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- Laurie Bartram was born on 16 May 1958 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Friday the 13th (1980), Emergency! (1972) and Another World (1964). She was married to Gregory McCauley. She died on 25 May 2007 in Lynchburg, Virginia, USA.
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Actor, raconteur, art collector and connoisseur of haute cuisine are just some of the attributes associated with Vincent Price. He was born Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, to Marguerite Cobb "Daisy" (Wilcox) and Vincent Leonard Price, who was President of the National Candy Company. His grandfather, also named Vincent, invented Dr. Price's Baking Powder, which was tartar-based. His family was prosperous, as he said, "not rich enough to evoke envy but successful enough to demand respect." His uniquely cultivated voice and persona were the result of a well-rounded education which began when his family dispatched him on a tour of Europe's cultural centres. His secondary education eventually culminated in a B.A. in English from Yale University and a degree in art history from London's Courtauld Institute.
Famously, his name has long been a byword for Gothic horror on screen. However, Vincent Price was, first and foremost, a man of the stage. It is where he began his career and where it ended. He faced the footlights for the first time at the Gate Theatre in London. At the age of 23, he played Prince Albert in the premiere of Arthur Schnitzler 's 'Victoria Regina' and made such an impression on producer Gilbert Miller that he launched the play on Broadway that same year (legendary actress Helen Hayes played the title role). In early 1938, he was invited to join Orson Welles 's Mercury Theatre on a five-play contract, beginning with 'The Shoemaker's Holiday'. He gave what was described as "a polished performance". Thus established, Vincent continued to make sporadic forays to the Great White Way, including as the Duke of Buckingham in Shakespeare's 'Richard III' (in which a reviewer for the New Yorker found him to be "satisfactorily detestable") and as Oscar Wilde in his award-winning one man show 'Diversions and Delights', which he took on a hugely successful world-wide tour in 1978. While based in California, Vincent was instrumental in the success of the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, starring in several of their bigger productions, including 'Billy Budd' and 'The Winslow Boy'. In 1952, Vincent joined the national touring company of 'Don Juan in Hell' in which he was cast as the devil. Acting under the direction of Charles Laughton and accompanied by noted thespians Charles Boyer, Cedric Hardwicke and Agnes Moorehead, he later recalled this as one of his "greatest theatrical excitements".
As well as acting on stage, Vincent regularly performed on radio network programs, including Lux Radio Theatre, CBS Playhouse and shows for the BBC. He narrated or hosted assorted programs ranging from history (If these Walls Could Speak) to cuisine (Cooking Price-Wise). He wrote several best-selling books on his favourite subjects: art collecting and cookery. In 1962, he was approached by Sears Roebuck to act as a buying consultant "selling quality pictures to department store customers". As if that were not enough, he lectured for 15 years on art, poetry and even the history of villainy. He recorded numerous readings of poems by Edgar Allan Poe (nobody ever gave a better recital of "The Raven"!), Shelley and Whitman. He also served on the Arts Council of UCLA, was a member of the Fine Arts Committee for the White House, a former chairman of the Indian Arts & Crafts Board and on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
And besides all of that, Vincent Price remained a much sought-after motion picture actor. He made his first appearance on screen as a romantic lead in Service de Luxe (1938), a frothy Universal comedy which came and went without much fanfare. After that, he reprized his stage role as Master Hammon in an early television production of 'The Shoemaker's Holiday'. For one reason or another, Vincent was henceforth typecast as either historical figures (Sir Walter Raleigh, Duke of Clarence, Mormon leader Joseph Smith, King Charles II, Cardinal Richelieu, Omar Khayyam) or ineffectual charmers and gigolos. Under contract to 20th Century Fox (1940-46), Laura (1944) provided one of his better vehicles in the latter department, as did the lush Technicolor melodrama Leave Her to Heaven (1945) which had Vincent showcased in a notably powerful scene as a prosecuting attorney. His performance was singled out by the L.A. Times as meriting "attention as contending for Academy supporting honors".
His first fling with the horror genre was Dragonwyck (1946), a Gothic melodrama set in the Hudson Valley in the early 1800's. For the first time, Vincent played a part he actually coveted and fought hard to win. His character was in effect a precursor of those he would later make his own while working for Roger Corman and American-International. As demented, drug-addicted landowner Nicholas Van Ryn, he so effectively terrorized Gene Tierney's Miranda Wells that the influential columnist Louella Parsons wrote with rare praise: "The role of Van Ryn calls for a lot of acting and Vincent admits he's a ham and loves to act all over the place, but the fact that he has restrained himself and doesn't over-emote is a tribute to his ability". If Vincent was an occasional ham, he proved it with his Harry Lime pastiche Carwood in The Bribe (1949). Much better was his starring role in a minor western, The Baron of Arizona (1950), in which he was convincingly cast as a larcenous land office clerk attempting to create his own desert baronetcy.
With House of Wax (1953) , Vincent fine-tuned the character type he had established in Dragonwyck, adding both pathos and comic elements to the role of the maniacal sculptor Henry Jarrod. It was arduous work under heavy make-up which simulated hideous facial scarring and required three hours to apply and three hours to remove. He later commented that it "took his face months to heal because it was raw from peeling off wax each night". However, the picture proved a sound money maker for Warner Brothers and firmly established Vincent Price in a cult genre from which he was henceforth unable to escape. The majority of his subsequent films were decidedly low-budget affairs in which the star tended to be the sole mitigating factor: The Mad Magician (1954), The Fly (1958) (and its sequel), House on Haunted Hill (1959), the absurd The Tingler (1959) (easily the worst of the bunch) and The Bat (1959). With few exceptions, Vincent's acting range would rarely be stretched in the years to come.
Vincent's association with the genial Roger Corman began when he received a script for The Fall of the House of Usher, beginning a projected cycle of cost-effective films based on short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. As Roderick Usher, Vincent was Corman's "first and only choice". Though he was to receive a salary of $50,000 for the picture, it was his chance "to express the psychology of Poe's characters" and to "imbue the movie versions with the spirit of Poe" that clinched the deal for Vincent. He made another six films in this vein, all of them box office winners. Not Academy Award stuff, but nonetheless hugely enjoyable camp entertainment and popular with all but highbrow audiences. Who could forget Vincent at his scenery chewing best as the resurgent inquisitor, luring Barbara Steele into the crypt in The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)? Or as pompous wine aficionado Fortunato Luchresi in that deliriously funny wine tasting competition with Montresor Herringbone (Peter Lorre) in Tales of Terror (1962)? Best still, the climactic battle of the magicians pitting Vincent's Erasmus Craven against Boris Karloff's malevolent Dr. Scarabus in The Raven (1963) (arguably, the best offering in the Poe cycle). The Comedy of Terrors (1963) was played strictly for laughs, with the inimitable combo of Price and Lorre this time appearing as homicidal undertakers.
For the rest of the 60s, Vincent was content to remain in his niche, playing variations on the same theme in City in the Sea (1965) and Witchfinder General (1968) (as Matthew Hopkins). He also spoofed his screen personae as Dr. Goldfoot and as perennial villain Egghead in the Batman (1966) series. He rose once more to the occasion in the cult black comedy The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) (and its sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)) commenting that he had to play Anton Phibes "very seriously so that it would come out funny". The tagline, a parody of the ad for Love Story (1970), announced "love means never having to say you're ugly".
During the 70s and 80s, Vincent restricted himself mainly to voice-overs and TV guest appearances. His final role of note was as the inventor in Edward Scissorhands (1990), a role written specifically for him. The embodiment of gleeful, suave screen villainy, Vincent Price died in Los Angeles in October 1993 at the age of 82. People magazine eulogized him as "the Gable of Gothic." Much earlier, an English critic named Gilbert Adair spoke for many fans when he said "Every man his Price - and mine is Vincent."- Actor
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Gary Riley who played the ridiculously funny "Dave" in 1987's summer-fun-time movies, was born on April 28th, 1967 somewhere in Los Angeles county. He played "Charlie Hogan" in perhaps his most well known work "Stand By Me". He made notable appearances as a thief who steals money from Steve Martin's character's wallet in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and as a naive metalhead customer whom Ken Kessler (portrayed by Judge Reinhold) cannot bear to rip off after discovering his girlfriend is pregnant in Ruthless People. In 1986 he auditioned for the roles of "Bill S. Preston Esquire" and Ted "Theodore" Logan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure being one of the final picks along with Keanu Reeves.- Actress
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From the age of five, Linda Blair had to get used to the spotlight, first as a child model and then as an actress, when out of 600 applicants she was picked for the role of Regan, the possessed child, in The Exorcist (1973). Linda quickly rose to international fame, won the Golden Globe, and seemed to be set to take the Academy Award for that role, but when it leaked how some parts of the role were not performed by her (the demonic voice was dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge, and eight seconds of a stunt dummy were used) that dream broke, and with that disappointment probably came the first blow to what looked like the beginning of an A-list career.
Over the next few years she had no trouble securing lead roles in a number of pictures, including the highly successful television films Born Innocent (1974) (the #1 TV movie of that year) and Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (1975), as well as the Exorcist sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). However, when she was peer pressured into buying cocaine at the age of 18, it led to an arrest and subsequent sentencing to three years probation. The much-publicized drug bust caused Linda to be blacklisted in Hollywood, and her career was soon reduced to B-movies and occasional TV guest appearances only.
Although her career never returned to its former glory, Linda proved to be a good sport about embracing the change, and out of the '80s emerged lead roles in two cult classics: the women-in-prison film Chained Heat (1983) and the femme fatale vigilante action film Savage Streets (1984). She continued acting in numerous films throughout the '80s and '90s, including the Exorcist spoof Repossessed (1990). In 1997, she also took to the Broadway stage and starred as "Rizzo" in the revival of "Grease." She received widespread mainstream attention again in the 2000's with the theatrical re-release of the Exorcist, followed by a hosting job on the hit Fox Family TV series Scariest Places on Earth (2000), which ran for six years and followed Linda as she visited notorious "haunted" locations around the world.
Linda was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Elinore, a real estate agent, and James, an executive headhunter. She has a brother, Jimmy, and a sister, Debbie. Linda has been a Hollywood icon for over 40 years, but it is her first love of animals that has ultimately taken center stage in her life. She now runs the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, a non-profit 501C3 tax deductible organization dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating abused, neglected, and abandoned animals from the harsh streets of the Los Angeles area, as well as from the overcrowded and overwhelmed city and county animal shelters. She works and lives on the 2-acre rescue sanctuary full-time in California, which was featured on The Today Show in a segment titled "From Devil to Angel." Of course, she also makes frequent appearances at horror fan conventions to celebrate the legacy of The Exorcist (1973) .- Actor
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The Emmy Award-winning actor stars in NBC's Emmy and Golden Globe nominated drama series This Is Us (2016). For his role as Randall Pearson, Brown won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, as well as a Golden Globe, becoming the first African-American actor to win his category in the award show's 75-year history. Additionally, Brown made history by becoming the first African-American actor to receive the SAG Award for Outstanding Male Actor in a Drama and also received a SAG award alongside his cast for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. He also has won an NAACP Image Award and Critics Choice Award, and has been nominated for a TCA Award and a Teen Choice Award. In 2016, Brown portrayed prosecutor Christopher Darden in FX's highly-rated award-winning television event series Inside Look: The People v. O.J. Simpson - American Crime Story (2016). He won an Emmy Award and Critics Choice Award for the role and was nominated for a Golden Globe, SAG Award, and NAACP Image Award.
Brown was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Aralean Banks and Sterling Brown. His father died when he was ten, after a heart attack. Brown graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Drama from Stanford University, before receiving his Master's Degree in Fine Arts from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He resides in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons.
Brown can be seen in Marvel's Black Panther (2018). Later in the year, he co-starred in Fox's The Predator (2018) and Hotel Artemis (2018), with Jodie Foster and Brian Tyree Henry. In 2017, Brown co-starred in Open Road's Marshall (2017), for which he received an NAACP Image Award nomination for his role. In 2016, Brown co-starred with Tina Fey in Paramount's Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016).
A lover of theater, Brown has performed in a variety of staged shows, including NY and LA productions of Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3), for which he won an NAACP Theatre Award and was nominated for an Ovation Award. His additional stage credits include MacBeth, The Brother/Sister Plays and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui opposite Al Pacino.
For seven years, Brown portrayed Dr. Roland Burton in the critically acclaimed Lifetime series Army Wives (2007). Additional television credits include Supernatural (2005), Person of Interest (2011), Masters of Sex (2013), Castle (2009) and Criminal Minds (2005). His film credits include Our Idiot Brother (2011), The Suspect (2013), Righteous Kill (2008), Trust the Man (2005), and Spaceman (2016).- Best remembered as the second talking-era "Jane" (following Maureen O'Sullivan) of the durable Tarzan jungle film series and the only one in the sound era to play the role opposite two different Tarzan's (Johnny Weissmuller and Lex Barker, lovely Brenda was born Betty Leabo in Missouri, raised in Los Angeles, and nicknamed "Graftina" by her father when she was a girl. Attending UCLA for four years, the lovely blonde became a photographer's model to help pay her tuition. A 20th Century-Fox talent scout noticed a fashion layout of her and immediately signed her on.
The studio changed her name to "Brenda Joyce" after silent star Alice Joyce and immediately gave her an impressive movie debut with The Rains Came (1939) starring Tyrone Power and Myrna Loy in which she received fine reviews. Building her up to the public as a sexy single girl, she was subsequently showcased in Here I Am a Stranger (1939) opposite Richard Greene and partnered with John Payne in Maryland (1940).
The studio didn't take kindly to her impulsive 1941 marriage to army husband Owen Ward and supposedly punished her by relegating her to "B" films. Three children were the result of this first marriage -- Pam, Timothy and Beth. Brenda eventually lost interest in her career, but was coaxed back to the film set when brunette Maureen O'Sullivan left the Tarzan series and Johnny Weissmuller approved the athletic beauty as his new blonde swinging mate. Beginning a four-year excursion with the film Tarzan and the Amazons (1945), Brenda continued on as Jane after Weissmuller left (actor Lex Barker took over), but finally decided enough was enough. Brenda left after her fifth movie, Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949), and just walked away -- never to return.
Following her movie career, Brenda moved to the Washington D.C. area and worked with the Refugee Services for nearly 10 years in which she helped displaced persons find employment and places to live. This line of work eventually had her relocate to the Carmel, California area and she worked with Catholic Resettlement in Seaside, California (near Monterey). Besieged by personal and health problems in later years, she endured a painful divorce from Ward in 1960 after 19 years of marriage. She was then married and divorced twice more. Suffering from dementia in her twilight years, she stayed with her children at various stages until she was forced to be institutionalized in a nursing home in Santa Monica, California. Brenda died there of complications from pneumonia on Independence Day in 2009. - Ralph Moody was born on November 5, 1886 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA as Ralph Roy Moody, the oldest son of Franklin Jerome Moody and Ida M. Hicklin. His introduction to show business was first as an actor on the stage in pre-radio days and then as a radio personality. His first acting role was in 1900 as the boy, Heinrich, in Rip Van Winkle. At the 1904 World's Fair he sang tenor in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He had a wide following as Uncle Abner on WIBW, CBS Radio, in the 1930's in Topeka, Kansas, USA. As Uncle Abner he was the town's barber, constable, postmaster, and chief source of information. Beginning in the mid-1940's he was a frequent radio cast member on The Roy Rogers Show. When Gunsmoke began its radio show run in 1952, Ralph Moody was one of the regular cast members. He began making film and television appearances at the age of 62. His first television roles were on three 1949-50 The Lone Ranger (1949) episodes, each time as an Indian chief with a different name. Frequently on TV westerns he had roles as an Indian, but was not type cast. His range of characters included a variety of roles with Jack Webb on Dragnet (1951). Many of his dozen appearances on The Rifleman (1958) were as Doc Burrage. He had six appearances on Bonanza (1959), most as an Indian, at the end of his 23 year acting career. He was married to Hazel B. McOwen. He died on September 16, 1971 in Burbank, California, USA.
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Don Shanks was born on 26 February 1950 in Piasa, Illinois, USA. He is an actor, known for Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), Dumb and Dumber (1994) and The World's Fastest Indian (2005).- Actor
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Frank Sully was born on 17 June 1908 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Escape to Glory (1940) and Sleepytime Gal (1942). He was married to Mary Kathleen McKee. He died on 17 December 1975 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Jon Hamm is an American actor and producer from St. Louis, Missouri who is known for playing Don Draper in Mad Men. He also played Mister Sinister in a deleted scene of The New Mutants and Legion, Brogan from Shrek Forever After, and other films and shows including Sucker Punch, Million Dollar Arm, Black Mirror and Good Omens.- Eulalie Jensen was born on 24 December 1884 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), Bachelor Brides (1926) and Passion Flower (1921). She died on 7 October 1952 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Elizabeth Ruth Grable was born on December 18, 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri, to Lillian Rose (Hofmann) and John Conn Grable, a stockbroker. She had German, English, Irish, and Dutch ancestry. Her mother was a stubborn and materialistic woman determined to make her daughter a star. Elizabeth, who later became Betty, was enrolled in Clark's Dancing School at the age of three. With her mother's guidance, Betty studied ballet and tap dancing.
Betty and her mother set out for California with the hopes of stardom. She attended the Hollywood Professional school but Lillian lied about her daughter's age and Betty (real age 13), landed several minor parts as a chorus girl in early musicals (Whoopee! (1930), New Movietone Follies of 1930 (1930), Happy Days (1929) and Let's Go Places (1930)), initially billed as 'Frances Dean'. In 1932 (real age 15), she signed with RKO Radio Pictures and began to use the moniker 'Betty Grable'. The bit parts continued for the next three years. Betty finally landed a substantial part in By Your Leave (1934). One of her big roles was in College Swing (1938). Unfortunately, the public did not seem to take notice.
The following year, she married former child star Jackie Coogan. They briefly toured on vaudeville and his success boosted hers, but they divorced in 1940. When she landed the role of Glenda Crawford in Down Argentine Way (1940), the public finally took notice of this shining bright star. Stardom came in such comedies as Coney Island (1943) and Sweet Rosie O'Grady (1943).
The public was enchanted with Betty. Her famous pin-up pose during World War II adorned barracks all around the world. With that pin-up and as the star of lavish musicals, Betty became the highest-paid star in Hollywood. After the war, her star continued to rise. In 1947, the United States Treasury Department noted that she was the highest paid star in America, earning about $300,000 a year - a phenomenal sum even by today's standards. Later, 20th Century-Fox, who had her under contract, insured her legs with Lloyds of London for a million dollars. She continued to be popular until the mid-1950s, when musicals went into a decline. Her last film was How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955).
She then concentrated on Broadway and nightclubs. In 1965, she divorced band leader Harry James, whom she had wed in 1943. Her life was an active one, devoid of the scandals that plagued many stars in one way or another. She cared more for her family than stardom.
Betty Grable died at age 56 of lung cancer on July 2, 1973 in Santa Monica, California, five days before Veronica Lake's death. She was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery.- Actor
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J. Michael Finley was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas and raised in Lebanon, Missouri. He is the second of five children born to Wayne and Betsy Finley. He began singing and acting in Junior High. He attended Roosevelt University's Chicago College of Performing Arts and began his professional acting career in Chicago and surrounding areas. His stage credits include Chicago theaters such as Lyric Opera of Chicago, Paramount Theatre, Marriott Theatre, Drury Lane Theatre, Writers' Theatre, Court Theatre, and Mercury Theatre.
J. Michael Finley moved to New York City in 2015 where he made his Broadway debut in the ensemble of Les Miserables and as the understudy for Jean Valjean. I Can Only Imagine is his first movie. After the production of I Can Only Imagine was completed, J. Michael Finley returned to Broadway as the Standby for Elder Cunningham in Book of Mormon.
In 2018, J. Michael Finley made his West End debut in the role of Elder Cunningham in Book of Mormon.
J. Michael Finley enjoys watching St. Louis Cardinals baseball and spending time with his new bride, Elizabeth Doran, whom he married December 2nd, 2017.- Director
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John Stix was born on 14 November 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was a director and assistant director, known for American Playhouse (1980), The St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959) and Play of the Week (1959). He died on 2 October 2004 in Hackensack, New Jersey, USA.- Actress
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Virginia Clara Jones was born on November 30, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a newspaper reporter and his wife. The family had a rich heritage in the St. Louis area: her great-great-great-grandfather served in the American Revolution and later founded the city of East Saint Louis, Illinois, located right across the Mississippi River from its namesake. Virginia was interested in show business from an early age. Her aunt operated a dance studio and Virginia began taking lessons at the age of six. After graduating from high school in 1937, she became a member of the St. Louis Municipal Opera before she was signed to a contract by Samuel Goldwyn after being spotted by an MGM talent scout during a Broadway revue. David O. Selznick gave her a screen test, but decided she wouldn't fit into films. Goldwyn, however, believed that her talent as an actress was there and cast her in a small role in 1943's Jack London (1943). She later had a walk-on part in Follies Girl (1943) that same year. Believing there was more to her than her obvious ravishing beauty, producers thought it was time to give her bigger and better roles. In 1944 she was cast as Princess Margaret in The Princess and the Pirate (1944), with Bob Hope and a year later appeared as Ellen Shavley in Wonder Man (1945). Her popularity increasing with every appearance, Virginia was cast in two more films in 1946, The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), with Danny Kaye, and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), with Dana Andrews, and received good notices as Andrews' avaricious, unfaithful wife. Her roles may have been coming in slow, but with each one her popularity with audiences rose. She finally struck paydirt in 1947 with a plum assignment in the well-received The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) as Rosalind van Hoorn. That same year she married Michael O'Shea and would remain with him until his death in 1973 (the union produced a daughter, Mary Catherine, in 1953). She got some of the best reviews of her career in James Cagney's return to the gangster genre, White Heat (1949), as Verna, the scheming, cheating wife of homicidal killer Cody Jarrett (Cagney). The striking beauty had still more plum roles in the 1950s. Parts in Backfire (1950), She's Working Her Way Through College (1952) and South Sea Woman (1953) all showed she was still a force to be reckoned with. As the decade ended, Virginia's career began to slow down. She had four roles in the 1960s and four more in the following decade. Her last role was as Lucia in 1997's The Man Next Door. She died on January 17, 2005.- Actor
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Gerrit Graham was born on November 27, 1949 in New York City. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, Chicago, Illinois, and Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Gerrit made his acting debut at age eight in a Detroit Art Institute stage production of "Winnie the Pooh". Graham was the president of the dramatic association as a high school student at Groton and general manager of the Columbia Players while studying at Columbia University. He began his cinematic career acting in movies for director Brian De Palma: he's excellent in his film debut as paranoid conspiracy nut Lloyd Clay in Greetings (1968) and gave a hilarious performance as preening flamboyant rock star Beef in Phantom of the Paradise (1974). Graham's other memorable comic roles include no-talent aspiring country singer Perman Waters in Paul Bartel's Cannonball! (1976), hippie commune leader Magic Ray in Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976) sleazy used car salesman Jeff in the uproarious Used Cars (1980), the snobby Bob Spinnaker in Class Reunion (1982), and the leering Rodzinski in The Creature Wasn't Nice (1981). Moreover, Gerrit has demonstrated his considerable range and versatility in such occasional serious parts as computer nerd Walter Gabler in Demon Seed (1977), Susan Sarandon's abusive boyfriend Highpockets in Pretty Baby (1978), tough Vietnam veteran Ray Stark in The Annihilators (1985), and Alex Vincent's jerky foster father Phil Simpson in Child's Play 2 (1990). Among the many TV shows Graham has done guest spots on are Baretta (1975), Starsky and Hutch (1975), Laverne & Shirley (1976), The A-Team (1983), Fame (1982), St. Elsewhere (1982), Miami Vice (1984), Dallas (1978), The Wonder Years (1988), Seinfeld (1989), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), Babylon 5 (1993), The Larry Sanders Show (1992), Star Trek: Voyager (1995), Law & Order (1990), and Third Watch (1999). Gerrit had a recurring role on The Critic (1994). He wrote three episodes of the 1980s The Twilight Zone (1985) revival and acted in the Welcome to Winfield/Quarantine (1986) episode of the same show. On stage, Gerrit has performed improvisational comedy sketches with Chicago's Second City troupe and worked with improvisational director Paul Sills in Chicago as a member of Sills' Story Theatre ensemble. Graham has written several songs with Bob Weir (these include the lyrics for the Grateful Dead tune "Victim or the Crime"). Graham wrote additional dialogue and provided additional voices for the hit Disney animated picture The Little Mermaid (1989) and co-wrote the screenplay for the cartoon short The Prince and the Pauper (1990). He's the father of sons Jack and Henry.- Actress
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Kelly Michelle Stables was born in St. Louis, Missouri where she performed at The Muny Opera. She graduated cum laude from The University of Missouri, Columbia with a BA in Communications and Theater. Upon moving to Los Angeles she quickly got involved in theater arts, acting and choreographing in over 2 dozen plays and musical productions including The Little Foxes, Brady Bunch: The Musical, Peter Pan at the Thousand Oaks Civic Light Opera and 7 title roles in LA's award winning Storybook Theatre. While continuing to study improvisation at The Groundlings and becoming a company member of Theatre West, Kelly also started landing roles on television and in film. Her unique voice and petite stature has allowed her to take on a wide variety of colorful characters. She is known for her work alongside Naomi Watts, taking over the role as the evil Samara in The Ring 2, but is also more commonly recognized as the bubbly, bright receptionist on Two and a Half Men. From 2011-2015 Kelly played a paralegal at-day/party hopper at-night, as a Series Regular on the TV Land sitcom The Exes. She was also a Regular as the sassy sexpert little sister to Alyssa Milano on ABC's Romantically Challenged, as well as the stressed out suburban mom on the CW's No Tomorrow. She has lent her soprano singing voice to several cartoons including Doc McStuffins, Tom & Jerry and Sofia the First. Most recently she can be seen as the dim but lovable Cloud 9 employee on NBC's hit comedy Superstore. She lives a quiet, private life with her husband and two young children and enjoys sewing, writing and volunteering at school activities.- Actor
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Scott Stewart Bakula was born on October 9, 1954 in St. Louis, Missouri, to Sally (Zumwinkel) and J. Stewart Bakula, a lawyer. He is of German, as well as Czech, Austrian, Scottish and English ancestry. He comes from a musical family. In the fourth grade, he started a rock band and wrote songs for them, he later sang with the St. Louis Symphony. He studied Law at the University of Kansas until his sophomore year when he left to pursue acting. In 1976, he was first hired professionally in the role of Sam in "Shenandoah" and went to New York. After several small roles on television, he starred opposite Dean Stockwell in the science fiction series Quantum Leap (1989). Bakula played Dr. Sam Beckett, a physicist who was trapped by a malfunction of his time machine to correct things gone wrong in the past. He won a Golden Globe in 1992 for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV series - Drama for Quantum Leap (1989) and was nominated for a Tony Award in 1988. He also starred in the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) as Jonathan Archer, the captain of Earth's first long-range starship. Today, he lives in Los Angeles, California and has a farm in upstate New York.- Actor
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John Stephen Goodman's an American film, TV & stage actor. He was born in Affton, Missouri to Virginia Roos (Loosmore), a waitress and saleswoman & Leslie Francis Goodman, a postal worker who died when he was a small child. He's of English, Welsh & German ancestry. He's best known for his role as Dan Conner on the TV show Roseanne (1988), which ran until 1997 & for which he earned him a Best Actor Golden Globe in 1993. He's also noted for appearances in films of the Coen brothers, w/ prominent roles in Raising Arizona (1987) as an escaped convict, in Barton Fink (1991) as a congenial murderer, in The Big Lebowski (1998) as a volatile bowler & in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) as a cultured thief. Additionally, he has done voice work in numerous Disney & Pixar films, including the Sulley in Monsters, Inc. (2001). Having contributed to more than 50 films, he has also won 2 American Comedy Awards & hosted Saturday Night Live (1975) 14 times.- Actor
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An eccentric rebel of epic proportions, this Hollywood titan reigned supreme as director, screenwriter and character actor in a career that endured over five decades. The ten-time Oscar-nominated legend was born John Marcellus Huston in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906. His ancestry was English, Scottish, Scots-Irish, distant German and very remote Portuguese. The age-old story goes that the small town of his birth was won by John's grandfather in a poker game. John's father was the equally magnanimous character actor Walter Huston, and his mother, Rhea Gore, was a newspaperwoman who traveled around the country looking for stories. The only child of the couple, John began performing on stage with his vaudevillian father at age 3. Upon his parents' divorce at age 7, the young boy would take turns traveling around the vaudeville circuit with his father and the country with his mother on reporting excursions. A frail and sickly child, he was once placed in a sanitarium due to both an enlarged heart and kidney ailment. Making a miraculous recovery, he quit school at age 14 to become a full-fledged boxer and eventually won the Amateur Lightweight Boxing Championship of California, winning 22 of 25 bouts. His trademark broken nose was the result of that robust activity.
John married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Harvey, and also took his first professional stage bow with a leading role off-Broadway entitled "The Triumph of the Egg." He made his Broadway debut that same year with "Ruint" on April 7, 1925, and followed that with another Broadway show "Adam Solitaire" the following November. John soon grew restless with the confines of both his marriage and acting and abandoned both, taking a sojourn to Mexico where he became an officer in the cavalry and expert horseman while writing plays on the sly. Trying to control his wanderlust urges, he subsequently returned to America and attempted newspaper and magazine reporting work in New York by submitting short stories. He was even hired at one point by mogul Samuel Goldwyn Jr. as a screenwriter, but again he grew restless. During this time he also appeared unbilled in a few obligatory films. By 1932 John was on the move again and left for London and Paris where he studied painting and sketching. The promising artist became a homeless beggar during one harrowing point.
Returning again to America in 1933, he played the title role in a production of "Abraham Lincoln," only a few years after father Walter portrayed the part on film for D.W. Griffith. John made a new resolve to hone in on his obvious writing skills and began collaborating on a few scripts for Warner Brothers. He also married again. Warners was so impressed with his talents that he was signed on as both screenwriter and director for the Dashiell Hammett mystery yarn The Maltese Falcon (1941). The movie classic made a superstar out of Humphrey Bogart and is considered by critics and audiences alike--- 65 years after the fact--- to be the greatest detective film ever made. In the meantime John wrote/staged a couple of Broadway plays, and in the aftermath of his mammoth screen success directed bad-girl 'Bette Davis (I)' and good girl Olivia de Havilland in the film melodrama In This Our Life (1942), and three of his "Falcon" stars (Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet) in the romantic war picture Across the Pacific (1942). During WWII John served as a Signal Corps lieutenant and went on to helm a number of film documentaries for the U.S. government including the controversial Let There Be Light (1980), which father Walter narrated. The end of WWII also saw the end of his second marriage. He married third wife Evelyn Keyes, of "Gone With the Wind" fame, in 1946 but it too lasted a relatively short time. That same year the impulsive and always unpredictable Huston directed Jean-Paul Sartre's experimental play "No Exit" on Broadway. The show was a box-office bust (running less than a month) but nevertheless earned the New York Drama Critics Award as "best foreign play."
Hollywood glory came to him again in association with Bogart and Warner Brothers'. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), a classic tale of gold, greed and man's inhumanity to man set in Mexico, won John Oscars for both director and screenplay and his father nabbed the "Best Supporting Actor" trophy. John can be glimpsed at the beginning of the movie in a cameo playing a tourist, but he wouldn't act again on film for a decade and a half. With the momentum in his favor, John hung around in Hollywood this time to write and/or direct some of the finest American cinema made including Key Largo (1948) and The African Queen (1951) (both with Bogart), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Red Badge of Courage (1951) and Moulin Rouge (1952). Later films, including Moby Dick (1956), The Unforgiven (1960), The Misfits (1961), Freud (1962), The Night of the Iguana (1964) and The Bible in the Beginning... (1966) were, for the most part, well-regarded but certainly not close to the level of his earlier revered work. He also experimented behind-the-camera with color effects and approached topics that most others would not even broach, including homosexuality and psychoanalysis.
An ardent supporter of human rights, he, along with director William Wyler and others, dared to form the Committee for the First Amendment in 1947, which strove to undermine the House Un-American Activities Committee. Disgusted by the Hollywood blacklisting that was killing the careers of many talented folk, he moved to St. Clerans in Ireland and became a citizen there along with his fourth wife, ballet dancer Enrica (Ricki) Soma. The couple had two children, including daughter Anjelica Huston who went on to have an enviable Hollywood career of her own. Huston and wife Ricki split after a son (director Danny Huston) was born to another actress in 1962. They did not divorce, however, and remained estranged until her sudden death in 1969 in a car accident. John subsequently adopted his late wife's child from another union. The ever-impulsive Huston would move yet again to Mexico where he married (1972) and divorced (1977) his fifth and final wife, Celeste Shane.
Huston returned to acting auspiciously with a major role in Otto Preminger's epic film The Cardinal (1963) for which Huston received an Oscar nomination at age 57. From that time forward, he would be glimpsed here and there in a number of colorful, baggy-eyed character roles in both good and bad (some positively abysmal) films that, at the very least, helped finance his passion projects. The former list included outstanding roles in Chinatown (1974) and The Wind and the Lion (1975), while the latter comprised of hammy parts in such awful drek as Candy (1968) and Myra Breckinridge (1970).
Directing daughter Angelica in her inauspicious movie debut, the thoroughly mediocre A Walk with Love and Death (1969), John made up for it 15 years later by directing her to Oscar glory in the mob tale Prizzi's Honor (1985). In the 1970s Huston resurged as a director of quality films with Fat City (1972), The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Wise Blood (1979). He ended his career on a high note with Under the Volcano (1984), the afore-mentioned Prizzi's Honor (1985) and The Dead (1987). His only certifiable misfire during that era was the elephantine musical version of Annie (1982), though it later became somewhat of a cult favorite among children.
Huston lived the macho, outdoors life, unencumbered by convention or restrictions, and is often compared in style or flamboyancy to an Ernest Hemingway or Orson Welles. He was, in fact, the source of inspiration for Clint Eastwood in the helming of the film White Hunter Black Heart (1990) which chronicled the making of "The African Queen." Illness robbed Huston of a good portion of his twilight years with chronic emphysema the main culprit. As always, however, he continued to work tirelessly while hooked up to an oxygen machine if need be. At the end, the living legend was shooting an acting cameo in the film Mr. North (1988) for his son Danny, making his directorial bow at the time. John became seriously ill with pneumonia and died while on location at the age of 81. This maverick of a man's man who was once called "the eccentric's eccentric" by Paul Newman, left an incredibly rich legacy of work to be enjoyed by film lovers for centuries to come.- Actress
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Cleo King was born on 21 August 1962 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Pineapple Express (2008), Magnolia (1999) and The Hangover (2009).- Stunts
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CC Ice is a stunt performer on a journey that continues to take her from coast to coast in film, TV, commercials, dance, and other creative work.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, CC always gravitated towards film, TV, dance, art, theater, and music. After graduating from Herculaneum High School, CC began her professional career as a magician's assistant/dancer in St. Louis and Branson, MO, where she enjoyed performing various stunts and illusions.
Upon graduation from Millikin University, CC followed her career path from New England to Los Angeles to Atlanta and back to New England.
CC most recently performed as Elizabeth Olsen's stunt double on Avengers: Infinity War (2018) as well as Natalie Dormer's stunt double on The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014) and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015)- Actor
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Evan Peters was born in 1987 in St. Louis, Missouri to Phil and Julie Peters. When his father's job was transferred, the family moved to Grand Blanc, Michigan. There, Evan began taking acting classes and at age 15, he moved with his mother to Los Angeles in hopes of pursuing a career in the entertainment industry. His breakthrough role came when he was cast as the controversial Tate Langdon in American Horror Story (2011).- Actor
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Mark Linn-Baker was born on 17 June 1954 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He is an actor and director, known for My Favorite Year (1982), Adam (2009) and Perfect Strangers (1986). He has been married to Christa Justus since 29 December 2012. He was previously married to Adrianne Lobel.- Actress
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Marsha Mason has a wonderful, extremely engaging "feel good" quality about her, an innate warmth that makes you root for her whether she's playing a stubborn single mom, brittle prostitute, or strung-out alcoholic. She was a resoundingly respected and popular film actress of the 1970s and 1980s whose career skyrocketed in the bittersweet comedies/dramas of award-winning Neil Simon. Earning a string of leading lady Oscar nominations within a short span of time (three of them, courtesy of husband Simon), Marsha's movie career suffered a major fall-out when the famed couple parted ways in 1983 -- most probably due to her almost exclusive, amazingly successful association with him.
The elder of two sisters born to James Joseph Mason and Jacqueline Helena (Rachowsky) Mason in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 3, 1942, Marsha was raised, for a time, in Crestwood, Missouri, before moving to Webster Groves (a suburb of St. Louis) and graduating from Nerinx Hall High School. There, she attended Webster University and, after receiving her degree, moved to New York where she began taking acting classes and finding some work in TV commercials in-between regular job-hunting.
Marrying fellow struggling actor Gary Campbell in 1965, Marsha made an inauspicious movie debut with the forgettable Hot Rod Hullabaloo (1966). Focusing intently on stage work, she made her professional debut in 1967 with "The Deer Park" at the Theatre de Lys and, the next year, joined the cast as a replacement in the established hit comedy, "Cactus Flower", at the Royale Theatre. Subsequent work came her way both on- and off-Broadway ("It's Called the Sugar Plum", "The Indian Wants the Bronx", "Happy Birthday, Wanda June", "Richard III"). She later hooked up with San Francisco's prestigious American Conservatory Theatre and appeared in an enviable number of their productions ("The Merchant of Venice", "Private Lives", "You Can't Take It With You", "A Doll's House", "Cyrano de Bergerac", "The Crucible").
Daytime soaps played a vital part during this period of time (1969-1972), playing a hooker-turned-vampire on the popular Dark Shadows (1966) series and winning regular roles on Where the Heart Is (1969) and Love of Life (1951). Divorced after five years from actor Gary Campbell in 1970, the pert-nosed, dark-haired beauty met Neil Simon, a recent widower, when he cast her in his 1973 original Broadway production of "The Good Doctor". They had a whirlwind romance and married with a few weeks.
1973 was an excellent year in other ways in that Marsha won the second femme lead in Blume in Love (1973), starring George Segal and Susan Anspach, and then beat out such stars as Barbra Streisand for the coveted role of the hooker opposite James Caan's sailor in the realistic drama Cinderella Liberty (1973). The chemistry was electric between the two and Mason earned her first Oscar nod. Following a leading stage role in "The Heiress" (1975) and playing "Roxane" in a TV version of Cyrano de Bergerac (1975), Marsha earned two more Neil Simon-driven Oscar nominations with The Goodbye Girl (1977), opposite Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss, and Chapter Two (1979), which reunited her with James Caan and was based on Mason and Simon's own relationship.
Simon would offer his wife Oscar-worthy material one more time with Only When I Laugh (1981), as an alcoholic trying to stay on the wagon for daughter Kristy McNichol. This would be Marsha's fourth Academy Award nod. The couple's last film project together came in the form of Max Dugan Returns (1983), which was a major misfire.
Following Marsha's divorce from Simon, her film product decreased rapidly in quantity as well as quality. With the exception of the Clint Eastwood vehicle, Heartbreak Ridge (1986), she made no other films in the 1980s. While her film output did increase in the 1990s, none of them -- Stella (1990), Drop Dead Fred (1991), I Love Trouble (1994), Nick of Time (1995) and 2 Days in the Valley (1996) -- did anything to jump-start her waning cinematic career.
Over the years, Marsha maintained by focusing on TV and stage work. More recent theatre credits have included "The Night of the Iguana", "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" (another popular Simon work in which she appeared opposite Richard Dreyfuss in London), "Wintertime", "Steel Magnolias", "I Never Sang for My Father", "All's Well that Ends Well" and the Simon play "California Suite", some of which played Broadway.
On the small screen, Marsha starred in her own short-lived series Sibs (1991) and appeared in an Emmy-nominated recurring role on the series, Frasier (1993), as a love interest for Martin Crane. She has also appeared in a number of TV-movies, including one as Judy Garland's mother, "Ethel Gumm", in Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), and has guest-starred on such series as "Seinfeld," "The Education of Max Bickford," "Lipstick Jungle," "Army Wives," "The Good Wife," "Madame Secretary." Her more recent recurring parts have been on the comedy series The Middle (2009) and Grace and Frankie (2015).
On a rare occasion, the veteran actress has directed both on film and TV. Feeling out of sorts in Hollywood at one stage, Marsha strongly pursued her spiritual side, primarily as a disciple of Swami Muktananda. She later moved to New Mexico in 1993 and she became an owner of an organic farm where she raised herbs and operated a wellness line of bath and body products. She also enjoyed professional race car driving at one point. An insightful, highly revealing autobiography came out in the form of "Journal: A Personal Odyssey" in 2000.- Actress
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Agnes was born of Anglo-Irish ancestry near Boston, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister (her mother was a mezzo-soprano) who encouraged her to perform in church pageants. Aged three, she sang 'The Lord is my Shepherd' on a public stage and seven years later joined the St. Louis Municipal Opera as a dancer and singer for four years. In keeping with her father's dictum of finishing her education first (then being permitted to do whatever she wished with her career), Agnes attended Muskingum College (Ohio), and, subsequently, the University of Wisconsin. She graduated with an M.A. in English and public speaking and later added a doctorate in literature from Bradley University to her resume. When her family moved to Reedsburg, Wisconsin, where her father had a pastorate, Agnes taught public school English and drama for five years. In between, she went to Paris to study pantomime with Marcel Marceau.
In 1928, she began training at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts and graduated with honors the following year. In order to supplement her income , Agnes had turned to radio early on. She had her first job in 1923 as a singer for a St. Louis radio station. Her love for that medium remained with her all her life. From the 1930s to the 50s, she appeared on numerous serials, dramas and children's programs. She was Min Gump in "The Gumps" (1934), the 'dragon lady' in "Terry and the Pirates" (1937), Margot Lane of classic comic strip fame in "The Shadow", Mrs.Danvers in "Rebecca" and the bed-ridden woman about to meet her end in "Sorry, Wrong Number". Acting on the airwaves was so important to her that she would insist on its continuation as a precondition of a later contract with MGM. Significantly, through her radio work on "The Shadow"and "March of Time" in 1937, she met and befriended fellow actor Orson Welles. Welles soon invited her to join him and Joseph Cotten as charter members of his Mercury Theatre on the Air. Agnes was involved in the famous "War of the Worlds" broadcast of 1938 which attracted nationwide attention and resulted in a lucrative $100,000 per picture deal with RKO in Hollywood. The Mercury players (the other principals were Ray Collins, Everett Sloane, Paul Stewart and George Coulouris) packed up and went west.
An ebullient and versatile character actress, Agnes was impossible to typecast: she could play years older than her age, appear as heroine or villainess, tragedienne or comedienne. In her first film, the iconic Citizen Kane (1941), she played the titular character's mother. She received her greatest critical acclaim for her emotive second screen performance as Aunt Fanny Minafer in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). In addition to being voted the year's best female performer by the New York Film Critics she was also nominated for an Academy Award. Through the years, Agnes would be nominated three more times: for her touching portrayal of the jaded but sympathetic Baroness Conti in Mrs. Parkington (1944); for her role as the title character's Aunt Aggie in Johnny Belinda (1948) and for playing Velma, the hard-boiled, suspicious housekeeper of Bette Davis in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), co-starring her old friend Joseph Cotten. Other notable film appearances included Jane Eyre (1943), with Orson Welles, The Woman in White (1948) as Countess Fusco), The Lost Moment (1947) (as a 105-year old woman) and Dark Passage (1947), a classic film noir in which she had third billing behind Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as the treacherous , malevolent Madge Rapf. She had a rare starring role in the campy horror flick The Bat (1959), giving (according to the New York Times of December 17) 'a good, snappy performance'.
On Broadway, she appeared in such acclaimed plays as "All the King's Men" and "Candlelight". She enjoyed success with "Don Juan in Hell", touring nationally: the first time (1951-2) with Charles Laughton and Cedric Hardwicke, the second time (though receiving fewer critical plaudits) with Ricardo Montalban and Paul Henreid in 1973. She also starred with Joseph Cotten in "Prescription Murder" (1962). While not a great critical success, this was much liked by audiences and it introduced a famous detective named Lieutenant Columbo. From 1954, she also toured the U.S. and Europe with her own a one-woman show entitled "The Fabulous Redhead". Agnes performed numerous times on television before landing the role of Endora on Bewitched (1964). One particularly interesting part came her way through the director Douglas Heyes who remembered her from "Sorry, Wrong Number". He cast her in the starring - and indeed, only role in The Invaders (1961). As the lonely old woman confronted by tiny alien invaders in her remote farmhouse, Agnes never utters a single word and cleverly acts her scenes as a pantomime of unspoken terror.
Of course, the genial Agnes Moorehead has been immortalized as Elizabeth Montgomery's flamboyant witch-mother, Endora, although that was not a role the actress wished to be remembered for (in spite of several Emmy Award nominations). Indeed, she had thought this whole witchcraft theme to be rather far-fetched and was somewhat taken aback by the show's huge popularity. Agnes had a special clause inserted in her contract which limited her appearances to eight out of twelve episodes which gave her the opportunity to also work on other projects. Commenting on the acting profession in one of her many interviews (New York Times, May 1, 1974), she found the key to success in being " sincere in your work " and to "just go right on whether audiences or critics are taking your scalp off or not".- Actress
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Ellie Kemper, born Elizabeth Claire Kemper on May 2, 1980, is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She is best-known for her role as "Erin Hannon" in the NBC series The Office (2005), as well as her supporting roles in the films Bridesmaids (2011) and 21 Jump Street (2012)). She plays the title role in the Netflix comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015), for which she has received critical acclaim. In the summer of 2015, she joined NBC News as a temporary co-host on NBC's morning news program, The Today (1952) Show.- Writer
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Nikki Glaser was born on 1 June 1984 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Trainwreck (2015), I Feel Pretty (2018) and Punching the Clown (2009).- Actor
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Joe Besser was born on August 12, 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri. Short, chubby, balding, childish character actor who began his career on the vaudeville circuit before breaking into films in the early 1930s. He was a frequent foil of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in their films and played Stinky on their 1950s situation comedy. Joe joined The Three Stooges in 1956, but quit the team to be with his ailing wife in 1958. He spent the 1960s appearing in numerous films and television series, including 88 performances on The Joey Bishop Show (1961) and a regular role as the voice of Babu on the animated series Jeannie (1973). Joe Besser died at age 80 of heart failure on March 1, 1988 in North Hollywood, California.- Priscilla Bonner was born on 17 February 1899 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. She was an actress, known for Charley's Aunt (1925), 3 Bad Men (1926) and The False Alarm (1926). She was married to Dr. E. Bertrand Woolfan and Allen Wynes Alexander. She died on 21 February 1996 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Gabriel Basso was born on 11 December 1994 in St Louis, Missouri, USA. He is an actor, known for Super 8 (2011), The Kings of Summer (2013) and Hillbilly Elegy (2020).- Actress
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Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish immigrant. She had one sibling, a sister, Blanche. Her father moved the family to Brooklyn when she was still young so that he, a tailor's cutter, could find steadier work closer to the city's garment industry. An unfailing interest in acting began quite early for Shelley, and she appeared in high school plays. By her mid- to late teens she had already been employed as a Woolworth's store clerk, model, borscht belt vaudevillian and nightclub chorine, all in order to pay for her acting classes. During a nationwide search in 1939 for GWTW's Scarlett O'Hara, Shelley was advised by auditioning director George Cukor to get acting lessons, which she did. Apprenticing in summer stock, she made her Broadway debut in the short-lived comedy "The Night Before Christmas" in 1941 and followed it with the operetta "Rosalinda" (1942) initially billing herself in both shows as Shelley Winter (without the "s").
Within a short time, Shelley pushed ahead for a career out west. Hollywood proved to be a tough road. Toiling in bit roles for years, many of her scenes were excised altogether during her early days. Obscurely used in such movies as What a Woman! (1943), The Racket Man (1944), Cover Girl (1944) and Tonight and Every Night (1945), her breakthrough did not occur until 1947, and it happened on both the stage and big screen. Not only did she win the replacement role of Ado Annie Carnes in "Oklahoma!" on Broadway but, around the same time, scored excellent notices on film as the party girl waitress who ends up a victim of deranged strangler (and Oscar winner) Ronald Colman in the critically-hailed A Double Life (1947) directed by Cukor. From this moment, she achieved a somewhat earthy film stardom, playing second-lead broads who often met untimely ends (as in Cry of the City (1948) and The Great Gatsby (1949)), or tawdry-black-stockinged and feather-boa-adorned leads, as in South Sea Sinner (1950) in which her eclectic co-stars included Macdonald Carey and Liberace!
As a tarnished glamour girl and symbol of working-class vulgarity in Hollywood, Shelley was about to be written off in pictures altogether when one of her finest movie roles arrived on her front porch. Her best hard luck girl storyboard showed up in the form of depressed, frumpy-looking Alice Tripp, a factory girl seduced and abandoned by wanderlust Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951). Favoring gorgeous society girl Elizabeth Taylor who is totally out of his league, Clift is subsequently blackmailed by Winters' pathetic (and now pregnant) character into marrying her. For her desperate efforts, she is purposely drowned by Clift after he tips their canoe. The role, which garnered Shelley her first Oscar nomination, finally plucked her out of the sordid starlet pool she was treading and into the ranks of serious femme star contenders. But not for long.
Winters just couldn't escape the lurid bottle-blonde quality she instilled in her characters. During what should have been her peak time in films were a host of badly-scripted "B" films. The obvious, two-dimensional chorines, barflies, floozies and gold diggers she played in Behave Yourself! (1951), Frenchie (1950), Phone Call from a Stranger (1952), Playgirl (1954), and also Mambo (1954), in which co-starred second husband Vittorio Gassman, pretty much said it all. She grew extremely disenchanted and decided to return to dramatic study. Earning membership into the famed Actors' Studio, she went to Broadway and earned kudos, thereby reestablishing her reputation as a strong actress with the drug-themed play "A Hatful of Rain" (1955). Co-starring in the show was the up-and-coming Anthony Franciosa, who became her third husband in 1957. Her renewed dedication to pursuing quality work was shown by her appearances in a number of heavyweight theater roles including Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1955). In later years, the Actors' Studio enthusiast became one of its most respected coaches, shaping up a number of today's fine talents with the Strasberg "method" technique.
By the late 1950s, she had started growing in girth and wisely eased into colorful character supports. The switch paid off. After a sterling performance as the ill-fated wife of sadistic killer Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955), she scored big in the Oscar department when she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the shrill and hypertensive but doomed Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). From this period sprouted a host of revoltingly bad mamas, blowsy matrons, and trashy madams in such film fare as Lolita (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), The Balcony (1963) Wives and Lovers (1963), and A House Is Not a Home (1964). She topped things off as the abusive prostitute mom in A Patch of Blue (1965) who was not above pimping her own blind daughter (the late Elizabeth Hartman) for household money. The actress managed to place a second Oscar on her mantle for this riveting support work.
With advancing age and increasing size, she found a comfortable niche in the harping Jewish wife/mother category with loud, flashy, unsubtle roles in Enter Laughing (1967), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) and, most notably, The Poseidon Adventure (1972). She earned another Oscar nomination for "Poseidon" while portraying her third drowning victim. At around the same time, she scored quite well as the indomitable Marx Brothers' mama in "Minnie's Boys" on Broadway in 1970.
In the 1970s and 1980s, she developed into an oddly-distracted personality on TV, making countless talk show appearances and becoming quite the raconteur and incessant name dropper with her juicy Hollywood behind-the-scenes tales. Candid would be an understatement when she published two scintillating tell-all autobiographies that reached the bestsellers list. "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley" (1981) and "Shelley II: The Middle of My Century" (1989) detailed dalliances with Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, William Holden, Sean Connery and Clark Gable, to name just a few.
Thrice divorced (her first husband was a WWII captain; her only child, Vittoria, was the daughter of her second husband, Gassman), she remained footloose and fancy free after finally breaking it off with the volatile Franciosa in 1960. Her stormy marriages and notorious affairs, not to mention her ambitious forays into politics and feminist causes, kept her name alive for decades. She worked in films until the beginning of the millennium, her last film being the easily-dismissed Italian feature La bomba (1999). She enjoyed Emmy-winning TV work and had the recurring role of Roseanne Barr's tell-it-like-it-is grandmother on the comedienne's self-named sitcom. Her last years were marred by failing health and, for the most part, she was confined to a wheelchair. Suffering a heart attack in October of 2005, she died in a Beverly Hills nursing home of heart failure on January 14, 2006.
It was reported that only hours earlier on her deathbed she had entered into a "spiritual" union with her longtime companion of 19 years, Gerry McFord; a relationship of which her daughter disapproved. Gregarious, brazen, ambitious and completely unpredictable -- that would be Shelley Winters, the storyteller, whose amazing career lasted over six colorful decades.- Actor
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Kevin Kline was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Margaret and Robert Joseph Kline, who owned several stores. His father was of German Jewish descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. After attending Indiana University in Bloomington, Kline studied at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1972, Kline joined the Acting Company in New York which was run by John Houseman. With this company, Kline performed Shakespeare across the country. On the stage, Kline has won two Tony Awards for his work in the musicals "On the Twentieth Century" (1978) and "The Pirates of Penzance" (1981). After working on the Television soap Search for Tomorrow (1951), Kline went to Hollywood where his first film was Sophie's Choice (1982). He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. His work in the ensemble cast of The Big Chill (1983) would again be highly successful, so that when Lawrence Kasdan wrote Silverado (1985), Kline would again be part of the cast. With his role as Otto "Don't call me Stupid!" West in the film A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Kline would win the Oscar for Supporting Actor. Kline could play classic roles such as Hamlet in Hamlet (1990); or a swashbuckling actor like Douglas Fairbanks in Chaplin (1992); or a comedic role in Soapdish (1991). In all the films that he has worked in, it is hard to find a performance that is not well done. In 1989, Kline married actress Phoebe Cates.- Actor
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Bert Convy was born on 23 July 1933 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for The Cannonball Run (1981), Hero at Large (1980) and Weekend Warriors (1986). He was married to Catherine Hall and Anne Anderson. He died on 15 July 1991 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Joe Garagiola was born on 12 February 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Catch Me If You Can (2002), Police Story (1973) and 1975 World Series (1975). He was married to Audrie Garagiola. He died on 23 March 2016 in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA.- Actor
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For a while in the 1970s, Fred Berry was one of the biggest stars on American television. The former dancer, who became a star in the sitcom What's Happening!! (1976) ballooned until his weight became a threat to his health. He battled with food, drink, drugs and women, marrying 6 times to 4 women in total. Diabetes was diagnosed, he lost more than 100 pounds and turned to religion. Born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1951, Berry danced with The Lockers, but it was the sitcom deal in 1976 that gave him his big break. The series ran for three seasons. After it was canceled, Berry struggled with personal problems and with the search for another star vehicle. The series was popular through reruns and a further series (What's Happening Now! (1985) was picked up in 1985 and ran for three years, after which Berry gave up acting for religion. He returned to the screen in 1998 in the action movie In the Hood (1998), and his final role was a cameo in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003) in 2003. Berry died on October 21, 2003, aged 52.- Actress
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Kate Capshaw was born Kathleen Sue Nail in Fort Worth, Texas, to Beverley Sue (Simon), a beautician and travel agent, and Edwin Leon Nail, an airline employee. Capshaw worked as a teacher with an MA in Learning Disabilities. Her desire to be an actress led her to New York where she landed a role on the soap The Edge of Night (1956). She met her future husband, Steven Spielberg while beating out 120 actresses for the female lead in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).- Actress
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Amy Smart was born in Topanga Canyon, California to Judy, who worked at a museum, and John Boden Smart, a salesman. She has German, English, and Irish ancestry.
Smart was a relatively new arrival when she first gained notice for her supporting roles in the 1999 hit teen films Varsity Blues (1999) and Outside Providence (1999). The Los Angeles native got her start in TV-movies and made her feature debut in Stephen Kay's The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997), which was screened at 1997's Sundance Film Festival alongside Keanu Reeves. She was briefly seen in Paul Verhoeven's big-budget sci-fi actioner Starship Troopers (1997) with actor Casper Van Dien and had an impressive turn in the vastly different, quirkily independent How to Make the Cruelest Month (1998), in which she played Dot, the graceful golden girl who seduces the one-time boyfriend of her sister, troubled protagonist Bell (Clea DuVall). The by-the-numbers horror film Campfire Tales (1997) followed in 1997, along with the topically chilling but clumsily executed Internet stalker thriller Dee Snider's Strangeland (1998), written and produced by and starring the titular Twisted Sister frontman as a deranged torturer who meets his victims in web chatrooms. Amy reached her widest audience with a co-starring role opposite James Van Der Beek in Brian Robbins' surprise box office hit "Varsity Blues (1999)". She played Jules Harbor, a girl who longs for life beyond her small town's high-school-football-obsessed culture but is tied to it as sister of the injured star quarterback (Paul Walker) and girlfriend of his idealistic replacement (Van Der Beek). Her next role was that of Shawn Hatosy's upper-class love interest in Michael Corrente's poignant 1970s-era comedy "Outside Providence (1999)". Based on Peter Farrelly's novel, the film followed a working-class teen (Hatosy) sent by his abrasive but loving father (Alec Baldwin) to a tony prep school after running into trouble at home.- Actor
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The television heartthrob from the 1960s and 1970s was the proverbial tall, dark and classically handsome actor. Completing the solid package was a great, muscular build, smooth charm, and an almost perfect set of teeth. Born in 1935 in Kansas City, Kansas, and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, he certainly paid his dues before landing his breakthrough as the suave announcer on The Carol Burnett Show (1967) in the late 1960s. The one-time door-to-door encyclopedia peddler, prior to his prime TV job, appeared in poorly-made sci-fi and beach party flicks with such dubious titles as Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966), Swamp Country (1966), Journey to the Center of Time (1967) and Catalina Caper (1967). In time, he was more than just a gorgeous hunk with a resonant voice, and they began to incorporate Waggoner into the show as a comedy sketch partner along with Vicki Lawrence and Harvey Korman. His better scenes typically had him essaying the superficial cad or gleamy-toothed, self-important star. After seven seasons on the knockabout variety show, however, Waggoner felt like a "third banana" and yearned to take a chance on solo stardom. During his off-times, he had prepared himself by appearing in summer stock and/or dinner theater in such breezy assignments as "Boeing, Boeing", "Send Me No Flowers", and "Once More, with Feeling". He also hosted the syndicated quiz show It's Your Bet (1969), and earned added "exposure" as Playgirl Magazine's first semi-nude centerfold in 1973.
Not long after his departure from the Burnett show, he landed the role of Major Steve Trevor on the popular comic strip-based series Wonder Woman (1975), playing the dashing, no-nonsense boss to Diana Prince. Again, the challenge was not there and he remained on the periphery for three seasons. In later years, Waggoner became more personality than performer and only sporadically appeared in glossy mini-movies and TV episodes, occasionally as himself. He appeared in a few feature films (including Love Me Deadly (1972), Surf II (1983) and Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991)). Perhaps surmising he was undone by being too perfect a specimen, he wisely looked into business ventures. In 1979, he successfully started up "Star Waggons", which served film/TV companies with rental trailers. His charming, vainglorious romancer act was for the cameras only. He married only once, to Sharon Kennedy, an actress, financial consultant and realtor. They were married for 59 years and had two sons.- Actress
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Peg Sheldrick was born on 24 September 1956 in Warrensburg, Missouri, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Almost Normal (2005), Amerika (1987) and Unsolved Mysteries (1987).- Music Department
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David Sanborn is an American alto saxophonist.
Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album Taking Off in 1975, but has been playing the saxophone since before he was in high school.
One of the most commercially successful American saxophonists to earn prominence since the 1980s, Sanborn is described as "the most influential saxophonist on pop, R&B, and crossover players of the past 20 years." He is often identified with radio-friendly smooth jazz, but he has expressed a disinclination for the genre and his association with it.- Music Department
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T Bone Burnett was born on 14 January 1948 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He is a composer and producer, known for The Hunger Games (2012), Crazy Heart (2009) and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). He has been married to Callie Khouri since 2006. He was previously married to Sam Phillips.- Producer
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Davis Guggenheim was born on 3 November 1963 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Training Day (2001), Waiting for Superman (2010) and An Inconvenient Truth (2006). He has been married to Elisabeth Shue since August 1994. They have three children.- Actress
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Jenifer Lewis is one of Hollywood's most familiar faces, with more than 300 appearances in film and television. Dubbed a "national treasure" by TV Guide.com, Jenifer stars on the hit show Black-ish (ABC), where her hilarious portrayal of "Ruby Johnson" earned her a nomination for the 2016 Critics Choice Award.
Jenifer's most recent movies include The Wedding Ringer, Think Like A Man, Think Like A Man Too and Baggage Claim. She delivered legendary performances as Tina Turner's mother in What's Love Got to Do With It and in The Preacher's Wife as the mother of Whitney Houston's character. Jenifer starred opposite Matt Damon in Clint Eastwood's Hereafter and for director Tyler Perry, Jenifer created unforgettable characters in Madea's Family Reunion and Meet the Browns. In the movie Castaway, Jenifer portrayed Tom Hanks' boss. In animated films, Jenifer's uniquely recognizable voice is adored by Disney fans worldwide in roles such as "Flo" in Cars and Cars 2 and as "Mama Odie" in The Princess and the Frog.
Jenifer's TV roles have ranged from regular appearances as "Aunt Helen" on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to guest star roles on Friends, Boston Legal and Girlfriends. For six seasons, Jenifer portrayed "Lana Hawkins" on Lifetime's hit series Strong Medicine.
Although best known for her Hollywood success, Jenifer has enjoyed a wide-ranging and varied career in music and theater. Jenifer has performed in four Broadway shows, including Hairspray in the role of "Motormouth Mable." In 2014, she received an electrifying standing ovation at Carnegie Hall when she sang with the New York Pops orchestra. All told, Jenifer has presented more than 200 concerts, performing in 49 states and on four continents.
Jenifer was born and raised in Kinloch, Missouri. Her accomplishments as an entertainer and community activist have been recognized with an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Webster University in St. Louis and by the American Black Film Festival's Career Achievement Award.- Producer
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Ryan James DeLaney is an Award Winning Film Producer based in Los Angeles, California. His most recent films include CORSICANA, directed by Isaiah Washington, and NIGHT NIGHT, directed by Niki Koss, new to his slate is a heart felt documentary "LOUIS CHAIX A JOURNEY WITH PURPOSE.
Ryan was born and raised in St.Louis Missouri. He is the oldest of two sisters and one brother.
Ryan grew up training quarter horses and became 2008 National Barrel Horse Association State Champion.
Ryan enjoys traveling, adventures and he believes in working hard, and we are who we are.
in 2010 Ryan moved to Miami Florida. He spent 6 years in the sunny state building his modeling and acting career, attending acting classes and various workshops at the University of Performing Arts of Miami.
He also developed an interest in real estate and renting out properties. Ryan resides in Los Angeles California pursuing his passion of related work in the entertainment business.
Ryan has hosted over 30 successful live episodes on "Real Talk with Ryan DeLaney" and was awarded 2018 male International Supermodel.
Family and Friends would describe Ryan as fresh, reliable and outgoing.- Andy Cohen was born on 2 June 1968 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (2005), Top Chef (2006) and Queer Eye (2003).
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Actress Sarah Clarke was born and raised in Missouri, the middle child of Carolyn and Ernest Clarke, an engineer. She has an older and younger brother. She was educated at John Burroughs School in St. Louis, Missouri, and went on to Indiana University to study Fine Arts and Italian. During Clarke's senior year at university she studied in Bologna, Italy, and it was here she began an interest in acting. When she came back to the USA, Clarke found work as an architectural photographer. The story goes that she got free acting lessons at an arts center, in exchange for taking photos for them. Clarke moved to New York and continued studying acting with various companies, including Circle in the Square Theatre School.
Clarke's screen debut came in a Volkswagen television commercial called "Synchronicity", which went on to win awards. She worked steadily in TV and film before earning her big break when she was cast as Nina Myers in the smash hit 24 (2001). It was while working on this that Clarke met her future husband, Xander Berkeley. Various roles have followed, notably as Renée, Bella Swan's mother in the hugely successful Twilight (2008) and its sequels.- Writer
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Kelly Monteith was born on 17 October 1942 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Too Hip for the Room (2015), A Lousy 10 Grand (2004) and Kelly Monteith (1979). He was married to Caroline Alexander. He died on 1 January 2023 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Cedric the Entertainer is an African-American comedian and actor known for being one of the Original Kings of Comedy. He is also known for his roles in the Barbershop trilogy, the Madagascar trilogy, The Steve Harvey Show, Ice Age, Planes, The Soul Man and The Neighborhood. He has had three children with Lorna Wells.- Moses Gunn was born on 2 October 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for Shaft (1971), Rollerball (1975) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986). He was married to Gwendolyn Mumma Landes. He died on 16 December 1993 in Guilford, Connecticut, USA.
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Taylor Michel Momsen is an American actress, singer and director from St. Louis, Missouri. She is known for playing Cindy Lou Who from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Alexandra Anami in Spy Kids 2 and Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl. She is the leader of a punk rock band called The Pretty Reckless. Her band released four albums.- Actress
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Kasi Lemmons was born on 24 February 1961 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She is an actress and director, known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Harriet (2019) and Candyman (1992). She has been married to Vondie Curtis-Hall since 19 August 1995. They have two children.- This talented actress was born Anne Marie Wersching and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. She opted early on for a life in the entertainment industry, performing in community theatre and later as a dancer for some fourteen years with a troupe called the St. Louis Celtic Stepdancers. After moving to Chicago, she acted in several touring plays and at the Utah Shakespearean Festival. In 1999, Wersching graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theatre from the Millikin University School of Theater and Dance in Decatur, Illinois. Moving to Los Angeles, two years later, she appeared in a revival of the Stephen Sondheim-Richard Rodgers-Arthur Laurents musical "Do I Hear a Waltz?" at the Pasadena Playhouse, as well as making her screen debut in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001).
Testament to her acting skill have been lengthy stints on popular prime time series like 24 (2001) (as the valiant but ill-fated FBI Special Agent Renee Walker), The Vampire Diaries (2009) (Lily Salvatore), Timeless (2016) (as time traveler Emma Whitmore) and Marvel's Runaways (2017) (as charismatic villain turned ally Leslie Dean). She also gave a thoroughly convincing performance as extrovert rookie police officer Julia Brasher, involved with (Harry) Bosch (2014) at LAPD's Hollywood Division on both a professional and a personal level. Their relationship eventually soured in season two, although Brasher returned briefly for two episodes in season 7. Wersching became the third actress to play the dreaded Borg Queen (following in the footsteps of Alice Krige and Susanna Thompson) and did so to chilling effect in season two of Star Trek: Picard (2020). Her steady volume of television work has included guest appearances on Charmed (1998), Supernatural (2005), NCIS (2003), Hawaii Five-0 (2010) and Castle (2009).
Very much at the peak of her career, Annie Wersching was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2020, but kept her illness private and continued to work afterwards. She passed away at her home in Los Angeles, California on January 29, 2023, at age 45. - Actress
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Grace Bumbry was born on 4 January 1937 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Carmen (1968) and Aïda (1977). She was married to Erwin Jaeckel. She died on 7 May 2023 in Vienna, Austria.- Actor
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TV sportscaster Bob Costas is known as a smart interviewer with encyclopedic knowledge and a devilish sense of humor.
He was born in the borough of Queens, New York. He is the son of Jayne (Quinlan) and John George Costas, an electrical engineer. His father's roots are Greek, from the island of Kalymnos in the Aegean Sea, and his mother is of Irish and German descent. He grew up primarily in Commack, New York, graduating from Commack High School South. Following high school, Costas majored in communications at Syracuse University. He left school prior to graduating to accept a job at radio giant KMOX in St. Louis. Later he received an honorary degree from Syracuse's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.- Robert La Tourneaux was born on 22 November 1941 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for The Boys in the Band (1970), Von Richthofen and Brown (1971) and The Doctors (1963). He died on 3 June 1986 in New York City, New York, USA.
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British actress Emilia Clarke was born in London and grew up in Oxfordshire, England. Her father was a theatre sound engineer and her mother is a businesswoman. Her father was working on a theatre production of "Show Boat" and her mother took her along to the performance. This is when, at the age of 3, her passion for acting began. From 2000 to 2005, she attended St. Edward's School of Oxford, where she appeared in two school plays. She went on to study acting at the prestigious Drama Centre London, where she took part in 10 plays. During this time, Emilia first appeared on television with a guest role in the BBC soap opera Doctors (2000).
In 2010, after graduating from the Drama Centre London, Emilia got her first film role in the television movie Triassic Attack (2010). In 2011, her breakthrough role came in when she replaced fellow newcomer Tamzin Merchant on Game of Thrones (2011) after the filming of the original pilot episode. From March to April 2013, she played Holly Golightly in a Broadway production of "Breakfast at Tiffany's". She played Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys (2015), opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jai Courtney and Jason Clarke. She played the lead role of Louisa Clark in the romantic comedy blockbuster Me Before You (2016) and went on to star in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) as Qi'ra.
Since her rise to prominence, Emilia has contributed to various charitable organisations. In 2018, she was named as the ambassador to the Royal College of Nursing because of her efforts in raising awareness about the working condition of the nurses in the UK. In 2019, she was named as the first ambassador for the global Nursing Now campaign. In 2019, in a personal essay published in The New Yorker, Emilia revealed that she had suffered from two life threatening brain aneurysms in 2011 and 2013. She launched her own charity SameYou in 2019, which aims to broaden neurorehabilitation access for young people after a brain injury or stroke.- Writer
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Jim Kirchherr is known for Gentlemen of Vision (2016), The World's Greatest Fair (2004) and Nine PBS Specials (2015).- Editor
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Lou Lombardo was born on 15 February 1932 in Missouri, USA. He was an editor and producer, known for The Wild Bunch (1969), Moonstruck (1987) and The Long Goodbye (1973). He died on 8 May 2002 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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American character actor who specialized in average-guy parts and who could be equally effective in sympathetic or unlikeable roles. His parents, the vaudeville team of Ruf and Cusik, took him onstage with them when he was a baby, and Faylen grew up in the theatre. He attended St. Joseph's Preparatory College in Kirkwood, Missouri, but returned to vaudeville as a comic pantomimist. He toured the country throughout the late Twenties and early Thirties as a clown and later as song-and-dance man with acrobatic agility. During a tour stop in Los Angeles, he was screen tested and began a thirty-year career as one of Hollywood's most familiar character players. His most famous film roles were as the vicious male nurse Bim in The Lost Weekend (1945) and as the cabdriver Ernie in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). But his greatest fame came in television, particularly as Dobie's dad Herbert T. Gillis in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959). Faylen was married to actress Carol Hughes, with whom he had two daughters. He retired after Funny Girl (1968), and died in 1985.- Actress
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About as reliable as one could ever find, character actress Mary Treen was a familiar face to most and could always be counted on to bring a bit of levity to any film scene. A minor actress for much of her career, she managed to secure a plain, unassuming niche for herself in 40s, 1950s/60s Hollywood.
She was born Mary Louise Summers in St. Louis, Missouri in 1907, her father dying while she was still an infant. Raised in Southern California by her mother, who once performed under the stage name Helene Sullivan, and her stepfather, a physician, she attended Westlake School for Girls as well as a convent where she tried out successfully in school plays.
Treen began dancing in vaudeville shows and revues before seeking her fame in the movies. Tall (5'9") and stringy-framed, she formed a musical comedy duo with Marjorie Barnett, who was 5'3", billing themselves as "Treen and Barnett: Two Unsophisticated Vassar Co-eds". Much of the comedy was centered around their difference in height. Not a beauty by Hollywood standards, she relied on humor to get attention. In 1934, Warner Brothers signed her up after seeing her in a local play.
After three years, she freelanced. Her scores of pudgy-cheeked nurses, waitresses, career girls, wallflowers and confidantes enhanced many a comedy or, at the very least, offered a brief respite in a heavier drama. A few of her highlights would include such films as Kentucky Moonshine (1938), I Love a Soldier (1944) (the role was written especially for her), Don Juan Quilligan (1945), and the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946) (as James Stewart's cousin Tilly). In later years both Jerry Lewis and Elvis Presley utilized her talents in their movie vehicles.
She was given a bit more to do on television and actually stole some scenes as maid/baby nurse Hilda Hinkelmeyer on The Joey Bishop Show (1961) for three seasons. She typically guested on lightweight sitcoms such as "The Andy Griffith Show", "Green Acres", "Here's Lucy", "Happy Days", and "The Dukes of Hazzard".
Perhaps because she could play old maid types so easily in later years, she was often thought to have never married. She actually did marry in 1944 to Herbert C. Pearson, a wholesale liquor dealer. They had no children. He died in 1965. She later moved in with her ex-vaudeville partner, Marjorie Barnett-Klein, also widowed. In later years the two performed their old routines to the delight of other senior citizens. Treen was living in Balboa Beach, California when she died of cancer in 1989, aged 82.- Actress
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From the grand old school of wisecracking, loud and lanky Mary Wickes had few peers while forging a career as a salty scene-stealer. Her abrupt, tell-it-like-it-is demeanor made her a consistent audience favorite on every medium for over six decades. She was particularly adroit in film parts that chided the super rich or exceptionally pious, and was a major chastiser in generation-gap comedies. TV holds a vault full of not-to-be-missed vignettes where she served as a brusque foil to many a top TV comic star. Case in point: who could possibly forget her merciless ballet taskmaster, Madame Lamond, putting Lucille Ball through her rigorous paces at the ballet bar in a classic I Love Lucy (1951) episode?
Unlike the working-class characters she embraced, this veteran character comedienne was actually born Mary Isabelle Wickenhauser on June 13, 1910, in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a well-to-do banker. Of Irish and German heritage, she grew into a society débutante following high school and graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in political science. She forsook a law career, however, after being encouraged by a college professor to try theater, and she made her debut doing summer stock in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The rest, as they say, is history.
Prodded on by the encouragement of stage legend Ina Claire whom she met doing summer theater, she transported herself to New York where she quickly earned a walk-on part in the Broadway play "The Farmer Takes a Wife" starring Henry Fonda in 1934. In the show she also understudied The Wizard of Oz (1939)'s "Wicked Witch" Margaret Hamilton, and earned excellent reviews when she went on in the part. Plain and hawkish in looks while noticeably tall and gawky in build, Wickes was certainly smart enough to see that comedy would become her career path and she enjoyed showing off in roles playing much older than she was. New York stage work continued to pour in, and she garnered roles in "Spring Dance" (1936), "Stage Door" (1936), "Hitch Your Wagon" (1937), "Father Malachy's Miracle (1937) and, in an unusual bit of casting, Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre production of "Danton's Death". All the while she kept fine-tuning her acting craft in summer stock.
A series of critically panned plays followed until a huge door opened for her in the form of Miss Preen, the beleaguered nurse to an acid-tongued, wheelchair-bound radio star (played by the hilarious Monty Woolley) in the George S. Kaufman/Moss Hart comedy "The Man Who Came to Dinner"; for once, it was Wickes doing the cowering. The play was the toast of Broadway for two wacky years and she went on tour with it as well. She also become a Kaufman favorite.
Hollywood took notice as well, and when Warner Bros. decided to film the play, it allowed both Wickes and Woolley to recreate their classic roles. The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941), which co-starred Bette Davis and Ann Sheridan, was a grand film hit and Wickes was now officially on board in Hollywood, given plenty of chances to freelance. At Warners she lightened up the proceedings a bit in the Bette Davis tearjerker Now, Voyager (1942) as the nurse to Gladys Cooper. Elsewhere, she traded quips with Lou Costello as a murder suspect in the amusing whodunit Who Done It? (1942); played a WAC in Private Buckaroo (1942) with The Andrews Sisters; and dished out her patented smart-alecky services in both Happy Land (1943) and My Kingdom for a Cook (1943).
Wickes returned to Broadway for a few seasons, often for Kaufman, and did some radio work as well, but returned to Hollywood and played yet another nurse in The Decision of Christopher Blake (1948), a part written especially for her. She appeared with Bette Davis for a third time in June Bride (1948), finding some fine moments playing a magazine editor. Wickes went on to perform yeoman work in On Moonlight Bay (1951) and its sequel, By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953); I'll See You in My Dreams (1951); White Christmas (1954) and The Music Man (1962), the last as one of the "Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little" gossiping housewives of River City.
Television roles also began filtering in for Wickes she continued to put her cryptic comedy spin on her harried housekeepers, teachers, servants and other working commoner types. She played second banana to a queue of comedy's best known legends in the 1950s and 1960s, notably Lucille Ball (who was a long-time neighbor and pal off-screen), Danny Thomas, Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Peter Lind Hayes and Gertrude Berg. Her stellar work with Berg on The Gertrude Berg Show (1961) garnered Wickes an Emmy nomination. Among the Baby Boom generation, she may be best remembered as Miss Cathcart in Dennis the Menace (1959).
In later years her gangly figure filled out a bit as she continued to appear here and there on the small screen in both guest star and series' regular parts. Later in life she enjoyed a bit of a resurgence. Recalled earlier for her Sister Clarissa in the madcap comedy films The Trouble with Angels (1966) and its sequel, Where Angels Go Trouble Follows! (1968), both with Rosalind Russell, She donned the habit again decades later as crabby musical director Sister Mary Lazarus in the box-office smash Sister Act (1992) and its sequel, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993). She appeared in Postcards from the Edge (1990) as Meryl Streep's grandmother, and in Little Women (1994) as the matriarchal Aunt March. True to form, the last role in which she appeared was voicing the gargoyle "Laverne" in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), which was released after her death.
The never-married Wickes died in 1995 after entering the hospital with respiratory problems. She suffered a broken hip from an accidental fall and complications quickly set in following surgery. She was 85 years young.- Actress
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Bright, vivacious Marjorie Reynolds (née Goodspeed) was born in Idaho on August 12, 1917 to a homemaker and a doctor and raised in Los Angeles. She made her film debut at age 6, then "retired" after only a few years to pursue a regular education.
She returned in the mid-1930s as a teenager and began the typical assembly-line route of extra and bit roles for various mega-studios, billed this time as Marjorie Moore. Her first speaking role was in Columbia Studio's Murder in Greenwich Village (1937), this time billed as Marjorie Reynolds; her first husband's last name, this was the moniker she maintained for the duration of her career.
The blonde (originally brunette) actress then went through a rather non-challenging prairie-flower phase opposite Hollywood's top western stars such as Tex Ritter, Buck Jones, Roy Rogers, and Tim Holt. It all paid off, however, when she won the top female role opposite Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire in the seasonal film classic Holiday Inn (1942), a role originally designed for Mary Martin. It remains Marjorie's most popular and cherished role on film, but it did not help her make a permanent transition into 'A' quality fare.
Marjorie continued as a dependable "B" co-lead in such films as Up in Mabel's Room (1944), Meet Me on Broadway (1946), and Heaven Only Knows (1947), with an exciting movie offer such as Fritz Lang's Ministry of Fear (1944) coming her way on a rare occasion.
Along with maturity and a new entertainment medium (television) in the 1950s came a return to her natural hair color. As William Bendix's patient, resourceful brunette wife on the comedy TV series The Life of Riley (1953), Marjorie became a semi-household name. Her career took a steep decline following its demise five years later and she was only sporadically seen in films, commercials, and TV guest spots after that.
She was married twice. Her first husband was Jack Reynolds, an Assistant Casting Director for Samuel Goldwyn. They had one daughter, Linda, before divorcing in 1952 after 16 years. Her second husband, film editor John Whitney, worked for a time in the 1940s as an actor. They were married for 32 years until his death in 1985.
Long retired, Marjorie died in 1997 of congestive heart failure after collapsing while walking her dog. Though she didn't fully live up to her potential as a serious, formidable actress, her gentle charm and obvious beauty certainly spruced up the 60+ films in which she appeared.