Blue Sky 1994 premiere
Wednesday August 24th, Alice Tully Hall 1941 Broadway at, W 65th St, New York, NY 10023
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- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Jessica Lange was born in 1949, in Cloquet, Minnesota, USA, where her father worked as a traveling salesman. She obtained a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota, but instead went to Paris to study drama. She moved to New York, working as a model, until producer Dino De Laurentiis cast her as the female lead in King Kong (1976). The film attracted much unfavorable comment and, as a result, Lange was off the screen for three years. She was given a small but showy part in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz (1979), before giving a memorable performance in Bob Rafelson's The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), as an adulterous waitress. The following year, she won rave reviews for her exceptional portrayal of actress Frances Farmer in Frances (1982) and a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her work in Sydney Pollack's Tootsie (1982) (as a beautiful soap-opera actress). She was also outstanding as country singer Patsy Cline in Karel Reisz's Sweet Dreams (1985) and as a lawyer who defends her father and discovers his past in Music Box (1989). Other important films include Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991) (as a frightened housewife) and Tony Richardson's Blue Sky (1994), for which she won a Best Actress Academy Award as the mentally unbalanced wife of a military officer. She made her Broadway debut in 1992, playing "Blanche" in Tennessee Williams "A Streetcar Named Desire".- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Jon Bon Jovi, was born John Francis Bongiovi, Jr. On March 2, 1962, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey to parents John Francis Bongiovi, Sr. and Carol Sharkey.
Family: Jon's mother, Carol Sharkey, was a former model and one of the first Playboy Bunnies. She met Bon Jovi's father after she enlisted in the United States Marines. John was already in the Marines when they met.
Bon Jovi has two brothers, Anthony and Matthew. Bon Jovi has four children, and is married to Dorothea Hurley (1989-present).
Known best as a singer-songwriter, in 1983 he was the founder and frontman of a band that bears his name. Bon Jovi is also known as a record producer, actor and philanthropist.
Music Career: Bon Jovi's music career started in June of 1982 after he was turned down by several record labels, including Atlantic Records and Mercury (Polygram) for the song "Runaway" which he recorded with a studio band named "The Allstars."
After being turned down he visited New York City's major market rock station WAPP, also known as "The Apple" at 103.5FM. WAPP included the song on a compilation of local talent and it became in instant hit.
In 1983 he signed with Mercury Records to promote "Runaway" and had to form a new band. Jon Bon Jovi became David Bryan, Alec John Such, bassist, Tico Torres, drummer, and his neighbor, Dave Sabo at lead guitar. Sabo played only a few local shows before he left to form the group Skid Row with Rachel Bolan. Sabo was soon replaced with Richie Sambora.
After "Runaway" became a worldwide hit, Bon Jovi wanted a name for the band. He wanted to call themselves Johnny Electric. But Richard Fischer, employed then by Doc McGhee, suggested that Bon Jovi follow the norm where many bands were naming their groups by the lead or frontman' name, such as, Van Halen, Dokken, Bryan Adams, Alice Cooper (70's), so Bon Jovi became the name of the band.
The band's breakout album, "Slippery When Wet," was their third studio album released in 1986. It became the band's best-selling album, selling more than 28 million worldwide, according to a Jan. 29, 2008 issue of the Daily Telegraph.
Bon Jovi's next album, "New Jersey," not only shared the same success as "Slippery When Wet," the album had five top-10 hits on Billboard's Hot-100. No other album or artist ever produced as many top-10 hits, and as of this writing (September 4, 2016) this record still stands. And two of the top-10 hits, "Bad Medicine" and "I'll Be There For You" topped the charts at number one, according to Bon Jovi's Biography on the Billboard website.
The band then went on an 18-month international tour, and when they finished, the band went on a hiatus.
Hiatus and Young Guns II: During the hiatus, Bon Jovi was hired to write the soundtrack for the movie "Young Guns II." During this time actor Emilio Estevez approached Bon Jovi and asked if he could use "Wanted, Dead or Alive" as the title song for the movie.
Bon Jovi balked at the idea, saying he didn't think that song was the proper song, so he quickly wrote "Blaze of Glory."
As the story goes, Kiefer Sutherland in an interview for UNCUT magazine said; "When Jon (Bon Jovi) joined the team for Young Guns II, we were all eating hamburgers in a diner and Jon was scribbling on this napkin for, say, six minutes. He declared he'd written 'Blaze of Glory', which of course then went through the roof in the States. He later gave Emilio Estevez the napkin. We were munching burgers while he wrote a No. 1 song... Made us feel stupid."
Afterwards, Bon Jovi played the song in a New Mexico desert for Estevez and John Fusco. This was the first time Bon Jovi played the song and heard by anyone. When the co-producers heard the song in a trailer, it was a no-brainer. It became the theme song for "Young Guns II."
"Young Guns II," which was released in 1990 named which Bon Jovi made into his next album "Blaze of Glory." This was Bon Jovi's first solo album as the other band members were off doing other things during the hiatus.
The movie's budget was $20 million and went on to earn $44 million. Two hits came from this album, "Blaze of Glory" and Miracle." Bon Jovi earned several Grammy and Oscar nominations.
While he wrote a song or two for a couple of shows before this, this was his first and only project where he wrote every song for a movie's soundtrack. He did go on to write songs for other movies, and many of the group's songs were used in a variety of TV series.
Back Together (Kind Of): During the years from their first hit "Runaway" in 1982, the group has released 12 studio albums and Bon Jovi recorded two solo albums and a number of singles. Worldwide, his band has sold more than 130 albums, ranking them among the top of the best sellers.
But the band isn't sitting around and resting. In 2015 there were rumors of a planned new album to be released sometime in 2016.
Rumors used to spread like wildfires, but today, the Internet allows them to travel at the speed of light. Talk about a new album for 2016 was confirmed by a consultant, and another world tour would follow.
On September 30, 2015, Bon Jovi said during a press conference confirming the new album, its title will be "This House Is Not For Sale." He further said that the album is about the group's integrity.
"Integrity matters and we're at a place in our career where we don't have anything left to prove," Bon Jovi said.
However, the new album is the first one without creative input from Richie Sambora, who left the group in 2013.
On Bon Jovi's Facebook page, a post announced that the new album, "This House Is Not For Sale" was released on August 27, 2016
Acting Career: He started acting in the 1990's starring in minor roles in movies such as "U-571," and "Moonlight and Valentino," and as Helen Hunt's husband in the movie "Pay It Forward" starring Kevin Spacey. He also appeared on several TV shows such as "Sex and the City" and "Ally McBeal."
Accolades: In 2009, Bon Jovi was inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Bon Jovi has also made appearances on some prestigious lists:- In 1996, he was named one of the "50 Most Beautiful People In The World" By People Magazine.
- In 2000, the same magazine named him the "Sexiest Rock Star."
- Also in 2000 VH1 placed him on its "100 Sexiest Artists."
- In 2012 was ranked 50th in Billboard's magazine's "Power 100," a ranking of "The Most Powerful and Influential People In The Music Business."
Philanthropy: In addition, Bon Jovi was the one of the founders and majority owners of the Arena Football League team Philadelphia Soul. He is the founder of The Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation which was founded in 2006 and exists to combat issues that force families and individuals into economic despair. He also campaigned for Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election, John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election, and Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential election. In 2010, President Barack Obama named Bon Jovi to the White House Council for Community Solutions. He was also awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Monmouth University in 2001.- Actor
- Composer
- Writer
Richie Sambora is one of music's most talented and respected songwriters, singers, guitarists and producers. As a founding member of Bon Jovi, he has toured the world and collected over 68 gold and platinum albums. In 1998 Sambora released his second solo album, "Undiscovered Soul". The album was produced by Don Was and features contributions by Chuck Leavell of The Rolling Stones, Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.
Sambora was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and raised in Woodbridge. He got his first guitar in 1971 when he was 12, and started playing in bands three years later. A diversified music listener, Sambora comes from a background of The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Johnny Winter, Led Zeppelin and "a lot of blues stuff". Sambora had the opportunity to explore all of his musical avenues when he was afforded the making of his first solo album, "Stranger In This Town". "Mr. Bluesman", a single from the album, was inspired by Clapton, and when he agreed to play lead guitar on the track, a longtime dream of Sambora's was filled. He is a self-taught musician and plays many instruments such as all guitars, piano, bass, drums, trumpet, saxophone and accordion. He divides his time between Los Angeles and New Jersey with his daughter Ava Elizabeth, who was born on October 4, 1997.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Natasha Jane Richardson was born in Marylebone, London, England, to director and producer Tony Richardson and actress Vanessa Redgrave. She was the sister of actress Joely Richardson, the niece of actors Corin Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave, and the granddaughter of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson.
Trained at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, Richardson performed extensively on stage in roles, including "Helena" in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Ophelia in "Hamlet" at the Young Vic. In 1986, she garnered the London Drama Critics' Most Promising Newcomer Award for her performance as "Nina" in "The Seagull", with Vanessa Redgrave and Jonathan Pryce. In 1987, she played "Tracey Lord" in Richard Eyre's musical, "High Society".
Natasha made her feature film debut as Mary Shelley in Ken Russell's Gothic (1986). Her performance caught the attention of director Paul Schrader, who cast her in the title role in Patty Hearst (1988). Natasha achieved notable success in such films as Pat O'Connor's A Month in the Country (1987), Roland Joffé's Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) and The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish (1991), featuring Bob Hoskins and Jeff Goldblum. For her performance in Volker Schlöndorff's The Handmaid's Tale (1990) and Schrader's The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Richardson earned The London Evening Standard Award for Best Actress of 1990; and for Widows' Peak (1994), also starring Mia Farrow and Joan Plowright, she received the Best Actress Award at the 1994 Karlovy Vary Festival.
Also in 1994, she co-starred with Jodie Foster and Liam Neeson in Nell (1994) and, in 1998, in The Parent Trap (1998) with Dennis Quaid. Her early 2000s films include Blow Dry (2001) released in 2001, and Ethan Hawke's Chelsea Walls (2001).
Natasha performed the title role of "Anna Christie", first in London, where she was voted London Drama Critics' Best Actress Award in 1992, then on Broadway at the Roundabout in 1993, where she was nominated for a Tony for Best Actress in a Play, a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Debut of an Actress, and a Drama Desk nomination for Best Actress. For her performance as Sally Bowles in Sam Mendes' production of "Cabaret", she won the 1998 Tony, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and Drama Desk Awards for Best Actress in a Musical. She then appeared on Broadway in Patrick Marber's Tony-nominated play "Closer". In December 2009 she had been intended to play "Miss Julie" on Broadway with Philip Seymour Hoffman, directed by David Leveaux for Roundabout Theatre.
Richardson's television credits included Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts" for the BBC, also starring Judi Dench, Michael Gambon and Kenneth Branagh; the HBO cable feature Hostages (1992); the BBC film Suddenly, Last Summer (1993), based on the play by Tennessee Williams, and also starring Maggie Smith and Rob Lowe. In 1993 she starred as Zelda Fitzgerald in the TNT movie Zelda (1993), co-starring Timothy Hutton and directed by Pat O'Connor (cable Ace nomination for Best Actress). She played Ruth Gruber in the 2001 CBS mini-series Haven (2001) based on Ms. Gruber's autobiography.
In March 2009, Natasha died in a New York City hospital, after falling and receiving a head injury whilst skiing in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada. Natasha was married to actor Liam Neeson from 1994 until her death, and the couple have two children.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
On January 30, 1937, renowned theatre actor Michael Redgrave was performing in a production of Hamlet in London. During the curtain call, the show's lead, Laurence Olivier, announced to the audience: "tonight a great actress was born". This was in reference to his co-star's newborn daughter, Vanessa Redgrave.
Vanessa was born in Greenwich, London, to Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, both thespians. Three quarters of a century after her birth (despite numerous ups and down) this rather forward expectation has definitely been lived up to with an acclaimed actress that has won (among many others) an Academy Award, two Emmys, two Golden Globes, two Cannes Best Actress awards, a Tony, a Screen Actors Guild award, a Laurence Olivier theatre award and a BAFTA fellowship.
Growing up with such celebrated theatrical parents, great expectations were put on both herself, her brother Corin Redgrave and sister Lynn Redgrave at an early age. Shooting up early and finally reaching a height just short of 6 foot, Redgrave initially had plans to dance and perform ballet as a profession. However she settled on acting and entered the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1954 and four years later made her West End debut. In the decade of the 1960s she developed and progressed to become one of the most noted young stars of the English stage and then film. Performances on the London stage included the classics: 'A Touch of Sun', 'Coriolanus', 'A Midsummer's Night Dream', 'All's Well that Ends Well', 'As You Like It', 'The Lady from the Sea', 'The Seagull' and many others. By the mid 1960s, she had booked various film roles and matured into a striking beauty with a slim, tall frame and attractive face. In 1966 she made her big screen debut as the beautiful ex-wife of a madman in an Oscar nominated performance in the oddball comedy Morgan! (1966), as well as the enigmatic woman in a public park in desperate need of a photographer's negatives in the iconic Blow-Up (1966) and briefly appeared in an unspoken part of Anne Boleyn in the Best Picture winner of the year A Man for All Seasons (1966).
She managed to originate the title role in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" the same year on the London stage (which was then adapted for the big screen a few years later, but Maggie Smith was cast instead and managed to win an Oscar for her performance). Her follow up work saw her play the lead in the box office hit adaptation Camelot (1967), a film popular with audiences but dismissed by critics, and her second Academy Award nominated performance as Isadora Duncan in the critically praised Isadora (1968).
Her rise in popularity on film also coincided with her public political involvement, she was one of the lead faces in protesting against the Vietnam war and lead a famous march on the US embassy, was arrested during a Ban-the-Bomb demonstration, publicly supported Yasar Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and fought for various other human rights and particularly left wing causes. Despite her admirably independent qualities, most of her political beliefs weren't largely supported by the public. In 1971 after 3 films back to back, Redgrave suffered a miscarriage (it would have been her fourth, after Natasha Richardson, Joely Richardson and Carlo Gabriel Nero) and a break up with her then partner and father of her son, Franco Nero. This was around the same time her equally political brother Corin introduced her to the Workers Revolutionary Party, a group who aimed to destroy capitalism and abolish the monarchy. Her film career began to suffer and take the back seat as she became more involved with the party, twice unsuccessfully attempting to run as a party member for parliament, only obtaining a very small percentage of votes.
In terms of her film career at the time, she was given probably the smallest part in the huge ensemble who-dunnit hit, Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and given another thankless small part as Lola Deveraux in the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976).
After a celebrated Broadway debut, she created further controversy in 1977 with her involvement in two films, firstly in Julia (1977) where she acted opposite Jane Fonda as a woman fighting Nazi oppression and narrated and featured in the documentary The Palestinian (1977) where she famously danced holding a Kalashnikov rifle. She publicly stated her condemnation of what she termed "Zionist hudlums", which outraged Jewish groups and as a result a screening of her documentary was bombed and Redgrave was personally threatened by the Jewish Defense League (JDL). Julia (1977) happened to be a huge critical success and Redgrave herself was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but Jewish support groups demanded her nomination to be dropped and at the event of the Academy Awards burned effigies of Redgrave and protested and picketed. Redgrave was forced to enter the event via a rear entrance to avoid harm and when she won the award she famously remarked on the frenzy causes as "Zionist hoodlums" which caused the audience to audibly gasp and boo. The speech reached newspapers the next morning and her reputation was further damaged.
It came as a surprise when CBS hired her for the part of real life Nazi camp survivor Fania Fenelon in Playing for Time (1980), despite more controversy and protesting (Fenelon herself didn't even want Redgrave to portray her) she won an Emmy for the part and the film was one of the highest rating programs of the year. Her follow up film work to her Oscar had been mostly low key but successful, performances in films such as Yanks (1979), Agatha (1979), The Bostonians (1984), Wetherby (1985) and Prick Up Your Ears (1987) further cemented her reputation as a fine actress and she received various accolades and nominations.
However mainly in the 1980s, she focused on TV films and high budget mini-series as well as theatre in both London and New York. She made headlines in 1984 when she sued the Boston Symphony Orchestra for $5 million for wrongful cancellation of her contract because of her politics (she also stated her salary was significantly reduced in Agatha (1979) for the same reason). She became more mainstream in the 1990s where she appeared in a string of high profile films but the parts often underused Redgrave's abilities or they were small cameos/5-minute parts. Highlights included Howards End (1992), Little Odessa (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Cradle Will Rock (1999), as well as her leading lady parts in A Month by the Lake (1995) and Mrs Dalloway (1997).
In 2003 she finally won the coveted Tony award for her performance in 'The Long Day's Journey Into Night' and followed up with another two Tony nominated performances on Broadway, her one woman show 'The Year of Magical Thinking' in 2007 and 'Driving Miss Daisy' in 2010 which not only was extended due to high demand, but was also transferred to the West End for an additional three months in 2011.
Vanessa continues to lend her name to causes and has been notable for donating huge amounts of her own money for her various beliefs. She has publicly opposed the war in Iraq, campaigned for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, supported the rights of gays and lesbians as well as AIDs research and many other issues. She released her autobiography in 1993 and a few years later she was elected to serve as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. She also famously declined the invitation to be made a Dame for her services as an actress. Many have wondered the possible heights her career could have reached if it wasn't for her outspoken views, but being a celebrity and the artificial lifestyle usually attached doesn't seem to interest Redgrave in the slightest.
Vanessa has worked with all three of her children professionally on numerous occasions (her eldest daughter, Natasha Richardson tragically died at the age of 45 due to a skiing accident) and in her mid 70s she still works regularly on television, film and theatre, delivering time and time again great performances.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
For Joely, the theatre must be in her genes. Born in Marylebone, London, England, she is the daughter of director Tony Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave, granddaughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, niece of Lynn Redgrave, and sister of Natasha Richardson, all actors. Former husband Tim Bevan is a producer. However the genes were slow - as a child she saw her older sister Natasha interested in acting but she was imagining a career in tennis. Her father put his foot down, and tennis was out. British by birth, she considers herself a sort of honorary American, having attended boarding school at Thacher in Ojai, California. Beginning in the '80s film became her life, from small parts in Wetherby (1985) to BBC dramas such as Lady Chatterley (1993) to today's Disney studio going to the dogs in 101 Dalmatians (1996).- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).- Writer
- Additional Crew
- Actress
Diane Sawyer was born on 22 December 1945 in Glasgow, Kentucky, USA. She is a writer and actress, known for ABC World News Tonight with David Muir (1953), 20/20 (1978) and Primetime (1989). She was previously married to Mike Nichols.- Director
- Producer
- Additional Crew
He, along with the other members of the "Compass Players" including Elaine May, Paul Sills, Byrne Piven, Joyce Hiller Piven and Edward Asner helped start the famed "Second City Improv" company. They used the games taught to them by fellow cast mate, Paul Sills 's mother, Viola Spolin. He later worked in legitimate theater as an actor before entering into a very successful comedy duo with Elaine May. The two were known as "the world's fastest humans".- Calvert DeForest was born on 23 July 1921 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Freaked (1993), Mr. Write (1994) and Shortcut to Happiness (2003). He died on 19 March 2007 in West Islip, Long Island, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Majek Fashek was born in March 1963 in Benin, Edo State, Nigeria. He was an actor and composer, known for Fool's Gold (2008), The Grave Dust (2015) and Mark of the Beast (1999). He was married to Rita . He died on 1 June 2020 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Producer
Annabella Sciorra was born on 29 March 1960 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Annabella is an actor and producer, known for The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and Jungle Fever (1991). Annabella was previously married to Joe Petruzzi.- Jaye was born in Riverside, California in 1968, the son of a Ghanaian father and English mother. The family left for England when Jaye was two and a half. Jaye left school at 16 and had been alternately unemployed and doing odd jobs (running for a production company, working in a factory) ever since. Jaye had no real acting experience when discovered by a casting associate at a wrap party for Derek Jarman's Edward II (1991). He was working as a fashion designer at that time and took the role for the money. He was cast to play Dil in The Crying Game (1992), which became a sleeper hit that shocked audiences worldwide and, in 1992, was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Jaye. His overnight stardom earned him his next big role as the sun god Ra opposite James Spader and Kurt Russell in the blockbuster Stargate (1994). Since his brush with movie fame, Jaye has spent his time doing big-name fashion shoots: Steven Meisel for Italian Vogue, Michael Roberts for Joseph, and a GAP ad by Annie Leibovitz. He accompanied Kate Moss to the British Fashion Awards, and in Paris at Valentino's jet-set party in honor of Sharon Stone, he accompanied Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Amy Locane has been a SAG member since 1983. A native of New Jersey, she started her career in New York, doing over 50 commercials. She also did print work for editorials in WWD, and was a fit model for Calvin Klein. Her first TV series, Spencer starred Chad Lowe, Mi Mi Kennedy, and Grant Heslov. At the age of 17, Amy was cast opposite Johnny Depp in the cult Classic hit, Cry Baby. The film was directed by John Waters and starred Ricki Lake, Traci Lords, Patricia Hearst, and Iggy Pop. Amy then starred in School Ties, Blue Sky, and Prefontaine, opposite Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Chris O' Donnell, Jared Leto, Jessica Lange and Tommy Lee Jones.
Despite a promising start, when Amy was mis-cast in the series Melrose Place, with a decade older cast, her career struggled.
Amy currently lives in NJ, an hour from NYC, with her 2 daughters. Ms. Locane is currently finding fulfillment working in short films, with projects she finds interesting and characters she finds compelling.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
David Brenner was born on 4 February 1936 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Worth Winning (1989), Theory of a Deadman: Not Meant to Be (2009) and Modern Family (2009). He was married to Ruth Davey, Elizabeth Slater and Geraldine (Geri) Judith Leno. He died on 15 March 2014 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Elizabeth Slater is known for A Life That Matters (2007) and Germaine: Requiem of a Soul (2010). She was previously married to David Brenner.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She was the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a salesman and her mother as a secretary. They divorced when she was five and she rarely saw her father after that.
As a school girl, she originally wanted to be a dancer, but later switched gears to head into acting. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, after attending She was educated at Highland Manor, a private boarding school in Tarrytown, New York (through the generosity of wealthy uncles), and then at Julia Richman High School, which enabled her to get her feet wet in some off-Broadway productions.
Out of school, she entered modeling and, because of her beauty, appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, one of the most popular magazines in the US. The wife of famed director Howard Hawks spotted the picture in the publication and arranged with her husband to have Lauren take a screen test. As a result, which was entirely positive, she was given the part of Marie Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944), a thriller opposite Humphrey Bogart, when she was just 19 years old. This not only set the tone for a fabulous career but also one of Hollywood's greatest love stories (she married Bogart in 1945). It was also the first of several Bogie-Bacall films.
After 1945's Confidential Agent (1945), Lauren received second billing in The Big Sleep (1946) with Bogart. The mystery, in the role of Vivian Sternwood Rutledge, was a resounding success. Although she was making one film a year, each production would be eagerly awaited by the public. In 1947, again with her husband, Lauren starred in the thriller Dark Passage (1947). The film kept movie patrons on the edge of their seats. The following year, she starred with Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore in Key Largo (1948). The crime drama was even more of a nail biter than her previous film.
In 1950, Lauren starred in Bright Leaf (1950), a drama set in 1894. It was a film of note because she appeared without her husband - her co-star was Gary Cooper. In 1953, Lauren appeared in her first comedy as Schatze Page in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). The film, with co-stars Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, was a smash hit all across the theaters of America.
After filming Designing Woman (1957), which was released in 1957, Humphrey Bogart died on January 14 from throat cancer. Devastated at being a widow, Lauren returned to the silver screen with The Gift of Love (1958) in 1958 opposite Robert Stack. The production turned out to be a big disappointment. Undaunted, Lauren moved back to New York City and appeared in several Broadway plays to huge critical acclaim. She was enjoying acting before live audiences and the audiences in turn enjoyed her fine performances.
Lauren was away from the big screen for five years, but she returned in 1964 to appear in Shock Treatment (1964) and Sex and the Single Girl (1964). The latter film was a comedy starring Henry Fonda and Tony Curtis. In 1966, Lauren starred in Harper (1966) with Paul Newman and Julie Harris, which was one of former's signature films.
Alternating her time between films and the stage, Lauren returned in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express (1974). The film, based on Agatha Christie's best-selling book was a huge hit. It also garnered Ingrid Bergman her third Oscar. Actually, the huge star-studded cast helped to ensure its success. Two years later, in 1976, Lauren co-starred with John Wayne in The Shootist (1976). The film was Wayne's last - he died from cancer in 1979. In late 1979, Lauren appeared with her good friend, James Garner, in a double episode, Lions, Tigers, Monkeys and Dogs (1979), of his Rockford Files series.
For Lauren's next film role, she appeared in a large ensemble film, HealtH (1980), which again paired her with James Garner, and in 1981, she played an actress being stalked by a crazed admirer in The Fan (1981). The thriller was absolutely fascinating with Lauren in the lead role, again playing opposite her good friend James Garner, making three straight screen roles with Lauren opposite James Garner. After that production, Lauren was away from films again, this time for seven years. In the interim, she again appeared on the stages of Broadway. When she returned, it was for the filming of 1988's Appointment with Death (1988) and Mr. North (1988). After 1990's Misery (1990) and several made for television films, Lauren appeared in 1996's My Fellow Americans (1996), a comedy romp with Jack Lemmon and James Garner as two ex-presidents and their escapades. In 1997, Lauren appeared in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), in one of the best roles of her later career, opposite Barbra Streisand, where Lauren was nominated as Best Actress in a Supporting Role by both the Academy and the Golden Globes, winning the Golden Globe for the role.
Despite her age and failing health, she made a small-scale comeback in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004) ("Howl's Moving Castle," based on the young-adult novel by Diana Wynne Jones) as the Witch of the Waste, and several other roles through 2008, but thereafter acting endeavors for the beloved actress became increasingly rare. Lauren Bacall died on 12 August 2014, five weeks short of her 90th birthday.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
American actor and producer Harvey Keitel was born on May 13, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York City, to Miriam (Klein) and Harry Keitel. An Oscar and Golden Globe Award nominee, he has appeared in films such as Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973) and Taxi Driver (1976), Ridley Scott's The Duellists (1977) and Thelma & Louise (1991), Peter Yates' Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976), Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), Jane Campion's The Piano (1993), Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant (1992), Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), James Mangold's Cop Land (1997), Paolo Sorrentino's Youth (2015). He is regarded as one of the greatest method actors ever. Along with actors Al Pacino and Ellen Burstyn, he is the current co-president of the Actors Studio.
Keitel studied under both Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg and at the HB Studio, eventually landing roles in some Off-Broadway productions. During this time, Keitel auditioned for filmmaker Martin Scorsese and gained a starring role as "J.R.", in Scorsese's first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967). Since then, Scorsese and Keitel have worked together on several projects. Keitel had the starring role in Scorsese's Mean Streets (1973), which also proved to be Robert De Niro's breakthrough film. Keitel re-teamed with Scorsese for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), in which he had a villainous supporting role, and appeared with Robert De Niro again in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), playing the role of Jodie Foster's pimp.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Harvey Weinstein was born on March 19, 1952, in Flushing, Queens, New York City, New York, USA, the first of two boys born to Max and Miriam Weinstein. He is a film producer, known for Pulp Fiction (1994), Shakespeare in Love (1998), and Gangs of New York (2002). He has been married and divorced twice; most recently from Georgina Chapman and previously from Eve Chilton.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Tommy Lee Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school for boys in Dallas, on a scholarship, and went to Harvard on another scholarship. He roomed with future Vice President Al Gore and played offensive guard in the famous 29-29 Harvard-Yale football game of '68 known as "The Tie." He received a B.A. in English literature and graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1969.
Following college, he moved to New York and began his theatrical career on Broadway in "A Patriot for Me" (1969). In 1970, he made his film debut in Love Story (1970). While living in New York, he continued to appear in various plays, both on- and off-Broadway: "Fortune and Men's Eyes" (1969); "Four on a Garden" (1971); "Blue Boys" (1972); "Ulysses in Nighttown" (1974). During this time, he also appeared on a daytime soap opera, One Life to Live (1968) as Dr. Mark Toland from 1971-75. He moved with wife Kate Lardner, granddaughter of short-story writer/columnist Ring Lardner, and her two children from a previous marriage, to Los Angeles.
There he began to get some roles on television: Charlie's Angels (1976) (pilot episode); Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976); and The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977). While working on the movie Back Roads (1981), he met and fell in love with Kimberlea Cloughley, whom he later married. More roles in television--both on network and cable--stage and film garnered him a reputation as a strong, explosive, thoughtful actor who could handle supporting as well as leading roles. He made his directorial debut in The Good Old Boys (1995) on TNT. In addition to directing and starring in the film, he co-wrote the teleplay (with J.T. Allen). The film, based on Elmer Kelton's novel, is set in west Texas where Jones has strong family ties. Consequently, this story of a cowboy facing the end of an era has special meaning for him.- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Television would never be the same after David Letterman made his second attempt at a show in 1982. But his career before becoming host of the show was quite an interesting and long one.
Letterman was born in Broad Ripple, a neighborhood in Indianapolis, to Dorothy Marie (Hofert), a church secretary, and Harry Joseph Letterman, a florist. He is of German, English, and Scots-Irish descent. His childhood was relatively unremarkable, but he exhibited tendencies of the class clown and showed a very strong independent streak as a child. Letterman went on to graduate from Ball State University in the late 1960s and married Michelle Cook in 1969. From 1970 to 1974, he worked as a weatherman and TV announcer and from 1974 to 1975 as a radio talk show host.
As the late 1970s approached, Letterman was working as a struggling stand-up comic at The Comedy Store and started writing for television shows. He wrote for the summer series "The Peeping Times" and for such shows as Good Times (1974). Letterman had become something of a minor celebrity by 1978, by which time he had appeared on The Gong Show (1976), Mary Tyler Moore's variety series, Mary (1978), Liar's Club (1976), The $10,000 Pyramid (1973), Password Plus (1979) and the variety series, The Starland Vocal Band Show (1977). (It was also revealed on the Game Show Network that Letterman hosted a pilot of a game show in the seventies called The Riddlers (1977), but it was not made into a series.)
This exposure prompted many appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962). He became so popular that he was permanent substitute host by the end of the 1970s. NBC saw great potential in the young irreverent comedian, so they gave Letterman his own daytime talk show, The David Letterman Show (1980), which was a disaster and aired for only a few months. At about this time, Tom Snyder was having problems with his late-night show, Tomorrow Coast to Coast (1973), which aired after the "Tonight Show." His problems were mostly with his co-host, Rona Barrett, and Snyder was forced off air in late 1981. Letterman, who was still permanent co-host of the "Tonight Show," took over the post-Carson slot with [error].
Letterman's show was extremely unconventional. For starters, Letterman was very political, whereas Johnny Carson had steered away from political jokes. Letterman's early antics changed talk shows. He would often stage elevator races in Radio City Music Hall. He made random calls to strangers and talked about the strangest subjects. At one point, Letterman got his associate Larry "Bud" Melman to stand outside the Russian Embassy and hand out pamphlets encouraging defection. He often made his guests feel uncomfortable with his intelligent and abrasive style, and guests often participated in funny and unusual skits with him. Letterman became almost an instant success, and some say he surpassed Carson in popularity.
As the late 1980s approached, Letterman was becoming more and more of a household name, often at odds with the censors over his show, and never one to kowtow to guests' wishes. But that only made him more popular, and he garnered more and more status as a world class talk show host. Among the more classic moments in his early show was the time he covered his suit with Alka Seltzer and jumped in a vat of water. Letterman helped Andy Kaufman with his wrestling saga, as Kaufman and Jerry Lawler pretended to get in a fight on "Late Night." Letterman also became known for his on-screen reclusiveness with respect to other shows. While Carson at one point in his career would often make cameos and guest appearances, Letterman would shy away from cameos and stuck almost solely to doing his "Late Night" show.
In 1992 Johnny Carson made a landmark announcement: he was retiring. Many thought that Letterman would be the natural choice as Carson's replacement, but many at NBC were leaning toward current "Tonight Show" substitute host Jay Leno. The battle was very public and very vicious, but in the end Leno won out, and Letterman continued hosting the post-"Tonight Show" slot. But, in 1993, Letterman made his own big announcement: he was leaving NBC for a lucrative contract with CBS to star in the Late Show with David Letterman (1993). The battle intensified even more. NBC claimed that many of Letterman's gimmicks and jokes, including throwing the pencil at the camera, the Top Ten List, and Larry "Bud" Melman, among many others, were NBC's "intellectual property." NBC lost, but Larry "Bud" Melman would now be called by his real name, Calvert DeForest, on the CBS show. Competing in the late night wars with not only Leno but also Chevy Chase, Arsenio Hall and Ted Koppel, Letterman consistently won over all of his competition until the summer of 1995, when Leno had guest Hugh Grant on his show to discuss his highly publicized arrest for being caught with prostitute Divine Brown and Grant cried on screen. The ratings were tremendous, and Leno has consistently beaten Letterman ever since.
In recent years, Letterman has toned down his act. He dresses more conservatively and tends to go the more traditional route of talk shows. It can be said that every talk show since, including Craig Kilborn and especially 'Conan O'Brien', has been influenced a great deal by Letterman's unconventional, irreverent, off-the-wall style. It was thought that Letterman was going to retire in the mid-'90s, but an impressive 14 million-per-year deal has kept Letterman with CBS. Near-tragedy struck, however, in January of 2000 when Letterman was diagnosed with coronary arterial blockage and underwent quintuple bypass surgery. The operation was successful, however, and Letterman received countless get-well cards and a great deal of publicity. Among David's better-known incidents in recent years have been Drew Barrymore's infamous table dance, an interview with a bizarre and ditzy Farrah Fawcett, his appearance in the movie, Cabin Boy (1994) (written by and starring his former "Late Night" writer and performer Chris Elliott), his stint as host of The 67th Annual Academy Awards (1995), and his appearance in the Andy Kaufman biopic, Man on the Moon (1999). When Politically Incorrect (1993) was canceled in 2002, Letterman was sought after to leave CBS for ABC, but he declined to do so and stayed with CBS, where he remained until his retirement in May 2015.
Aside from being a talk show host, Letterman is an active producer. His production company is called Worldwide Pants. Over the years he has been executive producer of his original show, his new show, Everybody Loves Raymond (1996), The Building (1993), Bonnie (1995), The High Life (1996), The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn (1999), and Ed (2000).- Production Designer
- Art Department
- Art Director
Ken Adam was a British movie production designer, best known for his set designs for the James Bond films of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).
His first major screen credit was as production designer on the British thriller Spin a Dark Web (1956). In 1961 he was hired for the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962).
Adam did not work in the second James Bond film, From Russia with Love (1963) because he was working in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). This enabled him to make his name with his innovative, semi-futuristic sets for further James Bond films, such as Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and his last Bond film was Moonraker (1979).
Adam returned to work with Kubrick on Barry Lyndon (1975), for which he won an Oscar. He also worked in The Ipcress File (1965) and its sequel Funeral in Berlin (1966), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Sleuth (1972), and The Madness of King George (1994), for which he won his second Oscar for Best Art Direction.
In 2003, Adam was knighted for services to the film industry and Anglo-German relations.
He died on 10 March 2016 at his home in London at the age of 95.- Actor
- Music Department
- Additional Crew
Joe Alaskey, among the most talented voice actors in the business, impeccably recreated many of the original characters which the late cartoon pioneer Mel Blanc invented. A natural mimic and gifted actor, his amazing "ear" for voices enabled him to imitate almost anything, including some of the most obscure show business personalities. Alaskey was one of the most employed voice actors in the business during his career.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Timothy Allen Dick was born on June 13, 1953, in Denver, Colorado, to Martha Katherine (Fox) and Gerald M. Dick. His father, a real estate salesman, was killed in a collision with a drunk driver while driving his family home from a University of Colorado football game, when Tim was eleven years old. His mother, a community service worker, remarried her high school sweetheart, an Episcopalian deacon, two years after Tim's father's death. He was raised with his many siblings and step-siblings. When Tim was young, his family moved to Birmingham, Michigan.
In high school, his favorite subject was shop, of course, and after high school, he attended Western Michigan University and graduated with a degree in Television Production in 1975. In 1978, he was arrested on drug charges and spent two years in jail. Upon his release, he had a new outlook on life and on a dare from a friend, started his comedy career at the Comedy Castle in Detroit. Later, he went on to do several cable specials, including, Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen (1988) and Tim Allen: Men Are Pigs (1990). In 1991, he became the star of his own hit television series on ABC called Home Improvement (1991). While continuing to film his television series throughout most of the 1990s, he starred in a string of blockbuster movies, including The Santa Clause (1994), Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Galaxy Quest (1999). In August 1996, he developed and unveiled his own signature line of power tools, manufactured by Ryobi. On top of all that, he has his own racing team, Tim Allen/Saleen RRRRacing. In May 1999, he ended his series Home Improvement (1991) after eight seasons and in 2001, he filmed such movies as Big Trouble (2002) and Joe Somebody (2001).- Writer
- Director
- Editor
Together with Fellini, Bergman and Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni is credited with defining the modern art film. And yet Antonioni's cinema is also recognized today for defying any easy categorization, with his films ultimately seeming to belong to their own distinctive genre. Indeed, the difficulty of precisely describing their category is itself the very quintessence of Antonioni's films. Among the most-cited contributions of Antonioni's cinema are their striking descriptions of that unique strain of post-boom ennui everywhere apparent in the transformed life and leisure habits of the Italian middle and upper classes. Detecting profound technological, political and psychological shifts at work in post-WWII Italy, Antonioni set out to explore the ambiguities of a suddenly alienated and dislocated Italy, not simply through his oblique style of narrative and characters, nor through any overt political messaging, but instead by tearing asunder the traditional boundaries of cinematic narrative in order to explore an ever shifting internal landscape expressed through architecture, urban space and the sculptural, shaping presence of objects, shapes and emotions invented by camera movement and depth of focus.
Antonioni deftly manipulates the quieter, indirect edges of cinematic structure, often so discretely that his existential puzzles are felt before they can be intellectualized. The negative space is as prominent as the positive, silence as loud as noise, absence as palpable as presence, and passivity as driving a force as direct action. Transgressing unspoken cinematic laws, Antonioni frequently focuses on female protagonists while refusing to sentimentalize or morally judge his characters and placing them on equal footing with the other elements within his total dynamic system, like sounds or set pieces. And he violates spoken rules with unconventional cutting techniques, fractured spatial and temporal continuity, and a camera that insistently lingers in melancholy pauses, long after the actors depart, as if drifting just behind an equally distracted, dissipating narrative. Leaving questions unanswered and plot points irresolute, dispensing with exposition, suspense, sentimentality and other cinematic security blankets, Antonioni releases the viewer into a gorgeous, densely layered fog to contemplate and wrestle with his characters' imprecise quandaries and endless possibilities. Culminating in tour de force endings that often reframe the narrative in a daring, parting act of deconstruction, Antonioni's rigorously formal, yet open compositions allow his great, unwieldy questions to spill over into the world outside the cinema and outside of time.
Born into a middle-class family in the northern Italian town of Ferrara, Antonioni studied economics at the University of Bologna where he also co-founded the university's theatrical troupe. While dedicating himself to painting, writing film reviews, working in financial positions and in different capacities on film productions, Antonioni suffered a few false starts before expressing his unique directorial vision and voice in his first realized short film, Gente del Po, a moving portrait of fisherman in the misty Po Valley where he was raised. Uncomfortable with the neo-realist thrust of Italian cinema, Antonioni directed a series of eccentric and oblique documentary shorts that, in retrospect, reveal his desire to investigate the psyche's mysterious interiors. In his first fictional feature, Story of a Love Affair, Antonioni immediately subtly challenged traditional plot and audience expectation in ways that anticipate the formal and emotional expressionist dynamic that would fully flower within the groundbreaking L'Avventura (1960).
Reversing its raucous 1960 premiere to an infuriated Cannes audience, L'Avventura was rapturously lauded by fellow artists and filmmakers and awarded a special Jury Prize "for its remarkable contribution toward the search for a new cinematic language." It also presented the controlled ambivalence of Monica Vitti, who would become his partner, muse and psychological constant throughout his famed trilogy of L'Avventura, La Notte (1961) and L'Eclisse (1962) in addition to the exquisite Red Desert (1964), a film that marked another significant shift toward expressive color, male leads and working with soft focus and faster cuts. After the phenomenal commercial success of the MGM-produced Blow-Up (1966), Antonioni was devastated by the anti-climactic box office disaster of Zabriskie Point (1970) and returned to documentary. Invited to make Chung Kuo China by the Chinese government, Antonioni delivered a mesmerizing yet unsentimental four-hour tour of China which was vehemently rejected by its solicitors. A few years later, Antonioni returned to fictional form in his last masterpiece, The Passenger (1975), an enigmatic fable of vaporous identity that offers a bold companion piece to L'Avventura. Aside from the thematically retrospective Identification of a Woman (1982) and a period film made for television, The Mystery of Oberwald (1980) in which he conducted unusual experiments with color and video, Antonioni closed out his career with mostly short films, many of which were made after he suffered a stroke in 1985.
Tremendously influential yet largely taken for granted, Antonioni made difficult, abstract cinema mainstream. Embracing an anarchic geometry, Antonioni turned the architecture of narrative filmmaking inside-out in the most eloquent way possible, with many of his iconic scenes eternally preserved in the depths of the cinema's psyche. Observing modern maladies without judgment - sexism, dissolution of family and tradition, ecological/technological quandaries and the eternal questions of our place in the cosmos - Antonioni's prescience continues to resonate deeply as we find our way in the quickly moving fog.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Award-winning filmmaker Roger Avary first began experimenting in Beta I video and 8mm film formats during the late 1970s. In 1983, his Super-8mm supernatural thriller The Worm Turns won Best Film from the Los Angeles Film Teachers Association Film Expo. He went on to attend the Pasadena Art Center College of Design's film program. Avary then worked in advertising at DMB&B and J. Walter Thompson.
In 1994, Avary was awarded an Academy Award for his work as a writer with Quentin Tarantino on their screenplay for Pulp Fiction. The screenplay for Pulp Fiction earned Avary and Tarantino additional accolades, including a BAFTA, the Boston Society of Film Critics Award, the Chicago Society of Film Critics Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, the New York Film Critics Circle Award, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay.
Also in 1994, Avary wrote and directed the French neonoir crime thriller Killing Zoe, which Roger Ebert hailed as 'Generation X's first Bank Caper Movie.' Killing Zoe is notable as the first feature film to utilize swing and tilt bellows lenses in its production. The film was honored with le Prix tres special a Cannes, the same year that Pulp Fiction took home the Palm d'Or. Killing Zoe continued to win awards worldwide on the festival circuit, including Best Film at Japan's Yubari International Film Festival and the Italian Mystfest. The film was also celebrated by the Cinemathique Francaise, who heralded Avary as the Antonin Artaud of cinema during their Cinema of Cruelty retrospective.
In 2002, Avary wrote and directed the filmed adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel The Rules of Attraction, which he also executive-produced. The Rules of Attraction is notable as the first studio motion picture to prove reliable use of Apple's Final Cut Pro editing system. Roger Avary became an Apple spokesperson for Final Cut Pro 3, appearing in print and web ads worldwide. His film within the film, Glitterati (2004), used elements of Victor's European trip and was shot entirely on digital video with a crew of two (Avary and producer Greg Shapiro). In 2005, he purchased the rights to another Bret Easton Ellis novel, Glamorama, which is in development at Avary's company for him to direct.
In 2006, he penned the movie adaptation of the hit Konami video game Silent Hill for French director Christophe Gans. Silent Hill debuted as #1 at the U.S. box office and has been embraced by video game fans as one of the first game-to-film adaptations that is true to the imagery and spirit of its source material.
In 2007, novelist Neil Gaiman & Roger Avary wrote and produced an adaptation of Beowulf with director Robert Zemeckis for Paramount Pictures. Utilizing a complex process of digitally enhanced live action, the film tells the oldest English language story through the use of the most modern technology available.
In 2017 Avary directed a French language filmed adaptation of Jean Cocteau's one-woman play, La voix humaine, starring actress Elsa Zylberstein.
Also in 2017 Avary wrote and directed the comedic thriller, Lucky Day, for producer Don Carmody, and starring Luke Bracey, Nina Dobrev, Crispin Glover, David Hewlett, and Tomer Sisley.
Roger Avary divides his time between Los Angeles, Paris, and Toronto. He is represented by his attorney, Craig Emanuel of Paul Hastings LLP Los Angeles.- Make-Up Department
- Special Effects
- Actor
Rick Baker was born on 8 December 1950 in Binghamton, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Planet of the Apes (2001), Men in Black (1997) and The Wolfman (2010). He has been married to Silvia Abascal since 8 November 1987. They have two children. He was previously married to Elaine Alexander.- Actress
- Producer
Offbeat, unconventionally pretty, and utterly mesmerizing, Ellen Barkin was born on April 16, 1954 in the Bronx, New York, to Evelyn (Rozin), a hospital administrator, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman. Her parents were both from Russian Jewish families. Raised in the South Bronx and Queens, New York area, she wanted to be an actress as early as her teens and was eventually accepted into Manhattan's High School of the Performing Arts.
Barkin then attended Hunter College and received her degree after double majoring in history and drama. At one point she wanted to teach ancient history, but instead turned her thoughts back to her first love: acting. Barkin then continued her education at New York's Actor's Studio. Fearful of the auditioning process, she studied acting for seven years before finally landing her first audition. While continuing her studies, she worked as a waitress at the avant-garde Ocean Club. Performing off-Broadway in such plays "Shout Across the River" (1979), "Extremities" (1983), "Fool for Love" (1984) and "Eden Court" (1985), she was applauded across the board for her first film lead in Diner (1982) opposite Mickey Rourke and Daniel Stern, and pursued sexy tough-cookie status thereafter with such quirky roles in The Big Easy (1986) starring Dennis Quaid and Siesta (1987) with Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, whom she married in 1987 and separated from in 1993 after producing a son and daughter. She and Byrne divorced in 1999.
With trademark squinting eyes and slightly off-kilter facial features, Barkin continued the fascination of her seamy/steamy girl-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks status most notably opposite Al Pacino in the thriller Sea of Love (1989). In addition, she was well cast as Robert De Niro's abused wife in This Boy's Life (1993), and portrayed "Calamity Jane" in Wild Bill (1995) with earnest. Other impressionable offbeat projects included roles in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) and Mercy (2000). On TV, she was well-cast in the mini-movie Blood Money (1988) and won an Emmy award for her gripping performance in Before Women Had Wings (1997) opposite Oprah Winfrey as another abused wife who, in this case, turns her violent anger on her own daughters.
In 2000, Barkin married billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, eleven years her senior and chairman of the Revlon company, and put her career relatively on hold, appearing sporadically in edgy films like She Hate Me (2004) and Palindromes (2004). Barkin and Perelman went through an acrimonious divorce in 2006.
Just prior to her divorce in late 2005, Barkin ventured into independent film production with Applehead Pictures, a company she set up with her brother George Barkin, who is a scriptwriter and former editor-in-chief of National Lampoon and High Times, and former Independent Film Channel executive Caroline Kaplan. In her first major acting appearance since her divorce from Perelman, Barkin co-starred in Ocean's Thirteen (2007) with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and former co-star Pacino. She followed up Ocean's with a supporting role in Antoine Fuqua's Brooklyn's Finest (2009), Happy Tears (2009) with Parker Posey and Demi Moore, and Twelve (2010).
Barkin has produced features over time, including Letters to Juliet (2010) and Another Happy Day (2011) (she also starred in the latter project). On the small screen, she appeared in an episode of Modern Family (2009) and her new NBC show, The New Normal (2012), got a sneak peek during the Olympics.
More recent sightings have included the films The Chameleon (2010), Very Good Girls (2013), The Cobbler (2014), Hands of Stone (2016) and Active Adults (2017). She has had regular roles on the TV series The New Normal (2012) and Animal Kingdom (2016).- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Captivating, gifted, and sensational, Angela Bassett's presence has been felt in theaters and on stages and television screens throughout the world. Angela Evelyn Bassett was born on August 16, 1958 in New York City, to Betty Jane (Gilbert), a social worker, and Daniel Benjamin Bassett, a preacher's son. Bassett and her sister D'nette grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida with their mother. As a single mother, Betty stressed the importance of education for her children. With the assistance of an academic scholarship, Bassett matriculated into Yale University. In 1980, she received her B.A. in African-American studies from Yale University. In 1983, she earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the Yale School of Drama. It was at Yale that Bassett met her husband, Courtney B. Vance, a 1986 graduate of the Drama School.
Bassett first appeared in small roles on The Cosby Show (1984) and Spenser: For Hire (1985), but it was not until 1990 that a spate of television roles brought her notice. Her breakthrough role, though, was playing Tina Turner, whom she had never seen perform before taking the role, in What's Love Got to Do with It (1993). Bassett's performance earned her an Academy Award nomination and a Golded Globe Award for Best Actress.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Editorial Department
Hinton Battle was born on 29 November 1956 in Neubrücke, Germany. He was an actor, known for Dreamgirls (2006), Quantum Leap (1989) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997). He died on 30 January 2024 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Sound Department
Bob Beemer was born on 8 February 1955 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is known for Dreamgirls (2006), Speed (1994) and Gladiator (2000).- Producer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Actor
Lawrence Bender is a movie producer working in the entertainment industry for 20 years. He helped produce Hollywood films like Reservoir Dogs (1992), Good Will Hunting (1997), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django (2012). Lawrence won 6 Academy Awards with 29 nominations including 3 Best Picture films. An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary he produced that raised awareness of climate change and won him an Academy Award for Best Documentary. Lawrence Bender was born in The Bronx, New York City, as Lawrence Kirk Bender. His mother was a kindergarten teacher. Lawrence's father was a college history professor. In high school, he was inspired to follow his grandfather's career as a civil engineer. At the University of Maine in 1979, he graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering. After he graduated, he became a dancer for several years which ended after an injury. Lawrence is a political and environmental activist as the co-founder of the Detroit Project. In 2003 he worked with environmentalists in targeting gas-guzzling SUVs. As the Dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, he sits on the Advisory Board. Lawrence has used his influence to support philanthropic initiatives working with Yahoo, the Muppets, the EPA, and Wal-Mart. He is a Director for CleanSource Power, LLC and a board member of The Creative Coalition Inc.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Annette Bening was born on May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children. Her family moved to California when she was young, and she grew up there. She graduated from San Francisco State University and began her acting career with the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, eventually moving to New York where she acted on the stage (including a Tony-award nomination in 1987 for her work in the Broadway play "Coastal Disturbances") and got her first film roles, in a few TV movies.
As is so often the case, her first big-screen role was in a forgettable movie, this one The Great Outdoors (1988), in which she had little screen time. However, her next work onscreen was in Milos Forman's Valmont (1989), a film adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' "Les Liaisons Dangereuses". Unfortunately, de Laclos' story had also just served as the source of a more Hollywoodized and successful movie version, Dangerous Liaisons (1988), which had been released the previous year, and Foreman's treatment went little noticed. Bening's career turned an important corner the following year when she co-starred with Anjelica Huston and John Cusack in Stephen Frears's powerful, entertaining screen adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel The Grifters (1990), and her artful turn as a con artist gained her the first of several Academy award nominations. On the strength of this performance Warren Beatty cast Bening as Virginia Hill, Bugsy Siegel's fiery actress moll, in his Bugsy (1991), the story of Siegel's founding of Las Vegas. Although the movie itself did not fare well, it resulted in a relationship with Beatty which led to Bening's pregnancy and then her marriage to Beatty in 1992 - it was the second marriage for Bening, who had been separated from her first husband since 1986 but did not finalize her divorce until 1991. The couple then collaborated on the extravagant flop Love Affair (1994), though the next year her career rebounded with her turn as Queen Elizabeth in the highly-regarded 1995 production of Richard III (1995). Notable performances have since included an obsessive, pushy real estate agent in American Beauty (1999), and as the eponymous character in István Szabó's screen adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel Being Julia (2004) - both were duly noted by the Academy, with Oscar nominations.
Bening has great poise and screen presence and, at her best, can turn in a very strong performance. Although her resume often features long stretches of mediocre productions before the next good part turns up, when it does, it proves worth the wait. Bening has four children with Beatty.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Peter Capaldi was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to Nancy (Soutar) and Gerald John Capaldi. His parents owned an ice cream business. He is of Italian (from his paternal grandfather), Scottish, and Irish descent. Capaldi attended drama classes and was accepted into the Glasgow School of Art. After graduating he secured his breakthrough role in Local Hero (1983). Prior to becoming an actor he also worked as a graphic designer for BBC Scotland TV.
Peter was announced as the Twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who (2005) on 4th August 2013 on a BBC special programme. He had to hide it from his daughter who remarked to him why it is his name never came up during the buzz. It was a huge relief not to have to keep the secret anymore. His agent called and said "Hello Doctor" when informing him he had gotten the part.- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Costume Designer
- Actor
Tim Chappel was born in 1967 in New South Wales, Australia. He is a costume designer and actor, known for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Miss Congeniality (2000) and The Dressmaker (2015).- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Timothy James Curry was born on April 19, 1946 in Grappenhall, Cheshire, England. His mother, Maura Patricia (Langmead), was a school secretary, and his father, James Curry, was a Methodist Royal Navy chaplain. Curry studied Drama and English at Birmingham University, from which he graduated with Combined Honors. His first professional success was in the London production of "Hair", followed by more work in the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Glasgow Citizens Repertory Company, and the Royal Court Theatre where he created the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in "The Rocky Horror Show". He recreated the role in the Los Angeles and Broadway productions and starred in the screen version entitled The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Curry continued his career on the New York and London stages with starring roles in "Travesties", "Amadeus", "The Pirates of Penzance", "The Rivals", "Love for Love", "Dalliance", "The Threepenny Opera", "The Art of Success" and "My Favorite Year". He also starred in the United States tour of "Me and My Girl". He has received two Tony Award nominations for best actor and won the Royal Variety Club Award as "Stage Actor of the Year".
A composer and a singer, Tim Curry toured the United States and Europe with his own band and released four albums on A&M Records. In addition to an active movie and television career, he is a sought-after actor for CD-ROM productions. His distinctive voice can be heard on more than a dozen audio books, and in countless animated television series and videos. He lives in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
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Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading Places (1983), Perfect (1985) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988). She starred in one of the biggest action films ever, True Lies (1994), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for her performance. Curtis also appeared on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), and starred in Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981) as the title role. Her first starring role was opposite Richard Lewis on the ABC situation comedy Anything But Love (1989). In 1998, she starred in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) in which she reprised her role that made her famous back in 1978.
Jamie Lee served as an honorary chairperson for the Building Resilience for Young Children Dealing with Trauma program held at the Shakespeare Theatre - Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C. She was an inspiration for the youth that were celebrated. Curtis was also given an award from US Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman for her work on behalf of children through her charities and children's books.- Sinéad Cusack was born on 18 February 1948 in Dalkey, Ireland. She is an actress, known for V for Vendetta (2005), Eastern Promises (2007) and Stealing Beauty (1996). She has been married to Jeremy Irons since 28 March 1978. They have two children.
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One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, to artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr. His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry is Irish, English, Dutch, German, and French. He was trained at the Stella Adler Conservatory and the American Workshop. De Niro first gained fame for his role in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), but he gained his reputation as a volatile actor in Mean Streets (1973), which was his first film with director Martin Scorsese. He received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Godfather Part II (1974) and received Academy Award nominations for best actor in Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Cape Fear (1991). He received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980).
De Niro has earned four Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in New York, New York (1977), opposite Liza Minnelli, Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). Other notable performances include Brazil (1985), The Untouchables (1987), Backdraft (1991), Frankenstein (1994), Heat (1995), Casino (1995) and Jackie Brown (1997). At the same time, he also directed and starred in such films as A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). De Niro has also received the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010.
As of 2022, De Niro is 79-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to work regularly in mostly film.- Actor
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Matt Dillon's successful film career has spanned over three decades and has showcased his wide range of dramatic and comedic talents. Dillon displayed his versatility with an arresting performance co-starring as a racist cop in the critically acclaimed Paul Haggis film Crash. This role earned him nominations for an Academy award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Critics Choice Award, BAFTA Award and won him an Independent Spirit Award. In addition, the film earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Critics Choice Award for Best Ensemble. As the New York Times' Film Critic A.O. Scott put it, "He seems to be getting better with every film."
He starred opposite Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson in Universal Pictures' comedy, You, Me and Dupree and in Factotum for which he received glowing reviews for portraying Charles Bukowski's alter ego when the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. From his breakthrough performance in The Outsiders to his hilarious turn as an obsessed private investigator in There's Something About Mary, he has proven himself to be one of the most diverse actors of his generation.
In 1990 Dillon won an IFP Spirit Award for his gritty performance as a drug addict in Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy. From there he went on to star in such films as Ted Demme's Beautiful Girls opposite Uma Thurman and Natalie Portman, Cameron Crowe's Singles, In & Out with Kevin Kline, Kevin Spacey's Albino Alligator, Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish, Garry Marshall's Flamingo Kid, Van Sant's To Die For with Nicole Kidman, and John McNaughton's Wild Things. He starred in Nothing But The Truth, opposite Kate Beckinsale and Vera Farmiga, Disney's Old Dogs, opposite John Travolta, Robin Williams and Kelly Preston, and the Screen Gems films Armored and Takers.
Aside from being an accomplished actor, Dillon wrote, and made his feature film directorial debut with City of Ghosts, in which he also starred with Gérard Depardieu, Stellan Skarsgård, and James Caan. Prior to City of Ghosts, Dillon made his television directorial debut in 1997 with an episode of HBO's gritty prison drama Oz.
Dillon's achievements continued with television appearances in an HBO adaptation of Irwin Shaw's Return To Kansas City and a part co-narrating the documentary Dear America: Letters From Home.
Dillon's multi-talents have also landed him on stage starring on Broadway in The Boys In Winter as well as the PBS/American Playhouse production of The Great American Fourth Of July And Other Disasters.
His recent film credits include the comedy Girl Most Likely opposite Annette Bening and Kristen Wiig; the drama Sunlight, Jr. opposite Naomi Watts, and the heist comedy The Art Of The Steal opposite Kurt Russell. Dillon most recently starred in M. Night Shyamalan's hit television event series Wayward Pines for FOX.- Actor
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Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.- Actress
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Sally Margaret Field was born November 6, 1946 in Pasadena, California, to actress Margaret Field (née Morlan) and salesman Richard Dryden Field. Her parents divorced in 1950 and her mother then married stuntman Jock Mahoney, and they had a daughter, Princess O'Mahoney. She also has a brother, Richard Field. Sally attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California.
Her acting career began in 1965, when she landed the role of Frances Elizabeth 'Gidget' Lawrence in Gidget (1965); it was canceled after only one season because of bad ratings. She went on to star in The Flying Nun (1967), which ran for three seasons. She also appeared in her first film in 1967, The Way West (1967) opposite Kirk Douglas. In the next few years she appeared in numerous TV movies and TV shows such as Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring (1971), Marriage: Year One (1971), The Girl with Something Extra (1973), and Sybil (1976). In 1977 she starred alongside then-boyfriend Burt Reynolds in the box office hit Smokey and the Bandit (1977), which led to a less successful sequel in 1980. In 1979 she starred in the popular film Norma Rae (1979) and she received her first Oscar for that role.
In the years that followed she starred in films such as Absence of Malice (1981), Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), Places in the Heart (1984) (she received her second Oscar for her role), Murphy's Romance (1985), Punchline (1988) and Steel Magnolias (1989). In 1993 she starred alongside Robin Williams and Pierce Brosnan in the popular comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). A year after, she played the role of Tom Hanks character's mother (even though she's only ten years older than he is in real life) in Forrest Gump (1994). The film was a huge commercial success and won six Academy awards.
Since then she has appeared in TV movies and miniseries such as A Woman of Independent Means (1995), Merry Christmas, George Bailey (1997), From the Earth to the Moon (1998) and David Copperfield (2000). In 2000 she appeared in the film Where the Heart Is (2000) with Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd, and in 2003 she starred alongside Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003). She also appeared in 12 episodes of ER (1994) from 2000 to 2006. From 2006 to 2011, she played the role of matriarch Nora Walker in the hit television show Brothers & Sisters (2006), which earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Getting back into film, she earned her third Oscar nomination for Lincoln (2012) and played Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and its blockbuster sequel.
Sally has been married twice, first to Steven Craig from 1968 to 1973. They had two sons together, Peter Craig and Eli Craig. Her second marriage was to film producer Alan Greisman from 1984 to 1994. They had one son together, Samuel Greisman. Between marriages, from 1976 to 1980, she was in a relationship with Burt Reynolds.- Writer
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David Fine was born on 13 September 1960 in Toronto, Canada. He is a writer and director, known for Animal Behaviour (2018), Bob's Birthday (1993) and George and Rosemary (1987). He is married to Alison Snowden.- Finerman was one of three producers who won the Academy Award for Best Picture for Forrest Gump in 1994 and a BAFTA Award for Fairy Tale in 1998. She has also produced such popular films as The Fan, Stepmom, Drumline, and The Devil Wears Prada. Finerman was formerly married to producer Mark Canton and now is married to David Peterson. The mother of four children, she is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and runs her own company, Wendy Finerman Productions.
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Born in New York City to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and Ontario-born New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, Jane Seymour Fonda was destined early to an uncommon and influential life in the limelight. Although she initially showed little inclination to follow her father's trade, she was prompted by Joshua Logan to appear with her father in the 1954 Omaha Community Theatre production of "The Country Girl". Her interest in acting grew after meeting Lee Strasberg in 1958 and joining the Actors Studio. Her screen debut in Tall Story (1960) (directed by Logan) marked the beginning of a highly successful and respected acting career highlighted by two Academy Awards for her performances in Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978), and five Oscar nominations for Best Actress in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Julia (1977), The China Syndrome (1979), The Morning After (1986) and On Golden Pond (1981), which was the only film she made with her father. Her professional success contrasted with her personal life, which was often laden with scandal and controversy. Her appearance in several risqué movies (including Barbarella (1968)) by then-husband Roger Vadim was followed by what was to become her most debated and controversial period: her espousal of anti-establishment causes and especially her anti-war activities during the Vietnam War. Her political involvement continued with fellow activist and husband Tom Hayden in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1980s she started the aerobic exercise craze with the publication of the "Jane Fonda's Workout Book". She and Hayden divorced, and she married broadcasting mogul Ted Turner in 1991.- Costume Designer
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Lizzy Gardiner was born in 1966 in Australia. She is a costume designer and writer, known for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), The Railway Man (2013) and Hacksaw Ridge (2016).- Actor
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Hugh Grant, one of Britain's best known faces, has been equally entertaining on-screen as well as in real life, and has had enough sense of humor to survive a media frenzy. He is known for his roles in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), with Andie MacDowell, Notting Hill (1999), opposite Julia Roberts, and Music and Lyrics (2007), opposite Drew Barrymore, among his other works.
He was born Hugh John Mungo Grant on September 9, 1960, in Hammersmith, London, United Kingdom. His mother, Fyvola Susan (MacLean), was a teacher. His father, James Murray Grant, was an artist and carpet salesman, and his grandfather was in the British Army during WWII. He is of mostly Scottish and English descent, with many recent ancestors who were prominent in the military. Young Grant was fond of literature and acting. He won a scholarship to Oxford, going up to New College in 1979. There he was involved in student drama, and considered a career as an art historian. After Oxford, he turned down a scholarship to do postgraduate studies in Art History at the Courtauld Institute in London, and focused on his acting career. In 1982, while still a student, Grant made his big screen debut in Privileged (1982) by director Michael Hoffman.
Grant's breakthrough came with the leading role as Charles in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), opposite Andie MacDowell, a role which won him a Golden Globe Award, as well as a BAFTA Film Award for Best Actor. During the 1990s Grant established himself as a very original and resourceful actor. He played a string of characters projecting a positive mindset, showing how do you stay optimistic when you are actually worried about a cascade of troubles. Grant had his own experience as a survivor of an unfortunate episode in his private life, which he managed to overcome thanks to having a pretty damn good outlook on life.
His forte is playing characters projecting warmth and sincere happiness, with his hallmark stuttering, albeit some accused him of reprising the same character he has been playing for the past two decades. Grant's ability to show his character development within a limited screen time shines in Love Actually (2003), with his witty portrayal of a Prime Minister whose personal insecurities become intertwined with his country's international affairs, a performance that earned him a nomination for European Audience Award. His screen presence and skillful understatement takes his characters beyond the written script, thanks to his mastery of timing and effortless style.
Outside of his acting profession, Grant has been a good athlete, he played cricket and football in his younger years. He enjoys playing golf, frequently taking part in Pro-Am tournaments. He has been an avid art lover since his younger years, and has been collecting fine art, a passion he inherited from his father.- Actor
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David Alan Grier was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Aretas Ruth (Dudley), a schoolteacher, and William Henry Grier, a psychiatrist and writer. He trained in Shakespeare at Yale University, where he received an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
Grier began his professional career on Broadway as Jackie Robinson in "The First", for which he earned a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and won the Theatre World Award (1981). He then joined the Broadway cast of "Dreamgirls", before going on to star opposite Denzel Washington in "A Soldier's Play", for which both actors reprised their roles in the film adaptation titled A Soldier's Story (1984). He appeared in Robert Altman's Streamers (1983) as "Roger", a role for which he won the Golden Lion for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival (1983).
His television work is highlighted by a turn as a principal cast member on the Emmy Award-winning In Living Color (1990) (1990-1994), where he helped to create some of the show's most memorable characters, "DAG" (2000-2001) and "Life with Bonnie" (2002-2004), for which he earned Image and Golden Satellite nominations. David also created, wrote and executive-produced a show for Comedy Central called Chocolate News (2008). Grier also won America's votes as a smooth, debonair, and outrageously irreverent contestant on ABC's smash hit, Dancing with the Stars (2005), in 2009. But Grier didn't hang up his dance shoes just then - he later appeared in the Wayans Brothers' spoof movie, Dance Flick (2009), which hit theaters in May 2009.
In Grier's first book, "Barack Like Me: The Chocolate Covered Truth" (Touchstone / Simon & Schuster; October 6, 2009), the acclaimed comedian expounds on politics, culture and race while recounting his own life story in this edgy, timely, timeless, and hilarious memoir and look at all things Barack Obama.
Grier returned to his theatrical roots 2009/2010; he starred in David Mamet's acclaimed play, "Race", opposite James Spader and Kerry Washington, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway for which he received a Tony Award nomination.
He has been named one of Comedy Central's "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time".- Producer
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Charles Guggenheim was born into a wealthy Cincinnati family (his father was a furniture manufacturer). While studying agriculture in college in 1943, Guggenheim was drafted into the army. Upon discharge from the service he decided against an agricultural career and moved to New York to pursue a career in broadcasting. He founded Charles Guggenheim and Associates, a film production company. He developed an interest in politics, and soon moved the company from New York to Washington, DC, where he became a media adviser to many Democratic political figures. After Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, Guggenheim put together a tribute to him culled from the thousands of feet of film he had shot of Kennedy over the years. The resulting film, Robert Kennedy Remembered (1968), won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. Although Guggenheim occasionally ventured into feature film production, he stayed mostly with documentaries, where he received his first Academy Award for 1964's Nine from Little Rock (1965), about the desegregation effort in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. He won two more Oscars for documentary filmmaking, in 1989 and 1994. His last documentary, Berga: Soldiers of Another War (2003), was about a group of 350 American soldiers captured by the Nazis during the Battle of the Bulge who, because they were either Jewish or the Nazis thought they "looked Jewish", were sent to concentration camps instead of POW camps (Guggenheim had been assigned to the unit that was captured, but a severe illness resulted in his being left behind when it was sent to the front lines so he was not with them when the men were captured). He finished the film just a few months before his death in October of 2002.- Producer
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In addition to helming the iconic feature hits An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Against All Odds (1984), Ray (2004), and the cult thriller The Devil's Advocate (1997), Taylor Hackford has directed the films Dolores Claiborne (1995), Everybody's All-American (1988), and Proof of Life (2000). Taylor developed and produced La Bamba (1987), the most successful Latin-themed feature film in history. Mr. Hackford has been an active member of the Directors Guild of America for over 40 years, including twice as elected President of the DGA, beginning in 2009.- Special Effects
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Allen Hall was born May 4, 1946 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of a commercial airline pilot. In the early 60s his family relocated to Burbank, California where he came in contact with the film industry living so close to all the major studios. As a result, his interest in films began at an early age. In high school Allen distinguished himself by becoming president of his junior class at Burbank High School.
Shortly before his senior year his family moved to Thousand Oaks, California, where he graduated from T.O. High School in 1964. After high school he returned to Utah, where he attended Brigham Young University, obtaining a degree in Zoology. Allen was gifted with natural artistic talent and took an avid interest in oil painting, sculpture, music and engineering.
His creative desires led him to the movie business. In 1973, he met Glen Robinson, one of the greatest special effects supervisors at the time, who after six months of pestering gave Allen his break taking him under his wing on the film "Hindenburg." This was a big motion picture that was accorded an Academy Award Nomination and Technical Achievement Award in 1975. A few years later Allen met Joe Lombardi, another special effects icon, whose specialty was pyrotechnics.
Lombardi took a liking to the young talented Hall, and hired him to work on the classic war film "Apocalypse Now," where he designed and fabricated the burned and charred bodies of soldiers on the battlefield of Vietnam. Hall, went on to work on a host of films among which are the following successful pictures; "Top Gun," "The Untouchables," "Dead Poets Society," "Backdraft," "Forrest Gump," "Road to Perdition," "Terminator III Rise of the Machines," and "Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest."
Hall's career has taken him to various international locations where he has spent over seven years of his career. He has worked for all the major studios and with highly recognized directors, Barry Levinson, Brian De Palma, Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis, Francis Ford Coppola, the late Robert Altman, Tony Scott, Sam Mendes, and Jonathan Mostow.
Hall, is a four time Academy Award Nominee and winner of two Oscars, the most recent in 2007, for his work on "Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man' Chest." His passion for the art of films continues and his career is still flourishing. He is a member of the Visual Effects Branch - Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as well as the Visual Effects Society. He has been a speaker to symposiums on film and to the educational community.- Producer
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Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has called a "fractured" family. He moved around a great deal after his parents' divorce, living with a succession of step-families. No problems, no alcoholism - just a confused childhood. He has no acting experience in college and credits the fact that he could not get cast in a college play with actually starting his career. He went downtown, and auditioned for a community theater play, was invited by the director of that play to go to Cleveland, and there his acting career started.
Ron Howard was working on Splash (1983), a fantasy-comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a business executive. Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, which eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role and the film went on to become a surprise box office success, grossing more than $69 million. After several flops and a moderate success with the comedy Dragnet (1987), Hanks' stature in the film industry rose. The broad success with the fantasy-comedy Big (1988) established him as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the film industry as an actor. For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor.
Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his "modern era of movie making ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top". This "modern era" began for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and then with Philadelphia (1993). The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves. Richard Schickel of Time magazine called his performance "charming", and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation.
In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost 35 pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated, "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." Hanks won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia. During his acceptance speech, he revealed that his high school drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth and former classmate John Gilkerson, two people with whom he was close, were gay.
Hanks followed Philadelphia with the blockbuster Forrest Gump (1994) which grossed a worldwide total of over $600 million at the box office. Hanks remarked: "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life ... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars.
Hanks' next role - astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the docudrama Apollo 13 (1995) - reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's computer-animated film Toy Story (1995), as the voice of Sheriff Woody. A year later, he made his directing debut with the musical comedy That Thing You Do! (1996) about the rise and fall of a 1960s pop group, also playing the role of a music producer.
As of 2022, Hanks is 66-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and has remained active in the film industry for more than four decades.- Actor
- Producer
Widely regarded as one of the greatest stage and screen actors both in his native UK and internationally, the unparalleled Nigel Hawthorne was born in Coventry, England on 5 April 1929, raised in South Africa and returned to the UK in the 1950s with his extensive work as a great gentleman of acting following during the decade as well as in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. His portrayal of 'Sir Humphrey Appleby' in the BBC comedy Yes Minister (1980) won him international acclaim in the 1980s. In 1992, he was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for his sublime interpretation of 'George III' in Alan Bennett's hit stage play, "The Madness of King George III" and he was also nominated for an Academy Award of Best Actor in a Leading Role in its brilliant film adaptation The Madness of King George (1994), both of them exquisitely directed by Nicholas Hytner.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
Arthur Hiller was born on 22 November 1923 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He was a director and producer, known for Love Story (1970), The Hospital (1971) and See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989). He was married to Gwen Hiller. He died on 17 August 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Composer
- Producer
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, he moved to London and joined the National Theatre, invited by Laurence Olivier, who could see the talent in Hopkins. In 1967, he made his first film for television, A Flea in Her Ear (1967).
From this moment on, he enjoyed a successful career in cinema and television. In 1968, he worked on The Lion in Winter (1968) with Timothy Dalton. Many successes came later, and Hopkins' remarkable acting style reached the four corners of the world. In 1977, he appeared in two major films: A Bridge Too Far (1977) with James Caan, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Elliott Gould and Laurence Olivier, and Maximilian Schell. In 1980, he worked on The Elephant Man (1980). Two good television literature adaptations followed: Othello (1981) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982). In 1987 he was awarded with the Commander of the order of the British Empire. This year was also important in his cinematic life, with 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), acclaimed by specialists. In 1993, he was knighted.
In the 1990s, Hopkins acted in movies like Desperate Hours (1990) and Howards End (1992), The Remains of the Day (1993) (nominee for the Oscar), Legends of the Fall (1994), Nixon (1995) (nominee for the Oscar), Surviving Picasso (1996), Amistad (1997) (nominee for the Oscar), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Meet Joe Black (1998) and Instinct (1999). His most remarkable film, however, was The Silence of the Lambs (1991), for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor. He also got a B.A.F.T.A. for this role.- Choreographer
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Tara Nicole Hughes is a professional Choreographer and Movement Coach for film, television and stage. Hughes has worked on every major musical film over the last decade including Chicago, Nine, Rock of Ages, Burlesque, Mary Poppins Returns, Disney's live-action film The Little Mermaid, and Joker: Folie a' Deux starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga.
As warm, patient and inspiring as she is talented, Hughes has a particular gift for creating a safe and energizing work environment for actors who may be intimidated by movement. As a result she's worked with some of the most brilliant of our time including Daniel Day Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks, Marion Cotillard, Al Pacino, Penelope Cruz and Tobey Maguire, as well as with major music stars including Pharrell Williams, Taylor Swift and Jennifer Hudson.
Other choreographic credits include, for television, Good Girls Revolt, Transparent, The Guest Book, House of Lies, The Middle, Trophy Wife, Raising Hope and My Name is Earl. Feature films include Kiss of the Spider Woman (Dir. Bill Condon), Good Fortune (Dir. Aziz Ansari) Danny Collins starring Al Pacino (Dir. Dan Fogelman), The Terminal (Dir. Steven Spielberg) and The Next Best Thing (Dir. John Schlesinger).- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Opal Marguerite (Catledge), a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250 acre farm. She is the youngest of seven children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first acting part was as Helen Keller in a fifth-grade play. In 1976 she went to Pittsburgh to pursue a degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 1980, she went to New York City, where she met playwright Beth Henley in a stalled elevator. Hunter went on to get roles in a number of Henley's southern Gothic plays, including Crimes of the Heart and The Miss Firecracker Contest. In 1982 the actress went to Los Angeles. She landed her first starring role in the movies in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona (1987), a part that is said to have been written with her in mind. She gained stardom in 1987 when she played the driven TV news producer Jane Craig in James L. Brooks' Broadcast News (1987). In 1993 she earned an Academy Award and worldwide acclaim with her performance as a mute bride to a New Zealand planter in The Piano (1993).- Elizabeth Jane Hurley was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, to Angela Mary (Titt), a teacher, and Roy Leonard Hurley, an army major. Wanting to be a dancer, Hurley went to ballet boarding school at 12, but soon returned home. When it came time to go to college, Hurley won a scholarship to the London Studio Centre which taught courses for dance and theater. Soon, Hurley wore the punk rock look with pink hair and a nose ring, but to get work, she had to change her image to one that was castable. After college, Hurley worked in the theater and made her screen debut in Aria (1987). Roles in Television and a film, Rowing with the Wind (1988), which included a young actor named Hugh Grant, soon followed. European films followed her appearance in the BBC serial Christabel (1988). Her film debut in a Hollywood movie was in the Wesley Snipes action drama Passenger 57 (1992). When Hugh Grant was picked up with Divine Brown, Hurley became headline news. Added to this was the fact that she was the model representing top cosmetics house Estée Lauder, and there was nowhere Hurley could go to get away from the press. In 1994, Hurley and Hugh Grant set up Simian Films in partnership with Castle Rock Entertainment. As Head of Development, Hurley found the script and produced her first film Extreme Measures (1996), which stars Hugh Grant.
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
British actor Jeremy Irons was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England. He is the son of Barbara Anne Brereton (Sharpe) and Paul Dugan Irons, an accountant. Young Jeremy didn't prove very fond of figures. He visited mainland England only once a year. He wound up being grounded when his family settled down in Hertfordshire. At the age of 13 he enrolled in Sherborne School, Dorset, where he could practice his favorite sport, horse-riding. Before becoming an actor, he had considered a veterinarian surgeon's career.
He trained at the Bristol Old Vic School for two years, then joined Bristol Old Vic repertory company where he gained experience working in everything from Shakespeare to contemporary dramas. He moved to London in 1971 and had a number of jobs before landing the role of "John the Baptist" in the hit musical "Godspell". He went on to have a successful early career in the West End theatre and on TV, and debuted on-screen in Nijinsky (1980). In the early 80s, he gained international attention with his starring role in the Granada Television serial adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel Brideshead Revisited (1981), after which he was much in demand as a romantic leading man. He went on to a steady film career. In 1984, he debuted on Broadway opposite: Glenn Close in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" and, in the mid-80s, he appeared in three lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Once described as 'the thinking woman's pin up', he has made his name in thought provoking films such as David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers (1988), for which he won the New York Critics Best Actor Award. He gained a Golden Globe Award in addition to an Oscar for Best Actor in 1990 for his role as Claus von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune (1990) alongside Glenn Close. Among his many achievements, his role as Professor Higgins in Loewe-Lerner's famous musical "My Fair Lady" mustn't be forgotten. It was in London, back in 1987.
He is married to actress Sinéad Cusack, with whom he appeared in Waterland (1992) and in the Royal Shakespeare Company plays. He appeared with his son Samuel Irons and his father-in-law Cyril Cusack in the film Danny the Champion of the World (1989). His son Max Irons is also an actor.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Samuel L. Jackson is an American producer and highly prolific actor, having appeared in over 100 films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000), Formula 51 (2001), Black Snake Moan (2006), Snakes on a Plane (2006), and the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005), as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., to Elizabeth (Montgomery) and Roy Henry Jackson. He was raised by his mother, a factory worker, and his grandparents. At Morehouse College, Jackson was active in the black student movement. In the seventies, he joined the Negro Ensemble Company (together with Morgan Freeman). In the eighties, he became well-known after three movies made by Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990) and Jungle Fever (1991). He achieved prominence and critical acclaim in the early 1990s with films such as Patriot Games (1992), Amos & Andrew (1993), True Romance (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), and his collaborations with director Quentin Tarantino, including Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), and later Django Unchained (2012). Going from supporting player to leading man, his performance in Pulp Fiction (1994) gave him an Oscar nomination for his character Jules Winnfield, and he received a Silver Berlin Bear for his part as Ordell Robbi in Jackie Brown (1997). Jackson usually played bad guys and drug addicts before becoming an action hero, co-starring with Bruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) and Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996).
With Jackson's permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character, Nick Fury. He later did a cameo as the character in a post-credits scene from Iron Man (2008), and went on to sign a nine-film commitment to reprise this role in future films, including major roles in Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and minor roles in Thor (2011) and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). He has also portrayed the character in the second and final episodes of the first season of the TV show, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013). He has provided his voice to several animated films, television series and video games, including the roles of Lucius Best / Frozone in Pixar's film The Incredibles (2004), Mace Windu in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), Afro Samurai in the anime television series Afro Samurai (2007), and Frank Tenpenny in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).- Music Artist
- Actor
- Music Department
Sir Elton John is one of pop music's great survivors. Born 25 March, 1947, as Reginald Kenneth Dwight, he started to play the piano at the early age of four. At the age of 11, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. His first band was called Bluesology. He later auditioned (unsuccessfully) as lead singer for the progressive rock bands King Crimson and Gentle Giant. Dwight teamed up with lyricist Bernie Taupin and changed his name to Elton John (merging the names of saxophonist Elton Dean and Long John Baldry). The duo wrote songs for Lulu and Roger Cook. In the early 1970s, he recorded the concept album "Tumbleweed Connection." He became the most successful pop artist of the 1970s, and he has survived many different pop fads including punk, the New Romantics and Britpop to remain one of Britain's most internationally acclaimed musicians.
Elton John announced he was a bisexual in 1976, and in 1984, he married Renate Blauel. The marriage lasted four years before he finally came to terms with the fact that he was actually homosexual. In the 1970s and 1980s, he suffered from drug and alcohol addiction and bulimia but came through it. He is well known as a campaigner for AIDS research and he keeps his finger on the pulse of modern music, enjoying artists such as Eminem, Radiohead, Coldplay and Robbie Williams. He was knighted in 1997.- Music Department
- Producer
- Composer
Considered to be one of the greatest minds in music and television history, Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. was born on March 14, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. He is the son of Sarah Frances (Wells), a bank executive, and Quincy Delight Jones, Sr., a carpenter.
Jones found his love for music while he was enrolled in grade school at Seattle's Garfield High School, this is also where he had met Ray Charles whom he later worked and became friends with. In 1951, Quincy Jones had won a scholarship to the Berklee College Of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Jones however dropped out when he got the opportunity to tour with Lionel Hampton's band as a trumpeter and conductor. Jones also worked for the European production of Harold Arlen's blues opera, Free and Easy in 1959. After Jones had worked on several projects overseas he returned to New York where he composed and arranged, and recorded for artists such as Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Dinah Washington, LeVern Baker, and Big Maybell. Jones was working with these artists while holding an executive position at Mercury Records, being one of the very few African Americans at the time to have such a position.
In 1963, Quincy Jones won his first Grammy award for his Count Basie arrangement of "I Can't Stop Loving You". In 1964, by the request of director Sidney Lumet, Jones composed the music for his movie, The Pawnbroker. This would be the first of many Jones composed for film scores. By the mid-1960's Quincy Jones became the conductor and arranger for Frank Sinatra's orchestra. Jones also conducted and arranged one of Sinatra's most memorable songs, Fly Me To The Moon. Jones appeared on a lot of film credits for his music such as The Slender Thread, Walk, Don't Run, In Cold Blood, In The Heat Of The Night, A Dandy In Aspic, Mackenna's Gold, and The Italian Job. In 1972 Quincy Jones was the theme song composer for the hit-sitcom, Sanford And Son.
Quincy Jones in 1978 worked on music for the Wiz, this is where he met icon, Michael Jackson. Jackson at the time was looking for a producer, Jones recommended some producers but in the end asked Jackson if he could do it, Jackson said yes. In 1982 as a result of this partnership, Jones had formed a tapestry with Jackson which was unbreakable it was called, Thriller. The Thriller album sold more than 100 million records world-wide. Jones continued working with Jackson with his Bad album in 1987. However after Jones recommended Jackson seek other producers to update his music. Jones referred Jackson to producer, Teddy Riley. This ended a partnership between two-greats, Jackson and Jones would never collaborate again.
In 1981 Jones had an album called, The Dude. In 1985 Jones scored the film adaptation of The Color Purple. Jones also was a philanthropist, in 1985 gathering multiple stars to participate in the song We Are The World to help raise money to help the victims of the Ethopian disaster.
In 1990 Jones composed a theme song for the new sitcom which was centered around Will Smith, The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air. Jones was also the executive producer of the show.
Quincy Jones will forever be remembered as someone who helped sculpt music in every form, he refined music and through the music he helped sculpt brought messages of peace, justice, love, funk, and hope.- Producer
- Executive
Ruth Kenley-Letts is known for C.B. Strike (2017), The Midwich Cuckoos (2022) and Mrs. Wilson (2018). She has been married to Crispin Letts since February 1989. They have two children.- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Production Manager
Duncan Kenworthy received a first-class degree from Christ's College, Cambridge, UK, in 1971, and was then a Thouron Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. Previous to his movie work (including Four Weddings and a Funeral, which he produced), he has numerous TV credits to his name. He worked for several years during the seventies for Children's Television Workshop on "Sesame Street", first in New York, and then as producer of an Arabic version which he made in Kuwait. He was co-creator and producer of Fraggle Rock, and was VP of Jim Henson's company from 1988 to 1995. He has also produced numerous TV dramas including the BAFTA award-winning Greek Myths and Gulliver's Travels (1995).- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Sally Kirkland, Best Actress Oscar Nominee, Golden Globe winner, Independent Spirit Award winner, LA Film Critics Circle Award winner, and veteran of over 200 movies. Feisty, hard-working, famously liberal, with the trademark blonde hair, actress Sally Kirkland has certainly made an indelible mark on Hollywood history. Born in New York City, her mother was the fashion editor at Vogue and LIFE magazine. Sally began her career on the off-Broadway circuit and trained under Lee Strasberg. Sally Kirkland is a movie, television, and theater veteran since the 1960s and is probably best known for the drama movie Anna (1987), for which she garnered the Best Actress Oscar nomination and won the Best Actress Golden Globe, the Independent Spirit Award, and the LA Film Critic's Circle Award.
Sally's first director was Andy Warhol in The 13 Most Beautiful Women (1964). Her 220 movies also include Coming Apart (1969), The Sting (1973), The Way We Were (1973), Cold Feet (1989), Best of the Best (1989), Revenge (1990), JFK (1991), Edtv (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Coffee Date (2006) and Archaeology of a Woman (2012). In the past couple of years, she has starred in Buddy Solitaire (2016), Gnaw (2017), and The Most Hated Woman in America (2017) co-starring with Melissa Leo and Peter Fonda. And coming out soon, she has starred in Sarah Q (2018), Cuck (2019), Invincible (2020) and Hope for the Holidays (2020). She was nominated for Best Actress in a television movie by the Hollywood Foreign Press for The Haunted (1991). Her television credits include: guest starring on Criminal Minds (2005), and recurring roles on Head Case (2007) and The Simple Life (2003). She guest starred on Resurrection Blvd. (2000) and in the television movie Another Woman's Husband (2000).
Sally had a recurring role on Felicity (1998) and starred in the NBC movie Brave New World (1998). She also starred in the television episode Song of Songs (1994), and was a series regular on the television series Valley of the Dolls (1994). She also co-starred in the television movie The Woman Who Loved Elvis (1993). She had a recurring role as Barbara Healy in the original Roseanne (1988) series. She starred in the television movie Heat Wave (1990), and recurred as Tracy on Days of Our Lives (1965). Sally is also an exhibited painter, poet, renowned acting coach and ordained minister.- Sound Department
Gregg was born in 1951 to a second generation sound family. His first job, as a film cleaner at Disney Studios, eventually led him to run the dub stage machine room. Gregg has worked as a television and film mixer for several studios including Universal Studios, Goldwyn Studios and currently Warner Bros. Studios.
Gregg has earned great praise for his talent in the sound industry, earning him award nominations from the Motion Picture Academy, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and Cinema Audio Society. Gregg has won the Oscar for Best Sound for the films "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), "Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)", "Speed (1994)" and "Dunkirk (2017)". He has also won B.A.F.T.A awards for Best Sound on the features "JFK (1991)", "Speed (1994)" and "Dunkirk (2017)".
Gregg's most recent works as a re-recording mixer include "RED 2 (2013)", "The Conjuring (2013)", "Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)", "The Hangover Part III (2013)", and "The Dark Knight Rises (2012)".- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Oscar-winning character actor Martin Landau was born on June 20, 1928, in Brooklyn, New York. At age 17, he was hired by the New York Daily News to work in the promotions department before he became a staff cartoonist and illustrator. In his five years on the paper, he served as the illustrator for Billy Rose's "Pitching Horseshoes" column. He also worked for cartoonist Gus Edson on "The Gumps" comic strip. Landau's major ambition was to act and, in 1951, he made his stage debut in "Detective Story" at the Peaks Island Playhouse in Peaks Island, Maine. He made his off-Broadway debut that year in "First Love".
Landau was one of 2,000 applicants who auditioned for Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in 1955; only he and Steve McQueen were accepted. Landau was a friend of James Dean and McQueen, in a conversation with Landau, mentioned that he knew Dean and had met Landau. When Landau asked where they had met, McQueen informed him he had seen Landau riding on the back of Dean's motorcycle into the New York City garage where he worked as a mechanic.
Landau acted during the mid-1950s in the television anthologies Playhouse 90 (1956), Studio One (1948), The Philco Television Playhouse (1948), Kraft Theatre (1947), Goodyear Playhouse (1951), and Omnibus (1952). He began making a name for himself after replacing star Franchot Tone in the 1956 off-Broadway revival of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya," a famous production that helped put off-Broadway on the New York theatrical map.
In 1957, he made a well-received Broadway debut in the play "Middle of the Night." As part of the touring company with star Edward G. Robinson, he made it to the West Coast. He made his movie debut in Pork Chop Hill (1959), but scored on film as the heavy in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller North by Northwest (1959), in which he was shot on top of Mount Rushmore while sadistically stepping on the fingers of Cary Grant, who was holding on for dear life to the cliff face. He also appeared in the blockbuster Cleopatra (1963), the most expensive film ever made up to that time, which nearly scuttled 20th Century-Fox and engendered one of the great public scandals, the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton love affair that overshadowed the film itself. Despite the difficulties with the film, Landau's memorable portrayal in the key role of Rufio was highly favored by the audience and instantly catapulted his popularity.
In 1963, Landau played memorable roles in two episodes of the science-fiction anthology series The Outer Limits (1963), The Bellero Shield (1964), and The Man Who Was Never Born (1963). He was Gene Roddenberry's first choice to play Mr. Spock on Star Trek (1966), but the role went to Leonard Nimoy, who later replaced Landau on Mission: Impossible (1966), the show that really made Landau famous. Landau originally was not meant to be a regular on the series, which co-starred his wife Barbara Bain, whom he had married in 1957. His character, Rollin Hand, was supposed to make occasional, recurring appearances, on Mission: Impossible (1966), but when the producers had problems with star Steven Hill, Landau was used to take up the slack. Landau's characterization was so well-received and so popular with the audience, he was made a regular. Landau received Emmy nominations as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for each of the three seasons he appeared. In 1968, he won the Golden Globe award as Best Male TV Star.
Eventually, he quit the series in 1969 after a salary dispute when the new star, Peter Graves, was given a contract that paid him more than Landau, whose own contract stated he would have parity with any other actor on the show who made more than he did. The producers refused to budge and he and Bain, who had become the first actress in the history of television to be awarded three consecutive Emmy Awards (1967-69) while on the show, left the series, ostensibly to pursue careers in the movies. The move actually held back their careers, and Mission: Impossible (1966) went on for another four years with other actors.
Landau appeared in support of Sidney Poitier in They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970), the less-successful sequel to the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night (1967), but it did not generate more work of a similar caliber. He starred in the television movie Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972) on CBS, playing a prisoner of war returning to the United States from Vietnam. The following year, he shot a pilot for NBC for a proposed show, "Savage." Though it was directed by emerging wunderkind Steven Spielberg, NBC did not pick up the show. Needing work, Landau and Bain moved to England to play the leading roles in the syndicated science-fiction series Space: 1999 (1975).
Landau's and Bain's careers stalled after Space: 1999 (1975) went out of production, and they were reduced to taking parts in the television movie The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981). It was the nadir of both their careers, and Bain's acting days and their marriage were soon over. Landau, one of the most talented character actors in Hollywood, and one not without recognition, had bottomed out career-wise. In 1983, he was stuck in low-budget sci-fi and horror movies such as The Being (1981), a role far beneath his talent.
His career renaissance got off to a slow start with a recurring role in the NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill (1983), starring Dabney Coleman. On Broadway, he took over the title role in the revival of "Dracula" and went on the road with the national touring company. Finally, his career renaissance began to gather momentum when Francis Ford Coppola cast him in a critical supporting role in his Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), for which Landau was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. He won his second Golden Globe for the role. The next year, he received his second consecutive Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his superb turn as the adulterous husband in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). He followed this up by playing famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal in the TNT movie Max and Helen (1990). However, the summit of his post-Mission: Impossible (1966) career was about to be scaled. He portrayed Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood (1994) and won glowing reviews. For his performance, he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Martin Landau, the superb character actor, finally had been recognized with his profession's ultimate award. His performance, which also won him his third Golden Globe, garnered numerous awards in addition to the Oscar and Golden Globe, including top honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. Landau continued to play a wide variety of roles in motion pictures and on television, turning in a superb performance in a supporting role in The Majestic (2001). He received his fourth Emmy nomination in 2004 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for Without a Trace (2002).
Martin Landau was honored with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.
Martin Landau died in Los Angeles, California on July 15, 2017.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Andie MacDowell was born Rosalie Anderson MacDowell on April 21, 1958 in Gaffney, South Carolina, to Pauline Johnston (Oswald), a music teacher, and Marion St. Pierre MacDowell, a lumber executive. She was enrolled at Winthrop College located in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Initially discovered by a rep from Wilhelmina Models while on a trip to Los Angeles. Later signed on with Elite Model Management in New York City in 1978. Made debut film appearance in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). Went on to study method acting at the Actors Studio. Had commercial success with performances in Harold Ramis's Groundhog Day (1993) and Mike Newell's Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).- Sound Department
- Additional Crew
- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Steve Martin was born on August 14, 1945 in Waco, Texas, USA as Stephen Glenn Martin to Mary Lee (née Stewart; 1913-2002) and Glenn Vernon Martin (1914-1997), a real estate salesman and aspiring actor. He was raised in Inglewood and Garden Grove in California. In 1960, he got a job at the Magic shop of Disney's Fantasyland, and while there he learned magic, juggling, and creating balloon animals. At Santa Ana College, he took classes in drama and English poetry. He also took part in comedies and other productions at the Bird Cage Theatre, and joined a comedy troupe at Knott's Berry Farm. He attended California State University as a philosophy major, but in 1967 transferred to UCLA as a theatre major.
His writing career began on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967), winning him an Emmy Award. Between 1967 and 1973, he also wrote for many other shows, including The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (1969) and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971). He also appeared on talk shows and comedy shows in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1972, he first appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), doing stand-up several times each year, and even guest hosting a few years later. In 1976, he served for the first time as guest-host on Saturday Night Live (1975). By 2016, he has guest-hosted 15 times, which is one less than Alec Baldwin's record, and also appeared 12 other times on SNL.
In 1977, he released his first comedy album, a platinum selling "Let's Get Small". He followed it with "A Wild and Crazy Guy" (1978), which sold more than a million copies. Both albums went on to win Grammys for Best Comedy Recording. This is when he performed in arenas in front of tens of thousands of people, and begun his movie career, which was always his goal. His first major role was in the short film, The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977), which he also wrote. His star value was established in The Jerk (1979), which was co-written by Martin, and directed by Carl Reiner. The film earned more than $100 million on a $4 million budget. He also starred in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), and All of Me (1984), all directed by Reiner. To avoid being typecast as a comedian, he wanted do more dramatic roles, starring in Pennies from Heaven (1981), a film remake of Dennis Potter's 1978 series. Unfortunately, it was a financial failure.
He also starred in John Landis's Three Amigos! (1986), co-written by himself, opposite Martin Short and Chevy Chase. That year, he also appeared in the musical horror comedy, Little Shop of Horrors (1986) opposite Rick Moranis. Next year, he starred in Roxanne (1987), co-written by himself, and in John Hughes' Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), opposite John Candy. His other films include Parenthood (1989) and My Blue Heaven (1990), both opposite Moranis. In 1991, he wrote and starred in L.A. Story (1991), about a weatherman who searches meaning in his life and love in Los Angeles. It also starred his then-wife, Victoria Tennant. Same year, Father of the Bride (1991) was so successful that a 1995 sequel followed.
During the 1990s, he continued to play more dramatic roles, in Grand Canyon (1991), playing a traumatized movie producer, in Leap of Faith (1992), playing a fake faith healer, in A Simple Twist of Fate (1994), playing a betrayed man adopting a baby, and in David Mamet's thriller The Spanish Prisoner (1997). Other, more comedic roles include in HouseSitter (1992) and The Out-of-Towners (1999), opposite Goldie Hawn, in Nora Ephron's Mixed Nuts (1994), and in Bowfinger (1999), written by himself and co-starring Eddie Murphy. After Bowfinger, he starred in Bringing Down the House (2003) and Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), both earning more than $130 million. He wrote and starred in Shopgirl (2005), and appeared in the sequel of Cheaper by the Dozen. After them, he appeared in The Pink Panther (2006) and The Pink Panther 2 (2009), which he both co-wrote, as Inspector Clouseau.
He continues to do movies, more recently appearing in The Big Year (2011), Home (2015), and Love the Coopers (2015). Besides aforementioned, he has been an avid art collector since 1968, written plays, written for The New Yorker, written a well-received memoir (Born Standing Up), written a novel (An Object of Beauty; 2010), hosted the Academy Awards three times, released a Grammy award winning music album (The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo; 2009), and another album (Love Has Come For You; 2013) with Edie Brickell. Since 2007, he has been married to Anne Stringfield, with whom he has a daughter.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Niki Marvin is known for The Shawshank Redemption (1994), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and Private Islands (2004).- Sound Department
- Music Department
Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, Steve entered the entertainment industry in late 1969 as a roadie with a local group called the Strawberry Alarm Clock that hit it big with their national hit, "Incense and Peppermint." From there he went into the recording industry learning and becoming a recording engineer, working with dozens of groups including Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons and A Taste of Honey. With these two groups Steve was awarded a gold record, a platinum record and a platinum album, for "Oh What A Night (December 1963)" and "Boogie Oogie Oogie."
By late 1978 opportunity knocked once more and Steve entered the film business and immediately became immersed with work on such films as "The Last Waltz (1978)," "10 (1979)", "Hair (1979)", "More American Graffiti (1979)", "Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)", and "The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)".
Steve was awarded the first of three Academy Awards in 1981 for Best Sound for "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)", and again in 1982 for "Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)." 1984 saw another nomination for "Dune (1984)". Another Academy Award was given in 1995 for "Speed (1994)"," which also gave him his first British Academy Award. 1996 I was again nominated for the film "Waterworld (1995)," 1997 nominated for "Twister (1996)" and in 2001 nominated for "U-571 (2000)"."
Recent films worked on include "The Town (2010)", "The Conjuring (2013)" and "The Great Gatsby (2013)".- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Nikita Mikhalkov is the son of the famous communist poet Sergey Mikhalkov, who wrote the lyrics of the Soviet national anthem and had strong connections to the Communist Party. Nikita Mikhalkov's mother, Natalya Petrovna Konchalovskaya, was also a poet and daughter of famous painter Pyotr Petrovich Konchalovsky and his wife Olga Vasilievna Surikova, and by her the great granddaughter of another great painter Vasily Surikov. And then last, but not least, Nikita Mikhalkov is the brother of Andrey Konchalovskiy, also a distinguished film director who, unlike Nikita, has worked in the USA.
Not only did Mikhalkov direct the Academy Award-winning film "Burnt by the Sun" but he is also well-known as a versatile actor, having appeared in over 40 films, including the role of the Russian Tsar Alexander III in his own "The Barber of Siberia" (1998).
Mikhalkov has an impressively long list of wins at the most prestigious film festivals, like Cannes, Venice, Moscow or Karlovy Vary.
Following his movie's Oscar win for Best Foreign Language Film, Nikita Mikhalkov won a parliamentary seat in the then Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin's party.
He is always in the spotlight, especially in Moscow, where he resides.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. Mirren attended St. Bernards High School for girls, where she would act in school productions. After high school, she began her acting career in theatre working in many productions including in the West End and Broadway.- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Freida Lee Mock is known for Return with Honor (1998), Anita: Speaking Truth to Power (2013) and Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision (1994). She is married to Terry Sanders.- Visual Effects
George Murphy is known for Forrest Gump (1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and Mission: Impossible (1996).- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Kathy Najimy was born and raised in San Diego, California. She is the daughter of Samia (Massery) and Fred Najimy, a postal worker, both of Lebanese ancestry. Kathy attended Crawford High School, and began her film career in the early 1990s, with several minor roles. Kathy got her breakthrough screen role as "Sister Mary Patrick" in Sister Act (1992). She reprised this role in 1993 in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993). She is most notably known as the voice of "Peggy Hill" on King of the Hill (1997).
Kathy lives in Los Angeles with her husband, actor/singer Dan Finnerty (the Dan Band) and their daughter, Samia Najimy Finnerty.- Make-Up Department
- Actress
- Special Effects
Ve Neill was born on 12 May 1951 in Riverside, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for their father, a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store and was the son of emigrants from Poland and Hungary. Newman's mother (born Terézia Fecková, daughter of Stefan Fecko and Mária Polenak) was a Roman Catholic Slovak from Homonna, Pticie (former Austro-Hungarian Empire), who became a practicing Christian Scientist. She and her brother, Newman's uncle Joe, had an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on him. He acted in grade school and high school plays. The Newmans were well-to-do and Paul Newman grew up in affluent Shaker Heights. Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.
By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte (born 1929), and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he moved Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut, where he attended Yale University's School of Drama.
While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play "Picnic". Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward (born 1930), who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition.
In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, The Silver Chalice (1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in a trade paper apologizing for it to anyone who might have seen it. He had always been embarrassed about the film and reveled in making fun of it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in "The Desperate Hours". In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and critics praised his performance. In 1957, with a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), co-starring Joanne Woodward.
During the shooting of this film, they realized they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together and raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The 1960s would bring Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade, and garnered three more Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (1968) was given good marks, and although the film and Woodward were nominated for Oscars, Newman was not nominated for Best Director. However, he did win a Golden Globe Award for his direction.
1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films as The Sting (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974) to lesser known films as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) to a cult classic Slap Shot (1977). After the death of his only son, Scott, in 1978, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction. His acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (1982) for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination and, in 1987, finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (1986), almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony.
Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982, and also founded "Newman's Own", a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which Newman donated to charity. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status.
Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his movies. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organizations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Newman died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer.- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Composer
Randy Newman is an American film composer and singer who is well-known for composing The Princess and the Frog, Meet the Parents and various Pixar films including the Toy Story, Monsters, Inc and Cars franchises as well as A Bug's Life. He wrote iconic songs such as "Short People", "You've Got A Friend in Me" and "We Belong Together". He won Best Original Song for Toy Story 3.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through the '00s.
Nicholson was born on April 22, 1937, in Neptune, New Jersey. He was raised believing that his grandmother was his mother, and that his mother, June Frances Nicholson, a showgirl, was his older sister. He discovered the truth in 1975 from a Time magazine journalist who was researching a profile on him. His real father is believed to have been either Donald Furcillo, an Italian American showman, or Eddie King (Edgar Kirschfeld), born in Latvia and also in show business. Jack's mother's ancestry was Irish, and smaller amounts of English, German, Scottish, and Welsh.
Nicholson made his film debut in a B-movie titled The Cry Baby Killer (1958). His rise in Hollywood was far from meteoric, and for years, he sustained his career with guest spots in television series and a number of Roger Corman films, including The Little Shop of Horrors (1960).
Nicholson's first turn in the director's chair was for Drive, He Said (1971). Before that, he wrote the screenplay for The Trip (1967), and co-wrote Head (1968), a vehicle for The Monkees. His big break came with Easy Rider (1969) and his portrayal of liquor-soaked attorney George Hanson, which earned Nicholson his first Oscar nomination. Nicholson's film career took off in the 1970s with a definitive performance in Five Easy Pieces (1970). Nicholson's other notable work during this period includes leading roles in Roman Polanski's noir masterpiece Chinatown (1974) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which he won his first Best Actor Oscar.
The 1980s kicked off with another career-defining role for Nicholson as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shining (1980). A string of well-received films followed, including Terms of Endearment (1983), which earned Nicholson his second Oscar; Prizzi's Honor (1985), and The Witches of Eastwick (1987). He portrayed another renowned villain, The Joker, in Tim Burton's Batman (1989). In the 1990s, he starred in such varied films as A Few Good Men (1992), for which he received another Oscar nomination, and a dual role in Mars Attacks! (1996).
Although a glimpse at the darker side of Nicholson's acting range reappeared in The Departed (2006), the actor's most recent roles highlight the physical and emotional complications one faces late in life. The most notable of these is the unapologetically misanthropic Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets (1997), for which he won his third Oscar. Shades of this persona are apparent in About Schmidt (2002), Something's Gotta Give (2003), and The Bucket List (2007). In addition to his Academy Awards and Oscar nominations, Nicholson has seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. He also became one of the youngest actors to receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement award in 1994.
Nicholson has six children by five different women: Jennifer Nicholson (b. 1963) from his only marriage to Sandra Knight, which ended in 1966; Caleb Goddard (b. 1970) with Five Easy Pieces (1970) co-star Susan Anspach, who was automatically adopted by Anspach's then-husband Mark Goddard; Honey Hollman (b. 1982) with Danish supermodel Winnie Hollman; Lorraine Nicholson (b. 1990) and Ray Nicholson (b. 1992) with minor actress Rebecca Broussard; and Tessa Gourin (b. 1994) with real estate agent Jennine Marie Gourin. Nicholson's longest relationship was the 17 nonmonogamous years he spent with Anjelica Huston; this ended when Broussard announced she was pregnant with his child.- Actress
- Producer
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.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi) and Sal Pacino. They divorced when he was young. His mother moved them into his grandparents' home in the South Bronx. Pacino found himself often repeating the plots and voices of characters he had seen in the movies. Bored and unmotivated in school, he found a haven in school plays, and his interest soon blossomed into a full-time career. Starting onstage, he went through a period of depression and poverty, sometimes having to borrow bus fare to succeed to auditions. He made it into the prestigious Actors Studio in 1966, studying under Lee Strasberg, creator of the Method Approach that would become the trademark of many 1970s-era actors.
After appearing in a string of plays in supporting roles, Pacino finally attained success off-Broadway with Israel Horovitz's "The Indian Wants the Bronx", winning an Obie Award for the 1966-67 season. That was followed by a Tony Award for "Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie?" His first feature films made little departure from the gritty realistic stage performances that earned him respect: he played a drug addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971) after his film debut in Me, Natalie (1969). The role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) was one of the most sought-after of the time: Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal, Robert De Niro and a host of other actors either wanted it or were mentioned, but director Francis Ford Coppola wanted Pacino for the role.
Coppola was successful but Pacino was reportedly in constant fear of being fired during the very difficult shoot. The film was a monster hit that earned Pacino his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. However, instead of taking on easier projects for the big money he could now command, Pacino threw his support behind what he considered tough but important films, such as the true-life crime drama Serpico (1973) and the tragic real-life bank robbery film Dog Day Afternoon (1975). He was nominated three consecutive years for the "Best Actor" Academy Award. He faltered slightly with Bobby Deerfield (1977), but regained his stride with And Justice for All (1979), for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Unfortunately, this would signal the beginning of a decline in his career, which produced flops like Cruising (1980) and Author! Author! (1982).
Pacino took on another vicious gangster role and cemented his legendary status in the ultra-violent cult film Scarface (1983), but a monumental mistake was about to follow. Revolution (1985) endured an endless and seemingly cursed shoot in which equipment was destroyed, weather was terrible, and Pacino fell ill with pneumonia. Constant changes in the script further derailed the project. The Revolutionary War-themed film, considered among the worst films ever made, resulted in awful reviews and kept him off the screen for the next four years. Returning to the stage, Pacino did much to give back and contribute to the theatre, which he considers his first love. He directed a film, The Local Stigmatic (1990), but it remains unreleased. He lifted his self-imposed exile with the striking Sea of Love (1989) as a hard-drinking policeman. This marked the second phase of Pacino's career, being the first to feature his now famous dark, owl eyes and hoarse, gravelly voice.
Returning to the Corleones, Pacino made The Godfather Part III (1990) and earned raves for his first comedic role in the colorful adaptation Dick Tracy (1990). This earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and two years later he was nominated for Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He went into romantic mode for Frankie and Johnny (1991). In 1992, he finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his amazing performance in Scent of a Woman (1992). A mixture of technical perfection (he plays a blind man) and charisma, the role was tailor-made for him, and remains a classic.
The next few years would see Pacino becoming more comfortable with acting and movies as a business, turning out great roles in great films with more frequency and less of the demanding personal involvement of his wilder days. Carlito's Way (1993) proved another gangster classic, as did the epic crime drama Heat (1995) directed by Michael Mann and co-starring Robert De Niro. He directed the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Looking for Richard (1996). During this period, City Hall (1996), Donnie Brasco (1997) and The Devil's Advocate (1997) all came out. Reteaming with Mann and then Oliver Stone, he gave commanding performances in The Insider (1999) and Any Given Sunday (1999).
In the 2000s, Pacino starred in a number of theatrical blockbusters, including Ocean's Thirteen (2007), but his choice in television roles (the vicious, closeted Roy Cohn in the HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003) and his sensitive portrayal of Jack Kevorkian, in the television movie You Don't Know Jack (2010)) are reminiscent of the bolder choices of his early career. Each television project garnered him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.
Never wed, Pacino has a daughter, Julie Marie, with acting teacher Jan Tarrant, and a set of twins with former longtime girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo. His romantic history includes Jill Clayburgh, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Carole Mallory, Debra Winger, Tuesday Weld, Marthe Keller, Carmen Cervera, Kathleen Quinlan, Lyndall Hobbs, Penelope Ann Miller, and a two-decade intermittent relationship with "Godfather" co-star Diane Keaton. He currently lives with Argentinian actress Lucila Solá, who is 36 years his junior.
As of 2022, Pacino is 82-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to appear regularly in film.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Anna Paquin is the first millennial to have received an Academy Award nomination for acting, and the first to win.
She was born on July 24, 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Mary (Brophy), an English teacher from Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a Canadian phys-ed teacher. Anna moved to her mother's native country when she was four years old. Her first acting job ever was at age nine in the movie The Piano (1993), which was shot in New Zealand. At age 16, she relocated to Los Angeles where she completed her last two years of high school (graduating in 2000). She then moved to New York where she attended Columbia University for one year. Between 2001 and 2004, she worked almost exclusively on stage in both New York and London. In 2007, Anna was cast in HBO's True Blood (2008), which concluded shooting its seventh and final season in 2014.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Sarah Jessica Parker was born March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio, to Barbra Forste (née Keck), a teacher who ran a nursery school, and Stephen Parker, a journalist. Her parents divorced, and her mother later remarried to Paul Forste and had four more children, bringing the total to eight. Sarah now had 3 full siblings and 4 half siblings. Her father was of Eastern European Jewish ancestry, and her mother had German, and some English, roots.
Trained in singing and ballet, Sarah was cast in the Broadway production of "The Innocents", which prompted her family to relocate to New Jersey. Already a professional performer (she studied at the American Ballet School and the Professional Children's School), Sarah was cast in "The Sound of Music" (along with four of her siblings), and landed the lead in the Broadway run of "Annie". After a year as the free-spirited orphan, Sarah attended Dwight Morrow High School, while continuing to add more credits to her acting resume. She landed a role in the made-for-TV movie My Body, My Child (1982), before being cast as one of the lead roles in the 1982 sitcom Square Pegs (1982), as high-schooler Patty Green.
Once a graduate, Sarah decided to pursue a full-time acting career rather than further her education. Since Square Pegs (1982) did not last more than a year, Sarah moved on to supporting film roles in movies such as Footloose (1984), Firstborn (1984), and the lead role in the teenage film Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985). Sarah was having lots of fun, although she had yet to land a star-turning role. After more television appearances in series and made-for-TV movies including A Year in the Life (1986), The Room Upstairs (1987) and Dadah Is Death (1988), Sarah finally landed the role of Steve Martin's bubbly lover in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story (1991). More substantial film roles soon followed, starting with a role opposite Nicolas Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) (which foreshadowed her comedic talent), Hocus Pocus (1993) and Ed Wood (1994).
A big Woody Allen fan, she starred opposite the renowned filmmaker in the television movie The Sunshine Boys (1996), and that same year, she landed a starring role in Miami Rhapsody (1995). 1996 was a film intensive year with roles in The First Wives Club (1996), If Lucy Fell (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996). All the while making a name for herself in film, Sarah was gaining respect as a theater actress, with her lead role as a dog (hard to imagine, but true) in the off-Broadway "Sylvia", and her Broadway roles in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (starring her present husband, Matthew Broderick), and the Tony-Award nominated "Once Upon a Mattress".
But Sarah's star has shot up since her portrayal of Manhattan sex-columnist Carrie Bradshaw in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998). Sarah's Golden Globe Best Actress victory in 2000 only underscores the fact that she plays the role of Carrie as though it were literally written for her. Sarah has been happily married to fellow actor Matthew Broderick for quite a while now. Before the marriage, she dated Robert Downey Jr. (who she also lived with), and the late John Kennedy Jr. When not serving as lead actress and producer of Sex and the City (1998), Sarah is a member of Hollywood's Women's Political Committee, and is UNICEF's representative for the Performing Arts.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, to Bernice Mae (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. He had Irish (from his paternal grandmother), English, and some German, ancestry. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the movies every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play "The Morning Star" (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (1944).
Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles. He appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (1946), he was again nominated for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (1948) and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II.
With a string of hits to his credit, Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) and Moby Dick (1956). He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (1953). Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). In the early 1960s, he appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (1962) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), which dealt with the way people live. He also gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (1961), one of the biggest box-office hits of that year.
In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1972) and The Dove (1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (1976). After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (1977) and the monstrous Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (1978). In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (1982) and The Scarlet and the Black (1983). In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (1991).
In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights and civil rights. In 2003, his Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute. Gregory Peck died at age 87 on June 12, 2003 in Los Angeles, California.- Producer
- Actor
- Executive
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri to Jane Etta Pitt (née Hillhouse), a school counselor & William Alvin "Bill" Pitt, a truck company manager. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student government and school musicals. Pitt attended the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism with a focus on advertising. He occasionally acted in fraternity shows. He left college two credits short of graduating to move to California. Before he became successful at acting, Pitt supported himself by driving strippers in limos, moving refrigerators and dressing as a giant chicken while working for El Pollo Loco.
Pitt's earliest credited roles were in television, starting on the daytime soap opera Another World (1964) before appearing in the recurring role of Randy on the legendary prime time soap opera Dallas (1978). Following a string of guest appearances on various television series through the 1980s, Pitt gained widespread attention with a small part in Thelma & Louise (1991), in which he played a sexy criminal who romanced and conned Geena Davis. This led to starring roles in badly received films such as Johnny Suede (1991) & Cool World (1992).
But Pitt's career hit an upswing with his casting in A River Runs Through It (1992), which cemented his status as an multi-layered actor as opposed to just a pretty face. Pitt's subsequent projects were as quirky and varied in tone as his performances, ranging from his unforgettably comic cameo as stoner roommate Floyd in True Romance (1993) to romantic roles in such visually lavish films as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) and Legends of the Fall (1994), to an emotionally tortured detective in the horror-thriller Se7en (1995). His portrayal of frenetic oddball Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys (1995) won him a Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.
Pitt's portrayal of Achilles in the big-budget period drama Troy (2004) helped establish his appeal as an action star and was closely followed by a co-starring role in the stylish spy-versus-spy flick Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). It was on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith that Pitt, who married Jennifer Aniston in a highly publicized ceremony in 2000, met Angelina Jolie. Pitt left Aniston for Jolie in 2005, a break-up that continues to fuel tabloid stories years after its occurrence.
He continues to wildly vary his film choices, appearing in everything from high-concept popcorn flicks such as Megamind (2010) to adventurous critic-bait like Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Tree of Life (2011). He has received two Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). In 2014, he starred in the war film Fury (2014), opposite Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Peña.
Pitt and Jolie have 6 children, 3 adopted & 3 biological.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kelly Preston was born on October 13, 1962 in Honolulu, Hawaii. A talented and captivating performer, she first garnered international attention with her role as "Marnie Mason" in Ivan Reitman's Twins (1988), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. With her diverse character portrayals in films, such as director Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire (1996); Citizen Ruth (1996) for Alexander Payne; and For Love of the Game (1999), directed by Sam Raimi, she continued to capture audience attention.
In the early part of her career, Kelly worked with notable director John Frankenheimer in the Elmore Leonard film, 52 Pick-Up (1986), alongside Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret. Her career saw her cast her beside some of Hollywood's most notable names, including Kevin Spacey in Casino Jack (2010); Quentin Tarantino, George Clooney, and Harvey Keitel in Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996); Kevin Bacon in Death Sentence (2007); Meg Ryan and Matthew Broderick in Addicted to Love (1997); Debra Winger, Zooey Deschanel, and Hank Azaria in Eulogy (2004); Mike Myers in The Cat in the Hat (2003); and Rod Steiger and Julie Harris in the Academy Award-nominated short, Little Surprises (1996).
Kelly was actively involved in education, drug reform and many charitable organizations. She was acknowledged with numerous awards as a result of her work. She married John Travolta on September 12, 1991, and they had three children.
Kelly died on July 12, 2020, in Ocala, Florida, after a two-year battle with breast cancer. She was 57.- Producer
- Director
Peggy Rajski is an Oscar-winning filmmaker, former Dean of LMU's top-ranked School of Film & Television, and founder of the groundbreaking nonprofit The Trevor Project. Rajski won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short with her directorial debut, the short film Trevor (1994), a poignant comedy about a young teen whose world is turned upside down when word spreads at school that he might be gay. Her experience with the film led her to create The Trevor Project, America's first and now the world's largest 24/7 suicide prevention service dedicated to LGBTQ+ young people. AMPAS' Short Film and Animation Branch named her a Live Action Icon in 2014, and she was recently recognized as a Pioneer of Queer Cinema--the only non-LGBTQ-identified filmmaker to be included--in UCLA Archives' film series highlighting 30 landmark works documenting queer life. Trevor is part of MoMA's permanent film collection, and a musical adaptation of the film opened Off-Broadway in November 2021 and was acquired for streaming on Disney+.
Rajski's producing career began during the emergence of the Independent Film movement in the 1980s. Her many credits include three of writer/director John Sayles' iconic films-- The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), and Eight Men Out (1988)--and Stephen Frears' film noir classic The Grifters (1990), which she co-produced with Martin Scorsese. The Grifters received four Academy Award nominations and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature. Rajski produced actor/director Jodie Foster's directorial debut Little Man Tate (1991) as well as her second film, Home for the Holidays (1995).
Rajski has been a guest speaker and conducted workshops worldwide on creative producing and pitching. She is a longstanding member of the Directors Guild of America, Film Independent, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences where she serves on the Producers' Branch Executive Committee and chairs the Student Academy Awards. Included among many honors Rajski has received over the course of her career is New York Women in Film's Muse Award for outstanding vision and achievement in the entertainment industry. By: Big Time PR- Visual Effects
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Special Effects
Ken Ralston was born in 1954 in the USA. He is an assistant director, known for Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983), Contact (1997) and Forrest Gump (1994).- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Keanu Charles Reeves, whose first name means "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian, was born September 2, 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon. He is the son of Patric Reeves, a showgirl and costume designer, and Samuel Nowlin Reeves, a geologist. Keanu's father was born in Hawaii, of British, Portuguese, Native Hawaiian, and Chinese ancestry, and Keanu's mother is originally from Essex England. After his parents' marriage dissolved, Keanu moved with his mother and younger sister, Kim Reeves, to New York City, then Toronto. Stepfather #1 was Paul Aaron, a stage and film director - he and Patricia divorced within a year, after which she went on to marry (and divorce) rock promoter Robert Miller. Reeves never reconnected with his biological father. In high school, Reeves was lukewarm toward academics but took a keen interest in ice hockey (as team goalie, he earned the nickname "The Wall") and drama. He eventually dropped out of school to pursue an acting career.
After a few stage gigs and a handful of made-for-TV movies, he scored a supporting role in the Rob Lowe hockey flick Youngblood (1986), which was filmed in Canada. Shortly after the production wrapped, Reeves packed his bags and headed for Hollywood. Reeves popped up on critics' radar with his performance in the dark adolescent drama, River's Edge (1986), and landed a supporting role in the Oscar-nominated Dangerous Liaisons (1988) with director Stephen Frears.
His first popular success was the role of totally rad dude Ted "Theodore" Logan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989). The wacky time-travel movie became something of a cultural phenomenon, and audiences would forever confuse Reeves's real-life persona with that of his doofy on-screen counterpart. He then joined the casts of Ron Howard's comedy, Parenthood (1989) and Lawrence Kasdan's I Love You to Death (1990).
Over the next few years, Reeves tried to shake the Ted stigma with a series of highbrow projects. He played a slumming rich boy opposite River Phoenix's narcoleptic male hustler in My Own Private Idaho (1991), an unlucky lawyer who stumbles into the vampire's lair in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and Shakespearean party-pooper Don John in Much Ado About Nothing (1993).
In 1994, the understated actor became a big-budget action star with the release of Speed (1994). Its success heralded an era of five years in which Reeves would alternate between small films, like Feeling Minnesota (1996) and The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997), and big films like A Walk in the Clouds (1995) and The Devil's Advocate (1997). (There were a couple misfires, too: Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and Chain Reaction (1996).) After all this, Reeves did the unthinkable and passed on the Speed sequel, but he struck box-office gold again a few years later with the Wachowski siblings' cyberadventure, The Matrix (1999).
Now a bonafide box-office star, Keanu would appear in a string of smaller films -- among them The Replacements (2000), The Watcher (2000), The Gift (2000), Sweet November (2001), and Hardball (2001) - before The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003) were both released in 2003.
Since the end of The Matrix trilogy, Keanu has divided his time between mainstream and indie fare, landing hits with Something's Gotta Give (2003), The Lake House (2006), and Street Kings (2008). He's kept Matrix fans satiated with films such as Constantine (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008). And he's waded back into art-house territory with Ellie Parker (2005), Thumbsucker (2005), The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), and Henry's Crime (2010).
Most recently, as post-production on the samurai epic 47 Ronin (2013) waged on, Keanu appeared in front of the camera in Side by Side (2012), a documentary on celluloid and digital filmmaking, which he also produced. He also directed another Asian-influenced project, Man of Tai Chi (2013).
In 2014, Keanu played the title role in the action revenge film John Wick (2014), which became popular with critics and audiences alike. He reprised the role in John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), taking the now-iconic character to a better opening weekend and even more enthusiastic reviews than the first go-around.- Music Department
- Writer
- Producer
A prolific lyricist and librettist, Tim Rice was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. He was educated at Aldwickbury School in Hertfordshire, St Albans School and finally Lancing College. He briefly attended Sorbonne Université. He was considering a legal career around the time that he met Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1965. Three years later, the two young men composed a 20-minute pop oratorio that would eventually become "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". The piece was premiered on 1st March 1968 at the Colet Court School in the City of London. During the following months, Rice and Webber lengthened the oratorio to 30 minutes, and a record album of "Joseph" (with Rice singing the role of "Pharaoh") was made at the end of 1968.
Remaining in partnership with Webber, his next project was "Jesus Christ Superstar". Introduced to the public as a concept album in 1970, the opera propelled Rice and Webber to international stardom. Staged versions appeared the following year, and their popularity led to the film Jesus Christ Superstar (1973).
Following "Superstar", Rice and Webber returned to their previous project and expanded it into (more or less) its finalised form. The concept album for "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" was released in 1974.
Inexplicably eclipsed by his collaborator, Rice may never have received the acclaim that he deserved for his contributions to the partnership. The death-throws of the Rice-Webber collaboration produced a third opera, called "Evita". Its concept album was released in 1976.
Rice continued on with a piece called "Blondel", which appeared in 1983. Set to music by Stephen Oliver, "Blondel" was arguably the most comic and witty of Rice's major works. The opera "Chess" followed, with its concept album arriving in 1984. Former ABBA songwriters Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson provided the music for "Chess", and the concept album was an international hit. "Chess" was staged in London in 1986 with great success, but the 1988 Broadway production was radically revised without Rice's knowledge or permission, and it was quickly shut down.
In 1987 Rice was asked by Freddie Mercury and Mike Moran to write lyrics for Freddie's album with Montserrat Caballé "Barcelona", released in 1988, one entitled "The Fallen Priest" and the other "The Golden Boy".
In 1991, he was hired to finish the lyrics for the Walt Disney film Aladdin (1992). Disney subsequently teamed him with Elton John for The Lion King (1994). Rice also composed additional lyrics for the stage version of Disney's film Beauty and the Beast (1991), which opened on Broadway in 1994. A stage version of The Lion King (1994) opened on Broadway in 1997, as he was working with Elton John on two new projects - "Aida", which opened on Broadway in 2000, and the Dreamworks film The Road to El Dorado (2000).
The 1991 to 2000 period also saw a flurry of activity for Tim Rice's earlier works. Major revival productions of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" were staged in many parts of the world. Additionally, there was the film Evita (1996), as well as the video-films Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (1991), and Jesus Christ Superstar (2000).
Apart from theatre and film, Rice has written recurring columns for UK newspapers, as well as having shown up regularly on BBC Radio and Television. In 1973, he founded a cricket side - The Heartaches - for which he serves as a manager as well as a player. He also makes regular contributions to various cricket magazines. He continues to have projects in development for the theatre and for film. Most anxiously awaited - especially by audiences in Canada and the United States - is, perhaps, a revival of the authentic 1986 London version of "Chess".- Actress
- Soundtrack
Miranda Richardson was born in Southport, Lancashire, England on March 3, 1958, to Marian Georgina (Townsend) and William Alan Richardson, a marketing executive. She has one sister, eight years her senior. Her parents and sister are not involved in the performing arts. At an early age she performed in school plays, having shown a talent and desire to "turn herself into" other people. She has referred to it as "an emotional fusion; you think yourself into them". This mimicry could be of school friends or film stars.
She left school (Southport High School for Girls) at the age of 17, and originally intended becoming a vet. She also considered studying English literature in college, but decided to concentrate on drama and enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (as did many well-known British actors). After three years she graduated and moved into repertory theatre. She became affiliated with the Library Theatre in Manchester in 1979, where she became an assistant stage manager. She obtained her Equity card, and after several regional productions, first appeared on the London stage (Moving at Queens Theatre) in 1981. British television roles soon followed, and then film.
Since then, Miranda has moved into the international arena, and has made films in America, France and Spain. Television work (on both sides of the Atlantic) continues, as does some stage work. Her roles are diverse, but powerful and engaging. She has been quoted as stating "what I basically like is doing things I haven't done before" and this continually comes through in the variety of roles she has played in her career. She is also selective in the roles she takes, being uninterested in performing in the standard Hollywood fare, and preferring more offbeat roles. She was approached to play the Glenn Close role in Fatal Attraction (1987), but found it "regressive in its attitudes". Her attitude is summed up by a quote from an interview that appeared in the New York Times (Dec 27 1992): "I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting. And if that's the choice I have to make, I think I've already made it".
According to "1994 Current Biography Yearbook", she resides in South London with her two Siamese cats, Otis and Waldo. She has now moved to West London. Her hobbies include drawing, walking, gardening, fashion, falconry, and music. She, by her own admission, is a loner and lives rather modestly. An actor who studied with Ms Richardson at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre in the late 1970s described her as "a strong minded, specially gifted, rather pretty young woman who enjoys wearing jewelry. She wore toe rings, which in the late 1970s and especially in England, were a rarity and considered rather racy." He also remarked on her drive, even then, to be an actress of the highest caliber.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Born in West Covina, California, but raised in New York City, Tim Robbins is the son of former The Highwaymen singer Gil Robbins and actress Mary Robbins (née Bledsoe). Robbins studied drama at UCLA, where he graduated with honors in 1981. That same year, he formed the Actors' Gang theater group, an experimental ensemble that expressed radical political observations through the European avant-garde form of theater. He started film work in television movies in 1983, but hit the big time in 1988 with his portrayal of dimwitted fastball pitcher "Nuke" Laloosh in Bull Durham (1988). Tall with baby-faced looks, he has the ability to play naive and obtuse (Cadillac Man (1990) and The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)) or slick and shrewd (The Player (1992) and Bob Roberts (1992)).- Visual Effects
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Stephen Rosenbaum was born in 1965 in Tacoma, Washington, USA. He is an assistant director, known for Avatar (2009), Contact (1997) and Forrest Gump (1994).- Producer
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Mr. Roth won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Forrest Gump & has been nominated for his screenplays of The Insider, Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, A Star is Born, & Dune. He wrote Mr. Kurosawa's Rhapsody in August, The Horse Whisperer, Ali, & Best Picture Nominee, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. He was a producer of the Best Picture Nominee Mank. He received the WGA Laurel Award for Lifetime Achievement.- Actress
- Producer
Rene Russo was born in Burbank, California, to Shirley (Balocca), a barmaid and factory laborer, and Nino Russo. Her father, a sculptor and mechanic, left the family when Rene was just two, and thus her mother raised Rene and her sister, Toni, as a single mom. Her father was of Italian descent, and her mother was of Italian and German-English-Irish ancestry.
In junior high school, Rene was plagued with scoliosis and had to wear a full-torso brace. She was already a tall girl, which earned her the nickname "Jolly Green Giant" from her classmates. She entered Burroughs High School, along with classmate Ron Howard, and even though her brace had been removed, she was still somewhat of a loner. Unable to deal with academics and the school social scene, Rene dropped out of school in the tenth grade. Since money was tight, she began to take a variety of part-time jobs over the next 18 months, many for the free benefits. She sold refreshments at a movie theater, where she could see free movies; worked as a restaurant hostess, where her meals were free; and worked as a store cashier at Disneyland, where she had free admission. She often had two jobs at one time. Her last job, which was solely for the paycheck, was a full-time job at an eyeglass factory, inspecting contact lenses.
In 1972, the 17-year-old was attending a Rolling Stones concert when she was approached by John Crosby, a scout and manager from International Creative Management. He told her she should be a model and had test photos made of her. Within a few months, Rene signed a contract with Ford Modeling Agency and within a year had become a successful print and photographers model. Soon her modeling breakthrough came when she graced the cover of Vogue. By 1975, she had appeared on numerous magazine covers, was one of the most successful models in America, and was also starting to be seen in several TV commercials through the 1980s. She would define what a top fashion model was for years to come.
By her 30th birthday, demand for her began to dwindle, as it did for most models at that age. She did a few more commercials and then turned her back on modeling and show business for a while. Financially secure for the next several years, she began an intense period of literature and Christian theology. She also began to study theater and acting, and began appearing in theater roles at small regional theaters in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California.
Her television series debut came in 1987 with a supporting part on the short-lived TV series Sable (1987). In 1989 she made her motion picture debut with the part of the lead characters girlfriend in the film Major League (1989). Her subsequent roles were that of girlfriends and supportive wives in a few films, until her breakthrough as an Internal Affairs detective in Lethal Weapon 3 (1992). Rene Russo has been praised for her ability to hold her own against her major male co-stars, who have included Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner and Pierce Brosnan. Two of her performances within the last few years have gotten her recognition as both a major dramatic actress and a talented character actress. One was as the mother of a kidnapped son in Ransom (1996). The other was as the cartoon femme fatale foreign spy in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000). Although the latter received mixed reviews among moviegoers and critics, Russo was praised for her performance of a role originally slated for Meryl Streep in 1992. Rene Russo has been married to screenwriter Dan Gilroy since 1992, and they have one daughter, named Rose. They reside in Brentwood, California.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and was named after a nearby town, Winona, Minnesota. She is the daughter of Cynthia (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller. Her father's family is Ukrainian Jewish and Romanian Jewish. She grew up in a ranch commune in Northern California which had no electricity. She is the goddaughter of Timothy Leary. Her parents were friends of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and once edited a book called "Shaman Woman Mainline Lady", an anthology of writings on the drug experience in literature, which included one piece by Louisa May Alcott. Ryder would later play the lead role of Josephine March in the adaptation of this author's novel Little Women (1994).
Ryder moved with her parents to Petaluma, California when she was ten and enrolled in acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater. At age 13, she had a video audition to the film Desert Bloom (1986), but did not get the role. However, director David Seltzer spotted her and cast her in Lucas (1986). When telephoned to ask how she would like to have her name appear on the credits, she suggested Ryder as her father's Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing the background. Ryder was selected for the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III (1990), but had to drop out of the role after catching the flu from the strain of doing the films Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990) and Mermaids (1990) back-to-back. She said she did not want to let everyone down by doing a substandard performance. She later made The Age of Innocence (1993), which was directed by Martin Scorsese, whom she believes to be "the best director in the world".