2019:
Celebrities who passed away in 2019.
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- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Bob Einstein was born on 20 November 1942 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Bizarre (1979), Super Dave (1987) and Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000). He was married to Roberta Marie Smith and Cathy Maureen Kilpatrick. He died on 2 January 2019 in Indian Wells, California, USA.- William Sheppard was born and raised in London, England to an Anglo-Irish family. He is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He was an Associate Artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company for 12 years. He appeared on Broadway in 1966 with "Marat-Sade" and later in 1975 with "Sherlock Holmes". He won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award for "The Homecoming" in 1995, at the Matrix Theatre. He voiced the narrator in the popular computer game Civilization 5.
- Verna Bloom was born on 7 August 1938 in Lynn, Massachusetts, USA. She was an actress, known for High Plains Drifter (1973), National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and After Hours (1985). She was married to Jay Cocks and Richard Collier. She died on 9 January 2019 in Bar Harbor, Maine, USA.
- Actor
- Producer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Lean-faced, intense-looking, German-born, Canada-raised Paul Koslo was at his busiest during the 1970s, usually playing shifty, untrustworthy and often downright nasty characters. He first broke into films at age 22 in the low-budget Little White Crimes (1966), and then appeared in a rush of movies taking advantage of his youthful looks, including cult favorites Vanishing Point (1971) and The Omega Man (1971), and the western Joe Kidd (1972), martial arts blaxploitation flick Cleopatra Jones (1973) and crime thriller The Stone Killer (1973). After working alongside such stars as John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Walter Matthau and Charles Bronson, Koslo's career drifted towards television, and in the 1980s he regularly guest-starred on such TV series as The Incredible Hulk (1978), The A-Team (1983), Matlock (1986), MacGyver (1985) and The Fall Guy (1981). Unfortunately, most of his film work in the 1990s and beyond was "straight-to-video" fare, such as Chained Heat 2 (1993) and Inferno (1999). Koslo is well remembered by many as smart-mouthed small-time hood Bobby Kopas, trying to shake down melon grower Charles Bronson in Mr. Majestyk (1974).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Carol Channing was born January 31, 1921, at Seattle, Washington, the daughter of a prominent newspaper editor, who was very active in the Christian Science movement. She attended high school in San Francisco and later worked as a model in Los Angeles. She attended prestigious Bennington College in Vermont and majored in drama and dance and supplemented her work by taking parts in nearby Pocono Resort area. Carol initially made her mark on Broadway in "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" playing Lorelei Lee. In "Hello Dolly" she played Dolly Gallagher Levi, the witty, manipulative widow intent upon finding a wealthy husband. The musical won ten Tony awards in 1964, including Channing's for best actress in a comedy. Jacqueline Kennedy and her two children made their first public appearance after President John F. Kennedy's death by seeing her perform in "Hello Dolly" and later visited her backstage. She appeared in the film Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Her son Channing Carson is a Pulitizer Prize-nominated finalist cartoonist and she continued to practice her Christian Science religion.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Singing funny girl Kaye Ballard was born to perform...and perform she did, in a career spanning eight decades. With a strong comedy background and tunnel mouth to rival Martha Raye, the broad and bouncy trouper drew laughs on the musical stage, in night clubs, in recordings and on TV. As the archetypal over-emotive, knuckle-biting Italian wife and mama, the octogenarian tickled the funny bone with her earthy brand of comedy while alternately touching hearts in song.
She was born Catherine Gloria Balotta,in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Italian parents, Lena (Nacarato) and Vincenzo/Vincent James Balotta. A deep desire to perform already struck by the time she was five years old. A typical class clown during her high school years, she began to compile a number of star impressions for her act. In her teens, she performed in a Cleveland USO stage production of "Stage Door Canteen" (1941), and soon set out on her own.
Earning a job in 1943 touring with Spike Jones and His Orchestra for two years as his featured vocalist and flute/tuba player(!), Kaye eventually set up camp in New York and made her Broadway debut with the revue "Three to Make Ready" (1946). From there she showcased in the musicals "Once in a Lifetime," "Touch and Go" (in London), "Annie Get Your Gun" and the burlesque show "Top Banana". During this time, she built up a strong song-and-comedy reputation for herself on the nightclub circuit, eventually playing the country's best cabarets/niteries including The Bon Soir, Persian Room and Blue Angel in New York, The Hungry i in San Francisco, and Mr. Kelly's in Chicago.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Kaye graced nearly every talk/variety show there was including those for Ed Sullivan, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Steve Allen, Perry Como, Red Skelton, Carol Burnett, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas. Two of her classic TV roles were her ugly stepsister Portia (the other sister being fellow scene-stealer Alice Ghostley) in the Julie Andrews version of Cinderella (1957), and as one of The Mothers-In-Law (1967) (the other being fellow veteran Eve Arden) in the popular but short-lived sitcom produced by Desi Arnaz. Both showcases catered perfectly to Kaye's brash comedy instincts. She also pitched in as a meddling second banana for Doris Day for one season of the star's '70s TV show.
On stage Kaye had Broadway audiences rolling in the aisles with her Helen of Troy in the 1954 musical "The Golden Apple," while introducing the classic song standard "Lazy Afternoon." Other raves came in the form of "Wonderful Town" (1958), "Carnival" (1961) and Cole Porter Revisited" (1965). On the flip side of the coin, she played a frumpy Lola Delaney in a badly misguided musical version of "Come Back, Little Sheba" (entitled "Sheba") in 1974, and also tried unsuccessfully to bring life to the beloved, indomitable Molly Goldberg radio/TV character in the Broadway musical "Molly" (1973); the show lasted a mere two months. Kaye was much more at home sinking her teeth into two of theater's most impregnable females: Mama Rose in "Gypsy" and Dolly Levi in "Hello, Dolly!"
With an out-stretched personality on par with Carol Channing and Ethel Merman, films never became a suitable medium. Although Kaye gave a standout debut performance in The Girl Most Likely (1957), starring Jane Powell, she was seldom seen after that. Her sprinkling of supporting roles included A House Is Not a Home (1964) with Shelley Winters, Which Way to the Front? (1970) starring Jerry Lewis, Freaky Friday (1976) with young Jodie Foster, and, perhaps more notably, in The Ritz (1976) starring Rita Moreno and Jerry Stiller.
In later years, Kaye dominated the stage with feisty work in "Nunsense", "The Pirates of Penzance" (a Broadway replacement), "High Spirits" (as Madame Arcati), "Funny Girl" (as Mrs. Brice), "The Full Monty", and the female version of "The Odd Couple". The Rancho Mirage, California resident performed with the Palm Spring Follies show, and was out-and-about doing her one-woman cabaret show belting out the good old songs and retracing her burlesque-styled comedy roots. A survivor of breast cancer, the never-married veteran showed no signs of slowing down. She died in her Rancho Mirage home on January 21, 2019, aged 93.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Born in the Bronx, New York to Russian Jewish immigrant parents (Isidor "Ira" and Rita Blucher Miller), Richard Miller served in the U.S. Navy for a few years and earned a prize title as a middleweight boxer. He settled in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s, where he was noticed by producer/director Roger Corman, who cast him in most of his low-budget films, often as dislikeable sorts, such as a vacuum-cleaner salesman in Not of This Earth (1957). His most memorable role would have to be that of the mentally unstable, busboy/beatnik artist Walter Paisley, whose clay sculptures are suspiciously lifelike in A Bucket of Blood (1959) (a rare starring role for him), and he is also fondly remembered for his supporting role as the flower-eating Vurson Fouch in Corman's legendary The Little Shop of Horrors (1960).
Miller spent the next 20 years working in Corman productions, and starting in the late 1970s was often cast in films by director Joe Dante, appearing in credited and uncredited walk-on bits as quirky chatterboxes, and stole every scene he appeared in. He has played many variations on his famous Walter Paisley role, such as a diner owner (Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)) or a janitor (Chopping Mall (1986)). One of his best bits is the funny occult-bookshop owner in The Howling (1981). Being short (so he never played a romantic lead or a threatening villain) with wavy hair, long sideburns, a pointed nose and a face as trustworthy as a used-car dealer's, he was, and is to this day, an immediately recognizable character actor whose one-scene appearances in countless movies and TV shows guarantee audience applause.- Actress
- Additional Crew
Betty May Adams was the daughter of a travelling Iowa cotton buyer with a penchant for alcohol. Growing up in Arkansas, Betty expressed an early interest in acting and made her performing debut in a third grade play of "Hansel and Gretel." Beautiful, talented and determined, the freshly minted 'Miss Little Rock' left home at the age of 19 to live with her aunt and uncle in California. For three days a week she made ends meet working as a secretary. The remainder of her time was spent taking speech and drama lessons (in due course losing her Southern twang) and making the rounds of the various Hollywood casting departments. Her first screen role was (appropriately) as a starlet in Paramount's Red, Hot and Blue (1949). This was followed by an inauspicious leading role in the B-grade Western The Dalton Gang (1949). Over a period of five weeks she appeared in six further quota quickies of the sagebrush variety for Poverty Row outfit Lippert Productions. Since Lippert owned no actual studio facilities, most of the filming took place at the Ray Corrigan ranch in Chatsworth, California. In the summer of 1950, Betty assisted in a screen test for Detroit Lions football star Leon Hart at Universal-International. While Hart's movie career ended up stillborn, Betty clicked with producers who opted to change her first name to 'Julia.' The initial outing for her new studio was entitled Bright Victory (1951), with the budding actress a little underemployed as 'the other girl' in a love triangle involving a blind war veteran (played by Arthur Kennedy). Her career was significantly better served in her next assignment as co-star opposite James Stewart in Anthony Mann's seminal Technicolor western Bend of the River (1952) (Kennedy this time cast as the arch villain). Adams later recalled her part in this film as "a great learning experience" and one of her "fondest Hollywood memories," It also led to a life long friendship with Jimmy Stewart.
Signed to a seven-year contract (and having her legs insured by Universal to the tune of $125,000 by Lloyds of London), Julia seemed destined to remain perpetually typecast as a western heroine. A comely actress with soft, classical features, she often gave affecting performances in what amounted to little more than bread-and-butter pictures. At the very least, she got to play romantic leads opposite some of Universal's top box-office earners: Rock Hudson (in Horizons West (1952) and The Lawless Breed (1952)), Tyrone Power(The Mississippi Gambler (1953)) and Glenn Ford (The Man from the Alamo (1953)). Having played a succession of 'nice girls,' Julia took a turn as leader of an outlaw gang in Wings of the Hawk (1953), set against the background of the Mexican Revolution (Van Heflin was first-billed as a mining engineer, who, having his gold mine taken over by Federales, joins Julia's band of 'insurrectos'). 'Miss Melon Patch' of 1953 was about to experience another important career change, being famously cast as the imperilled heroine Kay Lawrence in Jack Arnolds cultish monster flic Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), a role Adams initially considered turning down. Shot in 3-D on a shoestring budget, the picture was light on script but strong on atmosphere and proved once again that style can succeed over content. The not inconsiderable physical charms of Miss Adams often dominated the scenery and gave the 'Gill Man' a run for his money. Audiences approved and 'Creature' spawned two further sequels, alas without Julia and with diminishing returns.
In 1955, having generated strong box office heat, Julia changed her moniker (with studio approval) to the less gentle-sounding Julie. Accordingly, she was now offered more varied material ranging from tough melodramas, to comedies and lightweight romances. Adams further established her credentials with roles which included a soft porn model who survives a plane crash in the Colorado Rockies in The Looters (1955); as a cop's wife in Six Bridges to Cross (1955) (a crime drama based on Boston's Great Brinks Robbery); a sympathetic school's doctor in the family-oriented comedy The Private War of Major Benson (1955) and as the wife of an assistant D.A. fighting gangland on the New York waterfront in Slaughter on 10th Avenue (1957). After 1957, her contract with Universal having expired, Adams successfully transitioned into television where she remained a firm favorite in westerns and crime dramas, guest-starring in just about every classic prime-time series covering both genres (Perry Mason (1957) being her personal favorite). Latterly, she had a popular recurring role as real estate lady Eve Simpson in Murder, She Wrote (1984). Adams was still in demand for occasional screen appearances well into her 90s.
She was married twice: first, to writer-producer Leonard Stern, and, secondly, to the actor Ray Danton. Julie Adams passed away in Los Angeles on February 3, 2019 at the age of 92. Her autobiography (co-written with her son Mitchell Danton), entitled "The Lucky Southern Star: Reflections from the Black Lagoon" appeared in 2011.- Actor
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- Producer
Kristoff made his television debut at age 8 in the sit-com series "That's My Mama." Now, 39 years later, he is one of the stars on CBS's "Young and The Restless," the number one rated drama for the past 25 years on daytime television, playing the popular character of Neil Winters. Is it just a coincidence that Kristoff has been starring on Y and R for 23 plus years.
His childlike gifts have all emerged into the full measure of a mature actor, as is evident by his eight Emmy Award nominations.
Two of Kristoff's Emmy nominations came from starring in the short-lived, NBC-TV daytime drama, "Generations." Kristoff was nominated as Best Supporting Actor in 1990, and in 1991. In 1992 he won the Emmy Award for his role of Neil Winters on "The Young and The Restless." He was nominated for an Emmy in 1993, 1999, and also in 2000, 2006, 2007, and Kristoff won a second Emmy in 2008, for Best Supporting Actor for his role on The Young and The Restless.
Kristoff has had the distinct honor of winning the NAACP Image Award as Best Actor in a Daytime Drama, "The Young and the Restless" nine times. He has been nominated for the Image award sixteen times.
Kristoff is no stranger to the CBS network, having starred in the series "Charlie and Company," with Flip Wilson, Gladys Knight, and Della Reese. He was also a series regular on CBS' "The Bad News Bears." Kristoff also starred in the Spelling Series, "The San Pedro Beach Bums,"
As a child and young adult, Kristoff worked with legendary entertainers such as Richard Pryor, Tony Orlando, Diahann Carroll, Jack Warden, James Earl Jones, Bill Cosby, Flip Wilson, Smokey Robinson, Irene Cara, Gladys Knight, Farrah Fawcett, Jon Voight, and had the distinction of playing the title role of Young Alex Haley in "Roots 2," for which he won a 'Youth in Film' award.
Kristoff has starred in many television dramatic features and mini series, (list available upon request) as well as over two dozen television guest star roles including "Suddenly Susan," "Arliss," "The Jamie Foxx Show," "Get Real," "Pensacola," "Martin," "Living Single," "For Your Love," "The Cosby Show," "Diagnosis Murder," etc. etc. Additionally, he had a recurring role, playing Holly Robinson's boyfriend on the ABC-TV sitcom series "Hanging with Mr. Cooper." He also guest starred in Bow Wow's WB pilot project, "Saving Jason."
Kristoff's feature film credits include starring roles in "The Champ," "Top of the Heap," "A Man Called God," and "Trois 2, Pandoras Box."
Kristoff starred in the independent feature "Carpool Guy," directed by and starring fellow daytime alum Corbin Bernsen.
Kristoff has appeared on "The Tonight Show," with Jay Leno, and over three dozen other talk shows!
Kristoff was voted one of the 40 most fascinating faces by 'People' Magazine in 1998. Additionally, Kristoff was voted one of the 'top ten soap studs' of all time by E-On Line in 1999.
Unwilling to limit his artistic talents to acting, Kristoff formed his own production company to produce and direct his own projects,. One of Kristoff's screenplays has been optioned by Warner Brothers.
From 1995-1997, he created, produced, and hosted the CBS series, "CBS Soap Break," an up close and personal look at CBS soap stars.
Kristoff has written, produced, directed, and hosted two installments of a 'behind the scenes' video series entitled, "Backstage Pass to the 25th and 26th Annual Daytime Emmy's."
Kristoff has also written, produced and directed a children's workout/exercise DVD starring his two children, Julian and Paris.
Kristoff was hired by the Starz network as an official spokesperson for the Black Starz channel.
In 2006, Kristoff was hired to host TV Guide's "Close-up," and "Soap Secrets."
Kristoff hosted the Pre Show to the Golden Globes, Live on the Red Carpet, for the T.V. Guide Network in 2007.
Kristoff is also the brainchild of a Hollywood based DVD/board game, 'Becoming a Celebrity' that hit toy store shelves in 2005.
In 2008, Kristoff produced a $2 million dollar Independent feature film "A Bridge To Nowhere," directed by Blair Underwood.
Kristoff was voted as one of TV Guides top 25 Sexiest Soap males in 2008.
Kristoff Guest Starred on "Everybody Hates Chris" in 2008, playing himself!
Summer of 2008, Kristoff hosted TV Guides "Soaps Top 25 Sexiest Ladies."
Kristoff won his second Emmy for playing the popular character of Neil Winters on "The Young and The Restless" in 2008.
In 2009, Kristoff Guested on the wildly popular "L.A. INK" show on TLC, adding to his tattoo collection!
Kristoff presented at the "World Magic Awards" in 2009.
Kristoff starred in the Wayans pilot project "Growing Up Wayans" in the summer of 2010, playing Kim Wayan's husband and father to their 6 kids.
Kristoff was a recurring guest star on the sit-com "Family Time" airing on the Bounce Network.
Kristoff guest-starred in September 2013 on "Love That Girl" on TV One, working with Phil Morris, alumni from Y and R.
Kristoff guest-starred on Byron Allens, "The First Family," August, 2013.
Kristoff worked on a feature film project 34 years in the making: "A Man Called God," a unique 'cult' documentary about Kristoff's travels to Southern India to study with a world renowned holy man that 50 million disciples call God.
Kristoff had three children, his son, Julian, and daughters, Paris and Lola.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
The son of a Lancashire bookmaker, Albert Finney came to motion pictures via the theatre. In 1956, he won a scholarship to RADA where his fellow alumni included Peter O'Toole and Alan Bates. He joined the Birmingham Repertory where he excelled in plays by William Shakespeare. A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Finney understudied Laurence Olivier at Stratford-upon-Avon, eventually acquiring a reputation as 'the new Olivier'. He first came to critical attention by creating the title role in Keith Waterhouse's "Billy Liar" on the London stage. His film debut soon followed with The Entertainer (1960) by Tony Richardson with whom had earlier worked in the theatre. With the changing emphasis in 60s British cinema towards gritty realism and working-class milieus, Finney's typical screen personae became good-looking, often brooding proletarian types and rebellious anti-heroes as personified by his Arthur Seaton in Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). His exuberant defining role, however, was in the bawdy period romp Tom Jones (1963) in which Finney revealed a substantial talent for comedy. In the same vein, he scored another hit opposite Audrey Hepburn in the charming marital comedy Two for the Road (1967).
By 1965, Finney had branched out into production, setting up Memorial Enterprises in conjunction with Michael Medwin. In 1968, he directed himself in Charlie Bubbles (1968) and three years later produced the Chandleresque homage Gumshoe (1971), in which he also starred as Eddie Ginley, a bingo-caller with delusions of becoming a private eye. From 1972 to 1975, Finney served as artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre. His intermittent forays to the screen confirmed him as a versatile international actor of note, though not what one might describe as a mainstream star. His roles have ranged from Ebenezer Scrooge in the musical version of Scrooge (1970) to Daddy Warbucks in Annie (1982) and (in flamboyant over-the-top make-up) Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). He appeared as Minister of Police Joseph Fouché in Ridley Scott's superb period drama The Duellists (1977) and as a grandiloquent Shakespearean actor in The Dresser (1983) for which he received an Oscar nomination. For the small screen Finney essayed Pope John Paul II (1984) and was a totally believable Winston Churchill in the acclaimed The Gathering Storm (2002). His final movie credit was in the James Bond thriller Skyfall (2012).
Finney was five-times nominated for Academy Awards in 1964, 1975, 1984, 1985 and 2001. He won two BAFTA Awards in 1961 and 2004. True to his working-class roots, he spurned a CBE in 1980 and a knighthood in 2000, later explaining his decision by stating that the 'Sir thing' "slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery". Albert Finney was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2011. He died on February 7 2019 at a London hospital from a chest infection at the age of 82. Upon his death, John Cleese described him as "the best" and "our greatest actor".- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Virile, handsome and square-jawed youthful star of the 1970s and 1980s who showed early potential at super-stardom, Jan-Michael Vincent originally made a name for himself portraying rebellious young men bucking the system, as in The Tribe (1970), White Line Fever (1975) and Baby Blue Marine (1976) or as a man of action on either side of the law, as in The Mechanic (1972), Vigilante Force (1976) and The Winds of War (1983).
He was born in July 1944 in Denver, Colorado, and was finishing a stint in the National Guard when a talent scout was struck by his all-American looks. He made his first appearance on-screen in The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Chinese Junk (1967), before appearing in Journey to Shiloh (1968) and in "Danger Island" on the Hanna-Barbera kids TV show The Banana Splits Adventure Hour (1968). He remained very busy during the 1970s, appearing in high-profile productions alongside such stars as John Wayne, Rock Hudson, Charles Bronson, Slim Pickens and Robert Mitchum.
In 1984, Vincent was cast as Stringfellow Hawke in the helicopter action series Airwolf (1984), co-starring Ernest Borgnine. The show wrapped after three seasons and from then on he was primarily appearing in low-budget, B-grade action and sci-fi films, including Alienator (1990), The Deadly Avenger (1992), Deadly Heroes (1993) and Lethal Orbit (1996). His last film was the woeful gang movie White Boy (2002), and ongoing health issues and personal problems seemed to preclude his return to the screen.
Vincent will be best remembered by film fans as a smirking, apprentice hit man to Charles Bronson in The Mechanic (1972), as feisty "Matt" in the superb surf movie Big Wednesday (1978) with Gary Busey and William Katt, or as rebel trucker Carol Jo Hummer battling corruption in White Line Fever (1975).- Actor
- Director
- Cinematographer
Bruno Ganz was an acclaimed Swiss actor who was a prominent figure in German language film and television for over fifty years. He is internationally renowned for portraying Adolf Hitler in the Academy Award-nominated film Downfall (2004).
Ganz was born in Zürich, to a Swiss mechanic father and a northern Italian mother. He decided to pursue an acting career by the time he entered university. He debuted at the theatre in 1961, and gained a reputation as a reflective, charismatic and technically brilliant stage actor. In 1970, he and Peter Stein founded the theatre company 'Schaubühne' in Berlin, Germany. On stage, Ganz portrayed Dr. Heinrich Faust in Peter Stein's staging of Faust, Part One and Faust, Part Two in 2000.
In cinema, Ganz became one of the best-known and most acclaimed actors in the German language, collaborating with many of the most respected European actors and directors of his time. He also starred in international features that reached a global audience. His film debut was The Gentleman in the Black Derby (1960). He also starred in Unknown (2011), The Counselor (2013), and The Party (2017).
Ganz died from cancer on 16 February 2019 at his home in the village of Au, in Wädenswil, Switzerland.- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Performed as a folk musician in Greenwich Village and Los Angeles before being selected for the Monkees TV show. Made 58 TV episodes 6 albums, a TV special, and a movie before leaving the Monkees in 1969 Released a solo single in 1982. Rejoined the Monkees for tours and an from 1986 to 1989. Released his first solo album, "Stranger Things Have Happened", in 1994- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Craggy-faced, athletic veteran character actor who played hard-bitten or menacing types in numerous westerns and crime dramas. One of five brothers, Woodward grew up in Arlington, Texas. He had a keen interest in aviation early on and took flying lessons from 1941, getting his pilot's license and subsequently served in both World War II (Army Air Corps) and Korea (Military Air Transport Command). Woodward first acted at Arlington State College, majoring in music and drama. He appeared for a while with the Margo Jones Repertory Theatre '47 in Dallas and then went back to study for a degree in corporate finance at the University of Texas, graduating in 1948. At one time, he sang with a jazz band and as a member of a barber shop quartet as well as having a regular weekly gig as a talk show host on local radio. Possessed of a powerful bass-baritone voice, Woodward's ultimate ambition had been to sing for the Metropolitan Opera. That didn't pan out. Neither did his hope that moving to Hollywood in 1955 might open the door to a career in musicals. Instead, he successfully auditioned at Disney for The Great Locomotive Chase (1956), followed by a part in the western pioneer saga Westward Ho, the Wagons! (1956). His first big break was as co-star opposite Hugh O'Brian in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955), playing the role of Earp's deputy Shotgun Gibbs for four seasons. This effectively typecast him as a western genre actor with a record number of guest spots on Gunsmoke (1955) and Wagon Train (1957). Nonetheless, his most famous role was that of ""the man with no eyes", a sinister chain gang overseer in Cool Hand Luke (1967), distinguished by perpetually wearing reflective sunglasses. He also made two appearances on Star Trek (1966) (most famously as Simon Van Gelder, the first human with whom Spock 'mind melds') and played the shrewd Armani-suited oil tycoon Punk Anderson in 55 episodes of Dallas (1978).
Thomas Morgan Woodward was awarded the Golden Boot Award from the Hollywood Motion Picture and Television Fund in August 1988. In 2009, he became an inductee into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Privately, he was a respected authority on Early American Aircraft. According to his website, his main hobby was "restoring, rebuilding and flying antique airplanes".- Actress
- Director
Katherine Marie Helmond was born on July 5, 1929, in Galveston, Texas. After her parents divorced, she was raised by her mother, Thelma (nee Malone) Helmond, and her maternal grandmother, both of Irish Catholic descent. She attended Catholic school, and appeared in numerous school plays and pageants. She took a job at a local theater while still in high school, hammering and sawing the scenery, cleaning the bathrooms and pulling the curtain.
After her stage debut in "As You Like It", she worked in New York theatres during the 1950s and 1960s. She operated a summer theatre in the Catskills for three seasons and also taught acting in university theatre programs. She made her TV debut in 1962 but had to wait another 10 years until her breakthrough came in the 1970s. She stayed busy on TV as well as on stage and earned a Tony nomination for "The Great God Brown" (1973) on Broadway. She honed her acting abilities with Alfred Hitchcock in Family Plot (1976) and in numerous TV series, notably in ABC's cult sitcom Soap (1977), for which she had four Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe. On the big screen she starred in Brazil (1985) as Jonathan Pryce's mother who is addicted to plastic surgery and snooping in her son's messed-up life.
In 1983 she studied at the Directing Workshop of the American Film Institute and then directed four episodes of the series Benson (1979) as well as episodes of Who's the Boss? (1984). She also picked up Emmy nominations for her role as Mona Robinson, a liberated grandmother in "Who's the Boss?", and as Lois in Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). Although Helmond was a bona-fide TV star since her "Soap" days, she continued working on stage in the 2000s and was acclaimed for her performances in "The Vagina Monologues".
Katherine Helmond was married twice. She had no children. She turned to Buddhism in later years. She shared her time between her home in Los Angeles and homes in New York and London.- Nathaniel Taylor was born on 31 March 1938 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for Sanford and Son (1972), Black Girl (1972) and The Redd Foxx Show (1986). He was married to Loretta Taylor. He died on 27 February 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Luke Perry was an American actor, primarily remembered as a teen idol throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. Perry was born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1966. Mansfield was known at the time as a center for the home appliances and stove manufacturing industries. The city's largest employer used to be the Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
Perry's parents were the steelworker Coy Luther Perry Jr. (1944-1980) and his wife Ann. Perry's parents divorced in 1972, when he was 6-years-old. Ann gained custody over her children, and later married construction worker Steve Bennett. Luke was mostly raised by his mother and stepfather, and did not have a close relationship with his biological father. Coy Perry suffered a heart attack in 1980 and died, when Luke was 14-years-old. Luke attended his funeral.
Perry was mostly raised in the village of Fredericktown, Ohio, and attended the Fredericktown High School. In his high school years, Perry served in the role of the school mascot, the "Freddie Bird".
In 1984, the 18-year-old Perry moved to Los Angeles, with the intention of becoming a professional actor. For several years, Perry kept auditioning for various roles without ever being hired. He supported himself financially by working at odd jobs, and serving as an extra for music videos. His most notable role in this period was in the 1986 music video for the song "Be Chrool to Your Scuel" (1985) by the heavy metal band "Twisted Sister".
Perry's first successful audition landed him the role of a recurring character in the soap opera Loving (1983) (1983-1995). From 1987 to 1988, he played the character of Ned Bates. In Perry's own words: "Ned was a dirt-poor mechanic from Tennessee who always got taken advantage of".
Perry next received a recurring role in another soap opera, Another World (1964) (1964-1999). From 1988 to 1989, he played the character of Kenny, the manager of aspiring model and actress Josie Watt (played by Alexandra Wilson).
In 1990, Perry landed the most significant role of his career, depicting the character of Dylan McKay in the teen drama Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) (1990-2000). He played the character for a total of 199 episodes. Dylan was the teenage rebel son of business tycoon Jack McKay and hippie ex-wife Iris McKay. He started the series as a loner, but he offered help to nerdy schoolmate Scott Scanlon (played by Douglas Emerson) against the local bullies. This act of bravery gained him new friends and the romantic attention of Brenda Walsh (played by Shannen Doherty).
Perry's success in his new role gained him a huge following among teenage girls, and guaranteed that he would receive more job offers. His first starring role in a film was the drama Terminal Bliss (1990) (1992), where he played the self-destructive rich kid John Hunter. The film was a box-office flop.
Perry had a more memorable role in the horror comedy film Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), as the character Oliver Pike. Pike was a hard-drinking slacker youth in Los Angeles, and had a hostile relationship with high school girl Buffy Summers (played by Kristy Swanson). After Pike's best friend gets turned into a vampire, Pike assists Buffy in her battles with the vampire lord Lothos (played by Rutger Hauer) and his subordinate vampires. Pike is Buffy's sidekick and main love interest in the film, and has appeared in various adaptations, though not in the spin-off television series.
Perry had his first voice acting role in the episode, Krusty Gets Kancelled (1993) of the animated sitcom The Simpsons (1989). He played a parody version of himself as a sidekick of the character Krusty the Clown in a show-within-the-show. Perry had more voice acting roles in other animated television series of this era. He played the Detroit-based crime lord Napoleon Brie in Biker Mice from Mars (1993) (1993-1996), the master ninja Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1995) (1996), Bruce Banner's best friend and sidekick Rick Jones in The Incredible Hulk (1996) (1996-1997), and Nicky Little's boyfriend Stewart Waldinger in Pepper Ann (1997) (1997-2000).
In live-action films, Perry played the starring role of professional bull-rider Lane Frost (1963-1989) in the biographical drama 8 Seconds (1994). He played a version of himself in the Italian comedy film Vacanze di Natale '95 (1995) ("Christmas Vacation '95", 1995), where he is the love interest of infatuated teenager Marta Colombo (played by Cristiana Capotondi). Perry played the police officer and bank robber Chris Anderson in the crime drama Normal Life (1996), while his wife and partner-in-crime Pam Anderson was played by Ashley Judd. He played the suicidal character Johnny in the comedy-drama American Strays (1996), which features the character hiring a professional hit-man to provide him with an assisted suicide.
In 1997, Perry played a small role in the science fiction film The Fifth Element (1997). In a scene set in 1914, Perry plays the assistant archaeologist Billy Masterson. Masterson sees his mentor being knocked out by Mondoshawan aliens, and reacts by shooting one of the aliens. Masterson's fate is left uncertain in the film, though the novelization features him as the victim of a poisoning plot.
In the late 1990s, Perry appeared frequently in television films and various direct-to-video films. He had guest roles in several television series, but mostly playing one-shot characters. Following the end of Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) in 2000, his first major role was the recurring character Jeremiah Cloutier in the crime-drama Oz (1997) (1997-2003). Introduced in 2001 episodes of the series, Jeremiah was an Evangelical preacher who was imprisoned for embezzling funds from his church. He used his charisma and preaching skills to convert fellow prisoners to Evangelical Christianity, He was eventually assassinated by his own convert Timmy Kirk (Sean Dugan) and several of Kirk's friends, after Jeremiah denounced Kirk using Christianity as an excuse to murder people.
Perry next gained a starring role in the post-apocalyptic series Jeremiah (2002) (2002-2004). The series is set c. 2021, 15 years after a plague killed nearly everyone over the age of thirteen. Most of the adult characters of the show were children at that time, and survived the event. Now they are troubled adults, trying to survive in a harsh world. Perry's character Jeremiah is a wanderer who finds himself recruited into a Colorado-based secretive organization. He fights a war against a West Virginia-based organization which seeks to either conquer or wipe out all remaining outposts of humanity. The series lasted two seasons. A third season was planned, but plans for it were aborted due to disagreements between the production companies co-financing the series.
Perry returned to playing mostly guest star roles in television. In 2006, he was cast as one of the main characters in the short-lived drama series Windfall (2006). Only 13 episodes were produced, as the series failed to find an audience and one of the show's co-creators had left before the season's completion.
In 2007, Perry played businessman Linc Stark in the surf-themed series John from Cincinnati (2007). Despite relatively high ratings, the series only lasted for one season.
In the late 2000s, Perry played guest roles in police procedural a series: the rapist Noah Sibert in Trials (2008) and the cult leader Benjamin Cyrus in Minimal Loss (2008).
For much of the 2010s, Perry continued mostly appearing in guest roles and relatively obscure films. In 2015, a colonoscopy test revealed pre-cancerous growths in Perry's body, that could have developed into colorectal cancer. Perry received medical treatment, and became a spokesperson for campaigns requiring early testing for cancer.
In 2017, Perry returned to prominence in a live-action adaptation of a comic book series, Riverdale (2017) (2017-2019). It was an adaptation of Archie Comics' characters, but in a mystery series instead of their traditional comedy setting. Perry played Frederick "Fred" Andrews, Archie Andrews's father, depicted here as the owner of a successful construction company. Fred is depicted as a single father, as his wife Mary Andrews abandoned him and moved to Chicago. The series also depicts Fred as the ex-boyfriend of Hermione Gomez-Lodge (Veronica Lodge's mother).
On February 27, 2019, Perry suffered a massive ischemic stroke within his home in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. He was hospitalized, but suffered a second stroke days later. He died on March 4, 2019, having never recovered from the two strokes. He was only 52 years old. His body was buried near his home in Vanleer, Tennessee, where he had bought a farm and the associated house in 1995, and spent time living there when not working on film or television projects.
Perry's will reportedly left his son Jack Perry (b. 1997) and daughter Sophie Perry (b. 2000) as the only heirs to his estate. The press noted that the will excludes Perry's mother, his stepfather, his siblings, his ex-wife, and his last fiancée from having inheritance claims, and there was some speculation on Perry's motivation for this decision. His net worth was estimated at over $10 million.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Character actor John Richard Erdmann was born on June 1, 1925 in Enid, Oklahoma, of Dutch descent. Raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Erdman and his single mother moved to Los Angeles, California in 1941 after his high school drama teacher told him he could make it in movies. Richard subsequently enrolled in Hollywood High School. Moreover, Erdman was immediately offered and quickly signed a contract at Warner Bros. while still a teenager upon meeting director Michael Curtiz in his office.
Often cast as amiable sailors, rowdy soldiers, or wisecracking best buddies, Richard's career in both films and television alike encompassed several decades starting in the mid-1940's and continued going strong well into the 2010's. Outside of acting, Erdman also directed two movies and some episodic television. Richard was acting almost right to the end. He died at age 93 on March 16, 2019.- Actor
- Cinematographer
- Additional Crew
Seymour Cassel, the veteran character actor who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as the hippie swinger Chet in John Cassavetes' Faces (1968), studied acting at the American Theatre Wing and at the Actors Studio. He made his movie debut in Cassavetes' first film, Shadows (1958), on which he also served as associate producer.
Seymour Joseph Cassel was born on January 22, 1935 in Detroit, Michigan, to Pancretia Ann (Kearney), a performer, and Seymour Joseph Cassel, who owned a night club. His father was of Russian Jewish and German Jewish descent, and his mother was of Irish heritage. Cassel's early career was tied to Cassavetes, who himself had a flourishing career as an actor on television and in major Hollywood productions in addition to becoming, arguably, the first great independent movie director after the collapse of the studio system in the late 1950s/early 1960s. As for Cassel, after his uncredited role in "Shadows," he co-starred with Cassavetes in The Webster Boy (1962) and Too Late Blues (1961) before winding up in support of his friend in Don Siegel's drama The Killers (1964), a movie shot for TV that had to be released theatrically due to its heightened violence (it was also Ronald Reagan's last movie). Cassel primarily made his living on TV in the 1960s, frequently typecast as beatniks and hippies. He had a supporting role in the Cassavetes-directed episode "A Pair of Boots" (1962) for The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962) as well as appearing on such popular programs as 12 O'Clock High (1964), Combat! (1962) and The F.B.I. (1965) before scoring with his aging hippie in "Faces" at the end of that tumultuous decade.
Along with "Shadows," "Faces" remained his favorite Cassavettes film. In addition to acting, Cassel was also a crew member on the film, as the technical staff numbered all of seven. He helped shoot the film as a second cameraman, as well as adjusting the lighting. As the film was financed by Cassavettes himself, there were no union regulations to deal with, nor a studio schedule to keep.
Several of Cassavettes' films were shot in continuity, so the actors could develop a character in sequence--similar to stage acting--rather than the traditional method of film making, which is shot out of sequence. Cassel had stated that this technique enhanced the success of his works by eliminating the "fourth wall" between the audience and the actors. He believed that acting tells the film's story, not the images and that what is important is how the audience relates to the characters on screen.
As their careers matured, Cassel also co-starred with Cassavetes in two TV movies, Nightside (1973) and Nightside (1973) and appeared in supporting roles in three more Cassavetes-directed films: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), Opening Night (1977) and Love Streams (1984).
In addition to appearing in studio films, Cassel remained prominent in the American independent film community since the death of his friend and collaborator. He contributed a cameo appearance in the directorial debut of Steve Buscemi (with whom he appeared as a co-star in the black comedy In the Soup (1992)), Trees Lounge (1996), and has appeared in three films by Wes Anderson: Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004).
Cassel was prized by independent directors for two things: his positive nature, and his (perhaps) facetious declaration that he'd be in any independent film for the price of a plane ticket if he liked the script.
He died on April 7, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Georgia Engel was born on 28 July 1948 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. She was an actress, known for Everybody Loves Raymond (1996), The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and Open Season (2006). She died on 12 April 2019 in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Her artistic dreams came early in life and were further supported by her older sister Gerd Andersson who became a ballet dancer at the Royal Opera and made her acting debut in 1951. Bibi, on the other side, had to make do with bit parts and commercials. She debuted in Dum-Bom (1953), playing against Nils Poppe. Eventually, she was able to start at the Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school in 1954. A brief relationship with Ingmar Bergman made her quit school and follow him to the Malmö city theatre, where he was a director, performing in plays by August Strindberg and Hjalmar Bergman. Bergman also gave her a small part in his comedy Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), and larger roles in his Wild Strawberries (1957) and The Seventh Seal (1957). From the the 1960s she got offers from abroad, with best result in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977). During the civil war in Yugoslavia she has worked with several initiatives to give the people of Sarajevo theatre and other forms of culture.- Actor
- Director
Ken Kercheval was born on 15 July 1935 in Wolcottville, Indiana, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Dallas (1978), Network (1976) and The Secret Storm (1954). He was married to Cheryl Paris, Ava Ruth Fox and Judith Peters Launt. He died on 21 April 2019 in Clinton, Indiana USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Peter Mayhew was born on May 19, 1944 in Barnes, London, England, to Constance Elizabeth (Yeates) and Walter Henry Mayhew. Later resident in Texas, this former resident of Yorkshire, England, was working as a hospital attendant at the King's College Hospital in London when film producer Charles H. Schneer saw his photo, literally standing above the crowd around him. Schneer cast him in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), Ray Harryhausen's special effects film.
A year later, he was offered another role. Mayhew was told it was for a big hairy beast. It was the role of Chewbacca, the faithful 200 year-old Wookiee in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and his life was changed forever. Following the original Star Wars trilogy, he made several television commercials in the Wookiee costume.
In 1997, the 20th-anniversary celebrations of Star Wars were announced with the release of the "Special Edition" and all the conventions started. He was active on the "Star Wars" convention circuit where he signed autographs. He wrote two books, "Growing Up Giant" and "My Favorite Giant", and founded a non-profit 501(c)3 charity organization called "The Peter Mayhew Foundation".- Actress
- Soundtrack
She was a groovy and sexy icon of the late hippie era. To millions of TV viewers she became familiar as the reformed juvenile delinquent, turned undercover cop, Julie Barnes. With her expressive brown eyes and trademark long blonde hair, sylphlike Peggy Lipton was one third of a streetwise urban trio who - at least to baby boomers in the 60s - represented a more anti-authoritarian point of view. As a police drama with a difference, Mod Squad (1968) was a counterculture trend-setter which addressed previously neglected (or taboo) issues such as the Vietnam War, child abuse, police brutality, racism and drugs. Along with Star Trek (1966), I Spy (1965), Mannix (1967) and Mission: Impossible (1966), it was also among the first shows to feature an interracial cast.
Peggy Lipton was born into a well-to-do upper middle-class family of Russian-Jewish ancestry. Her father was a corporate lawyer, her mother an artist. Her upbringing was strict, her childhood lonely. According to her co-authored autobiography "Breathing Out", she was abused by an uncle. An introverted child of self-confessed 'morbid and gloomy' disposition, she became prone to a debilitating nervous stutter which began to disappear when she left home and struck out on her own at the age of 15. With her dad's assistance she obtained her first job as a model for the Eileen Ford agency in New York. Her mother then prompted her to take drama classes with Uta Hagen at the Herbert Berghof studio in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. At age 19, Lipton got her first gigs on TV, mostly small guest spots, albeit in popular cult shows like Bewitched (1964), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) and The Invaders (1967). She also co-starred (opposite a very young Kurt Russell) in Disney's Mosby's Marauders (1967), set during the Civil War. In between acting, Lipton enjoyed a brief, but moderately successful, singing career. Three of her singles made it to the Billboard charts. At the same time, her private life was punctuated by unhappy or abusive romantic dalliances and experimentation with drugs, including cocaine and peyote.
In 1968, Lipton's career as a TV star was properly inaugurated with Mod Squad. Success led to four Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe Award in 1971. Four years into the show she was asked by an interviewer whether she was bored with her character. She replied: "Creatively I'm bored, yes, but I'm certainly not bored with the success of it, not at all. I know what I'm doing isn't 'Medea,' or even necessarily very good TV, but it's exciting to be famous".
Fame might have been exciting, but there was a flipside. After five years of Mod Squad ("we were always working"), she was burnt out. Uncomfortable with attention from the press, Lipton became more and more withdrawn and insecure. Her subsequent marriage to music legend Quincy Jones (1974-1989) settled her down to raising a family but also led to a lengthy hiatus from acting. However, in 1988, somewhat rehabilitated from a miasma of personal problems, she made her screen comeback and a year later co-starred opposite Charles Bronson in the tough action thriller Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989). Her most high profile role during the following years was that of Norma Jennings, proprietor of the Double R Diner, in David Lynch's bizarre supernatural drama Twin Peaks (1990) (a role she reprised in a later cinematic prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), as well as in the 2017 re-launch). Other sporadic appearances included a role as an antagonist in J.J. Abrams's spy series Alias (2001).
Peggy Lipton was diagnosed with cancer in 2004. The disease eventually claimed her life on May 11 2019 at the age of 72. She left two daughters from her marriage to Quincy Jones, Rashida and Kidada, who have also become actresses.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
One of America's most loved actresses was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alma Sophia (Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. Her grandparents were all German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born and Paul, a few years older.
Her parents divorced while she was still a child, and she lived with her mother. Like most little girls, Doris liked to dance. At fourteen, she formed a dance act with a boy, Jerry Doherty, and they won $500 in a local talent contest. She and Jerry took a brief trip to Hollywood to test the waters. They felt they could succeed, so she and Jerry returned to Cincinnati with the intention of packing and making a permanent move to Hollywood. Tragically, the night before she was to move to Hollywood, she was injured riding in a car hit by a train, ending the possibility of a dancing career.
It was a terrible setback, but after taking singing lessons she found a new vocation, and at age 17, she began touring with the Les Brown Band. She met trombonist Al Jorden, whom she married in 1941. Jorden was prone to violence and they divorced after two years, not long after the birth of their son Terry. In 1946, Doris married George Weidler, but this union lasted less than a year. Day's agent talked her into taking a screen test at Warner Bros. The executives there liked what they saw and signed her to a contract (her early credits are often confused with those of another actress named Doris Day, who appeared mainly in B westerns in the 1930s and 1940s).
Her first starring movie role was in Romance on the High Seas (1948). The next year, she made two more films, My Dream Is Yours (1949) and It's a Great Feeling (1949). Audiences took to her beauty, terrific singing voice and bubbly personality, and she turned in fine performances in the movies she made (in addition to several hit records). She made three films for Warner Bros. in 1950 and five more in 1951. In that year, she met and married Martin Melcher, who adopted her young son Terry, who later grew up to become Terry Melcher, a successful record producer.
In 1953, Doris starred in Calamity Jane (1953), which was a major hit, and several more followed: Lucky Me (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and what is probably her best-known film, Pillow Talk (1959). She began to slow down her filmmaking pace in the 1960s, even though she started out the decade with a hit, Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960).
In 1958, her brother Paul died. Around this time, her husband, who had also taken charge of her career, had made deals for her to star in films she didn't really care about, which led to a bout with exhaustion. The 1960s weren't to be a repeat of the previous busy decade. She didn't make as many films as she had in that decade, but the ones she did make were successful: Do Not Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968) and With Six You Get Eggroll (1968). Martin Melcher died in 1968, and Doris never made another film, but she had been signed by Melcher to do her own TV series, The Doris Day Show (1968). That show, like her movies, was successful, lasting until 1973. After her series went off the air, she made only occasional TV appearances.
By the time Martin Melcher died, Doris discovered she was millions of dollars in debt. She learned that Melcher had squandered virtually all of her considerable earnings, but she was eventually awarded $22 million by the courts in a case against a man that Melcher had unwisely let invest her money. She married for the fourth time in 1976 and since her divorce in 1980 has devoted her life to animals.
Doris was a passionate animal rights activist. She ran Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets.
Doris died on May 13, 2019, in Carmel Valley Village, California. She was 97.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Funny man Tim Conway was born on December 15th, 1933 in Willoughby, Ohio, to Sophia (Murgoiu) and Daniel Conway, a pony groomer. He was a fraternity man at Bowling Green State University, served in the army, and started his career working for a radio station.
Conway got into comedy when he started writing and performing comedy skits between morning movies on CBS. Later, Rose Marie "discovered" him and he became a regular performer on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956). However, Conway would not earn true fame until starring as "Ensign Charles Parker" on McHale's Navy (1962). Conway sought further success in several shows that were failures, including the embarrassingly short-lived, Turn-on (1969), with only one episode. The producers did not even want it back on after the commercial break! Even his own show, The Tim Conway Show (1970) flopped, with only 12 episodes. Conway starred in the Disney film, The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), and also the films, The Prize Fighter (1979) and The Private Eyes (1980).
Conway became a comical performer on The Carol Burnett Show (1967), with characters such as "The Old Man" and "Mr. Tudball". Even though it is widely thought he was always a regular performer throughout the whole show, he only became a regular performer in 1975. He was a hysterical addition to the team and memorably made co-star Harvey Korman laugh on-screen live many times.
Conway continued comedic roles such as "Dorf", and also had many more television appearances and films.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Carmine Caridi was born on 23 January 1934 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Godfather Part II (1974), The Godfather Part III (1990) and The Money Pit (1986). He died on 28 May 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Florida-born Peggy O'Rourke's parents divorced when she was very young. Peggy's mother eventually married a wealthy attorney named Stewart, and Peggy took his name. She grew up in Atlanta (where she developed the athletic skills she would later demonstrate in her many westerns for Republic Pictures). On a family vacation to Los Angeles to visit her grandmother, Peggy, as a lark, attended classes at a dramatic school, but the acting bug hit her hard and when it was time to return to Atlanta, Peggy talked her mother into letting her staying with her grandmother. As luck would have it, a resident of the apartment building they lived in was character actor Henry O'Neill, who took a liking to Peggy and got her cast in her first film, Wells Fargo (1937). She picked up a few more small roles, and acquitted herself so well the parts started getting bigger and she was working more often. She married actor Don 'Red' Barry in 1940, and was eventually signed by Republic Pictures, Barry's studio, to make westerns and serials. In three years, Peggy did almost 30 films at Republic, most of them westerns. She appeared in two of the studio's more successful serials, but when Republic assigned her to another one, she protested. She didn't particularly like working in serials, preferring the feature westerns, which didn't take as long to film. Eventually, the struggle with Republic got to the point where Peggy asked for her release, and she got it. Although she wanted to start doing films other than westerns, she had made so many at Republic that she found herself basically unable to find work in any other genre. She freelanced for Monogram, Allied Artists, PRC and other small studios until she was picked up by Columbia--which immediately put her into serials. She eventually decided to leave the film business, and did so in 1953. She did do some television work (mostly westerns!) while raising her family, and also performed in the Los Angeles theatrical community. She kept her hand in the film business, making occasional appearances in some lower-budget westerns, made-for-TV movies and inexpensive horror pictures.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Sylvia Miles was an American actress, born and raised in Greenwich Village, New York City. She was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, without ever winning the Award.
Miles was born under the name "Sylvia Scheinwald". Her parents were furniture maker Reuben Scheinwald and his wife Belle Feldman. Miles attended Washington Irving High School, located in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan. She received her acting education at the Actors Studio, located the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan.
Miles made her theatrical debut in 1947, at the age of 23. She started appearing on television in 1954. Her film debut was the gangster film "Murder, Inc." (1960), dramatizing the career of an organized crime group active from c. 1930 to 1940. The real-life group were enforcers for the National Crime Syndicate, a loose confederation of American crime organizations.
Subsequent film appearances for Miles included the generation-gap themed drama "Parrish" (1961), the serial-killed themed horror film "Violent Midnight" (1963), and the child-labor themed drama "Pie in the Sky" (1964), Meanwhile, Miles lost a chance at television fame, when playing the character of comedy writer Sally Rogers in the 1960 pilot episode "Head of the Family". The pilot was the basis of the popular television show "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (1961-1966), and Sally Rogers was part of the main cast. But in the regular series, Miles was replaced by fellow actress Rose Marie (1923-2017).
Miles had a scene-stealing performance in her next film project, "Midnight Cowboy" (1969). She played Cass, an aging kept woman, who invites Joe Buck (played by Jon Voight) to her apartment for sex. The role allowed Miles to Show off her "voluptuous figure" and overall sex-appeal. For this role, she received her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The award was instead won by Goldie Hawn (1945-).
Miles subsequent films included the meta-fictional drama "The Last Movie" (1971), the mystery film "Who Killed Mary What's 'Er Name?" (1971), and the seduction-themed comedy-drama "Heat" (1972). Her most notable role at the time was that of Jessie Halstead Florian in the crime thriller "Farewell, My Lovely". The film was the second film adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1940 novel, and depicted private detective Philip Marlowe working in a missing-person case. For her role in the film Miles received her second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The award was instead won by Lee Grant (c. 1925-).
Miles subsequent films films included the rivalry-themed drama "92 in the Shade" (1975), the period comedy "The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday" (1976), the supernatural horror film "The Sentinel" (1977), the repossession-themed comedy "Zero to Sixty" (1978), and the heist film "Shalimar".
The 1980s opened with Miles playing murdered prostitute Madame Zena in the horror film "The Funhouse" (1981), with the murder setting off the film's main plot. She next played theatrical producer Myra Gardener in the mystery film "Evil Under the Sun" (1982). The film was an adaptation of the 1941 novel by Agatha Christie, and featured Myra as one on the film's murder suspects.
Miles' next few films included hospital-themed comedy "Critical Condition" (1987), the fairy-tale themed fantasy film "Sleeping Beauty" (1987), the romantic comedy "Crossing Delancey" (1988), the mafia-themed comedy-drama "Spike of Bensonhurst" (1988), and the revenge-themed black comedy "She-Devil" (1989). Her most notable role in this period was that of Dolores the Realtor in the corporate-raider themed drama "Wall Street" (1987), a box office hit of the time.
Miles' career slowed down in the 1990s, in part due to her increasingly poor health. She was suffering from anemia and respiratory issues. Her next few films included the friendship-themed comedy "Denise Calls Up" (1995), the marijuana-themed comedy "High Times' Potluck" (2002), and the strip-club themed comedy "Go Go Tales" (2007).
Miles returned to the role Dolores the Realtor in the sequel film "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" (2010). It was her last notable film role. She spend the last months of her life in a nursing home, and died during her transportation to a hospital in 2019. She was 94 years old, one of the oldest living actresses at the time.- Sean McCann appeared in more than 150 feature films, cable television movies, television series and miniseries. McCann always had a craving for diversity. He began his adult life with a singular devoutness uncommon to actors of his peer group, studying at St. Peter's Seminary in London, Ontario to prepare himself for the priesthood. A student of history, politics and poetry, he had a library of well over 800 volumes of literature and letters devoted to both the high arts and popular culture. McCann indulged his not-so-secret love of baseball as an Associate Scout for the Toronto Blue Jays, spoke often about baseball to professional organizations, and was named to the Board of Directors of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
McCann was seen with Sarah Polley and Diane Ladd (The Law of Enclosures (2000)), Nick Nolte (Affliction (1997)), and Chris Farley (Tommy Boy (1995)). He shared screen time with Miranda Richardson and Brenda Fricker (Swann (1996), for which McCann received Genie nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role), Nicolas Cage (Trapped in Paradise (1994)), Kevin Bacon (The Air Up There (1994)), and Peter Weller and Judy Davis (Naked Lunch (1991), which garnered the actor a National Film Critics Society Award). In 1999, he won a Gemini Award for Best Guest Actor in a Series for Power Play. In a testament to his chameleon acting talents, McCann was twice nominated for a Gemini Award for Best Performance in a Pre-School Series, for his role as "Noah" in Noddy (1998).
McCann was singled out at the 1987 Gemini Awards with a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his recurring role in Night Heat (1985). He starred in Robert Lepage's Genie Award-winning Possible Worlds (2000), and appeared in the Golden Globe-nominated Small Sacrifices (1989) (starring Farrah Fawcett). In 1988, he took on the role of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in The King Chronicle (1988); the miniseries was a 6-hour CBC and NFB co-production which aired to popular and critical acclaim. One year later, he won the Earl Grey Award for his performance.
McCann had a unique civic-mindedness as well. He ran against one of the most recognizable figures on the Canadian political landscape, Progressive Conservative Roy McMurtry, in Ontario's 1979 provincial election. His showing in that race, which he lost, confirmed that acting was his primary métier, but did nothing to dampen his conviction that politicians and political institutions are accountable to the masses. - Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Drago was well known for his villainous parts (leading or supporting), and his rugged yet scary looks and evil smile. He was born William Eugene Burrows in Hugoton, Kansas. He became interested in acting and took his mother's maiden name "Drago" as a stage name. At first he worked as a stuntman in Kansas, then attended the University of Kansas. After graduating he worked as a radio host before joining an acting crew that led him to New York. He began his acting career at the end of 1970s.
After appearing in multiple TV series as a guest actor, he appeared in such low-budget films as: Windwalker (1980), Vamp (1986), Hunter's Blood (1986), Freeway (1988), Dark Before Dawn (1988), Gwang tin lung fo wooi (1989), True Blood (1989), Martial Law II: Undercover (1991), Lady Dragon 2 (1993) and Cyborg 2: Glass Shadow (1993). He also appeared in Walker, Texas Ranger (1993). Other well-known appearances were in: Mad Dog Time (1996), Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004) and The Hills Have Eyes (2006) (the remake), as the leader of mutant nomads. He did an extensive work on TV, most notably on Charmed (1998). He also produced an instructional acting video with his wife, Silvana Gallardo.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Max Wright was born on 2 August 1943 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for ALF (1986), All That Jazz (1979) and The Shadow (1994). He was married to Linda Ybarrondo. He died on 26 June 2019 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.- Born, and raised for a time, in Pelion, South Carolina, African-American actor Paul Benjamin was the youngest of twelve children of a Baptist preacher, the Reverend Fair Benjamin, and his wife Rosa. Paul lost his mother while still a baby and his father as a child. He moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where he was taken in by one of his older brothers, David, and his wife and family. Suppressing his teenage desires of becoming an actor due to social pressures, he attended C.A. Johnson High and, upon graduation, enrolled at Benedict College for about a year before deciding to move to New York City and pursue his dream.
Studying at the Herbert Berghof Studio, he finally made his professional stage debut in the late 1960s at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater. His theater career quickly picked up steam with such classical and contemporary plays as "Hamlet" (1967), "Cities in Bezique (1969), "The Owl Answers" (1969), "No Place to Be Somebody" (1969), "The Year Boston Won the Pennant" (1969), "Camino Royal" 1970, "Operation Sidewinder" (1970), Boesman and Lena (1970), "The Black Terror" (1971), "Assassination 1865" (1971), "The Cherry Orchard" (1973) and "The Old Glory" (1976).
Benjamin made his film debut inauspiciously as a bartender in Midnight Cowboy (1969), which highlighted New York's seamier side. Following small roles in The Anderson Tapes (1971) and Born to Win (1971), he earned a top featured role and strong notices playing a robber-turned-killer in Across 110th Street (1972) co-starring Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto, which again took place on the gritty New York streets. He then gave incisive, strong-armed portrayals as part of a gang in The Deadly Trackers (1973) and as a lieutenant alongside Tony Lo Bianco and Hal Linden in the above-average TV-movie Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside (1973). His film and TV career, which peaked in the 1970s, included the "blaxploitation" scene -- he appeared with Mary Alice as the parents of the titular character in The Education of Sonny Carson (1974) and as a senator in the Pam Grier vehicle Friday Foster (1975).
Throughout the decades he worked with prestigious actors in prestigious projects yet never attained the public attention he merited. Neverthless he added solid authenticity to the musical bio Leadbelly (1976); Clint Eastwood's Escape from Alcatraz (1979); the Richard Pryor comedy-drama Some Kind of Hero (1982); Barbra Streisand's courtroom vehicle Nuts (1987); Spike Lee's lacerating, one-two punch on urban black life in Do the Right Thing (1989); the Temptations-like story of The Five Heartbeats (1991); and the excellent, fact-based drama in Rosewood (1997) with racism at its core. On the mini-movie circuit he appeared in good company as LeVar Burton's father in the baseball story One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story (1978), and was a noticeable factor in Gideon's Trumpet (1980) starring Henry Fonda; Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979); the hard-hitting The Atlanta Child Murders (1985) and, perhaps most notably, the chain-gang story The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains (1987) in which he portrayed Big Sam.
His career slowed down broaching the millennium with sporadic appearances in such films as The Fence (1994), Rosewood (1997), Stanley's Gig (2000), The Station Agent (2003), Back to You in the Days (2005), The Talk Man (2011) and Occupy, Texas (2016). He also guested on such popular series as "Angel," "ER," "Law & Order" and "The Shield."
Paul the actor added to his success as an award-winning playwright as well and, in his 70s, continued to write as well as perform. His play "Carrier", in which he appeared with Roscoe Lee Browne and Paula Kelly, received special citations for its writing and performances. He died in Los Angeles at age 81 on June 28, 2019. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Charles Levin was born on 12 March 1949 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for The Golden Child (1986), Manhattan (1979) and Annie Hall (1977). He was married to Katherine De Hetre and Mollie Weinblatt. He died on 28 June 2019 in Selma, Oregon, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Arte Johnson was born on 20 January 1929 in Benton Harbor, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967), Love at First Bite (1979) and Baggy Pants & the Nitwits (1977). He was married to Gisela Johnson and Texie Waterman. He died on 3 July 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Sound Department
- Soundtrack
Cameron Boyce was an American actor, with Afro-Caribbean and African-American descent. His paternal grandmother Jo Ann Allen was one of the "Clinton Twelve", the first African-Americans to attend an integrated high school in the Southern United States (specifically in Clinton, Tennessee).
In 1999, Boyce was born in Los Angeles, California. He was trained as a dancer from an early age. In 2008, he made his debut in the music video "That Green Gentleman (Things Have Changed)" by the band "Panic! at the Disco". He was playing a child version of guitarist Ryan Ross. Also in 2008, Boyce gained a recurring role in the short-lived soap opera "General Hospital: Night Shift" (2007-2008).
Boyce's first appearance in a feature film was in the horror film "Mirrors" (2008), playing the role of Michael "Mikey" Carson (the son of the film 's protagonist). His second film appearance was in the spy film "Eagle Eye" (2008), playing the role of Sam Holloman. His next prominent film role was in the comedy film "Grown Ups" (2010), again playing the son of the film's protagonist.
Boyce showcased his dancing skills in the web series "The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers" (2010-2011). In 2011, Boyce appeared as a featured dancer in a "Dancing with the Stars" special and in the television sitcom "Shake It Up" (2010-2013). He made a guest appearance in the sitcom "Good Luck Charlie" (2010-2014), playing an impostor version of regular character Gabe Duncan.
Boyce next gained the co-starring role of Luke Ross in the sitcom "Jessie" (2011-2015). The premise of the series was that celebrity couple Morgan and Christina Ross had no free time to spend with their four children, so they hired aspiring actress Jessie Prescott (played by Debby Ryan) as a full-time nanny and surrogate mother to the kids. Luke was the second oldest child, who viewed Jessie as a love interest. The series was a ratings hit for Disney Channel. It lasted for 4 seasons, and a total of 98 episodes.- Jones found a job at a service station at the cross-streets of Laurel and Sunset in Los Angeles. The station is still there. He discovered acting when a friend invited him to an acting class, and was offered a job as an apprentice in summer stock. He was such a novice that he had only seen one play prior to his first stage appearance. Jones lived in Los Angeles with his wife, director Anita Khanzadian-Jones. His interests included involvement with the Interact Theatre Company.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
British character actor Freddie Jones came to the acting profession after ten years of working as a laboratory assistant and acting in amateur theater on the side. To kick off his mid-life career change, Jones attended Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in Kent, England, on a scholarship. He then worked in repertory theater, later joining up with the Royal Shakespeare Company and gaining recognition as an actor of exceptional cleverness, intelligence and perception.
His theatrical film debut came in 1967 in Peter Brook's critically acclaimed, Marat/Sade (1967). Two years later, Jones made his mark on the acting world playing "Claudius" in the six-part television miniseries, The Caesars (1968). Based on this performance, he was named "The World's Best Television Actor of the Year" at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival in 1969. Also, around this time, Jones gave one of his most touching film performances, that of the "monster" in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), in which he displayed pathos reminiscent of Boris Karloff's monster.
Critical acclaim led him into more prominent roles in television, e.g., The Ghosts of Motley Hall (1976), Children of the Stones (1977), and Pennies from Heaven (1978), as well as in film, e.g., The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970), Antony and Cleopatra (1972), All Creatures Great and Small (1975) and Zulu Dawn (1979). He achieved international recognition as a film actor after appearing in such Hollywood films as Clint Eastwood's Firefox (1982) and David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980), Dune (1984) and Wild at Heart (1990).
Arguably one of his most endearing roles was the frequently drunk reporter "Orlando" in Federico Fellini's The Ship Sails On (1983). His theatrical acting also went well as he was well suited for literary dramas, e.g., Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Nicholas Nickleby (1977), Silas Marner (1985), Adam Bede (1992), David Copperfield (2000) and The Count of Monte Cristo (2002).- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Rip Torn was born Elmore Rual Torn Jr. on February 6, 1931 in Temple, Texas, the son of Thelma Mary (Spacek) and Elmore Rudolph Torn, who was an agriculturalist and economist, credited with popularizing the custom of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. "Rip" is a family name, taken by generations of Torn men and bestowed on Elmore by his father, who was also called "Rip." He was of German, Austrian, Bohemian, and Moravian descent. His mother was an elder sister of actress Sissy Spacek's father, Edwin Spacek.
Torn attended Texas A&M and the University of Texas, where he joined Sigma Chi Fraternity. He majored in animal husbandry. Extremely naïve when he was young, Torn hitchhiked to Hollywood with the idea of becoming a movie star; he wanted to make enough money in order to buy a ranch. Success did not come overnight, as he had hoped, and Torn had to work many odd jobs while occasionally being cast in television roles. He made his feature film debut in Elia Kazan's Baby Doll (1956) in a small part.
Serious about learning his craft, he moved to New York City where he studied under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Torn also studied dance with Martha Graham. His serious acting career began on the small screen, where he made a name for himself in the Golden Age of Television; between 1957 and 1960, he appeared regularly on such prestigious live shows as Omnibus (1952) and Playhouse 90 (1956).
Torn made his Broadway debut in Kazan's staging of Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" on March 10, 1959, in support of Paul Newman, Sidney Blackmer and Geraldine Page, who would become his second wife. The play was a hit, closing on January 30, 1960 after 375 performances. He won a 1960 Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Play and a Theater World award for his role as "Tom, Jr.", a role he recreated in the 1962 film. (Torn also starred as "Boss Finley" in a later television adaptation of the play).
Torn earned a reputation as an actor's actor on stage, both Broadway and off-Broadway, as well as on screen. He continued to work in the New York theater despite his demanding TV and movie schedule as both an actor and director. He won two Obie awards for his work off-Broadway, for Distinguished Performance in Norman Mailer's "The Deer Park" (for the 1966-67 season), and for Distinguished Direction for "The Beard" (1967-68). He had his own stage company, and directed his daughter Angelica Page (by Geraldine Page) in John Paul Alexander's "Strangers in the Land of Canaan" at the Actors Studio. Torn made his feature film directorial debut with The Telephone (1988).
He was constantly in demand as a character actor, in supporting, second lead and occasional lead roles. Arguably his best performance on film came in Payday (1973), and he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for Cross Creek (1983). Most of Torn's roles were in drama, though he was adept at comedy. His role in Albert Brooks' comedy Defending Your Life (1991) led to his being cast in The Larry Sanders Show (1992), on which he played talk show producer "Artie." Torn won six consecutive Emmy nominations for the role, winning once for Best Supporting Actor in a comedy series in 1996.
Torn was married to actress Ann Wedgeworth from 1956-61, whom he divorced to marry Geraldine Page. They remained married until her death in 1987. He was married to Amy Wright until his death. Torn helped his first cousin, Oscar-winner Sissy Spacek, to make her way as an actress, seeing to it that she was accepted by the Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and then the Lee Strasberg Institute.
Rip Torn died in on July 9, 2019 in Lakeville, Connecticut, aged 88.- Actress
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Additional Crew
Valentina Cortese was born in Milan on New Year's Day of 1923. She made her movie debut in 1940 and played many "ingenue" parts in Italian films of that period, before making a real sensation in Caccia all'uomo (1948) and Tempesta su Parigi (1948), playing both female leads, Fantine and Cosette (the film was a competent screen adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic "Les misérables"). The international success of the British-made melodrama The Glass Mountain (1949) brought her some Hollywood offers: she was very sensual as a truck-driver's mistress in Jules Dassin's film noir Thieves' Highway (1949), and particularly effective in Robert Wise's thriller The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), in which she portrayed a woman pursued by a killer.
She then returned to Europe and worked with many great directors, like Michelangelo Antonioni, who cast her in The Girlfriends (1955), and Federico Fellini, who gave her a supporting part in his surrealist fantasy Juliet of the Spirits (1965). She had an especially robust part in Francois Truffaut's Day for Night (1973) as a fading alcoholic movie star (she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for this performance). She also had a stage career, working with writers and directors such as Giorgio Strehler and Franco Zeffirelli and starring in the title roles of Schiller's "Mary Stuart" and Wedekind's "Lulu".- Denise Nickerson was best known for her role as Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and as a member of the Short Circus on The Electric Company (1971). She left the acting business at the end of 1993, and she worked as a nurse and later a stay at home mom. She will be remembered as Violet!
- Albert David Hedison Jr. was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the elder son of Albert and Rose Hedison, naturalized United States citizens from Armenia. His father owned a jewelry enameling business and his son was expected to follow in his footsteps. Young Al had other ideas, having put his sights on an acting career after seeing Tyrone Power on the screen in Blood and Sand (1941).
Following the completion of military service in the navy (as a Seaman 2nd Class, working on mothballing decommissioned warships), he enrolled at Brown University. Three years later, he joined the Neighborhood Playhouse School in Manhattan and studied acting under Sanford Meisner. He then underwent further training at the Actor's Studio with the legendary Lee Strasberg.
When he finally made his theatrical debut he was billed as 'Al Hedison'. Voted most promising newcomer for his performance in the off-Broadway play "A Month in the Country", he received a Theatre World Award. More importantly, this opened the doors to work in the film business, albeit slowly. One of a myriad of struggling actors, Hedison had taken a temporary job as a radio announcer for a local station in North Carolina to make ends meet. Upon his return to New York, the offers began to come in and he made his screen bow in 1954.
His first significant role was as the unfortunate scientist André Delambre whose matter transmitter experiments end up with him being turned into The Fly (1958). It did not end well for the poor man. For the actor, however, it set the tone for other forays into the genres of fantasy and science fiction, notably as Ed Malone in The Lost World (1960) and as Captain Lee Crane in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) (arguably his most famous role), both Irwin Allen productions. He later recalled really 'hitting it off' with co-star Richard Basehart, saying "Richard and I had real chemistry. He taught me so much about being camera ready when I needed to be. Television filming is so very fast, we always had to keep moving on."
Under contract to 20th Century Fox from 1958, Hedison next starred in the Cold War spy series Five Fingers (1959) portraying the part of an American counterintelligence officer (the accompanying change of his stage moniker to 'David Hedison' came about at the insistence of NBC and Fox). By the early 60s, Hedison had become a much sought-after, robust lead for made-for-TV films and TV series. He had befriended the actor Roger Moore while filming an episode of The Saint (1962) and this paved the way for him to appear in two James Bond films -- Live and Let Die (1973) and Licence to Kill (1989) -- on both occasions as CIA operative Felix Leiter. Over the years followed numerous guest spots on crime dramas like The F.B.I. (1965), Cannon (1971), Ellery Queen (1975), Barnaby Jones (1973) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). In 2004, he joined the regular cast of the TV soap The Young and the Restless (1973) for some fifty episodes. Ultimately, however, he came to regard the stage as his favorite medium, saying "When I go back to the theater, I feel good about myself. When I do films or TV, it's to make a little bread to pay my mortgage..." - Actor
- Producer
- Director
Blond, blue-eyed, tall and handsome Dutch actor Rutger Hauer enjoyed an international reputation for playing everything from romantic leads to action heroes to sinister villains. Hauer was born in Breukelen, a Dutch town and former municipality in the province of Utrecht.
He was the son of Teunke Hauer (née Mellema) and Arend Hauer, actors who operated an acting school. As his parents were often touring, he and his three sisters were raised by a nanny. A bit of a rebel during his childhood, he chafed at the rules and rigors of school and was often getting into mischief. His grandfather had been the captain of a schooner and at age fifteen, Hauer ran away to work on a freighter for a year. Like his great-grandfather, Hauer was color-blind, which prevented him from furthering his career as a sailor.
Upon his return he attended night school and started working in the construction industry. When he again bombed at school, his parents enrolled him in drama classes. An amateur poet, he spent most of his time writing poetry and hanging out in Amsterdam coffee houses instead of studying. He was expelled for poor attendance and afterward spent a brief period in the Dutch navy.
Deciding he didn't like military life, Hauer honed his acting skills trying to convince his superiors he was mentally unfit and was sent to a special home for psych patients. It was an unpleasant place, but Hauer remained there until he had convinced his ranking officers that the military really did not need him.- Actress
- Music Department
- Producer
Russi Taylor was an American voice actress from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was the official voice of Minnie Mouse from 1986 until her death from colon cancer in 2019. She also voiced a lot of minor characters from The Simpsons including Martin Prince, Sherri and Terri. Grey DeLisle-Griffin succeeded her roles from The Simpsons. She was married to Mickey Mouse voice actor Wayne Allwine from 1991 until his death in 2009.- Actor
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- Writer
Peter Henry Fonda was born in New York City, to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and Ontario, Canada-born New York socialite Frances Brokaw (born Frances Ford Seymour). He was the younger brother of actress and activist Jane Fonda and the father of actress Bridget Fonda.
Fonda made his professional stage debut on Broadway in 1961 in Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole, for which he received rave reviews from the New York Critics, and won the Daniel Blum Theater World Award and the New York Critics Circle Award for Best New Actor. He began his feature film career in 1963, playing the romantic lead in Tammy and the Doctor and joined the ensemble cast of the World War II saga, The Victors.
Shortly thereafter, Fonda began what would become a famous association with Roger Corman, starring in Wild Angels, as the ultra-cool, iron-fisted leader of a violent biker gang, opposite Nancy Sinatra, Bruce Dern, and Diane Ladd. Fonda starred in Corman's 1967 psychedelic film The Trip, also starring Dern and Susan Strasberg. His next project was the seminal 1969 anti-establishment film Easy Rider, which he produced and co-scripted, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
His acting credits included the feature films Outlaw Blues, an expose of the country music business; Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry; Race with the Devil; Robert Rossen's Lilith; Split Image; Robert Wise's Two People; and the cult films Love and a .45 and Nadja. He appeared in Grace of My Heart (directed by Alison Anders), and John Carpenter's Escape from L.A., starring Kurt Russell. He made a cameo appearance in Bodies, Heat & Motion, which starred his daughter Bridget Fonda.
Fonda won critical acclaim for his portrayal of Ulee Jackson, the taciturn beekeeper in the 1997 film Ulee's Gold, earning him both a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and the New York Film Critics Award, as well as an Oscar nomination. Following this, he published his autobiography, Don't Tell Dad, and was then seen in the NBC movie The Tempest, for which he had been nominated for another Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Mini-Series. Fonda then appeared with Helen Mirren in the Showtime telefilm The Passion of Ayn Rand, where he won the Golden Globe for outstanding supporting actor in a mini-series or movie made for television and was nominated for both an Emmy and SAG Award. He co-starred in Steven Soderbergh's 1997 film The Limey. Following this, he appeared in Thomas and the Magic Railroad for director Britt Allcroft, starring Alec Baldwin.
Fonda directed his first feature film, The Hired Hand, in 1971. A critically acclaimed western in which he also starred, the film debuted with a restored version at the 2001 Venice Film Festival; it then screened at the Toronto Film Festival before reopening in theaters in 2003. Other directing credits include the science fiction feature Idaho Transfer, starring as a gambler who wins Brooke Shields in a poker game.
Fonda co-starred in HBO's The Laramie Project, based on the true story of openly gay college student Matthew Shepard, killed in an act of senseless violence and cruelty, which attracted national attention. Fonda starred in The Maldonado Miracle, directed by Salma Hayek for Showtime Networks, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for his role. Fonda also starred opposite Kris Kristofferson in Wooly Boys, which was released in March 2004, and the television drama Back When We Were Grownups, opposite Blythe Danner and Faye Dunaway. Fonda was seen in Soderbergh's Ocean's Twelve and appeared in Mark Steven Johnson's Ghost Rider, opposite Nicolas Cage.
Fonda's last projects included director Ron Maxwell's Civil War-era drama Copperhead, alongside Billy Campbell and Angus MacFadyen, The Ultimate Gift directed by Michael Landon Jr., and John McNaughton's The Harvest, with Samantha Morton and Michael Shannon.
Peter Fonda died on August 16, 2019, in Los Angeles.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Making people laugh was only one facet of Valerie Harper's career, which extended from the stage to television and feature films. A native of Suffern, New York -- "I was born to suffer" -- Harper began her career as a dancer with the corps de ballet at Radio City Hall during its spectacular heyday. She gradually moved into acting, working in everything from industrial shows to regional theatre to the Second City comedy troupe of Chicago. Eventually, she made it to Broadway in productions of Dear Liar, the Tony Award winning Story Theatre, Something Different and Metamorphosis. Stardom came with television, including four Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for her work in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and Rhoda (1974), in which the latter she played the title role. Harper won Harvard's Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year, and her Rhoda's Wedding episode set that 1974's ratings record. Since retiring Rhoda Morganstern to re-runs, Harper was active on stage and in movies. Her feature films included Freebie and the Bean (1974), Chapter Two (1979), The Last Married Couple in America (1980) and Blame It on Rio (1984). In television, she starred on all three networks in movies of the week, including Farrell for the People (1982) (NBC), Don't Go to Sleep (1982) (ABC) and An Invasion of Privacy (1983) (CBS). A strong supporter of women's rights, Harper worked since the mid-80s on a film with second husband Tony Cacciotti which will probably never reach fruition after all this time, based on a true story involving domestic violence.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Blonde and blue-eyed with an attractively feline appeal, Carol Lynley began her professional career as Carolyn Lee. She learned ballet at age seven, became a successful child model at age 10 (eventually working for the Sears & Roebuck department store in New York), and got her face nationally recognized as "the Coca-Cola Girl."
Carole Ann Jones was born in New York City to Frances Fuller (Felch) from New England and Irish immigrant Cyril Roland Jones. Trying to branch out into acting early on, in New York City, to Frances Fuller (Felch), from New England, and Cyril Roland Jones, who was an Irish immigrant. Trying to branch out into acting early on, Carol discovered that another individual by that name, born seven years earlier, was already on the books of Actors' Equity, so Carolyn fused "lyn" and "lee" to create 'Lynley'. From age 15 she appeared on Broadway, played juvenile roles in early anthology television, and was featured on the cover of Life Magazine in April 1957. Her first important film roles came in decidedly wholesome fare, beginning with The Light in the Forest (1958) for Walt Disney Productions, in which she played indentured servant Shenandoe. It was a promising start. A New York Times reviewer praised her performance (alongside that of fellow screen newbie James MacArthur), describing both as "real charmers with more than their share of talent." Thrust once more into the limelight, Lynley reprised her earlier Broadway role in the film version of Blue Denim (1959) as a naive girl who becomes pregnant and ponders having an illegal abortion. This performance got her nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Most Promising Newcomer in 1959. That same year, she graduated with a diploma from New York's School for Young Professionals. Lynley went on to play other ingénues and troubled teens before shedding her wholesome image by the early 1960s.
Return to Peyton Place (1961) headlined the actress as a best-selling novelist who controversially reveals the town's darkest secrets and scandals. This was followed by the bawdy (and mostly irritating) sex farce Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963), with Lynley as a virginal college student in a New York apartment block pursued by a lecherous landlord/playboy (played by Jack Lemmon). Luckily, better opportunities to prove her acting mettle turned up with a double role in The Cardinal (1963) (opposite Tom Tryon), and as the tormented mother of a kidnapped child in the superior psychological thriller Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), directed by Otto Preminger and co-starring Laurence Olivier. Cinema magazine commented "With a face like that of a fallen angel, Carol Lynley has beauty that is often awe inspiring".
In March 1965, the former teen queen posed nude for an issue of Playboy magazine; later that year she played the title role in a turgid biopic of 1930s Hollywood sex symbol Jean Harlow. While the quality of her films tended to decline after the mid-'60s, there were still entertaining moments in B-pictures like The Shuttered Room (1967) and Once You Kiss a Stranger... (1969) (in this lurid thriller, Lynley rose above her material and was memorable in the role of a psychotic murderess). In Irwin Allen's The Poseidon Adventure (1972), she was merely one of the ill-fated passengers who ended up in Davy Jones' Locker. Still, Variety called her performance "especially effective". After 1967, television provided most of her work, including guest spots in seminal shows like Mannix (1967), The Invaders (1967), Hawaii Five-O (1968) and as co-star of the TV pilot for The Night Stalker (1972) (as Carl Kolchak's girlfriend). In her penultimate role, Lynley played a grandmother in a film titled uncannily similar to the one which had launched her career: A Light in the Forest (2003).
Carol Lynley retired from the screen in 2006. A highly capable actress who should have made a bigger splash in Hollywood, she passed away on September 3, 2019 in Pacific Palisades, California from a heart attack. She was 77.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Phyllis Newman was born on 19 March 1933 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for Mannequin (1987), The Human Stain (2003) and One Life to Live (1968). She was married to Adolph Green. She died on 15 September 2019 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Tall, bald and nearly always bearded, Sid Haig provided hulking menace to many a low-budget exploitation film and high-priced action film.
Sid Haig was born Sidney Eddie Mosesian on July 14, 1939 in Fresno, California, a screaming ball of hair. His parents, Roxy (Mooradian) and Haig Mosesian, an electrician, were of Armenian descent. Sid's career was somewhat of an accident. He was growing so fast that he had absolutely no coordination. It was decided that he would take dancing lessons, and that's when it all began. At the age of seven, he was dancing for pay in a children's Christmas Show, then a revival of a vaudeville show... and on it went.
Sid also showed a musical inclination, particularly for the drums. So when his parents got tired of him denting all the pots and pans in the house, they bought him a drum set. The music was in him and he took to it immediately, a born natural. First it was swing, then country, then jazz, blues and rock 'n' roll. Sid always found it easy to make money with his music, and did very well. One year out of high school and signing a recording contract is not too bad. Sid went on to record the single "Full House" with the T-Birds in 1958. However, back while he was in high school, Sid got bitten by the "acting bug". Alice Merrill was the head of the drama department at that time and gave him all the encouragement in the world to pursue an acting career. The clincher came in his senior year. The way that the senior play was cast was that she would double cast the show, then have one of her friends from Hollywood come up and pick the final cast.
You see, Merrill was quite famous as an actress on Broadway and kept up her contacts in the business. When the appointed day came, the "friend" that showed up was Dennis Morgan, a big musical comedy star from the 1940s. The rest is history -- he picked Sid for the role, then two weeks later came back to see the show and told Sid that he should continue his education down south and consider acting as a career path. Two years later, Sid enrolled in the world famous Pasadena Playhouse, the school that trained such actors as Robert Preston, Robert Young, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and so on. After two years of "actor's hell" (non-stop 7:00 am to 11:00 pm with homework thrown in just for the fun of it), it was time to move on to the big "H", Hollywood! Sid did so with longtime friend and roommate Stuart Margolin (Angel on The Rockford Files (1974)).
Sid's first acting job was in Jack Hill's student film at UCLA. It was called The Host (2000), which was released in 2004 on DVD as a companion to Switchblade Sisters (1975), another Hill film. That role launched a 40-year acting career during which Haig appeared in over 50 films and 350 television series. He has proven himself quite valuable to such filmmakers as producer Roger Corman. He also became a staple in the pictures of Jack Hill, appearing in Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967), Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974). Haig's other memorable credits include George Lucas' THX 1138 (1971), and the James Bond opus Diamonds Are Forever (1971) (he is one of the Slumber Brothers, and got to toss a topless Lana Wood from the window of a high-rise Vegas hotel).
Among his most significant television credits are appearances on such landmark series as The A-Team (1983), T.J. Hooker (1982), The Dukes of Hazzard (1979), Quincy M.E. (1976), Hart to Hart (1979), Fantasy Island (1977), Charlie's Angels (1976), Police Woman (1974), The Rockford Files (1974), The Six Million Dollar Man (1974), Mannix (1967), Mission: Impossible (1966), Gunsmoke (1955), Get Smart (1965), Here's Lucy (1968), The Flying Nun (1967), Daniel Boone (1964), Star Trek (1966), Batman (1966) and The Untouchables (1959).
Sid was never one to give-up on anything but after nearly 40 years of carrying a gun (except for the occasional Jack Hill or Roger Corman film), his dreams of being recognized as a more than competent actor were fading. Then in 1992, frustrated with being typecast, Sid retired from acting and quoted, "I'll never play another stupid heavy again, and I don't care if that means that I never work, ever." This just proves that if you take a stand people will listen, for Quentin Tarantino wrote for Sid the role of the judge in Jackie Brown (1997). Then things got better, much better. During the mid and late 1990s, Sid managed a community theatre company, as well as dabbled occasionally in theater in Los Angeles.
Then in 2000, Sid came out of his self-imposed retirement at the request of Rob Zombie for a role in Zombie's debut film House of 1000 Corpses (2003). He starred as the fun-loving, but murderous, Captain Spaulding. This role breathed new life into Sid's acting career and earned him an award for Best Supporting Actor in the 13th Annual Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, as well as an induction into the Horror Hall of Fame. Sid's character Captain Spaulding became an icon for the new horror genre. Sid has recently enjoyed success as Captain Spaulding once again in Rob Zombie's follow-up to House of 1000 Corpses (2003), entitled, The Devil's Rejects (2005). For this film, Sid received the award for best Actor in the 15th Annual Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, as well as sharing the award for "Most Vile Villain" at the First Annual Spike TV Scream Awards with Leslie Easterbrook, Sheri Moon Zombie and Bill Moseley as The Firefly Family.
In the 2000s and 2010s, Sid continued to enjoy his renewed success as an actor. In September 2019, he was hospitalized after falling in his home in Los Angeles, California. While recovering, he suffered from a lung infection after vomiting in his sleep. He died on September 21, 2019, from complications of the infection at age 80.- Actress
- Soundtrack
One of television's premier African-American series stars, elegant actress, singer and recording artist Diahann Carroll was born Carol Diann (or Diahann) Johnson on July 17, 1935, in the Bronx, New York. The first child of John Johnson, a subway conductor, and Mabel Faulk Johnson, a nurse; music was an important part of her life as a child, singing at age six with her Harlem church choir. While taking voice and piano lessons, she contemplated an operatic career after becoming the 10-year-old recipient of a Metropolitan Opera scholarship for studies at New York's High School of Music and Art. As a teenager she sought modeling work but it was her voice, in addition to her beauty, that provided the magic and the allure.
When she was 16, she teamed up with a girlfriend from school and auditioned for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts show using the more exotic sounding name of Diahann Carroll. She alone was invited to appear and won the contest. She subsequently performed on the daily radio show for three weeks. In her late teens, she began focusing on a nightclub career and it was here that she began formulating a chic, glamorous image. Another TV talent show appearance earned her a week's engagement at the Latin Quarter.
Broadway roles for black singers were rare but at age nineteen, Diahann was cast in the Harold Arlen/Truman Capote musical "House of Flowers". Starring the indomitable Pearl Bailey, Diahann held her own quite nicely in the ingénue role. While the show itself was poorly received, the score was heralded and Diahann managed to introduce two song standards, "A Sleepin' Bee" and "I Never Has Seen Snow", both later recorded by Barbra Streisand.
In 1954 she and Ms. Bailey supported a riveting Dorothy Dandridge as femme fatale Carmen Jones (1954) in an all-black, updated movie version of the Georges Bizet opera "Carmen." Diahann later supported Ms. Dandridge again in Otto Preminger's cinematic retelling of Porgy and Bess (1959). During this time she also grew into a singing personality on TV while visiting such late-nite hosts as Jack Paar and Steve Allen and performing.
Unable to break through into the top ranks in film (she appeared in a secondary role once again in Paris Blues (1961), a Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward vehicle), Diahann returned to Broadway. She was rewarded with a Tony Award for her exceptional performance as a fashion model in the 1962 musical "No Strings," a bold, interracial love story that co-starred Richard Kiley. Richard Rodgers, whose first musical this was after the death of partner Oscar Hammerstein, wrote the part specifically for Diahann, which included her lovely rendition of the song standard "The Sweetest Sounds." By this time she had already begun to record albums ("Diahann Carroll Sings Harold Arlen" (1957), "Diahann Carroll and Andre Previn" (1960), "The Fabulous Diahann Carroll" (1962). Nightclub entertaining filled up a bulk of her time during the early-to-mid 1960s, along with TV guest appearances on Carol Burnett, Judy Garland, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and Danny Kaye's musical variety shows.
Little did Diahann know that in the late 1960s she would break a major ethnic barrier on the small screen. Though it was nearly impossible to suppress the natural glamour and sophistication of Diahann, she touchingly portrayed an ordinary nurse and widow struggling to raise a small son in the series Julia (1968). Despite other Black American actresses starring in a TV series (i.e., Hattie McDaniel in "Beulah"), Diahann became the first full-fledged African-American female "star" -- top billed, in which the show centered around her lead character. The show gradually rose in ratings and Diahann won a Golden Globe award for "Best Newcomer" and an Emmy nomination. The show lasted only two seasons, at her request.
A renewed interest in film led Diahann to the dressed-down title role of Claudine (1974), as a Harlem woman raising six children on her own. She was nominated for an Oscar in 1975, but her acting career would become more and more erratic after this period. She did return, however, to the stage with productions of "Same Time, Next Year" and "Agnes of God". While much ado was made about her return to series work as a fashionplate nemesis to Joan Collins' ultra-vixen character on the glitzy primetime soap Dynasty (1981), it became much about nothing as the juicy pairing failed to ignite. Diahann's character was also a part of the short-lived "Dynasty" spin-off The Colbys (1985).
Throughout the late 1980s and early 90s she toured with her fourth husband, singer Vic Damone, with occasional acting appearances to fill in the gaps. Some of her finest work came with TV-movies, notably her century-old Sadie Delany in Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (1999) and as troubled singer Natalie Cole's mother in Livin' for Love: The Natalie Cole Story (2000). She also portrayed silent screen diva Norma Desmond in the musical version of "Sunset Blvd." and toured America performing classic Broadway standards in the concert show "Almost Like Being in Love: The Lerner and Loewe Songbook." She then had recurring roles on Grey's Anatomy (2005) and White Collar (2009).
Diahann Carroll died on October 4, 2019, in Los Angeles, California.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
The nicknames, "The Prince of Pandemonium", "The Master of Mayhem" and "King of Camp and Confetti", are but a few valid applications that were thrust upon zany comedian Rip Taylor, whose flamboyant blend of burlesque and self-deprecating humor entertained audiences for over four decades. He headlined the top showrooms of Las Vegas, appeared on scores of television shows, starred in various musical stage slapstick comedies and even toyed with dramatic material over the years.
He was born Charles Elmer Taylor, Jr. in Washington, D.C., on January 13, 1931 to Charles Elmer Taylor Sr. and Elizabeth Evans Taylor. He began his career by tossing out one-liners in nightclubs and had his first big break on Ed Sullivan's The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) TV show in 1964. The tacky costumes, ridiculous props, handlebar mustache, wacky wigs and manic confetti-tossing didn't take long to follow as professional trademarks, and they soon made their way into the 1970s pop culture.
Frequently appearing on television, he appeared in everything from variety shows to talk shows (Merv Griffin and David Letterman) to sitcoms like The Monkees (1965). He was the gag man who delightfully wrangled out of every groan-inducing one-liner there was, eventually finding the perfect avenue for his brand of insanity via producer Chuck Barris and his syndicated TV shows of the 1970s and 1980s. Rip became a favorite panelist judge, along with Jaye P. Morgan, on Barris' The Gong Show (1976), and later served as host of the equally tacky The $1.98 Beauty Show (1978).
A mainstay in Las Vegas, whether as ringleader of a topless chorus line or opening act to a major entertainer, Rip also slayed 'em on Broadway ("Sugar Babies") and has demonstrated a fine singing instrument in musicals including "Anything Goes", "Oliver!" (as "Fagan"), "Peter Pan" (as "Captain Hook") and in a 1999 production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (as "Pseudolus").
On a more serious side, he played Demi Moore's crusty boss in Indecent Proposal (1993) and showed up sans confetti as Kate Hudson's father in the Rob Reiner feature, Alex & Emma (2003).
For the most part, he continued merrily in such campy films as Barris' The Gong Show Movie (1980); the "Exorcist" spoof, Repossessed (1990), with Linda Blair and Leslie Nielsen; the foreign-made The Silence of the Hams (1994)and Jackass: The Movie (2002). Beginning in the early 1960s, when he first provided additional voices for The Jetsons (1962), Rip continued making voice-over work a viable means of income. His voice can be heard in such animated films as DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990), Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992) and Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico (2003), and animated TV series as Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? (2002) and The Emperor's New School (2006). He was nominated for an Emmy award for voicing "Uncle Fester" in the TV cartoon program, The Addams Family (1992).
Having suffered an epileptic seizure the week prior, 88-year-old Rip died of congestive heart failure on October 6, 2019, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Once briefly married to Las Vegas showgirl Rusty Rowe, whom he divorced in the early 1960s, Rip was involved in a long-term relationship with Robert Fortney at the time of his death.- Actor
- Producer
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Robert Forster was born Robert Wallace Foster, Jr. in Rochester, New York, to Grace Dorothy (Montanarella) and Robert Wallace Foster, Sr., who worked as an elephant trainer and baking supply company executive. He was of English, Irish, and Italian descent. Forster first became interested in acting while attending Rochester's Madison High School, where he performed as a song-and-dance man in musical revues. After graduating in 1959, Forster attended Heidelberg College, Alfred University and the University of Rochester on football scholarships and continued to perform in student theatrical revues.
After earning a BA in Psychology from Rochester in 1963, Forster took an apprenticeship at an East Rochester theater where he performed in such plays as "West Side Story". He moved to New York City in 1965, where his first big break came when he landed the lead in the two-character play "Mrs. Dally Has a Lover", opposite Arlene Francis. However, after the play ran its course work was hard to find in the theater. Forster returned to Rochester, where he worked as a substitute teacher and construction worker until an agent from 20th Century-Fox offered him a five-picture deal. His movie debut was a small part in the drama Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando. Forster went on to appear in small and minor roles alongside some top Hollywood actors in films like The Stalking Moon (1968) and Medium Cool (1969), and a large part in Justine (1969). Although he continued to act in feature films, he took the part of a hard-boiled detective in the short-lived TV series Banyon (1971).
Forster also appeared in notable parts in The Black Hole (1979), Avalanche (1978) and as the lead in the cult horror flick Alligator (1980), and played the part of a factory worker-turned-vigilante in the thriller Vigilante (1982). Forster also took the lead as a taxi driver in Walking the Edge (1985) by director Norbert Meisel. A series of action flicks followed, the most notable being The Delta Force (1986), starring Chuck Norris. By the late 1980s Forster's acting career had begun to slide, and he was getting less and less work; if there was any, he would be cast in small parts playing villains. Forster then began to work as a motivational speaker and an acting coach in Hollywood film schools.
However, in the mid-1990s, his career was resurrected by writer-director Quentin Tarantino, a big fan of Forster's early work, who offered him an audition for a part in his latest movie. After a seven-hour audition, Tarantino cast Forster as the tough but sympathetic bail bondsman Max Cherry in Jackie Brown (1997), which netted him an Academy Award nomination and a measure of recognition, both nationwide and within his own profession, landing him more high-profile roles in such films as All the Rage (1999), Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998)--a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film--and Supernova (2000). Forster continued to act in many big-budget Hollywood productions for the next two decades.
Forster died on October 11, 2019, in Los Angeles, California, aged 78. His last film, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019), was released on the day of his death. He is survived by four children (Bobby, Elizabeth, Kate and Maeghen), four grandchildren (Tess, Liam, Jack and Olivia), and his long-time partner, Denise Grayson. Denise has been Robert's long-time partner and they had been together for 16 years till Robert passed away at home in Los Angeles surrounded by family.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Bill Macy was born on 18 May 1922 in Revere, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Jerk (1979), Maude (1972) and Analyze This (1999). He was married to Samantha Harper and Judith Janus. He died on 17 October 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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John Witherspoon was an African-American actor from Detroit, Michigan known for playing Granddad from The Boondocks and Willie Jones from the Friday trilogy. He also acted in Boomerang, Little Nicky, Soul Plane, Vampire in Brooklyn, Black Jesus and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He passed away in October 29, 2019 due to a heart attack.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Brian Tarantina was born on 27 March 1959 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Summer of Sam (1999), Knight and Day (2010) and Jacob's Ladder (1990). He died on 2 November 2019 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Cherubic, wispy-haired looks made his typecasting as impish or eccentric characters somehow inevitable. The pint-sized Michael J. Pollard was born the son of a bar manager of Polish ancestry in Passaic (New Jersey). He studied drama at the Actor's Studio (with a young Marilyn Monroe in the same class) and made his theatrical debut in November 1958 on Broadway in "Comes the Day," with George C. Scott and Judith Anderson. He received excellent critical notices the following year for his performance in William Inge's play "A Loss of Roses" and thereby came to the attention of Hollywood. On the small screen, Pollard enjoyed a measure of early success in anthology television. He then had a brief stint as Bob Denver's cousin Jerome Krebs in a couple of episodes of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959). His chief contribution to cult sci-fi consisted of appearances in Lost in Space (1965) and Star Trek (1966), his baby-faced appearance enabling him to essay characters who were considerably younger than his actual age. True to form, he also portrayed the bowler-hat wearing, leprechaun-like trickster Mister Mxyzptlk in Superboy (1988), based on the DC comic strips. Pollard had his fair share of exposure to mainstream TV dramas as well, popping up in series like Gunsmoke (1955), The Virginian (1962), and I Spy (1965). For the most part, his screen personae were simple country folk, sometimes evil, often mischievous, nervous or downright weird.
Pollard's big break (and his critically most acclaimed role) was as the loyal, but inarticulate and child-like garage mechanic turned get-away driver C.W. Moss in Arthur Penn's gangster epic Bonnie and Clyde (1967). On the heels of his Oscar-nomination for Best Supporting Actor came offers for other high-profile off-beat character roles, though he was never truly regarded as star material. He gave a good account of himself as Packy, leader of a group of partisans joining Hannibal Brooks (1969) and his POWs in their escape from the Nazis across the Alps to Switzerland. Perhaps best of all post-Bonnie and Clyde impersonations was his powerful portrayal of the outlaw Henry McCarty (aka William H. Bonney) as a demented, twitching psychopath in Dirty Little Billy (1972) (a rare starring role which also marked the screen debut of actor Nick Nolte). By the 1980s, Pollard had recovered from a period of alcohol and drug abuse, but by then his name had slipped down the list of credits and he was now reduced to minor support in films like Roxanne (1987), American Gothic (1987), Dick Tracy (1990), and Rob Zombie's debut cult-horror House of 1000 Corpses (2003).
Pollard died of cardiac arrest on November 20, 2019 in Los Angeles at the age of 80.- Godfrey Gao was born on 22 September 1984 in Taiwan. He was an actor, known for The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013), The Jade Pendant (2017) and Toy Story 3 (2010). He died on 27 November 2019 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China.
- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Despite remaining on the periphery of character stardom for a number of years, New York-born character actress Shelley Morrison, who enjoyed a long and varied career on film, TV and the stage for decades, finally became a household favorite as the argumentative, razor-tongued maid Rosario Salazar on the enduring hit NBC comedy Will & Grace (1998), which she played from 1999 to 2006.
Spanish-speaking Rachel Mitrani was born in the Bronx on October 26, 1936, the daughter of a Spanish-Jewish clothing manufacturer. She moved with her parents to Southern California when she was 10 years old. Following high school graduation, she studied acting at Los Angeles City College and began her career on the stage. Among her early theatre credits was an appearance in a national road production of "Orpheus Descending" and, as one of L.A.'s pioneering female producers, she mounted the West Coast premiere of "Sweet Bird of Youth." Despite her busy schedule on film and TV, Shelley would remain firmly entrenched in the theater as a performer, producer and director both here and abroad. Morrison was eventually honored with the "Eternity Award" for lifetime achievement at the Twelfth Annual Los Angeles Women's Theatre Festival.
Changing her stage name to "Shelley Morrison" in the late 1950's to avoid ethnic typecasting, Shelley broke into TV in 1961, finding bits on such prime-time shows as "Adventures in Paradise," "Outer Limits," "Dr. Kildare," "The Farmer's Daughter," "The Fugitive," "Gunsmoke," "Laredo," and "My Favorite Martian". Finding herself usually cast as a Hispanic or Native American, Shelley's most visible character during this period, and the one people remember with great fondness, was as the adorably shy but spirited Puerto Rican-born Sister Sixto, who had problems mastering English, in the gentle comedy series The Flying Nun (1967) which starred Sally Field as fellow novice Sister Bertrille and Madeleine Sherwood as their Mother Superior.
Handed a Columbia Pictures contract, Shelley found minor parts in such film features as The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Castle of Evil (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), Funny Girl (1968), How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968), Three Guns for Texas (1968) and Mackenna's Gold (1969). Into the 1970's she found herself on such popular programs as "The Bold Ones," "The Partridge Family," "Marcus Welby," "The Rookies," "Soap," "Murder, She Wrote," "Sisters," "Columbo," "L.A. Law" and "Home Improvement," while showing up in such films as the romantic dramedy Blume in Love (1973); the Clint Eastwood directed drama Breezy (1973); the comedy spoof Rabbit Test (1978); the Neil Simon comedy drama Max Dugan Returns (1983); and as Rosa the maid in the adventure comedy Troop Beverly Hills (1989) starring Shelley Long.
It was another standout maid portrayal, however, that became Shelley's favorite. In 1999, she joined the cast of the comedy hit Will & Grace (1998) as the peppery Salvadoran housekeeper who shared a caustic love/hate relationship with wealthy boss, Karen Walker, played by Megan Mullally. What was suppose to be a one-episode spot proved so hilarious as the two butted heads and traded wicked barbs, that the Rosario character became a strong, recurring presence during the entire first run of the show.
In later years, Shelley became a two-time breast and lung cancer survivor. Following a fairly steady vocal role as Mrs. Portillo in the animated Spanish-oriented children's series Handy Manny (2006), the actress decided to retire. Asked to return to the "Will & Grace" show when it was resurrected in 2017, she politely declined. After Shelley's death in 2019 from heart failure following a brief illness, the death of "Rosie" was played out and mourned on an episode of the TV show.
Shelley was survived by her writer/assistant director husband Walter Dominguez and their six sons and daughters -- all adopted through a traditional Native American ceremony. Long ago the couple embraced the spiritual Native American traditions of the Lakota Sioux and lived for decades in the same L.A. apartment building that her parents owned when she was a child.- Actor
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Ron Leibman was born on 11 October 1937 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Garden State (2004), Zorro: The Gay Blade (1981) and Kaz (1978). He was married to Jessica Walter and Linda Lavin. He died on 6 December 2019 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
René Murat Auberjonois was born on June 1, 1940 in New York City, to Princess Laure Louise Napoléone Eugénie Caroline (Murat), who was born in Paris, and Fernand Auberjonois, who was Swiss-born. René was born into an already artistic family, which included his grandfather, a well-known Swiss painter, and his father, a Pulitzer-nominated writer and Cold War-era foreign correspondent. The Auberjonois family moved to Paris shortly after World War II, and it was there that René made an important career decision at the age of six. When his school put on a musical performance for the parents, little René was given the honor of conducting his classmates in a rendition of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?". When the performance was over, René took a bow, and, knowing that he was not the real conductor, imagined that he had been acting. He decided then and there that he wanted to be an actor. After leaving Paris, the Auberjonois family moved into an Artist's Colony in upstate New York.
At an early age, René was surrounded by musicians, composers and actors. Among his neighbors were Helen Hayes, Burgess Meredith and John Houseman, who would later become an important mentor. Houseman gave René his first theater job at the age of 16, as an apprentice at a theater in Stratford, Connecticut. René would later teach at Juilliard under Houseman. René attended Carnegie-Mellon University and studied theater completely, not only learning about acting but about the entire process of producing a play. After graduating from CMU, René acted with various theater companies, including San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater and Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. In 1969, he won a role in his first Broadway musical, "Coco" (with Katharine Hepburn), for which he won a Tony Award.
Throughout his life, René acted in a variety of theater productions, films and television presentations, including a rather famous stint as Clayton Endicott III on the comedy series Benson (1979), not to mention seven years on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) as Odo. René also performed dramatic readings of a variety of books on tape, and appeared in projects like The Patriot (2000), starring Mel Gibson, Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000), and NBC's Frasier (1993) and ABC's The Practice (1997).- Actor
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Caroll Spinney was born on 26 December 1933 in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Sesame Street (1969), The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Great Muppet Caper (1981). He was married to Debra Spinney and Janice Spinney. He died on 8 December 2019 in Woodstock, Connecticut, USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Danny Aiello was an American actor of Italian descent, and enjoyed a lengthy career in film. He was once nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role as Salvatore "Sal" Frangione in the comedy-drama film "Do the Right Thing" (1989).
Aiello was born in Manhattan, New York City on June 20, 1933. His parents were laborer Daniel Louis Aiello and seamstress Frances Pietrocova. Frances eventually lost her eyesight, and became legally blind.. In response, Daniel abandoned his wife and six children. Danny resented his father's actions and would later refuse relations with him for decades. The two reconciled in 1993, when Danny was 60-years-old.
In 1940, Aiello moved to South Bronx. He was educated at James Monroe High School, located in the Soundview section of the Bronx. In 1949, Aiello dropped out of school and joined the United States Army. He was only 16-years-old, and lied about his age in order to enlist. Aiello served in the army for 3 years, and he was discharged in 1952. He returned to New York City, where he supported himself through various jobs.
In 1955, Aiello married Sandy Cohen. They had four children, including actor Danny Aiello III (1957-2010). In the 1960s, Aiello worked for Greyhound Lines, an intercity bus common carrier. He served as president of New York Local 1202 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, a labor organization representing the company's workers.
In 1967, Greyhound Lines changed its bus driver schedules, and Aiello led the workers to protest in a wildcat strike. The strike lasted for a single day. It lacked the authorization by the parent labor union, and Aiello was suspended for his actions.
Aiello eventually pursued an acting career, and started appearing in films during the early 1970s. His earliest credited role was playing baseball player Horse in the sports drama "Bang the Drum Slowly" (1973), at the age of 40. He worked alongside up-and-coming actor Robert De Niro (1943-), who gained acclaim for his performance in the film.
Aiello had a minor role as small-time gangster Tony Rosato in the crime film "The Godfather Part II" (1974). His one scene had him performing a hit on high-ranking gangster Francesco "Frank" Pentangeli (played by Michael V. Gazzo), who had betrayed the Corleone family. Aiello ad-libbed the line "Michael Corleone says hello!"
Aiello eventually had a co-lead role in the neo-noir "Defiance" (1980), as one of of several people who join forces against a powerful gang. Also in 1980, he played Dominic Ginetti in "A Family Of Strangers", an ABC Afterschool Special. For his role, he won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming, the first of several awards in his acting career.
He gained further acclaim for his role as the cop Morgan in the crime drama "Fort Apache, The Bronx" (1981). He played a corrupt police chief in the crime drama "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984), and the character was named after him as "Vincent Aiello". In this role, Aiello performer along Robert De Niro again, as De Niro was the film's lead actor.
Aiello performed in two films directed by Woody Allen (1935-). The first was the fantasy comedy "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (1985), where Aiello played the abusive husband Monk. The second was the comedy-drama "Radio Days" (1987).
Aiello gained a supporting role in the detective television series "Lady Blue" (1985-1986). He played police lieutenant Terry McNichols, a leading member of the Violent Crimes Division of the Chicago Police Department, and the boss of protagonist Katy Mahoney (played by Jamie Rose). McNichols was portrayed as a boss appreciative of Mahoney's unorthodox methods of investigation, but concerned by her overly violent behavior.
The series initially received high-ratings, but was considered as too violent for television. It attracted protests by watchdog organization, such as the National Coalition on Television Violence. When ratings fell, the series was canceled. The series lasted for a single season, and 14 episodes. Aiello would not gain a recurring television role again until the late 1990s.
Aiello played the protagonist's father in the video clip "Papa Don't Preach" (1986), based on a hit song by Madonna (1958-). He then recorded his own answer song, called , "Papa Wants the Best for You".
In 1987, Aiello played the protagonist's fiance Johnny Cammareri in the romantic comedy "Moonstruck. It was a then-rare sympathetic role for him. His role was critically well-received.
Aiello gained his most acclaimed role when cast as pizzeria owner Salvatore "Sal" Fragione in the comedy-drama film "Do the Right Thing" (1989), concerning racial tensions in Brooklyn,. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but the award was won by rival actor Denzel Washington (1954-). He was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, but this award was also won by Denzel Washington., The film critics' associations of Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles each named Aiello the best supporting actor of the year.
Aiello following roles included appearances in the horror film "Jacob's Ladder" (1990) and the comedy-drama "29th Street" (1991). He played nightclub owner and assassin Jack Ruby (1911-1967) in the biographical film "Ruby" (1992). He played film director Harry Stone in the film "The Pickle", a satire of big-budget Hollywood films. He appeared dressed in drag in "Prêt-à-Porter", a satire of the fashion industry.
He next had the lead roe of Joe Lieberman in the award-winning short film "Lieberman in Love" (1995), and politician Frank Anselmo in the thriller "City Hall" (1996),
Aiello had a notable television role as crime lord Don Domenico Clericuzio in the mini-series "The Last Don" (1997), an adaptation of a 1996 crime novel by Mario Puzo. The series depicts Domenico as an aging mafia leader, who oversees plans for his succession. Aiello returned to the role in the sequel miniseries "The Last Don II", where Domenico dies and is succeeded by a much younger relative.
Aiello remained active as an actor through the 2000s and 2010s, although this period had few highlights for his career. He died in December 2019 at hospital, following a short illness. He was 86-years-old. His funeral was held at the Riverside Memorial Chapel on the Upper West Side. Director Spike Lee (1957-) delivered an eulogy at the funeral, remarking on his love for Aiello despite their political differences.- Actress
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Born in Denmark, she came to Paris at 18. She met Coco Chanel and Pierre Cardin and started as a top model. She met Jean-Luc Godard about a cameo in Breathless (1960), but she had to be naked and she refused to play in the movie. One year later, they wed and she became famous with the "Nouvelle Vague" movies directed by him, Jacques Rivette, and Agnès Varda.
In 1967, Serge Gainsbourg wrote his only film musical Anna (1967) for her, with the hit "Sous le soleil exactement". Then, she went to Hollywood for a few movies and came back to Paris. She wrote and directed Vivre ensemble (1973) after her divorce from Pierre Fabre. She later remarried, to Dennis Berry.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Suellyn Lyon was born in Davenport, Iowa, the youngest of five siblings born to Sue Lyon (née Karr) and James Lyon. Sue Karr Lyon was 42 years old when she was widowed, when Suellyn was just 10 months old. Her mother worked in a hospital to provide for her children, and money was tight. The family then moved to Los Angeles in hopes that Suellyn could help out financially as a model.
She duly got jobs modeling for JC Penney, and doing a commercial, which featured her bleached blonde hair. She landed small parts on Dennis the Menace (1959) and The Loretta Young Show (1953). Director Stanley Kubrick saw Sue on the show and suggested to his partner that they should see her for the role of Lolita (1962). She was signed by the Glenn Shaw agency, and Pat Holmes, an agent, brought her down to Kubrick for audition, and won the part of Lolita.
In 1964, Sue married Hampton Fancher III but the marriage, like the four that would follow, would end in divorce. She was appearing at the time in such movies as 7 Women (1965), The Flim-Flam Man (1967) and Tony Rome (1967). Her second husband was Roland Harrison, an African-American photographer and football coach. The controversy over their marriage made them decide to move to Europe. She continued in movies like Evel Knievel (1971), Game of Murder (1973), and Murder in a Blue World (1973), but wound up divorcing Harrison, in part due to the fallout over the controversy and other problems.
Sue met Gary "Cotton" Adamson at the Colorado State Penitentiary, where he was serving time for murder and robbery. She worked as a cocktail waitress and lived in a hotel in Denver nearby. She married him in 1973 and began working for prison reform and conjugal rights. Unfortunately this was another short-lived marriage as she divorced him after he committed yet another robbery. More films followed including Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976), The Astral Factor (1978), Towing (1978), Crash! (1976), Don't Push, I'll Charge When I'm Ready (1971) and her final film, Alligator (1980).
Sue married Edward Weathers in 1983, but the marriage ended a year later. She married a radio engineer, Richard Rudman, but that marriage, like the four before it, ended in divorce.
Sue Lyon died in 2019, aged 73. She was survived by her only child, a daughter, Nona Harrison (from her marriage to Roland Harrison).