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Parisa Fitz-Henley was born on 22 July 1977 in Kingston, Jamaica. She is an actress and producer, known for My Spy (2020), Fantasy Island (2020) and The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010). She has been married to Araya Crosskill since 2002.- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
- Actor
- Soundtrack
George Raft was born and grew up in a poor family in Hell's Kitchen, at the time one of the roughest, meanest areas of New York City. He was born George Ranft, and was the son of Eva (Glockner) and Conrad Ranft, a department store deliveryman. His parents were both of German descent. In his youth, he showed a great interest in, and aptitude for, dancing. That, combined with his dark good looks and sharp dressing, made him a local favorite at such spots as the El Fey Club with Texas Guinan. In 1928, Raft went to Hollywood to try his luck at acting. His first big role was as the coin-tossing henchman in Scarface (1932). His career was marked by numerous tough-guy roles, often a gangster or convict. The believability with which he played these, together with his lifelong associations with such real-life gangsters as Owney Madden and Bugsy Siegel, added to persistent rumors that he was also a gangster. The slightly shady reputation may have helped his popularity early on, but it made him somewhat undesirable to movie executives later in his career. He somewhat parodied his gangster reputation in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959).- Richard Gaines was born on 23 July 1904 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor, known for Double Indemnity (1944), Ace in the Hole (1951) and The More the Merrier (1943). He was married to Brenda Marshall. He died on 20 July 1975 in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Philip Ober's bald head, stern bearing and booming voice made him a natural for the roles of business executives, high-ranking military officers and other authority figures he played so well. A Princeton University graduate, Ober spent years as an advertising executive for several different national magazines before switching careers to acting. He spent many years on Broadway and in stock companies before breaking into films. His best remembered roles would probably be that of the murder victim who dies in Cary Grant's arms in North by Northwest (1959) and the bullying officer whose wife is having an affair with his subordinate, Burt Lancaster, in From Here to Eternity (1953). He also did much television work, including appearances on his wife's show, I Love Lucy (1951) (he was married to Vivian Vance at the time). He retired from acting and went into the U.S. diplomatic service, and, while working at the U.S. consulate in Mexico City, died of a heart attack in 1982.
- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Earl Simmons (December 18, 1970 - April 9, 2021), known by his stage name DMX ("Dark Man X"), was an American rapper and actor. He began rapping in the early 1990s and released his debut album It's Dark and Hell Is Hot in 1998, to both critical acclaim and commercial success, selling 251,000 copies within its first week of release. DMX released his best-selling album, ... And Then There Was X, in 1999, which included the hit single "Party Up (Up in Here)". His 2003 singles "Where the Hood At?" and "X Gon' Give It to Ya" were also commercially successful. He was the first artist to debut an album at No. 1 five times in a row on the Billboard 200 charts. Overall, DMX sold over 74 million records worldwide.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Guy Lockard found his legs in entertainment during his adolescence, when he landed his first major role as a Squad member on BET's hit show, Teen Summit. His five year stint on the show (where he was quickly promoted to show host) was a surge to Lockard's confidence, and a professional springboard catalyzing incredible opportunities. One such opportunity was a chance to serve as a youth panelist on former NAACP president, Kweisi Mfume's, television show, The Bottom Line with Kwesi Mfume.
While studying acting and, his other passion, jazz vocal performance at Towson University, Guy landed a recording contract with super-producer Mahogany (Jay-Z, Dr. Dre) through Ruff Ryders Entertainment. Ruff Ryders, at the time, was a major powerhouse in hip-hop music as the creative force behind rappers DMX and Eve. But like many, the 19 year old Lockard's project was shelved, which ultimately led him to venture out on his own, and work harder to maximize on his creative talents. So he moved to New York City.
Once in the big city, Lockard immersed himself in all things performance.He studied the Meisner technique of acting at the William Esper Studio and studied voice under Maria Zorella. In 2008, he landed a role in the off-broadway musical, Sex, Drugs, and Ukuleles, where a solo was written specifically for his voice by Terry Waldo. Lockard was also hired as a lead singer in a high society band with Hank Lane Music, and has performed at several of New York City's most historically affluent venues, including the Rainbow Room, and the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Still unquenched, Lockard auditioned, and earned a spot as a principal singer with the multi-platinum Trans-Siberian Orchestra, working under the great Paul O'Neill.
In 2009, about ten years after his BET beginnings, Guy Lockard returned to the small screen more astute than ever. He was featured on several commercials, but most notably, he landed a guest starring role on the hit series, Law and Order alongside Anthony Anderson.
Guy Lockard resides in Brooklyn, New York.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Born Spangler Arlington Brugh, Robert Taylor began displaying a diversity of talents in his youth on the plains of Nebraska. At Beatrice High School, he was a standout track athlete, but also showed a talent for using his voice, winning several oratory awards. He was a musician and played the cello in the school orchestra. After graduating he thought of music as a vocation and started studying music at Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. In the early 1930s he decided to follow in his father's footsteps and study medicine. He enrolled at Pomona College but also joined the campus theater group and found himself in many lead roles because of his handsome features. He was inspired to go on to the Neely Dixon Dramatic School, but about a year after graduating from Pomona, he was spotted by an MGM talent scout and given a contract in 1934. That same year, he appeared in his first movie, on loan-out to Fox for a Will Rogers entry, Handy Andy (1934). He also did an MGM short, Buried Loot (1935), for its "Crime Does Not Pay" series, which provided good exposure. However, the next year he did even better by being cast as the lead, again on loan-out, this time to then struggling Universal Pictures, in Magnificent Obsession (1935) with Irene Dunne, the story of a happy-go-lucky party guy who inadvertently causes blindness to the young lady he wishes to impress and then becomes a doctor in order to cure her. The movie was a big hit, and Taylor had a taste of instant box-office stardom. Along with his good looks, Taylor already showed solid dramatic skill. However, critics viewed of him as a no-talent flash-in-the-pan getting by on his looks (a charge levied at his closest contemporary comparison, Tyrone Power over at Fox). He had to endure some brutal reviews through his first years in Hollywood, but they would soon fade away. In 1935 alone, he appeared in seven films, and by the end of the year, he was at the top of his form as a leading man and being offered substantial scripts. The next year he appeared with Greta Garbo in Camille (1936), and for the remainder of the decade MGM's vehicles for him--not to mention a pantheon of top actresses--clicked with audiences. On a personal level, despite his impressive family background and education, Taylor would often strike those who met him as a mental lightweight. Intellectually inclined actress Luise Rainer was shocked when she struck up a conversation with him at a studio function in 1937 when, after asking him what his goals were, he sincerely replied that his most important goal was to accumulate "a wardrobe of ten fine custom-tailored suits." That he usually comes across on screen as having a confident, commanding presence is more of a testimony to his acting talent than his actual personality. He held rigid right-wing political beliefs that he refused to question and, when confronted with an opposing viewpoint, would simply reject it outright. He rarely, if ever, felt the need to be introspective. Taylor simply felt blessed to be working behind the walls of MGM. His affection for the studio would blind him to the fact that boss Louis B. Mayer masterfully manipulated him for nearly two decades, keeping Taylor's salary the lowest of any major Hollywood star. But this is also indicative of how much trust he placed in the hands of the studio's leaders. Indeed, Taylor remained the quintessential MGM company man and would be rewarded by remaining employed there until the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s, outlasting its legend, Clark Gable. Though not quite considered treasures to be locked away in film vaults, Taylor's films during the first five years of his career gave him the opportunity to explore a wide spectrum of romantic characters, playing young officers or doctors more than once. Some noticeable examples of the variety of roles he took over a year's time were his chip-on-the-shoulder Lee Sheridan in A Yank at Oxford (1938), ladies' man/boxer Tommy McCoy in The Crowd Roars (1938) and cynical southern gentleman Blake Cantrell in Stand Up and Fight (1939). Taylor would truly become a first-rate actor in the following decade. By the 1940s, he was playing edgier and somewhat darker characters, such as the title roles in Billy the Kid (1941) and smooth criminal Johnny Eager (1941). With the arrival of the war, Taylor was quick to make his contribution to the effort. As an actor, he made two memorable combat movies: Stand by for Action (1942) and the better known (and for the time, quite graphic) Bataan (1943). From 1943 to 1946, he was in the US Naval Air Corps as a lieutenant, instructing would-be pilots. He also found time to direct two flight instruction training films (1943) and other training films for the Navy. Rather didactic in his ultra-conservative political beliefs, he became involved in 1947 as a "friendly witness" for the House Un-American Activities Committee investigating "Communist subversion" in the film industry. Anyone who knew Taylor knew he was an arch conservative but doubted that he could articulate why. He publicly stated that his accepting a role in Song of Russia (1944) was bad judgment (in reality, it was against his nature to balk at any film assignment while at MGM) and that he considered the film "pro-Communist." He also--rather unwittingly--fingered fellow actor Howard Da Silva as a disruptive force in the Screen Actors Guild. Although he didn't explicitly accuse Da Silva of being a Communist, his charges of "disruption" had the same effect, and the veteran actor found himself blacklisted by the studios for many years. After the war and through the remainder of the decade, Taylor was getting action roles to match his healthy box office draw, but there were fewer of them being offered. He was aging, and though he had one of his best known roles as the faith-challenged Gen. Marcus Vinicius in the monster hit Quo Vadis (1951), he was now being seen more as a mature lead. MGM, now under the aegis of Dore Schary, made the decision to move a significant amount of production to England to cut costs and opted to film several big-budget costume epics there starring Taylor. With Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1952), he was back (as once before in 1949) with the dazzling young Elizabeth Taylor pining for him as the exotic young Jewish woman Rebecca, effectively pulling off a role ideally suited for an actor a decade younger. With a great script and lots of action (forget about the mismatch of some matte backdrops!), the movie was a smash hit. He had a new look--rakish goatee and longer hair--that fit the youthful illusion. The movie did so well that MGM opted for a follow-up film based on the King Arthur legend, Knights of the Round Table (1953). It was not quite as good, but Taylor had the same look, and it worked. To his credit, Taylor continued to push for challenging roles in his dramatic output; the old "pretty face" stigma still seemed to drive him. He played an intriguing and most unlikely character in Devil's Doorway (1950)--an American Indian (dark-stained skin with blue eyes!) who wins a Medal of Honor for heroism in the Civil War but comes home to his considerable land holdings to encounter the continued racial bigotry and envy of his white neighbors. It contained pushing-the-envelope dialog with many thought-provoking scenes dealing with the social plight of the Indian. Taylor did several noteworthy pictures after this film (e.g., the edgy Rogue Cop (1954)) and was even more swashbuckling in one of the lesser known of Sir Walter Scott's romantic novels, Quentin Durward (1955), again successful in a younger-man role. Though his contract with MGM expired in 1958, he accepted a few more films into the 1960s. He put on some weight in his 50s, and the effects of heavy chain smoking began to affect his looks, but Taylor successfully alternated between starring film roles and television, albeit at a somewhat reduced pace. He founded his own production company, Robert Taylor Productions, in 1958 and moved comfortably into TV work. From 1959 to 1962, he was the star of the TV series The Detectives (1959), and when Ronald Reagan bowed out of TV's popular western anthology Death Valley Days (1952) for a political career, Taylor took over as host and sometime actor (1966-1968) until his death from lung cancer at the age of only 57.- Stuart's entertainment career began as a child in school, acting and singing in school plays, then in the late 1920's he began entertaining professionally as Larry Sothern. He was the lead singer in the Will Bradley Orchestra, as well as the John Phillip Souza Band, going on to have his own band, the Larry Sothern Orchestra. While in Florida he joined the Theater of Fifteen, appearing in a number of plays that toured the US in the late 30's and early '40's. Although Larry had been a singer all his life, he wanted very much to be an actor, and at last he saw in the Fifteen an opportunity to gain experience in the theater. He took a small part in "Give My Regards to Broadway," which ran four weeks instead of the usual two, and gave him additional time to work on his next part, which was a leading role in a new play, "U. S. Ark." He worked intensively and came through with an amazingly professional performance as Fanchon, the Communist. Larry performed in six plays over nine months in 1940. U.S. Ark, The Texas Ranger, The Gentle People, Kiss the Boys Goodbye, A Man From the Band and Battle of Angels. A Man From the Band proved to be a leading role for Larry. He played Ernie Craig, a band leader who marries a socialite.
In mid 1941 Larry joined the cast of "My Sister Eileen". The play was on Broadway for better than a year with the original cast, but a different cast played Chicago for over eight months, this was the cast that Larry was with. After Chicago, the play went on the road for approximately one year, performing at St. Louis, Decatur, Cincinnati, Detroit, Dayton, Minneapolis and Lansing, then traveling to the west coast to Oakland and Los Angeles, closing sometime in 1942.
World War II put a hold on Larry / Stuart's career when he was called into the U. S. Army in 1942 under his birth name of Clarence Maxwell, with Basic Training, as well as his advanced training with the 55th Field Artillery Division being accomplished at Camp Roberts, San Louis Obispo County. After returning from an over-seas assignment, he was discharged in November of 1944, with the rank of Sergeant.
As with a number of actors and actresses, Larry Sothern changed his name to Stuart Randall and became an actor with his first movie being Bells of Coronado, starring Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, which was released in January of 1950,
Some of Stuart's movies are Storm Warning, with Ronald Reagan, Wells Fargo Gunmaster, The Hoodlum, Carbine Williams, Pony Soldier, with Tyrone Powers, Pony Express, with Charlton Heston, Southwest Passage, starring Rod Cameron, The Far Country with Jimmie Stewart, Indestructible Man with Lon Chaney, Run of the Arrow, Verboten!, Frontier Uprising, with Jim Davis, Taggart, and True Grit, with John Wayne.
He appeared in nearly all of the popular western television series of the 50's, 60's and 70's at least once, some of them numerous times, including: three times on the Lone Ranger; twice on Zane Grey Theater; twice on Colt .45; five times as a series regular on Cimarron City; three times on Sugarfoot; five times in Restless Gun; three times on The Texan; Wagon Train twice; seven appearances in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp; twice each on The Rifleman, Wanted: Dead or Alive and Lawman; three in Riverboat; twice on Death Valley Days; seven times on The Virginian and six times on Bonanza and of course his most memorable appearance in Laramie, thirty-four times as Sheriff Mort Cory as well as two other appearances earlier in the series, portraying other characters.
Stuart also appeared in non-western series, including: Lassie eleven times; Tightrope twice; Navy Log twice; twice in Wire Service; Schlitz Playhouse five times; The Star and the Story twice; The Loretta Young Show three times; Public Defender three times; and twice on Waterfront.
Stuart's entertainment career spanned forty-five years, with his last screen appearance being on the television series Alias Smith and Jones - Dreadful Sorry Clementine, Season 2, Episode 10, in November, 1971.
Stuart passed away at his home in Victorville, California on June 22, 1988. - Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Born in Kansas, Max Showalter picked up the "acting bug" as a toddler when mother used to take him to the local theater where she played the piano for silent movies. He acted in 92 shows at the Pasadena Playhouse between 1935 and '38, made his Broadway debut under the aegis of Oscar Hammerstein II in "Knights of Song" and acted for two years in the cast of Irving Berlin's traveling musical "This Is the Army." In addition to his films, TV appearances (over 1000), and stage shows, Showalter was a composer, a songwriter, and pianist. In his later years he lived in an 18th-century farmhouse in the Connecticut town he fell in love with while shooting the movie It Happened to Jane (1959).- Actor
- Writer
- Director
His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was orphaned at 15 after his father's death in 1930 and became the ward of Dr. Maurice Bernstein of Chicago. In 1931, he graduated from the Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois. He turned down college offers for a sketching tour of Ireland. He tried unsuccessfully to enter the London and Broadway stages, traveling some more in Morocco and Spain, where he fought in the bullring.
Recommendations by Thornton Wilder and Alexander Woollcott got him into Katharine Cornell's road company, with which he made his New York debut as Tybalt in 1934. The same year, he married, directed his first short, and appeared on radio for the first time. He began working with John Houseman and formed the Mercury Theatre with him in 1937. In 1938, they produced "The Mercury Theatre on the Air", famous for its broadcast version of "The War of the Worlds" (intended as a Halloween prank). His first film to be seen by the public was Citizen Kane (1941), a commercial failure losing RKO $150,000, but regarded by many as the best film ever made. Many of his subsequent films were commercial failures and he exiled himself to Europe in 1948.
In 1956, he directed Touch of Evil (1958); it failed in the United States but won a prize at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. In 1975, in spite of all his box-office failures, he received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1984, the Directors Guild of America awarded him its highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award. His reputation as a filmmaker steadily climbed thereafter.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Both of Allen Jenkins' parents were musical comedy performers, and he entered the theater as a stage mechanic after World War I, after having spent time working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Although his screen persona was that of a not-too-bright Brooklyn tough guy, Jenkins attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and appeared in many Broadway plays before making his film debut in 1931. He found his niche at Warner Brothers, where he perfected his slow-witted but good-natured gangster/taxi driver/cop/etc. character. In the latter part of his career he appeared frequently on TV, and was a regular on the TV series Hey, Jeannie! (1956). He is probably best remembered by "baby boomers" as the voice of the put-upon cop Officer Dibble in the popular cartoon series Top Cat (1961).
He died in Santa Monica, CA, in 1974 after undergoing surgery.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Legendary actor Glenn Ford was born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford in Sainte-Christine-d'Auvergne, Quebec, Canada, to Hannah Wood (Mitchell) and Newton Ford, a railroad executive. His family moved to Santa Monica, California when he was eight years old. His acting career began with plays at high school, followed by acting in West Coast, a traveling theater company.
Ford was discovered in 1939 by Tom Moore, a talent scout for 20th Century Fox. He subsequently signed a contract with Columbia Pictures the same year. Ford's contract with Columbia marked a significant departure in that studio's successful business model. Columbia's boss, Harry Cohn, had spent decades observing other studios'-most notably Warner Brothers-troubles with their contract stars and had built his poverty-row studio around their loan-outs. Basically, major studios would use Columbia as a penalty box for unruly behavior-usually salary demands or work refusals. The cunning Cohn usually assigned these stars (his little studio could not normally afford then) into pictures, and the studio's status rose immensely as the 1930s progressed. Understandably, Cohn had long resisted developing his own stable of contract stars (he'd first hired Peter Lorre in 1934 but didn't know what to do with him) but had relented in the late 1930s, first adding Rosalind Russell, then signing Ford and fellow newcomer William Holden. Cohn reasoned that the two prospects could be used interchangeably, should one become troublesome. Although often competing for the same parts, Ford and Holden became good friends. Their careers would roughly parallel each other through the 1940s, until Holden became a superstar through his remarkable association with director Billy Wilder in the 1950s.
Ford made his official debut in Fox's Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence (1939), and continued working in various small roles throughout the 1940s until his movie career was interrupted to join the Marines in World War II. Ford continued his military career in the Naval Reserve well into the Vietnam War, achieving the rank of captain. In 1943 Ford married legendary tap dancer Eleanor Powell, and had one son, Peter Ford. Like many actors returning to Hollywood after the war (including James Stewart and Holden (who had already acquired a serious alcohol problem), he found it initially difficult to regain his career momentum. He was able to resume his movie career with the help of Bette Davis, who gave him his first postwar break in the 1946 movie A Stolen Life (1946). However, it was not until his acclaimed performance in a 1946 classic film noir, Gilda (1946), with Rita Hayworth, that he became a major star and one of the the most popular actors of his time. He scored big with the film noir classics The Big Heat (1953) and Blackboard Jungle (1955), and was usually been cast as a calm and collected everyday-hero, showing courage under pressure. Ford continued to make many notable films during his prestigious 50-year movie career, but he is best known for his fine westerns such as 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and The Rounders (1965). Ford pulled a hugely entertaining turn in The Sheepman (1958) and many more fine films. In the 1970s, Ford made his television debut in the controversial The Brotherhood of the Bell (1970) and appeared in two fondly remembered television series: Cade's County (1971) and The Family Holvak (1975). During the 1980s and 1990s, Ford limited his appearance to documentaries and occasional films, including a nice cameo in Superman (1978).
Glenn Ford is remembered fondly by his fans for his more than 100 excellent films and his charismatic silver screen presence.- Actor
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Carl Weathers was born on January 14, 1948, in New Orleans, Louisiana. A famous and successful football star at San Diego State, he played with the Oakland Raiders and retired from the sport in 1974, in order to give full attention to his goal: to be a real actor.
Weathers first played small parts in two blaxploitation flicks, Friday Foster (1975) (in which he played "Yarbro") and Bucktown (1975) (playing "Hambone"), both made in 1975 and directed by Arthur Marks. However, his big break came the following year when producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff chose him to play "Apollo Creed" in the blockbuster "sleeper" Rocky (1976) (real-life boxing legend Ken Norton was originally signed for the part, but it eventually went to Weathers). He went on to play "Creed" in three other "Rocky" movies, and the characters' adversarial relationship eventually evolved into a warm friendship. After Creed's death in Rocky IV (1985), Weathers met with producer Joel Silver and agreed to play an important supporting role in Predator (1987), an action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The following year, Silver produced Action Jackson (1988), a first starring role for Weathers, but it performed poorly at the box office and was panned by the critics.
During the 1990s, Weathers starred in four In the Heat of the Night (1988) two-hour TV specials that were much better received by critics and viewers alike. In 1996, he played the part of "Chubbs Peterson" in the blockbuster Adam Sandler comedy Happy Gilmore (1996). He returned to his "action roots" in two TV-movies with Hulk Hogan: Assault on Devil's Island (1997) and Assault on Death Mountain (1999).
In addition to his acting career, Weathers is also a member of the Big Brothers Association and the U.S. Olympic Committee, handling the career of athletes of various sports such as gymnastics, wrestling, swimming and judo.- Lyle Talbot, who appeared in over 150 movies from leads in Warner Bros.' "pre-Code" pictures to countless supporting roles, and later enjoyed a steady TV career as a character actor, was born Lysle Henderson on February 8, 1902, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a small town in Nebraska, where after the early death of his mother, he was raised by her mother, Mary Hollywood Talbot, whose name he later bore professionally.
Talbot's incredibly long and varied show-business career began right after high school, when he joined a traveling tent show. Starting out as a magician-hypnotist's assistant, he worked his way up to magician before quitting the carny's life for that of the stock theater. He learned to act with stock companies throughout the Midwest, where he became a leading man, and even formed his own short-lived company in Memphis, Tennessee, "The Talbot Players," which included his actor father and stepmother, Ed and Anna Henderson.
By 1931 he was in Hollywood as the talkies were maturing. He had the good looks of a star but, more importantly, he had a rich baritone voice that the talkies needed. After a screen test in which he inadvertently mocked Warner Bros. production head Darryl Zanuck but impressed director William "Wild Bill" Wellman, Talbot was signed by Warner Bros.-First National. The studio gave him a plum part in William A. Wellman's Love Is a Racket (1932) co-staring with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Ann Dvorak and the fast-talking Lee Tracy. He appeared in "A" pictures in the 1930s in supporting roles, including Three on a Match (1932), 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932), and One Night of Love (1934) (with opera star Grace Moore), but his work was mostly in "B" pictures, in which he frequently played leads. Although he thoroughly enjoyed the work, acting was practiced as an assembly line operation at the time. Actors would be assigned work usually based on 12-hour days and six-day weeks, and commit themselves to the infamous seven-year exclusive contract that included draconian suspension penalties in the fine print. Talbot, along with James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland and Bette Davis (ironically all WB contract players), were outspoken in their commitment to change working conditions for actors. Talbot was one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild and the first employee of the Brothers Warners to join the union, much to their ire.
As a matinee idol during the Depression, frequently playing a gangster or tuxedo-clad man about town, Talbot co-starred with the leading actresses of the day, including Ginger Rogers, Mary Astor, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Glenda Farrell, Kay Francis, Mae West, Ann Dvorak, Loretta Young, Carole Lombard and Shirley Temple.
Later, as a character actor, Talbot appeared as Commissioner Gordon in the 1949 serial Batman and Robin (1949) and was Lex Luthor in Atom Man vs. Superman (1950) the next year. Talbot took on a tremendous number of roles, either because he was not discriminating enough, always wanted to keep working, or simply appreciated the money. In the early 1950s he appeared in several of Edward D. Wood Jr.'s most notorious films, including the infamous transvestite tear-jerker Glen or Glenda (1953) and the famously inept Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). Aside from Bela Lugosi, Talbot was Wood's most famous star.
Talbot's acting career thrived on television, in which he appeared from the beginning of the medium until the 1980s. He co-starred as Ozzie Nelson's friend Joe Randolph on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952) and as Robert Cummings' Air Force buddy in The Bob Cummings Show (1955) (also known as "Love that Bob") and made guest appearances on a plethora of TV series, including Leave It to Beaver (1957), The Lone Ranger (1949), Topper (1953), The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950), Perry Mason (1957), Rawhide (1959), Wagon Train (1957), The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Green Acres (1965), Charlie's Angels (1976), Newhart (1982), The Dukes of Hazzard (1979) and Who's the Boss? (1984).
Throughout his film and TV career, Talbot continued to perform on stage, co-starring in "Separate Rooms" on Broadway in the early 1940s and starring in national touring companies of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" and summer stock tours of Gore Vidal's "The Best Man" and Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker." In 1967 he co-starred in a revival of "South Pacific" at New York's Lincoln Center with Florence Henderson.
Lyle Talbot died of natural causes on March 3, 1996, in his home in San Francisco, California, at the age of 94, the last of the SAG founders to shuffle off this mortal coil. - Actress
- Soundtrack
She was born Edna May Nutter, a child of solid New England stock, on 9th November 1883 in Malden, Massachusetts. The daughter of Ida May and Charles Edward Nutter, Edna was a descendant of the 2nd American president John Adams and his son, the 6th American president John Quincy Adams. In addition, her father's stepfather, Samuel Oliver, had a mother named Julia Adams who was descended from another John Adams (born 1724). Miss Oliver took an early interest in the stage, and she would quit school at the age of 14 to pursue her ambitions in the theater. Despite abandoning traditional schooling, Edna continued to study the performing arts, including speech and piano. One of her first jobs was as pianist with an all female orchestra which toured America around the turn of the century. By 1917 she had achieved success on Broadway in the hit play "Oh, Boy". By 1923 she had appeared in her first film. Edna May Oliver seems to have been born to play the classics of American and British literature. Some of her most memorable film roles were in adaptations of works of Charles Dickens. Although some have described her as plain or "horse faced", Edna May Oliver's comedic talents lent a beautiful droll warmth to her characters. She was usually called upon to play less glamorous roles such as a spinsters, but she played them with such soul, wit, and depth that to this day she remains one of the best loved of Hollywood's character actresses. A fine example of her comedic talent can be found in Laugh and Get Rich (1931). Here we find her playing a role almost autobiographical in nature, that of a proud woman with Boston roots who has married "down". As the plot unwinds, she is invited to a society gala despite her modest circumstances. At the gala she becomes tipsy. With a frolicsome air Edna May seems to use the role to gently mock her real self. Her slightly drunk character seizes upon a bit of flattery, and alluding to her old New England family, proudly proclaims to each who will listen, "I am a Cranston. That explains everything!". In real life, Edna May Oliver was a Nutter, and perhaps that explains everything. Edna May Oliver married stock broker David Pratt in 1928, but the marriage ended in divorce five years later. In 1939 she received an Oscar nomination for her supporting role as Widow McKlennar in the picture Drums Along the Mohawk (1939). That was to be one of her last films. Miss Oliver was struck ill in August of 1942. Although she seemed to recover briefly, she was re-admitted to Los Angeles's Cedars of Lebanon hospital in October Her dear friend actress Virginia Hammond flew out from New York to stay by her bedside. Edna May Oliver died on her 59th birthday, 9th November 1942. Virginia Hammond was with her and said, "She died without ever being aware of the gravity of her condition. She just went peacefully asleep."- Actor
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James Gleason was born in New York City to William Gleason and Mina Crolius, who were both in the theatre. He was married to Lucile Gleason (born Lucile Webster), and had a son, Russell Gleason. As a young man James fought in the Spanish-American War. After the war he joined the stock company at the Liberty Theater in Oakland, California, which his parents were running. James and his wife then moved to Portland, Oregon, where they played in stock at the Baker Theater. For several years afterward they toured in road shows until James enlisted in the army during World War I. When he returned he appeared on the stage in "The Five Million." He then turned to writing, including "Is Zat So", which he produced for the NY stage. He also wrote and acted in "The Fall Guy" and "The Shannons on Broadway." Next he wrote The Broadway Melody (1929) for MGM. He collaborated, in 1930, on The Swellhead (1930), Dumbbells in Ermine (1930), What a Widow! (1930), Rain or Shine (1930) and His First Command (1929). He and his wife were then contracted to Pathe, Lucille to act, and James (or Jimmie as he was known) as a writer. Probably his most famous acting role was as Max Corkle, the manager of Joe Pendleton who was wrongly plucked from this life into the next, in the hit fantasy Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941).- Actor
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Jack Warner started acting with the Sutton Amateur Dramatics Club after the end of World War I. From 1935, performed in cabaret at the London West End as half of the double act of Warner & Darnell. In addition to starring as Dixon of Dock Green (1955), which ran for over 20 years, he achieved lasting popularity on screen in the role of Joe Huggett, patriarch of a Cockney family, in Holiday Camp (1947), and its three sequels (plus a radio serial). Towards the end of his working life, 1976-80, Warner made a brief return to cabaret, before a stroke brought about his retirement.- Actor
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Conrad Veidt attended the Sophiengymnasium (secondary school) in the Schoeneberg district of Berlin, and graduated without a diploma in 1912, last in his class of 13. Conrad liked animals, theater, cinema, fast cars, pastries, thunderstorms, gardening, swimming and golfing. He disliked heights, flying, the number 17, wearing ties, pudding and interviews. A star of early German cinema, he became a sensation in 1920 with his role as the murderous somnambulist Cesare in Robert Wiene's masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Other prominent roles in German silent films included Different from the Others (1919) and Waxworks (1924). His third wife, Ilona (nicknamed Lily), was Jewish, although he himself wasn't. However, whenever he had to state his ethnic background on forms to get a job, he wrote: "Jude" (Jew). He and Lily fled Germany in 1933 after the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, and he became a British citizen in 1939. Universal Pictures head Carl Laemmle personally chose Veidt to play Dracula in a film to be directed by Paul Leni based on a successful New York stage play: "Dracula". Ultimately, Bela Lugosi got the role, and Tod Browning directed the film, Dracula (1931). In his last German film, F.P.1 Doesn't Answer (1932), Veidt sang a song called "Where the Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay." Although the record was considered a flop in 1933, the song became a hit almost 50 years later, when, in 1980, DJ Terry Wogan played it as a request on the Radio 2 breakfast show. That single playing generated numerous phone calls, and shortly thereafter the song appeared on a British compilation album called "Movie Star Memories" - a collection of songs from 1930s-era films compiled from EMI archives. The album was released by World Records Ltd., and is now out of print but can still be ordered online ("Where the Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay" is track 4 on side 2). Veidt appeared in Germany's first talking picture, Bride 68 (1929), and made only one color picture, The Thief of Bagdad (1940), filmed in England and Hollywood. His most famous role was as Gestapo Maj. Strasser in the classic Casablanca (1942); although he was not the star of the picture, he was the highest paid actor. He died while playing golf, and on the death certificate his name is misspelled as "Hanz Walter Conrad Veidt". Because he had been blacklisted in Nazi Germany, there was no official announcement there of his death. His ex-wife, Felicitas, and daughter Viola, in Switzerland, heard about it on the radio.- Actor
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George Sanders was born of English parents in St. Petersburg, Russia. He worked in a Birmingham textile mill, in the tobacco business and as a writer in advertising. He entered show business in London as a chorus boy, going from there to cabaret, radio and theatrical understudy. His film debut, in 1936, was as Curly Randall in Find the Lady (1936). His U.S. debut, the same year, with Twentieth Century-Fox, was as Lord Everett Stacy in Lloyd's of London (1936). During the late 1930s and early 1940s he made a number of movies as Simon Templar--the Saint--and as Gay Lawrence, the Falcon. He played Nazis (Maj. Quive-Smith in Fritz Lang's Man Hunt (1941)), royalty (Charles II in Otto Preminger's Forever Amber (1947)), and biblical roles (Saran of Gaza in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949)). He won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as theatre critic Addison De Witt in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950). In 1957 he hosted a TV series, The George Sanders Mystery Theater (1957). He continued to play mostly villains and charming heels until his suicide in 1972.- Actress
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Jill Adams (nee Siggins), was discovered while working as a model, having been asked to step in at the department store where she was an artist, when a model failed to show up. She was the daughter of Irish-American silent film actress Molly Adair, and New-Zealand writer, Arthur James Siggins (published under the name A.J. Siggins),. He had first sailed from the Antipodes to Africa as a young man to fight in the Boer war, where he served with the Matabele Mounted Police and later represented The ANZACs at Cecil Rhodes funeral in1902. His first wife was from Mozambique. The couple first met in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), where he was working with the High Commission. She was there on location to star in the silent film version of 'The Blue Lagoon' The young ingénue became A.J. Siggins' 2nd wife. After several years in Africa, during which time two sons were born, they relocated to England, where Jillian M.M.J. Siggins was born in London. During WWII, the family moved to North Wales, where they had 2 working farms. Upon returning to London following the war, and after Jill had become a successful model, she married a young US Navy officer stationed in the British capital, by the name of James Adams, in 1951. They had a daughter (Tina) in 1952. Jill's career began to flourish, but sadly the marriage did not, and now alone she began securing a few minor TV and film roles, before eventually being signed by J. Arthur Rank as one of the corporation's 'starlets'. The bubbly blonde actress, Jill Adams, soon made a string of popular films for the studios - many of which were light-hearted comedies such as 'Doctor at Sea' and 'Brothers in Law' - and she was often referred to as Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe. She also made a few films in the US and Australia. In 1957, she married the well-known BBC radio and TV personality, Peter Haigh, and they were very much the 'It' couple. They had a daughter, Peta Louise, in 1962. Jill also starred in the popular TV series 'The Flying Doctor' which lasted for 39 episodes. Over the next few years, although no longer getting the bigger roles, Adams continued to work both in radio and on stage. But, by the end of the 60s, with fewer opportunities available, she essentially retired from show business. In 1971, she and her husband Peter moved the family to the Algarve in Portugal, where they ran a hotel and restaurant in Albufeira. When that marriage ended, Adams spent several years with Michael Johnson, a former British radio host and musician, with whom she ran two businesses. She then eventually went solo until meeting Alan 'Buster' Jones, and moved first to the Lisbon area to be with him, and then they relocated to Spain. Following Jones's death in 1996, in the Costa del Sol, she returned to Portugal to be nearer to family. Always a prolific, popular and talented artist, she continued to paint even after being diagnosed with cancer in 2005 and right up until her death in Clareanes, in the Algarve., on May 13, 2008, at the age of 77.- Actress
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Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911, the daughter of Lela E. Rogers (née Lela Emogene Owens) and William Eddins McMath. Her mother went to Independence to have Ginger away from her husband. She had a baby earlier in their marriage and he allowed the doctor to use forceps and the baby died. She was kidnapped by her father several times until her mother took him to court. Ginger's mother left her child in the care of her parents while she went in search of a job as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and later to New York City. Mrs. McMath found herself with an income good enough to where she could send for Ginger. Lelee became a Marine in 1918 and was in the publicity department and Ginger went back to her grandparents in Missouri. During this time her mother met John Rogers. After leaving the Marines they married in May, 1920 in Liberty, Missouri. He was transferred to Dallas and Ginger (who treated him as a father) went too. Ginger won a Charleston contest in 1925 (age 14) and a 4-week contract on the Interstate circuit. She also appeared in vaudeville acts which she did until she was 17 with her mother by her side to guide her. Now she had discovered true acting.
She married in March 1929, and after several months realized she had made a mistake. She acquired an agent and she did several short films. She went to New York where she appeared in the Broadway production of "Top Speed" which debuted Christmas Day, 1929. Her first film was in 1929 in A Night in a Dormitory (1930). It was a bit part, but it was a start. Later that year, Ginger appeared, briefly, in two more films, A Day of a Man of Affairs (1929) and Campus Sweethearts (1930). For awhile she did both movies and theatre. The following year she began to get better parts in films such as Office Blues (1930) and The Tip-Off (1931). But the movie that enamored her to the public was Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). She did not have top billing, but her beauty and voice were enough to have the public want more. One song she popularized in the film was the now famous, "We're in the Money". Also in 1933, she was in 42nd Street (1933). She suggested using a monocle, and this also set her apart. In 1934, she starred with Dick Powell in Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934). It was a well-received film about the popularity of radio.
Ginger's real stardom occurred when she was teamed with Fred Astaire where they were one of the best cinematic couples ever to hit the silver screen. This is where she achieved real stardom. They were first paired in 1933's Flying Down to Rio (1933) and later in 1935's Roberta (1935) and Top Hat (1935). Ginger also appeared in some very good comedies such as Bachelor Mother (1939) and Fifth Avenue Girl (1939), both in 1939. Also that year, she appeared with Astaire in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). The film made money but was not anywhere successful as they had hoped. After that, studio executives at RKO wanted Ginger to strike out on her own.
She made several dramatic pictures, but it was 1940's Kitty Foyle (1940) that allowed her to shine. Playing a young lady from the wrong side of the tracks, she played the lead role well, so well in fact, that she won an Academy Award for her portrayal. Ginger followed that project with the delightful comedy, Tom, Dick and Harry (1941) the following year. It's a story where she has to choose which of three men she wants to marry. Through the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s she continued to make movies but not near the caliber before World War II. After Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957) in 1957, Ginger didn't appear on the silver screen for seven years. By 1965, she had appeared for the last time in Harlow (1965). Afterward, she appeared on Broadway and other stage plays traveling in Europe, the U.S., and Canada. After 1984, she retired and wrote an autobiography in 1991 entitled, "Ginger, My Story".
On April 25, 1995, Ginger died of natural causes in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 83.- Actress
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Elegant, quintessentially British Valerie Hobson was the daughter of a British army officer. She studied dancing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and appeared onstage for the first time at age 16, but she contracted a case of scarlet fever and decided to give up dancing for acting. She journeyed to Hollywood, but became disillusioned with the studio system and returned to Britain, where she was often cast in aristocratic roles.
She married producer Anthony Havelock-Allan and subsequently appeared in many of his films. They divorced in 1952. She then married politician -- and future notorious sex-and-espionage-scandal figure -- John Profumo and gave up her acting career. She stood strongly by Profumo during that distasteful period. In her later years she was devoted to charity work. She died in 1998, aged 81.- Actor
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Anton Diffring was a character actor who worked continuously in motion pictures due to his aristocratic face and cool, clipped diction, making him ideal for typecasting in British and later American motion pictures as Nazis and other vile, despicable characters. What was ironic about his typecasting as a Nazi is that Diffring, born in Koblenz, Germany, on October 20, 1916, fled Nazi Germany in 1939.
He was the son of Bertha (Diffring) and Solomon/Samuel Pollack, a Jewish shop owner. He was born into a family that boasted generations of actors, and studied drama in Berlin and Vienna. At the outbreak of World War II, he fled Germany and wound up in Canada, where he was interned as an enemy alien for the duration of the war. It was in Canada where he began his acting career after World War II, working primarily there and in the US before moving to Britain in 1950.
He became popular playing Nazis in the postwar period, as the British film industry turned out film after film about the war, which created a great demand for actors who could convincingly play Nazis, the nastier the better. Diffring could play nasty, and his career as a character actor soared. He was still going at it in the 1960s, when he began appearing in American and international co-productions as German soldiers from both WW I and WW II, including The Blue Max (1966), Counterpoint (1967) and that Turner Network Television staple, Where Eagles Dare (1968). He was still going at it in the 1970s and 1980s, as he continued a nearly 40-year-long acting career that was terminated only by his death.
He was a much better actor than most of his roles required. Diffring broadened his range as an actor with stage and television work, but the movies continually beckoned, as casting agents were hooked on him when it came to Nazi roles. It was that face that did it; it was both his blessing and his curse. He had the light hair, the piercing blue eyes and the chiseled face of the haughty aristocrat, the German Junker, but it was a face that could telegraph much in the few seconds that was the average shot of a motion picture. As a character actor, he got much done with less (time).
In François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 (1966) he was cast in all likelihood as a counterpart to the Austrian actor Oskar Werner, so that Werner's own Teutonicness in the English setting wouldn't be as arch. He excelled as Werner's nemesis, as he could create a mood or signal an entire story line with just a look; dialog didn't matter (he likely would have been a superstar in silent films, when it was "the faces" that mattered).
Diffring tried to break out of those silken villain roles, moving to Rome in 1968, but producers turned to him again and again to fill their needs for a foreign heavy. He appeared as one of the most infamous Nazis of all, Adolf Hitler's hangman Reinhard Heydrich, in Operation Daybreak (1975), and as Hitler's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in the American mini-series The Winds of War (1983). It made him a good living and it made him known, even if it did not fulfill his artistic ambitions.
What made his career such a success in terms of its longevity and fecundity was that Diffring was an actor who was enjoyable to watch. From Jack Clayton's I Am a Camera (1955) to Terence Fisher's The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), from Samuel Fuller's Tote Taube in der Beethovenstraße (1972) to Ken Russell's Valentino (1977), Diffring gave memorable performances, sandwiched in with all the Nazi heavies one career could possibly bear.
Anton Diffring died at his home in Chateauneuf-de-Grasse, France, on May 20, 1989. He was 72 years old.- Argentinian leading lady Marta Victoria Moya Peggo Burges was one of three siblings, born in Buenos Aires to a French father and Italian mother. When she was five years of age, her father, a publisher, fled with his family to Montevideo, Uruguay, where they went on to live for several years in somewhat reduced circumstances. According to one of two conflicting stories, her father had gotten into "into conflict with a criminal gang". According to another, he may have fallen foul of the ruling political elite. Whatever the case, both parents died prematurely in what was possibly a suicide pact (in their car of carbon monoxide poisoning) by the time Linda was 13.
Educated at the Conservatoria Franklin in Uruguay, she studied voice and piano. A brief marriage to the Argentinian actor Tito Gómez ended in an annulment after just five days and Linda briefly toyed with the idea of entering a convent (as had several of her aunts). Fate, of course, intervened. While vacationing in Mexico with her older brother, she was 'discovered' by the film producer and director Miguel Alemán Velasco, who also happened to be the son of the country's ruling president. Signed under contract, she adopted the moniker Linda Cristal and made several Spanish language films which soon established her as one of Mexico's rising stars. Conscious of her potential and hoping to break into Hollywood, she decided to learn English as her fourth language (already fluent in Spanish, French and Italian) and subsequently made her American film debut with a small role in the Dana Andrews western Comanche (1956). A dispute over the non-payment of her wages and a car accident in 1956 then led to a brief hiatus in her career.
Fast forward three years and a bit of publicity (she was named "Motion Picture Sweater Queen" in 1958) and Linda was lured back to Hollywood by Universal to again hit the saddle in a couple of back-to-back minor westerns, The Last of the Fast Guns (1958) and The Fiend Who Walked the West (1958). In between attempts to break free from typecasting as decorative Latinas (The Pharaohs' Woman (1960), Panic in the City (1968)) -- a metamorphosis which never happened -- she at least got herself noticed by some high profile people in the business (ie. John Wayne) and was able to thus secure roles in better productions like The Alamo (1960) and Two Rode Together (1961). While her motion picture career was at an impasse, she learned of producer David Dortort casting for the part of Victoria Montoya in the upcoming TV series The High Chaparral (1967). Invited to an audition, she found the set script as too saccharine and bland. Audaciously improvising, she re-imagined her character as more tempestuous, resourceful and proud, later saying in an interview that she knew the producers "were looking for a heroine with fire and spunk". Having secured the coveted role, she made it her own for four seasons (1967-71), ultimately winning two Primetime Emmy nominations and netting her the Golden Globe Award in 1970 as Best Actress in a TV Drama.
After High Chaparral ceased production in 1971, Linda made guest appearances in a handful of TV shows and played a Mexican migrant worker and union leader in Charles Bronson's robust action film Mr. Majestyk (1974). She later worked for some time as a realtor, presided over her own import/export business and invested wisely to become financially very well-off. She made a final comeback to acting as the mistress of a mob boss in the daytime soap General Hospital (1963), eventually calling it quits in 1988. Linda spent her remaining years between residences in Beverly Hills, Palm Springs and Buenos Aires and passed away at her Beverly Hills home on June 27 2020 at the age of 89.