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Marlon Brando is widely considered the greatest movie actor of all time, rivaled only by the more theatrically oriented Laurence Olivier in terms of esteem. Unlike Olivier, who preferred the stage to the screen, Brando concentrated his talents on movies after bidding the Broadway stage adieu in 1949, a decision for which he was severely criticized when his star began to dim in the 1960s and he was excoriated for squandering his talents. No actor ever exerted such a profound influence on succeeding generations of actors as did Brando. More than 50 years after he first scorched the screen as Stanley Kowalski in the movie version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and a quarter-century after his last great performance as Col. Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), all American actors are still being measured by the yardstick that was Brando. It was if the shadow of John Barrymore, the great American actor closest to Brando in terms of talent and stardom, dominated the acting field up until the 1970s. He did not, nor did any other actor so dominate the public's consciousness of what WAS an actor before or since Brando's 1951 on-screen portrayal of Stanley made him a cultural icon. Brando eclipsed the reputation of other great actors circa 1950, such as Paul Muni and Fredric March. Only the luster of Spencer Tracy's reputation hasn't dimmed when seen in the starlight thrown off by Brando. However, neither Tracy nor Olivier created an entire school of acting just by the force of his personality. Brando did.
Marlon Brando, Jr. was born on April 3, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Marlon Brando, Sr., a calcium carbonate salesman, and his artistically inclined wife, the former Dorothy Julia Pennebaker. "Bud" Brando was one of three children. His ancestry included English, Irish, German, Dutch, French Huguenot, Welsh, and Scottish; his surname originated with a distant German immigrant ancestor named "Brandau." His oldest sister Jocelyn Brando was also an actress, taking after their mother, who engaged in amateur theatricals and mentored a then-unknown Henry Fonda, another Nebraska native, in her role as director of the Omaha Community Playhouse. Frannie, Brando's other sibling, was a visual artist. Both Brando sisters contrived to leave the Midwest for New York City, Jocelyn to study acting and Frannie to study art. Marlon managed to escape the vocational doldrums forecast for him by his cold, distant father and his disapproving schoolteachers by striking out for The Big Apple in 1943, following Jocelyn into the acting profession. Acting was the only thing he was good at, for which he received praise, so he was determined to make it his career - a high-school dropout, he had nothing else to fall back on, having been rejected by the military due to a knee injury he incurred playing football at Shattuck Military Academy, Brando Sr.'s alma mater. The school booted Marlon out as incorrigible before graduation.
Acting was a skill he honed as a child, the lonely son of alcoholic parents. With his father away on the road, and his mother frequently intoxicated to the point of stupefaction, the young Bud would play-act for her to draw her out of her stupor and to attract her attention and love. His mother was exceedingly neglectful, but he loved her, particularly for instilling in him a love of nature, a feeling which informed his character Paul in Last Tango in Paris (1972) ("Last Tango in Paris") when he is recalling his childhood for his young lover Jeanne. "I don't have many good memories," Paul confesses, and neither did Brando of his childhood. Sometimes he had to go down to the town jail to pick up his mother after she had spent the night in the drunk tank and bring her home, events that traumatized the young boy but may have been the grain that irritated the oyster of his talent, producing the pearls of his performances. Anthony Quinn, his Oscar-winning co-star in Viva Zapata! (1952) told Brando's first wife Anna Kashfi, "I admire Marlon's talent, but I don't envy the pain that created it."
Brando enrolled in Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at New York's New School, and was mentored by Stella Adler, a member of a famous Yiddish Theatre acting family. Adler helped introduce to the New York stage the "emotional memory" technique of Russian theatrical actor, director and impresario Konstantin Stanislavski, whose motto was "Think of your own experiences and use them truthfully." The results of this meeting between an actor and the teacher preparing him for a life in the theater would mark a watershed in American acting and culture.
Brando made his debut on the boards of Broadway on October 19, 1944, in "I Remember Mama," a great success. As a young Broadway actor, Brando was invited by talent scouts from several different studios to screen-test for them, but he turned them down because he would not let himself be bound by the then-standard seven-year contract. Brando would make his film debut quite some time later in Fred Zinnemann's The Men (1950) for producer Stanley Kramer. Playing a paraplegic soldier, Brando brought new levels of realism to the screen, expanding on the verisimilitude brought to movies by Group Theatre alumni John Garfield, the predecessor closest to him in the raw power he projected on-screen. Ironically, it was Garfield whom producer Irene Mayer Selznick had chosen to play the lead in a new Tennessee Williams play she was about to produce, but negotiations broke down when Garfield demanded an ownership stake in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Burt Lancaster was next approached, but couldn't get out of a prior film commitment. Then director Elia Kazan suggested Brando, whom he had directed to great effect in Maxwell Anderson's play "Truckline Café," in which Brando co-starred with Karl Malden, who was to remain a close friend for the next 60 years.
During the production of "Truckline Café," Kazan had found that Brando's presence was so magnetic, he had to re-block the play to keep Marlon near other major characters' stage business, as the audience could not take its eyes off of him. For the scene where Brando's character re-enters the stage after killing his wife, Kazan placed him upstage-center, partially obscured by scenery, but where the audience could still see him as Karl Malden and others played out their scene within the café set. When he eventually entered the scene, crying, the effect was electric. A young Pauline Kael, arriving late to the play, had to avert her eyes when Brando made this entrance as she believed the young actor on stage was having a real-life conniption. She did not look back until her escort commented that the young man was a great actor.
The problem with casting Brando as Stanley was that he was much younger than the character as written by Williams. However, after a meeting between Brando and Williams, the playwright eagerly agreed that Brando would make an ideal Stanley. Williams believed that by casting a younger actor, the Neanderthalish Kowalski would evolve from being a vicious older man to someone whose unintentional cruelty can be attributed to his youthful ignorance. Brando ultimately was dissatisfied with his performance, though, saying he never was able to bring out the humor of the character, which was ironic as his characterization often drew laughs from the audience at the expense of Jessica Tandy's Blanche Dubois. During the out-of-town tryouts, Kazan realized that Brando's magnetism was attracting attention and audience sympathy away from Blanche to Stanley, which was not what the playwright intended. The audience's sympathy should be solely with Blanche, but many spectators were identifying with Stanley. Kazan queried Williams on the matter, broaching the idea of a slight rewrite to tip the scales back to more of a balance between Stanley and Blanche, but Williams demurred, smitten as he was by Brando, just like the preview audiences.
For his part, Brando believed that the audience sided with his Stanley because Jessica Tandy was too shrill. He thought Vivien Leigh, who played the part in the movie, was ideal, as she was not only a great beauty but she WAS Blanche Dubois, troubled as she was in her real life by mental illness and nymphomania. Brando's appearance as Stanley on stage and on screen revolutionized American acting by introducing "The Method" into American consciousness and culture. Method acting, rooted in Adler's study at the Moscow Art Theatre of Stanislavsky's theories that she subsequently introduced to the Group Theatre, was a more naturalistic style of performing, as it engendered a close identification of the actor with the character's emotions. Adler took first place among Brando's acting teachers, and socially she helped turn him from an unsophisticated Midwestern farm boy into a knowledgeable and cosmopolitan artist who one day would socialize with presidents.
Brando didn't like the term "The Method," which quickly became the prominent paradigm taught by such acting gurus as Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Brando denounced Strasberg in his autobiography "Songs My Mother Taught Me" (1994), saying that he was a talentless exploiter who claimed he had been Brando's mentor. The Actors Studio had been founded by Strasberg along with Kazan and Stella Adler's husband, Harold Clurman, all Group Theatre alumni, all political progressives deeply committed to the didactic function of the stage. Brando credits his knowledge of the craft to Adler and Kazan, while Kazan in his autobiography "A Life" claimed that Brando's genius thrived due to the thorough training Adler had given him. Adler's method emphasized that authenticity in acting is achieved by drawing on inner reality to expose deep emotional experience
Interestingly, Elia Kazan believed that Brando had ruined two generations of actors, his contemporaries and those who came after him, all wanting to emulate the great Brando by employing The Method. Kazan felt that Brando was never a Method actor, that he had been highly trained by Adler and did not rely on gut instincts for his performances, as was commonly believed. Many a young actor, mistaken about the true roots of Brando's genius, thought that all it took was to find a character's motivation, empathize with the character through sense and memory association, and regurgitate it all on stage to become the character. That's not how the superbly trained Brando did it; he could, for example, play accents, whereas your average American Method actor could not. There was a method to Brando's art, Kazan felt, but it was not The Method.
After A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), for which he received the first of his eight Academy Award nominations, Brando appeared in a string of Academy Award-nominated performances - in Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953) and the summit of his early career, Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954). For his "Waterfront" portrayal of meat-headed longshoreman Terry Malloy, the washed-up pug who "coulda been a contender," Brando won his first Oscar. Along with his iconic performance as the rebel-without-a-cause Johnny in The Wild One (1953) ("What are you rebelling against?" Johnny is asked. "What have ya got?" is his reply), the first wave of his career was, according to Jon Voight, unprecedented in its audacious presentation of such a wide range of great acting. Director John Huston said his performance of Marc Antony was like seeing the door of a furnace opened in a dark room, and co-star John Gielgud, the premier Shakespearean actor of the 20th century, invited Brando to join his repertory company.
It was this period of 1951-54 that revolutionized American acting, spawning such imitators as James Dean - who modeled his acting and even his lifestyle on his hero Brando - the young Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. After Brando, every up-and-coming star with true acting talent and a brooding, alienated quality would be hailed as the "New Brando," such as Warren Beatty in Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961). "We are all Brando's children," Jack Nicholson pointed out in 1972. "He gave us our freedom." He was truly "The Godfather" of American acting - and he was just 30 years old. Though he had a couple of failures, like Désirée (1954) and The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), he was clearly miscast in them and hadn't sought out the parts so largely escaped blame.
In the second period of his career, 1955-62, Brando managed to uniquely establish himself as a great actor who also was a Top 10 movie star, although that star began to dim after the box-office high point of his early career, Sayonara (1957) (for which he received his fifth Best Actor Oscar nomination). Brando tried his hand at directing a film, the well-reviewed One-Eyed Jacks (1961) that he made for his own production company, Pennebaker Productions (after his mother's maiden name). Stanley Kubrick had been hired to direct the film, but after months of script rewrites in which Brando participated, Kubrick and Brando had a falling out and Kubrick was sacked. According to his widow Christiane Kubrick, Stanley believed that Brando had wanted to direct the film himself all along.
Tales proliferated about the profligacy of Brando the director, burning up a million and a half feet of expensive VistaVision film at 50 cents a foot, fully ten times the normal amount of raw stock expended during production of an equivalent motion picture. Brando took so long editing the film that he was never able to present the studio with a cut. Paramount took it away from him and tacked on a re-shot ending that Brando was dissatisfied with, as it made the Oedipal figure of Dad Longworth into a villain. In any normal film Dad would have been the heavy, but Brando believed that no one was innately evil, that it was a matter of an individual responding to, and being molded by, one's environment. It was not a black-and-white world, Brando felt, but a gray world in which once-decent people could do horrible things. This attitude explains his sympathetic portrayal of Nazi officer Christian Diestl in the film he made before shooting One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Edward Dmytryk's filming of Irwin Shaw's novel The Young Lions (1958). Shaw denounced Brando's performance, but audiences obviously disagreed, as the film was a major hit. It would be the last hit movie Brando would have for more than a decade.
One-Eyed Jacks (1961) generated respectable numbers at the box office, but the production costs were exorbitant - a then-staggering $6 million - which made it run a deficit. A film essentially is "made" in the editing room, and Brando found cutting to be a terribly boring process, which was why the studio eventually took the film away from him. Despite his proved talent in handling actors and a large production, Brando never again directed another film, though he would claim that all actors essentially direct themselves during the shooting of a picture.
Between the production and release of One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Brando appeared in Sidney Lumet's film version of Tennessee Williams' play "Orpheus Descending," The Fugitive Kind (1960) which teamed him with fellow Oscar winners Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward. Following in Elizabeth Taylor's trailblazing footsteps, Brando became the second performer to receive a $1-million salary for a motion picture, so high were the expectations for this re-teaming of Kowalski and his creator (in 1961 critic Hollis Alpert had published a book "Brando and the Shadow of Stanley Kowalski"). Critics and audiences waiting for another incendiary display from Brando in a Williams work were disappointed when the renamed The Fugitive Kind (1960) finally released. Though Tennessee was hot, with movie versions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) burning up the box office and receiving kudos from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, The Fugitive Kind (1960) was a failure. This was followed by the so-so box-office reception of One-Eyed Jacks (1961) in 1961 and then by a failure of a more monumental kind: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), a remake of the famed 1935 film.
Brando signed on to Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) after turning down the lead in the David Lean classic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) because he didn't want to spend a year in the desert riding around on a camel. He received another $1-million salary, plus $200,000 in overages as the shoot went overtime and over budget. During principal photography, highly respected director Carol Reed (an eventual Academy Award winner) was fired, and his replacement, two-time Oscar winner Lewis Milestone, was shunted aside by Brando as Marlon basically took over the direction of the film himself. The long shoot became so notorious that President John F. Kennedy asked director Billy Wilder at a cocktail party not "when" but "if" the "Bounty" shoot would ever be over. The MGM remake of one of its classic Golden Age films garnered a Best Picture Oscar nomination and was one of the top grossing films of 1962, yet failed to go into the black due to its Brobdingnagian budget estimated at $20 million, which is equivalent to $120 million when adjusted for inflation.
Brando and Taylor, whose Cleopatra (1963) nearly bankrupted 20th Century-Fox due to its huge cost overruns (its final budget was more than twice that of Brando's Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)), were pilloried by the show business press for being the epitome of the pampered, self-indulgent stars who were ruining the industry. Seeking scapegoats, the Hollywood press conveniently ignored the financial pressures on the studios. The studios had been hurt by television and by the antitrust-mandated divestiture of their movie theater chains, causing a large outflow of production to Italy and other countries in the 1950s and 1960s in order to lower costs. The studio bosses, seeking to replicate such blockbuster hits as the remakes of The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben-Hur (1959), were the real culprits behind the losses generated by large-budgeted films that found it impossible to recoup their costs despite long lines at the box office.
While Elizabeth Taylor, receiving the unwanted gift of reams of publicity from her adulterous romance with Cleopatra (1963) co-star Richard Burton, remained hot until the tanking of her own Tennessee Williams-renamed debacle Boom! (1968), Brando from 1963 until the end of the decade appeared in one box-office failure after another as he worked out a contract he had signed with Universal Pictures. The industry had grown tired of Brando and his idiosyncrasies, though he continued to be offered prestige projects up through 1968.
Some of the films Brando made in the 1960s were noble failures, such as The Ugly American (1963), The Appaloosa (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). For every "Reflections," though, there seemed to be two or three outright debacles, such as Bedtime Story (1964), Morituri (1965), The Chase (1966), A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), Candy (1968), The Night of the Following Day (1969). By the time Brando began making the anti-colonialist picture Burn! (1969) in Colombia with Gillo Pontecorvo in the director's chair, he was box-office poison, despite having worked in the previous five years with such top directors as Arthur Penn, John Huston and the legendary Charles Chaplin, and with such top-drawer co-stars as David Niven, Yul Brynner, Sophia Loren and Taylor.
The rap on Brando in the 1960s was that a great talent had ruined his potential to be America's answer to Laurence Olivier, as his friend William Redfield limned the dilemma in his book "Letters from an Actor" (1967), a memoir about Redfield's appearance in Burton's 1964 theatrical production of "Hamlet." By failing to go back on stage and recharge his artistic batteries, something British actors such as Burton were not afraid to do, Brando had stifled his great talent, by refusing to tackle the classical repertoire and contemporary drama. Actors and critics had yearned for an American response to the high-acting style of the Brits, and while Method actors such as Rod Steiger tried to create an American style, they were hampered in their quest, as their king was lost in a wasteland of Hollywood movies that were beneath his talent. Many of his early supporters now turned on him, claiming he was a crass sellout.
Despite evidence in such films as The Appaloosa (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) that Brando was in fact doing some of the best acting of his life, critics, perhaps with an eye on the box office, slammed him for failing to live up to, and nurture, his great gift. Brando's political activism, starting in the early 1960s with his championing of Native Americans' rights, followed by his participation in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's March on Washington in 1963, and followed by his appearance at a Black Panther rally in 1968, did not win him many admirers in the establishment. In fact, there was a de facto embargo on Brando films in the recently segregated (officially, at least) southeastern US in the 1960s. Southern exhibitors simply would not book his films, and producers took notice. After 1968, Brando would not work for three years.
Pauline Kael wrote of Brando that he was Fortune's fool. She drew a parallel with the latter career of John Barrymore, a similarly gifted thespian with talents as prodigious, who seemingly threw them away. Brando, like the late-career Barrymore, had become a great ham, evidenced by his turn as the faux Indian guru in the egregious Candy (1968), seemingly because the material was so beneath his talent. Most observers of Brando in the 1960s believed that he needed to be reunited with his old mentor Elia Kazan, a relationship that had soured due to Kazan's friendly testimony naming names before the notorious House un-American Activities Committee. Perhaps Brando believed this, too, as he originally accepted an offer to appear as the star of Kazan's film adaptation of his own novel, The Arrangement (1969). However, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Brando backed out of the film, telling Kazan that he could not appear in a Hollywood film after this tragedy. Also reportedly turning down a role opposite box-office king Paul Newman in a surefire script, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Brando decided to make Burn! (1969) with Pontecorvo. The film, a searing indictment of racism and colonialism, flopped at the box office but won the esteem of progressive critics and cultural arbiters such as Howard Zinn. He subsequently appeared in the British film The Nightcomers (1971), a prequel to "Turn of the Screw" and another critical and box office failure.
Kazan, after a life in film and the theater, said that, aside from Orson Welles, whose greatness lay in film making, he only met one actor who was a genius: Brando. Richard Burton, an intellectual with a keen eye for observation if not for his own film projects, said that he found Brando to be very bright, unlike the public perception of him as a Terry Malloy-type character that he himself inadvertently promoted through his boorish behavior. Brando's problem, Burton felt, was that he was unique, and that he had gotten too much fame too soon at too early an age. Cut off from being nurtured by normal contact with society, fame had distorted Brando's personality and his ability to cope with the world, as he had not had time to grow up outside the limelight.
Truman Capote, who eviscerated Brando in print in the mid-'50s and had as much to do with the public perception of the dyslexic Brando as a dumbbell, always said that the best actors were ignorant, and that an intelligent person could not be a good actor. However, Brando was highly intelligent, and possessed of a rare genius in a then-deprecated art, acting. The problem that an intelligent performer has in movies is that it is the director, and not the actor, who has the power in his chosen field. Greatness in the other arts is defined by how much control the artist is able to exert over his chosen medium, but in movie acting, the medium is controlled by a person outside the individual artist. It is an axiom of the cinema that a performance, as is a film, is "created" in the cutting room, thus further removing the actor from control over his art. Brando had tried his hand at directing, in controlling the whole artistic enterprise, but he could not abide the cutting room, where a film and the film's performances are made. This lack of control over his art was the root of Brando's discontent with acting, with movies, and, eventually, with the whole wide world that invested so much cachet in movie actors, as long as "they" were at the top of the box-office charts. Hollywood was a matter of "they" and not the work, and Brando became disgusted.
Charlton Heston, who participated in Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington with Brando, believes that Marlon was the great actor of his generation. However, noting a story that Brando had once refused a role in the early 1960s with the excuse "How can I act when people are starving in India?," Heston believes that it was this attitude, the inability to separate one's idealism from one's work, that prevented Brando from reaching his potential. As Rod Steiger once said, Brando had it all, great stardom and a great talent. He could have taken his audience on a trip to the stars, but he simply would not. Steiger, one of Brando's children even though a contemporary, could not understand it. When James Mason' was asked in 1971 who was the best American actor, he had replied that since Brando had let his career go belly-up, it had to be George C. Scott, by default.
Paramount thought that only Laurence Olivier would suffice, but Lord Olivier was ill. The young director believed there was only one actor who could play godfather to the group of Young Turk actors he had assembled for his film, The Godfather of method acting himself - Marlon Brando. Francis Ford Coppola won the fight for Brando, Brando won - and refused - his second Oscar, and Paramount won a pot of gold by producing the then top-grossing film of all-time, The Godfather (1972), a gangster movie most critics now judge one of the greatest American films of all time. Brando followed his iconic portrayal of Don Corleone with his Oscar-nominated turn in the high-grossing and highly scandalous Last Tango in Paris (1972) ("Last Tango in Paris"), the first film dealing explicitly with sexuality in which an actor of Brando's stature had participated. He was now again a top ten box office star and once again heralded as the greatest actor of his generation, an unprecedented comeback that put him on the cover of "Time" magazine and would make him the highest-paid actor in the history of motion pictures by the end of the decade. Little did the world know that Brando, who had struggled through many projects in good faith during the 1960s, delivering some of his best acting, only to be excoriated and ignored as the films did not do well at the box office, essentially was through with the movies.
After reaching the summit of his career, a rarefied atmosphere never reached before or since by any actor, Brando essentially walked away. He would give no more of himself after giving everything as he had done in Last Tango in Paris (1972)," a performance that embarrassed him, according to his autobiography. Brando had come as close to any actor to being the "auteur," or author, of a film, as the English-language scenes of "Tango" were created by encouraging Brando to improvise. The improvisations were written down and turned into a shooting script, and the scripted improvisations were shot the next day. Pauline Kael, the Brando of movie critics in that she was the most influential arbiter of cinematic quality of her generation and spawned a whole legion of Kael wannabes, said Brando's performance in Last Tango in Paris (1972) had revolutionized the art of film. Brando, who had to act to gain his mother's attention; Brando, who believed acting at best was nothing special as everyone in the world engaged in it every day of their lives to get what they wanted from other people; Brando, who believed acting at its worst was a childish charade and that movie stardom was a whorish fraud, would have agreed with Sam Peckinpah's summation of Pauline Kael: "Pauline's a brilliant critic but sometimes she's just cracking walnuts with her ass." He probably would have done so in a simulacrum of those words, too.
After another three-year hiatus, Brando took on just one more major role for the next 20 years, as the bounty hunter after Jack Nicholson in Arthur Penn's The Missouri Breaks (1976), a western that succeeded neither with the critics or at the box office. Following The Godfather and Tango, Brando's performance was disappointing for some reviewers, who accused him of giving an erratic and inconsistent performance. In 1977, Brando made a rare appearance on television in the miniseries Roots: The Next Generations (1979), portraying George Lincoln Rockwell; he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his performance. In 1978, he narrated the English version of Raoni (1978), a French-Belgian documentary film directed by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux and Luiz Carlos Saldanha that focused on the life of Raoni Metuktire and issues surrounding the survival of the indigenous Indian tribes of north central Brazil.
Later in his career, Brando concentrated on extracting the maximum amount of capital for the least amount of work from producers, as when he got the Salkind brothers to pony up a then-record $3.7 million against 10% of the gross for 13 days work on Superman (1978). Factoring in inflation, the straight salary for "Superman" equals or exceeds the new record of $1 million a day Harrison Ford set with K-19: The Widowmaker (2002). He agreed to the role only on assurance that he would be paid a large sum for what amounted to a small part, that he would not have to read the script beforehand, and his lines would be displayed somewhere off-camera. Brando also filmed scenes for the movie's sequel, Superman II, but after producers refused to pay him the same percentage he received for the first movie, he denied them permission to use the footage.
Before cashing his first paycheck for Superman (1978), Brando had picked up $2 million for his extended cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) in a role, that of Col. Kurtz, that he authored on-camera through improvisation while Coppola shot take after take. It was Brando's last bravura star performance. He co-starred with George C. Scott and John Gielgud in The Formula (1980), but the film was another critical and financial failure. Years later though, he did receive an eighth and final Oscar nomination for his supporting role in A Dry White Season (1989) after coming out of a near-decade-long retirement. Contrary to those who claimed he now only was in it for the money, Brando donated his entire seven-figure salary to an anti-apartheid charity. He then did an amusing performance in the comedy The Freshman (1990), winning rave reviews. He portrayed Tomas de Torquemada in the historical drama 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), but his performance was denounced and the film was another box office failure. He made another comeback in the Johnny Depp romantic drama Don Juan DeMarco (1994), which co-starred Faye Dunaway as his wife. He then appeared in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), co-starring Val Kilmer, who he didn't get along with. The filming was an unpleasant experience for Brando, as well as another critical and box office failure.
Brando had first attracted media attention at the age of 24, when "Life" magazine ran a photo of himself and his sister Jocelyn, who were both then appearing on Broadway. The curiosity continued, and snowballed. Playing the paraplegic soldier of The Men (1950), Brando had gone to live at a Veterans Administration hospital with actual disabled veterans, and confined himself to a wheelchair for weeks. It was an acting method, research, that no one in Hollywood had ever heard of before, and that willingness to experience life.- Actor
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Adam Scott was born in Santa Cruz, California, the son of Anne and Dougald Scott. He has two older siblings, Shannon and David. Scott has said that his brother David "looks like me but is far more cerebral and inherited the intellect of our parents," both of whom are retired teachers. He graduated from Harbor High School and he is an alumnus of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles, California, class of 1993.- Actress
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Aeriél Miranda (better known as "ARI" - a name of endearment given to her by friends, followers and industry professionals) is a Dallas, Texas native, born and raised, having seasonally lived in Boston and New Orleans. Brought up by youthful parents, her mother is an African American woman hailing from Louisiana and her father, a music deejay from New Bedford, Massachusetts. Her paternal family origins are rooted in Cape Verde. She is of West African, Portuguese, French, German and Jewish descent.
Ms. Miranda's profound passion for entertainment was inspired by her Nana who introduced cinematic classics such as "The Sound of Music", "West Side Story", "Oliver Twist", "E.T." and tons of Disney animated films to her at an impressionably sweet age. Thus, her interest in the performing arts was born. She studied ballet at Etgen-Atkinson Ballet School and began her theatrical journey by joining and performing in plays for the Dallas Children's Theatre. At an early age, she also adopted an affinity for music, learning to play the piano and violin. With the combination of her family's multi-faceted background and exposure to phenomenal works, she was raised to have exquisite taste in the humanities and fine arts. Her upbringing fostered a fierce understanding of people, culture and the world.
In her teens she also competed in pageants across the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolis and sang in her school and church choir. She credits James Belushi and Robert Townsend-both of whom she met at a young age-for inspiring her to become a devoted actress.
Miranda made her television debut on the ABC Family series The Nine Lives of Chloe King. She then went on to appear in various television shows including The CW science fiction series The Tomorrow People and TV Land's Jennifer Falls. Fans all over the world have recognized her from her breakout role on Freeform's "Pretty Little Liars". Other roles include Universal Pictures Straight Outta Compton and The Oprah Winfrey Network's For Better Or Worse.
In addition to her theatricals, Miranda has modeled for numerous companies such as; Nike, Sprite, Old Navy, TJ Max, Harley Davidson, and Bed Head by TIGI.- Alberto Dalbés was born on 3 April 1922 in Rosario, Argentina. He was an actor, known for Tender and Perverse Emanuelle (1973), The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1973) and Cut-Throats Nine (1972). He died on 14 September 1983 in Madrid, Spain.
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Alec Baldwin is the oldest, and best-known, of the four Baldwin brothers in the acting business (the others are Stephen Baldwin, William Baldwin and Daniel Baldwin). Alexander Rae Baldwin III was born on April 3, 1958 in Massapequa, New York, the son of Carol Newcomb (Martineau) and Alexander Rae Baldwin Jr., a high school teacher and football coach at Massapequa High School. He is of Irish, as well as English, French, Scottish, and German, descent.
Alec Baldwin burst onto the TV scene in the early 1980s with appearances on several series, including The Doctors (1963) and Knots Landing (1979), before scoring feature film roles in Forever, Lulu (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), Working Girl (1988), Married to the Mob (1988) and Talk Radio (1988). In 1990, Baldwin appeared in the first on-screen adaptation of the "Jack Ryan" character created by mega-selling espionage author, Tom Clancy. The film, The Hunt for Red October (1990), was a box office and critical success, with Baldwin appearing alongside icy Sean Connery. Unfortunately, Baldwin fell out with Paramount Studios over future scripts for "Jack Ryan", and subsequent Ryan roles went to Harrison Ford.
Baldwin instead went to Broadway to perform "A Streetcar Named Desire", garnering a Tony nomination for his portrayal of "Stanley Kowalski" (he would reprise the role in a 1995 TV adaptation). Baldwin won over critics as a lowlife thief pursued by dogged cop Fred Ward in Miami Blues (1990), met his future wife Kim Basinger while filming the Neil Simon comedy, The Marrying Man (1991), starred in the film adaptation of the play, Prelude to a Kiss (1992) (in which he starred off-Broadway), and made an indelible ten-minute cameo as a hard-nosed real estate executive laying down the law in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He also made a similar tour-de-force monologue in the thriller, Malice (1993), as a doctor defending his practices, in which he stated, "Let me tell you something: I am God".
Demand for Baldwin's talents in the 1990s saw more scripts swiftly come his way, and he starred alongside his then-wife, Kim Basinger, in a remake of the Steve McQueen action flick, The Getaway (1994), brought to life the famous comic strip character, The Shadow (1994), and starred as an assistant district attorney in the civil rights drama, Ghosts of Mississippi (1996). Baldwin's distinctive vocal talents then saw him voice US-aired episodes of the highly popular UK children's show, Thomas & Friends (1984), plus later voice-only contributions to other animated/children's shows, including Clerks (2000), Cats & Dogs (2001), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004).
In the early 2000s, Baldwin and Basinger endured an acrimonious break-up that quickly became tabloid fodder but, while his divorce was high-profile, Baldwin excelled in a number of lower-profile supporting roles in a variety of films, including State and Main (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001), The Cooler (2003) (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor), The Aviator (2004), Along Came Polly (2004) and The Departed (2006). As he was excelling as a consummate character actor, Baldwin found a second career in television comedy. Already known for his comedic turns hosting Saturday Night Live (1975), he essayed an extended guest role on Will & Grace (1998) in 2005 before taking on what would arguably become his most famous role, that of network executive "Jack Donaghy", opposite Tina Fey in the highly-acclaimed sitcom, 30 Rock (2006). The role brought Baldwin two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes, and an unprecedented six Screen Actors Guild Awards (not including cast wins).
Continuing to appear in films as 30 Rock (2006) wrapped up its final season, Baldwin was engaged in 2012 to wed Hilaria Baldwin (aka Hilaria Lynn Thomas); the couple married on June 30, 2012.- Alex Grammas was born on 3 April 1926 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. He was married to Demetra Triantos. He died on 13 September 2019 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.
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- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Alf Humphreys was born on 3 April 1953 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was an actor and writer, known for X2 (2003), First Blood (1982) and The Uninvited (2009). He was married to Elizabeth Moss. He died on 31 January 2018 in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.- Actress
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Alice Eva Lowe is an English actress and writer, mainly in comedy. She is best known for her roles as Madeline Wool/Liz Asher in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and as Tina in the 2012 film Sightseers, which she also co-wrote.
Lowe was born in Coventry, West Midlands, England. She attended Kenilworth School and graduated from King's College, Cambridge.
Lowe began her career co-devising and performing in surreal experimental theatre shows such as City Haunts, Snowbound and Progress in Flying Machines with David Mitchell and Robert Webb under the directorship of Paul King, who has since directed her in The Mighty Boosh and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. She was part of the cast in Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight alongside fellow Cambridge graduates Richard Ayoade and Matt Holness and they were nominated for the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2000. In 2001, she won that award for performing in the sequel to Fright Knight, Garth Marenghi's Netherhead. In 2005 she returned to the Fringe with MoonJourney, a sci-fi themed Kate Bush spoof. In 2009, Lowe appeared with Steve Coogan on his Alan Partridge and Other Less Successful Characters tour. She played one of the supporting actors, filling in between Coogan's character changes and playing some of the support characters in sketches.
Her television credits include Channel 4's spoof horror comedy Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Beth in the BBC comedy series My Life in Film, David Bowie in the BBC series Snuff Box, and a recurring role in Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive. She was part of the all female comedy show Beehive along with Sarah Kendall, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and Clare Thomson which was aired on E4, and was a regular cast member of the CBBC show Horrible Histories during the second and third seasons. Her BBC Three pilot "LifeSpam: My Child Is French" was broadcast in 2009, and she co-wrote and starred in Channel 4's Orcadia. In February 2010, she appeared in and script-edited the pilot for a "sort-of-sketch-show" called Missing Scene.
She has also guest starred in a number of television shows including as Monkey in "The Priest and the Beast" episode of The Mighty Boosh, as Patricia in the "Fifty-Fifty" episode of The IT Crowd, a solicitor in the "Travel Writer" episode of Black Books, Madonna in an episode of Channel 4's Star Stories, as well as episodes of Little Britain, Come Fly with Me, Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul, Beautiful People and This is Jinsy. She appeared in the music video for "Bastardo" by Charlotte Hatherley, directed by Edgar Wright.
Lowe co-wrote and starred in the short film Stiffy, directed by Jacqueline Wright, which premiered at Cannes in 2005 as part of the Kodak Straight 8 competition. Her self-penned short film Sticks and Balls was screened at Cannes in 2007. In 2010 together with Wright she founded the production company Jackal Films, making a short film each month of that year.
Lowe appeared in the action comedy film Hot Fuzz, and took a lead role in the 2012 film Sightseers, the third production from director Ben Wheatley. Sightseers was written by Lowe with Steve Oram, with additional material by Amy Jump. Lowe had a role in the Edgar Wright-directed film The World's End.
Lowe was pregnant while filming Prevenge and later gave birth to her daughter, Della.- Actress
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- Soundtrack
Amanda Laura Bynes was born on April 3, 1986, in Thousand Oaks, California, the youngest of three children of Lynn (Organ), a dental assistant, and Richard Bynes, a dentist. Her father is of Lithuanian, Irish, and Polish descent, and her mother is from an Ashkenazi Jewish family from Toronto. Amanda became interested in acting and performing from the age of three, when she would say her older sister Jillian's lines with her while she performed in plays. It was from then on that her family and friends knew that she would be a star someday.
Her acting debut was in 1996, when she auditioned for and got the role as a newcomer on All That (1994). Right away, she became very popular as people enjoyed her acting in skits, especially Ask Ashley, where she played a little girl running an advice column who would get very angry every time she read a letter.
In 1999, 13-year-old Amanda was given her own variety show, The Amanda Show (1999), in which she starred in all of the skits except Totally Kyle. In 2001, she co-starred with Frankie Muniz in Big Fat Liar (2002) as Kaylee, Jason's friend who helps him prove that he really did write the essay "Big Fat Liar" and regain his father's trust. It was also in 2001 that she began dating Taran Killam from The Amanda Show (1999) and Big Fat Liar (2002), who is four years and two days older than she is. She also won a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award and, at age 15, The Amanda Show (1999) ended its run.
In 2002, she began co-starring with Jennie Garth in What I Like About You (2002) as Holly, a 16-year-old girl who moves in with her sister after their father decides to move to Japan. She also celebrated her Sweet 16th birthday and got her driver's license on April 3, 2002.
In 2003, Amanda won two KCA Awards and starred as Daphne, a girl searching for her father, in What a Girl Wants (2003) with Colin Firth and Kelly Preston as her parents. She continued acting in What I Like About You (2002) and broke up with Taran.
A prodigiously talented comedienne, on April 3, 2004, Amanda celebrated her 18th birthday on the 17th Annual KCA Awards, where she won an award for best actress for her role in What a Girl Wants (2003). She graduated from Thousand Oaks High School's independent study program on June 10, 2004, and filmed Lovewrecked (2005) in 2004.- Actor
- Soundtrack
The character actor Andrew Keir (originally Andrew Buggy) was born in 1926 in the coal-mining town of Shotts in Lanarkshire, Scotland, of Irish Catholic extraction, and raised there with his five brothers John, Tom, Michael, Patrick, and Hugh, and a sister, Maggie. The son of a coal miner, Keir worked in the coal mines from age 14 to 20, at which point he joined the Glasgow Citizen's Theatre to train as an actor. Shortly thereafter, Keir established himself professionally in British theater, television, and film, debuting in The Lady Craved Excitement (1950). His bluff, no-nonsense demeanor was perfect for authoritarian and military roles, especially Roman soldiers, as in Cleopatra (1963), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), and The Viking Queen (1967).
He hooked up with Hammer Productions early on (his debut film) and continued the association in a number of horror films, e.g., Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971). One of his best-known and most popular performances was that of the title role in Quatermass and the Pit (1967). Keir made numerous appearances in television throughout his career, notably in Adam Smith (1972) and in the Australian series The Outsiders (1976). Keir, true to his heritage, frequently played Scotsmen, especially in the latter part of his career.- Actress
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Within a year of emancipating herself from foster care at 17, Angela Featherstone became Canada's top model when her September, Flare magazine cover broke all prior sales records. She quickly expanded upon her success and left for New York, where she signed with NEXT modeling agency. Angela traveled the world as a top fashion model, but for her life's work of acting, she downplayed her striking features to play unlikely roles, emerging as an actress with exceptional versatility. She is best known for playing Chloe in Friends, The Maid on Seinfeld, and the fiancé (Linda), who left Adam Sandler's character (Robbie) at the altar in The Wedding Singer. Most recently, she played the role of Maggie on Showtime's Ray Donovan and Jame on Girls for HBO. She has created sitcoms for Sony, DreamWorks, and NBC television and wrote nonfiction for Time, Jane, Flare, The Huffington Post, Dame, and Zoomer. Her essay about childhood trauma, God Said No, was published in the 2014 edition of Gargoyle Magazine and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Angela, a committed advocate for children in foster care, volunteers with the Children's Action Network curating their Heart Gallery from 2011- 2019 and serving on their Winter Wonderland committee 2014 & 2015. She mentored a child in foster care through Kidsave from 2011-2020 and has lectured at the ICAN Nexus Conference; Violence Within the Home and its Effects on Children. Her 2015 essay on child sex trafficking for DAME was picked up by Salon.org and MSN and exposed to over 7 million viewers. Angela also served as a consultant on the important Netflix documentary about the effects and healing of trauma, Cracked Up. In 2011, she curated Fuck Pretty at the Robert Berman Gallery, featuring important and emerging female photographers. In addition, she recorded "Coattail Glide" with Raymond Pettibon and The Niche Makers and was an adjunct lecturer at the UCLA Professional Producing Program.
With her 2022 debut 7-minute film, L'Étranger, Angela Featherstone turns her gaze to directing. As a director, Angela combines her years of experience in fashion as a model; working with important photographers and magazines such as; Italian, French, and American Vogue, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, Sassy, Harpers Bazaar Italia, Grazia, Harpers & Queens, Albert Watson, Bruce Weber, Oliviero Toscani, Irving Penn, & Piero Gemelli; her decades in the film industry; Friends, Seinfeld, ConAir, Wedding Singer, & Girls; a refined sense of story as an oft published essayist; her passion for philosophy; and a love of creating safe spaces for collaboration, into a movement of aesthetic bliss.- Actress
- Producer
Throughout her career, Anna Foglietta has worked successfully in various fields, including film, theatre, television and advertising. One of her most significant achievements was in 2015 when she starred in the multi-award-winning film "Perfect Strangers" by Paolo Genovese. For her role, Anna received the Special Silver Ribbon Award and a nomination at the David di Donatello Awards. In 2020, she also served as the godmother of the 77th Venice International Film Festival. Anna Foglietta is actively involved in social work through the non-profit organization "Every Child Is My Child", of which she is the President.- Actress
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Anne DeSalvo was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Arthur (1981), The Amati Girls (2000) and My Favorite Year (1982).- Actor
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Chicago native Aries Spears discovered his comedic abilities at the young age of 14, when he started doing his own comedy routine around his hometown. By the age of 17, he landed a part in the movie Home of Angels (1995), starring Abe Vigoda, Sherman Hemsley and Joe Frazier. Spears' additional film credits include The Pest (1997) opposite John Leguizamo, Jerry Maguire (1996), Out-of-Sync (1995), Malcolm X (1992) and Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998).
Spears' first television appearance was cable's Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam (1992), followed by Showtime at the Apollo (1987).
He moved to Los Angeles in 1992, landed a recurring role on A Different World (1987) and became a regular at The Comedy Store, The Improv and The Laugh Factory.
Shortly thereafter, Spears was cast in a starring role opposite Glenn Frey in South of Sunset (1993). His additional television credits include _"Crosstown Traffic" (1995) (TV Movie)_, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993) and Soul Train (1971). Spears also lent his voice to the animated series C-Bear and Jamal (1996)- Arthur Byron was born on 3 April 1872 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Mummy (1932), 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) and Marie Galante (1934). He was married to Kathryn Byron and Lillian Hall (actress). He died on 17 July 1943 in Hollywood, California, USA.
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Axelle Carolyn started out as a freelance reporter for some of the world's most prestigious film magazines and websites. Her non-fiction writing career culminated with the 2009 publication of her book 'Horror Movies In The New Millennium'. After a brief stint in front of the camera (most notably in CENTURION for Pathe), she directed her first short films in 2011: THE LAST POST and THE HALLOWEEN KID- both of which gained awards and acclaim in festivals worldwide -, and HOOKED, which premiered on FearNet. Her first feature, British ghost story SOULMATE, came out in the US and UK in 2014. It toured festivals around the world and won, amongst others, a Best Director accolade at Rome's FantaFestival. In 2015 she created, co-produced and co-directed horror anthology TALES OF HALLOWEEN, which also featured directors such as Lucky McKee and Neil Marshall. It is certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and won a Rondo Award, as well as a prestigious 2017 Saturn Award. It also prompted Fandango to list her as one of their new directors to look out for, and Tribeca Film to declare she 'holds the key to indie horror's future.- Actor
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Barry Roberts was born on 3 April 1945 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Legal Tender (1991) and Hour Magazine (1980). He was married to Tanya Roberts. He died on 15 June 2006 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Beba Bidart was born on 3 April 1923 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was an actress, known for The Beast Must Die (1952), Nacha Regules (1950) and La parte del león (1978). She was married to Cacho Fontana. She died on 27 August 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Actor
- Producer
- Script and Continuity Department
Despite his prominence in Hollywood as a character actor known for playing villains and criminals, Ben Mendelsohn has been a leading man in Australia since starting acting as a teenager.
Paul Benjamin Mendelsohn was born in Melbourne, Australia, to Carole Ann (Ferguson), a nurse, and Frederick Arthur Oscar Mendelsohn, a medical researcher. Getting his start in television, including The Henderson Kids (1985) and the long running soap opera Neighbours (1985), Mendelsohn broke out with his performance as an ill-fated juvenile delinquent in the acclaimed coming of age film The Year My Voice Broke (1987). Mendelsohn won the best supporting actor award from the Australian Film Institute, his first of eight nominations.
Mendelsohn went onto to become one of the most popular teen/young adult stars in Australia cinema, often rivaling other emerging talents of his generation, including Russell Crowe, Noah Taylor, and Guy Pearce, leading the Australian tabloid to nickname them "the Mouse Pack" in reference to the Rat Pack in America and Brit Pack in the UK, emerging at the same time. Among his peers, Mendelsohn seemed to corner the market on troubled, angry young men, thanks to his roles in Idiot Box (1996), Metal Skin (1994), and Nirvana Street Murder (1990). But Mendelsohn also proved he was capable of being a romantic lead, starring in the comedies The Big Steal (1990), Cosi (1996), and Amy (1997).
In the 1990s, Mendelsohn appeared in just one "Hollywood" film, the action film Vertical Limit (2000), as one of two daredevil climbers on a rescue mission, often providing the film's comic relief. The film failed to find an audience and Mendelsohn returned to Australia, where he primarily worked in theater and television, despite earning best actor nominations from the Australian Film Institute and Australian Film Critics Circle for the drama Mullet, as a prodigal son returning to his small town. He also took steps to work in more international films such as The New World (2005), Knowing (2009) and Australia (2008). Mendelsohn has acknowledged that there was a period of almost two years that he had so little work, he considered leaving the acting profession entirely.
In 2009, Mendelsohn experienced a bit of a comeback with the role in the independent Australian films Beautiful Kate (2009), as troubled man forced to reunite with his dying father and come to terms with the death of his twin sister, with whom he had a complicated relationship. He was nominated for Australian Film Institute and Australian Film Critics Circle Best Actor in 2009. A year later, he appeared as Pope in Animal Kingdom (2010), the most terrifying and violent member of a crime family. In 2010, he won Best Actor from the Australian Film Institute, Independent Film Award, and Australian Film Critics Circle.
Since 2010, Mendelsohn has become a major player in Hollywood as a character actor in both blockbuster films (The Dark Knight Rises (2012)) and critically acclaimed films such as Killing Them Softly (2012) and The Place Beyond the Pines (2012). In 2013 he appeared in the UK Starred Up (2013), which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Award from the British Independent Film Awards. He received high praise for his performance as gambling addict in 2015's Mississippi Grind (2015) (earning an independent spirit award nomination for best actor). The same year he began a two season run on Netflix's Bloodline (2015) as Danny Rayburn, the black sheep in a well respected family in the Florida Keys (he was considered a guest actor in the third and final season). In 2016 his career took another leap forward, appearing as the main villain in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), and winning the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He missed the ceremony, as he was filming Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One (2018).- Benjamin Stone is most known for playing the leading role of 'Alek' in the hit ABC Family series 'The Nine Lives of Chloe King'. Playing the quintessential romantic lead is very much within Stone's wheelhouse as proven by the huge online response from his incredible portrayal of 'Alek'. the fantasy action hero. This online support led to multiple online campaigns championing him for leading roles in multiple franchises, including 'The Hunger games' and 'The Mortal Instruments'. Whenever a new young adult franchise is casting, Benjamin Stone's name always seems to be found on a leaked online shortlist somewhere. Stone has also appeared in multiple TV dramas and movies in the States as well as taking his inherent charm and talent to the stage in the UK, starring in multiple Musicals. This should come as no shock to Stone's fans who know that he trained at the Guildford School of Acting, the top drama school in Britain for Musical theatre.
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- Producer
Bill Sage was born on 3 April 1962 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for American Psycho (2000), Mysterious Skin (2004) and Boiler Room (2000).- Birgit Minichmayr was born on 3 April 1977 in Linz, Upper Austria, Austria. She is an actress, known for Downfall (2004), The White Ribbon (2009) and Everyone Else (2009). She is married to Hannes Minichmayr. They have two children.
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- Stunts
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Robert F. Hoy was equally at home as a stuntman and as an actor. He appeared as Joe Butler on the acclaimed TV Western, The High Chaparral. He stunt-doubled for such actors as Charles Bronson, Tony Curtis, Robert Forrester, Ross Martin, Tyrone Power, David Jansen, and Telly Savalas. He appeared in such films as The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Lone Ranger, Gambler II, Nevada Smith, Bronco Billy, and The Enforcer, and on television in such programs as Wanted Dead or Alive, Walker Texas Ranger, JAG, Dallas (recurring role), The Wild Wild West, Magnum P.I. (five episodes), and The Young Riders. Aside from appearing in front of the cameras, he was the 2nd Unit Director and Stunt Coordinator in Spain on the TV series Zorro and on the pilot episode of The Three Musketeers.
In his work as a stuntman, Bob specialized in horse work, although he was also called upon to double in fight scenes, do car work and handle high falls. The films in which lead actors and others were doubled for stunts are too numerous to mention but include: Operation Petticoat, The Defiant Ones, Spartacus, Tobruk, They Call Me Bruce, River of No Return, To Hell and Back, Drumbeat, Wings of the Hawk, and Revenge of the Creature From the Black Lagoon.
He held lifetime membership in the Stuntmen's Association, of which he was a founding member. He was also a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences, Directors Guild of America, AFTRA, and the Screen Actors Guild (later SAG-AFTRA).- Carlos Salinas de Gortari was born on 3 April 1948 in Mexico City, Mexico.
- Actress
- Music Department
- Composer
Carol Hall was born on 3 April 1936 in Abilene, Texas, USA. She was an actress and composer, known for Half Nelson (2006), Black Mass (2015) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). She was married to Leonard Majzlin and Richard Blinkoff. She died on 11 October 2018 in New York, New York, USA.- Actress
Cat Cora was raised in a small Greek community in Jackson, Mississippi, by a family who held strongly to their Greek and Southern heritage. Both her grandfather, father, and godfather were restaurateurs and, by the time she was fifteen, she had already presented a business plan to them for her very own restaurant. During college, she cooked at an Italian bistro and a private dining club, preparing classical French cuisine. After graduating from college, Cat backpacked through Europe for four months, in search of good food and wine.
Leaving Mississippi for New York with a Bachelor of Science degree in exercise physiology and biology under her belt, Cat got the education of her dreams at The Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park. While in New York, she apprenticed with and then worked for Chef Anne Rozenweig at Arcadia and worked at the Beekman tavern under Chef Larry Forgione, (father of Marc Forgione and Bryan Forgione), of "An American Place". Her culinary education continued in Europe with apprenticeships with two of France's three-star Michelin chefs: Georges Blanc and Roger Verge.
After returning to New York, Cat worked as a sous chef at The Old Chatham Shepherding Company, under Chef Melissa Kelly, before heading west to Northern California. She was offered the position of Chef de Cuisine in Napa Valley's Bistro Don Giovanni.- Actress
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Catherine McCormack was born on 3 April 1972 in Epsom, Surrey, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for Braveheart (1995), Spy Game (2001) and A Sound of Thunder (2005).- Actress
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Catherine Spaak was born on 3 April 1945 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France. She was an actress and writer, known for The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971), The Easy Life (1962) and The Empty Canvas (1963). She was married to Vladimiro Tuselli, Daniel Rey, Johnny Dorelli and Fabrizio Capucci. She died on 17 April 2022 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Charlotte Coleman was born in Islington, London, England as Charlotte Ninon Coleman. She was an actress, known for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1989), Worzel Gummidge (1979-1982), Educating Marmalade (1983), Danger: Marmalade at Work (1984) and Beautiful People (1999). She died on November 14, 2001 in Holloway, London.- Actress
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Chrissie Fit is best known for her role as Flo Fuentes in "Pitch Perfect 2 & 3" and as CheeChee in Disney Channel's Original Movie franchise "Teen Beach Movie." Along with various film and TV appearances, Fit also voices the character of Amanda Lopez on Disney XD's animated show "Milo Murphy's Law" and plays Princess Valentina in Disney Channel's hit series, "Elena Of Avalor." Chrissie is a first-generation Cuban-American and is fluent in Spanish.- Actress
- Producer
- Casting Department
Christiane Seidel is an American-born, German/Danish actor, and producer.
Upcoming, Christiane will be seen starring in the independent features, Paradise Highway (2022) (Lionsgate), written and directed by Anna Gutto, opposite Juliette Binoche, Frank Grillo, and Morgan Freeman and Boon (2022) alongside Neal McDonough.
Christiane can be seen in Netflix's global hit, award-winning limited series, The Queen's Gambit (2020), playing 'Helen Deardorff' alongside Anya Taylor-Joy from executive producer, Scott Frank.
Seidel is known to audiences worldwide for her role of 'Sigrid Mueller' opposite Michael Shannon for four seasons on HBO's hit drama, Boardwalk Empire (2010) from executive producer Marin Scorsese and Terrence Winter.
Other recent television work includes FX's limited series Fosse/Verdon (2019) opposite Sam Rockwell as 'Hannah', Bob Fosse's mistress who is the catalyst for Gwen and Bob's divorce, and starring as 'Martha' a mysterious free-spirited woman, in Netflix's critically acclaimed series Godless (2017) from Scott Frank, executive produced by Steven Soderbergh. Godless earned 12 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Limited Series. Her other credits include the independent film Human Capital (2019), The Hollow (2016) from executive producer Lisa Bruce, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999).
Christiane is a partner and producer at Red Rope Productions and has produced several short films that have screened at Academy Qualifying and international film festivals with numerous wins and nominations in multiple categories. She served as the Producing Director for the Scandinavian American Theater Company that presents award-winning Scandinavian plays in the US. In theatre, Christiane starred in the American Off-Broadway premiere of Then Silence by acclaimed Norwegian playwright Arne Lygre.
Christiane is a native English, German and Danish speaker who resides in New York with her family.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Clotilde Courau was born on 3 April 1969 in Levallois-Perret, Hauts-de-Seine, France. She is an actress, known for La Vie En Rose (2007), In the Shadow of Women (2015) and The Little Gangster (1990). She has been married to Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia since 25 September 2003. They have two children.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Cobie Smulders was born on April 3, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to a Dutch father and an English mother. As a girl, Cobie had set her sights on becoming a doctor or a marine biologist. In fact, it wasn't until high school that Cobie started to explore acting after appearing in several school productions. As a teenager, Cobie caught the eye of a modeling agency, which led to several years of world travel to places such as France, Japan, Italy, Greece, and Germany. Yet even as Cobie's modeling career was on the rise, she still managed to attend school, graduating from high school in 2000 with honors.
Once out of high school, Cobie continued modeling internationally until the opportunity arose to audition for film and television. It was not long before Cobie's natural ability as an actress impressed casting directors, landing her guest spots on television series such as Special Unit 2 (2001) and Jeremiah (2002). In addition, Cobie also appeared in the short Candy from Strangers (2001) directed by fellow Canadian rising star Eric Johnson.
Cobie got her big break just months later when she landed the role of Juliet Droil in the ABC program Veritas: The Quest (2003). The series marked her first series role for television.- Director
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- Actor
Cristi Puiu was born on 3 April 1967 in Bucharest, Romania. He is a director and writer, known for Aurora (2010), Sieranevada (2016) and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005). He has been married to Anca Puiu since 21 April 1998. They have three children.- Actor
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- Producer
David Hyde Pierce was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA. He is the youngest child of George and Laura Pierce (both deceased) and has two older sisters (Barbara and Nancy) and an older brother (Thomas). As a child, he was very interested in music (particularly piano) and regularly played the organ at his local church (Bethesda Episcopal Church). David discovered a love of drama in high school and, upon his graduation in 1977, he received the Yaddo Medal which is to honor academic achievement and personal character. However, his love of music was still strong so he decided to study classical piano at Yale University.
Unfortunately, he soon grew bored with music history lessons and found that he wasn't dedicated enough to practice the required amount of hours to become a successful concert pianist. Instead, he returned to his love of drama and graduated in 1981 with a double major in English and Theatre Arts. He then moved to New York where he worked several menial jobs (including selling ties at Bloomingdales and working as a security guard) while acting in the theater during the late 80s and early 90s. He appeared in small roles in films such as Bright Lights, Big City (1988) before his life and career changed forever when he landed the role of "Dr. Niles Crane" in the television series Frasier (1993). Throughout the show's eleven year run (1993-2004), David was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series each year (he won four times: 1995, 1998-1999 and 2004). David resides in Los Angeles with his romantic partner, Brian Hargrove, and their two Wheaton Terriers, Maude and Mabel. He remains very close to his three siblings.- David Swift was born on 3 April 1931 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Day of the Jackal (1973), Vanity Fair (1987) and Casanova (1971). He was married to Paula Jacobs. He died on 8 April 2016 in London, England, UK.
- Location Management
- Additional Crew
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Dean Galanis was born on 3 April 1969. Dean was an assistant director, known for Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021), Split (2004) and Timer (2009). Dean died on 4 May 2022 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Dominique Paturel was born on 3 April 1931 in Havre, France. He was an actor, known for La Vie En Rose (2007), Lagardère (1967) and Coplan prend des risques (1964). He was married to Nelly Benedetti and Marie-Claire Le Glatin. He died on 28 February 2022 in Saint-Brieuc, Côtes-d'Armor, France.- Actor
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"You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh; the fundamental things apply, as time goes by...". . The gentleman who crooned this now legendary tune for the morose Humphrey Bogart and moist-eyed Ingrid Bergman at Rick's Cafe Americain amid the bleak WWII backdrop was none other than 56-year-old Arthur "Dooley" Wilson, an African-American actor and singer who earned a comfortable niche for himself in film history with this simple, dramatic, piano-playing scene.
Dooley was born Arthur Wilson in Tyler, Texas. His exact year of birth was debated for years, listed in reference books as either 1886 or 1894. His grave marker, however, at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles gives the year 1886. At age 12 he performed in minstrel shows and later became a fixture in black theater in both Chicago and New York (circa 1908). He received the nickname "Dooley" while working in the Pekin Theatre in Chicago, because of his then-signature Irish song "Mr. Dooley," which he usually performed in whiteface as an Irishman. In subsequent years Dooley displayed his musical skills in various forms. As a vaudevillian, drummer and jazz band leader, he entertained both here and in 1920s European tours (Paris, London, etc). From the 1930s to the 1950s he focused on theatrical musicals and occasional films.
Appearing in such diverse Broadway plays as the comedy "Conjur Man Dies (1936) and the melodrama "The Strangler Fig" (1940), along with various Federal Theater productions for Orson Welles and John Houseman. This exposure led directly to his signing on as a contract player with Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. He unfortunately began things off in era stereotypes as porters, chauffeurs and the like. Unhappy with his movie roles he was about to abandon Hollywood altogether when Paramount lent him out to Warner Bros. for the piano-playing role of Sam and the rest is history. In Casablanca (1942), Dooley immortalized the song "As Time Goes By" as boss and nightclub owner Rick Blaine (Bogart) and lost true love Ilsa Lund (Bergman) briefly rekindled an old romantic flame. While paid only $350 a week for his services, Dooley achieved his own immortality as well. However, he was not a pianist in real life and was dubbed while fingering the keyboard. In addition to "As Time Goes By," Dooley's character did warm renditions of "It Had To Be You," "Shine," "Knock On Wood" and "Parlez-moi d'amour."
Back on the live stage Dooley portrayed an escaped slave in the musical "Bloomer Girl" (1946) and, as a result, made another song famous, "The Eagle and Me," which went on for inclusion in the Smithsonian recordings compilation "American Musical Theatre." He graced approximately twenty other motion pictures in all, including the war-era musicals Stormy Weather (1943) and Higher and Higher (1943).
In his final season of performing (1952-1953) Dooley was a regular on the TV sitcom Beulah (1950) which starred Ethel Waters. He played the title maid's boyfriend Bill Jackson and Dooley was the second of three actors who would play the role during its three-season run. Dooley died of natural causes on May 30, 1953, and was survived by wife, Estelle, who subsequently passed away in 1971.- Doreen Tracey was born on 3 April 1943 in St Pancras, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Westward Ho, the Wagons! (1956), Annette (1958) and The Donna Reed Show (1958). She was married to Robert A Washburn. She died on 10 January 2018 in Thousand Oaks, California, USA.
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One of America's most loved actresses was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alma Sophia (Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. Her grandparents were all German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born and Paul, a few years older.
Her parents divorced while she was still a child, and she lived with her mother. Like most little girls, Doris liked to dance. At fourteen, she formed a dance act with a boy, Jerry Doherty, and they won $500 in a local talent contest. She and Jerry took a brief trip to Hollywood to test the waters. They felt they could succeed, so she and Jerry returned to Cincinnati with the intention of packing and making a permanent move to Hollywood. Tragically, the night before she was to move to Hollywood, she was injured riding in a car hit by a train, ending the possibility of a dancing career.
It was a terrible setback, but after taking singing lessons she found a new vocation, and at age 17, she began touring with the Les Brown Band. She met trombonist Al Jorden, whom she married in 1941. Jorden was prone to violence and they divorced after two years, not long after the birth of their son Terry. In 1946, Doris married George Weidler, but this union lasted less than a year. Day's agent talked her into taking a screen test at Warner Bros. The executives there liked what they saw and signed her to a contract (her early credits are often confused with those of another actress named Doris Day, who appeared mainly in B westerns in the 1930s and 1940s).
Her first starring movie role was in Romance on the High Seas (1948). The next year, she made two more films, My Dream Is Yours (1949) and It's a Great Feeling (1949). Audiences took to her beauty, terrific singing voice and bubbly personality, and she turned in fine performances in the movies she made (in addition to several hit records). She made three films for Warner Bros. in 1950 and five more in 1951. In that year, she met and married Martin Melcher, who adopted her young son Terry, who later grew up to become Terry Melcher, a successful record producer.
In 1953, Doris starred in Calamity Jane (1953), which was a major hit, and several more followed: Lucky Me (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and what is probably her best-known film, Pillow Talk (1959). She began to slow down her filmmaking pace in the 1960s, even though she started out the decade with a hit, Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960).
In 1958, her brother Paul died. Around this time, her husband, who had also taken charge of her career, had made deals for her to star in films she didn't really care about, which led to a bout with exhaustion. The 1960s weren't to be a repeat of the previous busy decade. She didn't make as many films as she had in that decade, but the ones she did make were successful: Do Not Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968) and With Six You Get Eggroll (1968). Martin Melcher died in 1968, and Doris never made another film, but she had been signed by Melcher to do her own TV series, The Doris Day Show (1968). That show, like her movies, was successful, lasting until 1973. After her series went off the air, she made only occasional TV appearances.
By the time Martin Melcher died, Doris discovered she was millions of dollars in debt. She learned that Melcher had squandered virtually all of her considerable earnings, but she was eventually awarded $22 million by the courts in a case against a man that Melcher had unwisely let invest her money. She married for the fourth time in 1976 and since her divorce in 1980 has devoted her life to animals.
Doris was a passionate animal rights activist. She ran Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets.
Doris died on May 13, 2019, in Carmel Valley Village, California. She was 97.- Actor
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Edward Regan Murphy was born April 3, 1961 in Brooklyn, New York, to Lillian Lynch (born: Lillian Laney), a telephone operator, and Charles Edward Murphy, a transit police officer who was also an amateur comedian and actor. After his father died, his mother married Vernon Lynch, a foreman at a Breyer's Ice Cream plant. His brothers are Charlie Murphy & Vernon Lynch Jr. Eddie had aspirations of being in show business since he was a child. A bright kid growing up in the streets of New York, Murphy spent a great deal of time on impressions and comedy stand-up routines rather than academics. His sense of humor and wit made him a stand out amongst his classmates at Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School. By the time he was fifteen, Murphy worked as a stand-up comic on the lower part of New York, wooing audiences with his dead-on impressions of celebrities and outlooks on life.
In the early 1980s, at the age of 19, Murphy was offered a contract for the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players of Saturday Night Live (1975), where Murphy exercised his comedic abilities in impersonating African American figures and originating some of the show's most memorable characters: Velvet Jones, Mr. Robinson, and a disgruntled and angry Gumby. Murphy made his feature film debut in 48 Hrs. (1982), alongside Nick Nolte. The two's comedic and antagonistic chemistry, alongside Murphy's believable performance as a streetwise convict aiding a bitter, aging cop, won over critics and audiences. The next year, Murphy went two for two, with another hit, pairing him with John Landis, who later became a frequent collaborator with Murphy in Coming to America (1988) and Beverly Hills Cop III (1994). Beverly Hills Cop (1984) was the film that made Murphy a box-office superstar and most notably made him a celebrity worldwide, and it remains one of the all-time biggest domestic blockbusters in motion-picture history. Murphy's performance as a young Detroit cop in pursuit of his friend's murderers earned him a third consecutive Golden Globe nomination. Axel Foley became one of Murphy's signature characters. On top of his game, Murphy was unfazed by his success, that is until his box office appeal and choices in scripts resulted into a spotty mix of hits and misses into the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Films like The Golden Child (1986) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) were critically panned but were still massive draws at the box office. In 1989, Murphy, coming off another hit, Coming to America (1988), found failure with his directorial debut, Harlem Nights (1989). Another 48 Hrs. (1990), his turn as a hopeless romantic in Boomerang (1992) and as a suave vampire in Vampire In Brooklyn did little to resuscitate his career. However, his remake of Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor (1996) brought Murphy's drawing power back into fruition. From there, Murphy rebounded with occasional hits and misses but has long proven himself as a skilled comedic actor with laudable range pertaining to characterizations and mannerisms. Though he has grown up a lot since his fast-lane rise as a superstar in the 1980s, Murphy has lived the Hollywood lifestyle with controversy, criticism, scandal, and the admiration of millions worldwide for his talents. As Murphy had matured throughout the years, learning many lessons about the Hollywood game in the process, he settled down with more family-oriented humor with Doctor Dolittle (1998), Mulan (1998), Bowfinger (1999), and the animated smash Shrek (2001), in a supporting role that showcased Murphy's comedic personality and charm. Throughout the 2000s, he further starred in the hits The Haunted Mansion (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Dreamgirls (2006) (for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar), Norbit (2007), Shrek the Third (2007), and Shrek Forever After (2010).
Murphy was married to Nicole Mitchell Murphy from 1993 to 2006. Murphy has ten children.- Actress
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Elizabeth Gracen arrived in New York City from a small town in Arkansas a year after traveling the world as Miss America 1982. She used her scholarship prize money to study acting at HB Studios and photography at the New School. She later moved to Los Angeles where she has worked as an actress for over twenty years.
A veteran of many television and film productions, Elizabeth is best known for her work on the long-running Highlander (1992) and Highlander: The Raven (1998)
Gracen's first venture into filmmaking was the documentary, The Damn Deal (2014) - about three young, female impersonators from Arkansas who compete in the Miss Gay America Beauty Pageant system. The film played on the international film festival circuit and received an Award of Merit from the 2014 Accolade Global Film Competition.
In 2012, Gracen formed Flapper Films - a company dedicated to producing inspirational content that encourages multi-generational women to grow and live authentic lives.
The company met with great success on the international film festival circuit with its premiere film short, The Perfection of Anna (2012) and continues to develop projects in collaboration with the Lineage Dance Company - a non-profit dance company dedicated to raising funds and bringing awareness to a variety charities as well as promoting healing through the arts.
In April of 2016, Gracen published her debut, young adult fantasy novel, Shalilly, under the banner of Flapper Press - http://www.flapperpress.com - a curated, small publishing company and Ecommerce site for books, poetry, blogs, art, and unique merchandise. Formed with her partner, Kate Canada Obregon, PhD - a director of research, brand strategist and social scientist - the company features original content from influencers, thought leaders and artists and will explore the realms of art, ideas, film, television and themes in popular culture.- Ella Bleu Travolta was born on 3 April 2000 in California, USA. She is an actress, known for Old Dogs (2009), The Poison Rose (2019) and Get Lost.
- Enrique Iturriaga was born on 3 April 1918 in Lima, Peru. He was a composer, known for The City and the Dogs (1985). He died on 23 November 2019 in Lima, Peru.
- Eric Braeden is a German actor in America who began his career playing Nazis and eventually became a star of daytime soap operas. Born Hans Gudegast in Kiel, Germany, during the Second World War, he was a superb athlete who excelled in track-and-field events. As a teenager, he immigrated to the United States and worked in Texas and Montana as a translator, a cowhand, and a lumber millhand. His athleticism won him a scholarship to Montana State University. While attending college, he and friend Bob McKinnon made a film, The Riverbusters, about their successful attempt to be the first men to take a boat from the source to the mouth of the Salmon river and back again. He traveled to Los Angeles in hopes of finding a distributor for the documentary, but instead found that his handsome visage and accented English made him a valuable commodity as an actor. He appeared in small parts under his real name before landing the leading role of the antagonist, Captain Hans Dietrich, on the World War II television series The Rat Patrol (1966).
The series was a hit, and Gudegast's sympathetic German officer was very popular. He appeared in a few movies and television films thereafter in supporting roles, then was given the lead in Universal's science-fiction computer thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970). His delight at this huge career boost was muted by the studio's insistence that he change his name. With extreme reluctance, he agreed and became known subsequently as Eric Braeden. Braeden worked continuously in television movies for the next decade. He also worked on Broadway and in Los Angeles area theatre. In 1980, he reluctantly accepted a role in a daytime drama, The Young and the Restless (1973), and gained a stardom in this medium that had just eluded him in film and prime time television. As lead Victor Newman, Braeden brought a gravity and a strong center to the program. Amazingly handsome and athletic into his sixties, Braeden maintained the charisma that first brought him notice in "The Rat Patrol".
His infrequent film work during his nearly quarter century on "The Young and the Restless" included a prominent role as John Jacob Astor in Titanic (1997). A five-time Emmy nominee for his "The Young and the Restless" role (he won in 1998), he was also nominated eleven times for the Soap Opera Digest Outstanding Leading Actor Award, winning three times. In 1987, he was appointed, along with Henry Kissinger, Paul Volker, Steffi Graf, Alexander Haig, and Katherine Graham, to the German-American Advisory Board, and in 1991 received the Federal Medal of Honor from the president of his native land, Germany. He married his college sweetheart Dale Russell in 1966. Their son, Christian Gudegast is a screenwriter. - Music Department
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Songwriter ("It Was a Very Good Year", "I Believe", "Tico Tico", "Perdido", "Quando Quando Quando"), composer, author and producer, educated at Juilliard, City College of New York, BSS. He edited the college magazine "Mercury". For the Broadway show "What Makes Sammy Run?", he wrote the stage scores and song lyrics. Joining ASCAP in 1958, his other popular-song compositions include "Come to the Mardi Gras", "A Room Without Windows", "When You Cry, When You Laugh", "Sonata", "Good Morning, Heartache", "Castle Rock", "Made for Each Other", "The Friendliest Thing", "Some Days Everything Goes Wrong", "A Tender Spot", "One God", "Beloved Be Faithful", "My Hometown", "Something to Live For", "Longing", "The Rickety Rickshaw", "I Wuv a Wabbit", "Street of Thirty Three Steps", "Father of Girls", "Meet Mr. Callaghan", and "My Friend".- Make-Up Department
Éva Székely was born on 3 April 1927 in Budapest, Hungary. She is known for Stifled (2020), Helsinki 1952: Games of the XV Olympiad (1952) and Eyes of the Holocaust (2000). She was married to Dezsõ Gyarmati. She died on 29 February 2020 in Budapest, Hungary.- Actor
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The prototype of the elegant, distinguished pleasure-seeker, very high in the approval of the German public of his time, Georg Alexander repeated this type of role over and over again until his untimely death at the age of 57. As comfortable in the tuxedo of the socialite as in the uniform of an army officer, he was seen in no fewer than 169 movies, very few of which are memorable though. Werner Louis Georg Lüdeckens, born in 1888, in Hanover, debuted on the boards in Halberstadt, before appearing in varied theaters of Hamburg and, from 1914, in Berlin. Shortly after, he heeded the call of cinema, playing his first role for the big screen in as early as 1915. He even turned into a director, writer and producer, founding his own production company with his first wife, Norwegian star Aud Egede Nissen. Among his most successful roles of this early stage of his film activities was that of Detective Bobby Dodd alongside Harry Liedtke in the silent serial Der Mann ohne Namen - 1. Der Millionendieb (1921). Sound did not hamper Georg Alexander's career, quite the contrary. He met with considerable commercial success but, when it comes to posterity, alas, most of the forgettable comedies he made are... forgotten! A few titles stand out though and are still pleasant to watch today. They include Herbert Selpin's An Ideal Spouse (1935) Hans Steinhoff' The Making of a King (1935), Carl Froelich's Magda (1938)and Josef von Báky's Der Kleinstadtpoet (1940). All this screen hyperactivity did not hinder Georg Alexander from going on performing in the theater. Nor from being an accomplished racing driver horseman. Georg Alexander who had re-married in 1928 with talent agent Ilse Brach' died in Berlin in October 1945.- Actor
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George Jessel gained fame in vaudeville, where it was not uncommon for him--and other performers, such as Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor--to perform in blackface, and in fact at age 11 Jessel was Cantor's vaudeville partner. Jessel acted in several movies in the '30s and became a respected film producer. He was also a prolific songwriter, and was noted for his renditions of "Sonny Boy" and "My Yiddishe Mama". In his later years he made many guest appearances (always as himself) on radio, in occasional movies and on TV. He was nicknamed "The Toastmaster General" due to his appearances at many testimonial functions and dinners for various celebrities.- Director
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Giorgio Serafini worked with actors such as Jena Malone, Terrence Howard, Roy Scheider, Peter Bogdanovich, William Shatner, Christopher Lloyd, Jean Smart, Esai Morales, Wesley Snipes, Natalia Dyer, Dolph Lundgren, Billy Zane and Sean Patrick Flanery. He has directed and/or written for companies such as CBS, Sony, Lionsgate, EOne, Voltage Pictures, Canal+, RAI and Mediaset.
Giorgio was born in Brussels, Belgium from Italian parents. He moved to the States in 1994 and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their son. He has directed more than 100 hours of TV prime-time drama in Europe. He achieved considerable success with the period TV series "Orgoglio" (Pride). The first season was seen by an average of 13 million viewers per episode with a peak of 23 million. To this date, he has written and/or directed 35 feature films or TV series and produced 11. His latest screenplay "The Truth About La Dolce Vita" was selected at the Venice Film Festival 2020. "Senior Moment" was released March 26, 2021 theatrically and VOD by Screen Media. It was in the Top 10 VOD charts for 2 weeks and had a theatre run of 8 weeks. He is in development as the Show-Runner/Writer of the TV series "The Rebel Queen" to be shot in 2024.- Actor
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Harry/Kurt (stage name/real name) came over to the U.S. from Germany around 1915 with his sister, Grace/Freida. Once they arrived, they worked for a man named Earles, at which time they adopted his last name. In the early 1920s, their sister Daisy/Hilda joined them and in the mid- to late 1920s, their sister Tiny/Elly arrived. The four worked in the movies while simultaneously working for Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. Around 1930, the four left the movie business in favor of the circus, where they worked until the mid-1950s. During this time, they made very few film appearances (most notably The Wizard of Oz (1939) as Munchkins and Daisy's brief blink-and-you-miss-it shot in Best Picture winner The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)). The foursome retired in the mid-1950s. Grace died in 1970, Daisy in 1980 and Harry in 1985. For more info on Harry Doll/Harry Earles/Kurt Schneider, check out Steven Cox's book "The Munchkins of Oz".- Actress
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Hayley first appeared in national commercials for GM, On Star, K-Mart, and Slim Jim, and became the TV spokesperson for Cinnamon Toast Crunch. In addition, she had a couple of guest star roles on Nickelodeon's Unfabulous (2004). As a dancer, she studied with Scotty Nyugen. She is a prolific songwriter and she plays the drums, keyboards, and guitar. She was a member of a five girl-singing group, the Stunners up until their disbandment in 2011. The Stunners have released their first five-song EP with the video "Dancing Around the Truth." Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins (2009) debuted on Cartoon Network in 2009 with Hayley in the iconic role of Velma Dinkley. She appeared in the role of Stevie on Disney Channel's Wizards of Waverly Place (2007). Hayley, with the Stunners, toured as Justin Bieber's opening act in the summer of 2010.
Hayley recently joined the cast of the new CBS mid-season drama CSI: Cyber (2015). The series revolves around Special Agent Avery Ryan (Patricia Arquette), who is in charge of the Cyber Crime Division at Quantico, Virginia. Hayley plays Raven, a rookie techie working in the division who is an expert in social media, cyber trends, and international relations.
This past summer, Hayley filmed the Universal feature Jem and the Holograms (2015), in which she plays Aja. This Jon M. Chu-helmed film is set to be released on October 23, 2015. She followed that with Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015), the third installment in the successful franchise. Hayley can also be seen in the recurring role of Gabi, an ex-cyberbully in an all-girl group home on the breakout ABC Family show The Fosters (2013). Prior to this, she guest-starred on the hit CW series The Vampire Diaries (2009) and also appeared in the Disney Channel original movie Lemonade Mouth (2011).
In addition to a successful acting career, Hayley is a prolific songwriter and gifted musician. To follow up her solo artist debut in 2013, she is scheduled to release her new EP, "This Side of Paradise," in 2015. Working in collaboration with producer James Flannigan, she recorded the new album in London as well as in a makeshift studio in the garage of her Los Angeles home. Her music has garnered praise in multiple online publications including Nylon, Just Jared, Earmilk, and Hype Machine.- Hunter von Leer was born on 3 April 1944 in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA. He is an actor, known for Halloween II (1981), History of the World: Part I (1981) and Under the Boardwalk (1988).
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- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Iron Eyes Cody was born Espera or "Oscar" DeCorti, the son of two first-generation immigrants from Italy. In 1924 he moved to California, changed his name from "DeCorti" to "Corti" to Cody, and started working as an actor, presenting himself as a Native American. In 1936, he married Bertha Parker, a Native American archaeologist of Abenaki and Seneca descent. Together, they adopted two sons - Robert and Arthur, two brothers of Dakota and Maricopa descent. Iron Eyes Cody claimed Native American descent, although he was actually of Italian descent, with ancestors from Sicily. He labored for decades to promote Native American causes, and was honored by Hollywood's Native American community in 1995 as a "non-Native" for his contribution to film.- Actor
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Jackson Bond was born on 3 April 1996 in Lino Lakes, Minnesota, USA. He is an actor, known for The Invasion (2007), Memorial Day (2012) and CSI: Miami (2002).- Actor
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A onetime professional football player for the Cleveland Browns, James has always had a passion for the arts and pursued his passion even while playing for the Browns for two years as a running back. He also played for the Canadian team, The Ottawa Rough Riders.
Many recall James as the security specialist, Michael Hailey, from the UPN drama "The Burning Zone." Some of James' other television credits include, "Bones," Navy: NCIS," "CSI: Miami," "All of Us," "Charmed," "Will and Grace," "Jag," "10-8," "Summerland," "Strong Medicine," and the HBO movies "Don King: Only in America," and "Criminal Intent," to name a few. His voiceover talents include a series regular role in the critically acclaimed claymation hit "The PJ's," which aired on the WB Network. James' talents aren't limited to the small screen. His notable parts in big screen include Godzilla, Out of Sight, with George Clooney and Soldier for Warner Brothers, where he played one of Kurt Russell's fellow soldiers. James has also had strong supporting roles in Substitute III and the hit movie Universal Soldier II.
Most recently, James will be seen in the much anticipated CBS one hour drama "Moonlight" as Lt. Carl Davis. Also James can be seen playing a crazed stalker on the ABC Family drama, "Lincoln Heights," and on the TNT critically acclaimed show, "The Closer" as Lt. Xavier.
However, James' talents don't end with acting;Putting his music degree from the University of Akron to work, he has appeared in the musical Big River, which he was nominated for a 2002 Ovation Award for best actor in a musical. He has also appeared in the musicals, Hair, Dawn of the Infinite Dreams, Sideshow, Kismet, Sheba as well as the play A Raisin in the Sun. In addition, in 2003 he directed the John Patrick Shanley play, The Italian American Reconciliation, at the Whitmore Lindly Theater in North Hollywood. Also in 2003, James made his directorial debut with the feature film Vault.
In his spare time, James enjoys guitar, piano, martial arts, singing, snowboarding and the list goes on;..There isn't much this man can't do.- Actor
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Jamie Saint John Bamber Griffith known professionally as Jamie Bamber, is a British actor, known for his roles as Lee Adama in Battlestar Galactica and Detective Sergeant Matt Devlin in the ITV series Law & Order: UK. He also had a supporting role as 2nd Lt. Jack Foley in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, as Lieutenant Archie Kennedy in the Hornblower series and was a regular on the British series Ultimate Force and Peak Practice. In 2013, Bamber starred in the TNT medical drama Monday Mornings, and in 2014, in the Sky 1 drama The Smoke.- Director
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Jamie Hewlett was born on 3 April 1968 in England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Tank Girl (1995), Cloverfield (2008) and Wasabi (2001). He has been married to Emma de Caunes since 10 September 2011.- Actor
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Jan Berry was one half of the popular 1960s "surf music" singing duo Jan & Dean, who enjoyed chart success with songs including "Surf City", "Little Old Lady from Pasadena", "Popsicle", "Dead Mans Curve", "Drag City" and "Ride the Wild Surf". Berry met future singing partner Dean Torrence at University High School in West Los Angeles and they became involved together in several musical groups, predominantly singing "doo wop" style tunes with limited success. However, fortune came their way when, in early 1963, they were booked to play several shows with The Beach Boys, and Berry struck up a friendship with songwriter Brian Wilson. Wilson passed across to Berry an unfinished tune titled "Surf City", which Jan & Dean completed and recorded, and it was their first number one single! Jan & Dean immediately changed their future musical output solely to "surf music" and their album sales performed very strongly over the next three years. However, on April 12th 1966, Jan Berry was critically injured in a motor vehicle accident in Los Angeles, when he crashed his Corvette into a parked truck. Berry was initially thought dead at the scene of the crash, and after being taken to hospital, it took him many, many years to recover and to learn how to walk and talk again.
The accident effectively ended the duo's soaring career, and it was not until the late 1980s that they did some minor touring, dependent on Jan's health. After being plagued by ill health for over 38 years since the car accident, Berry passed away from a stroke on March 26th, 2004 at age 62.- Writer
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American character actor specializing in villainous types, much in television. A native of New York City, Merlin studied at P.S. 15, Mangin Junior High School, Grace Church Choir School for Boys, and Stuyvesant High School. During the Second World War, he served as a torpedoman in the U.S. Navy in both Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. Upon return to civilian life, he entered the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, became active in summer stock theatres and on Broadway, which brought him to Hollywood in 1954 for his first film Six Bridges to Cross (1955) (though Merlin had appeared in earlier television programs in New York, including a regular role on the children's program Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1950). Merlin made a number of film appearances, primarily as a heavy. But his most frequent work was in television, where he played the near-psychotic bad guy to perfection in scores of shows, Westerns in particular. In 1958, he switched to a rare leading role, as one of the trilogy of stars in The Rough Riders (1958), a Western about three tough Civil War veterans. Merlin continued to act in occasional roles following his most prolific period of the Fifties and Sixties. In addition, in later years, as a sideline, he took work as official in the security department at a Los Angeles area airport.- Actress
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One of Hollywood's more talented and watchable stars on screen was sullen and thin 50s actress Jan Sterling who didn't quite reach the top echelon of stardom but certainly ensured audiences of a real good time with her sexy pout and flashy style in soaps, film noir and saucy comedy.
Jan was born Jane Sterling Adriance in Manhattan in 1921 to a well-to-do family. Her father was a prominent advertising executive who divorced her mother when the girl was only eight years old. Her mother remarried (to an oilman) when Jan was still a youngster and the family relocated abroad where Jan was schooled by private tutors in Brazil, then later in London and Paris.
Although both sets of parents disapproved, Jan, who by this time possessed a strong British accent, set her sites on acting and was eventually enrolled in Fay Compton's dramatic school in London. A strong-minded young lady with a heartfelt passion for the arts, she returned to Manhattan to conquer Broadway and by the age of 17 had found her first ingénue role in "Bachelor Born," playing (naturally) a young British lady. Over the next 11 years, Jan dominated Broadway as proper British ladies while billing herself as "Jane Adrian."
One of her highlights was working with the legendary Ruth Gordon in 1942 in Gordon's first play entitled "Over 21." As Billie Dawn in the Chicago company of "Born Yesterday," Jan bowled over the critics and seemed almost a shoo-in to do the 1950 film version but she lost out in the end to Judy Holliday. The ash-blonde broke quickly into films supporting Oscar-winning Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948) in a key, emotional role.
To her absolute delight, she left the docile, ladylike image behind her and was allowed to dig her nails into a florid array of cheap floozies, hard-bitten dames, and lethal schemers and stood out well with 'bad girl' parts in the films Caged (1950), Ace in the Hole (1951), Flesh and Fury (1952), The Human Jungle (1954), and Female on the Beach (1955). In between she occasionally made a nicer, or at least a more sympathetic, impression in the movies Sky Full of Moon (1952) and The High and the Mighty (1954), the latter earning her an Oscar nomination.
Married to and divorced from actor John Merivale in the 1940s, Jan later married gruff film star Paul Douglas in 1950. The couple moved away from the Hollywood scene in Burlington, Vermont. The couple appeared together professionally on occasional TV shows and Douglas revived his "Born Yesterday" Harry Brock role with a stage tour starring Jan in the Billie Dawn part. It and they were a solid hit.
Jan's career slowed down considerably after the sudden death of her 52-year-old second husband in 1959. He suffered a massive heart attack at their Hollywood home. She refocused on stage and TV but at a slower step. Incidental filming occurred on occasion, including support roles in Love in a Goldfish Bowl (1961) and The Incident (1967). She also involved herself in humanitarian causes. In the late 1960s she moved to London, England and in the 1970s, she entered into a strong personal relationship with actor Sam Wanamaker. An isolated film role came her way with a small part in First Monday in October (1981). They never married but stayed together until his death in 1993.
Inactive for nearly two decades, Jan made an appearance at the Cinecon Film Festival in Los Angeles in the fall of 2001, still charming audiences at the age of 80. On 26 March 2004, she passed away at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She was 82.- Additional Crew
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After her school education, she initially attended a school for secretaries, but in 1957, at the invitation of a former schoolmate, she realized her long-held dream of getting to know Africa and traveled to Kenya. She found a job at the Kenya National Museum and came into contact with its director Louis Leakey. Although Goodall had no academic training at the time, Leakey suggested that she participate in a field study of wild chimpanzees. She then began working as an assistant for Leakey. In 1960, Goodall, accompanied by her mother, traveled to Lake Tanganyika in what is now Gombe National Park. There she began researching primates, which are genetically closely related to humans. Through her "participatory observation method" she was able to gain new insights into the animals. Goodall discovered that chimpanzees make and use tools. Their work also helped to differentiate bonobos from chimpanzees.
In 1965, the researcher temporarily interrupted her studies to do her doctorate at the University of Cambridge. She received an exemption and was therefore able to do a doctorate even though she had never studied. As Dr. Jane Goodall returned to Tanzania, where she founded the "Gombe Stream Research Center" in Gombe in 1967. With funding from the American National Geographic Society, the first texts and images from her studies appeared. Goodall gained worldwide fame with the publication of her book "Wild Chimpanzees". From 1971 to 1975 she taught as a visiting professor at Stanford University in California. In 1977, the researcher founded the "Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation" in the USA to ensure the protection of the chimpanzees in Gombe and her research activities. In 1987 Goodall retired from field research. Since then she has been committed to protecting chimpanzees.
As an "ambassador for chimpanzees" she travels around the world, giving lectures on environmental pollution and climate change. She also campaigns against the illegal animal trade. Goodall also coordinates various scientific projects carried out in Gombe. In her published autobiography "Reason for Hope" she writes about the motives of her work and the leitmotif of her life. For Jane Goodall, there seems to be no contradiction between belief in God and the Darwinian theory of evolution. Goodall has since moved back to England, to her childhood home. In 2002 she was appointed UN Messenger of Peace. Jane Goodall is also committed to environmental projects with young people, for which purpose she launched the "Roots & Shoots" project. In 2005 she became an officer of the French Legion of Honor. In 2018, the documentary "Jane" by American director Brett Morgan was released in cinemas. In 2020 she received the Tang Prize in the "Sustainable Development" category.- Actress
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Jennifer Eve Garth was born on April 3rd, 1972 in Urbana, Illinois, USA to John and Carolyn Garth, who both had 3 children each from different marriages, before they had Jennie. She grew up on a 25-acre horse ranch outside Urbana, Illinois with her 6 older siblings: Johnny, Chuck, Lisa, Cammie, Wendy and Lynn. When Jennie was 13, she and her family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. She took dancing lessons and did a little modeling while living in Arizona, and she dreamed of going to college and later start her own dance studio. At age 15, Jennie was discovered and encouraged to pursue an acting career by a talent scout, who had seen her win a talent competition. Therefore, she dropped out of high school during her junior year, and she and her mom moved to Los Angeles, California so she could become an actress. She later obtained her diploma in California. There, she started taking acting classes and went to auditions almost every day. After living in LA for about four months, she landed the role of 'Ericka McCray' on the NBC series A Brand New Life (1989). Within a year, she was cast as 'Kelly Taylor' on the long-running hit teen drama-series Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) on FOX television. Ever since, she has starred in several movies made for TV, a number of which she has produced and directed herself. On January 20th, 2001, she married actor Peter Facinelli, the father of her first daughter, Luca Bella (born June 29th, 1997), on her ranch in Santa Barbara, California. On December 6th, 2002, Jennie and Peter welcomed their second daughter, Lola Ray and their third daughter Fiona Facinelli on September 30th, 2006. Jennie most recently starred in the WB network sitcom What I Like About You (2002) as 'Valerie Tyler' until its cancellation in 2006.- Jennifer Missoni was born in Italy and raised in Varese where she attended the European School. She was taught in French and English and became a natural trilingual. At a young age she took up an intense interest in horseback riding and ice skating and soon after became a competitive equestrian and skater. At the age of 12 she began attending theater camps in Maine and Michigan and by the age of 17 she was enrolled in the Idyllwild Arts Academy in California. When she returned to Italy she continued her studies at The Centro Teatro Attivo in Milan. She finished her high school studies at The American School in Switzerland graduating with honors in musical theater. In 2004, Jennifer moved to Manhattan and began studying with Susan Batson at her studio, Black Nexxus. Since then she has guest starred on Fringe (2008), Medium (2005), Army Wives (2007), Royal Pains (2009), White Collar (2009), Melrose Place (2009), Law & Order (1990), and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), as well as, recurring roles on Gossip Girl (2007) and Damages (2007). In 2007 she starred as Elissa in the Off-Broadway hit Angry Young Women In Low Rise Jeans With High Class Issues. She made her feature film debut in 2012 starring in the supernatural thriller Playback (2012) alongside Christian Slater.
- Jennifer Paterson was born on 3 April 1928 in Kensington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for What Rats Won't Do (1998), Fish and Milligan (1966) and Two Fat Ladies (1996). She died on 10 August 1999 in Chelsea, London, England, UK.
- Strikingly beautiful and a multi-talented performer, Jennifer Collene Rubin is an American actress, model, screenwriter, and producer, with a career spanning nearly four decades. She was voted Ford International Model of the Year in 1984. She gained fame for her pictures in Harper Bazaar, Vogue, Glamour, and Interview magazine. Which lead her to acting in Super Bowl commercials for Chevrolet, Coke, Budweiser, and many more. Jennifer was also David Lynch's original Calvin Klein model for his "Obsession" campaign. In 1987, she decided to devote herself to acting and accepted the role of "Taryn White" in the Wes Craven sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), directed by Chuck Russell.
Jennifer followed "Elm Street 3" with Bad Dreams (1988), Permanent Record (1988) with Keanu Reeves, and the Oliver Stone-directed The Doors (1991) starring Val Kilmer, a biopic based on the career of Jim Morrison and The Doors. By the mid-1990s, she was co-starring in films, such as The Crush (1993) with Cary Elwes and Screamers (1995) alongside Peter Weller, the latter based on the science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick.
Adaptable to various genres, working in front and behind the camera, it is apparent that Jennifer is an enduring talent, much more than just a pretty face, and one of the top script writers to watch. She has produced - and starred in - the film, Road Kill (1999), and further appeared in popular TV series, including The Twilight Zone (1985), Tales from the Crypt (1989) and The Outer Limits (1995).
Jennifer appeared in Chris Isaak's music video for "Somebody's Crying" (1995), with Chris Penn. Bruce Hornsby's music video for "Harbor Lights"
In 2010, Jennifer followed her true passion and started writing the screenplays Hot Hemp Pancakes, Oopsy-Daisy, and The Bookie-Lady - all high quality scripts in pre-production for 2019. It is apparent that Jennifer is an enduring talent - much more than just a pretty face - and is one of the most mercurial talents working in Hollywood. - Jenny Clève was born on 3 April 1930 in Roubaix, Nord, France. She was an actress, known for Welcome to the Sticks (2008), IP5: The Island of Pachyderms (1992) and Temporale Rosy (1980). She was married to Claude Talpaert. She died on 17 February 2023 in Tourcoing, Nord, France.
- Jerry Messing was born on 3 April 1986 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Freaks and Geeks (1999), Even Stevens (2000) and The Brothers Garcia (2000).
- Actor
- Stunts
Jimmy Ace Lewis is a young award winning part Native American actor originally From Harpursville, Ny who has been seen by millions of people around the world. Jimmy has been performing since age 3 and is best known for CBS's Saturday morning hit kids show "Hidden Heroes", Disney+'s "Something Bit Me", "The Stalker franchise", "Enter the Power Surge" which he also wrote the book version of which is available now on Amazon, "Snapped: Killer Couples", Power Rangers Legacy portraying the Black Ranger,Power Rangers The Audio Drama Playing Rocky Desantos the Red Thunder Ranger, Power Rangers Masterforce as the Fury Ranger, Seeds, Light in us dark ones, Point man, Testing on Amazon Prime, knights end, The Rejects: Origins (superhero franchise as super powered teen Ryan Kent) , Her name was hope, children's public safety announcements, technically speaking, strange horizons , various commercials including a super bowl ad, masters of disasters, The Renegade, chief of the meek,technically speaking, over 75 productions altogether including many theater productions. He started acting and playing guitar at age 3, is proud of his Native American heritage, and is a gifted martial artist and author. He is Homeschooled.- Actor
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Born in Beijing China in 1974, he was sent to train at Beijing Wushu Academy when he was 6 years old as both his Father and Grandfather were also Martial artists. In 1995 he was spotted by Yuen Woo-Ping who had come to the academy to look for a martial artist for the film Tai Chi 2 (aka Tai Chi Boxer). His dedication and skill won his a lot of respect across East Asia. Often contributing to the scripts and choreography of his work, his natural talent and his sense of humour are vividly expressed.- John Laughlin continues to have an amazing career in television and film. His television credits include "I am the Night", "NCIS", "The Defenders", "Criminal Minds" and "The Equalizer." He also shot the feature film "Cloudy With a Chance of Christmas". Born in Tennessee, John Laughlin started as a series regular on "White Shadow," which lead to a breakout role in "An Officer and Gentleman." He went on to film "Footloose" alongside Kevin Bacon then landed a three-picture deal starting with a critically acclaimed performance as the lead in "Crimes of Passion" starring Kathleen Turner. He also can be seen in the Michael Bay directed film "The Rock" opposite Sean Connery.
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Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay created and wrote every episode of the acclaimed BBC political comedy series Yes Minister (1980) and Yes, Prime Minister (1986). The series received numerous accolades including three BAFTA (British Academy) Awards, two Broadcasting Press Guild Awards and two Pye Television Writers Awards. It also won four BAFTA Awards for the star, Nigel Hawthorne. Lynn also won the BAFTA (British Academy) Writers Award. In the US he won the ACE Award for Best Written Comedy Series on cable television, having also been nominated the previous year. In addition, for "Yes, Minister" Lynn was given a Special Award from the Campaign For Freedom Of Information. He wrote three best-selling books, "The Complete Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, Volumes 1 and 2" based on the series. All went to #1 on the London Sunday Times best-seller list. Between them they have sold over a million copies in hardback, were in the top ten best-sellers for three years and have been translated into numerous languages. "The Complete Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, Volume 2" were the 2nd and 3rd British best-sellers of the decade, 1980-1989.
Lynn directed the film My Cousin Vinny (1992), a critical and commercial hit in 1992. Marisa Tomei, discovered in this film, won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Lynn's 1990 film Nuns on the Run (1990), which he also wrote, was a hilarious romp through the landscape of the church, starring Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane. It won the Golden Cane Award at the Festival de Comedie in Switzerland. His film The Distinguished Gentleman (1992), starring Eddie Murphy, was about the corrupting power of lobbyists in Washington, DC, and exposed the need for campaign finance reform. Virtually everything in the film has since come true, and nine years after the release of the film it won a Special Award from the Political Film Society. It also won the Environmental Media Award. His other films are Clue (1985), Greedy (1994)starring Michael J. Fox and Kirk Douglas, Sgt. Bilko (1996) starring Steve Martin and Trial and Error (1997), which was favorably compared by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert to a Billy Wilder movie. He also directed The Whole Nine Yards (2000), a hit comedy with Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet Natasha Henstridge, which was #1 at the US box office for three weeks. He also directed the hit comedy The Fighting Temptations (2003) for Paramount and MTV.
Born in Bath, England, Lynn has an MA in Law from Cambridge University. He never practiced law, but joined a theatre orchestra in London's West End. His first credit as a writer was The Internecine Project (1974) starring James Coburn. His first novel, "A Proper Man" was published in 1976 and "Mayday", his second novel, came out in 1993 (Viking/Penguin). In the same year he wrote the British television film Life After Life (1992).
He wrote his first two films, "Clue" and "Nuns On The Run", did an uncredited re-write on "My Cousin Vinny" and has completed a screenplay based on his novel "Mayday". His stage play "Collaborators" was produced in London's West End.
Lynn has also enjoyed notable success on the British stage. In 1987 he directed his own company at the National Theatre of Great Britain, eventually moving his centenary production of George Abbott's "Three Men On A Horse" to the West End. Once there, it won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy. His 1979 musical "Songbook" won the Society Of West End Theatres Award and the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical. From 1977 to 1981 Lynn served as Artistic Director of The Cambridge Theatre Company, where he produced more than forty plays, directing twenty of them himself including a "Macbeth" with Brian Cox that toured both the UK and India, playing a special performance for the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.
Other notable London productions include Georges Feydeau's "A Little Hotel On The Side" at the National Theatre, translated by John Mortimer, "The Glass Menagerie" (working with Tennessee Williams), George Bernard Shaw's "Arms And The Man.", Eric Idle's "Pass The Butler", Joe Orton's "Loot" with 'Leonard Rossiter' and Eugene O'Neill's "Anna Christie" at the Royal Shakespeare Company, in Stratford and London.
An accomplished actor, Lynn began his career at the age of 21 on Broadway, in the revue "Cambridge Circus", with John Cleese and Graham Chapman. His TV debut came on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) in 1964. Returning to England, he was nominated Most Promising New Actor in the Plays And Players Awards for his first West End performance, in "Green Julia" (1965). He played leading roles in many British television films, including Jack Rosenthal's 'Bar Mitzvah Boy' (1976) (TV) and 'The Knowledge' (1981) (TV), 'Outside Edge' (1982) (TV) and starred in the series Doctor in the House (1969) and My Brother's Keeper (1975), which he also wrote.
His stage performances range from playing Adolf Hitler in the comedy "The Changing Years" at the Royal Court Theatre to Motel The Tailor in the original London cast of "Fiddler On The Roof". His film performances include cameos in Into the Night (1985), Three Men and a Little Lady (1990) and playing Kirk Douglas' butler in his own film Greedy (1994).
Lynn has an Honorary M.A. from the University of Sheffield and an Honorary Psy.D. from the American Behavioral Studies Institute. He lives in New York.- José Folgado was born on 3 April 1944 in Morales del Rey, Castile and León, Spain. He died on 23 March 2020 in Madrid, Spain.
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Born and raised in New York City: in both Queens & Manhattan. He attended the school of Communication at Boston University. He often collaborates with his brother Benny Safdie. The brothers have both cited early experiences in front of their father's camera as the reasons for their pursing filmmaking. Their father is not a filmmaker, though they are related to famed architect Moishe Safdie.- Actor
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Juan Díaz was born on 3 April 1939 in Argentina. He is an actor, known for Adiós muchachos (1955), Las aventuras de Tremendo (1986) and La gorda (1966).- Juana Patiño was a producer, known for El tiempo de los chicos (1981). She died on 3 March 2015 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- Juliana Awada has been married to Mauricio Macri since November 2010. They have one child.
- Julie Anne Haddock was born on 3 April 1965 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for The Facts of Life (1979), The Great Santini (1979) and Boone (1983). She has been married to Eric Becker since 1997. They have one child.
- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Considered by many as one of the greatest actresses in Latin America, Karyme Lozano has starred in hugely successful soap operas (Telenovelas) and series that have aired worldwide. She is the only star to be simultaneously featured in a lead role in two prime- time soaps, El Manantial and Niña Amada Mía, a unique event in Univision history. Karyme co-starred in the epic movie For Greater Glory alongside Andy Garcia. On top of her many awards, her lead role and moving performance in the film Desnudos earned her a nomination for a coveted Ariel Award, Mexico's equivalent to the Oscars. Her most recent movie Ardent Heart premiered in theaters just before the onset of Covid, ranking in the top 15 in Spain as well as top 10 in Poland and Colombia while competing against big box office Hollywood films. Karyme has also been nurturing her passion for producing and writing. She first produced and starred in Pepe and Santo vs America (2009)streaming in Amazon Prime and most recently produced and starred in The legend of the Diamond (La Leyenda del Diamante) available now for streaming on Netflix. She proves herself to be equally talented as a writer and director. Her short film The True Meaning of Love was accepted into multiple film festivals, including LA Shorts Fest, CLIFF and GLCFF. Committed to diversity, Karyme is currently developing various projects to empower Latina Women and looks forward to the collaboration and creative impact she will have in the American market.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kerstin Meyer was born on 3 April 1928 in Stockholm, Sweden. She was an actress, known for Värmlänningarna (1957), Tag ditt liv (1995) and Capriccio (1976). She was married to Björn Bexelius. She died on 14 April 2020 in Oropesa del Mar, Castellon, Spain.- Kevin Hagen is the son of professional ballroom dancers, Haakon Olaf Hagen and Marvel Lucile Wadsworth. His father abandoned the family when Kevin was five. He was raised by his mother, grandmother, and two aunts, with some help from his uncle, a physician.
The family moved to Portland, Oregon, when Kevin was a teenager. He played baseball and football at Jefferson High School. He attended Oregon State University before enlisting in the U.S. Navy after World War II; he served in San Diego.
Hagen, married four times, was a single parent for two decades to his son, Christopher Hagen, a Special Education teacher and high school baseball coach in Bakersfield, California. - Actress
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Kiana Ledé was born on 3 April 1997 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for Scream: The TV Series (2015), Charlie's Angels (2019) and Fifty Shades Freed (2018).- Actor
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Kornél Mundruczó was born on 3 April 1975 in Gödöllõ, Hungary. He is an actor and director, known for Jupiter's Moon (2017), White God (2014) and Pieces of a Woman (2020). He is married to Kata Wéber.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Producer
Lamberto Bava was born in Rome, Italy, and was the first of a third generation of Italian filmmakers. His grandfather, Eugenio Bava (1886-1966), was a cameraman and optics effects artist during the early days of Italian silent cinema. His father, Mario Bava (1914-1980), was a legendary cinematographer, special effects designer and director. Lamberto entered the cinema as his father's personal assistant, starting with Planet of the Vampires (1965). Bit by bit he gained experience from his father, who made him the assistant director for most of the rest of his films. He even co-wrote the screenplay for Shock (1977) ("Shock"), Mario's last theatrical film where. In poor health during the shoot, Mario often feigned illness so Lamberto could direct a few scenes, uncredited, to gain further experience.
Both Lamberto and Mario directed the made-for-TV drama La Venere d'Ille (1979). Both worked on the Dario Argento horror flick Inferno (1980), for which Mario designed some of the color set pieces, including the underwater ballroom, and created all the visual special effects, while Lamberto worked as Argento's assistant director. Late in 1979 Lamberto made his solo directorial debut with Macabre (1980), a tense drama-horror flick loosely based on a 1977 incident in New Orleans about a woman who keeps her lover's severed head in her freezer. According to Lamberto, the project started by chance when producer Pupi Avati approached him to direct as well as write the screenplay, which took just six weeks to write and direct. "Macabro" was released in Italy in February 1980 to mixed reviews, but won him recognition by his father Mario. Just two months later Mario Bava died, and an era in Italian film making came to a close.
'Macabro" was not the box-office hit and, as a result, Lamberto went back to assistant directing. He worked with Dario Argento again in 1982 with Tenebrae (1982). In 1983 Lamberto was offered to direct another film, titled A Blade in the Dark (1983), which was a violent mystery thriller shot in only three weeks on a tight budget and filmed almost entirely in a producer friend's house. Next he directed the action-flick Blastfighter (1984), which was filmed in the state of Georgia, and immediately afterwards directed the Jaws (1975)-like thriller Devil Fish (1984), which was shot in Florida. On both films Lamberto was purely a director for hire and had nothing to do with the script or production end. He used the pseudonym of "John Old Jr." for this film, which was a tribute to his father Mario, who often used the pseudonym "John M. Old".
He enjoyed his best commercial success to date with Demons (1985) ("Demons"), produced by Dario Argento, co-written by Dardano Sacchetti and filmed in West Berlin, Germany. This films international success allowed him to co-write, produce and direct a sequel, Demons 2 (1986). Lamberto returned to "giallo" thrillers with Delirium (1987).
In the late 1980s the Italian cinema turned moribund. Lamberto, like most of his colleagues, turned to making films for Italian television. He also directed a remake of his father's Black Sunday (1960), which was titled The Mask of Satan (1989).
Nowadays Lamberto Bava continues to divide his time between TV work and a few movies, acknowledging his inspiration from his late father, Mario.- Actor
- Music Department
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Larry Marshall was born on 3 April 1944 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA. He is an actor, known for Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), The Cotton Club (1984) and The Panic in Needle Park (1971).- Actor
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Lawrence Dane was an exceptionally fine, versatile, and shamefully underrated Canadian character actor who was equally adept at both comedy and drama alike. Tall and lean, with silver gray hair, a gaunt face, and a distinguished air about him, Dane was often cast as smooth business executives, physicians, police officers, and stern authority figures. Born on April 3, 1937 in Masson, Quebec, Lawrence grew up in Ottawa and initially took acting lessons in order to overcome shyness. Dane first started acting on stage in the late 1950's. He soon amassed a substantial volume of film and TV show credits. Lawrence gave an especially terrific performance as one of five doctors who find themselves being terrorized by vicious vengeful hillbillies when they go camping in the remote Canadian wilderness in the harrowing Deliverance (1972) variant Rituals (1977); the multi-talented Dane also produced this gritty and suspenseful cult favorite thriller. Other notable roles Dane has played are Michael Ironside's evil business partner in David Cronenberg's Scanners (1981), Melissa Sue Anderson's father in the superior slasher item Happy Birthday to Me (1981), and Peter Weller's tough, but fair boss in the excellent killer rat knockout Of Unknown Origin (1983). Moreover, Dane displayed a delightful flair for comedy in the amusing features It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (1975) and Find the Lady (1976), in which he was nicely paired with a then-unknown John Candy. Lawrence continued to act in both TV shows and movies with pleasing regularity well into his 70's. He died at age 84 at his home in Ontario, Canada from pancreatic cancer on March 21, 2022.- Lee Leonard was born on 3 April 1929 in New York City, New York, USA. He was married to Kelly Bishop, Salome Jens and Rosa May Rosenberg. He died on 16 December 2018 in South Orange, New Jersey, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Lee Williams was born on 3 April 1974 in Bangor, Wales, UK. He is an actor, known for No Night Is Too Long (2002), What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012) and The Forsyte Saga (2002).- Music Artist
- Actress
- Music Department
Leona Lewis was born on 3 April 1985 in Islington, London, England, UK. She is a music artist and actress, known for Avatar (2009), No Strings Attached (2011) and Sex and the City 2 (2010). She has been married to Dennis Jauch since 27 July 2019. They have one child.- Actress
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Lesley Sharp was born on 3 April 1960 in Manchester, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for Naked (1993), The Full Monty (1997) and From Hell (2001). She has been married to Nicholas Gleaves since February 1994. They have two children.- Actor
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Leslie Howard Steiner was born in London to Lilian (Blumberg) and Ferdinand "Frank" Steiner. His father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and his English mother was of German Jewish and mostly English descent. Leslie went to Dulwich College, then worked as a bank clerk until the outbreak of World War I, when he went into the army. In 1917, diagnosed as shell-shocked, he was invalided out and advised to take up acting as therapy. In a few years, his name was famous on the stages of London and New York. He made his first movie in 1914: (The Heroine of Mons (1914)). He became known as the perfect Englishman (slim, tall, intellectual, and sensitive), a part that he played in many movies which set women to dreaming about him. His first sound movie came out in 1930: Outward Bound (1930), an adaptation of the stage play in which he starred. In Never the Twain Shall Meet (1931) and Smilin' Through (1932), he played the Englishman role to the hilt. His screen persona could perhaps best be summed up by his role as Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), a foppish society gentleman.
It was Howard who insisted that Humphrey Bogart get the role of Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role that Bogart had played in the stage production. As he became more successful, he also became quite picky about which roles he would do, and usually performed in only two films a year. In 1939, he played the character that will always be associated with him, that of Ashley Wilkes, the honor-bound, disillusioned intellectual Southern gentleman, in Gone with the Wind (1939).
However, war clouds were gathering over England, and he devoted all his energy on behalf of the war effort. He directed films, wrote articles and made radio broadcasts. He died in 1943, when the KLM plane he was in was shot down by German fighters over the Bay of Biscay.- Actress
- Additional Crew
Marisa Paredes was born on 3 April 1946 in Madrid, Madrid, Spain. She is an actress, known for All About My Mother (1999), The Skin I Live In (2011) and High Heels (1991).- 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.- Mary Anderson was born on 3 April 1918 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. She was an actress, known for Lifeboat (1944), Wilson (1944) and Gone with the Wind (1939). She was married to Leon Shamroy and Leonard Marion Behrens. She died on 6 April 2014 in Burbank, California, USA.
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Matthew Ferguson was born on 3 April 1973 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is an actor and writer, known for La Femme Nikita (1997), Cube²: Hypercube (2002) and Billy Madison (1995).- Matthew William Goode (born 3 April 1978) is an English actor. His films include Chasing Liberty (2004), Match Point (2005), Imagine Me and You (2006), Brideshead Revisited (2008), Watchmen (2009), A Single Man (2009), Leap Year (2010), Stoker (2013) and The Imitation Game (2014). Goode also starred in in the final season of Downton Abbey and in the CBS legal drama The Good Wife as Finley "Finn" Polmar from 2014 to 2015. Goode was born in Exeter, Devon. His father is a geologist and his mother, Jennifer, is a nurse and amateur theatre director. Goode is the youngest of five children with a brother, two half brothers, and a half sister, television presenter Sally Meen, from his mother's previous marriage. He grew up in the village of Clyst St. Mary, near Exeter.