Most Attractive People (Female)
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Brigitte Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 in Paris, France. Her father had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance, and she proved to be very adept at it. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying a modeling career, and found herself in the French magazine "Elle". Her incredible beauty readily apparent, Brigitte next tried films. In 1952, she appeared on screen for the first time as Javotte Lemoine in Crazy for Love (1952). Two more films followed and it was also the same year she married Roger Vadim (the union lasted 3½ years). Capitalizing on her success in French films, Brigitte made her first American production in Act of Love (1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France. Brigitte's explosive sexuality took the United States by storm, and the effect she had on millions of American men who had not seen a woman like her in a long, long time--if ever--was electric. Rise to the phrase "sex kitten" and fascination of her in the United States consisted of magazines photographs and dubbed over French films--good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences--mainly men--into theaters like lemmings. In 1965, she appeared as herself in the American-made Dear Brigitte (1965) with James Stewart (she only appeared in one scene). Just before she turned 40, Brigitte retired from movies after filming The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot (1973). She prefers life outside of stardom. While it enabled her to become internationally famous, it also carried with it annoyances. It was not anything for her to have "fans" enter her house or wander around the grounds of her home in the hopes of getting a glimpse of her or to take something that belonged to her. Paparazzi constantly hounded her with their cameras. She has been so soft-hearted that some people even have taken advantage of her generosity. After her life in the spotlight, Brigitte went on to become a leading spokesperson for animal rights and started the "Foundation Brigitte Bardot" dedicated solely to that cause. Her work in that realm is, perhaps, far greater than any film she could have made. Brigitte has been married to Bernard d'Ormale since 1992 and they reside in St. Tropez with their nearly 50 pets.- Actress
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Monica Vitti was born on 3 November 1931 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for L'Avventura (1960), Red Desert (1964) and L'Eclisse (1962). She was married to Roberto Russo. She died on 2 February 2022 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
The French actress Ludivine Sagnier was born on July 3, 1979 in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, in France's Yvelines department. Ludivine studied acting as a young girl and had made her movie debut at the age 10 in Les maris, les femmes, les amants (1989). She has established her reputation as one of the brightest young stars in French and international cinema in her collaborations with French filmmaker François Ozon, starting with Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000) (based on a screenplay by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 8 Women (2002) and in Swimming Pool (2003). For her performance in 8 Women (2002), she won a Cesar Award nomination (the French equivalent of the Oscar) and the Romy Schneider Award that is given each year to a promising young French actress. In that film, Sagnier proved her acting prowess by distinguishing herself in a stellar cast that included the legendary actresses Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve and Isabelle Huppert as well as Emmanuelle Béart and Fanny Ardant. Along with these grand ladies of the French cinema, Sagnier won the Best Actress Award from the European Film Academy Award and the Silver Bear Award at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival.
Swimming Pool (2003) represented her crossover into English-language cinema. (Sagnier played her first English language role in Toothache (2006).) Marketed in the U.S. with a comely shot of Sagnier sunbathing alongside a pool, Ozon's film became one of the biggest-grossing foreign movies in the U.S. during 2003. So far, she has turned down large monetary offers to appear in American films as the foreign girlfriend of young American superstars, as she remains committed to French cinema.
Sagnier became a mother on March 25, 2005, when she gave birth to a daughter named Bonnie by her boyfriend, French actor Nicolas Duvauchelle.- Actress
- Music Department
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Natalie Wood was an American actress of Russian and Ukrainian descent. She started her career as a child actress and eventually transitioned into teenage roles, young adult roles, and middle-aged roles. She drowned off Catalina Island on November 29, 1981 at age 43.
Wood was born July 20, 1938 in San Francisco to Russian immigrant parents: housewife Maria Gurdin (née Zoodiloff), known by multiple aliases including Mary, Marie and Musia, and second husband Nick Gurdin (née Zacharenko), a janitor and prop builder. Nicholas was born in Primorsky Krai, son of a chocolate-factory worker. Maria was born in Barnaul, southern Siberia to a wealthy industrialist. Natalie's maternal grandfather owned soap and candle factories.
Wood's parents had to migrate due to the Russian Civil War. Her paternal grandfather joined the anti-Bolshevik civilian forces early in the war and was killed in a street fight between Red and White Russian soldiers. This convinced the Zacharenkos to migrate to Shanghai, China, where they had relatives. Wood's paternal grandmother remarried in 1927 and moved the family to Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1933 they resettled along the U.S. West Coast. Nicholas met Wood's mother, four years his senior, while she was still married to Alexander Tatuloff, an Armenian mechanic she divorced in 1936.
Mary Tatuloff, Wood's mother, had unfulfilled ambitions of becoming a ballet dancer. She grew up in the Chinese city of Harbin and had married Alexander there in 1925. The Tatuloffs had one daughter, Ovsanna, before coming to America in 1930. After marrying Nicholas Zacharenko in 1938, five months before Wood's birth, Mary (now calling herself Marie) transferred her dream of stardom onto her second child. Marie frequently took a young Wood with her to the cinema, where she could study the films of Hollywood child stars.
Wood's parents changed the family name to Gurdin upon obtaining U.S. citizenship, and her pseudonymous mother finally settled on a permanent first name: Maria. In 1942 they bought a house in Santa Rosa, where young Natalie was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot. She got to audition for roles as an actress, and the family moved to Los Angeles to help seek out roles for her. RKO Radio Pictures' executives William Goetz and David Lewis chose the stage name Wood for her, in reference to director Sam Wood. Natalie's younger sister Svetlana Gurdin would eventually follow an acting career as well, under the stage name Lana Wood.
Wood made her film debut in Happy Land (1943). She was only five years old, and her scene as the "Little Girl Who Drops Ice Cream Cone" lasted 15 seconds. Wood somehow attracted the interest of film director Irving Pichel who remained in contact with her family. She had few job offers over the following two years, but Pichel helped her get a screen test for a more substantial role in the romance film Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). Wood passed through an audition and won the role of Margaret Ludwig, a post-World War II German orphan. At the time, Wood was unable to "cry on cue" for a key scene, so her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, giving her a reason to cry for the scene.
Wood started appearing regularly in films following this role and soon received a contract with 20th Century Fox. Her first major role was that of Susan Walker in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which was a commercial and critical hit. Wood got her first taste of fame, and afterwards Macy's invited her to appear in the store's annual Thanksgiving Day parade. Following her early success, Wood receive many more film offers. She typically appeared in family films, cast as the daughter of such stars as Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullivan, James Stewart, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis. Wood found herself in high demand and appeared in over twenty films as a child actress.
The California laws of the era required that until reaching adulthood, child actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom. Wood received her primary education on the studio lots, receiving three hours of school lessons whenever she was working on a film. She was reportedly a "straight A student." Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was quite impressed by Wood's intellect. After school hours ended, Wood would hurry to the set to film her scenes.
While Wood acquired the services of agents, her early career was micromanaged by her mother. An older Wood gained her first major television role in the short-lived sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953). At the age of 16, she found more success with the role of Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). She played the role of a teenage girl who wears makeup and dresses up in racy clothes to attract the attention of a father who typically ignores her. The film's success helped Wood make the transition from child actress to an ingenue. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Her next significant film was The Searchers (1956), a western in which she played the role of abduction victim Debbie Edwards, niece of John Wayne's character. The film was a commercial and critical hit, and has since become regarded as a masterpiece. Also in 1956, Wood graduated from Van Nuys High School. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers, where she was kept busy with several new films. To her disappointment, she was typically cast as the girlfriend of the protagonist and received roles of little depth. For a while, WB had her paired with teen heartthrob Tab Hunter. The studio was hoping that the pairing would serve as a box-office draw, but this did not work out. One of Wood's only serious roles from this period was the title character in Marjorie Morningstar (1958), as a young Jewish girl whose efforts to create her own identity and career path clash with the expectations of her family. The film was a critical success, and fit well with other films exploring the restlessness of youth in the '50s.
Wood's first major box office flop was the biographical film All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960), examining the rags to riches story of jazz musician Chet Baker without actually using his name. The film's box office earnings barely covered the production costs, and MGM recorded a loss of $1,108,000. For the first time. Wood's appeal to the audience was in doubt. With her career in decline following this failure, Wood was seen as "washed up" by many in the film community. But director Elia Kazan gave her the chance to audition for the role of the sexually-repressed Wilma Dean Loomis in his upcoming film Splendor in the Grass (1961). Kazan cast Wood as the female lead, because he found in her (in his words): a "true-blue quality with a wanton side that is held down by social pressure." Kazan is credited for producing Wood's most powerful moment as an actress. The film was a critical success, with Wood nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Wood's next important film was West Side Story (1961), where she played Maria, a restless Puerto Rican girl. Wood was once again called to represent the restlessness of youth, this time in a story involving youth gangs and juvenile delinquents. The film was a great commercial success with about $44 million gross, the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was also critically acclaimed, and is still regarded as one of the best films of Wood's career. Her next film was Gypsy (1962), playing the role of burlesque entertainer and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Film historians credit the film as an even better role for Wood than that of Maria, with witty dialogue, a greater emotional range, and complex characterization. The film was the eighth highest-grossing release of 1962, and was well-received critically.
Wood's next significant role was that of Macy's salesclerk Angie Rossini in Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). In the film, Angie has a one-night-stand with musician Rocky Papasano, played by Steve McQueen, finds herself pregnant and desperately seeks an abortion. The film under-performed at the box office but was critically well-received. Wood received her third (and last) nomination for an Academy Award. At age 25, Wood was tied with Teresa Wright as the youngest person to score three Oscar nominations. Wood held that designation until 2013, when Jennifer Lawrence achieved her third nomination at age 23.
Wood continued her successful film career until 1966, but her health status was not as successful. She was suffering emotionally and had sought professional therapy. She paid Warner Bros. $175,000 to cancel her contract and was able to retire for a while. She also fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. She took a three-year hiatus from acting.
Wood made her comeback in the comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) with the themes of sexual liberation and wife swapping. It was a box office hit. Wood decided to gamble her $750,000 fee on a percentage of the gross, earning a million dollars in profits. She chose not to capitalize on the film's success, however, and did not take another acting job for five years.
In 1970, Wood was married to the screenwriter Richard Gregson and was expecting her first child, Natasha Gregson Wagner. She went into semi-retirement to be a stay-at-home mom, appearing in only four more theatrical films before her death. These films were the mystery comedy Peeper (1975), the science fiction film Meteor (1979), the comedy The Last Married Couple in America (1980), and the posthumously-released science fiction film Brainstorm (1983).
In the late '70s, Wood found success in television roles, appearing in several made-for-TV movies and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (1979). Her project received high ratings, and she had plans to make her theatrical debut in a 1982 production of Anastasia.
On November 28, 1981, Wood joined her last husband Robert Wagner, their married friend Christopher Walken, and captain Dennis Davern on a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. Conspicuously absent from the group was Christopher's wife, casting director Georgianne Walken. The four of them were on board the Wagners' yacht "Splendour." Earwitness Marilyn Wayne heard cries for help around 11:05 P.M. and a "man's voice slurred, and in aggravated tone, say something to the effect of, 'Oh, hold on, we're coming to get you,' and not long after, the cries for help subsided." On the morning of November 29, Wood's corpse was recovered 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the boat, near small Valiant-brand inflatable dinghy beached nearby. The toxicology report revealed her blood alcohol level was at .14, over the legal limit of .10. Wood was buried on December 2 at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Nine days later, the LACSD officially closed the case.- Actress
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- Additional Crew
Isabelle Yasmine Adjani was born in Gennevilliers, Hauts-de-Seine, a suburb of Paris, to Emma Augusta "Gusti" (Schweinberger) and Mohammed Adjani. Her father was a Kabyle Algerian, from Iferhounène, and her mother was a Bavarian German. She grew up speaking German fluently. After winning a school recitation contest, she began acting in amateur theater by the age of twelve. At the age of 14, she starred in her first motion picture, Le Petit Bougnat (1970). Adjani has appeared in 30 films since 1970. She holds the record for most César Award for Best Actress (5), which she won for Possession (1981), One Deadly Summer (1983) (aka "One Deadly Summer"), Camille Claudel (1988), Queen Margot (1994) (aka "Queen Margot") and Skirt Day (2008) (aka "Skirt Day"). She was also given a double Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award in 1981. She also received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She performs in French, English, Italian and German. Adjani was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2010.- Actress
- Producer
- Talent Agent
Catherine Fabienne Deneuve was born October 22, 1943 in Paris, France, to actor parents Renée Simonot and Maurice Dorléac. She made her movie debut in 1957, when she was barely a teenager and continued with small parts in minor films, until Roger Vadim gave her a meatier role in Vice and Virtue (1963). Her breakthrough came with the excellent musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), in which she gave an unforgettable performance as a romantic middle-class girl who falls in love with a young soldier but gets imprisoned in a loveless marriage with another man; the director was the gifted Jacques Demy, who also cast Deneuve in the less successful The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967). She then played a schizophrenic killer in Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965) and a married woman who works as a part-time prostitute every afternoon in Luis Buñuel's masterpiece Belle de Jour (1967). She also worked with Buñuel in Tristana (1970) and gave a great performance for François Truffaut in Mississippi Mermaid (1969), a kind of apotheosis of her "frigid femme fatale" persona. In the seventies she didn't find parts of that caliber, but her magnificent work in Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980) as a stage actress in Nazi-occupied Paris revived her career. She was also very good in the epic drama Indochine (1992), for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination (Best Actress). Although the elegant and always radiant Deneuve has never appeared on stage, she is universally hailed as one of the "grandes dames" of French cinema, joining a list that includes such illustrious talents as Simone Signoret, Jeanne Moreau, Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani and the younger Juliette Binoche.- Actress
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Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer as was his father before him. He emigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's American mother, Volga Margaret (Hayworth), who was of mostly Irish descent, met Eduardo in 1916 and were married the following year. Rita, herself, studied as a dancer in order to follow in her family's footsteps. She joined her family on stage when she was eight years old when her family was filmed in a movie called La Fiesta (1926). It was her first film appearance, albeit an uncredited one. Sotted by Fox studio head Winfield R. Sheehan, she signed her first studio contract, and make her film debut at age sixteen, in Dante's Inferno (1935), followed by Cruz Diablo (1934). She continued to play small bit parts in several films under the name of "Rita Cansino". Fox dropped her after five small roles, but expert, exploitative promotion by her first husband Edward Judson soon brought Rita a new contract at Columbia Pictures, where studio head Harry Cohn changed her surname to Hayworth and approved raising her hairline by electrolysis. She played the second female lead, Judy McPherson, in Only Angels Have Wings (1939). After thirteen minor roles, Columbia lent her to Warner Bros. for her first big success, The Strawberry Blonde (1941); her splendid dancing with Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) made her a star. This was the film that exuded the warmth and seductive vitality that was to make her famous. Her natural, raw beauty was showcased later that year in Blood and Sand (1941), filmed in Technicolor.
Rita was probably the second most popular actress after Betty Grable. In You'll Never Get Rich (1941) with Fred Astaire, was probably the film that moviegoers felt close to Rita. Her dancing, for which she had studied all her life, was astounding. After the hit Gilda (1946) (her dancing had made the film and it had made her), her career was on the skids. Although she was still making movies, they never approached her earlier success. The drought began between The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Champagne Safari (1954). Then after Salome (1953), she was not seen again until Pal Joey (1957). Part of the reasons for the downward spiral was television, but also Rita had been replaced by a new star at Columbia, Kim Novak.
Rita, herself, said, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me". In person, Rita was shy, quiet and unassuming; only when the cameras rolled did she turn on the explosive sexual charisma that in Gilda (1946) made her a superstar. To Rita, though, domestic bliss was a more important, if elusive, goal, and in 1949 she interrupted her career for marriage - unfortunately an unhappy one almost from the start - to the playboy Prince Aly Khan. Her films after her divorce from Khan include perhaps her best straight acting performances, Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) and They Came to Cordura (1959).
After a few, rather forgettable films in the 1960s, her career was essentially over. Her final film was The Wrath of God (1972). Her career was really never the same after Gilda (1946). Perhaps Gene Ringgold said it best when he remarked, "Rita Hayworth is not an actress of great depth. She was a dancer, a glamorous personality, and a sex symbol. These qualities are such that they can carry her no further professionally." Perhaps he was right but Hayworth fans would vehemently disagree with him.
Beginning in 1960 (age 42), early onset of Alzheimer's disease (undiagnosed until 1980) limited Rita's ability. The last few roles in her 60-film career were increasingly small. With 20 years of symptoms, Rita was cared for by her daughter, Yasmin Khan, until Rita's death at age 68 on May 14, 1987, in New York City.- Actress
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Theresa Russell, named one of the "100 sexiest stars in film history" (Empire Magazine), was born in San Diego, California. She was discovered by a photographer at the age of 12, and made her film debut in Elia Kazan's The Last Tycoon (1976), opposite Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson and Robert Mitchum, at the age of 19. Her resume of nearly fifty films has centered on ground-breaking roles in acclaimed independent films, such as Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (1980), directed by Nicolas Roeg (whom she would later marry); Eureka (1983); Insignificance (1985); Aria (1987) and Ken Russell's Whore (1991). Her legendary star turn in the thriller, Black Widow (1987), co-starring Debra Winger, stands as one of the most iconic female crime dramas in cinema history. She has had roles in major film and television projects, including the feature films, Straight Time (1978), opposite Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates; The Razor's Edge (1984), opposite Bill Murray; Physical Evidence (1989) with Burt Reynolds; Kafka (1991), directed by Steven Soderbergh, playing opposite Jeremy Irons; Impulse (1990), directed by Sondra Locke; The Believer (2001), opposite Ryan Gosling; Luckytown (2000), with Kirsten Dunst and James Caan; Being Human (1994), opposite Robin Williams; Wild Things (1998), with Denise Richards, Matt Dillon and Kevin Bacon; Jolene (2008), opposite Jessica Chastain; the block-buster Spider-Man 3 (2007), and the mini-series Blind Ambition (1979), with Martin Sheen; Empire Falls (2005), with Ed Harris, Paul Newman and Helen Hunt; and Lifetime's Liz & Dick (2012), opposite Lindsay Lohan, portraying Elizabeth Taylor's mother.
Along with her then-partner, legendary jazz musician, Michael Melvoin, she has performed in jazz clubs throughout the United States. She is the mother of two sons (Statten Roeg and Maximillian Roeg).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Her mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was a Dutch noblewoman, while her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in Úzice, Bohemia, to English and Austrian parents.
After her parents' divorce, Audrey went to London with her mother where she went to a private girls school. Later, when her mother moved back to the Netherlands, she attended private schools as well. While she vacationed with her mother in Arnhem, Netherlands, Hitler's army took over the town. It was here that she fell on hard times during the Nazi occupation. Audrey suffered from depression and malnutrition.
After the liberation, she went to a ballet school in London on a scholarship and later began a modeling career. As a model, she was graceful and, it seemed, she had found her niche in life--until the film producers came calling. In 1948, after being spotted modeling by a producer, she was signed to a bit part in the European film Nederlands in zeven lessen (1948). Later, she had a speaking role in the 1951 film, Young Wives' Tale (1951) as Eve Lester. The part still wasn't much, so she headed to America to try her luck there. Audrey gained immediate prominence in the US with her role in Roman Holiday (1953). This film turned out to be a smashing success, and she won an Oscar as Best Actress.
On September 25, 1954, she married actor Mel Ferrer. She also starred in Sabrina (1954), for which she received another Academy Award nomination. She starred in the films Funny Face (1957) and Love in the Afternoon (1957). She received yet another Academy Award nomination for her role in The Nun's Story (1959). On July 17, 1960, she gave birth to her first son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer.
Audrey reached the pinnacle of her career when she played Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), for which she received another Oscar nomination. She scored commercial success again playing Regina Lampert in the espionage caper Charade (1963). One of Audrey's most radiant roles was in the fine production of My Fair Lady (1964). After a couple of other movies, most notably Two for the Road (1967), she hit pay dirt and another nomination in Wait Until Dark (1967).
In 1967, Audrey decided to retire from acting while she was on top. She divorced from Mel Ferrer in 1968. On January 19, 1969, she married Dr. Andrea Dotti. On February 8, 1970, she gave birth to her second son, Luca Dotti in Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland. From time to time, she would appear on the silver screen.
In 1988, she became a special ambassador to the United Nations UNICEF fund helping children in Latin America and Africa, a position she retained until 1993. She was named to People's magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. Her last film was Always (1989).
Audrey Hepburn died, aged 63, on January 20, 1993 in Tolochnaz, Vaud, Switzerland, from appendicular cancer. She had made a total of 31 high quality movies. Her elegance and style will always be remembered in film history as evidenced by her being named in Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time".- Actress
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Romy Schneider was born on 23 September 1938 in Vienna, Austria into a family of actors. Making her film debut at the age of 15, her breakthrough came two years later in the very popular trilogy Sissi (1955). Her mother, supervising her daughter's career, immediately approved Romy's participation in Christine (1958), the remake of Max Ophüls's Playing at Love (1933), where Magda Schneider once starred herself. During the shooting, she fell in love with her co-star Alain Delon and eventually moved with him to Paris. At that time, she started her international career collaborating with famous directors such as Luchino Visconti and Orson Welles. After Delon had broken up with her in 1964, she married Harry Meyen shortly after. Although she gave birth to a boy, David-Christopher, their relationship was difficult, so they divorced in 1975. Being unsatisfied with her personal life, she turned to alcohol and drugs, but her cinematic career -especially in France- remained intact. She was the first actress, receiving the new created César Award as "Best Actress" for her role in That Most Important Thing: Love (1975). Three years later, she was awarded again for A Simple Story (1978). After a short marriage to her former secretary Daniel Biasini, being the father of her daughter Sarah Biasini, she suffered the hardest blow of her life when her son was impaled on a fence in 1981. She never managed to recover from this loss and died on 29 May 1982 in Paris. Although it was suggested she committed suicide caused by an overdose of sleeping pills, she was declared to have died from cardiac arrest.- Actress
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Sandrine Kiberlain was born on 25 February 1968 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France. She is an actress and director, known for A Radiant Girl (2021), Alias Betty (2001) and Mademoiselle Chambon (2009). She was previously married to Vincent Lindon.- Actress
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Deborah Harry was born Angela Trimble on July 1, 1945 in Miami, Florida. At three months, she was adopted by Catherine (Peters) and Richard Smith Harry, and was raised in Hawthorne, New Jersey. In the 1960s, she worked as a Playboy Bunny and hung out at Max's Kansas City, a famous Warhol-inhabited nightspot. Her professional singing career started in 1968 with a folk band called The Wind in the Willows. She sang backup on their first (and only) album. The band broke up shortly after failing to achieve commercial success or critical acclaim. In 1973, she met Chris Stein, who became her longtime boyfriend. They created Blondie in 1974 after they both were in the Stilletoes, a theatrical "girl group" band. Blondie struggled for a few years, then went on to be one of the most successful bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but the group broke up in 1982.
Harry has released five solo albums, acted in several movies and television series and a few commercials (Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans, Sara Lee, Revlon). She has done many benefit shows in support of AIDS charities, a Broadway show ("Teaneck Tanzi"), poetry readings, and been one of the most notorious characters in the New York downtown scene. As of 1995, she was doing shows in the United States and Europe with the Jazz Passengers and Elvis Costello, filming two new movies (Heavy (1995) with Liv Tyler and Evan Dando and Drop Dead Rock (1995) with Adam Ant) and topping the dance charts with two newly remixed Blondie singles ("Rapture" and "Atomic"). Several Blondie tribute albums have been released and a Blondie remix album titled "Remixed, Remade, Remodeled" came out in 1995.- Actress
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An icy, elegant blonde with a knack for playing complex and strong-willed female leads, enormously popular actress Faye Dunaway starred in several films which defined what many would come to call Hollywood's "second Golden Age." During her tenure at the top of the box office, she was a more than capable match for some of the biggest macho stars of the 1970s. Then an overwrought turn in the disastrous biopic Mommie Dearest (1981) effectively derailed her career - but, at the same time, made her a bit of a camp favorite in the gay community - though she's been afforded infrequent opportunities worthy of her talent since that unfortunate halt.
Born prematurely on Jan. 14, 1941 in Bascom, FL, Dorothy Faye Dunaway was the daughter of MacDowell Dunaway, Jr., a career Army officer, and his wife, Grace April Smith. After a stint as a teenaged beauty queen in Florida, she intended to pursue education at the University of Florida, but switched to acting, earning her degree from Boston University in 1962. She was given the enviable task of choosing between a Fulbright Scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts or a role in the Broadway production of "A Man For All Seasons" as a member of the American National Theatre and Academy. She picked the latter, enjoying a fruitful stage career for the next two years, which was capped by appearances in "After the Fall" and "Hogan's Goat." The latter - an off-Broadway production in 1967 - required Dunaway to tumble down a flight of steps in every performance, earning her a screen debut in the wan counterculture comedy The Happening (1967). Just five months after its release, however, she was wowing audiences across the country as Depression-era bank robber Bonnie Parker in Arthur Penn's controversial Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Her turn as the naïve but trigger-happy and sexually aggressive Parker earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, and provided a direct route to the front of the line for Hollywood leading ladies in an unbelievably short amount of time.
Dunaway followed this success with another hit, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), in which her coolly sensual insurance investigator generated considerable sparks with playboy and jewel thief Steve McQueen. She then bounced between arthouse efforts like Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), directed by her ex-boyfriend, photographer Jerry Schatzberg, and the revisionist Western 'Doc' (1971), as well as big-budget efforts like Little Big Man (1970), which cast her as a predatory preacher's wife with designs on Dustin Hoffman's reluctant Native American hero. Dunaway also balanced these projects with several well-regarded theatrical productions, including a 1972-73 stint as Blanche Du Bois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," and notable TV-movies like The Woman I Love (1972), which cast her as the Duchess of Windsor, and TV broadcasts of Hogan's Goat (1971) and After the Fall (1974). But her turn as the duplicitous Lady De Winter in Richard Lester's splashy, slapstick take on The Three Musketeers (1973) and its sequel The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974) preceded a long period of critical and box office hits, starting with her masterful performance in Chinatown (1974).
Dunaway's turn as Evelyn Mulwray, the mysterious woman who draws detective Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) into a dark and complicated web of murder, incest, and catastrophic business deals, seemed the epitome of every femme fatale to ever stride across a chiaroscuro-lit scene in classic noir. But Dunaway also found the horribly wounded core of her character as well, and turned Evelyn from a pastiche to a full-blown and emotionally resonant human being. Critics and award groups rushed to nominate Dunaway for the role, and she netted her second Academy Award nod, as well as Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. Dunaway had fought hard for her performance - her battles with director Roman Polanski were no secret - but sadly, she lost the Oscar to Ellen Burstyn for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974). However, it would be Dunaway's performance which stood the test of time.
High-gloss turns in The Towering Inferno (1974) and Sydney Pollack's political thriller Three Days of the Condor (1975) preceded one of her best television performances; that of Depression-era radio preacher Aimee Semple MacPherson in The Disappearance of Aimee (1976). Even more startling was her sterling role in Network (1976), Paddy Chayefsky's blistering take on the television industry. Dunaway pulled out all the stops as an executive on the rise who stops at nothing to advance her career - even bedding veteran producer William Holden. Critics again rose in unison to praise Dunaway, and she finally netted an Oscar for the role, as well as a Golden Globe.
Surprisingly, Dunaway's career began to falter after her Oscar win. She was effective as a fashion photographer who experiences disturbing visions in Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), but was wasted in thankless roles as the dissatisfied ex of washed-up boxer Jon Voight in The Champ (1979) and wife to Frank Sinatra's detective in The First Deadly Sin (1980). And then came Mommie Dearest (1981), director Frank Perry's biopic of actress Joan Crawford based on the tell-all book by her daughter Christina Crawford. Crawford herself had praised Dunaway in the early stages of her career, and while some critics gave positive reviews to her performance - in particular, the extent to which she physically transformed herself into Crawford - most fixated on the hysterical dialogue and garish scenes of child abuse. Clips of Dunaway as Crawford bellowing "No more wire hangers!" became immediate laugh-getters on late-night television, and a substantial gay following rose up in response to the film's high camp value. Dunaway, however, found none of the response amusing, and later admitted her regret in taking the role. Whether laughable or pure genius, no one could deny that Dunaway threw her everything into the role. The film's continued cult success proved she had succeeded in becoming Crawford.
The fallout from "Mommie Dearest" obscured Dunaway's follow-up projects, which included the title role in the TV-movie Evita Peron (1981) and a return to Broadway in 1982's "The Curse of an Aching Heart". Discouraged, she moved to London with her second husband, photographer Terry O'Neill, who had also served as a producer on "Mommie Dearest." For the next few years, Dunaway appeared sporadically in films, most of which underscored her newly minted status as a camp icon. The Wicked Lady (1983) was an absurd, near-softcore period drama by Michael Winner, with Dunaway as an 18th-century highway robber. Fans of her early dramatic work were similarly aghast by her turn as a shrieking witch battling Helen Slater's Girl of Steel in Supergirl (1984). Only a Golden Globe-winning appearance in the cumbersome miniseries Ellis Island (1984) offered any respite from the negative press which now continued to follow her.
Dunaway returned to the United States in 1987 following her divorce from O'Neill, and attempted to rebuild her career and reputation by appearing in several independent dramas. She was widely praised for her performance as a once-glamorous woman felled by alcohol in Barbet Schroeder's Barfly (1987), and served as executive producer and star of Cold Sassy Tree (1989), a TV adaptation of the popular novel by Olive Ann Burns about an independent-minded woman who romances a recently widowed store owner (Richard Widmark). Dunaway was exceptionally busy for the remainder of the decade in both major Hollywood features and independent fare, though her strong women now occasionally sported an unfortunate shrill side. She was Robert Duvall's frosty wife in the dystopian thriller The Handmaid's Tale (1990) and contributed a vocal cameo as Evelyn Mulwray in The Two Jakes (1990), the ill-fated sequel to "Chinatown". Other notable performances came as the unhappy wife of psychiatrist Marlon Brando in Don Juan DeMarco (1994), as the daughter of imprisoned Klansman Gene Hackman in The Chamber (1996), and as a bartender caught in the middle of a hostage standoff in Kevin Spacey's Albino Alligator (1996). She later received Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe nominations as the matron of a wealthy Jewish family in turmoil in The Twilight of the Golds (1996). Perhaps her best turn of the decade was as a seductive murderess who attempts to sway the unflappable Lt. Columbo (Peter Falk) in It's All in the Game (1993), which earned her a 1994 Emmy. She won her third Golden Globe as modeling agency head Wilhelmina Cooper in the biopic Gia (1998), starring Angelina Jolie as doomed model Gia Carangi.
The 1990s were also not without incident for Dunaway. She was embroiled in an ugly lawsuit against Andrew Lloyd Webber after he closed a Los Angeles production of his musical version of "Sunset Blvd." with claims that she was unable to sing to his standards. The suit was later settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. A national tour of Terrence McNally's "Master Class", about the legendary opera diva Maria Callas, ended with her involvement in a suit over legal rights to the play. The project was expected to become her next great film role but remained uncompleted more than a decade after the 1996 tour. Her attempt at sitcom stardom in It Had to Be You (1993), co-starring Robert Urich, was met with universal disinterest, and the project was announced as being retooled without Dunaway prior to its cancellation.
Dunaway's schedule remained busy from 2000 onward, mostly in television and small independent features. She co-starred with Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix as the wife of career criminal James Caan in The Yards (2000), then made her directorial debut with the short The Yellow Bird (2001), based on the play by Tennessee Williams. Younger audiences had their first taste of Dunaway's particular star power as Ian Somerhalder's mother in The Rules of Attraction (2002), Roger Avary's amped-up adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel, before Dunaway turned up the heat as a merciless celebrity judge on the reality series The Starlet (2005).
Dunaway penned her memoirs, Looking For Gatsby, in 1995, one year before receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Attached throughout her professional career to intriguing men ranging from Lenny Bruce to Marcello Mastroianni, she was twice married; her first husband was singer Peter Wolf of the popular seventies rock group, The J. Geils Band. Liam O'Neill, her son by second husband Terry, followed in her footsteps with minor acting roles beginning in 2004. His father later dropped a bombshell in 2003 by revealing that Liam was not their biological son, but was adopted - a claim that Dunaway had previously denied.
A series of occasional roles in little-seen films followed, but Dunaway was unexpectedly thrust back into the public eye at the 2017 Academy Awards. Reunited with Warren Beatty on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of "Bonnie and Clyde," the pair were tapped to present the Best Picture award to close the night. Before proceeding onstage, Beatty was mistakenly handed a backup envelope for Best Actress in a Leading Role, which had already been won by Emma Stone for La La Land (2016). Unsure what to do when he opened the envelope and discovered the error, Beatty stalled for time and showed the card to Dunaway; misunderstanding his intent, the actress announced that the Best Picture Oscar went to "La La Land." During producer Jordan Horowitz's acceptance speech, he was informed that the actual Best Picture winner was Moonlight (2016). During the onstage chaos that ensued, Beatty delivered a heartfelt explanation and apology for the snafu while undergoing good-natured ribbing from host Jimmy Kimmel.
After her break from acting and the memorable Oscars moment, Dunaway is now back in the saddle as an actress working more frequently in her 70s. Over the past year, she has appeared in three films, starring in The Bye Bye Man (2017), The Case for Christ (2017), and Inconceivable (2017), with more projects expected to be on the way. The icon also fronts Gucci's summer 2018 ad campaign for their Sylvie handbag and has a Broadway show scheduled for 2019.- Actress
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Jean Dorothy Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, to substitute teacher Dorothy Arline (Benson) and pharmacist Edward Waldemar Seberg. Her father was of Swedish descent and her mother was of English and German ancestry.
One month before her 18th birthday, Jean landed the title role in Otto Preminger's Saint Joan (1957) after a much-publicized contest involving some 18,000 hopefuls. The failure of that film and the only moderate success of her next, Bonjour Tristesse (1958), combined to stall Seberg's career, until her role in Jean-Luc Godard's landmark feature, Breathless (1960), brought her renewed international attention. Seberg gave a memorable performance as a schizophrenic in the title role of Robert Rossen's Lilith (1964) opposite Warren Beatty and went on to appear in over 30 films in Hollywood and Europe.
In the late 1960s, Seberg became involved in anti-war politics and was the target of an undercover campaign by the FBI to discredit her because of her association with several members of the Black Panther party. She was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Paris in 1979.- Actress
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Sondra Locke was born May 28, 1944 as Sandra Louise Smith, in Shelbyville, Tennessee, a quiet little town about 60 miles southeast of Nashville. She was the daughter of Raymond Smith, a military man stationed at nearby Tullahoma, and Pauline Bayne. Smith departed the scene before Sondra's birth. In 1945, her mother wed William B. Elkins, and together they had a son, Donald, on April 26, 1946. The short union ended in divorce. In 1948, Bayne remarried. Alfred Locke bestowed his surname on Pauline's children and raised them as his own. Sondra's stepfather was a carpenter; her mother worked in a pencil factory. For the smart, fanciful Locke, "My childhood felt as if I had been dropped off at an extended summer camp from which I was waiting to be picked up." The bright girl loved to read, which puzzled her simple mother, who was always pushing her to spend more time outside. Sondra's happiest moments occurred on weekend visits to the local movie theater.
Locke was a cheerleader in junior high and graduated valedictorian of Shelbyville Mills' 1957-1958 eighth grade class. At Shelbyville Central High School, the "classroom was the one place where I felt like I had a chance to prove myself and I continued to excel. I felt safe there and I liked it." Her best friend was classmate Gordon Anderson, the son of a teacher, whose family had relocated to the area from Arkansas around 1953. He was a fey young man, who shared many of Sondra's fanciful hopes about the future and was her collaborator in devising harmless ways to make their lives in Shelbyville more magical. One of the duo's frequent activities was making home movies with Gordon's Super 8 camera.
When Gordon attended Middle Tennessee State University (in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles from Nashville) in 1962, Sondra enrolled there too. Upon completing freshman year, Sondra had a blowup with her mother, left home, and did not return to college. Instead, she worked in Nashville as a promotions assistant for WSM-TV, with occasional modeling and voiceover work. While in Nashville, Locke began acting in community theater as a member of Circle Players Inc. Along the way she dated George Crook, a cameraman from WSM, and Brad Crandall, head of the station's public relations department. She also enjoyed a romance with law student Gary Gober, whom she had been in plays with. Meanwhile, Gordon revealed to her that he was homosexual. He went off to Manhattan to study acting and, for a while, had a lover there. Anderson was talented but unfocused about his theater craft and eventually returned to Tennessee. Because of Locke's spiritual kinship with Anderson, she and Gordon decided to wed. The mixed-orientation couple were married at First Presbyterian Church in Nashville on September 25, 1967. (Reputedly, the marriage was never consummated.)
If Gordon was unable to launch his own acting career, he had no such problems igniting Sondra's. Months before their wedding, he learned that Warner Bros. was holding a nationwide search for a young actress to play a key role in the screen adaptation of Carson McCullers' novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968). Anderson helped Locke research the part of Mick, a teenage waif in a southern town who befriends a suicidal deaf-mute (Alan Arkin) boarding at the house where she lives. For the audition, in Birmingham, Alabama, Gordon bleached her eyebrows, bound her bosom and carefully fixed her hair, makeup and outfit so that she would instantly impress casting agents. The ploy succeeded, and, after several callbacks, Locke -- who lied about her age to seem younger -- was hired. The movie was released in the summer of 1968 and earned respectful reviews from critics, although many filmgoers found the picture too arty. Sondra was Oscar-nominated for her sensitive portrayal.
Next, Sondra moved to Los Angeles, with Gordon in tow. She hoped to parlay her Academy Award nomination into further movie assignments. The big-eyed, wiry bottle blonde found it difficult to win choice roles, making her accept lesser projects, the most famous of which was Willard (1971), a film about marauding rats. Cover Me Babe (1970), A Reflection of Fear (1972) and The Second Coming of Suzanne (1974) faded into cinematic obscurity. In the lattermost, Locke played a Christ figure and had torrid love scenes with Paul Sand. Episodic television provided steadier acting opportunities: the anthology program Night Gallery (1969) and dramatic series including The F.B.I. (1965), Cannon (1971), Kung Fu (1972) and Barnaby Jones (1973). Thanks in part to the limited media of the time, she was able to maintain the ruse of younger age, which no doubt extended her shelf-life amid professional lulls. It was in 1972 that she first met rising kingpin Clint Eastwood when he was preparing to direct his second feature film, Breezy (1973). For the title role, Locke was passed over in favor of nine-years-younger Kay Lenz.
For half of the 1970s, the Andersons resided at West Hollywood's Andalusia condominium complex whilst seeing other people. For a time, Sondra was involved with Bruce Davison, her co-star from Willard (1971). While working on the teleplay Gondola (1974), she gained a new boyfriend, sandy-haired actor Bo Hopkins. He was once divorced and shared her penchant for falsifying birthdates. In the spring of 1974, she visited the set of Hopkins' current project, The Killer Elite (1975), and networked with composer Jerry Fielding, who was about to score a new Western showcase for Clint Eastwood. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) had a role that Locke thought could revitalize her career. This time, Eastwood was responsive and hired the 31-year-old to play his romantic interest. In early October 1975, the complementary pair fell hard for each other on location in Page, Arizona. "We were almost living together from the very first days of the film," Locke remembered. Besotted Clint confided he'd never been in love before and wrote a poem for his new mate: "She made me monogamous." This serially philandering megastar was 14 years her senior and a foot taller than she.
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) was indeed a hit, with Sondra sparking a flurry of interest among male viewers as virtually nonspeaking eye candy. Yet she stopped pursuing film roles on her own initiative to assume wifely duties, appearing on the big screen exclusively in Eastwood-controlled projects thereon. The sole exception to this was The Shadow of Chikara (1977), an Arkansas-lensed Western with burly Joe Don Baker. (The home invasion thriller Death Game (1977), though released after Locke and Eastwood became an item, was actually shot in 1974.) "Clint wanted me to work only with him," she said. "He didn't like the idea of me being away from him."
Over the next few years, Locke had two abortions from her relationship with Eastwood. In 1979, she underwent a tubal ligation at UCLA to prevent further pregnancies. She and Clint settled into a $1.12 million, seven-bedroom Spanish-style Bel-Air mansion originally built in 1931, which she spent months renovating and decorating, and which she believed would be hers for life. She continued to spend platonic time with Gordon, whom she never divorced, nurtured by their spiritual relationship. Gordon moved in and out of gay relationships, and sometimes he and a boyfriend would socialize with Clint and Sondra. As for the professional side of things, Locke and Eastwood reteamed for his action opus The Gauntlet (1977), slapstick adventure-comedy Every Which Way But Loose (1978), its sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980), the quirky satire Bronco Billy (1980) and the fourth, darkest, most ambitious "Dirty Harry" vehicle, Sudden Impact (1983). All were stellar box office performers and cemented the twosome as filmdom's most visible couple.
During this period, Sondra took a few TV roles when Clint was starring in a movie that had no part for her to play (such as Escape from Alcatraz (1979) or Firefox (1982)). The first time she worked apart from him for any length of time since The Shadow of Chikara (1977) in 1976 was Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story (1982). (Rosemary Clooney personally asked Locke to star in the CBS biopic on the strength of her performance in Bronco Billy (1980).) She later made an appearance on Britain's Tales of the Unexpected (1979) series. For the most part, however, she found herself sitting on the sidelines waiting for Eastwood to cast her in something.
By the mid-1980s, Sondra, over 40 but still refusing to admit it, was acutely aware that in Hollywood terms her leading lady days were just about finished. She had long been interested in film directing and had observed carefully how Eastwood and others directed the pictures she was in. With his blessing, she found a property that intrigued her and that his Malpaso production company would package, and developed it into a project for Warner Bros. She made Ratboy (1986), but despite good reviews, the film received scant distribution. In retrospect, Locke concluded that her exertion of authority over the project caused her longtime paramour to turn away from her, to find someone who was more compliant. (In an unpublicized affair with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves, Eastwood sired two legally fatherless children born in 1986 and 1988, in Monterey -- an "evil betrayal" Locke was unaware of.)
The showdown between Sondra and Clint occurred on December 29, 1988 at their mountain hideaway in Sun Valley, Idaho. After an unpleasant screaming match, Eastwood suggested Locke go back to Los Angeles. She sensed their relationship had passed a point of reconciliation, a fact confirmed when she scarcely saw Eastwood in subsequent months and when industry friends they knew in common shunned her. As she admitted later, "In my head I guess I knew it was over, but in my heart Clint and I were still not severed." On April 10, 1989, while she was directing a demanding sequence in a new police procedural, Impulse (1990), Eastwood had the locks changed on their house in Bel-Air. He also ordered her possessions to be boxed and put in storage. A letter addressed to "Mrs. Gordon Anderson," imperatively telling her not to come home, was delivered to her lawful husband's doorstep. When Gordon telephoned Sondra on the set and read her the letter, she fainted dead away in front of the cast and crew.
On April 26, 1989, Sondra filed a palimony lawsuit against her domestic partner of 14 years. Her "brazenness" in taking on the powerful Eastwood amazed and shocked Tinseltown and titillated the public. Her action sought unspecified damages and an equal division of the property she and Eastwood had acquired during their relationship. Locke asked for title to the Bel-Air home they had shared and to the Crescent Heights (West Hollywood) place Eastwood had purchased in 1982 (in which Gordon lived). The closed hearing was held on May 31, 1989, before a private judge. Before any court decision could be made, a private settlement was reached between the parties. Locke received $450,000, the Crescent Heights property, and a $1.5 million multiyear development-directing pact at Warner Bros. In return, she dropped her suit. By then, the fall of 1990, she was happy to end the hassle. (In the past months she had been diagnosed with cancer, undergone a double mastectomy, and endured chemotherapy.)
For the next three years Locke submitted over 30 projects to Warner Bros., but none received a green light to move ahead. Moreover, the studio refused to assign her to direct any of their in-house projects. In the mid-1990s, Sondra discovered evidence that Eastwood had arranged to reimburse Warner Bros. for her three-year studio contract -- a matter that he had never mentioned to her. It became obvious that the studio's negative professional attitude toward her had little or nothing to do with her directing or project-finding abilities. On June 5, 1995, Locke sued Eastwood again, alleging fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. She claimed that Clint's behind-the-scene actions had sent a message "to the film industry and the world at large ... that Locke was not to be taken seriously." (According to Sondra's lawyer, the situation was Clint's "way of terminating the earlier palimony suit.")
While Locke's case was revving up at the Burbank Courthouse, Eastwood begged her to settle. On September 24, 1996 -- the morning jurors were set to begin a second day of deliberation -- Sondra announced her decision to drop her suit against Clint for an undisclosed monetary reward. One contingency was laid down: she would not reveal the settlement amount. The jubilant plaintiff said, "This was never about money. It was about my fighting for my professional rights." According to the victor, "I didn't enjoy it. But sometimes you have to do things you don't enjoy." Locke added, "In this business, people get so accustomed to being abused, they just accept the abuse and say, 'Well, that's just the way it is.' Well, it isn't."
But Locke was not finished. She had a pending action against Warner Bros. for allegedly harming her career by agreeing to the sham movie-directing deal that Eastwood had purportedly engineered. On May 24, 1999, just as jury selection was beginning (and four days before Locke turned 55), the studio reached an out-of-court settlement with Sondra.
In the decade following her courtroom saga, Sondra did not direct another movie. She did make a brief return to acting with cameo roles in back-to-back low-budget independent features, The Prophet's Game (2000) and Clean and Narrow (2000), both of which failed to secure a theatrical release. In 2001, she sold her home in the Hollywood Hills and moved to another part of L.A. After interim flings with producer Hawk Koch and John F. Kennedy's nephew Robert Shriver, she had a live-in relationship with one of the physicians who had treated her during her cancer siege. Dr. Scott Cunneen, described by Locke as "Herculean," was 17 years her junior, his mother only three years older than Sondra. She eventually split up with him.
In 2016, preceded by a protracted absence from the public eye, trade press reported that Locke would come out of retirement to co-star in Alan Rudolph's Ray Meets Helen (2017) opposite Keith Carradine. The film was booked for a limited run in spring 2018. No longer able to hide her true year of birth in the post-internet era, Sondra was playing a romantic lead at the unheard of age of 74.
Locke died on November 3, 2018, of cardiac arrest stemming from metastatic breast cancer. It was not publicized until mid-December. The mysterious six-week delay raised a lot of eyebrows, especially since the belated news leaked opening day of the latest Eastwood blockbuster, The Mule (2018). According to a death certificate obtained by the media, her cancer had returned in 2015 and spread to her bones. Locke's remains were cremated at Westwood (Village) Mortuary and the ashes entrusted to her husband of 51 years. Rosanna Arquette, Frances Fisher and Evan Rachel Wood were among the celebrities who paid tribute. Despite the acrimony that followed the collapse of her famous relationship, Locke will be long remembered for her prominent roles in some of Eastwood's most popular works -- and perhaps dichotomously, as a pioneer for the rights of independent working women.- Carroll Baker was born on May 28, 1931 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a traveling salesman, William W. Baker. She attended community college for a year and then worked as a dancer and magician's assistant. After a brief marriage, she had a small part in Easy to Love (1953), did TV commercials, and had a bit part on Broadway. She studied at the Actors Studio and was married to director Jack Garfein (one daughter, Blanche Baker). Warner Brothers, sensing a future Marilyn Monroe, cast her in Giant (1956), Baby Doll (1956) (Oscar nomination for her thumb-sucking role), The Carpetbaggers (1964) and Harlow (1965) (title role). Moving to Italy, she made films there and in England, Germany, Mexico and Spain . After returning to American films, she married Donald Burton in 1982 and resided in Hampstead, London in the 1980s. They remained together until Burton's death from emphysema in their home in Cathedral City, California in 2007.
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Veronica Lake was born as Constance Frances Marie Ockleman on November 14, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York. She was the daughter of Constance Charlotta (Trimble) and Harry Eugene Ockelman, who worked for an oil company as a ship employee. Her father was of half German and half Irish descent, and her mother was of Irish ancestry. While still a child, Veronica's parents moved to Florida when she was not quite a year old. By the time she was five, the family had returned to Brooklyn. When Connie was only twelve, tragedy struck when her father died in an explosion on an oil ship. One year later her mother married Anthony Keane and Connie took his last name as her own. In 1934, when her stepfather was diagnosed with tuberculosis, the family moved to Saranac Lake, where Connie Keane enjoyed the outdoor life and flourished in the activities of boating on the lakes, skating, skiing, swimming, biking around Moody Pond and hiking up Mt Baker. The family made their home in 1935 at 1 Watson Place, (now 27 Seneca Street) then they moved to 1 Riverside Drive,(now Lake Kiwassa Road). Both Connie and Anthony benefited from the Adirondack experience and in 1936 the family left the Adirondacks and moved to Miami, FL., however, the memories of those carefree Saranac Lake days would always remain deeply rooted in her mind.
Two years later, Connie graduated from high school in Miami. Her natural beauty and charm and a definite talent for acting prompted her mother and step-father to move to Beverly Hills, California, where they enrolled her in the well known Bliss Hayden School of Acting in Hollywood. Connie had previously been diagnosed as a classic schizophrenic and her parents saw acting as a form of treatment for her condition. She showed remarkable abilities and did not have to wait long for a part to come her way.
Her first movie was as one of the many coeds in the RKO film, Sorority House (1939). It was a minor part, to be sure, but it was a start. Veronica quickly followed up that project with two other films. All Women Have Secrets (1939) and Dancing Co-Ed (1939), were again bit roles for the pretty young woman from the East Coast, but she did not complain. After all, other would-be starlets took a while before they ever received a bit part. Veronica continued her schooling, while taking a bit roles in two more films, Young as You Feel (1940) and Forty Little Mothers (1940). Prior to this time, she was still under her natural name of Constance Keane. Now, with a better role in I Wanted Wings (1941), she was asked to change her name, and Veronica Lake was born. Now, instead of playing coeds, she had a decent, speaking part. Veronica felt like an actress. The film was a success and the public loved this bright newcomer.
Paramount, the studio she was under contract with, then assigned her to two more films that year, Hold Back the Dawn (1941) and Sullivan's Travels (1941). The latter received good reviews from the always tough film critics. As Ellen Graham, in This Gun for Hire (1942) the following year, Veronica now had top billing. She had paid her dues and was on a roll. The public was enamored with her. In 1943, Veronica starred in only one film. She portrayed Lieutenant Olivia D'Arcy in So Proudly We Hail! (1943) with Claudette Colbert. The film was a box-office smash. It seemed that any film Veronica starred in would be an unquestionable hit. However, her only outing for 1944, The Hour Before the Dawn (1944) would not be well-received by either the public or the critics. As Nazi sympathizer Dora Bruckmann, Veronica's role was dismal at best. Critics disliked her accent immensely because it wasn't true to life. Her acting itself suffered because of the accent. Mediocre films trailed her for all of 1945. It seemed that Veronica was dumped in just about any film to see if it could be salvaged. Hold That Blonde! (1945), Out of This World (1945), and Miss Susie Slagle's (1946) were just a waste of talent for the beautiful blonde. The latter film was a shade better than the previous two. In 1946, Veronica bounced back in The Blue Dahlia (1946) with Alan Ladd and Howard Da Silva. The film was a hit, but it was the last decent film for Veronica. Paramount continued to put her in pathetic movies. After 1948, Paramount discharged the once prized star, and she was out on her own. In 1949, she starred in the Twentieth Century film Slattery's Hurricane (1949), which, unfortunately, was another weak film. She was not on the big screen again until 1952 when she appeared in Stronghold (1951). By Veronica's own admission, the film "was a dog". From 1952 to 1966, Veronica made television appearances and even tried her hand on the stage. Not a lot of success for her at all. By now alcohol was the order of the day. She was down on her luck and drank heavily. In 1962, Veronica was found living in an old hotel and working as a bartender. She finally returned to the big screen in Footsteps in the Snow (1966). Another drought ensued and she appeared on the silver screen for the last time in Flesh Feast (1970) - a very low budget film.
On July 7, 1973, Veronica died of hepatitis in Burlington, Vermont. The beautiful actress with the long blonde hair was dead at the age of 50.- Actress
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Susan Ker Weld was born on August 27, 1943 (Friday), in New York City. When her father, Lathrop Motley Weld, died three years later at the age of 49, the cute little girl, whose name by then had somehow been transmogrified into "Tuesday", took over the role of the family breadwinner. She became a successful child model, posing for advertisements and mail-order catalogs. Her work and the burden of responsibility estranged her from her mother Aileen, her two elder siblings, and catapulted the preteen girl into adulthood. At nine years of age, she suffered a nervous breakdown; at ten, she started heavy drinking; one year later, she began to have love affairs, all of which led to a suicide attempt at age twelve. In 1956 she debuted in the low-budget exploitation movie Rock Rock Rock! (1956) and decided to become an actress. After numerous TV appearances in New York she went to Hollywood in 1958 and was cast for Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958), something of a breakthrough for her. Over the next few years Tuesday became Hollywood's queen of teen, playing mainly precocious sex kittens. Her wild private life added to the entertainment of her fans. Critics acknowledged her talent, directors approved of her professionalism, and in the mid-1970s she even managed to grow out of her child/woman image and find more demanding roles - she had been "sweet little 16" for about 16 years. However, Tuesday Weld didn't achieve first-magnitude stardom. Maybe she was just unlucky with her selection of jobs (she turned down Lolita (1962), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), True Grit (1969), Cactus Flower (1969), among others); maybe her independence-loving mind made her instinctively shrink back from the restraints of super stardom. In any case, she kept on performing well in films that had either not much flair or not much success. From the early '80s on she focused more and more on made-for-TV movies, which was ironic in that the best (Once Upon a Time in America (1984)) and the most successful (Falling Down (1993)) films that came her way happened as her big-screen career was already petering out.- Actress
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Suellyn Lyon was born in Davenport, Iowa, the youngest of five siblings born to Sue Lyon (née Karr) and James Lyon. Sue Karr Lyon was 42 years old when she was widowed, when Suellyn was just 10 months old. Her mother worked in a hospital to provide for her children, and money was tight. The family then moved to Los Angeles in hopes that Suellyn could help out financially as a model.
She duly got jobs modeling for JC Penney, and doing a commercial, which featured her bleached blonde hair. She landed small parts on Dennis the Menace (1959) and The Loretta Young Show (1953). Director Stanley Kubrick saw Sue on the show and suggested to his partner that they should see her for the role of Lolita (1962). She was signed by the Glenn Shaw agency, and Pat Holmes, an agent, brought her down to Kubrick for audition, and won the part of Lolita.
In 1964, Sue married Hampton Fancher III but the marriage, like the four that would follow, would end in divorce. She was appearing at the time in such movies as 7 Women (1965), The Flim-Flam Man (1967) and Tony Rome (1967). Her second husband was Roland Harrison, an African-American photographer and football coach. The controversy over their marriage made them decide to move to Europe. She continued in movies like Evel Knievel (1971), Game of Murder (1973), and Murder in a Blue World (1973), but wound up divorcing Harrison, in part due to the fallout over the controversy and other problems.
Sue met Gary "Cotton" Adamson at the Colorado State Penitentiary, where he was serving time for murder and robbery. She worked as a cocktail waitress and lived in a hotel in Denver nearby. She married him in 1973 and began working for prison reform and conjugal rights. Unfortunately this was another short-lived marriage as she divorced him after he committed yet another robbery. More films followed including Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976), The Astral Factor (1978), Towing (1978), Crash! (1976), Don't Push, I'll Charge When I'm Ready (1971) and her final film, Alligator (1980).
Sue married Edward Weathers in 1983, but the marriage ended a year later. She married a radio engineer, Richard Rudman, but that marriage, like the four before it, ended in divorce.
Sue Lyon died in 2019, aged 73. She was survived by her only child, a daughter, Nona Harrison (from her marriage to Roland Harrison).- Actress
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Naomi Ellen Watts was born on September 28, 1968 in Shoreham, England to Myfanwy Edwards "Miv" (Roberts), an antiques dealer and costume/set designer, and Peter Watts (Peter Anthony Watts), Pink Floyd's road manager. Her maternal grandfather was Welsh. Her father died when she was seven and she followed her mother and brother around England until she was 14 and they finally settled in Australia, homeland of her maternal grandmother. When they arrived, she coaxed her mother to let her take acting classes. After bit parts in commercials, she landed her first role in For Love Alone (1986). Naomi met her best friend Nicole Kidman when they both auditioned for a bikini commercial and shared a taxi ride home. In 1991, Naomi starred with Kidman in the sleeper hit Flirting (1991), directed by John Duigan. Naomi continued her career by starring in the Australian Brides of Christ (1991) co-starring Oscar-winners Russell Crowe and Brenda Fricker.
In 1993, she worked with John Duigan again in Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) and director George Miller in Gross Misconduct (1993). Tank Girl (1995), in 1995, an adaptation of the comic book was a cult hit, starred Naomi as "Jet Girl", but it didn't do at the box-office or do much for her career. Watts continued to take insignificant parts in movies including the much forgotten film Children of the Corn: The Gathering (1996). It wasn't until David Lynch cast her in the critically acclaimed film Mulholland Drive (2001) that she began to become noticed. Her part as an aspiring actress showed her strong acting ability and wide range and earned her much respect, as much as to say by some that she was overlooked for a Oscar nomination that year. Stardom finally came to Naomi in the surprise hit The Ring (2002), which grossed over $100,000,000 at the box-office and starred Watts as an investigative reporter hunting down the truth behind several mysterious deaths seemingly caused by a video tape. While the movie did not fare well with the critics, it launched her into the spotlight. In 2003, she starred in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (2003) which earned her - what some say is a much overdue Oscar nomination and brought others to call her one of the best in her generation of actors. The same year, she was nominated for 21 Grams (2003), Naomi was chosen to play "Ann Darrow" in director Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) which took her to New Zealand for a five month shoot. Watts completed her first comedy in I Heart Huckabees (2004) for director David O. Russell, playing a superficial spokes model - a break from her usual intense and dramatic roles she is known for.
In 2005, she reprized her role as the protective-mother-reporter "Rachel Keller" in The Ring Two (2005). The movie, released in March, opened to $35,000,000 at the box office in the first weekend and established her as a box-office draw. Also in 2005, it was decided that her independent movie Ellie Parker (2001) would be re-released in late 2005 after its success at resurfacing at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie, which Naomi also produced, features her in the title role and is a bit biographical, but yet exaggerated take of the life of a struggling actress as she comes to Hollywood and encounters nightmares of the profession (it also features Watts' own beat-up Honda which she travels around in). In 2006, she starred with Edward Norton in The Painted Veil (2006). In July of 2007, Naomi gave birth to a boy, Alexander Pete (Sasha Schreiber) in Los Angeles with Liev Schreiber. Since then her career choices have gathered even more critical acclaim with starring roles roles in German director Michael Haneke's American remake of his thriller Funny Games (2007), David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (2007), and the action-thriller, The International (2009), released in February 2009. In mid-2008, Watts announced she was expecting her second child with Schreiber and gave birth to second son Samuel Kai Schreiber, in New York on December 13.- Actress
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Tessa Charlotte Rampling was born 5 February 1946 in Sturmer, England, to Isabel Anne (Gurteen), a painter, and Godfrey Lionel Rampling, an Olympic gold medalist, army officer, and colonel, who became a NATO commander. She was educated at Jeanne d'Arc Académie pour Jeunes Filles in Versailles, France and at the exclusive St. Hilda's school in Bushey, England. She was a model before entering films in Richard Lester's The Knack... and How to Get It (1965), followed by roles in Georgy Girl (1966) and Luchino Visconti's The Damned (1969). Rampling is best known for her role in Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter (1974), where she played a concentration camp survivor who is reunited with the Nazi guard (Dirk Bogarde) who tortured her throughout her captivity. In 1974, she co-starred with Sean Connery in John Boorman's science fiction adventure Zardoz (1974), with Robert Mitchum in Farewell, My Lovely (1975), with Woody Allen in his Stardust Memories (1980), and with Paul Newman in Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982). An actress always willing to take on bold and meaningful roles, Rampling had perhaps the most off-beat one in Nagisa Ôshima's 1986 comedy Max My Love (1986) as Margaret, a woman in love with a chimpanzee. She has also voiced video games, such as The Ring.- Actress
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Kerry Washington is an African-American actress, television show producer and film director who is known for her roles in Scandal, Ray, the Tim Story Fantastic Four film series, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Confirmation, Django Unchained, Little Fires Everywhere, Cars 3 and The Last King of Scotland. She had two children from Nnamdi Asomugha.- It would not be easy for anyone to out-do one of American theater's finest thespians, but somehow actress Sandy Dennis managed to even out-quirk the legendary Geraldine Page when it came to affecting nervous tics and offbeat mannerisms on stage and in film. She and Page had few peers when it came to the neurotic-dispensing department. The two Actor's Studio disciples developed fascinating characterizations that seemed to manifest themselves outwardly to such physical extremes and, like a bad car accident, their overt styling was capable of both drawing in, and repelling audiences. There was no gray area. Either way, both had a searing emotional range and were undeniably transfixing figures who held up Oscar trophies to prove there was a "Method" to their respective madness. Sandy's signature quirks--her stuttering, fluttering, throat gulps, eye twitches, nervous giggles, hysterical flailing--are all a part of what made her so distinctive and unforgettable. Her untimely death of cancer at age 54 robbed the entertainment industry of a remarkable talent.
The Nebraska-born-and-bred actress was born Sandra Dale Dennis in Hastings, on April 27, 1937, the daughter of postal clerk Jack Dennis and his secretary wife Yvonne (née Hudson), who divorced in 1966 after a 38-year marriage. Living in both Kenesaw (1942) and Lincoln (1946) while growing up, she and brother Frank went to Lincoln High School with TV host Dick Cavett. Her passion for acting grew and grew while still at home. A college student at both Nebraska Wesleyan University and the University of Nebraska, she eventually found her career direction after appearing with the Lincoln Community Theater Group.
The toothy actress left Nebraska and towards the Big Apple at age 19 just to try her luck. An intense student of acting guru Uta Hagen, Sandy made her New York stage debut in a Tempo Theatre production of "The Lady from the Sea" in 1956 and that same year won her first TV role as that of Alice Holden in the daytime series Guiding Light (1952). A year later she made it to Broadway as an understudy (and eventual replacement) for the roles of Flirt and Reenie in the William Inge drama "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs," directed by Elia Kazan at the Music Box Theatre. She toured with that production and also found regional work in the plays "Bus Stop" and "Motel" while continuing to shine as a budding New York fixture in "Burning Bright," "Face of a Hero" and "Port Royal".
Along with fellow newcomers Gary Lockwood and Phyllis Diller, Sandy made her movie debut in playwright Inge's Splendor in the Grass (1961), a movie quite welcoming of Sandy's neurotic tendencies. In the minor but instrumental role of Kay, she is an unwitting instigator of friend Deanie's (played by an ambitiously unbalanced Natalie Wood) mental collapse. Despite this worthy little turn, Sandy would not make another film for five years.
Instead, the actress set her sights strongly on the stage and for this she was handsomely rewarded, most notably in comedy. After appearing in a two-month run of the Graham Greene drama "The Complaisant Lover" at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1961, stardom would be hers the very next year with her outstanding social worker role in the lighter-weight "A Thousand Clowns". Winning the Theatre World as well as the coveted Tony Award for her performance, she continue her run of prizes with a second consecutive Tony for her sexy turn in the comedy "Any Wednesday" (1964). Having made only one picture at this juncture, Sandy was not in a good position to transfer her award-winning characters to film and when they did, they went to Barbara Harris and Jane Fonda, respectively.
TV was also a viable medium for Sandy and she appeared sporadically on such programs as The Fugitive (1963), Naked City (1958) and Arrest and Trial (1963). In 1965, she appeared in London as Irina in a heralded Actor's Studio production of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters" with fellow devotees Geraldine Page, Kim Stanley, Shelley Winters, Luther Adler and Kevin McCarthy. The play was subsequently videotaped and directed by Paul Bogart, and is valuable today for the studied "Method" performances of its cast. It, however, received mixed reviews upon its release.
Returning to film in 1966, Sandy seemed to embellish every physical and emotional peculiarity she could muster for the role of the mousy wife Honey in the four-character powerhouse play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) by Edward Albee. It is a mouth-dropping, emotionally shattering performance, and both she and a more even-keeled George Segal as the drop over guests of the skewering cutthroat couple George and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) more than held their own. While the distaff cast won Oscars for this (Taylor for "Best Actress" and Dennis for "Best Supporting Actress"), this ferocious landmark film blew open the "Production Code" doors once and for all and a wave of counterculture filming tackling formerly taboo subjects came to be.
Firmly established now with her Oscar win, Sandy found highly affecting lead showcases for herself. She starred as a young, naive English teacher challenged by a New York "Blackboard Jungle"-like school system in Up the Down Staircase (1967). She also stirred up some controversy along with Anne Heywood playing brittle lesbian lovers whose relationship is threatened by a sexy male visitor (Keir Dullea) in another ground-breaking film The Fox (1967). Sandy remained intriguingly off-kilter in the odd-couple romantic story Sweet November (1968) opposite Anthony Newley, the bizarre Robert Altman thriller That Cold Day in the Park (1969), and the gloomy British melodrama A Touch of Love (1969) [aka Thank You All Very Much].
Off-camera, Sandy lived for over a decade with jazz musician and saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, which began in 1965 following his devoted relationship with actress Judy Holliday who had died of cancer earlier in the year. They eventually parted ways in 1976. Rumors that they had married at some point were eventually negated by Sandy herself. Sandy also went on to have a May-December relationship with the equally quirky actor Eric Roberts from 1980 to 1985. She had no children.
At the peak of her film popularity, Sandy began the 1970s in more mainstream fashion. She and Jack Lemmon were another odd-couple hit in Neil Simon's The Out of Towners (1970) as married George and Gwen Kellerman visiting an unmerciful Big Apple. Sandy is at her whiny, plain-Jane best ("Oh, my God...I think we're being kidnapped!") as disaster upon disaster befalls the miserable twosome. Both she and Lemmon were nominated for Golden Globes. Following this, however, Sandy again refocused on the stage with an avalanche of fine performances in "How the Other Half Loves," "And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little," "A Streetcar Named Desire" (as Blanche), "Born Yesterday" (as Billie Dawn), "Absurd Person Singular," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (as Maggie the Cat), "Same Time, Next Year," "The Little Foxes," "Eccentricities of a Nightingale," "The Supporting Cast" and even the title role in "Peter Pan".
A few TV and movie roles came Sandy's way in unspectacular fashion but it wasn't until the next decade that she again stole some thunder. After a moving support turn as a cast-off wife in the finely-tuned ensemble drama The Four Seasons (1981), Sandy proved terrific as a James Dean extremist in another ensemble film Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), which she played first to fine acclaim on Broadway. Reunited with director Robert Altman as well as her stage compatriots Cher, Karen Black, Kathy Bates, Sudie Bond and Marta Heflin, the film version was equally praised. Her last films included Another Woman (1988), 976-EVIL (1988) and Parents (1989).
Seen less and less in later years, she gave in to her eccentric tendencies as time went on. A notorious cat lover (at one point there was a count of 33 residing in her Westport, Connecticut home), close friends included actresses Brenda Vaccaro and Jessica Walter. Her father Jack died in 1990 and around that same time Sandy was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Undergoing chemotherapy at the time she filmed the part of a beaten-down mother in Sean Penn's The Indian Runner (1991), the role proved to be her last.
Sandy died in Westport on March 2, 1992. Her ashes were placed at the Lincoln Memorial Park in Lincoln, Nebraska. A foundation in her home state was set up to "memorialize the accomplishments of Sandy Dennis, to perpetuate her commitment to education and the performing arts, to promote cultural activities, and to encourage theatrical education, performance, and professionals". A book, "Sandy Dennis: A Personal Memoir," was published posthumously in 1997. - Actress
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Maggie Cheung was born on September 20, 1964, in Hong Kong, and moved at the age of eight with her family to England. After finishing secondary school, she returned to Hong Kong, where she began modeling and appearing in commercials. In 1983 she participated in the Ms. Hong Kong pageant, winning first runner-up, which proved not to be a detriment since she went on to become a star of both Hong Kong television and film.- Actress
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Isabelle Carré was born on 28 May 1971 in Paris, France. She is an actress, known for Romantics Anonymous (2010), Anna M. (2007) and Se souvenir des belles choses (2001). She has been married to Bruno Pesery since 26 August 2006. They have one child.