understand his callous humor in context, but the judge refused. Despite support from noted writers, critics, educators and politicians, Lenny was found guilty and sentenced to several months in prison, and was paroled just a few months later. Continually harassed by the police, Lenny became depressed and paranoid. Further prosecutions for obscenity and his drug use drove him toward instability. By 1965, he was broke and in debt. He claimed that every time he got a gig, the local police, wherever he was, would threaten to arrest the club owner if Lenny went onstage.
In February 1966, Lenny traveled to Los Angeles and appeared onstage for the first time in years. He performed for a very small crowd who included a few hecklers and vice cops waiting to arrest him if he should use profanity again. Lenny by this time was bearded, overweight, and haggard, and his performance centered on his current obsessions: his constitutional right of free speech, free assembly, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. When a friend asked him afterwards why he had turned his back on comedy he replied, "I'm not a comedian anymore. I'm Lenny Bruce." On August 3, 1966, Lenny was found dead on the bathroom floor of his Hollywood home. Whatever the details or reasons why, Lenny Bruce was found dead from a drug overdose at the age of 40.- Actress
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- Writer
The entertainment world has enjoyed a six-decade love affair with comedienne/singer Carol Burnett. A peerless sketch performer and delightful, self-effacing personality who rightfully succeeded Lucille Ball as the carrot-topped "Queen of Television Comedy," it was Burnett's traumatic childhood that set the stage for her comedy.
Carol's rags-to-riches story started out in San Antonio, Texas, on April 26, 1933, where she was born to Ina Louise (Creighton) and Joseph Thomas "Jodie" Burnett, both of whom suffered from acute alcoholism. As a child, she was left in the care of a beloved grandmother, who shuttled the two of them off to Hollywood, California, where they lived in a boarding house and shared a great passion for the Golden Age of movies. The plaintive, loose-limbed, highly sensitive Carol survived her wallflower insecurities by grabbing attention as a cut-up at Hollywood High School. A natural talent, she attended the University of California and switched majors from journalism to theater. Scouting out comedy parts on TV and in the theater, she first had them rolling in the aisles in the mid-1950s performing a lovelorn novelty song called "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" (then Secretary of State) in a nightclub act. This led to night-time variety show appearances with Jack Paar and Ed Sullivan and where the career ball really started rolling.
Carol's first big TV breaks came at age 22 and 23 as a foil to a ventriloquist's dummy on the already-established The Paul Winchell Show (1950) in 1955, and as Buddy Hackett's gawky girlfriend on the short-lived sitcom Stanley (1956). She also developed an affinity for game shows and appeared as a regular on one of TV earliest, Stump the Stars (1947) in 1958. While TV would bring Carol fans by the millions, it was Broadway that set her on the road to stardom. She began as the woebegone Princess Winnifred in the 1959 Broadway musical "Once Upon a Mattress" which earned her first Tony Award nomination. [She would later appear in three TV adaptations - Once Upon a Mattress (1964), Once Upon a Mattress (1972) and Once Upon a Mattress (2005).] This, in turn, led to the first of an armful of Emmy Awards as a repertoire player on the popular variety series The Garry Moore Show (1958) in 1959. Burnett invented a number of scene-stealing characters during this time, most notably her charwoman character. With the phenomenal household success of the Moore show, she moved up quickly from second banana to headliner and appeared in a 1962 Emmy-winning special Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall (1962) co-starring close friend Julie Andrews. She earned the Outer Critics Circle Award for the short-lived musical "Fade Out, Fade In" (1964); and made her official film debut opposite Bewitched (1964) star Elizabeth Montgomery and Dean Martin in the lightweight comedy Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963).
Not surprisingly, fellow redhead Lucille Ball, who had been Carol's treasured idol growing up, subsequently became a friend and mentor to the rising funny girl. Hilarious as a guest star on The Lucy Show (1962), Carol appeared as a painfully shy (natch) wallflower type who suddenly blooms in jaw-dropping fashion. Ms. Ball was so convinced of Carol's talent that she offered Carol her own Desilu-produced sitcom, but Burnett had her heart set on fronting a variety show. With her own team of second bananas, including character crony Harvey Korman, handsome foil Lyle Waggoner, and lookalike "kid sister" type Vicki Lawrence, the The Carol Burnett Show (1967) became an instant sensation, and earned 22 Emmy Awards during its 11-year run. It allowed Carol to fire off her wide range of comedy and musical ammunition--whether running amok in broad sketch comedy, parodying movie icons such as Gloria Swanson, Shirley Temple, Vivien Leigh or Joan Crawford, or singing/gushing alongside favorite vocalists Jim Nabors, Steve Lawrence, Peggy Lee, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Tormé. She managed to bring in huge stars not known at all for slapstick comedy, including Rock Hudson and even then-Governor Ronald Reagan while providing a platform for such up-and-coming talent as Bernadette Peters and The Pointer Sisters In between, Carol branched out with supporting turns in the films Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), The Front Page (1974) and Robert Altman's A Wedding (1978).
Her program, whose last episode aired in March of 1978, was the last truly successful major network variety show to date. Carol took on new challenges to display her unseen dramatic mettle, and accomplished this amazingly in TV-movie showcases. She earned an Emmy nomination for her gripping portrayal of anti-Vietnam War activist Peg Mullen in Friendly Fire (1979), and convincingly played a woman coming to terms with her alcoholism in Life of the Party: The Story of Beatrice (1982). Neither character bore any traces of the usual Burnett comedy shtick. Though she proved she could contain herself for films, Carol was never able to acquire crossover success into movies, despite trouper work in The Four Seasons (1981), Annie (1982) (as the hammy villainess Miss Hannigan), and Noises Off... (1992). The last two roles had been created onstage by Broadway's Dorothy Loudon.
Carol would return from time to time to the stage and concert forums with productions of "Plaza Suite", "I Do! I Do", "Follies", "Company" and "Putting It Together". A second Tony nomination came for her comedy work in "Moon Over Buffalo" in 1995. Carol has made frequent appearances on her own favorite TV shows too, such as Password (1961) (along with Elizabeth Montgomery, Carol was considered one of the show's best players) and the daytime soaper, All My Children (1970).
During the early 1990s, Carol attempted a TV comeback of sorts, with a couple of new variety formats in Carol & Company (1990) and The Carol Burnett Show (1991), but neither could recreate the magic of the original. She has appeared, sporadically, on various established shows such as "Magnum, P.I.," "Touched by an Angel," "Mad About You" (for which she won an Emmy), "Desperate Housewives," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Emmy nomination), "Hawaii Five-0," "Glee" and "Hot in Cleveland." Befitting such a classy clown, she has received a multitude of awards over time, including the 2003 Kennedy Center Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1985. Her personal life has been valiant--tears in between the laughs. Married three times, her second union with jazz-musician-turned-variety-show-producer Joe Hamilton produced three daughters. Eldest girl, Carrie Hamilton, an actress and former teen substance abuser, tragically died of lung and brain cancer at age 38. Shortly before Carrie's death, mother and daughter managed to write a play, together, entitled "Hollywood Arms", based on Carol's 1986 memoir, "One More Time". The show subsequently made it to Broadway.
Today, at age 80 plus, Carol has been seen less frequently but still continues to make appearances, especially on TV. Most recently she has guested on the shows "Glee," "Hot in Cleveland" and the revivals of "Hawaii Five-0" and "Mad About You." As always she signs off a live appearance with her signature ear tug (acknowledging her late grandmother), reminding us all, between the wisecracks and the songs, how glad and lucky we all are to still have some of "this time together".- Actress
- Additional Crew
Miriam Colon was born on 20 August 1936 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. She was an actress, known for Scarface (1983), Sabrina (1995) and Goal! The Dream Begins (2005). She was married to Fred Valle, George Paul Edgar and ???. She died on 3 March 2017 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
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Feisty, spirited and gutsy red headed actress Sondra Currie has amassed an impressive number of television, film and stage credits to her name - including "Linda Garner," Zach Galifianakis' doting mother, in one of the biggest all-time comedy franchises, "The Hangover" trilogy. "Would a cupcake kill you?" Sondra also recurred as "Ms. Vivian" in Tyler Perry's popular comedy series "Love Thy Neighbor" and starred alongside Barbara Bain and Eileen Grubba in a new film "Take My Hand".
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Sondra grew up in a "show business family." As the daughter of actress, Marie Harmon ("Gunsmoke," "The El Paso Kid," "Night Time in Nevada." "Ladies Courageous"), Sondra grew up with a natural passion for acting and the art of filmmaking. She was discovered in her teens by the legendary producer and director, Howard Hawks ("Sergeant York," "To Have and Have Not," "The Big Sleep," "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," and "Rio Bravo.") Hawks cast Sondra in her first film, "Rio Lobo" starring the Duke himself, John Wayne. Sondra relates the story of their first meeting, as he extended his hand to the very young actress and said "How do you do, I'm John Wayne"...to which the red faced actress replied "Yes, I know, I'm Sandy Currie!"
Sondra was known for her adventurous spirit and her willingness to take risks in her film roles and choices - including performing her own stunts. She went on to star in numerous features, among them, 1970's cult favorites "Jessi's Girls," "Policewomen" and "Mama's Dirty Girls" and the '80's "Concrete Jungle". She refers to these early projects as "slice and dice" films where she definitely got her degree at the college of human nature. Since then, Sondra has continued her focus on working and training with the best that Hollywood has to offer. Sondra is a lifetime member of the famed Actors Studio, studying under such greats as Martin Landau, Mark Rydell, Lou Antonio and Salome Jens. Sondra also studied under Milton Katselas' as a member of his Master Class for 17 years.
Sondra has guest starred in well over 125 television shows, including "NCIS," "ER," "JAG," "7th Heaven," "Cheers," "Murder She Wrote," "The Golden Girls," multiples of "Three's Company," multiples of "Simon & Simon," "Magnum P.I.," and "Knight Rider." Starring roles in television Movies of the Week include two "Columbo" films, "Kid Cop," "The Secretary," "The Perfect Wife," "Thicker Than Water" and "Alien Nation: Dark Horizon."
Sondra and her husband, renowned producer/director Alan J. Levi, co-own Lumina Pictures and Entertainment LTD. together. Lumina Pictures has several projects in various stages of production, having just completed "Take My Hand." As part of a large, extended entertainment family, Sondra and Alan enjoy incorporating the talents of friends and family members alike in their creative endeavors... including Cherie Currie ("The Runaways"), Marie Currie ("The Narrow Road Of Light"), Robert Hays ("Airplane!") and Jake Hays ("Maudlin Strangers").
Sondra is also very active in Los Angeles area theatre - as an actress, producer and ardent advocate. Her favorite stage credits include "The Vagina Monologues," "Death of a Salesman," "AfterThe Fall," "The Chesterfield Woman" and "Hatful of Rain". She was a founding member of Camelot Artists - now the Katselas Theatre Company - and is a member of the prestigious Theatre West. She considers her mentor, her husband, her luckiest gift of all. "He's the most patient, giving, talented person I've ever known. And, I'm the smartest, I married him!"
Sondra and Alan served on the Board of the California Independent Film Festival together and were Jury Members for the first ten years of the Festival. In 2008 they were honored to be invited to be Jurors of the First International Indie Film Festival in Sapporo, Japan, where Sondra was the sole woman on the panel.
One of her most rewarding endeavors is being a member of SHARE Inc. (Est. 1953). SHARE inc. is a highly visible and successful Los Angeles charity devoted to helping at-risk youth, developmentally disabled and abused and children-in-need. "This is a place where I might really be able to make a difference," she says. "I see it first-hand. The children are so receptive, and it's such a positive experience. It helps me keep everything else in perspective."
In her spare time, Sondra is an avid photographer. "I love to explore through my lens, it really gives me an intimate look at my subject", she loves to garden and tend her orchids and she and her husband are ardent travelers. They've explored almost every canal in France and many canals in England, Belgium, Holland and Italy on a small boat that they manage themselves. "Alan navigates and I do the ropes and locks myself" she beams. Meeting the locals in the small villages is most rewarding and we've made some life-long friends. It's our time to just drop off the planet. "My life is very rich."- Born on August 21, 1939, the son of a displaced musician, Harlem-born actor Clarence Williams III was raised by his musical grandparents, the legendary jazz and boogie-woogie composer/pianist Clarence Williams, who wrote such classics as "T'Aint Nobody's Business If I Do" and "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home," and blues singer Eva Taylor. While attending a local YMCA as a teen, Williams became interested in dramatics.
After a two-year hitch with the U.S. Air Force, he started his acting career, making a minor New York stage debut with "The Long Dream" in 1960. He continued impressively with roles in "Walk in Darkness" (1963), "Sarah and the Sax" (1964) and "Doubletalk" (1964), and capped his early career with a Theatre World Award and Tony-nomination for the three-person play "Slow Dance on the Killing Ground" (1964). Continuing on with powerful work in "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?" (1966) and "King John," Vietnam-era Hollywood finally began to take notice of his "angry young man" charisma.
His casting as former delinquent-turned-undercover cop Linc Hayes on the highly popular TV cop series Mod Squad (1968) along with fellow white partners Michael Cole and Peggy Lipton was a huge break for all three relative unknowns. Sporting a huge Afro, paisley shirts, dark shades and spouting catchprase language like "dig it" and "solid," the gap-toothed Linc (and his mod partners) showed the requisite anti-establishment defiance and coolness to attract the hip generation--while still playing good guys.
Following the series' demise in 1973, he purposely avoided the "blaxploitation" Hollywood scene and returned to the stage, notably on Broadway opposite Maggie Smith in Tom Stoppard's play "Night and Day" (1979). In the 80s he launched an enviable character career in films, often playing a cool, streetwise character or threatening menace. Among his better-known on-screen assignments is the role of Prince's abusive father in Purple Rain (1984), a burnt-out political activist in the spoof I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), the recurring part of Roger Hardy in the twisted cult TV series Twin Peaks (1990), a good-guy cop in Deep Cover (1992), an rioter in the Attica-themed mini-series Against the Wall (1994) and Wesley Snipes heroin-addicted dad in Sugar Hill (1993), among others. Powerful roles on such shows as "Law & Order," "Profiler" and "Judging Amy" has kept him strongly in the limelight.
Millennium acting work included solid performances in the films Reindeer Games (2000), Ritual (2000), Blue Hill Avenue (2001), The Extreme Team (2003), Constellation (2005), The Blue Hour (2007),The Way of War (2009), A Day in the Life (2009), The Butler (2013) and American Nightmares (2018), as well as his interesting role as mysterious book store manager Philby in the lengthy Mystery Woman (2003) series of TV movies (2003-2007). Clarence also made guest appearances on TV programs, "Cold Case," "Memphis Beat," "Justified" and "Empire," to name a few.
Wed to wife Kelly until his death, Clarence was first married to actress Gloria Foster (1967-1984). The two appeared together in the movie The Cool World (1963). Following their divorce, they remained friendly and, upon her death in 2001, it was he who made the formal announcement. - She continues to stand out in a crowd with her wholesome beauty, knock-out figure and dazzling smile. Ever-radiant TV and film resident Susan Blakely found success on several paths she chose for herself over the years -- first as a model, then as an award-winning actress, and as a jewelry designer. The trim and trendy blonde is best known for enhancing a mild stream of popular films during the 1970s and 1980s.
Born on September 7, 1948, in Frankfurt, Germany, Susan is the daughter of U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Blakely. While growing up, she traveled extensively throughout the world with her family including Korea, Hawaii and, finally, Texas. Following a year of study at the University of Texas, Susan moved to New York and managed to secure a place for herself as a high-priced magazine and TV ad model for the Ford Modeling Agency.
At the same time, Susan was encouraged to try her hand at acting and studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Married in 1969 to lawyer and screenwriting hopeful Todd Merer, they chanced a move to Hollywood to seek their fame and fortune.
Billed initially as Susie Blakely, she was cast in small, capricious, deb-like turns in such films as Savages (1972) (her debut) and The Way We Were (1973). Her first popular movie role came about surrounded by a high-and-mighty all-star cast in Irwin Allen's epic disaster The Towering Inferno (1974), as the spoiled princess-like daughter of unscrupulous skyscraper builder William Holden and wife of callous, pretty-boy opportunist Richard Chamberlain. Lightweight as the role was, Susan willingly accepted the challenge of proving herself in Hollywood as more than just another starlet with a gorgeous face.
She did .. .and became a prominent name in Hollywood to boot ... by earning a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for her exceptional work as "Julie Prescott" in the acclaimed TV mini-series epic Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) with both Peter Strauss and Nick Nolte vying for her attention. It was star-making turns for all three leads.
This monumental acting opportunity kicked off a highly rewarding career in TV mini-movies, playing an array of flawed but fascinating and newsworthy ladies, including Hitler mistress Eva Braun opposite Anthony Hopkins in The Bunker (1981); tormented actress Frances Farmer in Will There Really Be a Morning? (1983); political wife Joan Bennett Kennedy in The Ted Kennedy Jr. Story (1986); and crime attorney Leslie Abramson in Honor Thy Father and Mother: The True Story of the Menendez Murders (1994). A few other interesting roles came in as well that belied Susan's glossy, pretty-girl image -- ranging from an amphetamine addict in the TV movie A Cry for Love (1980) to a housewife who changes into a werewolf in the movie My Mom's a Werewolf (1989).
Into the millennium, Susan accomplished a prime, award-winning turn in the low-profile film Hungry Hearts (2002). Other films have included co-star/featured roles in The Cherokee Strip (1937), Crash Point Zero (2001), Mating Dance (2008), The Genesis Code (2010), and Displacement (2016), as well as several gay-themed short films of director Marc Saltarelli -- To Comfort You (2009), Pride (2011) Remember to Breathe (2013) and Speak (2016).
Having starred on stage in the 2006 world premiere of "Diva!" at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, Susan has guested on several popular TV programs including "Diagnosis Murder," "Baywatch," "Strong Medicine," "Cold Case," "Nip/Tuck," "Murder 101," "Two and a Half Men," "Brothers and Sisters," "NCIS" and "This Is Us."
In recent years, Susan has broadened her horizons once again as a semi-precious jewelry designer...and once again she has met this challenge with great success. Divorced from her first husband in the 1970s, Susan remarried in 1982. Her present husband, media consultant, litigation and political adviser Steve Jaffe, has also reaped rewards as a film and television producer. Many of his projects have included Susan -- the afore-mentioned Frances Farmer TV biography, the TV-movie A Cry for Love (1980), and the film Russian Holiday (1993) [aka Russian Roulette]. They reside in the Beverly Hills area. - Actor
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Tall, suave and sophisticated Cesar Romero actually had two claims to fame in Hollywood. To one generation, he was the distinguished Latin lover of numerous musicals and romantic comedies, and the rogue bandit The Cisco Kid in a string of low-budget westerns. However, to a younger generation weaned on television, Romero was better known as the white-faced, green-haired, cackling villain The Joker of the camp 1960s TV series Batman (1966), and as a bumbling corporate villain in a spate of Walt Disney comedies, such as chasing a young Kurt Russell in the fun-packed The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969). Fans and critics alike agreed that Romero was a major talent who proved himself an enduring and versatile star in an overwhelming variety of roles in a career as an actor, dancer and comedian that lasted nearly 60 years.
Cesar Romero was born of Cuban parents in New York City in February 1907. He attended the Collegiate School and Riverdale Country School before working as a ballroom dancer. He first appeared on Broadway in the 1927 production of Lady Do, and then in the stage production of Strictly Dishonorable. His first film role was in The Shadow Laughs (1933), after which he gave strong performances in The Devil Is a Woman (1935) and in the Shirley Temple favorite, Wee Willie Winkie (1937).
Critics and fans generally agree that Romero's best performance was as the Spanish explorer Cortez in Captain from Castile (1947). However, he also shone in the delightful Julia Misbehaves (1948) and several other breezy and lighthearted escapades. In 1953 he starred in the 39-part espionage TV serial Passport to Danger (1954), which earned him a considerable income due to a canny profit-sharing arrangement. Although Romero became quite wealthy and had no need to work, he could not stay away from being in front of the cameras. He continued to appear in a broad variety of film roles, but surprised everyone in Hollywood by taking on the role of "The Joker" in the hugely successful TV series Batman (1966). He refused to shave his trademark mustache for the role, and close observation shows how the white clown makeup went straight on over his much loved mustache! The appearances in Batman were actually only a small part of the enormous amount of work that Romero contributed to television. He guest-starred in dozens of shows, including Rawhide (1959), 77 Sunset Strip (1958), Zorro (1957), Fantasy Island (1977) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). However, it was The Joker for which his TV work was best remembered, and Romero often remarked that for many, many years after Batman ended, fans would stop him and ask him to chuckle and giggle away just like he did as The Joker. Romero always obliged, and both he and the fans just loved it!
With a new appeal to a younger fan base, Romero turned up in three highly popular Disney comedies: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972) and The Strongest Man in the World (1975) as corrupt but inept villain A.J. Arno. Throughout the remainder of the 1980s Romero remained busy, and even at 78 years of age the ladies still loved his charm, and he was cast as Jane Wyman's love interest in the top-rated prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest (1981), playing Peter Stavros from 1985 to 1987.
Although Romero stopped acting in 1990, he remained busy, regularly hosting classic movie programs on cable television. A talented and much loved Hollywood icon, he passed away on New Year's Day 1994, at the age of 86.- Actress
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Sônia Braga was born June 8, 1950, in Maringá, Paraná State, Brazil, to a seamstress mother and a realtor father. She starred in the film adaptation of Jorge Amado's Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976), in the central role of Dona Flor. She earned American recognition and a Golden Globe nomination for performance in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), and was nominated for a second Golden Globe for her performance in Moon Over Parador (1988), where she played the part of Madonna Mendez.- Actress
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New Yorker Claire Catherine Danes was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Carla (Hall), a day-care provider and artist, and Christopher Danes, a computer consultant and photographer. She has an older brother, Asa. Her paternal grandfather, Gibson Andrew Danes, was a Dean of the Yale School of Art and Architecture. She is of mostly German and British Isles descent.
Claire was educated at Dalton School, New York, The New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies, The Professional Performing Arts School and Lycée Français de Los Angeles. From 1998, she attended Yale University, studying psychology, but dropped out after two years to concentrate on her acting career.
Danes first came to major public attention when she appeared as "Angela Chase" in My So-Called Life (1994). She won an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award for this performance. A successful film career followed, including the role of "Juliet", opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996). She continued acting in such varied project as The Hours (2002), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) and Stardust (2007).
In 2010, she appeared in the HBO Production, Temple Grandin (2010), playing the title character. She received huge critical acclaim for the role, and won an Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. Since 2011, she has starred on the SHOWTIME series Homeland (2011), receiving great critical acclaim and winning Emmys and Golden Globes.- Actress
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Gina was born in New York City and is youngest of three children in a close-knit Cuban American family. Attended New York City's High School of Music and Art She is a gifted mezzo soprano and was trained in opera and jazz and also sang in a gospel choir.- Actress
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Lauren Ambrose was born on 20 February 1978 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Six Feet Under (2001), Psycho Beach Party (2000) and Can't Hardly Wait (1998). She has been married to Sam Handel since September 2001. They have two children.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Hazelle Goodman was born on 16 February 1959 in Trinidad and Tobago. She is an actress, known for Deconstructing Harry (1997), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) and Hannibal (2001).- Actress
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Krysten Ritter stars as Jessica Jones in the Peabody, Hugo, and Emmy Award-winning Netflix original series, Marvel's Jessica Jones (2015). Her performance, which earned her a prestigious Critics Choice nomination, a Saturn nomination, a Webby Award and a Glamour Best International TV Actress Award, has received rave reviews with the show being celebrated by critics and audiences alike for its groundbreaking depiction of a reluctant anti-super-heroine with an alcohol problem and a wicked case of PTSD who will not let a sexual assault from her past define her. She will also play Jessica Jones in The Defenders (2017) and the second season of Marvel's "Jessica Jones."
Additional acting roles include her critically acclaimed turn as Jane Margolis on AMC's hit series, Breaking Bad (2008), the titular character in the cult favorite Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 (2012), Big Eyes (2014) directed by Tim Burton, indie darling Listen Up Philip (2014), Life Happens (2011) which she co-wrote and co-produced, as well as roles in Veronica Mars (2014), The Blacklist (2013), Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009), and She's Out of My League (2010).
Growing up in a small-town farm in rural Pennsylvania, Ritter started her career in front of the camera as a model at 15-years-old. Her body of work has subsequently spanned film, television, theatre, writing, producing, music, and fashion design.
In 2012, Ritter launched her production company Silent Machine where she juggles many projects in various stages of development, always with the objective of highlighting complex female protagonists.
Ritter and her dog Mikey split their time between New York and Los Angeles.- Actor
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Will Yun Lee was born in Arlington, Virginia, to Jung Ja Lee and Soo Won Lee, who had recently emigrated from Korea. He was raised by both immediate and extended family and moved often, exposed to life on the tough Bronx streets and idyllic Hawaiian beaches. By his teens he was living in the San Francisco area with his father, a Korean Tae Kwon Do Grandmaster. Lee also became an accomplished martial artist and won an athletic scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley.
While in school, Lee worked at the East Bay Asian Youth Centre teaching high-risk teens from ghetto neighborhoods not unlike those he had known as a child in the Bronx. It was there that his ongoing commitment to young people began, a commitment that continues to play an important role in his life.
It was also at this time that he became seriously interested in acting, and after landing a role in Nash Bridges he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career. Guest star roles in series such as "Profiler" and "Brimstone" led to a role in the TV movie The Disciples for UPN, and soon after to "What's Cooking" and TNT's "Witchblade".
In 2002 he was named by People as one of their "50 Most Beautiful People" which quickly lead to high profile roles in "Die Another Day", "Torque" and "Elektra". He has also acted on FX Network's television series "Thief", ABC Family's "Fallen" and was one of the main characters of NBC's science fiction television drama "Bionic Woman".
In November 2007, he was again recognized by People, this time as one of the members of their list of the 15 "Sexiest Men Alive". Most recently he appeared as Sang Min in the pilot of the hit CBS series "Hawaii Five O".
In August 2010, Will Yun Lee starred alongside Miguel Ferrer in the indie thriller "Far Away Eyes", which was shot entirely on location in Hong Kong.- Actor
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Critically hailed for his forceful, militant, authoritative figures and one of Hollywood's most talented and versatile performers, Laurence (John) Fishburne III has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a number of NAACP Image honors.
Born in Augusta, Georgia on July 30, 1961, to Hattie Bell (Crawford), a teacher, and Laurence John Fishburne, Jr., a juvenile corrections officer. His mother transplanted her family to Brooklyn after his parents divorced. At the age of 10, the young boy appeared in his first play, "In My Many Names and Days," at a cramped little theater space in Manhattan. He continued on but managed to avoid the trappings of a child star per se, considering himself more a working child actor at the time. Billing himself as Larry Fishburne during this early phase, he never studied or was trained in the technique of acting.
In 1973, at the age of 12, young Laurence won a recurring role on the daytime soap One Life to Live (1968) that lasted three seasons. He subsequently made his film debut in the ghetto-themed Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975). At 14 Francis Ford Coppola cast him in Apocalypse Now (1979), which filmed for two years in the Philippines. Laurence didn't work for another year and a half after that long episode. A graduate of Lincoln Square Academy, Coppola was impressed enough with Laurence to hire him again down the line with featured roles in Rumble Fish (1983), The Cotton Club (1984) and Gardens of Stone (1987).
Throughout the 1980s, he continued to build up his film and TV credit list with featured roles despite little fanfare. A recurring role as Cowboy Curtis on the kiddie show Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986) helped him through whatever lean patches there were at the time. TV guest appearances at this time included "Trapper John," "M*A*S*H*," "Hill Street Blues," "Miami Vice," "Spenser: For Hire" and "The Equalizer."
With the new decade (1990s) came out-and-out stardom for Laurence. A choice lead in John Singleton's urban tale Boyz n the Hood (1991) catapulted him immediately into the front of the film ranks. Set in LA's turbulent South Central area, his potent role as a morally minded divorced father who strives to rise above the ignorance and violence of his surroundings, Laurence showed true command and the ability to hold up any film.
On stage, Laurence would become invariably linked to playwright August Wilson and his 20th Century epic African-American experience after starring for two years as the eruptive ex-con in "Two Training Running." For this powerful, mesmerizing performance, Laurence won nearly every prestigious theater award in the books (Tony, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk and Theatre World). It was around the time of this career hallmark that he began billing himself as "Laurence" instead of "Larry." More awards and accolades came his way. In addition to an Emmy for the pilot episode of the series "Tribeca," he was nominated for his fine work in the quality mini-movies The Tuskegee Airmen (1995) and Miss Evers' Boys (1997).
On the larger screen, both Laurence and Angela Bassett were given Oscar nominations for their raw, seething portrayals of rock stars Ike and Tina Turner in the film What's Love Got to Do with It (1993). To his credit, he managed to take an extremely repellent character and make it a sobering and captivating experience. A pulp box-office favorite as well, he originated the role of Morpheus, Keanu Reeves' mentor, in the exceedingly popular futuristic sci-fi The Matrix (1999), best known for its ground-breaking special effects. He wisely returned for its back-to-back sequels.
Into the millennium, Laurence extended his talents by making his screenwriting and directorial debut in Once in the Life (2000), in which he also starred. The film is based on his own critically acclaimed play "Riff Raff," which he staged five years earlier. In 1999, he scored a major theater triumph with a multi-racial version of "The Lion in Winter" as Henry II opposite Stockard Channing's Eleanor of Acquitaine. On film, Fishburne has appeared in a variety of interesting roles in not-always-successful films. Never less than compelling, a few of his more notable parts include an urban speed chess player in Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993); a military prisoner in Cadence (1990); a college professor in Singleton's Higher Learning (1995); a CIA operative in Bad Company (1995); the title role in Othello (1995) (he was the first black actor to play the part on film); a spaceship rescue team leader in the sci-fi horror Event Horizon (1997); a Depression-era gangster in Hoodlum (1997); a dogged police sergeant in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003); a spelling bee coach in Akeelah and the Bee (2006); and prominent roles in the mainstream films Predators (2010) and Contagion (2011). He returned occasionally to the theatre. In April 2008, he played Thurgood Marshall in the one-man show "Thurgood" and won a Drama Desk Award. It was later transferred to the TV screen and earned an Emmy nomination.
In the fall of 2008, Fishburne replaced William Petersen as the male lead investigator on the popular CBS drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), but left the show in 2011 to refocus on films and was in turn replaced by Ted Danson. Having since had a regular role as "Pops" in the comedy Black-ish (2014), he has also been seen on the bigger screen in the Superman movies Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) as Daily Planet chief Perry White; played a hired assassin in the thriller Standoff (2016); portrayed a minister and former Vietnam War vet in Last Flag Flying (2017); and essayed the role of a revengeful prison warden in Imprisoned (2018).
Fishburne has two children, Langston and Montana, from his first marriage to actress Hajna O. Moss. In September 2002, Fishburne married Cuban-American actress Gina Torres.- Actress
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Onahoua Rodriguez grew up in New York and received her training from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She was cast in New York to play The Bride in Blood Wedding at the La Jolla Playhouse, and eventually relocated to Los Angeles.
Since then, she has guest starred and recurred on various TV shows including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Saving Grace, ER, NYPD Blue, Cold Case, CSI Miami, Boston Public, Cover Me, The Allison Anders pilot In The Echo and is best known for playing Emolia Melendez on The Shield and Maria "Mermex" on the current season of Weeds. She played Wanda Love in Rhythm Of The Saints (Dramatic Film Category at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival).
She continues to do theater which includes Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize winning play Anna In The Tropics at South Coast Rep., The Coconut Grove Playhouse and at The Skirball Center. She also starred in the world premiere of Cruz's Beauty Of The Father at the Seattle Rep.
Onahoua recently starred in the world premiere of Octavio Solis' Lydia at The Denver Center for the Performing Arts and will reprise the role in 2009 at the Yale Repertory Theater and at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.- Actress
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Rakie Ayola was born on 11 May 1968 in Cardiff, Wales, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Been So Long (2018), Twelfth Night (2018) and No Offence (2015). She is married to Adam Smethurst. They have two children.- Actress
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Many well known and highly identifiable actresses have tried and failed to make the arduous crossover from fizzy TV sitcom star to mature, dramatic artist. Usually it was their hardcore fans who refused to accept them in any other light. Sally Field and Elizabeth Montgomery come first to mind as two strong actresses, with even stronger TV comedy character personas to contend with, who managed to make the none-too-easy leap to serious dramatic stardom after the fact. And then there's THAT girl ... lovely, glowing brunette Marlo Thomas ... another prime example.
Born in Detroit, Michigan on November 21, 1937, Marlo was christened Margaret Julia Thomas. Raised within the mad Beverly Hills whirl of the entertainment business as the daughter of show business legend Danny Thomas, she was initially dissuaded from an acting career and began a half-hearted adult life as a school teacher.
Quickly switching to acting, however, Marlo began with early TV appearances in the late 1950's on such series as "Dobie Gillis," "77 Sunset Strip," "Thriller" and "Zane Grey Theatre" (an appearance with her father). Her first break came when she was cast as Joey Bishop's sister and aspiring actress on the sitcom The Bob Newhart Show (1961) for one season, and she continued to build up her small screen resumé with assorted guest shots on "Bonanza," "My Favorite Martian," "McHale's Navy," "The Donna Reed Show" and "Ben Casey."
Following her delightful work on the London stage as Corey in "Barefoot in the Park" in 1965, Marlo appeared in a failed TV pilot. The pilot was seen by ABC, and they had her tested for another sitcom lead and passed with flying colors. This one stuck did not fail. Audiences adored "That Girl" with the romantic entanglements and struggling ambition of Ann Marie, a single, independent and very trendy young lady in the real world as an actress wannabe. Marlo became an instant household name (as did co-star Ted Bessell) and earned a Golden Globe ("Best TV Star") and four Emmy nominations during the five-year run of the groundbreaking show.
Cancelling the show on her own terms in 1971, the smoky-voiced actress was faced with a huge task of breaking a stereotype as a perky, fresh-faced, wide-eyed innocent. Capitalizing on her TV fame, she immediately pursued serious film roles. Playing the title dramatic role of Jenny (1970) opposite Alan Alda, she portrayed an unwed, naïve, pregnant girl who marries a filmmaker for convenience sake and earned a Golden Globe nom for "Most Promising Newcomer" in the process. Still, the box office take was mild and the public needed more convincing. When she made her Broadway debut successfully in the Herb Gardner play "Thieves" opposite Richard Mulligan in 1975, she made another stab at films by recreating her stage role. The reviews for Thieves (1977) co-starring Charles Grodin this time (who directed her in the Broadway version) were underwhelming. She would meet talk show icon Phil Donahue on his daytime TV program while a guest promoting the Thieves (1977) movie. They wed in 1980.
During this time Marlo broadened her focus and combined her deep love for children and education with her show business career. She took home bookend Emmy Awards for producing the "Outstanding Children's Specials" Free to Be... You & Me (1974) and, later, Free to Be... a Family (1988). She would also win a Grammy for her children's album "Marlo Thomas & Friends." As for TV, she earned wonderful reviews starring in the ABC holiday mini-movie comedy It Happened One Christmas (1977) playing a troubled female version of James Stewart's protagonist in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) but it was her dramatic work in the TV movies The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck (1984) Consenting Adult (1985) (Golden Globe nomination), Nobody's Child (1986) (Emmy Award, Golden Globe nomination), and Held Hostage: The Sis and Jerry Levin Story (1991), Ultimate Betrayal (1994) and Reunion (1994) that forever erased her pristine stereotype image and saw her as a dramatic force to be reckoned with.
Marlo's subsequent return visits to Broadway with the plays "Social Security" (1986) and "The Shadow Box" (1994) added to her list of successes and continued with demanding theater roles such as Beatrice in "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigold" (1990), Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" (1992) and Ouisa in "Sex Degrees of Separation" (1992).
Marlo remained actively involved on TV in everything from classic comedy (as Jennifer Aniston's mom in Friends (1994) to adult drama as a lawyer/mentor in the highly-rated crime drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), with other TV guest appearances including "Roseanne," "Ally McBeal," "Ugly Betty," "The New Normal" and an additional recurring role on Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later (2017).
Sporadic filming into the millennium included the "Odd Couple"-styled comedy In the Spirit (1990) co-starring Elaine May and featuring May's daughter Jeannie Berlin who also co-wrote, and featured roles in the romantic comedy The Real Blonde (1997), the drama Starstruck (1998), the social comedy Playing Mona Lisa (2000), the Miley Cyrus romantic dramedy LOL (2012), the witty comedy The Female Brain (2017) and the action comedy Ocean's Eight (2018) headed by Sandra Bullock.
Younger brother/producer Tony Thomas and actress/sister Terre Thomas also involved themselves in show business careers. On a more personal level, Marlo is an accomplished author, humanitarian and social activist. She has also continued the tradition of her late father as National Outreach Director for St. Jude's Children Hospital for cancer research.- Music Artist
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Richard Wayne Penniman, better known as Little Richard, the self-proclaimed "Architect of Rock 'n' Roll", traveled in his early days with the legendary vaudeville star Spencer "Snake" Anthony. One of Richard's early bands had the young, then unknown singer James Brown (the Godfather of Soul), a fourteen-year-old keyboardist named Billy Preston, and the famous and legendary rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix. His first recording session took place at WGST in Atlanta, Georgia, USA; he was backed by a local band led by Billy Wright. This session produced a local hit called "Every Hour" which enjoyed heavy airplay on Atlanta's WERD radio station which was the first completely Black-owned radio station in the United States. Little Richard was backed up by his idol Billy Wright, once referred to him as the most fantastic entertainer he had ever seen. Indeed, it was Wright who used a brand of makeup called Pancake 31.
Little Richard admitted to copying Wright's penchant for heavy makeup and wild stage theatrics. With a public persona and personal life marked by sexual ambiguity, he would make his mark with later hits such as the suggestive "Tutti Frutti" and "Good Golly Miss Molly". Unbeknownst to many fans, Richard overcame a debilitating drug habit and eventually became an ordained minister. Beginning in the 1980s, he saw a resurgence in his popularity as he acquired small acting roles where he impressed fans, old and new, with his unique comedic timing. As versatile and ageless as ever, Little Richard continues to delight fans the world over with his extraordinary stage presence and flamboyant antics. Now inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the American Songwriters Hall of Fame, he remains one of the most popular entertainers in the world.- Actress
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Vivica A. Fox was born in South Bend, Indiana, on July 30, 1964, and is the daughter of Everlyena, a pharmaceutical technician, and William Fox, a private school administrator. She is of Native American and African-American descent and is proud of her heritage. She is a graduate of Arlington High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, and, after graduating, moved to California to attend college. Vivica went to Golden West College and graduated with an Associate Art degree in Social Sciences. While in California, she started acting professionally, first on soap operas, such as Generations (1989), Days of Our Lives (1965) and The Young and the Restless (1973). In another early role, she played Patti LaBelle's fashion designer daughter, "Charisse Chamberlain", on the NBC-TV series, Out All Night (1992). Her first big break was in the film, Independence Day (1996), along with Will Smith, and also Set It Off (1996). She has earned critical acclaim for her portrayal of "Maxine" in the 1997 motion picture, Soul Food (1997), which netted her MTV Movie Award and NAACP Image Award nominations. In 2000, she was casted in the medical drama, City of Angels (2000), as "Dr. Lillian Price". She has had roles in many other movies ever since, such as: Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999), Two Can Play That Game (2001) and Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003). In 2004, Fox was in an episode of Punk'd (2003), where her pregnant friend pretended to go into labor, but they became angry when a paramedic appeared to care more about taking pictures than delivering the baby. Vivica also took another television role, from 2004 to 2006, as she starred in the drama series, 1-800-Missing (2003), on the Lifetime Television Network. In 2007, she was a contender on Dancing with the Stars (2005) and stayed until she was voted off in the fourth week. In 1998, Vivica A. Fox married singer Christopher Harvest (aka Sixx-Nine), whom she later divorced in June 2002. She also dated rapper 50 Cent, however this was a brief relationship.- Actress
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Laverne Cox is a three time Emmy-nominated actress, Emmy winning documentary film producer and a prominent equal rights advocate. Laverne's role of Sophia Burset in the critically acclaimed Netflix original series "Orange is The New Black" brought her to the attention of diverse audiences all over the world. This role lead to Laverne becoming the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for a Primetime acting Emmy.
An artist and an advocate with an empowering message of moving beyond gender expectations to live more authentically, Laverne is the first openly transgender person to appear on the covers of TIME Magazine, Cosmopolitan magazine and Essence magazines among others. She was named one of Glamour magazine's 2014 Women of the Year. Laverne also proudly holds two SAG Awards winning them with her Orange Is The New Black cast mates.
Laverne has been one of the faces of Beyonce's athleisure line, Ivy Park. She also collaborated with Orly to create "Celebrate Yourself" a Limited Edition collection of nail colors and teamed up with Ted Danson for Smirnoff's "Welcome To The Fun" campaign.
Laverne's Emmy winning documentary "Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word" helped lead her to Executive Producing two powerful documentaries. The upcoming "Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen" is an unprecedented, groundbreaking look at the depiction of transgender characters throughout the history of film and TV and "Free CeCe" which tells the story of CeCe McDonald, a transgender woman who was controversially sentenced to 41 months in a men's prison for second degree manslaughter after defending herself against a racist and transphobic attack. The documentary focuses on McDonald's case, her experiences while incarcerated and the larger implications of her case for the transgender community and for communities of color at large.- Actress
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Sherry Stringfield was born in Colorado Springs as the oldest of three children, but mainly raised in Spring, Texas. In high school, she did both athletics and acting. Later, she attended the Acting Conservatory of the State New York at Purchase, from which she graduated in 1989 with a B.F.A. While attending the State University of New York at Purchase, she roomed with Parker Posey. During this time, she appeared in numerous off-Broadway productions. After working a short time in a theater box office, she accepted a 3 years contract as "Blake" in the daytime drama Guiding Light (1952). After a short break, spent with traveling, she returned to L.A. to co-star as "Laura Kelly" on NYPD Blue (1993).
Stringfield is best known to television audiences around the world as "Dr. Susan Lewis" on NBC's hit medical drama, ER (1994), a role which has garnered her three Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress on a Drama Series as well as a Golden Globe nomination and a People's Choice Award nomination for Favorite Female Performer. With 112 Emmy nominations over the course of the show's run, it remains a critical and audience favorite.
Her additional credits include the feature films, Autumn in New York (2000) with Richard Gere and Winona Ryder and 54 (1998) with Mike Myers, Salma Hayek and Ryan Phillippe.
Stringfield currently resides in Los Angeles with her two children.- Actress
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Rachel Meghan Markle is an US-born member of the British royal family and a former film and television actress.
Meghan Markle was born on August 4, 1981 and raised in Los Angeles, California, and is of mixed-race heritage. During her studies at Northwestern University, she began to play small roles in television series and films. From 2011 to 2017, she played her best-known role, Rachel Zane, on the legal drama series Suits. As an outspoken feminist, Markle has addressed issues of gender inequality, and her lifestyle website, The Tig, featured a column profiling influential women. Her humanitarian work in the 2010s saw her represent international charity organizations. She has also received recognition for her fashion and style, releasing a clothing line in 2016.
From 2011 until their 2014 divorce, Markle was married to actor and producer Trevor Engelson. In 2017, she announced her engagement to Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, and moved to London. She consequently retired from acting, closed her social-media accounts, and started undertaking public engagements on behalf of the British royal family. Following their wedding on May 19, 2018, Markle received the title of Duchess of Sussex. After her and Harry's departure as working members of the Royal family, they no longer use their HRH titles in a professional capacity.
Rachel Meghan Markle was born on August 4, 1981, in Los Angeles, California, at West Park Hospital in Canoga Park. Her mother, Doria Loyce (Ragland), a social worker and yoga instructor, is originally from Cleveland, Ohio and lives in View Park Windsor Hills, California. Markle has often described a very close friendship with her mother. Her father, Thomas Wayne Markle, who lives in Rosarito, Mexico, is a retired Emmy Award winning television director of photography and lighting director, whose profession resulted in his young daughter often visiting the set of "Married...with Children." Markle's parents divorced when she was six years old. She has two older paternal half-siblings, Thomas Markle Jr. and Samantha Markle, from whom she is reportedly estranged.
Describing her heritage in a 2015 essay for Elle, Markle states that her "dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I'm half black and half white ... While my mixed heritage may have created a gray area surrounding my self identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I'm from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed race woman." Her father's roots include German, English, Irish, and Scottish. Her mother has family lines in Tennessee and Georgia.
Markle grew up in Hollywood. She was educated at private schools, beginning at age two at Hollywood Little Red Schoolhouse. Markle attended Immaculate Heart High School, a girls' Catholic private school in Los Angeles, but was raised as a Protestant. She then attended Northwestern University, where she joined Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, and participated in community service and charity projects. While at Northwestern, her uncle obtained an internship for her at the American embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Markle studied for a semester in Madrid, Spain. Markle graduated from Northwestern's School of Communication in 2003 with a bachelor's degree and a double major in theater and international studies.
Markle worked as a freelance calligrapher to support herself between early acting jobs. Her first onscreen appearance was a small role as a nurse in an episode of the daytime soap opera General Hospital (1963), where her father was lighting director. Early in her career, Markle had small guest roles on the television shows Century City (2004), The War at Home (2005), and CSI: NY (2004). She also took on several contract acting and modeling jobs, including a stint as a "briefcase girl" on the US game show Deal or No Deal (2005). She appeared in Fox's series Fringe (2008) as Junior Agent Amy Jessup in the first two episodes of its second season. Markle had some difficulty getting roles early in her career. In 2015, she wrote: "Being 'ethnically ambiguous', as I was pegged in the industry, meant I could audition for virtually any role. Sadly, it didn't matter: I wasn't black enough for the black roles and I wasn't white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn't book a job."
In July 2011, Markle joined the cast of the USA Network show Suits (2011), playing Rachel Zane. The character began as a paralegal and eventually became an attorney. She completed work on the seventh season in late 2017. According to a critique in The Irish Times, Markle deftly and actively re-positioned her character from ingenue to moral conscience and gave viewers the unique portrayal of a daughter, whose African American father is in a position to help her career and advance her strong desire to break several racial and gender "glass ceilings". She appeared in two 2010 films, Get Him to the Greek (2010) and Remember Me (2010), and one 2011 film, Horrible Bosses (2011). She also appeared in episodes of Cuts (2005); Love, Inc. (2005); 90210 (2008); Knight Rider (2008); Without a Trace (2002); The League (2009); and Castle (2009).
From 2014 to 2017, Markle was founder and editor in chief of lifestyle website The Tig. She derived the name from Tignanello red wine. One of The Tig's features was Tig Talk, a column that profiled women including Jessica Alba, Gail Simmons, Ella Woodward, Daphne Oz, Elizabeth Hurley, Lauren Bush Lauren, Ivanka Trump, Dianna Agron, and Jessica Stam. In April 2017, she closed The Tig. Markle developed an adept and polished social media presence at the time of its closing, her Instagram account had 1.9 million followers. In January 2018, Markle deleted her social media accounts and, in a statement issued by Kensington Palace, thanked "everyone who has followed her social media accounts over the years".
Since her marriage with Prince Harry of Wales, the Duke of Sussex, Markle is known as HRH Meghan Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton and Baroness Kilkeel.- Actress
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Freda Payne was born on 19 September 1942 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She is an actress, known for Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000), Now and Then (1995) and Velvet Goldmine (1998). She was previously married to Gregory Abbott.- Banjo the Dog is known for Space Munchies (2024) and Banjo (1947).
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Michele Dotrice was born on 27 September 1948 in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Not Now, Comrade (1976), Vanity Fair (1998) and Captain Jack (1999). She was previously married to Edward Woodward.- Actress
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Debbie Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, the second child of Maxine N. (Harmon) and Raymond Francis Reynolds, a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Her film career began at MGM after she won a beauty contest at age 16 impersonating Betty Hutton. Reynolds wasn't a dancer until she was selected to be Gene Kelly's partner in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Not yet twenty, she was a quick study. Twelve years later, it seemed like she had been around forever. Most of her early film work was in MGM musicals, as perky, wholesome young women. She continued to use her dancing skills with stage work.
She was 31 when she gave an Academy Award-nominated performance in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). She survived losing first husband Eddie Fisher to Elizabeth Taylor following the tragic death of Mike Todd. Her second husband, shoe magnate Harry Karl, gambled away his fortune as well as hers. With her children as well as Karl's, she had to keep working and turned to the stage. She had her own casino in Las Vegas with a home for her collection of Hollywood memorabilia until its closure in 1997. She took the time to personally write a long letter that is on display in the Judy Garland museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota and to provide that museum with replicas of Garland's costumes. The originals are in her newly-opened museum in Hollywood.
Nearly all the money she makes is spent toward her goal of creating a Hollywood museum. Her collection numbers more than 3000 costumes and 46,000 square-feet worth of props and equipment.
With musician/actor Eddie Fisher, she was the mother of filmmaker Todd Fisher and actress Carrie Fisher. Debbie died of a stroke on December 28, 2016, one day after the death of her daughter Carrie. She was survived by her son and granddaughter, up-and-coming actress Billie Lourd.- Music Artist
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Bob Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in Nine Miles, Saint Ann, Jamaica, to Norval Marley and Cedella Booker. His father was a Jamaican of English descent. His mother was a black teenager. The couple were married in 1944 but Norval left for Kingston immediately after. Norval died in 1957, seeing his son only a few times.
Bob Marley started his career with the Wailers, a group he formed with Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingston in 1963. Marley married Rita Marley in February 1966, and it was she who introduced him to Rastafarianism. By 1969 Bob, Tosh and Livingston had fully embraced Rastafarianism, which greatly influence Marley's music in particular and on reggae music in general. The Wailers collaborated with Lee Scratch Perry, resulting in some of the Wailers' finest tracks like "Soul Rebel", "Duppy Conquerer", "400 Years" and "Small Axe." This collaboration ended bitterly when the Wailers found that Perry, thinking the records were his, sold them in England without their consent. However, this brought the Wailers' music to the attention of Chris Blackwell, the owner of Island Records.
Blackwell immediately signed the Wailers and produced their first album, "Catch a Fire". This was followed by "Burnin'", featuring tracks as "Get Up Stand Up" and "I Shot the Sheriff." Eric Clapton's cover of that song reached #1 in the US. In 1974 Tosh and Livingston left the Wailers to start solo careers. Marley later formed the band "Bob Marley and the Wailers", with his wife Rita as one of three backup singers called the I-Trees. This period saw the release of some groundbreaking albums, such as "Natty Dread", "Rastaman Vibration".
In 1976, during a period of spiraling political violence in Jamaica, an attempt was made on Marley's life. Marley left for England, where he lived in self-exile for two years. In England "Exodus" was produced, and it remained on the British charts for 56 straight weeks. This was followed by another successful album, "Kaya." These successes introduced reggae music to the western world for the first time, and established the beginning of Marley's international status.
In 1977 Marley consulted with a doctor when a wound in his big toe would not heal. More tests revealed malignant melanoma. He refused to have his toe amputated as his doctors recommended, claiming it contradicted his Rastafarian beliefs. Others, however, claim that the main reason behind his refusal was the possible negative impact on his dancing skills. The cancer was kept secret from the general public while Bob continued working.
Returning to Jamaica in 1978, he continued work and released "Survival" in 1979 which was followed by a successful European tour. In 1980 he was the only foreign artist to participated in the independence ceremony of Zimbabwe. It was a time of great success for Marley, and he started an American tour to reach blacks in the US. He played two shows at Madison Square Garden, but collapsed while jogging in NYC's Central Park on September 21, 1980. The cancer diagnosed earlier had spread to his brain, lungs and stomach. Bob Marley died in a Miami hospital on May 11, 1981. He was 36 years old.- Actor
Rando was born in West Germany. He is known for K-9 (1989) and K-9 (1991).- Additional Crew
- Actor
- Stunts
Karl Lewis Miller was born on 16 June 1941 in Utica, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Nutty Professor (1996), Stand by Me (1986) and Miller's Crossing (1990). He died on 27 March 2008 in Arleta, California, USA.