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- Stephen McKinley Henderson was born on 31 August 1949 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He is an actor, known for Fences (2016), Lady Bird (2017) and Civil War (2024). He has been married to Pamela Reed Henderson since 22 April 1978.
- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Katherine McNamara, named one of Vanity Fair's "Breakout Bunch," is a sought after accomplished actor, dancer, singer/songwriter. She is most recently known as the titular lead role of "Abby Walker" in Walker: Independence (2022), the prequel to CW's Walker (2021). In 2023, Katherine was nominated for the Critics Choice Association's Super Award for Best Actress in an Action Series. Before she went West, she was cast as "MIa Smoak Queen" as the beloved badass daughter of "Felicity Smoak" and "Oliver Queen" (a true amalgamation of her parents - tough, smart, and takes no shit) and was to follow in her father's footsteps to become the next "Green Arrow" in "Green Arrow and the Canaries." Kat masterfully created the daughter, Mia, a tough street fighter, in the CW series Arrow (2012) with Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards.
Katherine has amassed a large audience from her leading roles of Abby, Mia, and "Clary Fray" in the Freeform series, Shadowhunters (2016) ; a book-to-screen adaptation of the bestselling "The Mortal Instruments." Katherine received many nominations and awards for her portrayal of Clary including winning the The E! People's Choice Awards (2018) for Top Female Television Actress as well as two Teen Choice Award wins for Choice TV Actress: Fantasy/ Sci-fi and Choice Ship with Dominic Sherwood Kat was nominated twice for other Teen Choice Awards and won the The E! People's Choice Awards (2018) with Shadowhunters (2016) for Favorite Sci-fi/Fantasy Show. The series premiered to stellar ratings, being the #1 series debut in more than two years, and helped launch the re-brand of the channel alongside fan favorite Pretty Little Liars (2010). In 2015, McNamara closed out a lightning year, portraying another fierce female role as 'Sonya' in the second installment of Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) trilogy, Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018) alongside Dylan O'Brien and Kaya Scodelario.
McNamara began her professional career on Broadway, at the age of 13, as the principle character "Fredrika Armfeldt" in Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music", starring opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury. She was fortunate to continue on as "Fredrika" with the second ALNM Broadway cast of Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch. Her other theater roles include "Esther Jane" in the per-Broadway world premiere of "A Christmas Story, the Musical!", as well as "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Crucible", "Inherit the Wind", "Annie", "The Secret Garden" and "Galileo". She has also been cast in a number of Equity workshops/readings, including "Little Dancer" and "Pan" (aka "Fly") with Laura Osnes, which was created by the "In the Heights" creative team - Jeffrey Seller, Alex Lacamoire, and Andy Blankenbuehler.
McNamara's love for acting stretches beyond the stage, with credits in television and film productions. Television credits include Katherine's portrayal of Julie Lawry, the erratic Tinkerbell of the apocalypse in Stephen King 's newest adaptation of The Stand (2020) directed by Josh Boone starring Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgård, and James Marsden. Additional television credits include 30 Rock (2006), Glee (2009), Happy Together (2018), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), Drop Dead Diva (2009), Love, Classified (2022) , Late Show with David Letterman (1993), Good Morning America (1975) and PBS's Sondheim! The Birthday Concert (2010) . McNamara starred in Disney Channel's Girl Vs. Monster (2012) with Olivia Holt which attracted more than 5 million viewers and had recurring roles on Jessie (2011) as "Bryn Breitbart" and on Kickin' It (2011) as the mean girl from Swathmore Academy, "Claire". She filmed the much anticipated Disney pilot, Madison High (2012), where she portrayed "Cherri O'Keefe", resident fashionista and creator of Madison High's popular gossip blog. She can also be seen in the highly acclaimed Freeform series, The Fosters (2013).
McNamara made her big screen debut film in Warner Brothers picture New Year's Eve (2011), where she portrays "Lily Bowman". Besides the Maze Runner series, Kat also starred in Universal's R.L.Stein's film R.L. Stine's Monsterville: Cabinet of Souls (2015) opposite Dove Cameron as well as the independent bullying film, Contest (2013) with Kenton Duty . The film dives into the dark world of high school bullying and found a home on Cartoon Network as part of their anti-bullying initiative. Other film projects include Katherine starring as "Becky Thatcher" in the re-make of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn (2014), alongside Joel Courtney and Jake T. Austin, which was released in 2013, Disney's family-friendly Little Savages (2016), A Sort of Homecoming (2015) opposite Laura Marano, Is That a Gun in Your Pocket? (2016) with Cloris Leachman, Natural Selection (2016) with Anthony Michael Hall, A Wife's Nightmare (2014) with Jennifer Beals and Indiscretion (2016) with Mira Sorvino, Christopher Backus and Cary Elwes. She recently finished filming a cameo in the new Charlie Day comedy, Fool's Paradise (2023).
Besides working on music, McNamara wants to expand her creative repertoire to include producing and directing. Katherine is also an advocate for education. At the age of 14, McNamara graduated with top honors from high school and then quickly graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Business (emphasis in Finance) from Drexel University's Le Bow School of Business at the age of 17. She is now pursuing a Master of Science in Literature at Johns Hopkins University as part of their Advanced Academics Graduate Degree program.
McNamara is an award winning dancer and has a passion for all forms including ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, waltz and even hula. She was a member of the Actors Equity Young Performers Committee and is a reader for the Blank Theater's New Play Development Reading Committee and recurring performer in their Living Room Series. Katherine is committed to giving back to the community as well. She is an ambassador for Girl Up, the United Nation's girl empowerment organization, a spokesperson for Stomp Out Bullying, an avid supporter of the MS Society, a member of the Lollipop Theater Network, a lifetime Girl Scout and a volunteer for the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. She also supports Paul Rudd, Jason Sudeikis, Rob Riggle, Eric Stonestreet, David Koechner and Heidi Gardner 's Big Slick charity benefiting Kansas City Children's Hospital, and Michelle Obama 's Global Girls' Alliance, an organization that helps young women around the world achieved their potential. She currently resides in Los Angeles and her hometown is Kansas City, Missouri.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Heidi Gardner is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She has been a cast member on Saturday Night Live since 2017, beginning in season 43. Gardner was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. She grew up with an older brother, Justin. Growing up, Gardner worked part-time at the Tivoli Theater, where she did everything "from selling tickets to making popcorn." She later credited the theater as "setting the tone in her life." Gardner was not interested in acting as a child, only performing on stage as a flutist for the school band and doing comedy sketches in school talent shows. Gardner graduated from the all-girls Catholic high school Notre Dame DE Sion in 2001.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Ellie Kemper, born Elizabeth Claire Kemper on May 2, 1980, is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She is best-known for her role as "Erin Hannon" in the NBC series The Office (2005), as well as her supporting roles in the films Bridesmaids (2011) and 21 Jump Street (2012)). She plays the title role in the Netflix comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015), for which she has received critical acclaim. In the summer of 2015, she joined NBC News as a temporary co-host on NBC's morning news program, The Today (1952) Show.- Actress
- Soundtrack
One of three children (she has two brothers, Greg and Don), Dianne Wiest was born in Kansas City, Missouri, USA on 28 March 1946. Her original ambition was to be a ballerina, but she was bitten by acting bug after some stage work, most notably playing Desdemona to James Earl Jones' Othello on Broadway. She made her film debut in 1980, but did not make a name for herself until her performance as Emma, a prostitute during the 1930s Depression, in Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). Allen was so impressed by Wiest's acting ability that he has directed her on four more occasions since. Under Allen's direction, Wiest won a well deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, for her brilliant performance as the neurotic, wannabe actress Holly in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). She followed her Academy Award success with performances in The Lost Boys (1987) and Bright Lights, Big City (1988) before stealing the show from the likes of Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, Keanu Reeves and Martha Plimpton in Ron Howard's Parenthood (1989).
Playing Helen Buckman, the divorced mother of two difficult teenagers, Wiest was both touching and hilarious, and received her second Oscar nomination. Arguably her most beloved role came as Peg Boggs, the kindly Avon Lady who discovers the titular Edward Scissorhands (1990). Wiest returned to Woody Allen for Bullets Over Broadway (1994), a superb comedy film set in 1920s New York, winning her second Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her magnificent portrayal of Helen Sinclair, a boozy, glamorous and neurotic star of the stage, who could made the words "Don't speak!" the funniest sentence ever captured on film. Recently enjoying great success with witchy roles in the comedy film Practical Magic (1998) and the television miniseries The 10th Kingdom (2000), Dianne Wiest lives in New York City with her two adopted daughters, Emily and Lily.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Jason Wiles grew up in Lenexa, Kansas. Undecided after high school and having passed up the opportunity to play college football, he began to work for the local Parks and Recreation Department. A year later the movie Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990) came to Kansas City. It was then that Wiles began pursuing his interest in filmmaking by working on the set. Not long after, the Sometimes They Come Back (1991), based on a Stephen King book, came to town and he worked on the crew as well as appearing in scenes as an extra. After forming some connections while working on these films, Wiles ventured to L.A., where he appeared in commercials before landing the lead in an after-school special. Many feel that his big break was a couple of years later when he took the role of Colin Robbins on Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990), though others are more aware of his talent from his current role as Bosco on Third Watch (1999). Recently he has begun to try his hand at directing and writing as well as theater. In the summer of 2002 he appeared in the Cape Playhouse production of "Mass Appeal" alongside Malachy McCourt, and in 2003 he was in Imua! Theatre Company's production of "Safe", which was co-written and directed by fellow Third Watcher Anthony Ruivivar. Upon completion of the final season of "Third Watch" 2005, Wiles began work on his independent film Lenexa, 1 Mile (2006) which he wrote and also directed. The movie wrapped in June 2005. In November 2006, Wiles traveled to Ely, Nevada, to direct Play Dead (2009) his second feature film.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Denis Patrick Seamus O'Hare is an American actor, singer, and author noted for his award-winning performances in the plays Take Me Out and Sweet Charity, as well as portraying vampire king Russell Edgington on HBO's fantasy series True Blood. He is also known for his supporting roles in such films as Charlie Wilson's War, Milk, Changeling, and Dallas Buyers Club. In 2011, he starred as Larry Harvey in the first season of the FX anthology series American Horror Story, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie in 2012. He returned to the show in 2013, playing Spalding in American Horror Story: Coven and once more as Stanley in American Horror Story: Freak Show, the latter for which he earned a second Primetime Emmy Award nomination. For his performance in American Horror Story: Hotel as Liz Taylor, O'Hare received critical acclaim.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Donald Frank Cheadle was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 29, 1964. His childhood found him moving from city to city with his family: mother Bettye (née North), a teacher; father Donald Frank Cheadle Sr., a clinical psychologist; sister Cindy; and brother Colin. After graduating from high school in Denver, Colorado, Cheadle attended and graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a bachelor¹s degree in fine arts. Encouraged by his college friends, he attended a variety of auditions and landed a recurring role on the hit series Fame (1982), which led to feature film roles in Dennis Hopper's Colors (1988) and John Irvin's Hamburger Hill (1987).
Early in his career, Cheadle was named Best Supporting Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics for his breakout performance opposite Denzel Washington in Devil in a Blue Dress (1995). His subsequent film credits include Traitor (2008), an international thriller that he produced, starring opposite Guy Pearce; Kasi Lemmons's Talk to Me (2007), with Chiwetel Ejiofor; the 2006 Oscar-winning Best Picture, Crash (2004), which Cheadle also produced; Hotel Rwanda (2004), for which his performance garnered Oscar, Golden Globe, Broadcast Film Critics and Screen Actors Guild award nominations for Best Actor; Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven (2001), Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007), starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney; Mike Binder's Reign Over Me (2007) with Adam Sandler; the Academy Award-winning Traffic (2000) and Out of Sight (1998), with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, both films also directed by Soderbergh; Paul Thomas Anderson's acclaimed Boogie Nights (1997) with Julianne Moore and Mark Wahlberg; Bulworth (1998), directed by and starring Warren Beatty; Swordfish (2001), with John Travolta and Halle Berry; Mission to Mars (2000) with Tim Robbins and Gary Sinise; John Singleton's Rosewood (1997), for which Cheadle earned an NAACP Image Award nomination; Brett Ratner's The Family Man (2000), starring Nicolas Cage; and the independent features Manic (2001) and Things Behind the Sun (2001).
Cheadle was honored by the CineVegas Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Festival and received ShoWest's Male Star of the Year award. He is also well-recognized for his television work, including his portrayal of Sammy Davis Jr. in HBO's The Rat Pack (1998), for which he received a Golden Globe Award and a Best Supporting Actor Emmy nomination. That same year, he also received an Emmy nomination for his starring role in HBO's adaptation of the best-selling novel A Lesson Before Dying (1999), opposite Cicely Tyson and Mekhi Phifer.
He also starred for HBO in Eriq La Salle's Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996). Cheadle's TV series credits include his two-year stint in David E. Kelley's acclaimed series Picket Fences (1992), a guest-starring role on ER (1994) (earning yet another Emmy nomination) and a regular role on The Golden Palace (1992) He also starred in the live television broadcast of Fail Safe (2000) opposite George Clooney, James Cromwell, Brian Dennehy, Richard Dreyfuss, and Harvey Keitel. He also co-executive produced the TV version of Crash (2008).
His most recent big-screen appearances have been in Antoine Fuqua's ensemble crime thriller Brooklyn's Finest (2009) and Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2 (2010), another mainstream breakthrough where he played Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes, replacing Terrence Howard from the first film. The Guard (2011), an art-house hit directed by John Michael McDonagh and co-starring Brendan Gleeson, followed.
Cheadle stars in House of Lies (2012) on Showtime. Late in 2012, he was seen in Flight (2012), Robert Zemeckis's return to live-action filmmaking. In 2013, he reprised his role as Rhodey in Iron Man 3 (2013). Among his projects in development is a movie based on the life of jazz legend Miles Davis.
A talented musician who plays saxophone, writes music and sings, he is also an accomplished stage actor and director and was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2004 for Best Spoken Word Album for his narration/dramatization of the Walter Mosley novel 'Fear Itself.'
Other notable off-stage achievements include the 2007 BET Humanitarian Award for the cause of the people of Darfur and Rwanda, and sharing the Summit Peace Award by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Rome with George Clooney for their work in Darfur.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Cedric the Entertainer is an African-American comedian and actor known for being one of the Original Kings of Comedy. He is also known for his roles in the Barbershop trilogy, the Madagascar trilogy, The Steve Harvey Show, Ice Age, Planes, The Soul Man and The Neighborhood. He has had three children with Lorna Wells.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Edward Asner was born of Russian Jewish parentage in Kansas City, to Morris David Asner (founder and owner of the Kansas City-based Asner Iron & Metal Company) and his wife Elizabeth "Lizzie" (Seliger). After attending college, Ed worked various jobs, including in a steel mill, as a door-to-door salesman and on an assembly line for General Motors. Between 1947 and 1949, he attended the University of Chicago. The onset of the Korean War saw him drafted into the U.S. Army Signals Corps and posted to France where he was primarily assigned clerical tasks. Upon demobilization, Asner joined the Playwrights Theatre Company in Chicago but soon progressed to New York. In 1955, he appeared off-Broadway in the leading role of the beggar king Jonathan Peachum in Brecht's Threepenny Opera. Five years later, he made his debut on the Great White Way in the courtroom drama Face of a Hero, co-starring alongside Jack Lemmon. He also began regular TV work in anthology drama.
From the early '60s, Asner, now based in California, earned his living as a busy supporting actor. His many noted guest appearances included turns in Route 66 (1960), The Untouchables (1959), The Fugitive (1963), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) (sinister dictator-in-exile Brynov), The Invaders (1967) (twice -- as aliens) and How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (1998) (one of a couple of ghostly residents in a haunted mansion). Heavy-set and distinctively gravelly-voiced, Asner established his reputation as tough, robust and uncompromising (though, on occasion, good-hearted) authority figures. Excellent at conveying menace, he was memorably cast as the brutish patriarch Axel Jordache in Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) and as the slave ship's morally conflicted master, Captain Thomas Davies, in Roots (1977), which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award in 1977. The immensely prolific Asner (417 IMDB screen credits!) would receive seven Emmys in total (from 21 nominations), all Primetime, and become the only actor to win in both the comedy and drama category for the same role. That was also the part which made Asner a household name: the gruff, snarky newspaper editor Lou Grant (1977). Grant began as a mainstay on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), a 30-minute sitcom.
When the character was promoted to West Coast editor of The Los Angeles Tribune, Asner went on to star in his own much acclaimed drama series. Despite consistently high ratings, the show was axed after five seasons amid rumours of disharmony between the star and producers, possibly due to the former's outspoken political views. Indeed, Asner has been a controversial figure as an activist and campaigner, engaged in a variety of humanitarian and political issues. A self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, he published a book in 2017, amusingly titled "The Grouchy Historian: An Old-Time Lefty Defends Our Constitution Against Right-Wing Hypocrites and Nutjobs."
Between 1981 and 1985, Asner served twice as President of the Screen Actors Guild, during which time he was critical of former SAG President Ronald Reagan -- then the president of a greater concern -- for his Central American policy. In 1996, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and in 2002 received the Screen Actors Guild's Life Achievement Award. In addition to appearing on screen and stage, he performed extensive work for radio, video games and animated TV series. He voiced the lead character Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's Oscar-winning production of Up (2009), starred as Santa in Elf (2003), and played Nicholas Drago in The Games Maker (2014). Ed passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 91 on August 29, 2021.- Wendy Moniz, of Portuguese and Irish descent, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. An American actress best known for her roles as Louisa Archer in The Guardian (2001-2004), Rachel McCabe in Nash Bridges (200-2001), and Dinah Marler in Guiding Light (1995-1999), she has been married to Frank Grillo, her former Guiding Light costar, since October 28, 2000. She has two boys Liam (b. August 2004) and Rio Grillo (b. January 2008) and a stepson Remy (b. January 1997) from Frank Grillo's first marriage. She was previously married to David Birsner. Moniz has worked regularly in television since her debut in 1995, appearing in 15 series and over 50 commercials.
- Michael Massee was born on 1 September 1952 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for The Crow (1994), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). He was married to Ellen Sussdorf. He died on 20 October 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Director
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Christopher Walton Cooper was born in Kansas City, Missouri, to Mary Ann (Walton), a homemaker, and Charles Sherwood Cooper, a cattleman and internist who served as a doctor in the US Air Force. His parents were from Texas, where Cooper was raised.
Educated at the University of Missouri school of drama, Cooper appeared on Broadway in "Of the Fields Lately (1980)", and off-Broadway in "The Ballad of Soapy Smith (1983)" and "A Different Moon (1983)". He debuted in films in the John Sayles movie Matewan (1987). Although his performance was well received, the picture was not successful. Other films he has appeared in include Guilty by Suspicion (1991), Money Train (1995) and A Time to Kill (1996). On television, Cooper has been featured in the mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989) and Return to Lonesome Dove (1993), as July Johnson. He has also appeared in a number of television movies. In 1996, he starred in his third John Sayles movie, Lone Star (1996), where he plays Sam Deeds, the sheriff whose lawman father becomes a posthumous suspect in a murder investigation.
Cooper married actress/producer/scriptwriter Marianne Leone on July 8, 1983. They have one child, a son Jesse, who died on January 3, 2005 at the age of 17, of natural causes related to cerebral palsy. Jesse Cooper inspired his mother to author the script for the film "Conquistadora." It relates the true story of Mary Somoza, the mother of twins with cerebral palsy, who fought the educational system to provide the best education possible for her children.- Charles weber is an American actor and former model. In 2014, Weber began starring as Frank Delfino in the ABC legal drama series, How to Get Away with Murder. Weber was born in Jefferson City, Missouri. He dropped out of college after a year and moved to New York City when he was 19 years old to study at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. As a model, Weber appeared in the Christmas 1998 Abercrombie & Fitch catalog when photographer Bruce Weber revitalized the publication.
- Actress
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Bebe Wood was born on 8 August 2001 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Mean Girls (2024), Love, Victor (2020) and The Real O'Neals (2016).- Actor
- Producer
Kicking off an impressive career in front of the camera at the tender age of five, Bobb'e J. Thompson rose to fame as a child actor well before his teens, initially with a small but colorful and energetic supporting role as the pint-sized Tupac in My Baby's Daddy (2003). He subsequently appeared in television and film efforts such as "The Tracy Morgan Show" (2004), Shark Tale (2004), "That's So Raven" (2004), and "Joey" (2005). Thompson contributed to OutKast mainstay Bryan Barber's offbeat, inventive musical drama Idlewild (2006), before teaming up with Vince Vaughn in the holiday comedy Fred Claus (2007). Thompson then starred in the acerbic farce hit comedy Role Models as the hilarious, wisecracking Ronnie Shields, for which he was nominated for Best Breakthrough Performance - Male at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards.
2009 is proving to be a break out year for Thompson. He appeared in Land of the Lost with Will Ferrell and the family comedy Imagine That, in which he plays a junior extortionist that hazes Eddie Murphy. Thompson is also a semi-regular on NBC's "30 Rock," stealing scenes and showing perfect comic timing in his role as Tracy Jr., the son of Tracy Morgan's character. Not stopping, Nike recruited Thompson for multiple commercials as the fast-talking Lil Dez, who gives NBA greats Kobe Bryant and LeBron James a run for their money while babysitting.
Alongside his film work, Thompson culled favorable attention for his prominent contributions to the youth-oriented urban dance video JammX Kids: Can't Dance Don't Want To, which afforded him the opportunity to show off his flair for urban music and footwork.
Up next for Thompson is Snowmen with Ray Liotta and a hosting gig on the Cartoon Network show Bobb'e Says.
Additionally, Reveille has entered into a talent holding deal with the 13-year-old. Reveille's first project with Thompson will be a half-hour scripted comedy. Reveille is a leading independent television studio with a major presence in scripted and unscripted television and digital entertainment. Reveille's scripted entertainment programming includes "The Office" (NBC), "Ugly Betty" (ABC), "The Tudors" (Showtime), and many more.- Director
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Robert Altman was born on February 20th, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri, to B.C. (an insurance salesman) and Helen Altman. He entered St. Peters Catholic school at the age six, and spent a short time at a Catholic high school. From there, he went to Rockhurst High School. It was then that he started exploring the art of exploring sound with the cheap tape recorders available at the time. He was then sent to Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri where he attended through Junior College. In 1945, he enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and became a copilot of a B-24. After his discharge from the military, he became fascinated by movies and he and his first wife, LaVonne Elmer, moved to Hollywood, where Altman tried acting (appearing in the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)), songwriting (he wrote a musical intended for Broadway, "The Rumors are Flying"), and screen-writing (he co-wrote the screenplay for the film Bodyguard (1948) and wrote the story (uncredited) for Christmas Eve (1947)), but he could not get a foot hold in Tinseltown. After a brief fling as publicity director with a company in the business of tattooing dogs, Altman finally gave up and returned to his hometown of Kansas City, where he decided he wanted to do some serious work in filmmaking. An old friend of his recommended him to a film production company in Kansas City, the Calvin Co., who hired him in 1950. After a few months of work in writing scripts and editing films, Altman began directing films at Calvin. It was here (while working on documentaries, employee training films, industrial and educational films and advertisements) that he learned much about film making. All in all, Altman pieced together sixty to sixty-five short films for Calvin on every subject imaginable, from football to car crashes, but he kept grasping for more challenging projects. He wrote the screenplay for the Kansas City-produced feature film Corn's-A-Poppin' (1955), he produced and directed several television commercials including one with the Eileen Ford Agency, he co-created and directed the TV series The Pulse of the City (1953) which ran for one season on the independent Dumont network, and he even had a formative crack at directing local community theater. His big-screen directorial debut came while still at Calvin with The Delinquents (1957) and, by 1956, he left the Calvin Co., and went to Hollywood to direct Alfred Hitchcock's TV show. From here, he went on to direct a large number of television shows, until he was offered the script for M*A*S*H (1970) in 1969. He was hardly the producer's first choice - more than fifteen other directors had already turned it down. This wasn't his first movie, but it was his first success. After that, he had his share of hits and misses, but The Player (1992) and, more recently, Gosford Park (2001) were particularly well-received.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Harlean Carpenter, who later became Jean Harlow, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife. In 1927, at the age of 16, she ran away from home to marry a young businessman named Charles McGrew, who was 23. The couple pulled up stakes and moved to Los Angeles, not long after they were married, and it was there Jean found work as an extra in films, landing a bit part in Moran of the Marines (1928). From that point on she would go to casting calls whenever she could. In 1929 she had bit parts in no less than 11 movies, playing everything from a passing woman on the street to a winged ballerina. Her marriage to McGrew turned out to be a disaster--it lasted barely two years--and they divorced. The divorce enabled her to put more of her efforts into finding roles in the movie business. Although she was having trouble finding roles in feature movies, she had more luck in film shorts. She had a fairly prominent role in Hal Roach's Double Whoopee (1929). Her big break came in 1930, when she landed a role in Howard Hughes' World War I epic Hell's Angels (1930), which turned out to be a smash hit. Not long after the film's debut, Hughes sold her contract to MGM for $60,000, and it was there where her career shot to unprecedented heights. Her appearance in Platinum Blonde (1931) cemented her role as America's new sex symbol. The next year saw her paired with Clark Gable in John Ford's Red Dust (1932), the second of six films she would make with Gable. It was while filming this picture (which took 44 days to complete at a cost of $408,000) that she received word that her new husband, MGM producer Paul Bern, had committed suicide. His death threatened to halt production of the film, and MGM chief Louis B. Mayer had even contacted Tallulah Bankhead to replace Harlow if she were unable to continue, a step that proved to be unnecessary. The film was released late in 1932 and was an instant hit. She was becoming a superstar. In MGM's glittering all-star Dinner at Eight (1933) Jean was at her comedic best as the wife of a ruthless tycoon (Wallace Beery) trying to take over another man's (Lionel Barrymore) failing business. Later that year she played the part of Lola Burns in director Victor Fleming's hit Bombshell (1933). It was a Hollywood parody loosely based on Clara Bow's and Harlow's real-life experiences, right down to the latter's greedy stepfather, nine-room Georgian-style home with mostly-white interiors, her numerous pet dogs - right down to having her re-shoot scenes from the Gable and Harlow hit, Red Dust (1932) here! In 1933 Jean married cinematographer Harold Rosson, a union that would only last eight months. In 1935 she was again teamed with Gable in another rugged adventure, China Seas (1935) (her remaining two pictures with Gable would be Wife vs. Secretary (1936) and Saratoga (1937)). It was her films with Gable that created her lasting legacy in the film world. Unfortunately, during the filming of Saratoga (1937), she was hospitalized with uremic poisoning. On June 7, 1937, she died from the ailment. She was only 26. The film had to be finished by long angle shots using a double. Gable said he felt like he was in the arms of a ghost during the final touches of the film. Because of her death, the film was a hit. Record numbers of fans poured into America's movie theaters to see the film. Other sex symbols/blonde bombshells have followed, but it is Jean Harlow who all others are measured against.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Sandahl Bergman was born November 14, 1951 in Kansas City, Missouri. She later graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, Kansas. She moved to New York City while she was in her 20's, and appeared in a number of Bob Fosse productions. Her film debut was in his film All That Jazz (1979). Sandahl went on to appear in Xanadu (1980), Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Red Sonja (1985).- Actress
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- Music Department
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, McClurg began her performing career at age five with the Kansas City Rhythm Kids. She retired when the dance teacher was arrested on a morals charge for "dating" the tall and lissome, yet underage, star dancer in the troupe. That girl's big number culminated with a back-bend where Edie drank a soda upside down (of course).
She earned a Bachelor's degree in Speech Education and a Master of Science degree from Syracuse University and taught radio at the University of Missouri-Kansas City for eight years. There she re-entered the entertainment field as a DJ, newswoman and producer for the NPR affiliate KCUR-FM. Her proudest moment was portraying John Ehrlichman in Conversation 26 of the NPR national broadcast of the Nixon Tape Transcripts. Her career-long devotion to satirical improvisation included an impressive tenure with The Groundlings.
She went on to create original characters, performed on the short-lived talk show The David Letterman Show (1980): Mrs. Marv Mendenhall, Dot Duncan, Whirly June Pickens, Officer Jeanelle Archer, 105-year-old Edie, etc. Television has been a home to many of McClurg's characters -- on The Richard Pryor Show (1977); as Lucille Tarlek, wife of brash advertising salesman Herb Tarlek on WKRP in Cincinnati (1978); and Mrs. Poole, the ever-cheery and almost omnipresent next-door neighbor on Valerie (1986). Her movie career growth paralleled her ten years with The Groundlings. Her first film was Brian De Palma's teen horror classic Carrie (1976). She did several John Hughes films, including Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), She's Having a Baby (1988) and Curly Sue (1991). Offbeat cult favorites are Eating Raoul (1982), Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988), HBO's The Pee-Wee Herman Show (1981), and Martin Mull's The History of White People in America (1985).
In more mainstream films, she received a National Media Award for her portrayal of a mentally disabled woman in Bill: On His Own (1983) (which starred Mickey Rooney). She worked with Robert Redford (in A River Runs Through It (1992)), for Oliver Stone (in Natural Born Killers (1994)), for Diane Keaton (in Hanging Up (2000)), and was named Best Actress of the Chicago Alternative Film Festival for her portrayal of the mother of Ted Kaczynski ("The Unabomber").
More recent roles include the nosy lady on Fat Actress (2005), David Spade's nasty neighbor in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003), Dana Carvey's mother in Sony Pictures' The Master of Disguise (2002), Jane Kaczmarek's friend on Malcolm in the Middle (2000), and guest-starring on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), Providence (1999), 7th Heaven (1996), and Caroline in the City (1995). She had voice roles in such television series and feature films as The Little Mermaid (1989), The Rugrats Movie (1998), A Bug's Life (1998), and Cars (2006).- Actor
- Sound Department
- Director
Johnny Yong Bosch (born John Jay Bosch) was born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in Garland, Texas. While growing up, he had taken an interest in martial arts after having seen the works of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, winning several martial arts competitions as a result. After being informed about the TV series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993) by his martial arts teacher, Bosch subsequently joined the show's second season as Adam Park (replacing Walter Jones, who had played the character in season 1), and reprised the role in both films based on the franchise as well as Power Rangers Zeo (1996) and Power Rangers Turbo (1997)
His main claim to fame, however, arrived in the form of his voice acting career in anime and video games, when he landed the role of Kaneda in a redub of Akira (1988) that was recorded by Pioneer in 2001, with Cam Clarke having previously voiced the character in the 1988 Streamline dub. This ultimately lead to further roles in more anime series and games in the years that followed, including Vash the Stampede in Trigun (1998), Renton Thurston in Eureka Seven (2005), Genma Shiranui and Sasori in the Naruto franchise, Yu Narukami in Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (2008), and, most notably, Ichigo Kurosaki in the Bleach franchise. Among Bosch's later roles include Sabo in One Piece (1999) from 2020 onward, Toji Suzuhara in Netflix's 2019 redub of Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), and Ryogi in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (2017), among others.- Actor
- Producer
Tuc Watkins was born on 2 September 1966 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Mummy (1999), One Life to Live (1968) and The Good Shepherd (2006).- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Elaine Joyce was the lead in the Broadway musical "Sugar" from 1972 to closing with Tony Roberts and Robert Morse. A mainstay on TV game shows in the early 1970s, often appearing with her first husband, Bobby Van.
The marriage of Bobby and Elaine ran a difficult course - an announcement was made On October 30, 1967 (Daily News, Oct. 30, 1967) that they had wed, but they had not. Then in November, a blurb in a Hollywood column (The El Dorado Times, Nov 29, 1967) stated that Bobby said he and Joyce planned to marry on December 2, 1967, but her brother, Frank Pinchot had chosen that date to marry his wife, so they would choose another date). In February of 1968, it was announced they would marry in Los Angeles on March 21. Bobby and Elaine were married in Las Vegas on May 1, 1968 (Clark County marriage license and New Castle News, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1968).
One week later, Van filed for an annulment (Los Angeles Times, May 7, 1968 and Independent Long Beach, May 7, 1968) stating "fraud, non-consummation and that the "24 year old actress told him she wanted to have children but this was only to induce him into marriage". An article states that Bobby said that Elaine felt "so unhappy and insecure (about marrying), that it's the only way." (New Castle News, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1968) (She would later state on Tattletales that she "tried to run away"). There is a preliminary divorce filed in 1968 for Elaine Joyce and Bobby Van in the CA Divorce index. Elaine is listed as Elaine J Pinchot, year of birth 1943. It appears that it was never finalized, and they went on to have a 12 year marriage.
Married John Levoff in 1985. They divorced in 1992.
In 1999, she married playwright Neil Simon until his death in 2018.
Has two children: Taylor Joyce Van (with Bobby Van, 1967) and Michael Francis Levoff (with John Levoff) in 1986.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Diane Brewster was born on March 11, 1931, in Kansas City, Missouri. She was largely a character actress in both motion pictures and television. She was 24 years old when she began acting on TV. Her first role was in a few episodes of the westerns Cheyenne (1955) and Zane Grey Theatre (1956). Her first motion picture roles was as Sylvia Quentin in Pharaoh's Curse (1957) in 1956. However, most older viewers remember her as the attractive grade school teacher Miss Canfield on the popular TV comedy series Leave It to Beaver (1957). While her last big screen appearance was as Kate Lawrence in The Young Philadelphians (1959) in 1959, Diane made one more TV appearance on Family Affair (1966) in 1966. Afterwards, Diane retired from the camera. Diane died of heart failure on November 12, 1991. She was 60 years old.- Actress
- Producer
- Executive
Beautiful, buxom and shapely knockout Monique Gabrielle added an ample, alluring and invigorating dose of smoldering sex appeal to a bunch of enjoyably down'n'dirty horror and exploitation pictures made throughout the 80s and 90s.
The 5' 6" natural brunette was born Katherine Gonzalez on July 30, 1962 in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in Denver, Colorado. Gabrielle made her acting debut at age five portraying an angel in a church Christmas play. She started modeling while still in high school, entered her first beauty pageant at age 17 (she won the title of Miss American Legion and went on to participate in several other pageants, modeling competitions and nightclub contests), and moved to California in 1980 right after she graduated from high school.
Monique was the December 1982 Penthouse Pet of the Month. She had small roles in the mainstream features Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Night Shift (1982), Young Doctors in Love (1982), Flashdance (1983), Hard to Hold (1984) and Fear of a Black Hat (1993). Gabrielle achieved her greatest enduring popularity as the enticing young woman who tries to seduce Tom Hanks in the uproariously raucous'n'raunchy Bachelor Party (1984) Her most memorable roles include a pathetic junkie snitch in the terrifically trashy babes-behind-bars classic Chained Heat (1983), the titular brazen and uninhibited sexual adventuress in the steamy Emmanuelle 5 (1987), a sweet princess and her evil twin in Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans (1987), a nude model in the funny sketch comedy Amazon Women on the Moon (1987), a gutsy lady cop in Silk 2 (1989), feisty security chief Miss Poinsettia in the amusingly campy The Return of Swamp Thing (1989), and the nerdy, repressed Megan in the delightfully dippy Evil Toons (1992).
Gabrielle did guest spots on the TV shows Dream On (1990), Hardball (1989), and Hunter (1984). She was the onetime girlfriend of low-budget straight-to-video picture director Jim Wynorski; she popped up in a handful of his movies in both minor and more substantial parts alike. Monique cheerfully poked fun at her own B-flick queen persona in the entertainingly silly Scream Queen Hot Tub Party (1991).
Monique Gabrielle married adult film director Tony Angove in 2003. She moved to South Florida and ran a production company called Monique's Purrfect Productions.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Katie Wright was born on 25 December 1971 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Idle Hands (1999), It's Pat: The Movie (1994) and A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). She has been married to Hank Azaria since 2007. They have one child.- Actress
- Producer
Julia Montgomery was born on 2 July 1960 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Anatomy of an Illness (1984) and Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation (1992). She has been married to Jon David Reede since 17 March 1996. They have two children.- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Eddie Griffin was born on 15 July 1968 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999), John Q (2002) and Norbit (2007).- Actress
Lynn Cohen was born on 10 August 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Munich (2005), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) and The Cobbler (2014). She was married to Ronald Theodore Cohen and Gilbert Laman Frazen. She died on 14 February 2020 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dolores Michaels was born on 30 January 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for The Wayward Bus (1957), Warlock (1959) and Fräulein (1958). She was married to Bernard Woolfe and Maurice Martine. She died on 25 September 2001 in West Hollywood, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Missouri-born Ellen Drew was born Esther Loretta Ray in 1914, the daughter of an Irish-born barber. After her parents separated when she was 15 years old, she worked various jobs (accountant, salesgirl) to support her mother and younger brother. At one time she worked at Marshall Field's Department Store. She then went to Kansas City as an elevator operator at the Aladdin Hotel, earning $14 a week. After rejoining her family in Englewood, Illinois, she found yet another job at the Grant store. The manager liked her fresh-faced good looks and high-wattage smile and entered her in a beauty pageant sponsored by the Kiwanis, which she ended up winning. Encouraged to try her luck in tinseltown, she got a job at Brown's Confectionary on Hollywood Boulevard for $11.50 a week before she was discovered in somewhat typical Lana Turner fashion. While working at an ice cream parlor, customer William Demarest took notice of her and was instrumental in having her put under a $50 a week contract at Paramount Studios in 1936, aged 21.
Initially billed as Terry Ray, she was groomed in starlet bits for two years until finally given a role she could sink her teeth into in the Bing Crosby musical Sing, You Sinners (1938). Her hair was changed from brunette to auburn (sometimes blonde) and her moniker changed from Terry Ray to Ellen Drew, after briefly being known as Erin Drew. Brighter roles came her way with If I Were King (1938) (which clinched her celebrity), Women Without Names (1940) and Buck Benny Rides Again (1940), but she never quite managed to distinguish herself among the bevy of Hollywood beauties on display and so remained on the outer fringes for most her career. Despite fine roles in fine movies, notably the Preston Sturges classic, Christmas in July (1940), and the Dick Powell starrer, Johnny O'Clock (1947), her film career went into decline. In the 1950s she transferred her talents to television before retiring the following decade. Married four times, including to writer/producer Sy Bartlett, she was survived by her son and five grandchildren when she passed away in 2003, aged 89, in Palm Desert, California.- Kip Niven was raised in Prairie Village, Kansas (a suburb of Kansas City in affluent Johnson County), and graduated in 1963 from Shawnee Mission East High School. After spending a year at Baylor University, he changed his mind and entered the theater program at The University of Kansas, where he performed in dozens of plays.
Niven had an impressive resume that includes films such as Magnum Force (1973), Earthquake (1974) and Midway (1976). He had performed on countless television shows, including memorable parts on The Waltons (1972), Law & Order (1990) and Walker, Texas Ranger (1993). He had roles on Broadway, in regional theater and episodic radio shows. He was probably best known for his three-year stint as Steve Marsh on the TV sitcom Alice (1976). Niven and the star of that series, (actress Linda Lavin), married in 1982. The marriage was turbulent and they subsequently divorced.
Kip was first married to Susan and had two children Jim and Kate. She tragically died in a car accident in 1981. He and his 3rd wife Beth lived in Kansas and had a daughter Maggie, who was born in 1994. He also had two grandsons.
In 1995 Kip returned to the Kansas City area where he grew up. He continued to work in local theater and on a comedy radio show. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Striking brunette Lori Saunders managed to capitalize on her sunny, daisy-fresh appeal during CBS-TV's famous 1960s "rural age," an era in which the network churned out a connected trio of bucolic hit shows -- The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Petticoat Junction (1963) and Green Acres (1965). As the studious, slightly ditzy middle daughter, "Bobbie Jo Bradley," on the second show, her character would occasionally "visit" the other two shows. Once Petticoat Junction (1963) was canceled in 1970, Lori crossed over to The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) set, with a recurring part as Mr. Drysdale's secretary, Elizabeth "Betty" Gordon, in its very last season (1970-1971).
Born Linda Marie Hines on October 4, 1941, in Kansas City, Missouri, Lori studied for a time under acting coach Jeff Corey. Her professional career began at age 19, in 1960, with multiple episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952). She then dropped her real name in favor of the stage moniker, "Linda Saunders," and became a popular presence, pitching well over 100 commercial products on TV. She also earned a few "pretty girl" film parts, in such minor fare as The Girls on the Beach (1965), Mara of the Wilderness (1965), and the horror opus, Blood Bath (1966).
Finding occasional work on such established series as Burke's Law (1963), Lori finally hit pay dirt in 1965 when she was brought in to replace actress Pat Woodell on Petticoat Junction (1963) as one of the gorgeous Bradley daughters, when Woodell decided to leave to pursue a singing career. Lori changed her marquee name for the final time, in order to avoid confusion with the other "Linda" on the show -- Linda Henning. During the "Petticoat" run, Lori, Linda and Meredith MacRae had a brief career as a singing trio in which they billed themselves as "The Girls from Petticoat Junction." The trio occasionally sang on the show (as the "Hooterville Honeys"), and one available CD contains original songs ("If You Could Only Be Me," "Thirty Days Hath September") as well as established hits from other artists ("Up, Up and Away"). The girls booked a string of nightclubs and fairs, and also made a singing appearance on Johnny Carson's late night show.
Following her TV peak, Lori continued to find acting work elsewhere, on such shows as Daniel Boone (1964) and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969), as well as an occasional TV pilot. She played sweet "Betsy McGuire" for 26 episodes on yet another countrified show, Dusty's Trail (1973), that co-starred Gilligan's Island (1964) star Bob Denver and F Troop (1965) star Forrest Tucker. By coincidence, the other female co-star on that series was none other than blonde Jeannine Riley, who played daughter "Billie Jo Bradley" on Petticoat Junction (1963), but deboarded the Cannonball just as Lori was boarding it in 1965.
An attempt to shake up her wholesome image with leading roles in minor film fare did not pan out. Head On (1971), A Day at the White House (1972), Frasier, the Sensuous Lion (1973) and the slasher film, So Sad About Gloria (1973), in which Lori played a former mental patient tormented by visions of ax murders, did little to advance her career. Lori eventually retired from acting, following her appearance in the low-budget sci-fi film, Captive (1980), co-starring Cameron Mitchell and David Ladd.
Married since 1961 to Bernard Sandler, who is retired as owner and agent of his Commercial Talent Agency, and living in Southern California, the couple have two children, Ronald Sandler and Stacy Sandler. Lori's long-time creative focus has been on photography, sculpture and painting. She is also a vegan and an avid outdoors person. She is into spiritual meditation and is involved in many charities as an advocate for child and animal rights.- Actor
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- Writer
Born in Kansas City, Missouri on September 19, 1982, Columbus Keith Short, Jr., started entertaining at the age of three, by putting on shows for his folks' enjoyment. Whether impersonating relatives, dancing or just making people laugh, everyone sensed something special about the boy. Fortunately, his family later relocated to Los Angeles where, by his early teens. His mother, Janette, runs a talent agency there.
Columbus landed work in such television commercial campaigns as "Mountain Dew", "Denny's Restaurant", "Nike" and "Pizza Hut", to name a few. As a senior in high school, he was offered an opportunity to graduate two months early in order to see the world with the traveling production of the Broadway show, "Stomp!" And, after a couple of years on the road with that famed dance troop, he would parlay his professional success into a stint as the choreographer of Britney Spears' "In the Zone" tour. Though a very versatile Renaissance Man who is also a writer, musician and director, Columbus came off the road to pursue his primary passion, namely, acting. His motion picture credits include You Got Served (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Save the Last Dance 2 (2006). In addition, he has guest-starred on TV shows like ER (1994), Judging Amy (1999) and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006). But, his big break arrived earlier this year, when he played the lead role of "DJ" in Stomp the Yard (2007), which was #1 at the box office two weeks in a row and grossed over $73.4 million. Now one of the most-sought emerging talents in Hollywood, Columbus can next be seen in a lead role, alongside Lauren London and Mekhi Phifer, in a holiday film called This Christmas (2007). Furthermore, he recently wrapped a starring role in the Warner Brothers thriller, Whiteout (2009), opposite Kate Beckinsale. When not working, Columbus loves football, basketball and snowboarding.- Actor
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- Soundtrack
Allan Melvin was born on 18 February 1923 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Flash Gordon (1979), Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981) and Archie Bunker's Place (1979). He was married to Amalia Faustina Sestero. He died on 17 January 2008 in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Missouri born-and-bred Betty Ann Lynn was born in Kansas City. Her name is as light, breezy and innocent as the characters she played on film and TV. She is pleasantly remembered for playing TV's sweet-as-apple-pie "Thelma Lou," who had the tough end of the bargain as the ever-patient girlfriend of Don Knotts's neurotic "Barney Fife" character on The Andy Griffith Show (1960). It took a second reunion decades later to finally get those two characters married. While Betty enjoyed other entertainment outlets such as film and the stage, it is her "Thelma Lou" character that remains indelibly etched in the minds of all her fans.
Betty came from a musical background as the daughter of a singer and began her career as a young teen performing in both supper clubs and on Broadway; in such musical productions as "Walk with Music" (1940) and "Oklahoma!," the latter as a dancing replacement. She even entertained the troops with her light soprano at USO tent shows towards the end of World War II. In the late 1940s, after being "discovered" in the short-lived Broadway production of "Park Avenue," the fresh-faced Betty was signed on as a starlet for Twentieth Century Fox and appeared in several of their popular movies, billed herself briefly as "Betty Ann Lynn" before abruptly dropping her middle name from the credits.
Betty made her movie debut in a small, sprightly role in the classic Clifton Webb comedy Sitting Pretty (1948). After another minor part in Apartment for Peggy (1948), she earned a featured part playing kid sister to Barbara Bates in June Bride (1948) starring Bette Davis and Robert Montgomery. She continued the momentum, all in a same airy vein, as the bobby-soxer daughter of stars Loretta Young in Mother Is a Freshman (1949) and Fred MacMurray and Maureen O'Hara in Father Was a Fullback (1949). After appearing again in pictures starring Clifton Webb and Bette Davis (Cheaper by the Dozen (1950) and Payment on Demand (1951), respectively), her blossoming film career lost major ground. Betty instead focused on 50s TV and also returned to the stage with a production of "The Moon Is Blue" (1954). She still appeared occasionally on the larger screen but, for the most part, was either unbilled or the pictures themselves were obscure. While on hiatus from the Disney series, "Texas John Slaughter" (1959), Betty tested and won the recurring role of Deputy Barney Fife's steady girl on Andy Griffith's homespun series. She became part of the small-town ensemble for five seasons -- until Knotts officially left the series to try out, full-time, in motion pictures. The producers were thinking of keeping her on the show but Betty felt her role was incomplete, without her connection to Don Knotts, after Barney Fife left.
TV work continued, never straying far from her wholesome image, with recurring roles on Family Affair (1966) and My Three Sons (1960) and guest parts on The Farmer's Daughter (1963), The Smith Family (1971) and Little House on the Prairie (1974). After a 1978 part on an episode of Barnaby Jones (1973), little was seen of her until she rejoined the Mayberry cast for a reunion in the TV movie Return to Mayberry (1986). In the same year, Andy Griffith hired her to play his secretary in a handful of episodes for his Matlock (1986) series. Betty's last acting role on TV occurred in 1990 and, save for a stage appearance in "Love Letters" in 2002 opposite another former Mayberry resident Howard Morris, she officially left acting.
Residing in the same West Hollywood home since 1950, she moved out of state to Mount Airy, North Carolina - the primary real-life inspiration for the fictional Mayberry. The never-married former actress lived in a retirement community there till her death on October 16, 2021 at the age of 95.- Hala Finley was born on 18 May 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She is an actress, known for We Can Be Heroes (2020), Paradise Highway (2022) and Back Roads (2018).
- Leslie Charleson was born on 22 February 1945 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She is an actress, known for General Hospital (1963), Cannon (1971) and Kung Fu (1972). She was previously married to G. William Demms.
- Holmes Osborne was born on 7 November 1947 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He is an actor, known for Donnie Darko (2001), Southland Tales (2006) and That Thing You Do! (1996). He has been married to Candace Jean Smith since 17 August 1968. They have four children.
- Actor
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In 1902, 16-year-old Wallace Beery joined the Ringling Brothers Circus as an assistant to the elephant trainer. He left two years later after a leopard clawed his arm. Beery next went to New York, where he found work in musical variety shows. He became a leading man in musicals and appeared on Broadway and in traveling stock companies. In 1913 he headed for Hollywood, where he would get his start as the hulking Swedish maid in the Sweedie comedy series for Essanay. In 1915 he would work with young ingénue Gloria Swanson in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). A year later they would marry and be wildly unhappy together. The marriage dissolved when Beery could not control his drinking and Gloria got tired of his abuse. Beery finished with the Sweedie series and worked as the heavy in a number of films. Starting with Patria (1917), he would play the beastly Hun in a number of films. In the 1920s he would be seen in a number of adventures, including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Sea Hawk (1924) and The Pony Express (1925). He would also play the part of Poole in So Big (1924), which was based on the best-selling book of the same name by Edna Ferber. Paramount began to move Beery back into comedies with Behind the Front (1926). When sound came, Beery was one of the victims of the wholesale studio purge. He had a voice that would record well, but his speech was slow and his tone was a deep, folksy, down home-type. While not the handsome hero image, MGM executive Irving Thalberg saw something in Beery and hired him for the studio. Thalberg cast Beery in The Big House (1930), which was a big hit and got Beery an Academy Award nomination. However, Beery would become almost a household word with the release of the sentimental Min and Bill (1930), which would be one of 1930's top money makers. The next year Beery would win the Oscar for Best Actor in The Champ (1931). He would be forever remembered as Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1934) (who says never work with kids?). Beery became one of the top ten stars in Hollywood, as he was cast as the tough, dim-witted, easy-going type (which, in real life, he was anything but). In Flesh (1932) he would be the dim-witted wrestler who did not figure that his wife was unfaithful. In Dinner at Eight (1933) he played a businessman trying to get into society while having trouble with his wife, link=nm0001318]. After Marie Dressler died in 1934, he would not find another partner in the same vein as his early talkies until he teamed with Marjorie Main in the 1940s. He would appear opposite her in such films as Wyoming (1940) and Barnacle Bill (1941). By that time his career was slowing as he was getting up in age. He continued to work, appearing in only one or two pictures a year, until he died from a heart attack in 1949.- Actor
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His filmography reads like an A-list of iconic 60s and 70s TV shows. The prolific Richard Evans could be found playing a host of gauche rancher's sons and junior officers or beady-eyed gunslingers and ne'er-do-wells on prime-time classics like Gunsmoke (1955), Bonanza (1959), Star Trek (1966), The Virginian (1962), The F.B.I. (1965), Mannix (1967), Lou Grant (1977) and Quincy M.E. (1976), to name but a few. On the popular soap Peyton Place (1964) he was a season regular as an English literature professor. On the big screen, he co-starred as saloon-owning gambler and killer Goldie, mentor to Billy the Kid (played by Michael J. Pollard) in Stan Dragoti's unromantic western Dirty Little Billy (1972). He was also the ex-Marine sidekick of George C. Scott (whom he considered his favourite actor to work with) in Islands in the Stream (1977).
Evans was born on January 23, 1935, in Kansas City, Missouri. His family was affected by the Dust Bowl, a severe drought which impacted the Southern Plains and amplified the effects of the Great Depression. Some of his early childhood was spent in pre-war Japan. Many years and travels later, a circuitous route led to his first acting gig at a California community playhouse where he was noticed by a talent agent. Initially billed as 'Dick Evans', he made his television debut in 1958. In addition to screen acting, Evans also worked in local theatre (latterly on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound), acting, writing and directing. Influenced by the French New Wave, he also wrote, produced and directed several unambitious indie movies. In 2018, Evans published an autobiographical book ("Fazkils") of recollections and reminiscences about family history, Hollywood and his battle with cancer.- Actor
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Frank McGrath was born on 2 February 1903 in Mound City, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), Wagon Train (1957) and Tammy and the Millionaire (1967). He was married to Libby Quay Buschlen. He died on 13 May 1967 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Janit Baldwin had a fleeting, but still memorable and impressive ten year career as an actress. Born in 1955 and raised by her actress mother Dona Baldwin in Kansas City, the diminutive blue-eyed and auburn-haired Janit made her film debut at age 17 in Michael Ritchie's Prime Cut (1972). Among her most notable movie parts are Claudia Jennings' sweet younger sister in the exciting redneck drive-in exploitation classic 'Gator Bait (1973), a groupie in Brian De Palma's delightfully delirious horror rock satire Phantom of the Paradise (1974), a hardened juvenile delinquent in the shocking made-for-TV teenage girls-in-prison feature Born Innocent (1974), and Piper Laurie's mute daughter who becomes possessed by the vengeful spirit of a vicious gangster in Curtis Harrington's immensely enjoyable horror outing Ruby (1977). Moreover, Ms. Baldwin made guest appearances on the television programs Baretta (1975), Gunsmoke (1955), Hawaii Five-O (1968), The Waltons (1972), and Emergency! (1972). Besides her TV and film credits, Janit also acted in stage plays and television commercials. Following her winning portrayal of a spunky young lady in the strictly so-so slasher item Humongous (1982), Janit Baldwin quit acting and has since gone on to have a successful career as a fashion designer.
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Craig Kilborn had an amazing 14 year run in television where he went from local TV in Monterey, CA to ESPN's SportsCenter to the original host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central and finally as the host of The Late, Late Show on CBS where he was known as "The Natural Host." While at ESPN, he hosted "The Feel Good Edition" and sprinkled his humor throughout the broadcast. Some of his popular catchphrases included "Oh Precious," "Oh Nature," "It's the Cold and Pooh Season," "Jumanji," "Spank Me," "Ohhh, Resourceful," and "Release, Rotation, Splash." At The Daily Show, Craigers came up with the very popular "5 Questions" and "Dance, Dance, Dance" and was also nominated for a CableAce Award for Outstanding Entertainment Host. During his tenure, The Daily Show was named "Best Late Night Comedy" by TV Guide. While hosting the CBS Late, Late Show - despite a smaller writing staff and no band - Kilby miraculously beat ABC's Jimmy Kimmel in the ratings and also beat NBC's Conan O'Brian in every television market where his lead-in, David Letterman, beat Jay Leno in the ratings. Some of the popular segments Craig came up with at The Late, Late Show were "Yambo," "Sebastian: The Asexual Icon," "Recreate A Press Photo," "Talking To The Moon," and "To Blank With Love," in addition to continuing "5 Questions."
Craig has also acted in several movies including a memorable role as Mark, the philandering boyfriend in Old School, where he delivered the phrase "Good talk, see you out there" and "Guy Code."
Craig has a podcast called The Life Gorgeous where he "shares his magical life, in hopes of improving your life." He says he started the podcast after people following his "iconic Instagram were clamoring for it."
Craig was born in Kansas City, Missouri, moved briefly to Florham Park, New Jersey, and - from kindergarten through high school - grew up in Hastings, Minnesota. He is a passionate Minnesota Timberwolves fan and a lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan. His nicknames are Kilby and Lord Kilby.- Producer
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Becca Scott is an actor, improviser, host, twitch streamer, and YouTuber. She is best known for generally being an internet nerd, a host for Geek & Sundry on shows like How to Play, Game the Game, and TBD RPG, and as a correspondent for Magic: The Gathering, Games Workshop, Dell Alienware, and more. She also voiced Sophie Gray in South Park. Becca is a co-owner of the YouTube channel GoodTimeSociety, where you'll find her as the is the Keeper for the Call of Cthulhu Live Play RPG Show The Calyx, co-hosting the podcast To Boldly Watch, and talking board games on How to Game, Gameplay'd, and Good Lookin' Kickstarters. She likes puppy dogs, fine scotch, supporting social justice, and getting shredded, bro.- Nora Denney was born on 3 September 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), Splash (1983) and The Witching Hour (1958). She was married to Alan Denney. She died on 20 November 2005 in Crestline, California, USA.
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Bob Gale is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter-producer-director, best known as co-creator, co-writer and co-producer of Back to the Future (1985) and its sequels. Gale was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Cinema from the University of Southern California in 1973. He has written over 30 screenplays; his other film credits include 1941 (1979), I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), Used Cars (1980), Trespass (1992) and Interstate 60 (2002), the latter which he directed. In addition to writing movies and occasionally television, Gale has written comic books including Spider-Man, Batman and the IDW Back to the Future title, thus proving to his father that he did not waste hours and hours reading comics in his youth. He has also served as an expert witness in over 25 plagiarism cases, even though this has occasionally required him to wear a suit and tie (oh, the horror!). When he's not in production, writing, shooting off his mouth or wasting time on the internet, he actually does take out the trash even when his wife doesn't ask. Well, sometimes he does...- Writer
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Gillian Flynn was born on 24 February 1971 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Gone Girl (2014), Widows (2018) and Sharp Objects (2018). She has been married to Brett Nolan since 2007. They have two children.- Actor
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Robert Lowery was born Robert Larkin Hanks in Kansas City, Missouri, the only living child of Roscoe Hanks, noted Kansas City attorney and oil investor; and Leah Thompson, concert pianist and organist. He attended local Kansas City schools and graduated from Paseo High School in 1931 with a record as an accomplished athlete. He played with the old Kansas City Blues baseball team and was a boxer and football player. After a field injury in which he broke his pelvis, he built himself back to strength working at a paper factory in Kansas City. With the premature death of his father at 43, he and his mother moved to Los Angeles in hopes of his landing film and theater roles, given his good looks, athletic ability and outstanding physique. He enrolled in Lila Bliss' acting school and soon came to the attention of Twentieth Century-Fox after successfully appearing in a number of stage roles in the Los Angeles area. He was signed to Fox in 1938, and was soon appearing in such first-class films as Drums Along the Mohawk (1939). Although not known for his stage work, he appeared in several major theater productions, such as "The Caine Mutiny" and "Born Yesterday" (as "Brock") with his wife and fellow actress Jean Parker. He enjoyed a film and stage career that lasted well into the 1960s, at which time he started a second career with Jackie Coogan in a celebrity travel cruise business. One of his more notable film appearances was with Ray Danton in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960) and he turned in a rare, but funny, performance as a political hack governor on the make for John Wayne's ex-wife in Wayne's western comedy McLintock! (1963).
As he matured into middle age, he acquired a startling resemblance to Clark Gable. He also appeared extensively in television, including as Big Tim Champion in the 1956-57 Circus Boy (1956), also starring Noah Beery Jr. and Micky Dolenz (pre-Monkee days); Playhouse 90 (1956); episodes of Hazel (1961) and Pistols 'n' Petticoats (1966) starring Ann Sheridan, with Lowery playing Buss Courtney in the 1966-67 season. He and wife Jean had one son, Robert, who lives in Redondo Beach, California, with his wife Barbara and twin thirteen-year-old girls. Lowery passed away from a heart attack Christmas night of 1971, and is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California. His motto: "Whatever's fair." He took a less-than-serious view of life and his career, and was well-loved by his friends and family as a raconteur and humorist.- Actor
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Tommy Rall, dynamic actor/dancer of many 1950s musicals, was born in 1929 and began his dancing career at age 14 with American Ballet Theater. He appeared on Broadway in "Miss Liberty" (1949) and "Milk and Honey" (1960), as well as in several less successful shows. After a series of great dancing roles on screen (Kiss Me Kate (1953), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), My Sister Eileen (1955)), he performed in a variety of character roles, and then returned to American Ballet Theater.