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- Actor
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Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for their father, a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store and was the son of emigrants from Poland and Hungary. Newman's mother (born Terézia Fecková, daughter of Stefan Fecko and Mária Polenak) was a Roman Catholic Slovak from Homonna, Pticie (former Austro-Hungarian Empire), who became a practicing Christian Scientist. She and her brother, Newman's uncle Joe, had an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on him. He acted in grade school and high school plays. The Newmans were well-to-do and Paul Newman grew up in affluent Shaker Heights. Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.
By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte (born 1929), and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he moved Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut, where he attended Yale University's School of Drama.
While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play "Picnic". Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward (born 1930), who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition.
In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, The Silver Chalice (1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in a trade paper apologizing for it to anyone who might have seen it. He had always been embarrassed about the film and reveled in making fun of it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in "The Desperate Hours". In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and critics praised his performance. In 1957, with a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), co-starring Joanne Woodward.
During the shooting of this film, they realized they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together and raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The 1960s would bring Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade, and garnered three more Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (1968) was given good marks, and although the film and Woodward were nominated for Oscars, Newman was not nominated for Best Director. However, he did win a Golden Globe Award for his direction.
1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films as The Sting (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974) to lesser known films as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) to a cult classic Slap Shot (1977). After the death of his only son, Scott, in 1978, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction. His acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (1982) for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination and, in 1987, finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (1986), almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony.
Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982, and also founded "Newman's Own", a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which Newman donated to charity. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status.
Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his movies. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organizations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Newman died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer.- Actress
- Producer
- Executive
Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 into
a prominent family of the upper middle class living in the Regent's Park neighborhood of London. Her father was socialist politician Edgar Isaac Lansbury (1887-1935), a member of both the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Labour Party. Edgar served as Honorary Treasurer of the East London Federation of Suffragettes (term 1915), and Mayor of Poplar (term 1924-1925). He was the second Communist mayor in British history, the first being Joe Vaughan (1878-1938). Lansbury's mother was Irish film actress Moyna Macgill (1895-1975), originally from Belfast. During the first five years of Angela's life, the Lansbury family lived in a flat located in Poplar. In 1930, they moved to a house located in the Mill Hill neighborhood of north London. They spend their weekends vacationing in a farm located in Berrick Salome, a village in South Oxfordshire.
In 1935, Edgar Lansbury died from stomach cancer. Angela reportedly retreated into "playing characters", as a coping mechanism to deal with the loss. The widowed Moyna Macgill soon became engaged to Leckie Forbes, a Scottish colonel. Moyna moved into his house in Hampstead.
From 1934 to 1939, Angela was a student at South Hampstead High School. During these years, she became interested in films.. She regularly visited the local cinema, and imagined herself in various roles. Angela learned how to play the piano, and received a musical education at the Ritman School of Dancing.
In 1940, Lansbury started her acting education at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art, located in Kensington, West London. She made her theatrical debut in the school's production of the play "Mary of Scotland" (1933) by Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959). The play depicted the life of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587, reigned 1542-1567), and Lansbury played one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting.
Also in 1940, Lansbury's paternal grandfather, George Lansbury, died from stomach cancer. When the Blitz started, Moyna Macgill had reasons to fear for the safety of her family and few remaining ties to England. Macgill moved to the United States to escape the Blitz, taking her three youngest children with her. Isolde was already a married adult, and was left behind in England.
Macgill secured financial sponsorship from American businessman Charles T. Smith. She and her children (including Angela) moved into Smith's house in Mahopac, New York, a hamlet in Putnam County. Lansbury was interested in continuing her studies, and secured a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing. From 1940 to 1942, Lansbury studied acting at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art, located in New York City. She appeared in performances organized by the school.
In 1942, Lansbury moved with her family to a flat located in Morton Street, Greenwich Village. She soon followed her mother in her theatrical tour of Canada. Lansbury secured her first paying job in Montreal, singing at the nightclub Samovar Club for a payment of 60 dollars per week. Lansbury was 16 years old at the time, but lied about her age and claimed to be 19 in order to be hired.
Lansbury returned to New York City in August, 1942, but Moyna Macgill soon moved herself and her family again. The family moved to Los Angeles, where Moyna was interested in resurrecting her film career. Their first home there was a bungalow in Laurel Canyon, a neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills.
Lansbury helped financially support her family by working for the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles. Her weekly wages were only 28 dollars, but she had a secure income while her mother was unemployed. Through her mother, Lansbury was introduced to screenwriter John Van Druten (1901-1957), who had recently completed his script of "Gaslight" (1944). He suggested that young Lansbury would be perfect for the role of Nancy Oliver, the film's conniving cockney maid. This helped secure Lansbury's first film role at the age of 17, and a seven-year contract with the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She earned 500 dollars per week, and chose to continue using her own name instead of a stage name.
In 1945, Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell (1910-1960), who was 15 years older than she. The troubled marriage ended in a divorce in 1946. The former spouses remained friends until Cromwell's death.
In 1946, Lansbury started a romantic relationship with aspiring actor Peter Shaw (1918-2003), who was 7 years older than her. Shaw had recently ended his relationship with actress Joan Crawford (c. 1908-1977). The new couple started living together, while planning marriage. They wanted to be married in the United Kingdom, but the Church of England refused to marry two divorcees. They were married in 1949, in a Church of Scotland ceremony at St. Columba's Church, located in Knightsbridge, London. After their return to the United States, they settled into Lansbury's home in Rustic Canyon, Malibu. In 1951, both Lansbury and Shaw became naturalized citizens of the United States, while retaining their British citizenship.
Meanwhile, Lansbury continued appearing in MGM films. She appeared in 11 MGM films between 1945 and 1952. MGM at times loaned Lansbury to other film studios. She appeared in United Artists' "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" (1947), and Paramount Pictures' "Samson and Delilah" (1949). In 1948, Lansbury made her debut in radio roles, followed by her television debut in 1950.
In 1952, Lansbury requested the termination of her contract with MGM, instead of its renewal. She felt unsatisfied with her film career as an MGM contract player. She then joined the East Coast touring productions of two former Broadway plays. By 1953, Lansbury had two children of her own and was also raising a stepson. She and her family moved into a larger house, located on San Vincente Boulevard in Santa Monica. In 1959, she and her family moved into a house in Malibu. The married couple were able to send their children to a local public school.
Meanwhile she continued her film career as a freelance actress, but continued to be cast in middle-aged roles. She regained her A-picture actress through well-received roles in the drama film "The Long, Hot Summer" (1958) and the comedy film "The Reluctant Debutante" (1958). She also appeared regularly in television roles, and became a regular on game show "Pantomime Quiz" (1947-1959).
In 1957, Lansbury made her Broadway debut in a performance of "Hotel Paradiso". The play was an adaptation of the 1894 "L'Hôtel du libre échange" ("Free Exchange Hotel"), written by Maurice Desvallières (1857-1926) and Georges Feydeau (1862-1921). Lansbury's role as "Marcel Cat" was critically well received. She continued appearing in Broadway over the next several years, most notably cast as the verbally abusive mother in "A Taste of Honey". She was cast as the mother of co-star Joan Plowright (1929-), who was only four years younger.
In the early 1960s, Lansbury was cast as an overbearing mother in "Blue Hawaii" (1961). The role of her son was played by Elvis Presley (1935-1977), who was only 10 years than her. The film was a box office hit, it finished as the 10th-top-grossing film of 1961 and 14th for 1962 on the "Variety" national box office survey. It gained Lansbury renewed fame, at a difficult point of her career.
Lansbury gained critical praise for a sympathetic role in the drama film "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1960), and the role of a manipulative mother in the drama film "All Fall Down" (1962). Based on her success in "All Fall Down", she was cast in a similar role in the Cold War-themed thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962). She was cast as Eleanor Iselin, the mother of her co-star Laurence Harvey (1928-1973), who was only 3 years younger than she. This turned out to be one of the most memorable roles in her career. She received critical acclaim and was nominated for a third time for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The award was instead won by Patty Duke (1946-2016).
Lansbury made a comeback in the starring role of Mame Dennis in the musical "Mame" (1966), by Jerome Lawrence (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994). The play was an adaptation of the novel "Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade" (1955) by Patrick Dennis (1921-1976), and focused on the life and ideas of eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis. The musical received critical and popular praise, and Lansbury won her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Lansbury gained significant fame from her success, becoming a "superstar".
Her newfound fame led to other high-profile appearances by Lansbury. She starred in a musical performance at the 1968 Academy Awards ceremony, and co-hosted the 1968 Tony Awards. The Hasty Pudding Club, a social club for Harvard students. elected her "Woman of the Year" in 1968.
Lansbury's next theatrical success was in 1969 "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1945) by Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944). The play concerns an eccentric Parisian woman's struggles with authority figures. Lansbury was cast in the starring role of 75-year-old Countess Aurelia, despite her actual age of 44. The show was well received and lasted for 132 performances. Lansbury won her second Tony Award for this role.
In 1970, Lansbury's Malibu home was destroyed in a brush fire. Lansbury and her husband decided to buy Knockmourne Glebe, an 1820s Irish farmhouse, located near the village of Conna in rural County Cork.
Her film career reached a new height. She was cast in the starring role of benevolent witch Eglantine Price in Disney's fantasy film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971). The film was a box-office hit; it was critically well received, and introduced Lansbury to a wider audience of children and families.
In 1972, Lansbury returned to the British stage, performing in London's West End with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1973, Lansbury appeared in the role of Rose in London performances of the musical "Gypsy" (1959) by Arthur Laurents. It was quite successful. In 1974, "Gypsy" went on tour in the United States. with the same cast. For her role, Lanbury won the Sarah Siddons Award and her third Tony Award. The musical had its second tour in 1975.
Tired from musicals. Lansbury next sought Shakespearean roles in the United Kingdom. From 1975 to 1976, she appeared as Queen Gertrude in the National Theatre Company's production of Hamlet. In November 1975, Lansbury's mother Moyna Macgill died at the age of 79. Lansbury arranged for her mother's remains to be cremated, and the ashes scattered near her own County Cork home.
In 1976, Lansbury returned to the American stage. In 1978, Lansbury temporarily replaced Constance Towers (1933-) in the starring role of Anna Leonowens (1831-1915) in The King and I. While Towers was on a break from the role, Lansbury appeared in 24 performances.
In 1978, Lansbury appeared in her first film role in seven years, as the novelist and murder victim Salome Otterbourne in the mystery film "Death on the Nile" (1978). The film was an adaptation of the 1937 novel by Agatha Christie (1890-1976); Otterbourne was loosely based on real-life novelist Elinor Glyn (1864-1943). The film was a modest box-office hit, and Lansbury befriended her co-star Bette Davis (1908-1989).
In 1979, Lansbury was cast in the role of meat pie seller Mrs. Lovett in the musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (1979), by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler (1912-1987). The musical was loosely based on the penny dreadful serial novel "The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance" (1846-1847), which first depicted fictional serial killer Sweeney Todd. Lansbury remained in the role for 14 months, and was then replaced by Dorothy Loudon (1925-2003). Lansbury won her fourth Tony Award for this role. She returned to the role for 10 months in 1980.
Lansbury's next prominent film role was that of Miss Froy in "The Lady Vanishes" (1979), a remake of the 1938 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). She was next cast in the role of amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple in the mystery film "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980), an adaptation of the novel "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" (1962) by Agatha Christie. The novel was loosely inspired by the life of Gene Tierney (1920-1991). The film was a modest commercial success. There were plans for at least two sequels, but they ended in development hell.
In 1982, Lansbury was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame, She appeared at the time in the new play "A Little Family Business" and a revival of "Mame", but both shows were commercial failures. In film, Lansbury voiced the witch Mommy Fortuna in the animated fantasy film "The Last Unicorn" (1982). The film was critically well received, but was not a box-office hit.
Lansbury played Ruth in the musical comedy "The Pirates of Penzance" (1983), a film adaptation of the 1879 comic opera by William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900). The film was a box office bomb, earning about 695,000 dollars.
Lansbury's next film role was that of Granny in the gothic fantasy film "The Company of Wolves" (1984), based on a 1979 short story by Angela Carter (1940-1992). Lansbury was cast as the grandmother of protagonist Rosaleen (played by Sarah Patterson), in a tale featuring werewolves and shape-shifting. The film was critically well received, but barely broke even at the box office.
At about that time, Lansbury appeared regularly in television films and mini-series. Her most prominent television role was that of Jessica Fletcher in the detective series "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996). Jessica was depicted as a successful mystery novelist from Maine who encounters and solves many murders. The character was considered an American counterpart to Miss Marple. The series followed the "whodunit" format and mostly avoided depictions of violence or gore.
The series was considered a television landmark for having an older female character as the protagonist. It was aimed primarily at middle-aged audiences, but also attracted both younger viewers and senior citizen viewers. Ratings remained high for most of its run. Lansbury rejected pressure from network executives to put her character in a relationship, as she believed that Fletcher should remain a strong single female.
In 1989, Lansbury co-founded the production company Corymore Productions, which started co-producing the television series with Universal Television. This allowed Lansbury to have more creative input on the series. She was appointed an executive producer. By the time the series ended in 1996, it tied with the original "Hawaii Five-O" (1968-1980) as the longest-running detective drama series in television history.
Her popularity from "Murder, She Wrote" made Lansbury a much-sought figure for advertisers. She appeared in advertisements and infomercials for Bufferin, MasterCard and the Beatrix Potter Company.
Lansbury's highest-profile film role in decades was voicing the character of singing teapot Mrs. Potts in Disney's animated fantasy film "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Lansbury performed the film's title song, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
During the late 1980s and 1990s, Lansbury lived most of the year in California. In 1991, she had Corymore House, a farmhouse at Ballywilliam, County Cork, built as her new family home. She spend Christmases and summers there.
Following the end of "Murder, She Wrote", Lansbury returned to a career as a theatrical actress. She temporarily retired from the stage in 2001, to take care of her husband Peter Shaw, whose health was failing. Shaw died in 2003, from congestive heart failure at the couple's Brentwood, California home. Their marriage had lasted for 54 years (1949-2003).
Lansbury felt at the time that she could not take on any more major acting roles, but that she could still make cameos. She moved back to New York City in 2006, buying a condominium in Manhattan. Her first prominent film role in years was that of Aunt Adelaide in the fantasy film "Nanny McPhee" (2005). She credits her performance in the film with pulling her out of depression, a state of mind which had lasted since her husband's death.
Lansbury returned to performing on the Broadway stage in 2007, after an absence of 23 years. In 2009, she won her fifth Tony Award. She shared the record for most Tony Award victories with Julie Harris (1925-2013). In the 2010s, she continued regularly appearing in theatrical performances. In 2014, she returned to the London stage, after an absence of nearly 40 years.
In 2015, Lansbury received her first Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress. At age 89, she was among the oldest first-time winners. Also in 2015, November 2015 was awarded the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.
In 2017, she was cast as Aunt March in the mini-series "Little Women". The mini-series was an adaptation of the 1868-1869 novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888). The series lasted for 3 episodes, and was critically well received.
In 2018, Lansbury gained her next film role in Disney's fantasy film "Mary Poppins Returns" (2018), a sequel to "Mary Poppins". Lansbury was cast in the role of the Balloon Lady, a kindly old woman who sells balloons at the park. The films was a commercial hit, earning about 350 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
In 2019, Lansbury performed at a one-night benefit staging of Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895). a farce satirizing Victorian morals. She was cast in the role of society lady Lady Bracknell, mother to Gwendolen Fairfax.
By 2020, Lansbury was 95 years old, one of the oldest-living actresses. She has never retired from acting, and remains a popular icon.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Dick Van Dyke was born Richard Wayne Van Dyke in West Plains, Missouri, to Hazel Victoria (McCord), a stenographer, and Loren Wayne Van Dyke, a salesman. His younger brother was entertainer Jerry Van Dyke. His ancestry includes English, Dutch, Scottish, German and Swiss-German. Although he had small roles beforehand, Van Dyke was launched to stardom in the musical "Bye-Bye Birdie" (1960), for which he won a Tony Award, and, then, later in the movie based on that play, Bye Bye Birdie (1963). He has starred in a number of films through the years including Mary Poppins (1964), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and Fitzwilly (1967), as well as a number of successful television series which won him no less than four Emmy Awards and three made-for-CBS movies. After separating from his wife, Margie Willett, in the 1970s, Dick later became involved with Michelle Triola. Margie and Dick had four children born during the first ten years of their marriage: Barry Van Dyke, Carrie Beth Van Dyke, Christian Van Dyke and Stacy Van Dyke, all of whom are now in their sixties and seventies, and married themselves. He has seven grandchildren, including Shane Van Dyke, Carey Van Dyke, Wes Van Dyke and Taryn Van Dyke (Barry's children) and family members often appear with him on Diagnosis Murder (1993).- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and model, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee made her stage debut at age 4 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, playing the abducted princess in "L'Orocolo". After graduating from high school, she won a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where she studied acting with Sanford Meisner. When she was a teenager Grant established herself as a formidable Broadway talent when she won The Critics' Circle Award for her portrayal of the shoplifter in "Detective Story". She reprised the role in the film version (Detective Story (1951), a
performance that garnered her the Cannes Film Festival Citation for Best Actress as well as her first Academy Award Nomination. Immediately following her screen debut, however, Lee became a victim of the McCarthy-era blacklists in which actors, writers, directors, etc., were persecuted for supposedly "Communist" or "progressive" political beliefs, whether they had them or not. Except for an occasional role, she did not work in film or television for 12 years. In 1965 Lee re-started her acting career in the TV series Peyton Place (1964), for which she won an Emmy Award as Stella Chernak, and she later garnered her first Academy Award for Shampoo (1975), also receiving Academy Award nominations for The Landlord (1970) and Voyage of the Damned (1976). Since 1980 Lee has been concentrating on her directorial career, which began as part of the Women's Project at The Americal Film Institute (AFI); her adaptation of August Strindberg's, "Stronger, The" was consequently selected as one of the 10 best films ever produced for AFI. In 1987 she received an Academy Award for the HBO documentary, Down and Out in America (1985) and directed Nobody's Child (1986) for CBS, for which she received the Directors Guild Award. In 1983 she received the Congressional Arts Caucus Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting and Independent Filmmaking. Subsequently, Women in Film paid tribute to her in 1989, with its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award. Both the New York City Council and the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors have recognized Ms. Grant for the contribution her films have made to the fight against domestic violence.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Jack Lemmon was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Mildred Lankford Noel and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., the president of a doughnut company.
His ancestry included Irish (from his paternal grandmother) and
English. Jack attended Ward Elementary near his Newton, MA home. At age
9 he was sent to Rivers Country Day School, then located in nearby
Brookline. After RCDS, he went to high school at Phillips Andover
Academy. Jack was a member of the Harvard class of 1947, where he was
in Navy ROTC and the Dramatic Club. After service as a Navy ensign, he
worked in a beer hall (playing piano), on radio, off Broadway, TV and
Broadway. His movie debut was with
Judy Holliday in
It Should Happen to You (1954).
He won Best Supporting Actor as Ensign Pulver in
Mister Roberts (1955). He received
nominations in comedy
(Some Like It Hot (1959),
The Apartment (1960)) and drama
(Days of Wine and Roses (1962),
The China Syndrome (1979),
Tribute (1980) and
Missing (1982)). He won the Best Actor
Oscar for Save the Tiger (1973)
and the Cannes Best Actor award for "Syndrome" and "Missing". He made
his debut as a director with Kotch (1971)
and in 1985 on Broadway in "Long Day's Journey into Night". In 1988 he
received the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute.- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of the great movie villains, Clarence Leroy Van Cleef, Jr. was born in Somerville, New Jersey, to Marion Lavinia (Van Fleet) and Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef, Sr. His parents were of Dutch ancestry. Van Cleef started out as an accountant. He served in the U.S. Navy aboard minesweepers and sub chasers during World War II. After the war he worked as an office administrator, becoming involved in amateur theatrics in his spare time. An audition for a professional role led to a touring company job in "Mr. Roberts". His performance was seen by Stanley Kramer, who cast him as henchman Jack Colby in High Noon (1952), a role that brought him great
recognition despite the fact that he had no dialogue. For the next decade, he played a string of memorably villainous characters, primarily in westerns but also in crime dramas such as The Big Combo (1955). His hawk nose and steely, slit eyes seemed destined to keep him always in the realm of heavies, but in the mid 1960s Sergio Leone cast him as the tough but decent Col. Mortimer opposite Clint Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More (1965). A new career as a western hero (or at least anti-hero) opened up, and Van Cleef became an
international star, though in films of decreasing quality. In the 1980s, he moved easily into action and martial-arts movies and starred in The Master (1984), a TV series featuring almost non-stop martial arts action. He died of a heart attack in December 1989 and was buried at Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the eldest of three children of
Helen (Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz, Jewish immigrants from Hungary.
Curtis himself admits that while he had almost no formal education, he
was a student of the "school of hard knocks" and learned from a young
age that the only person who ever had his back was himself, so he
learned how to take care of both himself and younger brother, Julius.
Curtis grew up in poverty, as his father, Emanuel, who worked as a
tailor, had the sole responsibility of providing for his entire family
on his meager income. This led to constant bickering between Curtis's
parents over money, and Curtis began to go to movies as a way of
briefly escaping the constant worries of poverty and other family
problems. The financial strain of raising two children on a meager
income became so tough that in 1935, Curtis's parents decided that
their children would have a better life under the care of the state
and briefly had Tony and his brother admitted to an orphanage. During
this lonely time, the only companion Curtis had was his brother, Julius,
and the two became inseparable as they struggled to get used to this
new way of life. Weeks later, Curtis's parents came back to reclaim
custody of Tony and his brother, but by then Curtis had learned one of
life's toughest lessons: the only person you can count on is yourself.
In 1938, shortly before Tony's Bar Mitzvah, tragedy struck when Tony
lost the person most important to him when his brother, Julius, was hit
by a truck and killed. After that tragedy, Curtis's parents became convinced
that a formal education was the best way Tony could avoid the same
never-knowing-where-your-next-meal-is-coming-from life that they had
known. However, Tony rejected this because he felt that learning about
literary classics and algebra wasn't going to advance him in life as much
as some real hands-on life experience would. He was to find that real-life
experience a few years later, when he enlisted in the navy in 1942. Tony
spent over two years getting that life experience doing everything from
working as a crewman on a submarine tender, the USS Proteus (AS-19),
to honing his future craft as an actor performing as a sailor in a stage play
at the Navy Signalman School in Illinois.
In 1945, Curtis was honorably discharged from the navy, and
when he realized that the GI Bill would allow him to go to acting
school without paying for it, he now saw that his lifelong pipe dream
of being an actor might actually be achievable. Curtis auditioned for the
New York Dramatic Workshop, and after being accepted on the strength of
his audition piece (a scene from "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in pantomime),
Curtis enrolled in early 1947. He then began to pay his dues
by appearing in a slew of stage productions, including "Twelfth Night"
and "Golden Boy". He then connected with a small theatrical agent named
Joyce Selznick, who was the niece of film
producer David O. Selznick. After
seeing his potential, Selznick arranged an interview for Curtis to see
David O. Selznick at Universal
Studios, where Curtis was offered a seven-year contract. After changing
his name to what he saw as an elegant, mysterious moniker--"Tony Curtis"
(named after the novel
Anthony Adverse (1936) by
Hervey Allen and a cousin of his named
Janush Kertiz)--Curtis began making a name for himself by appearing in
small, offbeat roles in small-budget productions. His first notable
performance was a two-minute role in
Criss Cross (1949), with
Burt Lancaster, in which he makes
Lancaster jealous by dancing with
Yvonne De Carlo. This offbeat role
resulted in Curtis's being typecast as a heavy for the next few years,
such as playing a gang member in
City Across the River (1949).
Curtis continued to build up a show reel by accepting any paying job,
acting in a number of bit-part roles for the next few years. It
wasn't until late 1949 that he finally got the chance to demonstrate
his acting flair, when he was cast in an important role in an
action western, Sierra (1950). On the
strength of his performance in that movie, Curtis was finally cast in a
big-budget movie,
Winchester '73 (1950). While he
appears in that movie only very briefly, it was a chance for him to
act alongside a Hollywood legend,
James Stewart.
As his career
developed, Curtis wanted to act in movies that had social
relevance, ones that would challenge audiences, so he began to appear
in such movies as Spartacus (1960) and
The Defiant Ones (1958). He
was advised against appearing as the subordinate sidekick in
Spartacus (1960), playing second fiddle
to the equally famous Kirk Douglas.
However, Curtis saw no problem with this because the two had recently acted
together in dual leading roles in
The Vikings (1958).- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Often credited as the greatest comedian of all time, Peter Sellers was born Richard Henry Sellers to a well-off acting family in 1925 in Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth. He was the son of Agnes Doreen "Peg" (Marks) and William "Bill" Sellers. His parents worked in an acting company run by his grandmother. His father was Protestant and his mother was Jewish (of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi background). His parents' first child had died at birth, so Sellers was spoiled during his early years. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force and served during World War II. After the war he met Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, who would become his future workmates.
After the war, he set up a review in London, which was a combination of music (he played the drums) and impressions. Then, all of a sudden, he burst into prominence as the voices of numerous favorites on the BBC radio program "The Goon Show" (1951-1960), and then making his debut in films in Penny Points to Paradise (1951) and Down Among the Z Men (1952), before making it big as one of the criminals in The Ladykillers (1955). These small but showy roles continued throughout the 1950s, but he got his first big break playing the dogmatic union man, Fred Kite, in I'm All Right Jack (1959). The film's success led to starring vehicles into the 1960s that showed off his extreme comic ability to its fullest. In 1962, Sellers was cast in the role of Clare Quilty in the Stanley Kubrick version of the film Lolita (1962) in which his performance as a mentally unbalanced TV writer with multiple personalities landed him another part in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) in which he played three roles which showed off his comic talent in play-acting in three different accents; British, American, and German.
The year 1964 represented a peak in his career with four films in release, all of them well-received by critics and the public alike: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), for which he was Oscar nominated, The Pink Panther (1963), in which he played his signature role of the bumbling French Inspector Jacques Clouseau for the first time, its almost accidental sequel, A Shot in the Dark (1964), and The World of Henry Orient (1964). Sellers was on top of the world, but on the evening of April 5, 1964, he suffered a nearly fatal heart attack after inhaling several amyl nitrites (also called 'poppers'; an aphrodisiac-halogen combination) while engaged in a sexual act with his second wife Britt Ekland. He had been working on Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). In a move Wilder later regretted, he replaced Sellers with Ray Walston rather than hold up production. By October 1964, Sellers made a full recovery and was working again.
The mid-1960s were noted for the popularity of all things British, from the Beatles music (who were presented with their Grammy for Best New Artist by Sellers) to the James Bond films, and the world turned to Sellers for comedy. What's New Pussycat (1965) was another big hit, but a combination of his ego and insecurity was making Sellers difficult to work with. When the James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967) ran over budget and was unable to recoup its costs despite an otherwise healthy box-office take, Sellers received some of the blame. He turned down an offer from United Artists for the title role in Inspector Clouseau (1968), but was angry when the production went ahead with Alan Arkin in his place. His difficult reputation and increasingly erratic behavior, combined with several less successful films, took a toll on his standing. By 1970, he had fallen out of favor. He spent the early years of the new decade appearing in such lackluster B films as Where Does It Hurt? (1972) and turning up more frequently on television as a guest on The Dean Martin Show (1965) and a Glen Campbell TV special.
In 1974, Inspector Clouseau came to Sellers rescue when Sir Lew Grade expressed an interest in a TV series based on the character. Clouseau's creator, writer-director Blake Edwards, whose career had also seen better days, convinced Grade to bankroll a feature film instead, and The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) was a major hit release during the summer of Jaws (1975) and restored both men to prominence. Sellers would play Clouseau in two more successful sequels, The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) and Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), and Sellers would use his newly rediscovered clout to realize his dream of playing Chauncey Gardiner in a film adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski's novel "Being There". Sellers had read the novel in 1972, but it took seven years for the film to reach the screen. Being There (1979) earned Sellers his second Oscar nomination, but he lost to Dustin Hoffman for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).
Sellers struggled with depression and mental insecurities throughout his life. An enigmatic figure, he often claimed to have no identity outside the roles that he played. His behavior on and off the set and stage became more erratic and compulsive, and he continued to frequently clash with his directors and co-stars, especially in the mid-1970s when his physical and mental health, together with his continuing alcohol and drug problems, were at their worst. He never fully recovered from his 1964 heart attack because he refused to take traditional heart medication and instead consulted with 'psychic healers'. As a result, his heart condition continued to slowly deteriorate over the next 16 years. On March 20, 1977, Sellers barely survived another major heart attack and had a pacemaker surgically implanted to regulate his heartbeat which caused him further mental and physical discomfort. However, he refused to slow down his work schedule or consider heart surgery which might have extended his life by several years.
On July 25, 1980, Sellers was scheduled to have a reunion dinner in London with his Goon Show partners, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe. However, at around 12 noon on July 22, Sellers collapsed from a massive heart attack in his Dorchester Hotel room and fell into a coma. He died in a London hospital just after midnight on July 24, 1980 at age 54. He was survived by his fourth wife, Lynne Frederick, and three children: Michael, Sarah and Victoria. At the time of his death, he was scheduled to undergo an angiography in Los Angeles on July 30 to see if he was eligible for heart surgery.
His last movie, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980), completed just a few months before his death, proved to be another box office flop. Director Blake Edwards' attempt at reviving the Pink Panther series after Sellers' death resulted in two panned 1980s comedies, the first of which, Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), deals with Inspector Clouseau's disappearance and was made from material cut from previous Pink Panther films and includes interviews with the original casts playing their original characters.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. in Winnetka, Illinois, to Katherine (Wood), a telephone operator, and Roy Harold Scherer, an auto mechanic. He was of German, Swiss-German, English, and Irish descent. His parents divorced when he was eight years old. He failed to obtain parts in
school plays because he couldn't remember lines. After high school he
was a postal employee and during WW II served as a Navy airplane
mechanic. After the war he was a truck driver. His size and good looks
got him into movies. His name was changed to Rock Hudson, his teeth
were capped, he took lessons in acting, singing, fencing and riding.
One line in his first picture, Fighter Squadron (1948), needed 38 takes. In 1956 he
received an Oscar nomination for Giant (1956) and two years later Look
magazine named him Star of the Year. He starred in a number of bedroom
comedies, many with Doris Day, and had his own popular TV series McMillan & Wife (1971).
He had a recurring role in TV's Dynasty (1981) (1984-5). He was the first
major public figure to announce he had AIDS, and his worldwide search
for a cure drew international attention. After his death his long-time
lover Marc Christian successfully sued his estate, again calling attention to
the homosexuality Rock had hidden from most throughout his
career.- Actress
- Soundtrack
One of four children, Blackman was born in London's East End, to Edith Eliza (Stokes), a homemaker, and Frederick Thomas Blackman, a statistician employed with the Civil Service. She received elocution lessons for her 16th birthday (at her own request), and later attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which she paid for by working as a clerical assistant in the Civil Service.
She was also a dispatch rider for the Home Office during World War II, playing an important role in the war effort.
Blackman received her first acting work on stage in London's West End as an understudy in "The Guinea Pig". She continued with roles in "The Gleam" (1946) and "The Blind Goddess" (1947), before moving into film. She debuted with Fame Is the Spur (1947), starring Michael Redgrave.
Blackman suffered a nervous breakdown following her divorce from Bill Sankey, a man 12 years her senior, who's jealousy, fraudulent business practices, and emptying of her bank accounts took it's toll. After hospitalisation Blackman began counselling, which would last for years, and began rebuilding her career.
TV series work also came her way again, most notably the highly popular The Avengers (1961), co-starring Patrick Macnee as John Steed. As the leather-clad "Catherine Gale", Blackman showcased her incredible beauty, self-confidence, and athletic abilities. Her admirable qualities made her not only a catch for the men, but also an inspirational figure for the 1960s feminist movement.
Blackman took on the role of Greek goddess Hera in popular movie adventure Jason and the Argonauts (1963) with Ray Harryhausen and melodrama Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey. She then played "Pussy Galore" in the classic James Bond film Goldfinger (1964). Blackman went toe to toe with Sean Connery's womanizing "007" and created major sparks on screen.
Blackman continued to work consistently in films and tv, while also appearing on stage where she earned rave reviews as the blind heroine of the thriller "Wait Until Dark" as well as for her dual roles in "Mr. and Mrs.", a production based on two of Noël Coward's plays. She also enjoyed working with her second husband, actor Maurice Kaufmann, in the play "Move Over, Mrs. Markham" and the film thriller Fright (1971). She proved a sultry-voiced sensation in various musicals productions such as "A Little Night Music", "The Sound of Music", "On Your Toes", and "Nunsense."
In the new millennium, Honor was seen in such films as Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Color Me Kubrick (2005), Reuniting the Rubins (2010), I, Anna (2012) and Cockneys vs Zombies (2012), as well as the British TV serieses Water, Water, Everywhere (1920) The Royal (2003) Coronation Street (1960), long running series Casualty (1986) and finally You, Me & Them (2013), her last role after her retirement several years earlier.
Divorced from Kaufmann in 1975 (although they remained friends until his death, Blackman even cared for him during his 13 year battle with cancer), Blackman never remarried, revealing in an interview that she simply preferred single life, "Basically I'm a shy person and I like my own company". Unable to conceive, the couple adopted two children, Lottie and Barnaby, in '67 and '68 respectively.
The ever-lovely and eternally glamorous star continued to find regular work into her 90s, including co-starring in the long-running English hit comedy series The Upper Hand (1990) and performing her one-woman stage show, "Wayward Women"
Honor Blackman died on April 5, 2020, in Lewes, Sussex. She was 94.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Probably best-remembered for his turbulent personal life with Elizabeth Taylor (whom he married twice), Richard Burton was nonetheless also regarded as an often brilliant British actor of the post-WWII period.
Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 into a Welsh (Cymraeg)-speaking family in Pontrhydyfen to Edith Maude (Thomas) and Richard Walter Jenkins, a coal miner. The twelfth of thirteen children, his mother died while he was a toddler and his father later abandoned the family, leaving him to be raised by an elder sister, Cecilia. An avid fan of Shakespeare, poetry and reading, he once said "home is where the books are". He received a scholarship to Oxford University to study acting and made his first stage appearance in 1944.
His first film appearances were in routine British movies such as Woman of Dolwyn (1949), Waterfront Women (1950) and Green Grow the Rushes (1951). Then he started to appear in Hollywood movies such as My Cousin Rachel (1952), The Robe (1953) and Alexander the Great (1956), added to this he was also spending considerable time in stage productions, both in the UK and USA, often to splendid reviews. The late 1950s was an exciting and inventive time in UK cinema, often referred to as the "British New Wave", and Burton was right in the thick of things, and showcased a sensational performance in Look Back in Anger (1959). He also appeared with a cavalcade of international stars in the World War II magnum
opus The Longest Day (1962), and then onto arguably his most "notorious" role as that of Marc Antony opposite Elizabeth Taylor in
the hugely expensive Cleopatra (1963). This was, of course, the film that kick-started their fiery and passionate romance (plus two marriages), and the two of them appeared in several productions over the next few years including The V.I.P.s (1963), The Sandpiper (1965), the dynamic Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and The Taming of The Shrew (1967), as well as box office flops like The Comedians (1967). Burton did better when he was off on his own giving higher caliber performances, such as those in Becket (1964), the film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play The Night of the Iguana (1964), the brilliant espionage thriller The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and alongside Clint Eastwood in the World War II action adventure film Where Eagles Dare (1968).
His audience appeal began to decline somewhat by the end of the 1960s as fans turned to younger, more virile male stars, however Burton was superb in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) as King Henry VIII, he put on a reasonable show in the boring Raid on Rommel (1971), was over the top in the awful Villain (1971), gave sleepwalking performances in Hammersmith Is Out (1972) and Bluebeard (1972), and was wildly miscast in the ludicrous The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).
By the early 1970s, quality male lead roles were definitely going to other stars, and Burton found himself appearing in some movies of dubious quality, just to pay the bills and support family, including Divorce His - Divorce Hers (1973) (his last on-screen appearance with Taylor), The Klansman (1974), Brief Encounter (1974), Jackpot (1974) (which was never completed) and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). However, he won another Oscar nomination for his excellent performance as a concerned psychiatrist in Equus (1977). He appeared with fellow acting icons Richard Harris and Roger Moore in The Wild Geese (1978) about mercenaries in South Africa. While the film had a modest initial run, over the past thirty-five years it has picked up quite a cult following. His final performances were as the wily inquisitor "O'Brien" in the most recent film version of George Orwell's dystopian 1984 (1984), in which he won good reviews, and in the TV mini series Ellis Island (1984). He passed away on August 5, 1984 in Celigny, Switzerland from a cerebral hemorrhage.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in New York City on June 25, 1925, the daughter of actors
Gene Lockhart and
Kathleen Lockhart, June Lockhart made
her professional debut at age eight in a Metropolitan Opera production
of "Peter Ibbetson", playing Mimsey in the dream sequence. In the
mid-1930s, the Lockharts relocated to California, where father Gene
enjoyed a long career as one of the screen's great character actors.
June made her screen debut in MGM's version of
A Christmas Carol (1938),
playing--appropriately enough the daughter of stars
Gene Lockhart and
Kathleen Lockhart. June appeared in a
dozen or more movies before 1947, when she made her Broadway bow
playing the ingénue in the comedy "For Love or Money" with
John Loder. She got a standing ovation on
opening night; one critic compared her debut to the first big hits of
Helen Hayes and
Margaret Sullavan. The overnight toast
of Broadway, she went on to win a Tony Award, the Donaldson Award, the
Theatre World Award and the Associated Press citation for Woman of the
Year for Drama for her work in that play. On television, she has
co-starred in popular series like
Lassie (1954) and
Lost in Space (1965).- Actress
- Director
- Additional Crew
Doris Roberts was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Ann (Meltzer) and Larry Green. She was raised in New York, and took her stepfather's surname. Roberts was a 20-year veteran of the Broadway stage before she
began appearing steadily in character roles in film and on television
during the 1970s. A versatile player with an inescapably "mom-like"
presence, she was adept at playing sympathetic roles but made her most
memorable mark as hard-boiled dames, gossips, and nags who were often
too savvy of the ways of the world to be fooled by anyone. Roberts
built up some face recognition with regular appearances in the sitcoms
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) (syndicated) and Angie (1979) (ABC), but truly came into her own as a widely known comedienne when she was cast as the meddling, strong-willed family matriarch
on Everybody Loves Raymond (1996) (CBS). The show became of the
best-loved sitcoms in history, and Roberts earned seven Emmy
nominations and four wins for her colorful characterization. Well past
the common age of retirement and well past the show's celebrated end,
Roberts maintained a reputation as one of the big and small screen's
most iconic mothers, and she continued to be a welcome sight as a
television guest star and film player.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
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.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Rodney Stephen Steiger was born in Westhampton, New York, to Augusta Amelia (Driver) and Frederick Jacob Steiger, both vaudevillians. He was of German and Austrian ancestry. After his parents' divorce, Steiger was raised by his mother in Newark, New Jersey. He dropped out of Westside High
school at age 16 and joined the Navy. He saw action in the Pacific on a
destroyer. Steiger returned to New Jersey after the war and worked for the
VA. He was part of an amateur acting group, and then joined the Actors'
Studio using his GI Bill benefits.
Steiger received his first film roles in the early 1950s. His first
major one was in Teresa (1951), but his
first lead role was in the TV version of
Marty (1953).
The movie version, however, had
Ernest Borgnine in the lead and won him
an Academy Award. Steiger's breakthrough role came in 1954, with the
classic
On the Waterfront (1954). Since
then he has been a presence on the screen as everything from a popular
leading man to a little-known character actor. Steiger made a name for
himself in many different types of roles, from a crooked promoter in
The Harder They Fall (1956)
to the title character in
Al Capone (1959). He was one of dozens
of stars in the epic World War II film
The Longest Day (1962). In 1964,
he received his second Oscar nomination for
The Pawnbroker (1964). The next
couple of years he was at the height of his powers. In 1965, he starred
in the dark comedy
The Loved One (1965), and in
David Lean's epic
Doctor Zhivago (1965). In 1966, he
starred in the
BBC Play of the Month (1965)
episode "Death of a Salesman" as Willy Loman in the TV version of his
stage play "Death of a Salesman," but in 1967, he landed what many
consider his greatest role: Sheriff Bill Gillespie in
In the Heat of the Night (1967),
opposite Sidney Poitier. Steiger
deservedly took home the Best Actor Oscar for his work in that film.
He took another controversial role as a man with many tattoos in
The Illustrated Man (1969)
and as a serial killer in the classic
No Way to Treat a Lady (1968).
After that, he seemed to have withdrawn from high-profile movies and
became more selective in the roles he chose. He turned down the lead in
Patton (1970) and also in
The Godfather (1972). Among his
more notable roles in the 1970s are
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971),
Lolly-Madonna XXX (1973), as
Benito Mussolini in
The Last 4 Days (1974),
Portrait of a Hitman (1979),
Jesus of Nazareth (1977),
F.I.S.T. (1978) and
The Amityville Horror (1979).
He starred in the critically acclaimed
The Chosen (1981) with
Robby Benson and
Maximilian Schell, perhaps the
highlight of his 1980s movie career. Steiger increasingly moved away
from the big Hollywood pictures, instead taking roles in foreign
productions and independent movies. As the 1980s ended, Steiger landed
a role as the buttoned-up New York City Chief of Police in
The January Man (1989).
Steiger was seriously affected by depression for 8 years. As he
returned to the screen in the late 1990s he began creating some of his
most memorable roles. He was the doctor in the independently-made movie
Shiloh (1996), about an abused dog. He was
the crazed, kill-'em-all army general in
Mars Attacks! (1996) who always
called his enemies peace-mongers. He took a small part as a Supreme
Court judge in The Hurricane (1999)
and as a preacher in the badly produced film
End of Days (1999). He was still
active in films moving into the new millennium.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Hal Holbrook was an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor who was one of the great craftsmen of stage and screen. He was best known for his performance as Mark Twain, for which he won a Tony and the first of his ten Emmy Award nominations. Aside from the stage, Holbrook made his reputation primarily on television, and was memorable as Abraham Lincoln, as Senator Hays Stowe on The Bold Ones: The Senator (1970) and as Capt. Lloyd Bucher on Pueblo (1973). All of these roles brought him Emmy Awards, with Pueblo (1973) bringing him two, as Best Lead Actor in a Drama and Actor of the Year - Special. On January 22, 2008, he became the oldest male performer ever nominated for an Academy Award, for his supporting turn in Into the Wild (2007).
He was born Harold Rowe Holbrook, Jr. on February 17, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Eileen (Davenport), a vaudeville dancer, and Harold Rowe Holbrook, Sr. Raised primarily in South Weymouth, Massachusetts by his paternal grandparents, Holbrook attended the Culver Academies. During World War II, Holbrook served in the Army in Newfoundland. After the war, he attended Denison University, graduating in 1948. While at Denison, Holbrook's senior honors project concerned Mark Twain.
He later developed "Mark Twain Tonight!," the one-man show in which he impersonates the great American writer Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens. Holbrook learned his craft on the boards and by appearing in the TV soap opera The Brighter Day (1954). He first played Mark Twain as a solo act in 1954, at Lock Haven State Teachers College in Pennsylvania. The show was a success that created a buzz. After seeing the performance, Ed Sullivan, the host of TV's premier variety show, featured him on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) on February 12, 1956. This lead to an international tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, which included appearances in Iron Curtain countries. Holbrook brought the show to Off-Broadway in 1959. He even played Mark Twain for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 1966 "Mark Twain Tonight" Broadway production brought Holbrook even more acclaim, and the Tony Award. The show was taped and Holbrook won an Emmy nomination. He reprised the show on Broadway in 1977 and in 2005. By that time, he had played Samuel Clemens on stage over 2,000 times.
Among Holbrook's more famous roles was "The Major" in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's "Incident at Vichy", as Martin Sheen's significant other in the controversial and acclaimed TV movie That Certain Summer (1972), the first TV movie to sympathetically portray homosexuality, and as Abraham Lincoln in Carl Sandburg's acclaimed TV biography of the 16th President Lincoln (1974), a role he also portrayed in excellent performances too in North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and North & South: Book 2, Love & War (1986). He also is known for his portrayal of the enigmatic "Deep Throat" in All the President's Men (1976), one of the major cinema events of the mid-'70s. In the 1990s, he had a regular supporting role in the TV series Evening Shade (1990), playing Burt Reynolds' character's father-in-law.
Hal Holbrook died on January 23, 2021, at 95 years, in Beverly Hills. He was buried in McLemoresville Cemetery in Tennessee with his wife Dixie Carter.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Dignified, aristocratic-looking Richard Vernon was born to English parents in Kenya. He was educated at Reading and Leighton Park Schools and commenced his acting career near the end of his wartime service with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, producing, directing and starring in a production of George Bernard Shaw's 'Heartbreak House' for the Combined Services Club. At various times he was stationed in Singapore and Hong Kong. After being demobbed, Richard completed his training at the Central School of Speech and Drama. On the professional stage from 1950, he enjoyed a successful theatrical career in West End productions ranging from 'Peter Pan' (as Mr.Darling) to Noël Coward's 'Hay Fever' (as Richard Greatham). During the 60s, he appeared in supporting roles in several prestigious motion pictures, including Village of the Damned (1960), The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) and Goldfinger (1964).
Considerably better employed on the small screen, Richard evolved into the consummate scene-stealer. Balding, looking
rather older than his years and a dignified bearing made him ideal casting for typically British stiff-upper-lip military or aristocratic types or stuffy senior public servants. A noteworthy early starring role was as The Man in Room 17 (1965), a barrister and ex- war correspondent assigned to a secret unit as an infallible criminologist investigating cases deemed too difficult for the local plods and Scotland Yard. A natural propensity for period drama then insured his successful run in several popular series, notably
Upstairs, Downstairs (1971) and The Duchess of Duke Street (1976). Above all, Richard excelled in gleeful old rogues and slightly dishevelled or befuddled eccentrics. His great asset was a way of delivering even the funniest of lines totally deadpan and matter-of-fact. He was
wonderfully droll as Lord Bartlesham in the Ripping Yarns (1976) episode 'Roger of the Raj'. Arguably his most famous role was that
of galactic fjord builder Slartibartfast in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981), a part to which he had originally lent his voice in a 1978 radio
serial.
A truly unique and likeable character actor, Richard Vernon plied his craft until two years prior to his death from Parkinson's Disease. From 1955 until 1990, he had been married to Benedicta Leigh (née Hoskyns).- Actress
- Director
- Soundtrack
Kasey Rogers was born Josie Imogene Rogers in Morehouse, Missouri, to Ina Mae (Mocabee) and Eben Elijah Rogers. She moved
with her family to California at age two and a half. She got the nickname "Casey" when her neighborhood playmates discovered how well she handled a
baseball bat ("I could hit a baseball farther than anybody in grammar
school except Robert Lewis - he and I were always the opposing captains
of the sixth grade baseball teams!"); she later changed the "C" in "Casey" to a "K". Paramount changed her name to Laura Elliott during her late
1940s-early '50s stint there, but she went back to Kasey Rogers soon
after leaving that studio. Twice-married and the mother of four (and a
grandmother), Rogers turned her talents to writing and development,
including the proposed new TV series Son of a Witch.- Patricia Owens was born in Golden, British Columbia, in 1925. When she
was eight she moved to England, where she embarked on a number of stage
plays. Later she was spotted by a Twentieth Century-Fox executive, who
offered her a contract, and in 1956 she went to Hollywood. There she met
Sy Bartlett, whom she married and later divorced in 1958. Warner
Brothers spotted her acting abilities in the classic "Island in the
Sun" and in 1957 asked Fox if she could be loaned out for a part in the
Marlon Brando classic "Sayonara". She received kudos in that film for her
performance as the distraught, scorned fiancée of Brando. It was not
until 1958, though, when she achieved her greatest role, as
the tormented Helene Delambre in the Fox classic "The Fly". The image
of her as seen through the fly's compound eyes is considered one of the classic
moments in the history of science fiction films. It was during the time that "The Fly" was being made that she was trying to reconcile with Bartlett, but it did not
happen. Patricia went on to play in other films, but did not achieve
the status she deserved and continued to star in B Pictures and
television roles. In 1960 she married real estate developer Jerome
"Jerry" Nathanson. The marriage was short-lived but produced Patricia's
only child, Adam, who helped with this biography. Patricia was also
married to John Austin for six years, from 1969 to 1975. Sadly, she died
in 2000 from cancer. - Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
George Harris Kennedy, Jr. was born on February 18, 1925 in New York City, to Helen (Kieselbach), a ballet dancer, and George Harris Kennedy, an orchestra leader and musician. Following high school graduation, Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army in 1943 with the hope to become a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps. Instead, he wound up in the infantry, served under General George S. Patton and distinguished himself with valor. He won two Bronze Stars and four rows of combat and service ribbons.
A World War II veteran, Kennedy at one stage in his career cornered the market at playing tough, no-nonsense characters who were either quite crooked or possessed hearts of gold. Kennedy notched up an impressive 200+ appearances in both television and films, and was well respected within the Hollywood community. He started out on television Westerns in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), Rawhide (1959), Maverick (1957), Colt .45 (1957), among others) before scoring minor roles in films including Lonely Are the Brave (1962), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965).
The late 1960s was a very busy period for Kennedy, and he was strongly in favor with casting agents, appearing in Hurry Sundown (1967), The Dirty Dozen (1967) and scoring an Oscar win as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cool Hand Luke (1967). The disaster film boom of the 1970s was also kind to Kennedy and his talents were in demand for Airport (1970) and the three subsequent sequels, as a grizzled police officer in Earthquake (1974), plus the buddy/road film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) as vicious bank robber Red Leary.
The 1980s saw Kennedy appear in a mishmash of roles, playing various characters; however, Kennedy and Leslie Nielsen surprised everyone with their comedic talents in the hugely successful The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), and the two screen veterans exaggerate themselves again, in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). From 1988-1991, he also played Ewing family nemesis Carter McKay on the CBS prime-time soap opera Dallas (1978).
Kennedy also played President Warren G. Harding in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House (1979) and had a long standing role on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless (1973). He remained busy in Hollywood and lent his distinctive voice to the animated Cats Don't Dance (1997) and the children's action film Small Soldiers (1998). A Hollywood stalwart for nearly 50 years, he is one of the most enjoyable actors to watch on screen. His last role was in the film The Gambler (2014), as Mark Wahlberg's character's grandfather.
George Kennedy died of natural causes in Middleton, Idaho on February 28, 2016, only ten days after his 91st birthday.- Actor
- Soundtrack
A ruggedly handsome action man of the
1960s and '70s, Steve Forrest was born William Forrest Andrews in Huntsville, Texas, the youngest of thirteen children of Annis (Speed) and Charles Forrest Andrews, a Baptist minister. His brother was actor Dana Andrews. Forrest began his screen career as a small part contract player with MGM. In 1942, Steve
enlisted in the U.S. Army, rose to the rank of sergeant and saw action
at the Battle of the Bulge. Following his demobilization, he visited
his brother in Hollywood and came to the conclusion that acting wasn't
a bad way to make a living (having already done some work as a movie
extra). He went on to study in college at UCLA, eventually graduating
in 1950 with a B.A. Honours Degree in theatre arts. He then served a
brief apprenticeship as a carpenter, prop boy and set builder at San
Diego's La Jolla Playhouse, where he was discovered by resident actor
Gregory Peck and given a small part as a
bellboy in the cast of the summer stock production of "Goddbye Again".
A subsequent screen test led to a contract with MGM and resulting
employment as second leads, brothers of the titular star, toughs and
outlaws. His first proper recognition was being awarded 'New Star of
the Year' by Golden Globe for his role in
So Big (1953), a drama based on a Pulitzer
prize-winning novel by Edna Ferber.
From the mid-1950's, the rangy, 6-foot-3 actor became much in-demand on
TV, beginning with classic early anthology and western series,
interspersed with occasional appearances on the big screen (notably, in
The Longest Day (1962) and as
Joan Crawford's lover/attorney
Greg Savitt in
Mommie Dearest (1981)). In
addition to numerous guest roles, he was regularly featured in series
like Gunsmoke (1955),
Dallas (1978) (as Wes Parmalee, who
believes himself to be lost Ewing patriarch Jock) and
Murder, She Wrote (1984).
Already from the mid-60's, he decided to pick his assignments more
carefully. In order to shed his image as the perpetual bad guy, he had
relocated his family to England to star as
antique-dealer-cum-undercover intelligence agent John Mannering in
BBC's The Baron (1966). He followed
this by another starring role as the stoic, tough Lieutenant Dan
'Hondo' Harrelson in the short-lived ABC police drama series
S.W.A.T. (1975), possibly his
best-remembered role. Steve later lampooned his screen personae in the
satirical
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987).
In private life, Steve Forrest was known as a skilled golfer, lover of
football and (according to 1970's newspaper articles) as a dedicated
amateur beekeeper.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Art Department
Gwen Verdon was born to the theater. Her mother, Gertrude, was a
vaudevillian and dancer. Her father, Joseph, was an MGM studio
electrician. She had to wear corrective boots as a child to straighten
out her legs, which were misshapen by childhood illness. Nonetheless,
she first appeared as a tapper on stage at age 6. She got her break in
Bob Fosse's "Damn Yankees" in 1955. She
married Fosse in 1960 and separated from him, although never divorcing
him, in the
mid-'70s. More
stage and screen work quickly followed with highlights in "New Girl In
Town", "Redhead", "Sweet Charity", and "Chicago". She and her daughter,
Nicole Fosse,
created the current stage musical "Fosse". Upon her death, Broadway
dimmed all of its marquee lights in tribute.- A resolute, blue-eyed brunette with attractive, slightly pinched
features, Geraldine Brooks was born to a Dutch couple on October 29,
1925, in New York City. Her parents had a theater-based background --
father, James Stroock, owned a top costume company and mother, Bianca,
was a costume designer and stylist. In dance shoes from age 2, her
closer relatives were also extensively involved in theater -- one aunt
being a former Ziegfeld Follies girl and another a contralto with the
Metropolitan Opera. Growing up surrounding by these theatrical types,
it was only natural that it rubbed off on her. She attended the Hunter
Modeling School as a young teen and graduated from Julia Richman High
School in 1942 as president of her drama club. Older sister,
Gloria Stroock, also became an actress,
primarily on TV.
In New York, Geraldine studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art
and the Neighborhood Playhouse before apprenticing in summer stock
productions. In a pre-Broadway tryout of "Follow the Girls" in 1944,
Geraldine subsequently went with the show to Broadway in May of that
same year and enjoyed a nine-month run. Following her role as "Perdita"
in "A Winter's Tale" at the Theatre Guild, she was signed by Warner
Bros. and made her film debut promisingly as a second femme lead in the
mystery thriller Cry Wolf (1947)
starring Barbara Stanwyck and
Errol Flynn. At this time, she
shunned her odd-sounding last name of "Stroock" in favor of the more
euphonious marquee name of "Brooks", which was the name of her
father's costume company. Playing Flynn's cool, conniving niece who
gives trouble to Stanwyck, she gave added suspense to the film. In her
second movie, Possessed (1947), she is
again at odds with another powerhouse star, this time
Joan Crawford, but shows more
sensitivity against the manic Crawford character in this film-noir
chiller.
Geraldine moved to dramatic lead status with
Embraceable You (1948) opposite
Dane Clark, and played daughter to
real wife-and-husband team Fredric March
and Florence Eldridge in
An Act of Murder (1948), a drama
that dealt with the topic of euthanasia. Less impressive was the
standard Warner Bros. "B" western
The Younger Brothers (1949)
and her MGM loanout appearance in
Challenge to Lassie (1949).
Floundering a bit at this time and failing to strike a star-making
chord with audiences, she attempted a few continental film assignments,
one in which she played Anna Magnani's
younger sister, but grew quickly disillusioned there as well and
returned to America.
Focusing instead on stage and TV, including a Broadway stint in "Time
of the Cuckoo" starring Tony-winning
Shirley Booth, Geraldine eventually went
back to studying acting again. In 1956, she became a member of the
Actor's Studio and became a strong exponent of its method style.
Despite this renewed, enlightening acting technique, her film career
found no momentum at all. In fact, she appeared in only two films in
the oncoming years as brittle, harder-core ladies in
Street of Sinners (1957) and
Johnny Tiger (1966). Her greater
notices were to be found guesting on various popular TV series.
Particularly noteworthy were her roles on
Perry Mason (1957),
The Defenders (1961),
Bus Stop (1961) (for which she
earned an Emmy nomination), the pilot of
Ironside (1967) and the last final
climactic episode of
The Fugitive (1963). A regular
as Dan Dailey's secretary on the mildly
received
Faraday and Company (1973),
she also appeared in the 70s episodes of
Kung Fu (1972),
Cannon (1971),
Barnaby Jones (1973) and
McMillan & Wife (1971), the
last in which sister, Gloria Stroock, had
a recurring role as Rock Hudson's secretary.
Geraldine's later theater included her Tony-nominated role in
"Brightower" (1970) (despite it closing after only one performance) on
Broadway and as wife "Golde" in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof". Her
final movie part came in the rather ho-hum crime movie
Mr. Ricco (1975) alongside
Dean Martin. A short-lived series
regular as the matriarch of
The Dumplings (1976), a rare
comedic venture for her, and a stage production of
Jules Feiffer's "Hold Me!" in 1977 capped
her capable but somewhat unsatisfying career. She deserved much better
attention than she got, especially in films. Divorced from TV writer
Herbert Sargent after only three
years (1958-1961), she married author
Budd Schulberg (best known for his
screenplay of
On the Waterfront (1954)), in
1964. The couple moved to Los Angeles and opened a writers' workshop
together for the underprivileged. She also collaborated with Schulberg
on the book Swan Watch (1975), a study on the elegant birds in which
she also took photographs. In addition, she wrote poetry for children
although she herself never had any. Sadly, Geraldine died in 1977 at
age 51 of a heart attack while battling cancer, thus depriving the
entertainment industry of a valuable talent. She was survived by her
husband, mother and sister. - Actress
- Soundtrack
One of the finest classical and contemporary leading ladies ever to grace the 20th century American stage, five-time Tony Award winner Julie Harris was rather remote and reserved on camera, finding her true glow in front of the theatre lights. The freckled, red-haired actress not only was nominated for a whopping total of ten Tony awards and was a Sarah Siddons Award recipient for her work on the Chicago stage, she also earned awards in other areas of the entertainment industry, including three Emmys (of 11 nominations), a Grammy and an Academy Award nomination. (Note: Harris would hold the record for the most competitive Tony performance wins (five) for a couple of decades. Angela Lansbury finally caught up with her in 2009 and singer/actress Audra McDonald surpassed them both in 2014 with six). While Harris certainly lacked the buoyancy and glamor usually associated with being a movie star, she certainly made an impact in the early to mid 1950s with three iconic leading roles, two of which she resurrected from the Broadway stage. After that she pretty much deserted film.
Born Julie Ann Harris on December 2, 1925, in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, she was the daughter of William Pickett, an investment banker, and Elsie L. (née Smith) Harris, a nurse. Graduating from Grosse Pointe Country Day School, an early interest in the performance arts was encouraged by her family. Moving to New York City, Julie attended The Hewitt School and later trained as a teenager at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School & Camp in Colorado. A mentor there, Charlotte Perry, saw great hope for young Julie and was insistent that her protégé study at the Yale School of Drama. Julie did just that -- for about a year.
Also trained at the New York School of Drama and one of the earliest members of the Acting Studio, young Julie made her Broadway debut in 1945 at age 19 in the comedy "It's a Gift". Despite its lukewarm reception, the demure, diminutive (5'3"), and delicate-looking thespian moved on. She apprenticed on Broadway for the next few years with ensemble parts in "King Henry IV, Part II" (1946), "Oedipus Rex" (1946), "The Playboy of the Western World" (1946), "Alice in Wonderland" (as the White Rabbit) (1947), and Macbeth" (1948).
More prominent roles came her way in such short-lived Broadway plays as "Sundown Beach" (1948), "The Young and Fair" (1948), "Magnolia Alley" (1949) and "Montserrat (1949). This led to her star-making theatre role at age 24 as sensitive 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams in the classic drama "The Member of the Wedding" (1950) opposite veteran actress Ethel Waters and based on the Carson McCullers novel. The play ran for over a year. The Member of the Wedding (1952) would eventually be transferred to film and, despite being untried talents on film, director Fred Zinnemann wisely included both Harris and young Brandon De Wilde (as young John Henry) to reenact their stage triumphs along with Ms. Waters. Harris, at 27, received her first and only Academy Award nomination as the coming-of-age Georgian tomboy.
It wasn't long before Julie's exceptional range and power won noticed nationwide. In 1952, she received her first "Best Actress" Tony Award for creating the larger-than-life role of Sally Bowles in "I Am a Camera," the stage version of one of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin stories ("Goodbye to Berlin" (1939). (Note: In the 1960s, Isherwood's play would be transformed successfully into the Broadway musical "Cabaret".) Harris again was invited to repeat her stage role in I Am a Camera (1955) with Laurence Harvey and Shelley Winters, winning the BAFTA "Best Foreign Actress" Award. That same year Harris starred opposite the highly emotive James Dean (she had top billing) as his love interest in the classic film East of Eden (1955), directed by Elia Kazan from the John Steinbeck novel. Strangely, Julie's brilliance in the role of Abra was completely overlooked come Oscar time...a terrible miscarriage of justice in this author's view.
After this vivid film exposure, Julie's love for the theatre completely dominated her career focus. She continued to increase her Broadway prestige with such plays as "Mademoiselle Colombe" (title role) (1954), "The Lark" (Tony Award: as Joan of Arc) (1955), "The Country Wife" (1957), "The Warm Peninsula" (1959), "Little Moon Over Alban" (1960) (which she took to Emmy-winning TV), "A Shot in the Dark" (1961), "Ready When Your Are, C.B.!" (1964), "Skyscraper" (1965), "Forty Carats" (Tony Award) (1968), "And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little" ) (1971), "The Au Pair Man" (1973) and "In Praise of Love" (1974). In between she gave stellar performances on TV with her Joan of Arc in The Lark (1957); title role in Johnny Belinda (1958); Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House (1959); Catherine Sloper in The Heiress (1961); title role in Victoria Regina (1961) (for which received an Emmy award); Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion (1963), and title role in Anastasia (1967).Be
In later years Harris reaped praises and honors for her awe-inspiring one-woman touring shows based on the lives of certain distaff historical figureheads. Her magnificently tormented, Tony-winning "First Lady" Mary Lincoln in "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln" (1972) was the first to be seen on stage and TV, followed by another Tony (and Grammy) Award-winning performance as poetess Emily Dickinson in "The Belle of Amherst" (1976) (directed by close friend Charles Nelson Reilly, as well as her early 1980s solo portrait of author Charlotte Brontë in "Bronte," which started out as a radio play. Julie was now placed among the theatre's luminous "ruling class" alongside legendary veterans Helen Hayes, Katharine Cornell and Judith Anderson.
As time wore on, Harris would become equally respected on film and TV for her portrayals of over-the-edge neurotics, wallflowers and eccentric maiden aunt types as witnessed by her co-starring roles in the films The Haunting (1963), Hamlet (1964) (as Ophelia), Harper (1966), You're a Big Boy Now (1966), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), The Bell Jar (1979), and the TV-movies How Awful About Allan (1970) and Home for the Holidays (1972). Perhaps a step down performance wise, the veteran actress, after a period of ill health, became a household name with her regular series work as Lilimae on the TV soap Knots Landing (1979).
At age 60, Harris continued to impress on Broadway with her 1990's versions of Amanda Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie" and Fonsia Dorsey in "The Gin Game" for which she received her tenth and final Tony nomination. She also toured successfully with a production of "Lettice and Lovage".
Unlike many other actors whose film roles disintegrated with appearances in bottom-of-the-barrel lowbudgets, Julie's final two supporting films roles were in two nicely constructed period romantic comedies -- The Golden Boys (2008) and The Lightkeepers (2009).
Ill health dogged Julie's later years (she battled breast cancer in 1981 and suffered two strokes -- one in 2001 (while performing in the Chicago play "Fossils") and again in 2010). Nevertheless, she continued to work almost until the end, including narrating five historical documentaries and giving Emmy-winning voice to such women suffragettes as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Married and divorced three times, Julie had one son by her second marriage -- Peter, who became a theatre critic. She also spent time enjoying the benefits of receiving special awards and honors for her full body of work. Among these, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994, received a "Special Lifetime Achievement" Tony Award in 2002 and was a 2005 Kennedy Center honoree.
Harris died on August 24, 2013, of congestive heart failure at her home in West Chatham, Massachusetts. She was 87.- 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
- 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
- Soundtrack
Jeanne Crain was born in Barstow, California, on May 25, 1925. The daughter of a high school English teacher and his wife, Jeanne was moved to Los Angeles not long after her birth after her father got another teaching position in that city. While in junior high school, Jeanne played the lead in a school production which set her on the path to acting. When she was in high school Jeanne was asked to take a screen test to appear in a film by Orson Welles. Unfortunately, she didn't get the part, but it did set her sights on being a movie actress.
After high school, Jeanne enrolled at UCLA to study drama. At the age of 18, Jeanne won a bit part in Fox Studio's film entitled The Gang's All Here (1943) and a small contract. Her next film saw Jeanne elevated to a more substantial part in Home in Indiana (1944) the following year, which was filmed in neighboring Kentucky. The movie was an unquestionable hit. On the strength of that box-office success, Jeanne was given a raise and star billing, as Maggie Preston, in the next film of 1944, In the Meantime, Darling (1944). Unfortunately, the critics not only roasted the film, but singled out Jeanne's performance in particular. She rebounded nicely in her last film of the year, Winged Victory (1944). The audiences loved it and the film was profitable.
In 1945, Jeanne was cast in State Fair (1945) as Margie Frake who travels to the fair and falls in love with a reporter played by Dana Andrews. Now, Jeanne got a bigger contract and more recognition. Later that year, Jeanne married Paul Brooks on New Year's Eve. Although her mother wasn't supportive of the marriage, the union lasted until her husband's death and produced seven children. The year 1947 was an off year for Jeanne, as she took time off to bear the Brooks' first child.
In 1949, Jeanne appeared in three films, A Letter to Three Wives (1949), The Fan (1949), and Pinky (1949). It was this latter film which garnered her an Oscar nomination as Best Actress for her role as Pinky Johnson, a nurse who sets up a clinic in the Deep South. She lost to Olivia de Havilland for The Heiress (1949). Jeanne left Fox after filming Vicki (1953) in 1953, with Jean Peters. She had made 23 films for the studio that started her career, but she needed a well-deserved change. As with any good artist, Jeanne wanted to expand her range instead of playing the girl-next-door types.
She went briefly to Warner Brothers for the filming of Duel in the Jungle (1954) in 1954. The film was lukewarm at best. Jeanne, then, signed a contract, that same year, with Universal Studios with promises of better, high profile roles. She went into production in the film Man Without a Star (1955) which was a hit with audiences and critics. After The Joker Is Wild (1957) in 1957, Jeanne took time off for her family and to appear in a few television programs. She returned, briefly, to film in Guns of the Timberland (1960) in 1960. The films were sporadic after that. In 1967, she appeared in a low-budget suspense yarn called Hot Rods to Hell (1966). Her final film was as Clara Shaw in 1972's Skyjacked (1972).
Jeanne died of a heart attack in Santa Barbara, California, on December 14, 2003. Her husband Paul Brooks had died two months earlier.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Farley Earle Granger was born in 1925 in San Jose, California, to Eva
(Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger, who owned an automobile dealership.
Right out of high school, he was brought to the attention of movie
producer Samuel Goldwyn, who cast him in
a small role in
The North Star (1943). He followed
it up with a much bigger part in
The Purple Heart (1944) and then
joined the army. After his release he had to wait until
Nicholas Ray cast him in the
low-budget RKO classic
They Live by Night (1948) with
Cathy O'Donnell, and then he was
recalled by Goldwyn, who signed him to a five-year contract. He then
made Rope (1948) for
Alfred Hitchcock and followed
up for Goldwyn with
Enchantment (1948) with
David Niven,
Evelyn Keyes and
Teresa Wright. Other roles
followed, including
Roseanna McCoy (1949) with
Joan Evans,
Our Very Own (1950) with
Ann Blyth and
Side Street (1949), again with Cathy
O'Donnell. He returned to Hitchcock for the best role of his career, as
the socialite tennis champ embroiled in a murder plot by psychotic
Robert Walker in
Strangers on a Train (1951).
He then appeared in O. Henry's Full House (1952)
with Jeanne Crain,
Hans Christian Andersen (1952)
with Danny Kaye,
The Story of Three Loves (1953)
with Leslie Caron and
Small Town Girl (1953) with
Jane Powell. He went to Italy to
make Senso (1954) for
Luchino Visconti with
Alida Valli, one of his best films. He did a
Broadway play in 1955, "The Carefree Tree", and then returned to films
in The Naked Street (1955) with
Anthony Quinn and
Anne Bancroft and
The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955)
with Joan Collins and
Ray Milland. Over the next ten years Granger
worked extensively on television and the stage, mainly in stock, and
returned to films in
Rogue's Gallery (1968) with
Dennis Morgan. He then returned to
Italy, where he made a series of films, including
The Challengers (1970)
with 'Anne Baxter (I)',
The Man Called Noon (1973)
with Richard Crenna and
Arnold (1973) with
Stella Stevens. More recent films
include The Prowler (1981),
Death Mask (1984),
The Imagemaker (1986) and
The Next Big Thing (2001).
Since the 1950s he has continued to work frequently on American
television and, in 1980, returned to Broadway and appeared in
Ira Levin's successful play "Deathtrap". In
2007 he published his autobiography, "Include Me Out: My Life from
Goldwyn to Broadway" with
Robert Calhoun. A longtime
resident of New York, Granger has recently appeared in several
documentaries discussing Hollywood and, often, specifically
Alfred Hitchcock.- Actor
- Additional Crew
One of England's most successful and enduring character actors, with a prolific screen career on television and in films, Robert
Hardy was acclaimed for his versatility and the depth of his performances.
Born in Cheltenham in
1925, he studied at Oxford University and, in 1949, he joined the
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. Television viewers
most fondly remember him as the overbearing Siegfried Farnon in
All Creatures Great and Small (1978)
but his most critically acclaimed performance was as the title
character of
Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981).
His portrayal of Britain's wartime leader was so accurately observed
that, in the following years, he was called on to reprise the role in
such productions as
The Woman He Loved (1988)
and
War and Remembrance (1988).
Unlike some British character actors, Hardy was not a Hollywood name and his work in films was therefore restricted to
appearances in predominantly British-based productions such as
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965),
Frankenstein (1994) and
Sense and Sensibility (1995). However, in the 21st century, Hardy came to the attention of a whole new generation for his performances in the hugely successful Harry Potter films, while also continuing to make regular appearances in British television series. His co-star from All Creatures Great and Small (1978), Peter Davison, quite simply described Hardy as an "extraordinary" actor who would "never do the same thing twice" when he was acting with him. He was awarded the CBE for services to acting. He died in August 2017.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
He once jokingly described himself as 'a frustrated song-and-dance man' who wound up typecast as a TV crime fighter. Tall, handsome Armenian-American Mike Connors had a minor career in the movies before becoming a star on the small screen as the impeccably dressed macho sleuth Joe Mannix. Towards the end of the series, his earnings per episode averaged a respectable $40,000. He was four times nominated for an Emmy Award and won a Golden Globe in 1969. Mannix (1967) was highly innovative in its day: among its winning combination were an upbeat jazzy score (composed by Lalo Schifrin), teasers, fast cuts from scene to scene, a car replete with a computer transmitting and receiving fingerprints and an African-American co-star (the charming Gail Fisher, who played Joe's secretary Peggy Fair). Many notable names guested in the show, some at very beginning of their careers (Diane Keaton and Martin Sheen, among others). 'Mannix' ran for eight seasons (1967-1975), a testament to its enduring popularity.
Connors was born Krekor Ohanian in Fresno, California. His mother wanted him to become an attorney. After wartime service in the Army Air Force he enrolled at UCLA on the G. I. Bill of Rights, began in law school but eventually took up theatre studies as his major. The nickname "Touch', Mike acquired on the basketball court where he first came to the attention of the director William A. Wellman who considered his features 'expressive'. He was first signed by Goldwyn studios on a 90-day contract. However, Goldwyn never took up the option and Mike never appeared in any of his films (it turned out that his signing had been no more than leverage to bring Farley Granger back in line who was causing Goldwyn some trouble). Through a talent agent, Mike got an interview at Republic to do a film with Joan Crawford called Sudden Fear (1952). That same guy also decided that his original surname Ohanian sounded too much like O'Hanlon -- George O'Hanlon was already a well-established film actor and writer -- and consequently changed his name to 'Connors'. Until 1957, Mike appeared in mainly low budget movies and TV anthologies, billed as 'Touch Connors' (an appellation he thoroughly disliked). He did several films for Roger Corman for $400 a pop. Arguably, the one highlight of his film career -- several years later -- could be said to be his role as one of a pair of American bomber crew (the other being Robert Redford) held captive in a cellar by a lonely German drug store clerk who chooses to withhold from them the trivial matter of Germany's surrender to the Allies (played with whimsical aplomb by the brilliant Alec Guinness) in the underrated and very funny black comedy Situation Hopeless -- But Not Serious (1965).
After many years as a struggling actor, Mike's first TV hit was Tightrope (1959) for CBS in which he starred as an undercover cop infiltrating an organized crime syndicate. Though the story lines became increasingly repetitive through its 37 episodes, the role pretty much defined his subsequent tough-guy image. During the original pilot for 'Mannix', which initially had Joe Mannix as the top investigator for the computerized Intertect detective agency under boss Joseph Campanella, Mike performed many of the stunts himself, in the process breaking a wrist and dislocating a shoulder. In an effort to make his character 'more real' than the traditional cynical Bogart-style gumshoe, he played Mannix as being more 'humane', often becoming emotionally involved in his cases and -- just as often -- ending up on the wrong end of a knuckle sandwich (in the course of the 194 episodes, poor old Joe was knocked unconscious on fifty-five occasions and shot seventeen times), or watching his beautiful client walk off with another man.
Another subsequent starring role as a modern-day G-Man in the short-lived Today's F.B.I. (1981) did not come close to rekindling his earlier success. Most of Mike's later appearances were as guest stars, notably a return as Joe Mannix in an episode of Diagnosis Murder (1993). Later interviews revealed him to have been acutely aware of the transitory nature of TV stardom and exceedingly grateful for his one opportunity to shine. Mike Connors was happily married to Mary Lou Willey for 67 years.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Perky, talented, blue-eyed redhead Cara Williams had acting aspirations from the get-go. She was born in Brooklyn on June 29, 1925, as Bernice Kamiat, to an Austrian Jewish father, Benjamin Kamiat, and a mother of Romanian Jewish descent, Flora (Schwartz). Cara began performing as a child and continued into her teens. After her parents' divorce, she relocated with her mother to Hollywood where she attended the Hollywood Professional School and lent her voice to both radio and animated cartoon shorts. At age 16 she was signed by 20th Century-Fox and began to play minor, often unbilled parts in drama, comedy and musicals billing herself as Bernice Kay.
Throughout WWII she was always reliable for adding a little pep and zing to her smallish roles. She played various shapely secretaries, salesgirls, girlfriends, etc. in such minor fodder as Wide Open Town (1941), Happy Land (1943), In the Meantime, Darling (1944) and Don Juan Quilligan (1945), but nothing to propel her into the front ranks.
Things started picking up in the post-war years. She made a splash on stage in a production of "Born Yesterday" and started earning notably feisty, tart-tongued roles in such films as Boomerang! (1947) and The Saxon Charm (1948). By the 1950s she showed scene-stealing potential in The Girl Next Door (1953) and The Helen Morgan Story (1957), and finally earned an Academy Award nomination for her sad, touching supporting turn as a widowed mother in the classic The Defiant Ones (1958) opposite Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis. This led to a couple of flashy gangster moll roles in the film comedies Never Steal Anything Small (1959) and The Man from the Diners' Club (1963).
The sitcom December Bride (1954) starring Spring Byington had deadpan quipster Harry Morgan stealing many scenes griping about scatterbrained wife Gladys (who was never shown on camera). When Morgan moved into his own spinoff series, Gladys was finally revealed in the form of Cara on the initially popular Pete and Gladys (1960) TV show. The program did not last as long as it deserved (two seasons) but the dusky-voiced Cara came off well and was escorted directly into her own series The Cara Williams Show (1964) with the equally personable Frank Aletter at her side. Molded at this time by the CBS powers-that-be as the next wacky redhead to follow in the comedy heels of Lucille Ball, the plans quickly went askew following an unfavorable network power shuffle and the canceling of her sitcom after only one season. With her momentum completely gone, her career went into rapid decline. She did manage a steady role on the first season of Rhoda (1974), and an affecting dramatic turn in the ensemble film soaper Doctors' Wives (1971). By the 1980s, however, she had officially retired.
A turbulent 1950s marriage to actor John Drew Barrymore (who later became the father of actress Drew in a subsequent marriage) produced son John Blyth Barrymore who went into acting as well and appeared in a bit role in his mother's last film The One Man Jury (1978). Cara subsequently married a Beverly Hills realtor (her third husband) and later displayed a strong business acumen in interior designing and as a champion poker player. She also had one child from her first marriage.- Writer
- Director
- Producer
"If they move", commands stern-eyed
William Holden, "kill 'em". So
begins The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam
Peckinpah's bloody, high-body-count eulogy to the mythologized Old
West. "Pouring new wine into the bottle of the Western, Peckinpah
explodes the bottle", observed critic
Pauline Kael. That exploding bottle also
christened the director with the nickname that would forever define his
films and reputation: "Bloody Sam".
David Samuel Peckinpah was born and grew up in Fresno, California, when
it was still a sleepy town. Young Sam was a loner. The child's greatest
influence was grandfather Denver Church, a judge, congressman and one
of the best shots in the Sierra Nevadas. Sam served in the US Marine
Corps during World War II but - to his disappointment - did not see
combat. Upon returning to the US he enrolled in Fresno State College,
graduating in 1948 with a B.A. in Drama. He married
Marie Selland in Las Vegas in 1947 and
they moved to Los Angeles, where he enrolled in the graduate Theater
Department of the University of Southern California the next year. He
eventually took his Masters in 1952.
After drifting through several jobs -- including a stint as a
floor-sweeper on
The Liberace Show (1952) --
Sam got a job as Dialogue Director on
Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)
for director Don Siegel. He worked for Siegel
on several films, including
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956),
in which Sam played Charlie Buckholtz, the town meter reader. Peckinpah
eventually became a scriptwriter for such TV programs as
Gunsmoke (1955) and
The Rifleman (1958) (which he
created as an episode of
Dick Powell's
Zane Grey Theatre (1956)
titled "The Sharpshooter' in 1958). In 1961, as his marriage to Selland
was coming to an end, he directed his first feature film, a western
titled
The Deadly Companions (1961)
starring \Brian Keith and
Maureen O'Hara. However, it was
with his second feature,
Ride the High Country (1962),
that Peckinpah really began to establish his reputation. Featuring
Joel McCrea and
Randolph Scott (in his final
screen performance), its story about two aging gunfighters anticipated
several of the themes Peckinpah would explore in future films,
including the controversial "The Wild Bunch". Following "Ride the High
Country" he was hired by producer
Jerry Bresler to direct
Major Dundee (1965), a
cavalry-vs.-Indians western starring
Charlton Heston. It turned out to be a
film that brought to light Peckinpah's volatile reputation. During hot,
on-location work in Mexico, his abrasive manner, exacerbated by booze
and marijuana, provoked usually even-keeled Heston to threaten to run
him through with a cavalry saber. However, when the studio later
considered replacing Peckinpah, it was Heston who came to Sam's
defense, going so far as to offer to return his salary to help offset
any overages. Ironically, the studio accepted and Heston wound up doing
the film for free.
Post-production conflicts led to Sam engaging in a bitter and
ultimately losing battle with Bresler and Columbia Pictures over the
final cut and, as a result, the disjointed effort fizzled at the box
office. It was during this period that Peckinpah met and married his
second wife, Mexican actress
Begoña Palacios. However, the reputation
he earned because of the conflicts on "Major Dundee" contributed to
Peckinpah being replaced as director on his next film, the
Steve McQueen film
The Cincinnati Kid (1965), by
Norman Jewison.
His second marriage now failing, Peckinpah did not get another feature
project for two years. However, he did direct a powerful adaptation of
Katherine Anne Porter's
'Noon Wine" for
Noon Wine (1966)).
This, in turn, helped relaunch his feature career. He was hired by
Warner Bros. to direct the film for which he is, justifiably, best
remembered. The success of "The Wild Bunch" rejuvenated his career and
propelled him through highs and lows in the 1970s. Between 1970-1978 he
directed
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970),
Straw Dogs (1971),
Junior Bonner (1972),
The Getaway (1972),
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973),
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974),
The Killer Elite (1975),
Cross of Iron (1977) and
Convoy (1978). Throughout this period
controversy followed him. He provoked more rancor over his use of
violence in "Straw Dogs", introduced
Ali MacGraw to Steve McQueen in "The
Getaway", fought with MGM's chief
James T. Aubrey over his vision for "Pat
Garrett & Billy the Kid" that included the casting of
Bob Dylan in an unscripted role as a character
called "Alias." His last solid effort was the WW II anti-war epic
"Cross of Iron", about a German unit fighting on the Russian front,
with Maximilian Schell and
James Coburn, bringing the picture
in successfully despite severe financial problems.
Peckinpah lived life to its fullest. He drank hard and abused drugs,
producers and collaborators. At the end of his life he was considering
a number of projects including the
Stephen King-scripted "The
Shotgunners". He was returning from Mexico in December 1984 when he
died from heart failure in a hospital in Inglewood, California, at age
59. At a standing-room-only gathering that held at the Directors Guild
the following month, Coburn remembered the director as a man "who
pushed me over the abyss and then jumped in after me. He took me on
some great adventures". To which Robert Culp
added that what is surprising is not that Sam only made fourteen
pictures, but that given the way he went about it, he managed to make
any at all.- Helene Stanton was born on November 4, 1925 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA as Eleanor Stansbury.
As a child she took ballet lessons. At the age of 13 she took voice lessons. At 21 she became involved with the Cosmopolitan Production Company in Philadelphia in productions such as "The Merry Widow," "The Vagabond King," "The Desert Song," and "Fledermaus."
In 1949, Stanton married former silent film star Kenneth Harlan. In April 1952, she and Harlan separated. On December 8, 1953, Stanton obtained a divorce from Harlan in Los Angeles on grounds of cruelty. Starting in 1953 and running until 1954, she is part of the opening act for Frank Sinatra for his first performance at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, in part performing with the Ben Blue Orchestra. In October 1955, a nightclub act is arranged for her to perform in Vegas. With her marriage in 1957 to Morton D. PInsky, she effectively ends her Hollywood career.
As an actress, she is probably best known for The Big Combo (1955), The Red Skelton Hour (1951), and The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955). She died on June 7, 2017 in Pasadena, California, USA. - Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Hugh O'Brian had the term "beefcake" written about him during his nascent film years in the early 1950s, but he chose to avoid the obvious typecast as he set up his career.
O'Brian was born Hugh Charles Krampe on April 19, 1925, in Rochester, New York, to Ohio-born parents Edith Lillian (Marks) and Hugh John Krampe, a United States Marine Corps officer. His paternal grandparents were German immigrants, while his mother was of half German Jewish and half English/Scottish descent. O'Brian first attended school at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, then Kemper Military School in Booneville, Missouri. Moving from place to place growing up, he managed to show off his athletic prowess quite early. By the time he graduated from high school, he had lettered in football, basketball, wrestling and track. Originally pursuing law, he dropped out of the University of Cincinnati in 1942 (age 19) and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Upon his discharge he ended up in Los Angeles. Hugh joined a little theater group and a Santa Barbara stock company, where he developed his acting chops and slowly built up his résumé. He was discovered for TV by director/actress Ida Lupino, which opened the door to his signing with Universal Studios for films.
Hugh's gentlemanly ruggedness, similar to a James Garner or a Gene Barry, was ideal for pictures, and his lean physique and exceptionally photographic mug had the modest, brown-eyed, curly-haired looker plastered all over the movie magazines. He rebelled against the image for the most part and, as a result, his years with Universal were not as fruitful as they could have been. For the duration, he was pretty much confined as a secondary player to standard action pictures such as The Return of Jesse James (1950), The Cimarron Kid (1952), The Battle at Apache Pass (1952), Red Ball Express (1952), Son of Ali Baba (1952), The Lawless Breed (1952), Seminole (1953), Saskatchewan (1954) and Drums Across the River (1954). It was Rock Hudson who earned all of the Universal glamour guy roles and the out-and-out stardom that could easily have been Hugh's. In 1954, he left Universal to freelance but did not fare any better with more serviceable roles in White Feather (1955) and The Twinkle in God's Eye (1955).
Hugh finally earned top status in the "B" action adventure The Brass Legend (1956) but it did little to advance his film career. Offered the starring role in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955) on TV, a year later, it became a mainstay hit and Hugh an "overnight" star. During his six-year run on the western classic, he managed to show off his singing talents on variety shows and appeared on Broadway, replacing Andy Griffith for a week in the musical "Destry Rides Again" in January of 1960.
The hirsutely handsome bachelor remained a durable talent throughout the 60s and 70s with plentiful work on the big screen, including Come Fly with Me (1963), Love Has Many Faces (1965), Ten Little Indians (1965), Ambush Bay (1966), Africa: Texas Style (1967), Strategy of Terror (1969), John Wayne's last film The Shootist (1976), and Bruce Lee's last film Game of Death (1978), as well as with the TV-movies Wild Women (1970), Harpy (1971), Murder on Flight 502 (1975), Benny and Barney: Las Vegas Undercover (1977), Murder at the World Series (1977), Cruise Into Terror (1978). He also starred in the crime adventure series Search (1972), but never got the one role to earn the critical attention he merited. In addition, he kept busy on the summer stock circuit.
In later years, he appeared in the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny DeVito comedy "Twins"; returned as "Wyatt Earp" in the TV movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991) and Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone (1994); and made guest appearances on such TV shows as "Fantasy Island," "The Love Boat," "Matt Houston," "Murder, She Wrote," "L.A. Law" and made his last on-camera appearance on the series "Call of the Wild" in 2000.
A sports enthusiast, his hobbies included sailing, tennis, swimming and long-distance bicycling, and his many philanthropic efforts did not go unrecognized. His proudest achievement was the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY), which he founded in 1958 after spending considerable time with Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his clinic in Africa. Struck by the impassioned work being done by Schweitzer, O'Brian set up his own program to help develop young people into future leaders. O'Brian was awarded honorary degrees by several prestigious institutions of higher learning. The perennial bachelor finally "settled down" and tied the knot at age 81 with longtime companion Virginia Barber, who was close to three decades his junior. They lived in his Benedict Canyon home.
Hugh died on September 5, 2016, in Beverly Hills, California, of natural causes.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Typical of busy character actors, Fiedler made his face (and voice)
recognizable to millions. Many know the bald-pated Fiedler as
therapy patient "Mr. Peterson" on
The Bob Newhart Show (1972);
others might first recognize him for the 1968 movie,
The Odd Couple (1968), and
spin-off TV show,
The Odd Couple (1970), or
perhaps even from the Broadway play that preceded them. Even kids would
know that helium-high voice from animated Disney features like
Robin Hood (1973),
The Fox and the Hound (1981)
and the "Winnie the Pooh" stories, in which he voiced "Piglet". The son
of an Irish-German beer salesman, Fiedler knew he wanted to be an actor
from his childhood days, when he had a full head of reddish-yellow
hair. He made his first professional appearances onstage, branched out
into live TV in New York and, then, during the 20 years he lived in
Hollywood (1960-80), he turned up in many movies and an ever greater
number of popular TV shows.- Actress
- Soundtrack
She was born of Irish ancestry as Joan Agnes Theresa Brodel, the daughter of an accountant and a pianist. She was educated at Catholic schools in Toronto, Montreal and Detroit. There were three sisters, her older siblings being Mary and Betty. Together, they made up a successful vaudeville act, the Brodel Sisters. Trained in singing, dancing and dramatics from early childhood, Joan began on stage at the age of nine. The Brodel's entry into in show biz at such a tender age had much to do with supporting their impoverished parents during the Depression years. With her sisters, Joan performed on radio and in nightclubs. The most talented of the trio, she excelled at impersonations, her repertoire including Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Jimmy Durante and Maurice Chevalier. While Mary played the saxophone and Betty the piano, Joan was a wiz on the accordion and the banjo. One night, during a performance at the Paradise Club in New York, she was singled out by an MGM talent scout and promptly signed for six months with a salary of $200 a week. Her first role of note was as Robert Taylor's young sister in the period drama Camille (1936). She did not last long at MGM, but, in 1940, was signed by Warner Brothers. Voice coaching smoothed her Midwestern accent and Joan Brodel became Joan Leslie, ostensibly 'to avoid confusion' with Warner's star comedienne Joan Blondell.
Little Joan was all but 14 years old when her movie career began in earnest. Her ability to cry on cue proved instrumental in her selection for the pivotal role of Velma, the club-footed girl helped by gangster Roy Earle (Humphrey Bogart) in High Sierra (1940). This role, by her own account, put her on the map. In between working as a photographers model, Joan flourished in A-grade productions, playing Gary Cooper's sweetheart in Sergeant York (1941) (despite a 24-years age difference), co-starring and dancing with James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and featuring in the top half of the bill in the aptly named, star-studded musical extravaganza Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). She did her bit for the war effort too, dancing with servicemen in Hollywood Canteen (1944) and being featured in the movie along with her sister Betty. By 1942, Joan had acquired a wholesome reputation as the all-American girl-next-door. Life Magazine described her as "looking every inch the schoolgirl she is" and her greatest asset being "a manner of projecting sweet innocence without seeming too sugary". Before long, however, the relationship between Joan and her studio began to sour.
By 1945, the quality of her roles had begun to deteriorate. She made a couple of so-so pictures with Robert Alda, Rhapsody in Blue (1945) (an entertaining, but highly fictionalised biopic of George Gershwin) and Cinderella Jones (1946). After appearing in Two Guys from Milwaukee (1946), Joan, demanding more mature roles, took Warner Brothers to court. Having made her point, her contract was dropped. Between 1947 and 1954, Joan freelanced, often for Poverty Row outfits like Eagle-Lion, Lippert and Republic. She became yet another fatality of Hollywood typecasting, another example of an attractive ingenue, a promising starlet and a potential major star who ended up as a low budget western lead. Still, later interviews suggested that she rather enjoyed acting in her handful of second-string westerns and they earned Joan a Golden Boot Award in 2006 for contributions to the genre. She finally had another co-starring turn, billed behind Jane Russell and Richard Egan in The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956), thereafter restricting her appearances to the small screen. Joan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Vine Street.
In her later private life, Joan was devoted to various Catholic charities and to raising her identical twin daughters. As Joan Caldwell, an obstetrician's widow, she founded a Chair in Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Louisville. Joan died in October 2017 at the age of 90.
She quit her acting career to raise her identical twin daughters Patrice and Ellen. Both daughters are now Doctors, teaching at universities.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Born into a vaudeville family, O'Connor was the youthful figure cutting
a rug in several Universal musicals of the 1940s. His best-known
musical work is probably Singin' in the Rain (1952), in which he did an impressive dance
that culminated in a series of backflips off the wall. O'Connor was
also effective in comedic lead roles, particularly as the companion to
Francis the Talking Mule in that film series.- Actor
- Additional Crew
When John Neville was in his early sixties, Terry Gilliam cast him in the title role of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). Although the film was a financial failure, Neville's starring role in this major production, as well as his fine performance, led to an explosion in his career. He afterward received numerous roles in feature films and television. A new generation came to know him from his recurring role in the hit television series The X-Files (1993) and later feature film The X Files (1998), in which he played a mysterious character known only as "The Well-Manicured Man".
He emigrated to Canada in 1972, and took up Canadian citizenship. He was artistic director of the Stratford Festival (Ontario, Canada) from 1984 to 1989.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Striking, dark-haired beauty Zena Moyra Marshall was born of French (from her mother's side) and English/Irish (her father's) ancestry in
Nairobi, Kenya. After the early death of her father, her mother remarried and moved the family to Leicestershire. Zena received her education from St Mary's Roman Catholic School in Ascot. Her interest in the acting profession matured after a wartime theatrical tour with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), while still in her teens. After completing her training at RADA, her exotic looks led to a contract with the Rank Organisation where she was groomed by the so-called 'charm school' as a sultry temptress and second lead in costume films, romantic melodramas and thrillers.
Marshall made her screen debut in the stagey, moribund epic Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) with a bit-part as a handmaiden. Interestingly this film was also a screen bow for future James Bond star Roger Moore, uncredited as a Roman soldier. Marshall's subsequent career was anything but meteoric. For several years she was given only minor supporting roles in productions by Rank affiliates, such as GFD/Two Cities and Gainsborough, including Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948), Snowbound (1948) and So Long at the Fair (1950). A brief sojourn in Hollywood resulted in a lacklustre Allied Artists musical, Let's Be Happy (1957), in which she played an amorous redhead, rivalling star Vera-Ellen for the affections of crooner Tony Martin. During the 1950s she managed to rekindle her theatrical career and, by the end of the decade, went on tour through Germany and the Netherlands with "The Late Edwina Black". Marshall was one of the first actresses to be featured in a British television commercial (for shampoo) on early ITV. Television did, in the end, become her favoured medium; she had some of her better on-screen moments in three episodes of Danger Man (1960), opposite Patrick McGoohan, between 1961 and 1964.
Zena Marshall's main claim to fame rests on her portrayal of the Eurasian double agent, Miss Taro, in the first ever Bond film, Dr. No (1962). Her character was, incidentally, the first woman seduced by Bond, prior to his encounter with Ursula Andress in the part of Honey Ryder. Another noted beauty, the reigning Miss Jamaica, Marguerite LeWars, was originally slated to screen test for Miss Taro. However, LeWars declined for reasons of 'personal modesty' and is merely glimpsed in the film in a bit part as an unnamed photographer. Marshall herself was at first unhappy with the script, but Terence Young, who had previously worked with her on the poorly-received costume biopic The Bad Lord Byron (1949), lightened some of the dialogue with humour. In the end, the bedroom scene with Sean Connery took three days to shoot, because Marshall struggled with the idea of having to spit in her co-star's face, after Bond has her character turned over to the superintendent of police. Miss Taro remains one of the most iconic of Bond villainesses.
Marshall's last roles of note were as an Italian countess in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965), and as a secretary fighting alien enemies (alongside Charles Hawtrey, incongruously cast as an accountant) in the insipid sci-fi outing The Terrornauts (1967). After that, she retired from the screen and settled into domestic life with her third husband, the writer/producer Ivan Foxwell.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Sammy Davis Jr. was often billed as the "greatest living entertainer in the world".
He was born in Harlem, Manhattan, the son of dancer Elvera Davis (née Sanchez) and vaudeville star Sammy Davis Sr.. His father was African-American and his mother was of Cuban and African-American ancestry. Davis Jr. was known as someone who could do it all, sing, dance, play instruments, act, do stand-up and he was known for his self-deprecating humor; he once heard someone complaining about discrimination, and he said, "You got it easy. I'm a short, ugly, one-eyed, black Jew. What do you think it's like for me?" (he had converted to Judaism).
A short stint in the army opened his eyes to the evils of racism. A slight man, he was often beaten up by bigger white soldiers and given the dirtiest and most dangerous assignments by white officers simply because he was black. He helped break down racial barriers in show business in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in Las Vegas, where he often performed; when he started there in the early 1950s, he was not allowed to stay in the hotels he played in, as they refused to take blacks as customers. He also stirred up a large amount of controversy in the 1960s by openly dating, and ultimately marrying, blonde, blue-eyed, Swedish-born actress May Britt.
He starred in the Broadway musical "Golden Boy" in the 1960s. Initially a success, internal tensions, production problems and bad reviews--many of them directed at Davis for playing a role originally written for a white man resulted in its closing fairly quickly. His film and nightclub career were in full swing, however, and he became even more famous as one of the "Rat Pack", a group of free-wheeling entertainers that included Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.
A chain smoker, Davis died from throat cancer at the age of 64. When he died, he was in debt. To pay for Davis' funeral, most of his memorabilia was sold off.- Michael Conrad was a powerfully built, towering New York-born American character actor, best known for his role as the pompous but beloved desk sergeant Phil Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues (1981), for which he won two Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Emmy Awards (1981, 1982). He also played Michael Stivic (Rob Reiner)'s uncle on an early episode of All in the Family (1971), who objects to his nephew's non-religious marriage ceremony to a non-Catholic. Conrad did a stint of military service with the U.S. Army Field Artillery before attended New York City College and later drama school. He made his television debut in 1955, moving to Hollywood in 1963. Conrad remained busy for almost 30 years, appearing in 25 TV movies. He was a familiar supporting player in films, including The Longest Yard (1974), and, early in his career, on stage. Conrad died from urethral cancer during the shooting of the police drama's fourth season, five weeks after his 58th birthday.
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Oona O'Neil was born in Warwick Parish, Bermuda, the daughter of famed American playwright Eugene O'Neill and English-born socialite Agnes Boulton. Oona had a fairly happy childhood, although she rarely saw her busy father. During her teens Oona attended boarding school in New York where she met Gloria Vanderbilt and Carol Marcus, and in 1941 Oona was named one of the most sought-after débutantes of the social season. Oona felt it was only natural that she become an actress, since she was the daughter of a playwright and the granddaughter of James O'Neill, a noted theater actor during the late 19th century.
Oona traveled to Hollywood in 1942, where she met silent film legend Charles Chaplin at the home of her agent. Chaplin began courting Oona after she auditioned for a film he was directing, and the pair married in 1943. He was 54; she was just 18. Oona scrapped plans to become an actress, opting instead to raise a family of what would be eight children with Charlie. Although Oona was content with her life, she was deeply troubled by the failed relationship with her father, who disowned her and cut communication with Oona when she married Chaplin.
During the height of McCarthyism 1952, Chaplin sailed to England to promote a film. En route, Chaplin learned that he would not be allowed to return to the U.S. unless he would submit to inquires regarding his morality. Refusing to do so, he and his family eventually ended up in Vevey, Switzerland.
Oona spent the rest of her life in Vevey, leaving only a few times after Charlie died in 1977 at the age of 88. (Oona was only 51.) Oona developed a few close relationships with Hollywood icons, like actor Ryan O'Neal, but she never married again. She died in Vevey from pancreatic cancer on September 27th, 1991.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Gloria Mildred DeHaven was born on July 23, 1925 in Los Angeles to vaudeville headliners Carter and Flora DeHaven. Her parents made sure their daughter would be educated at the very best private schools. They also indulged her ambition to be in show business by packing her off to the Mar-Ken Professional School in Hollywood (1940-42). Diminutive of stature and dark-haired, budding musical star Gloria (her nickname then was "Glo") enjoyed collecting perfume, reading (her favorite author being Daphne Du Maurier) and listening to the big bands (particularly Tommy Dorsey). With her father's help (who was assistant director and a friend of Charles Chaplin) she finagled her first movie appearance -- an uncredited bit part in Modern Times (1936). Her first visible role was in the George Cukor-directed Susan and God (1940). A contemporary newspaper article quipped that the winsome lass was "a backstage baby, never a child star".
First and foremost, Gloria concentrated on her singing career. She developed her own nightclub act over the years and also enjoyed considerable success as a solo vocalist with the orchestras of Bob Crosby, Jan Savitt and Muzzy Marcellino. It was her singing which prompted Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to sign her under contract in 1940. During the following decade she made decent strides as a soubrette and was regularly featured as second lead in cheerful light musicals. The pick of the bunch were Thousands Cheer (1943), Step Lively (1944) (on loan to RKO, giving Frank Sinatra his first screen kiss), Two Girls and a Sailor (1944), Summer Stock (1950) (a typical role, as sister to the nominal star, in this case Judy Garland) and Three Little Words (1950) (in which she played her own mother, Flora Parker DeHaven, singing the Ruby & Kalmar standard "Who's Sorry Now?"). New York Times critic Bosley Crowther commented in in June 1944: "It's a toss-up between June Allyson and Gloria DeHaven as to which is the lovelier girl. Both sing and dance with springtime crispness and have such form and grace as are divine." Always a popular pin-up with American servicemen in World War II, Gloria was featured on the cover of 'Yank' magazine that very same month.
Gloria never quite managed to get first tier assignments and her career waned as musicals ceased to be a bankable commodity. In the early 1950s she attempted stronger dramatic roles but with only moderate success. By 1955, she had wisely turned to the stage for occasional appearances on Broadway. As late as 1989 she sang in cabaret at the Rainbow & Stars in New York. There was also a screen comeback of sorts with recurring roles in the soap operas Ryan's Hope (1975), As the World Turns (1956) and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976). She was one of the numerous celebrities who appeared in box office bomb Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) and guest-starred on television series, such as Gunsmoke (1955), Mannix (1967), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969), The Love Boat (1977), Fantasy Island (1977), Hart to Hart (1979), Murder, She Wrote (1984) and Touched by an Angel (1994).
After a long absence, Gloria returned to motion pictures and scored a hit as Jack Lemmon's love interest in the romantic comedy Out to Sea (1997). She died of a stroke in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 30, 2016, one week after her 91st birthday.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Johnny Carson, the legendary "King of Late Night TV" who dominated the medium's nether hours for three decades, was born in Corning, Iowa, but moved with his family to nearby Norfolk, Nebraska when he was eight years old. He was the son of Ruth E. (Hook) and Homer Lloyd "Kit" Carson, a manager of the Iowa-Nebraska Light & Power Company. It was in Norfolk, where he lived until he was inducted into the U.S. Navy in 1943, that he started his show business career. At age 14, Carson began appearing as the magician "The Great Carsoni" at local venues.
In 1962, Carson was chosen by NBC to succeed the controversial Jack Paar and his The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar (1957). Paar had decided to quit the show and begin a once-a-week show for NBC in prime time on Friday nights. Carson would never be controversial like Paar, preferring to good-naturedly skewer politicians and celebrities in his opening monologue and staging stunts such as the on-stage marriage of retro-singer Tiny Tim to his "Miss Vicky" in 1969. His popularity with the late-night audience became so great, and the income from advertising on his show so profitable that, in 1967, NBC had to lure Johnny back to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962)after a walkout with a three-year contract guaranteeing him a minimum of $4 million. In the early 1970s, TV Guide reported that Carson was earning $2 million a year, making him the highest paid TV entertainer ever, a record he repeatedly surpassed, pulling down a then-record $5 million annual salary in the 1980s. Carson created a sense of intimacy with his guests and audiences that made him the unvanquished "King of Nighttime TV". Countless talk shows hosted by the likes of Joey Bishop and Dick Cavett and other non-talk show programs were launched against him year after year only to fail, with the notable exception of ABC News Nightline (1980) halfway through his reign. His tempestuous love-life, which included two high-profile divorces, became the fodder of such celebrity staples as "The National Enquirer" and later "People Magazine", and he was even the subject of a roman a clef pulp novel in the early 1970s. There have been at least seven published biographies of Carson.
After brief stints on radio stations in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, his career was exclusively in television, starting with work at
Nebraska TV stations in the late 1940s which preceded his 1951-53 skit program Carson's Cellar (1953) on Los Angeles station KNXT-TV. Attracting the attention of the industry, he was hired as a comedy writer for The Red Skelton Hour (1951) which provided him with a career breakthrough when Skelton was injured backstage and Carson substituted for him, delivering his first monologue before a national audience. This led to a stint as the host of the quiz show Earn Your Vacation (1954) and the variety showcase The Johnny Carson Show (1953) in 1955-56. The man who would soon become the most famous late-night TV personality in history hosted the daytime game show Who Do You Trust? (1956) from 1957-62, teaming up with longtime sidekick, Ed McMahon, in 1958.
Before his triumph on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), Carson tried his hand at dramatic acting, appearing in Three Men on a Horse (1957) (episode # 1.29) during the inaugural season of Playhouse 90 (1956) in 1957. In 1960, he shot a pilot for a prime-time TV series, "Johnny Come Lately", that was not picked up by a network. Carson had sat in for "Tonight Show" host Jack Paar in 1958 and, when Paar left the show four years later, NBC chose Carson as his replacement, taking over the catbird seat on October 2, 1962. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962). Sidekick McMahon's "Heeeeere's Johnny!!!" introduction of Carson became a cultural catchphrase, memorably reprised by Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), Woody Allen's character in the Best Picture Academy Award-winning Annie Hall (1977), stand-up comic Alvy Singer, is recognized in front of a movie theater by a street tough due to his appearance on "The Tonight Show".
Aside from his banter with celebrities, he amused his audience for 30 years with broadly played skit comedy by his "Mighty Carson Art Players" and his spoof clairvoyant "Carnac the Magnificent". He made memorable put-downs of politicians and celebrities, a format that was used by his successors Jay Leno and David Letterman and legions of comics who came after him. When a joke bombed during his monologues, Carson would do a wounded double-take as the audience jeered, fully aware of the awfulness of the joke he had just unloaded. Following these bombs with a sly, self-deprecating remark engendered a sense of intimacy between Carson
and his fans.
A liberal in the increasingly liberal age of the 1960s and 1970s, so
powerful were his opening monologues that by the early 1970s, he could
actually affect society at large outside of the pop culture realm. A joke about a shortage of industrial grade toilet paper caused a national panic and a run on all grades of t.p., with a resulting shortage of the product about which he had kidded. Playing off current events such as the Watergate crisis, his comic evisceration of President Richard Nixon was credited with some critics as exerting such a drag on Nixon's approval rating that it made his resignation possible, if not inevitable. After Carson's reign, it became increasingly de rigueur for politicians to appear on late-night TV talk shows and bear a host's jibes in order to stump for votes.
Carson's connection with the American culture was so absolute, it contributed to one of his few failures, the rejection of "The Tonight Show" in the early 1980s by British audiences who could not understand the topical references of his monologues. And his audience's identification of Johnny with the "Tonight Show" effectively stopped him from work in other media. In the mid-1960s, Carson's agents wanted to trade on his vast popularity to position him in motion pictures as the "New Jack Lemmon", but Carson never made any forays outside of television. His connection with the movie industry remained his hosting of three generations of stars and his memorable turns as the host of five Academy Awards telecasts from 1979-84. In that role, he generally is regarded as the best successor to long-time Oscar host Bob Hope. He did stretch his wings as a producer, his Carson Productions producing TV pilots and series, TV movies and [error], in addition to his own talk show.
The six-time Emmy-winner considered a follow-up to "The Tonight Show",
but nothing caught his interest and he spent the last decade of his
life in a quiet retirement in Malibu, California, as befitted his private nature. Thus, it was "The Tonight Show" that remains his creative legacy. Unlike every other TV star, he remained on top until the very end, the show winning its ratings period every year for 30 years. When Carson retired, his last appearance was one of the highest rated late night TV shows ever.
"I have an ego like anybody else", Carson told The Washington Post in
1993, "but I don't need to be stoked by going before the public all the
time". Frederick De Cordova, the producer of "The Tonight Show" throughout Carson's 30-year run, believed that Carson never pressured himself to launch a follow-up as he already had achieved unprecedented success on TV. "He is one of a kind, was one of a kind", De Cordova said in 1995. "I don't think
there's any reason for him to try something different".
Carson, who was suffering from emphysema and had quadruple bypass surgery in 1999, died peacefully at the age of 79 on January 23, 2005, surrounded by his family and friends. In terms of career longevity, popularity, peer respect and impact on the medium, Carson ranks with Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason as a television great.- Best known for her performance as the nasty, gossiping, greedy and
arrogant Mrs. Harriet Oleson on the TV series Little House on the Prairie (1974). Katherine
(Scottie) MacGregor could not appear in the final feature length
episode "The Last Farewell" because she was on a pilgrimage in India.
Before moving to Los Angeles in 1970 Ms. Mac Gregor worked as a stage
actress on Broadway, off Broadway and in regional theatre in and around
New York City. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Tall, blond and of rugged proportions, handsome actor Philip Carey
started out as a standard 1950s film actor in westerns, war stories and
crime yarns but didn't achieve full-fledged stardom until well past age
50 when he joined the daytime line-up as ornery Texas tycoon Asa
Buchanan on the popular soap
One Life to Live (1968) in
1979. He lived pretty much out of the saddle after that, enjoying the
patriarchal role for nearly three decades.
He was born with the rather unrugged name of Eugene Carey on July 15,
1925, in Hackensack, New Jersey. Growing up on Long Island, he served
with the Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War. He
attended (briefly) New York's Mohawk University and studied drama at
the University of Miami where he met his college sweetheart, Maureen
Peppler. They married in 1949 and went on to have three children:
Linda, Jeffrey and Lisa Ann.
The 6'4" actor impressed a talent scout with his brawny good looks
while appearing in the summer stock play "Over 21" in New England, and
he was offered a contract with Warner Bros as a result. Billed as
Philip Carey, he didn't waste any time toiling in bit parts, making his
film debut billed fifth in the
John Wayne submarine war drama
Operation Pacific (1951). Phil
could cut a good figure in military regalia and also showed strong
stuff in film noir. A most capable co-star, he tended to be upstaged,
however, by either a stronger name female or male star or by the action
at hand. He was paired up with
Frank Lovejoy in the McCarthy-era
I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. (1951),
and Steve Cochran in the prison
tale
Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951).
Warner Bros. star Joan Crawford
was practically the whole movie in the film noir
This Woman Is Dangerous (1952)
co-starring the equally overlooked
David Brian and
Dennis Morgan;
Calamity Jane (1953) was a vehicle
for Doris Day; and he donned his
familiar cavalry duds in the background of
Gary Cooper in the Civil War western
Springfield Rifle (1952).
In 1953, Carey left Warner Bros. and signed up with Columbia Pictures
where he was, more than not, billed as "Phil Carey." Here again he fell
into the rather non-descript rugged mold as the stoic soldier or stolid
police captain. He did find plenty of work, however, and was frequently
top-billed. He battled the Sioux in
The Nebraskan (1953); played a
former subordinate member of the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
gang who has to clear his name in
Wyoming Renegades (1955); was a
brute force to be reckoned with in
They Rode West (1954); and had one
of his standard movie roles (as an officer) in a better quality movie,
Columbia's Pushover (1954), which spent
more time promoting the debut of its starlet
Kim Novak as the new
Marilyn Monroe. Overshadowed by
James Cagney and
Jack Lemmon in
Mister Roberts (1955) and by
Van Heflin, young
Joanne Woodward (in her movie
debut) and villain Raymond Burr in the
western
Count Three and Pray (1955),
Phil turned his durable talents more and more to TV in the late 1950s.
The man of action took on the role of Canadian-born Lt. Michael Rhodes
on the series
Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers (1956)
alongside Warren Stevens. He eventually
left Columbia studios to do a stint (albeit relatively short) playing
Raymond Chandler's unflappable
detective
Philip Marlowe (1959). Most of
the 60s and 70s, other than a few now-forgotten film adventures such as
Black Gold (1962),
The Great Sioux Massacre (1965)
and
Three Guns for Texas (1968),
were spent either saddling up as a guest star on
The Rifleman (1958),
Bronco (1958),
The Virginian (1962) and
Gunsmoke (1955) or hard-nosing it on
such crime series as
77 Sunset Strip (1958),
Ironside (1967),
McCloud (1970),
Banacek (1972) and
The Felony Squad (1966). He also
played the regular role of a stern captain in the Texas Rangers western
series Laredo (1965).
Phil was a spokesperson for Granny Goose potato chips commercials, and
his deep voice served him well for many seasons as narrator of the
nature documentary series
Untamed Frontier (1967). One of
his best-remembered TV guest appearances, however, was a change-of-pace
role on the comedy
All in the Family (1971) in
which he played a vital, strapping blue-collar pal of Archie Bunker's
whose manly man just happened to be a proud, astereotypical homosexual.
His hilarious confrontational scene with a dumbfounded Archie in
Kelsey's bar remains a classic.
Phil's brief regular role in the daytime soap
Bright Promise (1969) in 1972
was just a practice drill for the regular role he would play in 1979 as
Texas oilman Asa Buchanan in
One Life to Live (1968). His
popularity soared as the moneybags manipulator you loved to hate.
Residing in Manhattan for quite some time as a result of the New
York-based show, he played the role for close to three decades until
diagnosed with lung cancer in January of 2006. Forced to undergo
chemotherapy, he officially left the serial altogether in May of 2007,
and his character "died" peacefully off-screen a few months later.
Divorced from his first wife, Phil married a much younger lady, Colleen
Welch, in 1976 and had two children by her -- daughter Shannon (born
1980) and son Sean (born 1983). Phil lost his battle with cancer on
February 6, 2009, at the age of 83.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Shelley Berman began studying acting shortly after he was honorably
discharged from the US navy. He enrolled as a drama student at
Chicago's Goodman Theater, where he met Sarah Herman, another aspiring
thespian. They fell in love and were married in 1947. After graduating
from the Goodman Theater, Shelley joined the Woodstock Players, a stock
theater company in Woodstock, IL. It was here that he had the
opportunity to really develop and polish his acting skills, with the
support and encouragement of fellow players
Geraldine Page,
Betsy Palmer and
Tom Bosley. Leaving Woodstock in 1949,
Shelley and Sarah made their way across the country, with Shelley in
search of acting work. When those jobs were scarce, he worked as a
social director, a cab driver, a speech teacher, an assistant manager
at a drug store and an instructor at
Arthur Murray Dance Studios. While
in New York Shelley found work as a sketch writer for
The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956),
and was doing well when he received an invitation to join an
improvisational troupe known as The Compass Players, which took him
back home to Chicago. With Compass (which later evolved into Second
City) Shelley worked with soon-to-be famous performers
Mike Nichols,
Elaine May,
Severn Darden and
Barbara Harris, among others.
While performing improvised sketches with the Compass Players, Shelley
began developing solo pieces, employing an imaginary telephone to take
the place of an onstage partner. While watching
Mort Sahl perform at Mr. Kelly's in Chicago in
1957, Shelley realized he didn't necessarily have to tell traditional
jokes, as other comedians of the day did, in order to work in
nightclubs and went on to audition at the club, performing his one-man
monologues and telephone routines with great success. Those first dates
at Mr. Kelly's led to other nightclub engagements around the country,
appearances on national television and a recording contract with Verve
Records. "Inside Shelley Berman", released in early 1959, became the
first comedy album to be awarded a gold record--for selling one million
copies--and the first non-musical recording to win a Grammy Award.
Shelley would eventually record a total of six albums for Verve,
including "Outside Shelley Berman" and "The Edge of Shelley Berman",
both of which also went gold. Shelley would go on to appear on numerous
TV specials, and all of the major variety shows, including those of
Ed Sullivan,
Steve Allen,
Jack Paar,
Dinah Shore,
Perry Como,
Andy Williams and
Dean Martin. Shelley's great success
as a comedian enabled him to continue with his first love, acting. He
starred on Broadway in "A Family Affair" and would continue to do stage
work in productions of "The Odd Couple", "Damn Yankees", "Where's
Charley?", "Fiddler On the Roof", "Two by Two", "I'm Not Rappaport",
"La Cage aux Folles", "Prisoner of Second Avenue" and "Guys & Dolls",
among others. Comedic and dramatic acting roles in what came to be
known as "The Golden Age of Television" began to come his way,
including memorable appearances on episodes of
Peter Gunn (1958),
The Twilight Zone (1959),
Rawhide (1959),
Bewitched (1964),
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964),
The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970),
Adam-12 (1968),
Emergency! (1972),
CHiPs (1977),
St. Elsewhere (1982),
Night Court (1984),
MacGyver (1985),
L.A. Law (1986),
Friends (1994),
Arli$$ (1996),
Lizzie McGuire (2001),
Providence (1999),
Walker, Texas Ranger (1993),
The King of Queens (1998),
"The Bernie Mac Show"
(2001)_, "Grey's Anatomy" (2005)_
Entourage (2004)
Hannah Montana (2006),
CSI: NY (2004) and
Boston Legal (2004), the latter
of which he made numerous recurring guest -tar appearances as the
hilariously semi-senile Judge Robert Sanders. Since 2002 Shelley has
appeared as Nat David (Larry David's
father) on HBO's
Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000),
a role for which he received a 2008 Emmy Award nomination. With
dialogue entirely improvised by its cast, "Curb" has given Shelley the
opportunity to return to his improv roots, introduced him to a new
generation of TV viewers and brought him acclaim from critics and fans
alike. Among Shelley's film credits are
The Best Man (1964) with
Henry Fonda;
Divorce American Style (1967)
with Dick Van Dyke and
Debbie Reynolds;
Every Home Should Have One (1970)
with Marty Feldman; '80s cult favorite
Teen Witch (1989); with 'Burt
Reynolds' in
The Last Producer (2000);
Meet the Fockers (2004) with
Robert De Niro and
Ben Stiller;
The Aristocrats (2005);
The Holiday (2006) with
Cameron Diaz, and
You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008)
(with Adam Sandler). Shelley
continues to do film and television work and make personal appearances
across the country year-round. He has authored three books, two plays,
several TV pilot scripts and numerous poems. For over 20 years he
taught humor writing in the Master of Professional Writing program at
USC, where he is now a Lecturer Emeritus. Shelley spends his (precious
little) free time volunteering for various charitable organizations and
indulging in his favorite hobby, knife collecting.- Actress
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Costume Designer
Elegance and femininity are fitting descriptions for Arlene Dahl. She
is considered to be one of the most beautiful actresses to have graced
the screen during the postwar period. Audiences were captivated by her
breathtaking beauty and the way she used to it to her advantage,
progressing from claimer to character roles.
Of Norwegian extraction, Miss Dahl was born in Minneapolis. Following
high school she joined a local drama group, supporting herself with a
variety of jobs, including modeling for a number of department stores.
Arriving in Hollywood in 1946, she signed a brief contract with Warner
Brothers, but she is best remembered for her work at MGM.
The Bride Goes Wild (1948)
was her first work at Metro. It was an odd but rather humorous love
story, which starred Van Johnson and
June Allyson.
Although her beauty captivated audiences, it ultimately limited her to
smaller roles, and the mark she made at MGM was small. Some of her best
films were
Reign of Terror (1949), which
actually required some acting and she acquitted herself quite
well, Three Little Words (1950),
Woman's World (1954),
Slightly Scarlet (1956) and
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959).
Leaving films behind her in 1959, her typecasting would pay off
financially as she became a beauty columnist and writer. She later
established herself as a businesswoman, founding Arlene Dahl
Enterprises which marketed lingerie and cosmetics.
She was married six times, two of whom were actors,
Lex Barker and
Fernando Lamas. She is the mother of
actor / action star Lorenzo Lamas, and
actually made a guest appearance in his film
Night of the Warrior (1991).- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Jonathan Harshman Winters III was born on November 11, 1925 in Dayton,
Ohio. His father, Jonathan Harshman Winters II, was a banker who became an alcoholic
after being crushed in the Great Depression. His parents divorced in
1932. Jonathan and his mother then moved to Springfield to live with
his grandmother. There his mother remarried and became a radio
personality. Jonathan joined the United States Marine Corps during his
senior year of high school. Upon his discharge, he entered Kenyon
College and later transferred to Dayton Art Institute. He met his wife,
Eileen Schauder, in 1948 and married a month later. They remain married
until her death in January 11, 2009. They have a son, Jay, who is a
contractor, and a daughter, Lucinda, who is a talent scout for movies.
Jonathan got his start in show business by winning a talent contest.
This led to a children's television show in Dayton in 1950. This led to
a game show and a talk show. Denied a requested raise, he moved the
family to New York with only $56 in their pocket. Within two months, he
was getting night club bookings. He suffered two nervous breakdowns,
one in 1959 and another in 1961. He came out of "retirement" to work with director/writer Martin Guigui for Swing (2003) and Cattle Call (2006). He made ten Grammy-nominated comedy
recordings and won once. Jonathan Winters died at age 87 of natural
causes on April 11, 2013 in Montecito, California.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Dickie Moore made his acting and screen debut at the age of 18 months
in the 1927 John Barrymore film The Beloved Rogue (1927) as a baby, and by the time he had turned 10 he was a popular child star and had appeared in 52 films. He
continued as a child star for many more years, and became the answer to
the trivia question, "Who was the first actor to kiss Shirley Temple on
screen?" when that honor was bestowed upon him in 1942's Miss Annie Rooney (1942). As
with many child actors, once Dickie got older the roles began to dry
up. He made his last film in 1952, but was still in the public eye with
the 1949 to 1955 TV series Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949). He then retired from acting for a new career in publicity. He later produced industrial shows.