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Edward Montgomery Clift (nicknamed 'Monty' his entire life) was born on October 17, 1920 in Omaha, Nebraska, just after his twin sister Roberta (1920-2014) and eighteen months after his brother Brooks Clift. He was the son of Ethel "Sunny" Anderson (Fogg; 1888-1988) and William Brooks Clift (1886-1964). His father made a lot of money in banking but was quite poor during the depression. His mother was born out of wedlock and spent much of her life and the family fortune finding her illustrious southern lineage and raising her children as aristocrats.
At age 13, Monty appeared on Broadway ("Fly Away Home"), and chose to remain in the New York theater for over ten years before finally succumbing to Hollywood. He gained excellent theatrical notices and soon piqued the interests of numerous lovelorn actresses; their advances met with awkward conflict. While working in New York in the early 1940s, he met wealthy former Broadway star Libby Holman. She developed an intense decade-plus obsession over the young actor, even financing an experimental play, "Mexican Mural" for him. It was ironic his relationship with the bisexual middle-aged Holman would be the principal (and likely the last) heterosexual relationship of his life and only cause him further anguish over his sexuality. She would wield considerable influence over the early part of his film career, advising him in decisions to decline lead roles in Sunset Boulevard (1950), (originally written specifically for him; the story perhaps hitting a little too close to home) and High Noon (1952).
His long apprenticeship on stage made him a thoroughly accomplished actor, notable for the intensity with which he researched and approached his roles. By the early 1950s he was exclusively homosexual, though he continued to hide his homosexuality and maintained a number of close friendships with theater women (heavily promoted by studio publicists).
His film debut was Red River (1948) with John Wayne quickly followed by his early personal success The Search (1948) (Oscar nominations for this, A Place in the Sun (1951), From Here to Eternity (1953) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)). By 1950, he was troubled with allergies and colitis (the U.S. Army had rejected him for military service in World War II for chronic diarrhea) and, along with pill problems, he was alcoholic. He spent a great deal of time and money on psychiatry.
In 1956, during filming of Raintree County (1957), he ran his Chevrolet into a tree after leaving a party at Elizabeth Taylor's; it was she who saved him from choking by pulling out two teeth lodged in his throat. His smashed face was rebuilt, he reconciled with his estranged father, but he continued bedeviled by dependency on drugs and his unrelenting guilt over his homosexuality.
With his Hollywood career in an irreversible slide despite giving an occasional riveting performance, such as in Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Monty returned to New York and tried to slowly develop a somewhat more sensible lifestyle in his brownstone row house on East 61st Street in Manhattan. He was set to play in Taylor's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), when he died in the early morning hours of July 23, 1966, at his home at age 45. His body was found by his live-in personal secretary/companion Lorenzo James, who found Clift lying nude on top of his bed, dead from what the autopsy called "occlusive coronary artery disease." Clift's last 10 years prior to his death from his 1956 car accident were called the "longest suicide in history" by famed acting teacher Robert Lewis.- Actor
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Dreamy Tab Hunter stood out in film history as one of the hottest teen idols of the 1950s era. With blond, tanned, surfer-boy good looks, he was artificially groomed and nicknamed "The Sigh Guy" by the Hollywood studio system, yet managed to continue his career long after his "golden boy" prime.
Hunter was born Arthur Kelm on July 11, 1931 in New York City, to Gertrude (Gelien) and Charles Kelm. His father was Jewish and his mother was a German Catholic immigrant. Following his parents' divorce, Hunter grew up in California with his mother, older brother Walter, and maternal grandparents, Ida (Sonnenfleth) and John Henry Gelien. His mother changed her sons' surnames to her maiden name, Gelien. Leaving school and joining the Coast Guard at age fifteen (he lied about his age), he was eventually discharged when the age deception was revealed. Returning home, his life-long passion for horseback riding led to a job with a riding academy.
Hunter's fetching handsomeness and trim, athletic physique eventually steered the Californian toward the idea of acting. An introduction to famed agent Henry Willson had Tab signing on the dotted line and what emerged, along with a major career, was the stage moniker of "Tab Hunter." Willson was also responsible with pointing hopeful Roy Fitzgerald towards stardom under the pseudonym Rock Hudson. With no previous experience Tab made his first, albeit minor, film debut in the racially trenchant drama The Lawless (1950) starring Gail Russell and Macdonald Carey. His only line in the movie was eventually cut upon release. It didn't seem to make a difference for he co-starred in his very next film, the British-made Island of Desire (1952) opposite a somewhat older (by ten years) Linda Darnell, which was set during WWII on a deserted, tropical South Seas isle. His shirt remained off for a good portion of the film, which certainly did not go unnoticed by his ever-growing legion of female (and male) fans.
Signed by Warner Bros., stardom was clinched a few years later with another WWII epic Battle Cry (1955), based on the Leon Uris novel, in which he again played a boyish soldier sharing torrid scenes with an older woman (this time Dorothy Malone, playing a love-starved Navy wife). Thoroughly primed as one of Hollywood's top beefcake commodities, the tabloid magazines had a field day initiating an aggressive campaign to "out" Hunter as gay, which would have ruined him. To combat the destructive tactics, Tab was seen escorting a number of Hollywood's lovelies at premieres and parties. In the meantime, he was seldom out of his military fatigues on film, keeping his fans satisfied in such popular dramas as The Sea Chase (1955), The Burning Hills (1956) and The Girl He Left Behind (1956)--the last two opposite the equally popular Natalie Wood. At around this time, Hunter managed to parlay his boy-next-door film celebrity into a singing career. He topped the charts for over a month with the single "Young Love" in 1957 and produced other "top 40" singles as well.
Like other fortunate celebrity-based singers such as Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen, his musical reign was brief. Out of it, however, came the most notable success of his film career top-billing as baseball fan Joe Hardy in the classic Faustian musical Damn Yankees (1958) opposite Gwen Verdon and Ray Walston, who recreated their devil-making Broadway roles. Musically, Tab may have been overshadowed but he brought with him major star power and the film became a crowd pleaser. He continued on with the William A. Wellman-directed Lafayette Escadrille (1958) as, yet again, a wholesome soldier, this time in World War I. More spicy love scenes came with That Kind of Woman (1959), an adult comedy-drama which focused on soldier Hunter and va-va-voom mistress Sophia Loren demonstrating some sexual chemistry on a train.
Seldom a favorite with the film critics, the 1960s brought about a career change for Tab. He begged out of his restrictive contract with Warners and ultimately paid the price. With no studio to protect him, he was at the mercy of several trumped-up lawsuits. Worse yet, handsome Troy Donahue had replaced him as the new beefcake on the block. With no film offers coming his way, he starred in his own series The Tab Hunter Show (1960), a rather featherweight sitcom that centered around his swinging bachelor pad. The series last only one season. On the positive side he clocked in with over 200 TV programs over the long stretch and was nominated for an Emmy award for his outstanding performance opposite Geraldine Page in a Playhouse 90 episode. Following the sparkling film comedy The Pleasure of His Company (1961) opposite Debbie Reynolds, the quality of his films fell off drastically as he found himself top-lining such innocuous fare as Operation Bikini (1963), Ride the Wild Surf (1964) (1965), City in the Sea (1965) [aka War-Gods of the Deep], and Birds Do It (1966) both here and overseas.
As for stage, a brief chance to star on Broadway happened in 1964 alongside the highly volatile Tallulah Bankhead in Tennessee Williams's "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore." It lasted five performances. He then started to travel the dinner theater circuit. Enduring a severe lull, Tab bounced back in the 1980s and 1990s -- more mature, less wholesome, but ever the looker. He gamely spoofed his old clean-cut image by appearing in delightfully tasteless John Waters' films as a romantic dangling carrot to heavyset transvestite "actress" Divine. Polyester (1981) was the first mainstream hit for Waters and Tab went on to team up with Allan Glaser to co-produce and co-star a Waters-like western spoof Lust in the Dust (1984).
Co-starring with "Exorcist" star Linda Blair in the bizarre horror film Grotesque (1988), Tab's last on-camera appearance would be in a small role in the film Dark Horse (1992), which he produced. He preferred spending most of his time secluded on his ranch and breeding horses. In 2005, he returned to the limelight when he "came out" with a tell-all memoir on his Hollywood years. His long-time partner was film producer Allan Glaser.
Tab died on July 8, 2018, in Santa Barbara, California, three days shy of his 87th birthday.- Actor
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Richard Chamberlain became the leading heartthrob of early 1960s television. As the impeccably handsome Dr. James Kildare, the slim, butter-haired hunk with the near-perfect Ivy-League charm and smooth, intelligent demeanor, had the distaff fans fawning unwavering over him through the series' run. While this would appear to be a dream situation for any new star, to Chamberlain it brought about a major, unsettling identity crisis.
Born George Richard Chamberlain in Beverly Hills on March 31, 1934, he was the second son of Elsa Winnifred (von Benzon) (1902-1993) and Charles Axiom Chamberlain (1902-1984), a salesman. He has English and German ancestry. Richard experienced a profoundly unhappy childhood and did not enjoy school at all, making up for it somewhat by excelling in track and becoming a four-year letter man in high school and college. He also developed a strong interest and enjoyment in acting while attending Pomona College. Losing an initial chance to sign up with Paramount Pictures, the studio later renewed interest. Complications arose when he was drafted into the Unites States Army on December 7, 1956 for 16 months, serving in Korea.
Chamberlain headed for Hollywood soon after his discharge and, in just a couple of years, worked up a decent resumé with a number of visible guest spots on such popular series as Gunsmoke (1955) and Mr. Lucky (1959). But it was the stardom of the medical series Dr. Kildare (1961) that garnered overnight female worship and he became a huge sweater-vested pin-up favorite. It also sparked a brief, modest singing career for the actor.
The attention Richard received was phenomenal. True to his "Prince Charming" type, he advanced into typically bland, soap-styled leads on film befitting said image, but crossover stardom proved to be elusive. The vehicles he appeared in, Twilight of Honor (1963) with Joey Heatherton and Joy in the Morning (1965) opposite Yvette Mimieux, did not bring him the screen fame foreseen. The public obviously saw the actor as nothing more than a television commodity.
More interested in a reputation as a serious actor, Chamberlain took a huge risk and turned his back on Hollywood, devoting himself to the stage. In 1966 alone, he appeared in such legit productions as "The Philadelphia Story" and "Private Lives", and also showed off his vocal talents playing Tony in "West Side Story". In December of that year, a musical version of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" starring Richard and Mary Tyler Moore in the sparkling George Peppard/Audrey Hepburn roles was headed for Broadway. However, it flopped badly in previews and closed after only four performances. Even today, it is still deemed one of Broadway's biggest musical disasters.
An important dramatic role in director Richard Lester's Petulia (1968) led Richard to England, where he stayed and dared to test his acting prowess on the classical stage. With it, his personal satisfaction over image and career improved. Bravura performances as "Hamlet" (1969) and "Richard II" (1971), as well as his triumph in "The Lady's Not for Burning" (1972), won over the not-so-easy-to-impress British audiences. And on the classier film front, he ably portrayed Octavius Caesar opposite Charlton Heston's Mark Antony and Jason Robards' Brutus in Julius Caesar (1970), composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Ken Russell's grandiose The Music Lovers (1971) opposite Glenda Jackson, and Lord Byron alongside Sarah Miles in Lady Caroline Lamb (1972). While none of these three films were critical favorites, they were instrumental in helping to reshape Chamberlain's career as a serious, sturdy and reliable actor.
With his new image in place, Richard felt ready to face American audiences again. While he made a triumphant Broadway debut as Reverend Shannon in "The Night of the Iguana" (1975), he also enjoyed modest box-office popularity with the action-driven adventure films The Three Musketeers (1973) as Aramis and a villainous role in The Towering Inferno (1974), and earned cult status for the Australian film The Last Wave (1977). On the television front, he became a television idol all over again (on his own terms this time) as the "King of 80s Mini-Movies". The epic storytelling of The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975), The Thorn Birds (1983) and Shogun (1980), all of which earned him Emmy nominations, placed Richard solidly on the quality star list. He won Golden Globe Awards for his starring roles in the last two miniseries mentioned.
In later years, the actor devoted a great deal of his time to musical stage tours as Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady", Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music" and Ebenezer Scrooge in "Scrooge: The Musical". Enormously private and having moved to Hawaii to avoid the Hollywood glare, at age 69 finally "came out" with a tell-all biography entitled "Shattered Love", in which he quite candidly discussed the anguish of hiding his homosexuality to protect his enduring matinée idol image.
Married now to his longtime partner of over 40 years, writer/producer Martin Rabbett, he has since accepted himself and shown to be quite a good sport in the process, appearing as gay characters in the film I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007), and in television episodes of Will & Grace (1998), Desperate Housewives (2004) and Brothers & Sisters (2006). More recently, he has enjoyed featured roles in the films Strength and Honour (2007), The Perfect Family (2011), We Are the Hartmans (2011), Nightmare Cinema (2018) and Finding Julia (2019).- Actor
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Already trained in dance and theater, he quit school at age 13 to study music and painting. By 19 he was a professional ballroom dancer in New York, and by his mid-twenties he was performing in musicals, dramas on Broadway and in London, and in silent movies. His first real success in film came in middle age as the classy villain Waldo Lydecker in Laura (1944), followed by the part of Elliott Templeton in The Razor's Edge (1946) - both of which won him Oscar nominations. His priggish Mr. Belvedere in a series of films was supposedly not far removed from his fastidious, finicky, fussy, abrasive and condescending real-life persona. He was inseparable from his overbearing mother Maybelle, with whom he lived until her death at 91, six years before his own death. The recent success of Titanic (1997) created brief interest due his having appeared with Barbara Stanwyck in the 1953 version of the story. He is interred at Abbey of the Psalms, Hollywood Memorial Cemetery (now known as Hollywood Forever).- Actor
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Glenn Scarpelli was born on 6 July 1966 in Staten Island, New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for One Day at a Time (1975), Jennifer Slept Here (1983) and Amazing Stories (1985). He has been married to John Ricci Jr. since 23 April 2023. He was previously married to Jude Belanger .- Actor
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William G. Scott was born in 1952 in Bessemer, Alabama. He attended Birmingham-Southern College for two years. He lived in New York City prior to moving to Hollywood in the late 1970s.
Changing his name to Glenn Shadix, he made his film debut in the poorly received The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), later winning a breakthrough role in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988) as Otho, the pretentious and treacherous interior designer who dangerously dabbles in the paranormal. Tim Burton went on to cast Shadix as the voice of the Mayor of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), and Senator Nado in Planet of the Apes (2001).
Notable television credits include NBC's Seinfeld (1989), and HBO's Carnivàle (2003). On September 7, 2010, Shadix accidentally fell at his condominium in Birmingham, Alabama, and died of blunt trauma to his head. He had already had mobility problems and was wheelchair-bound. Shadix was survived by his mother, sister and brother-in-law.- Actor
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T.R. Knight was a member of the acting company of Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater. Roles there included Richard Miller in Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!" and Amadeus in Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus".
On the New York stage, he portrayed Tim Allgood in "Noises Off", Damis in "Tartuffe", Joe in "This Lime Tree Bower" and Brendan Hilliard in "Anto Scattergood".
He received a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in "Scattergood".
His first role was as a five year old when he played Tiny Tim in the Guthrie Theater's annual production of A Christmas Carol.- Actor
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Neil Patrick Harris was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 15, 1973. His parents, Sheila Gail (Scott) and Ronald Gene Harris, were lawyers and ran a restaurant. He grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a small town 120 miles south of Albuquerque, where he first took up acting in the fourth grade. While tagging along with his older brother of 3 years, Harris won the part of Toto in a school production of The Wizard of Oz (1939).
His parents moved the family to Albuquerque in 1988, the same year that Harris made his film debut in two movies: Purple People Eater (1988) and Clara's Heart (1988), which starred Whoopi Goldberg. A year later, when Neil was 16, he landed the lead role in Steven Bochco's television series about a teen prodigy doctor at a local hospital, Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989), which launched Harris into teen-heartthrob status. The series lasted1989-1993 and earned him a People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New Series (1990) and a Golden Globe Nomination (1990). Harris attended the same high school as Freddie Prinze Jr., La Cueva High School in Albuquerque. Neil acted on stage in a few plays while there, one of which was his senior play, Fiddler on the Roof (1971), in which he portrayed Lazar Wolf the butcher (1991).
When "Doogie Howser, M.D." stopped production in 1993, Harris took up stage acting, which he had always wanted to do. After a string of made-for-television movies, Harris acted in his first big screen roles in nine years, Starship Troopers (1997) with Casper Van Dien and then The Proposition (1998). In July 1997, Harris accepted the role of Mark Cohen for the Los Angeles production of the beloved musical, Rent (2005). His performance in "Rent" garnered him a Drama-League Award in 1997. He continued in the musical, to rave reviews, until January 1998. He later reprised the role for six nights in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in December 1998.
In 1999, Harris returned to television in the short-lived sitcom Stark Raving Mad (1999), with Tony Shalhoub. He was also in the big-screen projects The Next Best Thing (2000) and Undercover Brother (2002), and he can be heard as the voice of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the newest animated Spider-Man (2003) series. Harris has continued his stage work, making his Broadway debut in 2001 in "Proof." He has also appeared on stage in "Romeo and Juliet," "Cabaret," Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001), and, most recently, "Assassins." In 2005, Harris returned to the small screen in a guest-starring role on Numb3rs (2005) and a starring role in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005). Neil played the title role in the web-exclusive musical comedy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008), widely downloaded via iTunes to become the #1 TV series for five straight weeks, despite not actually being on television.- Actor
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Jonathan Drew Groff is an American actor and singer. Known for his performances on screen, stage and television, Groff is the recipient of such accolades as a Grammy Award and has been nominated for two Tony Awards, two Drama League Awards, a Drama Desk Award and a Primetime Emmy Award.- Actor
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Jonathan David Bennett was born in Rossford, Ohio, to RuthAnne (Mason) and Dr. David Paul Bennett. He headed straight to New York to pursue acting after graduating from the theater program at Otterbein. He was actually discovered by an agent while sitting on a train. Six months later he signed on to the iconic soap opera "All My Children," playing J.R. Chandler. Since then Jonathan's career has been on fire. He has appeared in a slew of teen comedies, side-by-side with some of the biggest and brightest stars of their time including; "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" (with Steve Martin) and "Lovewrecked" (with Amanda Bynes). He also stepped into and took over the iconic role replacing Ryan Reynolds as Van Wilder in "Van Wilder: Freshman Year."- Actor
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Benjamin Schiff Platt is an American actor, singer, and songwriter. He began his acting career in musical theater as a child and appeared in productions of The Sound of Music (2006) and The Book of Mormon (2012-2015), rising to prominence for originating the title role in Broadway coming-of-age musical Dear Evan Hansen (2015-2017). His performance in the latter earned him multiple accolades, including a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award. At 23, Platt became the youngest solo recipient of the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical.- Actor
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Born in Brooklyn, NY and raised in Fort Lauderdale, FL, Daniel Franzese is an actor/comedian of Italian American decent, Daniel Franzese is best known for his interesting and daring performances in breakthrough films: from his debut role in the intense Larry Clark drama Bully, his surprisingly dark turn in 2010's update of the highly controversial I Spit on Your Grave. but cemented his gay icon status with his breakout starring role in TinaFey's mega hit comedy Mean Girls as Damian. Lauded as one of the most influential queer characters in film history, Damian was the first time a queer teen of size who was ever comfortable in his own skin on screen. Daniel's subtle and hilarious performance is often credited with helping an entire generation of kids who felt different be able to find themselves. In a heartfelt letter to his fictional character Damian, Franzese publicly came out in 2014 trending worldwide. Speaking upon the difficulty he had navigating his career under a Gay Glass Ceiling. although he had great career highs creating his own content with YouTube and his viral comedy series Sh*t Italian moms Say which has reached over 6 million views and the entire series combined over 20 million and his hilarious parody of Sam Smith's Stay With Me called Please Go Home. While going viral and trending for his videos Franzese still toured the country with stand up and remained relevant through his television and stage work, which include memorable guest roles on S.W.A.T, Party Down, CSI, Burn Notice and The Comeback. He also co-wrote and starred in the New York Fringe Festival mega hit Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin' Rock Opera, which won him the Overall Excellence Best Ensemble Award and played Off Broadway and in Los Angeles for a year. It wasn't until his portrayal as the stubborn but lovable HIV+ Eddie in HBO's Looking that Daniel truly burst again into the spotlight and used that success to propel him to activism becoming an ambassador for The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and lobbying congress every year on their behalf for HIV/AIDS, LGBTQIA+ rights, homeless queer youth and banning conversion therapy (of which Daniel himself is a survivor) since living a life fully out loud he began having never before seen confidence leading to him pursuing stand up comedy and being a leader in body positivity which has landed him a modeling contract with Bridge Models UK making him one of the very few signed Plus Size male Models in the world. He has lent his image, voice and stand up comedy gifts to many causes including The Trevor Project and hosting the 2016 Glaad Media Awards and 2017 Gay Men Chorus Voice Awards. He hosts LGBTQ stand up shows at The Comedy Store, Hollywood Improv and Flappers Comedy Club giving many upcoming talents hard to find spots in his shows. With the re-branding of the ABC Family network to Freeform Daniel starred as Vern in the short lived but tender series Recovery Road, after its cancellation he starred on ABC as Jackson in the law drama Conviction. He most recently toured in his stand up show Yass! You're Amazing! and is recording his podcast Yass, Jesus! A sex positive, non slut shaming look into Christianity through the LGBTQIA+ rainbow lens. A man of many talents and gifts Daniel continues to delight audiences from TikTok to the Theater stage we can not wait to see what he does next.- Actor
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A trained actor, Mario Lavandeira graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts with honors and a degree in drama. He has appeared in many TV shows - most notably Glee; starred in various films - his favorite: the horror classic Most Likely To Die, and headlined two off-Broadway musicals, NEWSical and Full House The Musical.- Actor
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Richard James Cosnett was born on April 6, 1983. Early life, grew up in Zimbabwe, moved to Australia and studied BFA Acting at QUT. He now lives in the USA. His work began in the theatre and has spread into film and television and producing. His great grandfather was the head of the Royal School of Music. He has 2 sisters and is a cousin of Hugh Grant.- Jim J. Bullock was born on 9 February 1955 in Casper, Wyoming, USA. He is an actor, known for Spaceballs (1987), Too Close for Comfort (1980) and Ron and Laura Take Back America (2014).
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Jack Plotnick was born in Columbus, Ohio, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Girls Will Be Girls (2003), Gods and Monsters (1998) and Space Station 76 (2014).- Actor
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Patrick Bristow was born on 26 September 1962 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Showgirls (1995), The Longest Yard (2005) and So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993).- A veteran of nearly 100 films, Jon Polito is most recognized for his work with The Coen brothers, as well as his many television appearances as a series regular and guest star. Notable motion picture roles include: Millers Crossing, Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Crow, Blankman, and The Freshman with Marlon Brando, and Big Eyes. Directors he has worked with include; Russel Mulcahy, Clint Eastwood, John McNaughton, Tom Hanks, Andrew Bergman, Michael Apted, Ridley Scott, and Tim Burton amongst others. On television, he starred as a series regular on Crime Story, Ohara, Hearts are Wild, The Chronical, and the critically acclaimed Homicide, Life on the Street. Notable guest star roles include the befuddled landlord Sylvio on Seinfeld, his only role as a woman - Rhonda, on The Chris Isaak Show, Gino, brother to Danny Devito's character, Frank, on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Earl Chambers on Modern Family. He starred on Broadway with Faye Dunaway in The Curse Of An Aching Heart, and with Dustin Hoffman in the 1985 Tony award winning revival of Death Of A Salesman, which he also filmed for CBS. He received the Best Actor OBIE award for Off Broadway theatre in 1980. Other awards include the 2001 TELLY for animation voice over in The Dancing Pumpkin which was directed by his brother Jack Polito, The New York Independent Festival Award for Excellence in Acting, and the 2005 Cinequest Maverick Award for his lifetime body of work in Film and Television. In 2012 Jon received the Best Actor Award for the short film Anti-Muse from the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival. He credits his success to three people; his mentor Dominic Garvey, his only acting teacher Irene Baird, and to the late, great director, and friend, Paul Bettis. In addition, his inspiration to this day is New York theatre artist, Theodora Skipitares, who taught him film and design in university, and who has since never been far away from his life. She is 'Art' surviving.
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Michael Jeter was an American actor from Tennessee. His best known roles were that of math teacher and assistant football coach Herman Stiles in the sitcom "Evening Shade" (1990-1994) and "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle" in "Sesame Street", a role he played from 2000 to 2003. He specialized in playing "eccentric, pretentious, or wimpy characters".
In 1952, Jeter was born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, located between Chattanooga and Memphis. The town is mostly associated with local hero Davy Crockett (1786-1836), who owned a powder mill there in the early 19th century. The area is home to the David Crockett State Park.
Jeter's father was dentist William Claud Jeter (1922-2010), and his mother was housewife Virginia Raines (1927-2019). The Jeters were a large family, and Jeter had one brother and four sisters. Jeter enrolled at the Memphis State University (later renamed to the University of Memphis) with the intention to follow a medical career. His interests changed, and he pursued an acting education instead.
Jeter started his career as a theatrical actor, regularly performing at the Circuit Theatre and Playhouse on the Square, both located in Memphis. He made his film debut in the anti-war film "Hair" (1979), playing Woodrow Sheldon. The film depicted the hippie counterculture and the Vietnam War.
Jeter's early film roles included appearing in the historical drama "Ragtime" (1981), the sex comedy "Soup for One" (1982), the mockumentary "Zelig" (1983), the comedy film "The Money Pit" (1986), the action thriller "Dead Bang" (1989), and the action comedy "Tango & Cash" (1989). Meanwhile he appeared in guest-star roles in then-popular television series, such as "Night Court" and "Designing Women". His first recurring role in television was that of Dr. Art Makter in the short-lived medical drama "Hothouse". He appeared in all 7 episodes of the series.
Jeter found fame and critical success when playing the nerdy Herman Stiles in the sitcom "Evening Shade". He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and the Viewers for Quality Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Quality Comedy Series. The series lasted for 4 seasons, and a total of 98 episodes
Jeter guest starred as Peter Lebeck in three episodes of "Picket Fences". For this role he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 1993, but the award was won by rival actor Laurence Fishburne (1961-). Jeter had another notable television role as Bob Ryan in an episode of "Chicago Hope". He was again nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 1996 for this role, but the award was instead won by rival actor Peter Boyle (1935-2006).
Jeter played mostly supporting roles in 1990s film. He played (amon others_ a homeless cabaret singer in "The Fisher King" (1991), Father Ignatius in the Catholic nun-themed comedy "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit" (1993), the inventor Old Gregor in the post-apocalyptic film "Waterworld" (1995), alcoholic clown Norm Snively in the sports comedy "Air Bud" (1997), and sympathetic prisoner Eduard 'Del' Delacroix in "The Green Mile" (1999).
Jeter next earned the recurring role of "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle" in "Sesame Street", His character replaced Mr. Noodle (played by Bill Irwin) in the "Elmo's World" segments of the series. Both character were silent mimes who made mistakes, but were able to correct them with the help of "enthusiastic kid voice overs". Jeter was enthusiastic about his role, and called it a career favorite. He played the role until his death.
The openly gay Jeter was HIV positive, but had been in good health for many years. In March 2003, Jeter was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. According to his life partner Sean Blue, the death was caused by an epileptic seizure. Jeter was 50-years-old at the time of death.- Actor
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John Tartaglia was born on 16 February 1978 in Maple Shade, New Jersey, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Happytime Murders (2018), Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock (2022) and Johnny and the Sprites (2005).- Actor
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Bryan Batt was born on 1 March 1963 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Mad Men (2007), 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Jeffrey (1995). He has been married to Tom Cianfichi since 28 September 2014.- Actor
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Alan Muraoka was born on 10 August 1962 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an actor and director, known for It Could Happen to You (1994), Sesame Street (1969) and Sesame Street in Communities (2016).- Actor
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With several decades of wide-ranging credits to his name, Robert Gant has become a well known actor and participant both in Hollywood and abroad. From television to film, dramatic to comedic, his portrayals have spanned all genres. In one of his most well known roles, Robert starred as Professor Ben Bruckner in Showtime's hit television series, "Queer as Folk." In that groundbreaking show, Robert explored broad dramatic terrain through his character, including being married in the first legal gay marriage ever portrayed on television. His list of credits include recurring parts on multiple series, television and theatrical films, and becoming television's first gay spy in the film, "Kiss Me Deadly." His many guest starring roles include a well known turn on the TV hit show, "Friends," where he played one of two men Phoebe was dating simultaneously. Robert also stars as Melissa Benoist's Kryptonian father Zor-El on "Supergirl" and as Todd Crimsen on the Netflix series, "Thirteen Reasons Why."
Robert's love of acting and performing began at an early age. He started doing television commercials and joined the Screen Actors Guild at the age of ten in his home state of Florida. He attended undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania and law school at Georgetown University. While studying, he never gave up on his artistic passions and took part in numerous singing groups and theatrical productions. Interestingly, it was his career as an attorney that brought him to Los Angeles when he accepted a position with the world's then largest law firm, Baker & McKenzie. In a twist of fate, the firm's Los Angeles office was closed soon after. Taking that as a sign, he made the decision to focus all of his time on the entertainment business.
Robert's experiences in Hollywood are not limited to performing. He was a producing partner in the production company, Mythgarden. Its feature film, "Save Me," which stars Robert along with Judith Light and Chad Allen, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Robert also co-produced, co-wrote, and starred in the Netflix-distributed period drama "Milada," the true story of Czech heroine Milada Horakova, who was, in 1950, the first woman executed in Czech history by the Communist government. In addition, Robert has completed the first draft of his first novel and, with a writing partner, is developing television projects and penning screenplays.
While he has given time to a number of philanthropic and political causes, such as HRC (by which he was given their National Equality Award), GLAAD (by which he was given their Davidson/Valentini Award for the promotion of equal rights in the community), and Lambda Legal, Robert's "torch issue" has been that of aging in the gay community. He's supported such organizations as SAGE (Senior Advocacy for GLBT Elders), which named him their first Honorary Elder, and GLEH (Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing), for which he served as a Board Member, and has been committed to addressing the community's collective challenge of growing old, alone. In 2016, Robert received the ADL Heroes Award from the Anti-Defamation League for his work on behalf of the LGBT and aging communities.- Actor
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Paul Bartel was born in Brooklyn in 1938. He decided he wanted to direct animated movies when he was 11 and by 13 had spent a summer working at New York's UPA animation studio. He majored in theater arts at UCLA, and received a Fulbright scholarship to study film direction in Rome, producing a short that was presented at the 1962 Venice Fiom Festival. He later was hired by Roger Corman's brother, Gene, to direct a low-budget horror featured called Private Parts (1972). Roger Corman hired him as a second unit director on Big Bad Mama (1974), which led to his directing Death Race 2000 (1975). He could not persuade Corman to finance his pet project, Eating Raoul (1982). The $500,000 black comedy was made after his parents sold their New Jersey home and gave him the money. Shot in 22 days, mostly weekends, over the course of a year, Eating Raoul (1982) starred Bartel and Mary Woronov as gourmet cannibals who lure sex swingers to their apartment, smack them with a skillet, rob them and use the proceeds to buy a restaurant.- Actor
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Stephen Geoffreys made a strong and distinct impression with his winning blend of wild energy and manic intensity that he brought to a handful of hugely enjoyable comedies and horror films made throughout the 1980s. He was born Stephen Geoffrey Miller on November 22, 1964, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Geoffreys first began acting at a performing arts high school in Cincinnati and attended acting classes at New York University. Geoffreys gave an excellent and inspired performance as obnoxious horror movie geek "Evil" Ed Thompson in the terrific Fright Night (1985). Stephen displayed a real flair for comedy with his amusing turns as the antsy Williams in Heaven Help Us (1985) and the nerdy Wendell in Fraternity Vacation (1985). Other memorable roles include persecuted wimp Hoax in 976-EVIL (1988), hardened inmate Roach in the dreary haunted prison dud The Chair (1988), and slimy drug dealer Cookie in Moon 44 (1990). Geoffreys did guest appearances on the TV anthology shows Amazing Stories (1985) and The Twilight Zone (1985). Stephen has also had a very respectable stage career: he's acted in the Off-Broadway productions "The Human Comedy" (Geoffreys was nominated for a Broadway Tony Award for Best Actor for the subsequent Broadway production of this play), "Maggie/Magalita," and "Songs on the Shipwrecked Sofa." In a startling and unexpected career move, Geoffreys wound up acting in numerous gay hardcore porno pictures under the pseudonyms Sam Ritter and Stephan Bordeaux. Outside of acting, Geoffreys writes short stories and is an avid bodybuilder. After a regrettably lengthy absence from the big screen, Stephen Geoffreys made a welcome comeback with a co-starring role in the indie fright feature Sick Girl (2007).- Director
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As an actor, Scott Coffey honed his filmmaking skills working with directors such as Robert Zemeckis, Francis Ford Coppola, Paul Thomas Anderson, and David Lynch. As a director, he's influenced by Bernardo Bertolucci, Robert Altman, and by his continuing longterm collaboration with Lynch, whom he considers a mentor. His first feature as a writer/director, ELLIE PARKER, starred Naomi Watts in a tour de force performance as the title character, and competed in the Sundance Film Festival. It was distributed by Strand Releasing and opened to rave reviews. ADULT WORLD, featuring indelible performances by Emma Roberts, Evan Peters, and John Cusack, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released by IFC Films. His latest film, IT TAKES THREE, which just premiered starring Jared Gilman, Mikey Madison, and Aurora Perrineau, was praised for its realistic portrayal of American teenagers. His films have earned critical acclaim for their humanistic sensibility, humor, and honesty. As a writer, his adaptation of Haruki Murakami's ALL GOD'S CHILDREN CAN DANCE was a Blacklist selection and was produced by Anonymous Content.- Actor
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Luke Macfarlane is a Canadian-American actor born on January 19th, 1980, in London, Ontario, Canada.
He is best known for his role as Scotty Wandell on the family drama television series Brothers & Sisters (2006) and D'avin Jaqobis on the space adventure series Killjoys (2015).
Luke is a lead star in Hallmark's productions. His first movie for Hallmark was The Memory Book (2014). Since that time he played in several productions for Hallmark Channel like Christmas Land (2015), The Mistletoe Promise (2016), Karen Kingsbury's Maggie's Christmas Miracle (2017) and A Valentine's Match (2020). But acting is not his only passion. He loves playing the cello and this skill was used in another Hallmark's movie Chateau Christmas (2020).
Luke working constantly on his career development joined the cast of Netflix's Christmas Rom-Com Single All the Way (2021) and the major studio film Bros (2022). He and his partner skier Hig Roberts welcomed their daughter Tess Eleanor Macfarlane on June 4, 2023- Actor
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Thomas Dekker is a 30 year veteran of the film and television industry. At the age of 5, he landed a national commercial and a brief stint on the soap opera "The Young and the Restless". This lead to a slew of guest starring and recurring roles on popular television series of the time such as "Seinfeld", "ER" and "The Nanny" before he landed his first leading role in John Carpenter's 1995 film "Village of the Damned" opposite the late Christopher Reeve. It was this experience at the age of 6 that cemented Dekker's love and commitment to acting and placed him squarely in line with science fiction and genre fare. Concurrent with performances in both the feature film "Star Trek: Generations" and the TV series "Star Trek: Voyager", Dekker also began work as a voice actor. He would eventually play the voice of Littlefoot in "The Land Before Time" film series and Feivel in "An American Tail" film series, both for Universal Studios. At the age of 9, he was cast in his first series regular role as Nick Szalinski on Disney's "Honey I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show", which ran for 3 seasons from 1997 to 2000. Immediately following the series, Dekker played the lead role of Jason Calloway in FOX's unaired comedy pilot "The No. 1 Show" co-starring Tina Fey and directed by SNL's Beth McCarthy Miller.
In 2006, Dekker landed the role of Zac, best friend to Hayden Panettiere's cheerleader Claire, in the popular NBC show "Heroes". However, Dekker left the series mid season to portray the iconic character of John Connor on FOX's "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" opposite Lena Headey and Garret Dillahunt. The show was a critical and commercial success and garnered Dekker much praise for his sensitive, complex portrayal of the teen/future savior of the world. Between seasons of the series, Dekker played the romantic lead in Nick Cassavete's "My Sister's Keeper" alongside Cameron Diaz, Joan Cusack and Alec Baldwin and he wrote and directed the expressionist drama "Whore" starring Megan Fox, Lena Headey and Rumer Willis. Upon the completion of "Terminator" in 2010, Dekker had lead roles in the cult film "All About Evil" with Natasha Lyonne, New Line's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" opposite Rooney Mara and Jackie Earle Haley, Gaby Dellal's ensemble drama "Angel's Crest" with Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Piven and Elizabeth McGovern and Gregg Araki's festival breakout "Kaboom" co-starring Haley Bennett, Roxane Mesquida and Juno Temple. The film was the first to receive the Queer Palm at Cannes and was a national sensation in France.
After receiving accolades at Toronto, Deauville, BFI London, San Francisco, Tribeca and Sundance Film Festivals, Dekker won the coveted role of the legendary Lance Loud in HBO's "Cinema Verite", a biopic about the Louds, the first family to receive a reality TV show based on their lives in the 1970s. The Emmy nominated film was directed by Berman & Pulcini and co-starred Diane Lane, Tim Robbins, Patrick Fugit and the late James Gandolfini. Following this, Dekker returned to television as the male lead in Kevin WIlliamson's supernatural series "The Secret Circle" for the CW before continuing more film work with the festival hit "Enter the Dangerous Mind" starring Jake Hoffman and Nikki Reed, Catherine Hardwicke's erotic thriller "Plush" (which he also co-scored), "Squatters" with Gabriella Wilde, Luke Grimes and Richard Dreyfuss and "Lost in the White City", a Tel Aviv set drama co-starring Haley Bennett.
In 2014, Dekker began his role as Rainn WIlson's right hand man "Valentine" on FOX's dark comedy crime series "Backstrom" from "Bones" creator Hart Hanson. Following the series, Dekker pivoted his attention back to his writing/directing interests and made his second feature film "Jack Goes Home", a semi-autobiographical thriller starring Rory Culkin, Lin Shaye and Britt Robertson. The film premiered to standing ovations at the SXSW Film Festival and received worldwide distribution from eOne/Momentum. Next, Dekker made a cameo in Catherine Hardwicke's "Miss Bala" starring Gina Rodriguez and Ismael Cruz Cordova and appeared in "Body Brokers" with Melissa Leo, Michael K. Williams, Jack Kilmer and Alice Englert.
Dekker's latest turn was the role of cut-throat executive "Travis Denton" in Lionsgate/Roku Channel's series "Swimming With Sharks" opposite Diane Kruger, Kiernan Shipka, Finn Jones and Donald Sutherland. Written by Kathleen Robertson and directed by Tucker Gates, the series is based on the 1994 cult classic film of the same name and had its world premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival. Dekker will next appear in the film "Little Dixie" alongside Frank Grillo, Beau Knapp, Annabeth Gish and Eric Dane.
Dekker is currently in pre production on his third feature film as writer/director and as a musician, he most recently released his fourth studio album "Tasma" in August last year. He resides in southern California.
04/19/2022- Actor
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John Benjamin Hickey was born on 25 June 1963 in Plano, Texas, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009).- Writer
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- Additional Crew
Terry Sweeney was born on 23 March 1950 in Queens, New York, USA. He is a writer and actor, known for Hype (2000), Shag (1988) and Love at Stake (1987). He has been married to Lanier Laney since 1981.- Actor
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Matthew Staton Bomer was born in Webster Groves, Greater St. Louis, Missouri, to Elizabeth Macy (Staton) and John O'Neill Bomer IV, a Dallas Cowboys draft pick. Matt was raised in Spring, Texas, and educated at Klein High School, near Houston. After school, he attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Bomer then relocated to New York to forge a career in acting.
Theater work followed, but his television break came with a small part in All My Children (1970). This lead to a reoccurring role in Guiding Light (1952) as murderous Ben Reade. Further success in TV followed including parts in Tru Calling (2003), Chuck (2007) and the lead role in Traveler (2007). Bomer also scored film roles in projects such as Flightplan (2005) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006). In 2009, he was cast in the lead role of criminal mastermind Neal Caffrey in Fox's White Collar (2009).- Actor
- Producer
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Having grown up in Houston, and its northern suburb of Spring, he made his first stage appearance in a school play at the age of 6. Parsons then went on to study theater at the University of Houston. From there he won a place on a two-year Masters course in classical theater at the University of San Diego/The Old Globe Theater, graduating in 2001.
He moved to New York, working in Off-Broadway productions, appearing in TV commercials and in one episode of Ed (2000) before landing a recurring role in Judging Amy (1999) in 2004.
He was propelled to international fame and acclaim three years later when he starred as Sheldon in the award-winning sitcom, The Big Bang Theory (2007).- Actor
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Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. in Winnetka, Illinois, to Katherine (Wood), a telephone operator, and Roy Harold Scherer, an auto mechanic. He was of German, Swiss-German, English, and Irish descent. His parents divorced when he was eight years old. He failed to obtain parts in school plays because he couldn't remember lines. After high school he was a postal employee and during WW II served as a Navy airplane mechanic. After the war he was a truck driver. His size and good looks got him into movies. His name was changed to Rock Hudson, his teeth were capped, he took lessons in acting, singing, fencing and riding. One line in his first picture, Fighter Squadron (1948), needed 38 takes. In 1956 he received an Oscar nomination for Giant (1956) and two years later Look magazine named him Star of the Year. He starred in a number of bedroom comedies, many with Doris Day, and had his own popular TV series McMillan & Wife (1971). He had a recurring role in TV's Dynasty (1981) (1984-5). He was the first major public figure to announce he had AIDS, and his worldwide search for a cure drew international attention. After his death his long-time lover Marc Christian successfully sued his estate, again calling attention to the homosexuality Rock had hidden from most throughout his career.- Actor
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Most remembered for his extravagant costumes and trademark candelabra placed on the lids of his flashy pianos, Liberace was loved by his audiences for his music talent and unique showmanship. He was born as Wladziu Valentino Liberace on May 16, 1919, into a musical family, in Wisconsin. His mother, Frances Liberace (née Zuchowski), whose parents were Polish, played the piano. His father, Salvatore Liberace, an immigrant from Formia, Italy, played the French horn for the Milwaukee Symphony. His siblings, George Liberace, Angie Liberace and Rudy Liberace, also had musical ability. Liberace's own extraordinary natural talent became evident when he learned to play the piano, by ear, at the age of four. Although Salvatore tried to discourage his son's interest in the piano, praises from Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a famous Polish pianist, helped the young musician follow his musical career.
As a teenager, Liberace earned wages playing popular tunes at movie theaters and speakeasies. Despite being proud of his son's accomplishments, Salvatore strictly opposed Liberace's preference for popular music over the classics. Pianist Florence Bettray Kelly took control of Liberace's classical training when he was 14.
He debuted as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony, under the direction of Dr. Frederick Stock. At age 17, Liberace joined the Works Progress Administration Symphony Orchestra. He received a scholarship to attend the Wisconsin College of Music. In 1939, after a classical recital, Liberace's audience requested the popular tune, "Three Little Fishes". Liberace seized the opportunity and performed the tune with a semi-classical style which the audience loved. Soon, this unique style of playing the piano got Liberace bookings in large nightclubs.
By 1940, Liberace was traveling with his custom-made piano, on top of which he would place his candelabrum. He then took Paderewski's advice and dropped Wladziu and Valentino to become simply Liberace. South Sea Sinner (1950), a movie with Shelley Winters, was Liberace's film debut. He played a honky tonk pianist in the movie, which opened in 1950.
In 1952, The Liberace Show (1952), a syndicated television program, turned Liberace into a musical symbol. It began as a summertime replacement for The Dinah Shore Show (1951), but after two years, the show was one of the most popular on TV. It was carried by 217 American stations and could be seen in 20 foreign countries. Sold-out live appearances at Madison Square Garden enhanced the pianist's popularity even more. Soon, Liberace added flamboyant costumes and expensive ornaments to his already unique performances. His second movie, Sincerely Yours (1955), opened in 1955, and Liberace wrote his best-selling autobiography, "Liberace", in 1972. His first book, "Liberace Cooks", went into seven printings.
In 1977, Liberace founded the non-profit "Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts". The year 1978 brought the opening of "The Liberace Museum" in Las Vegas, Nevada, which serves as key funding for the Liberace Foundation. The profits from the museum provide scholarship money for financially needy college musicians. He continued performing until the fall of 1986, despite suffering from heart disease and emphysema during most of the 1980s. A closeted homosexual his entire life, Liberace was secretly diagnosed with AIDS sometime in August 1985, which he also kept secret from the public until the day he died. His last concert performance was at Radio City Music Hall on November 2, 1986. He passed away in his Palm Springs home on February 4, 1987 at age 67.
Liberace was bestowed with many awards during his lifetime including: Instrumentalist of the Year, Best Dressed Entertainer, Entertainer of the Year, two Emmy Awards, six gold albums, and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In The Guinness Book of World Records, he has been listed as the world's highest paid musician and pianist. Liberace was an extremely talented and versatile man. He not only played the piano, but sang, danced and joked during his performances. In fact, one of Liberace's biggest accomplishments was his ability to turn a recital into a show full of music, glitter and personality.- Actor
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Tall, spade-jawed, hopelessly genial balladeer/actor Jim Nabors was born in James Thurston Nabors on June 12, 1930 in Sylacauga, Alabama and raised there, graduating from the University of Alabama. A typing clerk at the United Nations in his salad days, he eventually moved to Los Angeles, California on account of his asthmatic condition and became a film cutter for NBC.
Jim was discovered on stage doing a cabaret act at "The Horn," a now defunct but then highly popular Santa Monica nightclub. Combining his gifts for classical singing and gawky hick characterizations, his highly unique schtick was either ridiculously insane or totally brilliant. Either way this garnered him notice.
Comic Bill Dana caught Jim's act and opted for the latter assessment, inviting him to audition for Steve Allen's TV variety show. Jim went on to appear on Allen's show a number of times. TV star Andy Griffith caught his silly singing "down home" gimmick as well and offered him the part of dim but lovable gas station attendant Gomer Pyle on his popular 1960s sitcom. Jim's career took off like a skyrocket. His sheepish "gawwwleee" and bug-eyed "shazzayam" expressions became part of the American vernacular and it wasn't long before the beloved character would spin off into his own sitcom. Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964) was a solid hit as the bungling, painfully naive, gentle do-gooder found himself hilariously at odds with the Marine Corps and a particularly tough Sergeant Vince Carter (played terrifically by the late Frank Sutton). The sitcom ran a respectable five seasons and Jim solidified himself as a household name.
On the downside of this TV success, Jim found himself inextricably pigeon-holed as a gullible, squeaky-clean hick. As a result, he found work elsewhere, particularly in children-oriented series for Sid and Marty Krofft and Jim Henson. He also decided to refocus on his beautiful baritone voice. Recording a number of romantic, easy listening albums, five of them went gold and one went platinum. He earned a gold record for his rendition of "The Lord's Prayer."
On TV, Jim became a frequent singing/comedy guest performer on all the top prime-time variety and late night shows, including "Sonny & Cher," "The Tonight Show," "The Dean Martin Show," "The David Frost Show," and "The Joey Bishop Show." He also became the annual "good luck charm" opening season guest on close friend Carol Burnett's TV variety series during her twelve-year run. It was enough for CBS to entrust Jim with own TV variety series The Jim Nabors Hour (1968), which ran for two seasons, featured his "Gomer Pyle" co-stars Frank Sutton and Ronnie Schell, and earned him a Golden Globe nomination. A decade later, he returned to the format hosting The Jim Nabors Show (1978), which was short-lived but earned him a daytime Emmy nomination.
Another good friend, Burt Reynolds, was responsible for Jim's theater debut as Harold Hill in "The Music Man" at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre with Florence Henderson as his Marian the Librarian. Jim also appeared in comic support in a couple of Reynolds' films -- The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and Stroker Ace (1983).
Nabors was seen on a limited basis in the early 1990s and his life took a serious hit in 1994 when, after years of declining health, he was forced to have a liver transplant. He has returned to the limelight very infrequently (talks shows and reunion shows), preferring the quiet, relaxing life he has in Hawaii and running a macadamia nut plantation.
On January 15, 2013, the 82-year-old Nabors came out as gay news by marrying his life partner of 38 years, Stan Cadwallader, a retired Honolulu firefighter, at a Seattle hotel after Washington became a "same sex" marriage state a month earlier. The 87-year-old died of an immune disorder on November 30, 2017.- Actor
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At 14, Ron Palillo (born Ronald Gabriel Paolillo) started his own summer theater in Cheshire, Connecticut. His parents, Gabriel and Carmel Paolillo, were surprised when the summer theater actually made money. After graduating from high school, Ron went to the University of Connecticut at Storrs, where he majored in drama. He appeared in many school plays in college. After graduation, Ron got a job with a touring company which performed in Shakespearean plays. He claimed to have received invaluable drama training during that tour, acting in Shakespearean masterpieces like "Macbeth", "The Taming of the Shrew" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
After his Shakespearean tour, Ron became a member of a repertory company in Miami, Florida. Shortly after arriving in New York, Ron got a role in the off-Broadway success "Hot l Baltimore." He stayed with the show for over a year. Because of his work in "Hot L Baltimore". Ron was given a lead role in a musical special, "The Last Sweet Days of Isaac", on television. After Isaac, he once again went on tour and appeared with Mickey Rooney in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and with Jan Sterling in a serious play, "Summer Brave". He has two brothers and a sister. His elder brother, Richard Paolillo, is an eye surgeon, his brother Robert Paolillo, is a salesman and his sister Ann, became a teacher.- Actor
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Sir Dirk Bogarde, distinguished film actor and writer, was born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde on March 28, 1921, to Ulric van den Bogaerde, the art editor of "The Times" (London) newspaper, and actress Margaret Niven in the London suburb of Hampstead. He was one of three children, with sister Elizabeth and younger brother Gareth. His father was Flemish and his mother was of Scottish descent.
Ulric Bogaerde started the Times' arts department and served as its first art editor. Derek's mother, Margaret - the daughter of actor and painter Forrest Niven - appeared in the play "Bunty Pulls The Strings", but she quit the boards in accordance with her husband's wishes. The young Derek Bogaerde was raised at the family home in Sussex by his sister, Elizabeth, and his nanny, Lally Holt.
Educated at the Allen Glen's School in Glasgow, he also attended London's University College School before majoring in commercial art at Chelsea Polytechnic, where his teachers included Henry Moore. Though his father wanted his eldest son to follow him into the "Times" as an art critic and had groomed him for that role, Derek dropped out of his commercial art course and became a drama student, though his acting talent at that time was unpromising. In the 1930s he went to work as a commercial artist and a scene designer.
He apprenticed as an actor with the Amersham Repertory Company, and made his acting debut in 1939 on a small London stage, the Q Theatre, in a role in which he delivered only one line. His debut in London's West End came a few months later in J.B. Priestley's play "Cornelius," in which he was billed as "Derek Bogaerde". He made his uncredited debut as an extra in the pre-war George Formby comedy Come on George! (1939).
The September 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union triggered World War II, and in 1940 Bogarde joined the Queen's Royal Regiment as an officer. He served in the Air Photographic Intelligence Unit and eventually attained the rank of major. Nicknamed "Pippin" and "Pip" during the war, he was awarded seven medals in his five years of active duty. He wrote poems and painted during the war, and in 1943, a small magazine published one of his poems, "Steel Cathedrals," which subsequently was anthologized. His paintings of the war are part of the Imperial War Museum's collection.
Similar to his character, Captain Hargreaves, in King & Country (1964), he was called upon to put a wounded soldier out of his misery, a tale recounted in one of his seven volumes of autobiography. While serving with the Air Photographic Intelligence Unit, he took part in the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which he said was akin to "looking into Dante's Inferno".
In one of his autobiographies, he wrote, "At 24, the age I was then, deep shock stays registered forever. An internal tattooing which is removable only by surgery, it cannot be conveniently sponged away by time."
After being demobilized, he returned to acting. His agent re-christened him "Dirk Bogarde," a name that he would make famous within a decade. In 1947 he appeared in "Power Without Glory" at the New Lindsay Theatre, a performance that was praised by Noël Coward, who urged him to continue his acting career. The Rank Organization had signed him to a contract after a talent scout saw him in the play, and he made his credited movie debut in Dancing with Crime (1947) with a one-line bit as a policeman.
His first lead in a movie came that year when Wessex Films, distributed by Rank, gave him a part in the proposed Stewart Granger film Sin of Esther Waters (1948). When Granger dropped out, Bogarde took over the lead. Rank subsequently signed him to a long-term contract and he appeared in a variety of parts during the 14 years he was under contract to the studio.
For three years he toiled in Rank movies as an apprentice actor without making much of a ripple; then in 1950, he was given the role of young hood Tom Riley in the crime thriller The Blue Lamp (1950) (the title comes from the blue-colored light on police call-boxes in London), the most successful British film of 1950, which established Bogarde as an actor of note. Playing a cop killer, an unspeakable crime in the England of the time, it was the first of the intense neurotics and attractive villains that Bogarde would often play.
He continued to act on-stage, appearing in the West End in Jean Anouilh's "Point of Departure". While he was praised for his performance, stage acting made him nervous, and as he became more famous, he began to be mobbed by fans. The pressure of the public adulation proved overwhelming, particularly as he suffered from stage fright. He was accosted by crowds of fans at the stage door during the 1955 touring production of "Summertime," and his more enthusiastic admirers even shouted at him during the play. He was to appear in only one more play, the Oxford Playhouse production of "Jezebel," in 1958. He never again took to the boards, despite receiving attractive offers.
He first acted for American expatriate director Joseph Losey in The Sleeping Tiger (1954). Losey, a Communist and self-described Stalinist at the time, had emigrated to England after being blacklisted in Hollywood after he refused to direct The Woman on Pier 13 (1949) at RKO Pictures, which was owned by right-wing multi-millionaire Howard Hughes at the time, and he was accused in testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee of being a Communist. The director, like Bogarde, would not find his stride until the early 1960s, and Losey and Bogarde would build their reputations together.
First, however, Losey had to overcome Bogarde's reluctance to star in a low-budget film (shot for $300,000) with a blacklisted American director. Losey, who had never heard of Bogarde until he was proposed for the film, met with him and asked Bogarde to view one of his pictures. After seeing the film, Bogarde was enthusiastic, and Losey talked him into taking the role, which he accepted at a reduced fee (Losey originally was not credited with directing the film due to his being blacklisted in the States). A decade later they would make more memorable films that would be watersheds in their careers.
It was not drama but comedy that made Dirk Bogarde a star. He achieved the first rank of English movie stardom playing Dr. Simon Sparrow in the comedy Doctor in the House (1954). The film was a smash hit, becoming one of the most popular British films in history, with 17 million admissions in its first year of release. As Sparrow, Bogarde became a heartthrob and the most popular British movie star of the mid-50s. He reprised the character in Doctor at Sea (1955), Doctor at Large (1957).
The title of the latter film may have described his mood as a serious actor having to do another turn as Dr. Sparrow between his career-making performances in Losey's The Servant (1963), with a script by Harold Pinter, and Losey's adaptation of the stage play King & Country (1964), in which Bogarde memorably played the attorney for a young deserter (played by Tom Courtenay).
Bogarde, hailed as "the idol of the Odeons" in honor of his box-office clout, was offered the role of Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger (1959) by producer Harry Saltzman and director Tony Richardson, based on the play that touched off the "Angry Young Man" and "Kitchen Sink School" of contemporary English drama in the 1950s. Though Bogarde wanted to take the part, Rank refused to let him make the film on the grounds that there was "altogether too much dialog." The part went to Richard Burton instead, who went over-the-top in portraying his very angry, not-so-young man.
After this disappointment, Bogarde went to Hollywood to play Franz Liszt in Song Without End (1960) and to appear in Nunnally Johnson's Spanish Civil War drama The Angel Wore Red (1960) with Ava Gardner. Both were big-budgeted films, but hampered by poor scripts, and after both films failed, Bogarde avoided Hollywood from then on.
He was reportedly quite smitten with his French "Song Without End" co-star Capucine, and wanted to marry her. Capucine, who suffered from bi-polar disorder, was bisexual with an admitted preference for women. The relationship did not lead to marriage, but did result in a long-term friendship. It apparently was his only serious relationship with a woman, though he had many women friends, including his I Could Go on Singing (1963) co-star Judy Garland.
In the early 1960s, with the expiration of his Rank contract, Bogarde made the decision to abandon his hugely successful career in commercial movies and concentrate on more complex, art house films (at the same time, Burt Lancaster made a similar decision, though Lancaster continued to alternate his artistic ventures with more crassly commercial endeavors). Bogarde appeared in Basil Dearden's seminal film Victim (1961), the first British movie to sympathetically address the persecution of homosexuals. His career choice alienated many of his old fans, but he was no longer interested in being a commercial movie star; he, like Lancaster, was interested in developing as an actor and artist (however, that sense of finding himself as an actor did not extend to the stage. His reputation was such in 1963 that he was invited by National Theatre director Laurence Olivier to appear as Hamlet to open the newly built Chichester Festival Theatre. That production of the eponymous play also was intended to open the National Theatre's first season in London. Bogarde declined, and the honor went instead to Peter O'Toole, who floundered in the part.)
Jack Grimston, in Bogarde's "Sunday Times" obituary of May 9, 1999, entitled "Bogarde, a solitary star at the edge of the spotlight," said of the late actor that he "belonged to a group that was rare in the British cinema. He was a fine screen player who owed little to the stage. Dilys Powell, the Sunday Times film critic, wrote of him before her own death: 'Most of our gifted film players really belonged to the theater. Bogarde belonged to the screen.'" Bogarde had won the London Critics Circle's Dilys Powell award for outstanding contribution to cinema in 1992.
Appearing in "Victim" was a huge career gamble. In the film, Bogarde played a married barrister who is being blackmailed over his closeted homosexuality. Rather than let the blackmail continue, and allow the perpetrators to victimize other gay men, Bogarde's character effectively sacrifices himself, specifically his marriage and his career, by bravely confessing to be gay (homosexuality was an offence in the United Kingdom until 1967, and there reportedly had been a police crackdown against homosexuals after World War II which made gay men particularly vulnerable to blackmail).
The film was not released in mainstream theaters in the US, as the Production Code Administration (PCA) refused to classify the film and most theaters would not show films that did not carry the PCA seal of approval. "Victim" was the antithesis of the light comedy of Bogarde's "Doctor" movies, and many fans of his character Simon Sparrow were forever alienated by his portrayal of a homosexual. For himself, Bogarde was proud of the film and his participation in it, which many think stimulated public debate over homosexuality. The film undoubtedly raised the public consciousness over the egregious and unjust individual costs of anti-gay bigotry. The public attitude towards the "love that dared not speak its name" changed enough so that within six years, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act decriminalizing homosexual acts between adults passed Parliament. Bogarde reported that he received many letters praising him for playing the role. His courage in taking on such a role is even more significant in that he most likely was gay himself, and thus exposed himself to a backlash.
Bogarde always publicly denied he was a homosexual, though later in life he did confess that he and his manager, Anthony Forwood, had a long-term relationship. When Bogarde met him in 1939, Forwood was a theatrical manager, who eventually married and divorced Glynis Johns. Forwood became Bogarde's friend and subsequently his life partner, and the two moved to France together in 1968. They bought a 15th-century farmhouse near Grasse in Provence in the early 1970s, which they restored. Bogarde and Forwood lived in the house until 1983, when they returned to London so that Forwood could be treated for cancer, from which he eventually died in 1988. Bogarde nursed him in the last few months of his life. After Forwood died, Bogarde was left rudderless and he became more reclusive, eventually retiring from films after Daddy Nostalgia (1990).
Mark Rowe and Jeremy Kay, in their obituary of Bogarde, "Two brilliant lives - on film and in print," published in "The Independent" on May, 9, 1999, wrote, "Although he documented with frankness his early sexual encounters with girls and later his adoring love for Kay Kendall and Judy Garland, he never wrote about his longest and closest relationship - with his friend and manager for more than 50 years, Tony Forwood. Sir Dirk said the clues to his private life were in his books. "If you've got your wits about you, you will know who I am." The British documentary The Private Dirk Bogarde: Part One (2001) made with the permission of his family, stressed the fact that he and Forwood were committed lifelong partners.
In the same issue, the National Film Theatre's David Thompson, in the article "The public understood he was essentially gay," wrote about Bogarde at his high-water mark in the 1950s, that "Audiences of that time loved him . . . Very few people picked up on the fact that there was a distinct gay undertone. It says something about British audiences of the time. He had the good fortune to break out of that prison, and it came through the film Victim (1961), where he played a gay character, and through meeting with Joseph Losey, who directed him in The Servant (1963). For the first time, Bogarde's ambivalence was exploited and used by film."
Bogarde's sexuality is not the issue; what was striking was that it was an act of personal courage for one of Britian's leading box-office attractions to appear in such a provocative and controversial film. Even in the 21st century, many mainstream actors are afraid to play a gay character lest they engender a public backlash against themselves, which is much less likely than it was more than 40 years ago when Bogarde made "Victim."
Apart from sociology, "Victim" marks the milestone in which critics and audiences could discern the metamorphosis of Bogarde into the mature actor who went on to become one of the cinema's finest performers. Most of Bogarde's best and most serious roles come after "Victim," the film in which he first stretched himself and broke out of the mold of "movie star." He received the first of his six nominations as Best Actor from the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) for the film.
Bogarde co-starred with John Mills in The Singer Not the Song (1961), and with Alec Guinness in Damn the Defiant! (1962) (a.k.a. "Damn the Defiant!"). In 1963 he reunited with Losey to film the first of two Losey films with screenplays by Pinter. Bogarde's participation in the two Losey/Pinter collaborations, The Servant (1963) and Accident (1967), in addition to 1964's "King & Country", solidified his reputation. Critics and savvy moviegoers appreciated the fact that Bogarde had developed into a first-rate actor. For his role as the eponymous servant, Bogarde won BAFTA's Best Actor Award. He had now "officially" arrived in the inner circle of the best British film actors.
These three films also elevated Losey into the ranks of major directors (Bogarde also starred in Losey's 1966 spy spoof Modesty Blaise (1966), but that film did little to enhance either man's reputation. He turned down the opportunity to appear in Losey's The Assassination of Trotsky (1972) due to the poor quality of the script).
Philip French, in his obituary "Dark, exotic and yet essentially English", published in "The Observer" on May 9, 1999, said of Bogarde, "Losey discovered something more complex and sinister in his English persona and his performance as Barrett, the malevolent valet in 'The Servant,' scripted by Harold Pinter, is possibly the most subtle, revealing thing he ever did - by confronting his homosexuality in a non-gay context."
Losey told interviewer Michel Ciment that his work with Bogarde represented a turning point in the actor's career, when he developed into an actor of depth and power. He also frankly admitted to Ciment that without Bogarde, his career would have stagnated and never reached the heights of success and critical acclaim that it did in the 1960s.
Interestingly during the filming of "The Servant." Losey was hospitalized with pneumonia. He asked Bogarde to direct the film in order to keep shooting so that the producers would not cancel the film. A reluctant Bogarde complied with Losey's wishes and directed for ten days. He later said that he would never direct again.
Bogarde co-starred with up-and-coming actress Julie Christie in John Schlesinger's Darling (1965), for which Christie won a Best Actress Oscar and was vaulted into 1960s cinema superstardom. During the filming of the movie, both Bogarde and Christie were waiting to hear whether they would be cast as Yuri Zhivago and his lover Lara in David Lean's upcoming blockbuster Doctor Zhivago (1965). Christie got the call, Bogarde didn't, but he was well along in the process of establishing himself as one of the screen's best and most important actors. He won his second BAFTA Best Actor Award for his performance in "Darling."
Bogarde went on to major starring roles in such important pictures as The Fixer (1968), for which Alan Bates won a Best Actor Academy Award nomination. While Bogarde never was nominated for an Oscar, he had the honor of starring in two films for Luchino Visconti, The Damned (1969) ("The Damned") and Death in Venice (1971), based on Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice." Bogarde felt that his performance as Gustav von Aschenbach, the dying composer in love with a young boy and with the concept of beauty, in "Death in Venice" was the "the peak and end of my career . . . I can never hope to give a better performance in a better film."
Visconti told Bogarde that when the lights went up in a Los Angeles screening room after a showing of "Death in Venice" for American studio executives, no one said anything. The silence encouraged Visconti, who believed it meant that the executives were undergoing a catharsis after watching his masterpiece. However, he soon realized that, in Bogarde's own words, "Apparently they were stunned into horrified silence . . . A group of slumped nylon-suited men stared dully at the blank screen." One nervous executive, feeling something should be said, got up and asked, "Signore Visconti, who was responsible for the score of the film?"
"Gustav Mahler," Visconti replied.
"Just great!", said the nervous man. "I think we should sign him."
After "Venice", Bogarde made only seven films over the next two decades and was scathing about the quality of the scripts he was offered. To express himself artistically, he began to write. In his third volumes of autobiography, he wrote, "No longer do the great Jewish dynasties hold power: the people who were, when all is said and done, the Picture People. Now the cinema is controlled by vast firms like Xerox, Gulf & Western, and many others who deal in anything from sanitary-ware to property development. These huge conglomerates, faceless, soulless, are concerned only with making a profit; never a work of art . . . "
He rued the fact that "it is pointless to be 'superb' in a commercial failure; and most of the films which I had deliberately chosen to make in the last few years were, by and large, just that. Or so I am always informed by the businessmen. The critics may have liked them extravagantly, but the distributors shy away from what they term 'A Critic's Film', for it often means that the public will stay away. Which, in the mass, they do: and if you don't make money at the box-office you are not asked back to play again."
However, the courageous artist was not to be daunted: "But I'd had very good innings. Better than most. So what the hell?" His well-written works were enthusiastically received by critics and the book-buying public.
Bogarde appeared in another film that flirted with the theme of German fascism, Liliana Cavani's highly controversial The Night Porter (1974) ("The Night Porter"). He played an ex-SS officer who encounters a woman with whom he had been engaged in a sado-masochistic affair at a World War II Nazi extermination camp. Many critics found the film, which featured extensive nudity courtesy of Charlotte Rampling, crassly offensive, but no one faulted Bogarde's performance.
He played Lt. Gen. Frederick "Boy" Browning in the all-star blockbuster A Bridge Too Far (1977). Although some of his fellow actors were World War II veterans, only Bogarde had been involved in the actual battle. His performance arguably is the best in the film. Appearing in Alain Resnais' art house hit Providence (1977) gave Bogarde the opportunity to co-star with John Gielgud. He also starred in German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder's adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's Despair (1978), with a script by Tom Stoppard. Though the film was not much of a critical success, Bogarde's acting as 1930s German businessman Hermann Hermann, a man who chooses to go mad when faced with the paradoxes of his life in his proto-fascist fatherland, was highly praised.
Bogarde enjoyed working with Fassbinder. He wrote that "Rainer's work was extraordinarily similar to that of Visconti's; despite their age difference, they both behaved, on set, in much the same manner. Both had an incredible knowledge of the camera: the first essential. Both knew how it could be made to function; they had the same feeling for movement on the screen, of the all-important (and often-neglected) 'pacing' of a film, from start to finish, of composition, of texture, and probably most of all they shared that strange ability to explore and probe into the very depths of the character which one had offered them."
After his experience with Fassbinder, he acted only four more times, twice in feature films and twice on television. Bogarde was nominated for a Golden Globe for playing Roald Dahl in The Patricia Neal Story (1981). He got rave reviews playing Jane Birkin's father in Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy Nostalgia (1990), his last film.
In 1984 Bogarde was asked to serve as president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, a huge honor for the actor, as he was the first Briton ever to serve in that capacity. Two years earlier he had been made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des lettres 1982. A decade later, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II on February 13, 1992.
Bogarde won two Best Actor Awards out of six nominations from the British Academy of Film & Television Arts, for "The Servant" and "Darling" in 1964 and 1966, respectively. He was also nominated in 1962 for "Victim," in 1968 for "Accident" and Our Mother's House (1967) and in 1972 for "Morte a Venezia."
Bogarde suffered a stroke in 1996, and though it rendered him partially paralyzed, he was able to recover and live in his own flat in Chelsea. However, by May of 1998 he required around-the-clock nursing care, and he had his lawyers draw up a "living will," also known as a no-resuscitation order. Bogarde publicly came out in favor of voluntary euthanasia, becoming Vice President of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. He publicly addressed the subject of his own "living will," which ordered that no extraordinary measures be taken to keep him alive should he become terminally ill.
The living will proved unnecessary. Dirk Bogarde died of a heart attack on May 8, 1999, in his home in Chelsea, London, England. According to his nephew Brock Van den Bogaerde, the family planned to hold a private funeral but no memorial service in accordance with his uncle's wish "just to forget me." Bogarde wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered in France, and accordingly, his remains were returned to Provence.
Margaret Hinxman, in her May 10, 1999, obituary in "The Guardian", said of him, "At his peak and with directors he trusted - Joseph Losey, Luchino Visconti and Alain Resnais - Dirk Bogarde . . . was probably the finest, most complete, actor on the screen."
Clive Fisher's obituary in "The Independent" on May 10, 1999, praised Bogarde as "a major figure because, wherever they were made, his finest films are all somehow about him. He was a great self-portraitist and the screen persona he fashioned, a stylization of his private being, not only dominated its surroundings but spoke subliminally and powerfully to British audiences about the tensions of the time, about connivances and cruel respectabilities of England in the Fifties and Sixties."
The secret of Dirk Bogarde's success as a great cinema actor was his intimate relationship with the camera. Bogarde believed that the key to acting on film was the eyes, specifically, the "look" of the actor. Like Alan Ladd, it didn't matter if an actor was good with line readings if they had mastery over the "look." For many critics and movie-goers at the end of the 20th century, Dirk Bogarde's face epitomized the "look" of Britain in the tumultuous decades after the Second World War.
David Tindle's portrait of Bogarde is part of the collection of London's National Portrait Gallery, London. In 1999, the portrait, on temporary loan, was displayed at 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister's official residence, with other modern works of art. Officially, Dirk Bogarde had become the look of Britain.- Dennis Day was born on July 12, 1942 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA and later moved to Downey, California, USA. He started acting at age six and after auditioning with his sister, was a Mouseketeer for the first two seasons of The Mickey Mouse Club in 1955-1957.
He came out as gay to his family and moved to San Francisco, California, USA when he turned 18. Though he later told a Rolling Stone interviewer in 1971 that he was bisexual and had used drugs. He continued to work as an actor and dancer, including at Theatre La MaMa in New York and in Los Angeles.
Day married Henry Ernest Caswell, his partner since the early 1970s, in 2009. Day and Caswell at one time ran a guesthouse for gay actors in San Francisco; from the 1960s until the early 1980s, Day worked for the Living History Centre, producing Renaissance and Dickens Christmas fairs, playing Newington Butts at the Renaissance fairs and also coaching other actors. They moved in the mid-1980s to Oregon, first settling in Ashland, and then in Phoenix, where they had a house. Caswell also worked for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, while Day made and sold wine jelly and worked seasonally for Harry & David.
Day was reportedly last seen on July 17, 2018 after Caswell, (who has dementia), was admitted to the hospital after a fall. Day reportedly left on foot, telling a third housemate, a live-in handyman, that he was going to visit friends, but his cat and dog were left behind, and the dog was found roaming by neighbors. One neighbor had a letter written by Day mentioning being assaulted by the handyman, who told police that Day was also exhibiting signs of mental problems. After Day was reported missing, his car was found in the possession of people approximately 200 miles (320 km) away in Coos County, who, according to police, said that they had permission to take it, possibly in exchange for helping the handyman. In August 2018, police searched the property after neighbors complained of a "bad smell". Friends began asking for help locating him starting in November that year, and in February 2019, after his family learned of his disappearance, his case was featured on an episode of Dateline NBC.
Police had searched Day's residence and elsewhere, but in early April 2019 human remains were discovered on the property. On June 6, 2019, it was announced that the remains were confirmed as those of Day, though a cause of death was not announced. On July 5, 2019, Oregon State Police arrested the former handyman in connection to Day's death. The man, 36-year-old Daniel James Burda, was charged with several crimes in connection with Day's death, including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and identity theft.
Dennis Day disappeared on July 17, 2018 in Phoenix, Oregon, USA. His Body was discovered on April 7, 2019 in Jackson County, Oregon, USA. - Actor
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Scrappy, plucky-looking Kentucky-born Tommy Kirk, who was born on December 10, 1941, became synonymous with everything clean and fun that Disney Entertainment prescribed to in the late 1950s and very early 1960s. One of four sons born to a mechanic, Louie, and legal secretary, Lucy, the Kirk family, in search of better job prospects, moved from Louisville to Downey, California while Tommy was still an infant. The boy's interest in acting was ignited at the age of 13 years when he (instead of older brother Joe) was cast in a minor role in a production of Will Rogers Jr. and Bobby Driscoll in a production of Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!" at the Pasadena Playhouse. Discovered by a Hollywood agent who saw him and signed him up, Tommy went on to appear in two other Pasadena theatre plays, Portrait in Black" and "Barefoot in Athens" and on TV ("Lux Video Theatre, "Frontier," "Big Town," "Gunsmoke" and "The Loretta Young Show") and film (Down Liberty Road (1956) and The Peacemaker (1956)). It was an episode of "Matinee Theatre" that brought the freshly-scrubbed All-American kid to the attention of mogul Walt Disney who quickly signed him to a long-term contract.
In 1955, the lad became a member of the The Mickey Mouse Club (1955) TV series and won a legion of young fans as the brush-cut haired, irrepressibly inquisitive young sleuth Joe Hardy in two "Hardy Boys" serials ("The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure," "The Mystery of the Ghost Farm") with Tim Considine, another young promising Disney staple, playing older brother Frank. With time Tommy became a prime juvenile Disney hero and ideal mischief maker for many of the studio's full-length comedy and drama classics, earning nationwide teen idol status for his exuberant work in Old Yeller (1957), The Shaggy Dog (1959), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), The Absent Minded Professor (1961), Babes in Toyland (1961), Bon Voyage! (1962), Moon Pilot (1962), Son of Flubber (1962) and The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964).
In 1963 the bubble completely burst when the Disney factory found out 21-year-old Tommy was in a relationship with an underage boy. He was also arrested on Christmas Eve in 1964 when a party he was attending was raided and busted for marijuana use. Although charges were dropped, it was too late. Fired from his role in the John Wayne western The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) as a result, the Disney studio, out of protection, was forced to release him from his contract, but not after rehiring him one more time to complete a "Merlin Jones" movie sequel entitled The Monkey's Uncle (1965)).
Tommy found very mild restitution after signing with AIP (American International Pictures) and appearing in such popular teen-oriented flicks as Pajama Party (1964), co-starring fellow Disney cohort Annette Funicello, and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966). He also began appearing on the musical stage as Harold Hill in "The Music Man," Riff in "West Side Story" and as the lead in "Tovarich." He also was lent out to do a lead in the mediocre cult sci-fi Embassy Picture Village of the Giants (1965). After leaving AIP, things got progressively worse for Tommy with a lead role in Trans American Film's It's a Bikini World (1967) -- by this time, beach party films were no longer trendy. Bargain basement fare such as Unkissed Bride (1966)_ (aka Mother Goose a Go-Go), UA's Track of Thunder (1967), Catalina Caper (1967) Mars Needs Women (1968), in which he played a Martian, and Blood of Ghastly Horror (1967) (aka Psycho a Go-Go) pretty much spelled as a leading man. Practically blacklisted by an industry that deemed "outed" gay actors "box office poison," he returned to the musical theatre in his home state of Kentucky with such shows as "Anything Goes" (as Moonface Martin), "Hello, Dolly!" (as Horace Vandergelder), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (as Marcus Lycus) and "Little Mary Sunshine" (as General Fairfax).
Following roles in the low budget 70s films Ride the Hot Wind (1973) and the unreleased My Name Is Legend (1975) as well as an isolated TV part on a 1972 episode of "The Streets of San Francisco," Tommy disappeared from the limelight. His life went into a seemingly irreversible tailspin. Depressed and angry, he sought solace in drugs and nearly died from an acute overdose at one point. For health reasons he felt the need to completely abandon his career and slowly moved himself forward as a recovering addict. On a very positive note, he was able to build a very successful carpet and upholstery cleaning company for himself ("Tommy Kirk's Carpet and Upholstery) in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. It stayed open for business for well over two decades.
After some time away, Tommy showed up again in Hollywood, glimpsed in a few dismissible low-budgeters here and there, including Streets of Death (1988), Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds (1995), Little Miss Magic (1998), Billy Frankenstein (1998), Club Dead (2000) and, his last to date, The Education of a Vampire (2001). He appeared in several documentary interviews for the DVD releases of some of his best known films and TV shows, and occasionally at film festivals and nostalgia convention/memorabilia fests. He lived in Las Vegas.- Danny Pintauro was born on 6 January 1976 in Milltown, New Jersey, USA. He is an actor, known for Cujo (1983), Who's the Boss? (1984) and As the World Turns (1956). He has been married to Wil Tabares since 3 April 2014.
- Danny Roberts was born on 19 July 1977 in Rockmart, Georgia, USA. He is an actor, known for DTLA (2012), Dawson's Creek (1998) and The Real World Homecoming (2021). He was previously married to Wes Pereria.
- Pedro Zamora was born on 29 February 1972 in Havana, Cuba. He died on 11 November 1994 in Miami, Florida, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Seemingly suave, cultivated actor by nature, definitely huge in both talent and girth, and capable of playing much older than he was, Hollywood of the early '40s tragically lost Laird Cregar before it could fully comprehend on how to best utilize his obvious gifts. He was born Samuel Laird Cregar in a well-to-do section of Philadelphia, eventually dropping his first name after forging an acting career. At age eight his parents sent him to England and enrolled him at the Winchester Academy. During his school's off time, his pique in acting escalated after being employed as a page boy with the Stratford-on-Avon Players. Thereafter, his mind was set to become a professional actor. Returning to the U.S., he attended Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and the Douglas Adams School in Longport, New Jersey. Again, he found meager jobs, such as an usher, in order to stay close to the theater. Awarded a scholarship to the Pasadena Community Playhouse, he trained there for two years before going out on his own and finding minor work on the bi-coastal stage and finding minuscule parts in films.
Laird's break came of his own making. After witnessing Robert Morley's triumph in the title role of "Oscar Wilde" on Broadway, Laird set upon finding backing for his own version of the play. Debuting in Los Angeles and finding resounding success there as well as in San Francisco, film studios began competing for his services with Twentieth Century-Fox winning out. He made his feature debut opposite Paul Muni in Hudson's Bay (1940) in the boisterous role of a fur trapper and solidified his movie standing by appearing flamboyantly as a bullfighting critic at odds with Tyrone Power's matador in the popular Technicolor classic Blood and Sand (1941). He then went on to show a scene-stealing prowess for stylish farce as one of Jack Benny "suitors" in the drag comedy Charley's Aunt (1941).
By the time Laird cut a mean, sinister path in I Wake Up Screaming (1941), playing a detective so insanely hung up on a murdered girl (Carole Landis) that he deliberately frames an innocent man (Victor Mature) for her crime, it was obvious films could rely on him for any of their comedic or dramatic ventures. There seemed nothing he couldn't do, but it was obvious audiences loved him as the 300 lb. man you love to hate - goaded on by his nefarious doings in the film noir classic This Gun for Hire (1942) starring Alan Ladd and Rings on Her Fingers (1942) with Gene Tierney.
On the Los Angeles theater front he gave Monty Woolley a run for the money in Woolley's signature stage role of Sheridan Whiteside in "The Man Who Came to Dinner". Along with the good came some contrived roles in a few mediocre films ranging from training officers to hammy-styled pirates. Even so, he usually stood out among the other actors in some fashion. He even played the Devil himself in the exquisitely humor-laced Ernst Lubitsch comedy Heaven Can Wait (1943).
His film career was capped by his definitive Jack the Ripper in The Lodger (1944). Investing the psychotic role with an intense, gripping realism and off-putting, oily charm, he led a brilliantly seasoned cast and relished a death scene in the film (in truth, the real-life serial killer was never caught) that dared to forever stereotype him as a Sydney Greenstreet-like villain. Unfortunately, his early death robbed film audiences of seeing what course Laird's career would have taken. Sure enough, his last celluloid offering in Hangover Square (1945) was as another despicable character with murder on its maniacal mind. Top-lining a cast that included Linda Darnell (as an object of his affection), and George Sanders, he this time portrayed a temperamental composer who suffers from a split personality disorder and, prone to periodic blackouts, commits brutal murders. Another compelling death scene had his mad character wildly pounding out a concerto while the room around him goes up in flames and the ceiling crashes down on him.
Laird's obsession with avoiding the inevitable stereotype as a "heavy heavy" and wistful pursuit of a romantic leading man career compelled him to go on a reckless, unsupervised crash diet (from 300 lbs to 200 lbs), which is evident by his drastically trimmed-down look in his last film. This proved too strenuous on his system and he was forced to undergo surgery for a severe stomach disorder. His 30-year-old heart gave out on the morning of December 9, 1944, only days after his operation. He was survived by his mother.- Larger than life, Laughtonesque, and with an eloquent, king-sized appetite for maniacal merriment, a good portion of the work of actor Victor Buono was squandered on hokey villainy on both film and television. Ostensibly perceived as bizarre or demented, seldom did Hollywood give this cultivated cut-up the opportunity to rise above the deliciously hammy arrogance that flowed through so many of his cartoonish characters. He loved to make people laugh and while he could have approached his career with more serious attention, the real money was in his madness. In the end, the actor's chronic weight and accompanying health problems took their toll -- a fatal heart attack at the untimely age of 43 -- and a wonderful actor/writer/poet/chef had exited way before his time.
Born on February 3, 1938 in San Diego, California, the son of Victor Francis Buono and Myrtle Belle (née Keller), his interest in entertainment was originally encouraged by his grandmother, Myrtle Glied (1886-1969), who had once been a vaudevillian on the Orpheum Circuit. It was she who taught Victor how to sing and recite in front of company. His initial choice of career was somewhere in the direction of medicine but the pure joy he experienced from several high school performances (playing everything from Aladdin's evil genie to Hamlet himself) led him to dismiss such sensible thinking and take on the bohemian life style of an actor.
The already hefty-framed hopeful started appearing on local radio and television stations in San Diego. At age 18, he became a member of the Globe Theater Players where he was cast in Shakespeare and the classics ["Volpone", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Knight of the Burning Pestle", "The Man Who Came to Dinner", "Witness for the Prosecution", "Henry IV, Part I (as Falstaff)", "As You Like It", "Hamlet" (as Claudius)].
In 1959, a Warner Bros. agent happened to scope out the talent at the Globe Theatre and caught Victor's wonderfully robust portrayal of Falstaff (a role he would return to now and then) and gave him a screen test. Looking older than he was, the studio set upon using Victor in weird and wacky ways, such as his bearded poet Bongo Benny in an episode of 77 Sunset Strip (1958). His wry and witty demeanor, fixed stare, huge girth and goateed mug was guaranteed to put him in nearly every television crime story needing an off-the-wall character or outlandish villain.
Following an unbilled appearance in The Story of Ruth (1960), Victor was intriguingly cast by director Robert Aldrich to play Edwin Flagg, the creepy musical accompanist and opportunist who tries to use one-time child celebrity Bette Davis for his own piggy bank in the gothic horror classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). He held his own beautifully opposite the scenery-chewing Davis and was nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar for his efforts. This role also set the tone for the increasingly deranged characters he would go on to play.
Cast as the title menace in The Strangler (1964), Victor delved wholeheartedly into the sick mind of a mother-obsessed murderer and offered a startling, tense portrayal of a child-like monster who gives new meaning to the art of "necking" with women. Director Aldrich used Victor again (albeit too briefly) for his Southern-baked "Grand Guignol" horror Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) this time as Ms. Davis' crazed father. Victor also showed up in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) starring Max von Sydow where he flamboyantly took on the High Priest Sorak role in this epic but criticized retelling of Jesus.
He enhanced a number of lightweight 1960s movies including 4 for Texas (1963), Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), The Silencers (1966) and Who's Minding the Mint? (1967) with his clever banter and gleeful menace. The lurid title said it all when Victor gamely took on the horror movie The Mad Butcher (1971) [aka The Strangler of Vienna] wherein he played a former mental patient preying on women again. This deranged low-budget German/Italian co-production added a "Sweeney Todd" meatpie tie in.
Victor's hearty, scene-stealing antics dominated late 1960s television series. Recurring madmen included his Count Carlos Manzeppi on The Wild Wild West (1965) and King Tut who habitually wreaked havoc on Gotham City on Batman (1966). One could always find his unsympathetic presence somewhere on a prime-time channel (Perry Mason (1957), Get Smart (1965), I Spy (1965)) but his roles ended up more campy than challenging. However, one heartfelt, serious portrayal was his portrayal of President William Howard Taft in the epic miniseries Backstairs at the White House (1979). Elsewhere, he recorded a self-effacing comedy album ("Victor Buono: Heavy!") and even wrote comic poetry ("Victor Buono: It Could Be Verse". He was indeed a sought-after raconteur on daytime and nighttime talk shows.
Continuing with the theatre but on a more infrequent basis, his one-man stage shows included "Just We Three", "Remembrance of Things Past" and "This Would I Keep". He also appeared as Pellinore opposite Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence in a 1975 performance of "Camelot" and earned minor cult status for his memorable performance in the play "Last of the Marx Brothers' Writers" in a return to the Old Globe Theatre in 1977.
The never-married actor felt compelled to conceal his homosexuality. A well-regarded gourmet chef and an expert on Shakespeare, he died of a massive heart attack at his ranch in Apple Valley, California on January 1, 1982. Before his death was announced, Buono had just been cast in the Broadway-bound play "Whodunnit?" by Anthony Shaffer. The show finally arrived in New York without him and almost a year to his death (December 30, 1982). - Actor
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Most certainly egged on by the dandified antics of an Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore and/or Franklin Pangborn, burlesque clown Billy DeWolfe in turn gave obvious inspiration to such effeminate cutups as Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. Billy's life was one hundred percent show business from start to finish in a career that lasted five decades, and it took everything, including the proverbial vaudeville hook, to get the delightful ham off the stage he craved and loved so well.
Christened William Andrew Jones, he was the son of a Welsh-born immigrant and bookbinder. Born in Massachusetts, the family returned to Wales almost immediately and did not come back to the States until Billy was nine years old. He began his career in the theater as an usher until he found work as a dancer with a band. He subsequently took his name from a theater manager, William De Wolfe, who actually offered him his name. Billy developed his own comedy-dance act and originally played the vaudeville circuit as part of a duo or trio. In London for five years, he eventually went solo and was given the chance to play the London Palladium at one point. He returned to America in 1939 and enjoyed notice as a prime radio and nightclub performer-impressionist, appearing in satirical revues, sometimes in drag, with great results.
Billy enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942 shortly after completing his first movie role as a riverboat conman in Dixie (1943) for Paramount. In civilian clothes again by war's end, he returned to Paramount and brought hyper comedy relief to a number of films including Miss Susie Slagle's (1946), Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946), and The Perils of Pauline (1947). He then instigated what would become his suitor prototype. With trademark mustache and spiffy duds, he assumed the role of the highly ineffectual, fastidious, self-involved bore who loses the girl, in Dear Ruth (1947), one of his biggest film triumphs, which was followed by two "Dear..." movie sequels. Old-fashioned musicals were definitely his cup of tea and he was easily fit into such nostalgic fare as Tea for Two (1950) and Lullaby of Broadway (1951). One of his other film highlights includes getting snitty with bombastic Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam (1953).
Irrepressible and definitely hard to contain for film (not to mention difficult to cast due to his mincing mannerisms), Billy focused instead on the live stage. He won the 1954 Donaldson Award for the NY production of "John Murray Anderson's Almanac," returned to London in command performances, and revisited Broadway in the last edition of "The Ziegfeld Follies" in 1957. Better yet was his pompous performance in the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" On TV he was a mildly popular raconteur on the talk show circuit. Fussy second-banana series roles took up his final decade of acting with such comedy series showcasing the likes of Imogene Coca, Phyllis Diller and Doris Day, who became a very close friend.
A lifelong hypochondriac, Billy was about to take on the role of Madam Lucy in a 1973 Broadway revival of "Irene" when the ravages of lung cancer forced him to leave the show before rehearsals even began. Character player George S. Irving replaced Billy and went on to win a supporting-actor Tony for his wild efforts. Billy lost his fight at age 67 in 1974.- Actor
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He attended Forest Lake High School and, after graduating, set out for New York to study acting at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Sieber made his television series debut in Two of a Kind (1998). In regional theatre, he has been involved in a string of world premiere musicals, including Randy Newman's "Faust" at La Jolla Playhouse, Bill C. Davis and Richard Adler's "Off-Key" at the George Street Playhouse and Larry Grossman's "Paper Moon" at Papermill Playhouse. For television, he has appeared in numerous commercials and in the daytime dramas, All My Children (1970) and Another World (1964).- Actor
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Charles Busch is a writer in theater and writer of the film Psycho Beach Party (2000). He is famous for crossdressing in his films he appears in and theatrical presentations he does. Busch got a lot of attention in film and television work playing a prisoner named Nat Ginsberg for two seasons on HBO's Oz (1997).- Actor
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Jim Bailey started out in the 1950s in the Nationally Syndicated show The Children's hour. By the early 1960s he turned to Theater on and Off Broadway and in Summer Stock acting and singing. His first break was being cast in the 1962 Off Broadway musical Fly Blackbird, co-starring Robert Guillaume . It was nominated for two Obie Awards. He went on to perform in other plays and musicals such as The Diary of Anne Frank, The Boyfriend, Wildcat, The Bells are Ringing and Calamity Jane with Ginger Rogers.
He would go onto a career in Television, Movies and theater and headline some of the Worlds major concert venues. He had several appearances at New York's Carnegie Hall (which was recorded and released in 1973) London's Palladium, Los Angeles' Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, Shubert Theater and Hollywood Bowl , Toronto's O'Keefe Center and Boston's Symphony Hall and most of the main showrooms in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. He has also performed in Europe, Australia, Canada, South America and South Africa.
Among the high points of his career are televised performances for the The Queen of England and Prince Phillip in 1973 and Princess Diana and Prince Charles in 1992. He also did performances for American Presidents. He appeared at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid in 1981 and Super Night at the Super-bowl in New Orleans in 1978. Both of these performances had a worldwide audience. Most of these performances are online.
In 1970 Army Archerd said in his column " Jim Bailey is responsible for bringing the art of female impersonation onto mainstream television." His appearance as Judy Garland on the Ed Sullivan Show was such a phenomenon he was asked back In January 1971 to perform again and was booked onto The Carol Burnett Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. In 1972 Here's Lucy and What's my line followed and then went onto some of the hottest Variety shows of the 1970s' such as The Dean Martin Show, The Merv Griffin Show and The Mike Douglas Show. In the United Kingdom he performed on David Frosts show and Russell Hartys show. .
In his nationally syndicated newspaper column Earl Wilson said 'Jim bailey is the hottest thing in show business.." By the mid 1970s he turned to acting roles on such shows as Switch, The Rockford Files and Vegas. By the 1980s he was in the Emmy nominated episode of Night Court playing the Transexual Chip/ Charlene.
A character actor, singer and comedian, he has long specialized in bringing to life some of America's most revered female performers, including Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand Phyllis Diller and Peggy Lee. An accomplished singer in his own right with an operatic background and a degree from the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music, Jim also performs as himself and has several recordings.
Among his other career highlights was performing with Judy Garland in Los Angeles in 1964. The recreation with Liza Minnelli of the famous " Judy and Liza at the London Palladium" in Las Vegas in 1972 . He also performed a concert for Barbra Streisand and other Hollywood heavyweights like Clint Eastwood and Warren Beatty in Los Angeles in 1995.
Later theater credits included "Tallulah and Tennessee" co-starring screen icon Bette Garett, "Mae West at the club El Fey" , "Me and Jezebel". "Fragile Fire", (directed by the late Paul Winfield), "Nightclub Confidential" and his last acting role was Ally Mcbeal playing Harold Dale in 2001. By the time of his death in 2015 his varied career had lasted 60 years.
He also had The Jim Bailey Theater in Palm Springs, CA.- Actor
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The nicknames, "The Prince of Pandemonium", "The Master of Mayhem" and "King of Camp and Confetti", are but a few valid applications that were thrust upon zany comedian Rip Taylor, whose flamboyant blend of burlesque and self-deprecating humor entertained audiences for over four decades. He headlined the top showrooms of Las Vegas, appeared on scores of television shows, starred in various musical stage slapstick comedies and even toyed with dramatic material over the years.
He was born Charles Elmer Taylor, Jr. in Washington, D.C., on January 13, 1931 to Charles Elmer Taylor Sr. and Elizabeth Evans Taylor. He began his career by tossing out one-liners in nightclubs and had his first big break on Ed Sullivan's The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) TV show in 1964. The tacky costumes, ridiculous props, handlebar mustache, wacky wigs and manic confetti-tossing didn't take long to follow as professional trademarks, and they soon made their way into the 1970s pop culture.
Frequently appearing on television, he appeared in everything from variety shows to talk shows (Merv Griffin and David Letterman) to sitcoms like The Monkees (1965). He was the gag man who delightfully wrangled out of every groan-inducing one-liner there was, eventually finding the perfect avenue for his brand of insanity via producer Chuck Barris and his syndicated TV shows of the 1970s and 1980s. Rip became a favorite panelist judge, along with Jaye P. Morgan, on Barris' The Gong Show (1976), and later served as host of the equally tacky The $1.98 Beauty Show (1978).
A mainstay in Las Vegas, whether as ringleader of a topless chorus line or opening act to a major entertainer, Rip also slayed 'em on Broadway ("Sugar Babies") and has demonstrated a fine singing instrument in musicals including "Anything Goes", "Oliver!" (as "Fagan"), "Peter Pan" (as "Captain Hook") and in a 1999 production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (as "Pseudolus").
On a more serious side, he played Demi Moore's crusty boss in Indecent Proposal (1993) and showed up sans confetti as Kate Hudson's father in the Rob Reiner feature, Alex & Emma (2003).
For the most part, he continued merrily in such campy films as Barris' The Gong Show Movie (1980); the "Exorcist" spoof, Repossessed (1990), with Linda Blair and Leslie Nielsen; the foreign-made The Silence of the Hams (1994)and Jackass: The Movie (2002). Beginning in the early 1960s, when he first provided additional voices for The Jetsons (1962), Rip continued making voice-over work a viable means of income. His voice can be heard in such animated films as DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990), Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992) and Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico (2003), and animated TV series as Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? (2002) and The Emperor's New School (2006). He was nominated for an Emmy award for voicing "Uncle Fester" in the TV cartoon program, The Addams Family (1992).
Having suffered an epileptic seizure the week prior, 88-year-old Rip died of congestive heart failure on October 6, 2019, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Once briefly married to Las Vegas showgirl Rusty Rowe, whom he divorced in the early 1960s, Rip was involved in a long-term relationship with Robert Fortney at the time of his death.- Actor
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Charles Nelson Reilly was born to Charles Joseph Reilly and Signe Elvera Nelson. His father was Irish-American and Catholic, his mother was Swedish-American and Lutheran. As a child he amused himself with improvised puppet theater performances.
He had a traumatic experience in 1944, when present for the Hartford circus fire in Hartford, Connecticut. A fire during a performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus killed 167 people and injured 700 people. While Reilly was one of the survivors, he was left with a life-long fear of fires. He never attended public performances of theater and circus again, as an audience member, for fear of another fire.
Reilly wanted to enter show business as a youth, and in particular to become an opera singer. He took lessons at the University of Hartford Hartt School, but eventually realized that his voice skills were inadequate. He turned to theater next, and debuted in film with a bit role in "A Face in the Crowd" (1957). During the late 1950s, Reilly appeared regularly in comic roles in theatrical performances off-Broadway. In 1960, Reilly first gained critical attention, for a small but noteworthy part in Broadway musical "Bye Bye Birdie". In 1961, Reilly joined the cast of the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". He won his first Tony Award in 1962 for that performance. He kept appearing in Broadway shows for the rest of the decade.
As a notable actor, Reilly started making television appearances in the 1960s. He started as a guest in panel shows and as a player in television advertisements. He eventually gained a key role in the television series "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir", where he appeared from 1968 to 1970. In the 1970s, Reilly was a regular in game shows and children's series, such as "Match Game" and "Uncle Croc's Block".
In 1976, Reilly started teaching acting to others, while shifting his own career from acting to directing. He directed Broadway shows regularly and was nominated for a Tony Award for directing in 1997. He also directed a number television episodes. In the 1990s, he had guest roles in television series such as "X-Files" and "Millennium".
In the 2000s, Reilly was primarily known for the autobiographical play "Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly", and for its film adaptation. While touring the United States, he developed respiratory problems which led to his retirement. His illness got worse, and he died due to pneumonia in 2007.- Charles Nolte was born on 3 November 1923 in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. He was an actor, known for Ford Star Jubilee (1955), Schlitz Playhouse (1951) and Tales of Tomorrow (1951). He died on 14 January 2010 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
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Wesley Eure was born on 17 August 1951 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Land of the Lost (1974), Days of Our Lives (1965) and Dragon Tales (1999).- Actor
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John Franklin was born on 16 June 1959 in Blue Island, Illinois, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Children of the Corn (1984), The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993). He has been married to David White since September 2008.- Actor
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Richard Deacon was the bald, bespectacled character actor most famous for playing television producer Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) from 1961 to 1966. In the first season of that show he also continued to appear on the series he was already appearing on, Leave It to Beaver (1957), playing Lumpy Rutherford's father Fred.
Born on May 14, 1922, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the tall, bass-voiced Deacon took to the boards as a stage actor. At the beginning of his career, stage legend Helen Hayes told Deacon that he would never become a leading man but encouraged him to become a character actor. It was good advice, as Deacon's show business career lasted decades and only was terminated by his death.
Because of his looks and authoritative voice, Deacon usually was typecast as a humorless or foul-tempered authority figure. He became a highly regarded supporting player in films, complimented by many of the leading actors he played opposite, including Jack Benny, Lou Costello and Cary Grant. However, it was in television that Deacon really thrived.
It was his five-year gig on "The Dick Van Dyke Show", where he earned television immortality playing the long-suffering brother-in-law of Alan Brady (the faux-TV star for whom Dick Van Dyke and his companion writers, Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie, wrote). Deacon's character was constantly harassed by Amsterdam's diminutive wisecracking character Buddy Sorrell. After the show ceased production (still at the top of the ratings; Carl Reiner had terminated the series in order to go out while the show was on top), Deacon co-starred on the TV sitcom The Mothers-In-Law (1967) with Kaye Ballard and Eve Arden (Deacon replaced original series co-star Roger C. Carmel as Ballard's husband in the second season after Carmel was fired from the series by producer Desi Arnaz for refusing to accept a pay cut). After the show was canceled, Deacon returned to work as a freelance actor. Back on the boards, he appeared in the long-running Broadway production of "Hello Dolly" as Horace Vandergelder, opposite Phyllis Diller as the eponymous heroine in the 1969-70 season. Deacon continued appearing on television and in the movies until his death.
In real life, Deacon was a gourmet chef. In the 1980s he hosted a Canadian TV program on microwave cookery, and even wrote a companion book on the subject
On the night of August 8, 1984, he was stricken by a heart attack in his Beverly Hills home. He was rushed to Cedars Sinai Hospital, where he died later that night. He was 62 years old.- Actor
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Paul Lynde was born in 1926 in Mount Vernon, Ohio (one of six children and the middle of four boys). His father was a local police officer and the sheriff of the Mount Vernon Jail for two years. Lynde got his inspiration to become an actor at the age of four or five after his mother took him to see the original silent film Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925). After graduating from Northwestern University, Lynde relocated to New York City where his first break came from being a stand-up comedian at the Number One Fifth Avenue nightclub. Then came an appearance on a Broadway show, "New Faces of 1952".
Lynde also had a two-year run on TV with Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (1948) and the Broadway and film versions of Bye Bye Birdie (1963). Throught his life, Lynde appeared in the Broadway plays "The Impossible Years", "Don't Drink the Water", and "Plaza Suite". His many film credits include New Faces (1954), Send Me No Flowers (1964), and Rabbit Test (1978). One of his most memorable roles was a recurring role on Bewitched (1964) playing the sneering, sarcastic Uncle Arthur. He appeared on TV's The Dean Martin Show (1965), The Kraft Music Hall (1967), Donny and Marie (1975), and both the prime-time and daytime versions of the game show The Hollywood Squares (Daytime) (1965) where he occupied the famous center square. He had two TV series of his own, The Paul Lynde Show (1972) and The New Temperatures Rising Show (1972). Paul Lynde's witty, wisecracking one-liners and his novel line delivery made him one of Hollywood's funniest and best loved entertainers. Paul Lynde died under mysterious circumstances when he was found dead in his bed after possibly suffering a heart attack in January 1982 at age 55. He had been in ill-health for over a year with cancer or some other illness that was never fully revealed to the public before or after his death.- Writer
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Graham Chapman was born on January 8, 1941 in Leicester, England while a German air raid was in progress. Graham's father was a chief police inspector and probably inspired the constables Graham often portrayed later in comedy sketches. Graham studied medicine in college and earned an M.D., but he practiced medicine for only a few years.
At Cambridge, he took part in a series of comedy revues and shortly after completing his medical studies at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Graham realized what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to perform comedy. In 1969, Graham along with University friends John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and American Terry Gilliam formed their own comedy group called Monty Python. Their BBC TV series Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969), which aired a short while later was a an instant hit. Their often self-referential style of humor was delightfully original but completely accessible to most audiences in the UK.
Before the show appeared on public television in the US, many people assumed that Americans would find Monty Python much too British to consider it funny. But PBS never had a larger audience than when stations began to air it during the early 1970s. The classic routines have since become standard college humor.
So enduring was the Python humor that fans know entire sketches such as "The Pet Shop," "Nudge-Nudge, Wink-Wink," "Argument Clinic," and "Penguin on the Telly." Graham was a standout of the group with his tall, blond profile and his zany characters (one of the more memorable was Colonel Muriel Volestrangler, a vaguely military-type character who would stop a sketch because it was "much too silly").
Graham was openly gay long before it was socially acceptable, and was open about his long-term relationship with writer David Sherlock, who lived with him for 24 years. He even adopted and raised a teenage runaway named John Tomiczek. Graham played the title role in the movie Life of Brian (1979) as well as King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). By the late 1970s, most of the Python members were pursuing independent movie projects and the group was slowly fading into obscurity after their last successful effort The Meaning of Life (1983). Also in 1983, Graham co-wrote and starred in the movie Yellowbeard (1983), which received negative reviews.
In 1988, Graham began working on another series when his health began to decline. A longtime alcoholic, who suffered liver damage before he stopped drinking for good in 1977, Graham began to have trouble concentrating at work. In November 1988, a routine visit to a dentist revealed a malignant tumor on one of his tonsils which was surgically removed. A visit to the doctor a few months later revealed another tumor on his spine which had to be removed which confined him to a wheelchair. During most of 1989, he underwent a series of surgical operations and radiation therapy but for every tumor that was found and removed, another would form either along his spine or in his throat. By July 1989, his cancer was declared terminal and that he would not survive the year, yet he continued to pursue treatments which included chemotherapy. In his wheelchair, he attended the September 1989 taping for the Monty Python's 20th anniversary special. But on October 1, he was hospitalized after a massive stroke which turned into a hemorrhage. He died at the Maidstone hospital at age 48 on October 4, 1989 from complications of the stroke as well as throat and spinal cancer.- Gideon Glick was born on 6 June 1988 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is an actor, known for Maestro (2023), Marriage Story (2019) and White Noise (2022).
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Mark Indelicato is best known for his pivotal role as 'Justin Suarez' in the hit ABC series Ugly Betty (2006). He was most recently seen in Gregg Araki's film White Bird in a Blizzard (2014), co-starring opposite Gabourey Sidibe and Shailene Woodley.
After his four seasons on Ugly Betty (2006), Indelicato decided to take a break from acting to study International Relations and Gender Studies at NYU Gallatin and has been living in New York City for the last four years. During his time at NYU, Indelicato's studies led him to a semester-long internship at the Clinton Global Initiative.- Actor
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Quentin Crisp was born Denis Pratt on Christmas Day, 1908, in the London suburb of Sutton. He was the youngest of four children; his father a lawyer; his mother a former nursery governess. In his autobiographical work, "The Naked Civil Servant", he describes a difficult childhood in a rigorously homophobic society. In his early twenties he decided to devote his life to "making the existence of homosexuality abundantly clear to the world's aborigines". He cross-dressed and acted intensely effeminate in public, often at great risk to himself. In London he worked as a prostitute, book illustrator and finally - the source of the title of his autobiography - as a paid nude model at government-supported art schools. A dramatization of The Naked Civil Servant (1975), starring John Hurt, was shown on American television to critical praise in 1976. Crisp moved to New York the following year, a move he described as his proudest achievement. He first presented "An Evening with Quentin Crisp" in 1978; it received very favorable reviews (Richard Eder, NY Times) and a special Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience. He defined a style with his flashy scarves, purple eye shadow, and white hair swept up under a black fedora. He died in Manchester, England, aged 90, on the eve of opening another run of "Evening"s. When, in preparation for his move to America, he was asked at the US Embassy if he were a practicing homosexual, he replied, "I didn't practice. I was already perfect".- Writer
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Bruce Vilanch was born on 23 November 1948 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a writer and actor, known for You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008), The Ice Pirates (1984) and The 64th Annual Academy Awards (1992).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Sargent was a trim, handsome man with a longish chin. He played a variety of gawky businessmen roles in feature films before finding a niche in tv history as the second Darrin on "Bewitched". Shortly before his death, Sargent publicly proclaimed he was gay, and became what he called "a retroactive role model" in the battle for gay rights.- Actor
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Hayden Rorke was best known as the ever suspicious "Dr. Alfred E. Bellows" on the 1960s TV series, I Dream of Jeannie (1965). Born in Brooklyn, New York, Rorke was educated at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and he began his stage career in the 1930s with the Hampden Theatrical Company. A veteran of numerous Broadway shows, he made his film debut in the musical, This Is the Army (1943), while in the service during World War II. His films included: An American in Paris (1951), Pillow Talk (1959) and When Worlds Collide (1951). A familiar face on TV during the 1950s, Rorke appeared on numerous shows including: The Twilight Zone (1959), Perry Mason (1957), Broken Arrow (1956) and Cheyenne (1955). His final appearance was reprising the role of "Dr. Bellows" in the TV movie: I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later (1985).- J.E. Freeman was born on 2 February 1946 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Alien: Resurrection (1997), Miller's Crossing (1990) and Patriot Games (1992). He died on 9 August 2014 in San Francisco, California, USA.
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Peter Paige is an accomplished actor, director, and playwright who has worked on countless theatrical productions in New York and at regional theaters around the country, not to mention numerous television and film projects. Paige lived in seven different states before graduating from high school. Started acting at age six and continued to pursue acting, writing, and directing throughout his middle and high school career. Paige attended Boston University's prestigious School of Theatre Arts on full scholarship, spending twelve to fifteen hours a day in the university's classical theatre conservatory. After graduating summa cum laude from BU, Paige moved to New York. He toured the country performing Moliere's "Tartuffe" (in two languages!), and began leaving New York to perform at theatres around the country. Paige eventually relocated to Portland, Oregon where he worked for two years on the city's Equity stages, was discovered by a manager, and brought to Los Angeles. Paige's first audition in LA landed him a hilarious guest spot on "Suddenly Susan," as Neil Pomeratz, the nervous undertaker. Peter went on to portray Emmett Honeycutt on Showtime's "Queer As Folk." He has also appeared on "Caroline in the City," "MTV'S Undressed," "Time of Your Life," "Movie Stars," and "Will and Grace," among others. Hobbies/interests/likes include politics, sushi, watching tennis, and contemporary art.- Actor
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Connor Jessup was born in Toronto, Canada. Acting since the age of eleven, he is best known for his roles in Netflix's fantasy series Locke & Key (2020) and in the Emmy-winning ABC drama American Crime (2015). Other notable roles include acclaimed performances in the independent films Blackbird (2012) and Closet Monster (2015).
Jessup is also a writer, director and producer. He directed the documentary A.W. A Portrait of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2018) for the Criterion Collection, and has written and directed several shorts -- including Boy (2015) and Lira's Forest (2017). He runs a production company, Big & Quiet Pictures, with producer Ashley Shields-Muir.- Actor
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Randy Harrison was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, USA and graduated high school in Atlanta, GA. Harrison began acting as a child eventually receiving a BFA from Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He is best known for his role as Justin Taylor in the Showtime series Queer as Folk (2000). Other film credits include Such Good People (2014) and Bang Bang You're Dead (2002). An accomplished theater actor, Harrison has appeared on Broadway in Wicked, off-Broadway at the Public Theater, Theatre for a New Audience, Primary Stages and Red Bull Theatre, as well as regionally at Yale Repertory Theater, The Guthrie Theater, Shakespeare Theatre DC amongst others. He is a founding member of the downtown New York theatre company QWAN Company. Harrison resides in Brooklyn, NY.- Actor
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Eric Millegan was born in Hackettstown, New Jersey and raised in Springfield, Oregon. He is best-known for his television role as Zack Addy on Bones (2005). Other TV credits include guest spots on Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001) and Sidney Lumet's 100 Centre Street (2001). On film, he starred as Ed Simone in On_Line (2002) - Official Selection of the Berlin International Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and Cinequest Film Festival (Best Narrarative Feature Award).
His New York theater credits include the Broadway revival of 'Jesus Christ Superstar', the Encores presentation of 'Hair' at City Center (in which he sang the "Aquarius" solo), and the New York premiere of 'Dead Man Walking' at Lincoln Center. He has played lead roles in workshops and readings of 'Spring Awakening' (directed by Michael Mayer), 'The Wayside Inn' (directed by Jason Moore), 'Uncle Broadway', Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil's 'Mask' (directed by Richard Maltby Jr.), and the Off-Broadway hit 'Altar Boyz'.
His regional theater experience includes roles at the Guthrie Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse In the Park, the Repertory Theater of St. Louis, and the Paper Mill Playhouse where he starred as Harold opposite Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons' Maude in the world premiere of Tom Jones and Joseph Thalken's 'Harold & Maude: The Musical'.
His diverse career included playing a dancing polar bear in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular in Myrtle Beach, writing a sports column (which was quoted on CNN and CNNSI) as "The Fan" of the Portland Trail Blazers for OregonLive.com, hosting "Broadway La Cage" in Atlantic City, and singing "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch at Shea Stadium following which the Mets exploded for six consecutive runs.
Millegan is an alum of the Interlochen Arts Camp and he holds a B.F.A degree in musical theater from the University of Michigan.- Actor
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Paul Zaloom was born on 14 December 1951 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Beakman's World (1992), Dante's Inferno (2007) and The Equalizer (1985).- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Director
Donovan Scott was born on 29 September 1947 in Chico, California, USA. He is an actor and assistant director, known for Popeye (1980), Police Academy (1984) and Back to the Future Part III (1990).- Actor
- Writer
Kevin Meaney was born on 23 April 1956 in Valhalla, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Big (1988), Uncle Buck (1990) and The Nightmare Room (2001). He was married to Mary Ann Halford and Leanne Coronel. He died on 21 October 2016 in Forestburgh, New York, USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Composer
Cheyenne David Jackson is an American actor and singer. His credits include leading roles in Broadway musicals and other stage roles, as well as film and television roles, concert singing, and music recordings.
After beginning his acting career in regional theatre in Seattle, Washington, Jackson moved to Manhattan and was an understudy in Thoroughly Modern Millie (2002) and Aida (2003). He next originated the role of Matthew in the workshop production of Altar Boyz (2004) for the New York Musical Theatre Festival, and was replaced by Scott Porter for the Off-Broadway run. Jackson's first leading role on Broadway was in All Shook Up (2005), which earned him a Theatre World Award for "Outstanding Broadway Debut". Since then, on the New York stage, he has starred in The Agony & the Agony (2006), Xanadu (2007; Drama League, Drama Desk nominations), Damn Yankees (2008), Finian's Rainbow (2010; Drama Desk nomination), 8 (2011), The Heart of the Matter (2012), and The Performers (2013).
He has also appeared in a number of films, including the 2006 Academy Award-nominated United 93, in which his portrayal of Mark Bingham earned him the Boston Society of Film Critics 2006 award for Best Ensemble Cast. He also had a leading role in the 2014 independent romantic comedy ensemble, Mutual Friends, and guest roles in television series such as NBC's 30 Rock and Fox's Glee. Beginning in 2015, Jackson starred in the FX horror anthology television series American Horror Story in its fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth seasons.
In concert, Jackson has sold out Carnegie Hall twice: The Power of Two in 2010 and Music of the Mad Men Era in 2011. He also performs in cabarets. In addition to his Broadway cast albums, he has released three albums of popular music, including a joint album called The Power of Two with Michael Feinstein in 2008. In 2012, Jackson released two singles, "Drive" and "Before You", from his 2013 album I'm Blue, Skies. In 2016, Jackson released his third studio album, Renaissance, an album adapted and expanded from his solo concert Music of the Mad Men Era.
He also stars as Hades in Disney Channel's Descendants 3, along with actors Booboo Stewart, Cameron Boyce, Dove Cameron, and Sofia Carson with director Kenny Ortega. In 2020, he reunited with Descendants alumni Ortega and Stewart in Netflix's Julie and the Phantoms.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Kevin Spacey Fowler, better known by his stage name Kevin Spacey, is an American actor of screen and stage, film director, producer, screenwriter and singer. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s before obtaining supporting roles in film and television. He gained critical acclaim in the early 1990s that culminated in his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the neo-noir crime thriller The Usual Suspects (1995), and an Academy Award for Best Actor for midlife crisis-themed drama American Beauty (1999).
His other starring roles have included the comedy-drama film Swimming with Sharks (1994), psychological thriller Seven (1995), the neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential (1997), the drama Pay It Forward (2000), the science fiction-mystery film K-PAX (2001)
In Broadway theatre, Spacey won a Tony Award for his role in Lost in Yonkers. He was the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London from 2004 until stepping down in mid-2015. Since 2013, Spacey has played Frank Underwood in the Netflix political drama series House of Cards. His work in House of Cards earned him Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award nominations for Best Actor.
As enigmatic as he is talented, Kevin Spacey for years kept the details of his private life closely guarded. As he explained in a 1998 interview with the London Evening Standard, "the less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am that character on screen. It allows an audience to come into a movie theatre and believe I am that person". In October 2017, he ended many years of media speculation about his personal life by confirming that he had had sexual relations with both men and women but now identified as gay.
There are, however, certain biographical facts to be had - for starters, Kevin Spacey Fowler was the youngest of three children born to Kathleen Ann (Knutson) and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, in South Orange, New Jersey. His ancestry includes Swedish (from his maternal grandfather) and English. His middle name, "Spacey," which he uses as his stage name, is from his paternal grandmother. His mother was a personal secretary, his father a technical writer whose irregular job prospects led the family all over the country. The family eventually settled in southern California, where young Kevin developed into quite a little hellion - after he set his sister's tree house on fire, he was shipped off to the Northridge Military Academy, only to be thrown out a few months later for pinging a classmate on the head with a tire. Spacey then found his way to Chatsworth High School in the San Fernando Valley, where he managed to channel his dramatic tendencies into a successful amateur acting career. In his senior year, he played "Captain von Trapp" opposite classmate Mare Winningham's "Maria" in "The Sound of Music" (the pair later graduated as co-valedictorians). Spacey claims that his interest in acting - and his nearly encyclopedic accumulation of film knowledge - began at an early age, when he would sneak downstairs to watch the late late show on TV. Later, in high school, he and his friends cut class to catch revival films at the NuArt Theater. The adolescent Spacey worked up celebrity impersonations (James Stewart and Johnny Carson were two of his favorites) to try out on the amateur comedy club circuit.
He briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, then left (on the advice of another Chatsworth classmate, Val Kilmer) to join the drama program at Juilliard. After two years of training he was anxious to work, so he quit Juilliard sans diploma and signed up with the New York Shakespeare Festival. His first professional stage appearance was as a messenger in the 1981 production of "Henry VI".
Festival head Joseph Papp ushered the young actor out into the "real world" of theater, and the next year Spacey made his Broadway debut in Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts". He quickly proved himself as an energetic and versatile performer (at one point, he rotated through all the parts in David Rabe's "Hurlyburly"). In 1986, he had the chance to work with his idol and future mentor, Jack Lemmon, on a production of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night". While his interest soon turned to film, Spacey would remain active in the theater community - in 1991, he won a Tony Award for his turn as "Uncle Louie" in Neil Simon's Broadway hit "Lost in Yonkers" and, in 1999, he returned to the boards for a revival of O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh".
Spacey's film career began modestly, with a small part as a subway thief in Heartburn (1986). Deemed more of a "character actor" than a "leading man", he stayed on the periphery in his next few films, but attracted attention for his turn as beady-eyed villain "Mel Profitt" on the TV series Wiseguy (1987). Profitt was the first in a long line of dark, manipulative characters that would eventually make Kevin Spacey a household name: he went on to play a sinister office manager in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), a sadistic Hollywood exec in Swimming with Sharks (1994), and, most famously, creepy, smooth-talking eyewitness Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects (1995).
The "Suspects" role earned Spacey an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and catapulted him into the limelight. That same year, he turned in another complex, eerie performance in David Fincher's thriller Se7en (1995) (Spacey refused billing on the film, fearing that it might compromise the ending if audiences were waiting for him to appear). By now, the scripts were pouring in. After appearing in Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (1996), Spacey made his own directorial debut with Albino Alligator (1996), a low-key but well received hostage drama. He then jumped back into acting, winning critical accolades for his turns as flashy detective Jack Vincennes in L.A. Confidential (1997) and genteel, closeted murder suspect Jim Williams in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997). In October 1999, just four days after the dark suburban comedy American Beauty (1999) opened in US theaters, Spacey received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Little did organizers know that his role in Beauty would turn out to be his biggest success yet - as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged corporate cog on the brink of psychological meltdown, he tapped into a funny, savage character that captured audiences' imaginations and earned him a Best Actor Oscar.
No longer relegated to offbeat supporting parts, Spacey seems poised to redefine himself as a Hollywood headliner. He says he's finished exploring the dark side - but, given his attraction to complex characters, that mischievous twinkle will never be too far from his eyes.
In February 2003 Spacey made a major move back to the theatre. He was appointed Artistic Director of the new company set up to save the famous Old Vic theatre, The Old Vic Theatre Company. Although he did not undertake to stop appearing in movies altogether, he undertook to remain in this leading post for ten years, and to act in as well as to direct plays during that time. His first production, of which he was the director, was the September 2004 British premiere of the play Cloaca by Maria Goos (made into a film, Cloaca (2003)). Spacey made his UK Shakespearean debut in the title role in Richard II in 2005. In 2006 he got movie director Robert Altman to direct for the stage the little-known Arthur Miller play Resurrection Blues, but that was a dismal failure. However Spacey remained optimistic, and insisted that a few mistakes are part of the learning process. He starred thereafter with great success in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten along with Colm Meaney and Eve Best, and in 2007 that show transferred to Broadway. In February 2008 Spacey put on a revival of the David Mamet 1988 play Speed-the-Plow in which he took one of the three roles, the others being taken by Jeff Goldblum and Laura Michelle Kelly.
In 2013, Spacey took on the lead role in an original Netflix series, House of Cards (2013). Based upon a British show of the same name, House of Cards is an American political drama. The show's first season received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination to include Outstanding lead actor in a drama series. In 2017, he played a memorable role as a villain in the action thriller Baby Driver (2017).- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Dan Butler was born on 2 December 1954 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Frasier (1993) and The Fan (1996). He has been married to Richard Waterhouse since 12 September 2010.- Actor
- Writer
- 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.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Edward Hibbert was born on 9 September 1955 in Long Island, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for The Prestige (2006), Earthworm Jim (1995) and The First Wives Club (1996).- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
Blake Ewing is an American composer for visual media.
He believes in music - and in its wonderful power to be cohesive, moving, influential, emotive, subdued, deferential, caustic, achingly beautiful, full of character, simplistic, complex and/or virtually any other adjective one can think of.
His other interests include indie music, architecture, college basketball, and old school EPCOT Center.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Van Hansis was born on 25 September 1981 in North Adams, Massachusetts, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for As the World Turns (1956), Eastsiders (2012) and Kiss Me, Kill Me (2015).- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Kal Penn was born and raised in Montclair, New Jersey, to Asmita, a fragrance evaluator, and Suresh Modi, an engineer. His parents are Gujarati immigrants to America from India. He attended the Freehold Regional High School District's Performing Arts High School where he participated in the school's theater productions. In 1995, he moved to Los Angeles to study at the UCLA's prestigious School of Theatre, Film and Television. He majored in film and sociology. He began his acting career in several indie films. His breakthrough film role came in the comedy Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004). Several Harold & Kumar films have followed. He went on to appear for 2 years in the television series House (2004). He developed an interest in politics from his grandparents who marched for India's independence. In 2009, he joined the Obama administration as an Associate Director.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Steve moved to Los Angeles, where he made his film debut in the teen-aged slasher flick, Sweet Sixteen (1983), opposite Bo Hopkins. The following year, he broke all of the girls hearts in the popular Cannon-produced film, The Last American Virgin (1982), alongside Lawrence Monoson. Roles in The Goonies (1985) and Survival Quest (1988), then led to what should have been his big break, when he co-starred with Jodie Foster and Kelly McGillis in the Academy Award-winning film, The Accused (1988), as a fraternity undergraduate involved in a bar room rape incident. He then appeared in Sandra Bernhard's screen version of her hit one-woman Broadway show, Without You I'm Nothing (1990), plus roles in the films Drive (1991), It's My Party (1996) and the romantic comedy-drama, 'Til There Was You (1997).
Steve has also dabbled in writing and producing, starring opposite Bo Hopkins once again and an all-star cast in the independent film, Inside Monkey Zetterland (1992). Steve adapted the screenplay Gloria (1999), starring Sharon Stone and George C. Scott from the 1980 version by John Cassavetes.- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Dan Bucatinsky was born in New York City, New York, USA to Argentinian parents, Julio and Myriam. He is of Latin and Jewish descent. He is an Emmy winning actor, known for The Baker and the Beauty (2020), Second Act (2018) and Scandal (2012) and a producer of Who Do You Think You Are? (2010) and Web Therapy (2008) and 25 Words Or Less (2018). He has been married to filmmaker Don Roos since 2008. They have two children.- Lawrence Monoson, a New York native is a veteran actor. Born on August 11, 1964, in Yonkers, Lawrence is easily known for his early film roles starting back in the early to mid 1980s. Monoson appeared in the film The Last American Virgin (1982), followed three years later with a role in the horror movie Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984). Going into the 1990s, Lawrence Monoson mostly found work throughout various television series, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990), JAG (1995), Touched by an Angel (1994), ER (1994) and Prince Street (1997). As the 21st century arrived, Lawrence continued working mostly on the small screen, with work on Star Trek: Enterprise (2001), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000) and CSI: Miami (2002). He also co-starred in the direct-to-video sequel Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004). His work has been strongly focused in television where he added more episodic contributions in NCIS (2003), Cold Case (2003), The Closer (2005) and CSI: NY (2004).
- Scott Capurro was born on 10 December 1962 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and Star Wars: Episode I - Racer (1999).
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Harvey Fierstein is an American actor, screenwriter and playwright who has been in several stage productions, films, shows and games. He voiced Yao in Mulan and Huaca in Kingdom of the Sun (prototype for The Emperor's New Groove). He also acted in Hairspray, Independence Day, Mrs. Doubtfire, Bros, Big Mouth, Death to Smoochy and Bullets Over Broadway,- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
David Ogden Stiers was born in Peoria, Illinois, to Margaret Elizabeth (Ogden) and Kenneth Truman Stiers. He moved with his family to Eugene, Oregon, where he graduated from North Eugene High School in 1960. At the age of twenty, he was offered $200 to join the company of the Santa Clara Shakespeare Festival for three months. He ended up staying for seven years, in due course playing both King Lear and Richard III. In 1969, he moved to New York to study drama at Juilliard where he also trained his voice as a dramatic baritone. He joined the Houseman City Center Acting Company at its outset, working on such productions as The Beggar's Opera, Measure for Measure, The Hostage and the hit Broadway musical The Magic Show for which he created the character 'Feldman the Magnificent'. He lent his voice to animated films, with Lilo & Stitch (2002) being his 25th theatrically-released Disney animated film. He was also an avid fan of classical music and conducted a number of orchestras, including the Yaquina Chamber Orchestra in Newport, Oregon, where was the principal guest conductor.
His other theatrical work included performances with the Committee Revue and Theatre, the San Francisco Actor's Workshop, The Old Globe Theatre Festival in San Diego and at the Pasadena Playhouse in Love Letters with Meredith Baxter. As a drama instructor, he worked at Santa Clara University and also taught improvisation at Harvard. In addition to his long-running role in M*A*S*H (1972), Stiers' work on television also included the excellent mini-series North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985), North & South: Book 2, Love & War (1986), The First Olympics: Athens 1896 (1984) and roles in such productions as Anatomy of an Illness (1984), The Bad Seed (1985), J. Edgar Hoover (1987), The Final Days (1989), Father Damien: The Leper Priest (1980) and Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry (1986). Among his screen credits were The Accidental Tourist (1988), The Man with One Red Shoe (1985), Creator (1985), Harry's War (1981), Magic (1978) and Oh, God! (1977).
Above all, the prodigious talent that was David Ogden Stiers will be most fondly remembered as the pompous, ever-so articulate Major Charles Emerson Winchester III in M*A*S*H. He had found that taking on the role was -- from the beginning -- an easy choice. Stiers saw and loved the movie version. Moreover, he had a fond regard of fellow actor Harry Morgan (who played the character of Colonel Potter) as a kind of fatherly role model. In retrospect, Stiers viewed his experiences with the show as a career highlight, saying "No matter how much you read about the M*A*S*H company, the evolution of it, the quite beautiful human stance it takes, you will not know how much it means ". In his spare time on the set he often annoyed the security guards by skateboarding at 25 miles an hour and "cheerfully thumbing his nose at them".
David died of bladder cancer on March 3, 2018, in Newport, Oregon. He was 75.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Preeminent British classical actor of the first post-Olivier generation, Derek Jacobi was knighted in 1994 for his services to the theatre, and, in fact, is only the second to enjoy the honor of holding TWO knighthoods, Danish and English (Olivier was the other). Modest and unassuming in nature, Jacobi's firm place in theatre history centers around his fearless display of his characters' more unappealing aspects, their great flaws, eccentricities and, more often than not, their primal torment.
Jacobi was born in Leytonstone, London, England, the only child of Alfred George Jacobi, a department store manager, and Daisy Gertrude (Masters) Jacobi, a secretary. His paternal great-grandfather was German (from Hoxter, Germany). His interest in drama began while quite young. He made his debut at age six in the local library drama group production of "The Prince and the Swineherd" in which he appeared as both the title characters. In his teens he attended Leyton County High School and eventually joined the school's drama club ("The Players of Leyton").
Derek portrayed Hamlet at the English National Youth Theatre prior to receiving his high school diploma, and earned a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he initially studied history before focusing completely on the stage. A standout role as Edward II at Cambridge led to an invite by the Birmingham Repertory in 1960 following college graduation. He made an immediate impression wherein his Henry VIII (both in 1960) just happened to catch the interest of Olivier himself, who took him the talented actor under his wing. Derek became one of the eight founding members of Olivier's National Theatre Company and gradually rose in stature with performances in "The Royal Hunt of the Sun," "Othello" (as Cassio) and in "Hay Fever", among others. He also made appearances at the Chichester Festival and the Old Vic.
It was Olivier who provided Derek his film debut, recreating his stage role of Cassio in Olivier's acclaimed cinematic version of Othello (1965). Olivier subsequently cast Derek in his own filmed presentation of Chekhov's Three Sisters (1970). On TV Derek was in celebrated company playing Don John in Much Ado About Nothing (1967) alongside Maggie Smith and then-husband Robert Stephens; Derek had played the role earlier at the Chichester Festival in 1965. After eight eventful years at the National Theatre, which included such sterling roles as Touchstone in "As You Like It", Jacobi left the company in 1971 in order to attract other mediums. He continued his dominance on stage as Ivanov, Richard III, Pericles and Orestes (in "Electra"), but his huge breakthrough would occur on TV. Coming into his own with quality support work in Man of Straw (1972), The Strauss Family (1972) and especially the series The Pallisers (1974) in which he played the ineffectual Lord Fawn, Derek's magnificence was presented front and center in the epic BBC series I, Claudius (1976). His stammering, weak-minded Emperor Claudius was considered a work of genius and won, among other honors, the BAFTA award.
Although he was accomplished in The Day of the Jackal (1973) and The Odessa File (1974), films would place a distant third throughout his career. Stage and TV, however, would continue to illustrate his classical icon status. Derek took his Hamlet on a successful world tour throughout England, Egypt, Sweden, Australia, Japan and China; in some of the afore-mentioned countries he was the first actor to perform the role in English. TV audiences relished his performances as Richard II (1978) and, of course Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1980).
After making his Broadway bow in "The Suicide" in 1980, Derek suffered from an alarming two-year spell of stage fright. He returned, however, and toured as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company (1982-1985) with award-winning results. During this period he collected Broadway's Tony Award for his Benedick in "Much Ado about Nothing"; earned the coveted Olivier, Drama League and Helen Hayes awards for his Cyrano de Bergerac; and earned equal acclaim for his Prospero in "The Tempest" and Peer Gynt. In 1986, he finally made his West End debut in "Breaking the Code" for which he won another Helen Hayes trophy; the play was then brought to Broadway.
For the rest of the 80s and 90s, he laid stage claim to such historical figures as Lord Byron, Edmund Kean and Thomas Becket. On TV he found resounding success (and an Emmy nomination) as Adolf Hitler in Inside the Third Reich (1982), and finally took home the coveted Emmy opposite Anthony Hopkins in the WWII drama The Tenth Man (1988). He won a second Emmy in an unlikely fashion by spoofing his classical prowess on an episode of "Frasier" (his first guest performance on American TV), in which he played the unsubtle and resoundingly bad Shakespearean actor Jackson Hedley.
Kenneth Branagh was greatly influenced by mentor Jacobi and their own association would include Branagh's films Henry V (1989), Dead Again (1991), and Hamlet (1996), the latter playing Claudius to Branagh's Great Dane. Derek also directed Branagh in the actor's Renaissance Theatre Company's production of "Hamlet". In the 1990s Derek returned to the Chichester Festival, this time as artistic director, and made a fine showing in the title role of Uncle Vanya (1996).
More heralded work of late include profound portrayals of the anguished titular painter in Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998), the role of Gracchus in the popular, Oscar-winning film Gladiator (2000), and sterling performances in such films as Two Men Went to War (2002), Bye Bye Blackbird (2005), The Riddle (2007), Endgame (2009), The King's Speech (2010), Jail Caesar (2012), and as the King in Cinderella (2015). Continuing to mesmerize on the stage, he has turned in superb performances in "Uncle Vanya" (2000), Friedrich Schiller's "Don Carlos" (2005), _A Voyage 'Round My Father (2006), "Twelfth Night" (2009) and the title role in "King Lear" (2010). On the British TV series front, he has commanded more recent attention in the title role of a crusading monk in the mystery series Mystery!: Cadfael (1994), as Lord Pirrie in Titanic: Blood and Steel (2012), as Alan in Last Tango in Halifax (2012), and as Stuart Bixby in Vicious (2013).
He and his life-time companion of three decades, Richard Clifford, filed as domestic partners in England in 2006. Clifford, a fine classical actor and producer in his own right, has shared movie time with Jacobi in Little Dorrit (1987), Henry V (1989), and the TV version of Cyrano de Bergerac (1985).- Actor
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Born in London, England, John Gielgud trained at Lady Benson's Acting School and RADA, London. Best known for his Shakespearean roles in the theater, he first played Hamlet at the age of 26. He worked under the tutelage of Lilian Bayliss with friend and fellow performer Laurence Olivier and other contemporaries of the National Theatre at the "Old Vic", London. He made his screen debut in 1924. Academy Award Best Supporting Actor, 1981, for Arthur (1981), Academy Award Nomination, 1964, for Becket (1964).- Actor
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Dan Amboyer born December 28, 1985 is an American actor, Amboyer was born in Detroit, to Claudia and Dr. Donald Amboyer. He attended The Roeper School and arts high school Interlochen Arts Academy. Amboyer subsequently continued his studies at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, where he was offered early admittance following his junior year of high school. After graduation, he relocated to New York City and began performing in television and theatre. Amboyer has made guest appearances on the television series Younger (TV series), CBS' Untitled John Cusack Pilot, Unforgettable, Law & Order, Body of Proof, Inside Amy Schumer, and Person of Interest.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Stephen Stucker was a marvelously wild and dynamic free-spirited actor who specialized in deliciously broad portrayals of memorably outrageous characters in a handful of comedies made in the 70's and 80's. Stucker was born on July 2, 1947 in Des Moines, Iowa. He attended Lincoln School in Alameda, California. During his school days Stephen was known as both an accomplished pianist and a class clown with a dry wit. Stucker made his film debut with a funny turn as crazed asylum escapee Bruce Wilson in the entertainingly lowbrow "Carnal Madness." He was likewise sidesplitting as a cross-dressing court stenographer in "The Kentucky Fried Movie." Stephen achieved his greatest enduring popularity with his gloriously zany and unforgettable performance as loopy airport control room worker Johnny in the hilarious disaster picture parody "Airplane!." Stucker reprised this role in "Airplane II: The Sequel" and had an amusing bit as a train stationmaster in "Trading Places." Stephen appeared in three episodes of the hit TV series "Mork & Mindy." Besides "The Kentucky Fried Movie" and "Airplane!," Stucker also worked with the comedy team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker as a member of the theatrical group the Kentucky Fried Theater. Stephen Stucker died at the tragically young age of 38 from AIDS on April 13, 1986.- Actor
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With smooth, boyish good looks, Richard Cromwell had the makings of a Hollywood star while talking movies were in their infancy. Falling far short of that goal, some of which was his own doing, he is hardly remembered today. The equivalent back then in fresh-faced, fair-haired appeal to 60s Dr. Kildare (1961) star Richard Chamberlain, Cromwell enjoyed similar overnight stardom and heartthrob status. By decade's end, however, his once meteoric career had crashed and burned.
Richard was born LeRoy Melvin Radabaugh (nicknamed Roy) in Long Beach, California on January 8, 1910, he was the second of five children to Ralph and Fay Radabaugh. His father was a victim of the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic. Roy earnestly delivered morning newspapers to help out the family's budget crisis. Artistically creative, in his teens, he earned a scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. He continued to work part-time as a maintenance man, custodian and soda jerk. His artwork, which tended to oil painting and mask-making, was impressive enough for him to be a commissioned "artist to the stars" for a time. Film legends Anna Q. Nilsson, Colleen Moore, Tallulah Bankhead, Beatrice Lillie, Joan Crawford and the notoriously reclusive Greta Garbo were among his illustrious clientèle. He was soon able to open his own studio in Hollywood and well on the way to becoming an artist of note when a long-smoldering desire to act burst into flame within him.
He painted scenery for community theater productions as a way of getting his feet wet and eventually took on acting roles. He was an extra in the film King of Jazz (1930). As good fortune would have it, Richard was encouraged by friends to test for the title lead (amid scores of other actor unknowns) in the Columbia Studios production of Tol'able David (1930), a remake of Henry King's classic 1921 film. With no previous professional experience, he won the part. Christened with a new marquee name (courtesy of Columbia mogul Harry Cohn), the studio publicity machines worked overtime to promote both the film and their new leading man. Richard lived up to all the hype once the reviews came out, giving a terrific debut performance in a very difficult role. As the rather weak-willed young boy who finds the strength and courage to right the injustice done to him, he hit overnight stardom, accompanied by scores of subsequent radio and personal appearances and culminating in a White House invitation from President Herbert Hoover.
It was sensitive hero types for the new star, predominantly in melodramatic settings. Columbia kept him busy with Fifty Fathoms Deep (1931), Shanghaied Love (1931) and That's My Boy (1932). The best of the lot was co-starring opposite Marie Dressler in Emma (1932) as a young man who dies in a plane crash en route to save his beloved housekeeper who was accused of murdering his father. His best known role was in the best picture nominee The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) in which he received co-star billing alongside Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone. Other significant parts in The Age of Consent (1932), Tom Brown of Culver (1932) and This Day and Age (1933). He appeared with a slew of Hollywood's most popular stars, including but not limited to Janet Gaynor, Clara Bow, Jean Arthur, W.C. Fields and Will Rogers.
His constant yen for independence and change led him to other areas of entertainment. Veering away from films, he worked on radio soap operas and made his stage debut in 1936 with So Proudly We Hail which quickly went to Broadway. He received better reviews than the play itself, which was very short-lived. As his popularity in films began to fade, another daunting challenge was his lead role in a sequel of sorts to All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) entitled The Road Back (1937) , which chronicled the story of young German soldiers readjusting to civilian life after WWI. The film was not well-received. After supporting roles as Henry Fonda's brother, who kills a man in a duel of honor, in Jezebel (1938) (Bette Davis second Oscar-winning performance), and as a defendant in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) starring Fonda, Cromwell drifted into secondary features. He enjoyed an active social Hollywood life with friends including Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, George Cukor, Cole Porter and William Haines.
After filming Baby Face Morgan (1942), he joined the Coast Guard and served for two years. Returning to civilian life, he settled comfortably into his art work -- ceramics and pottery, in particular. By chance, he met promising young British actress Angela Lansbury who was 16 years his junior and raking up Oscar nominations over at MGM with superb work in Gaslight (1944) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). The couple eloped in September of 1945 but the marriage was over almost before it began. They separated within a few months and were divorced before the year was out. Unbeknownst to the outside world at the time, Richard's latent homosexuality was the undoing factor here. Cromwell and Lansbury continued a sincere, respectful friendship after their divorce.
After this tumultuous period, Richard decided to make another stab at films, all for naught. His next film, Bungalow 13 (1948) , fizzled quickly. Returning to the name Roy Radabaugh, he built an art studio on his property, becoming especially known and admired for his creative tile designs.
Little was heard of Richard until it was announced that, at age 50, he had been cast in the film The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1961) starring singer Jimmie Rodgers. Diagnosed with liver cancer shortly thereafter, he was forced to withdraw from the production. Chill Wills replaced him in the role. Richard died on October 11, 1960, and was interred in Santa Ana, California.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
For such a diminutive (4' 11") frame, character actor Leslie (Allen) Jordan had a tall talent for scene-stealing. Hailing from the South, as his dead-giveaway drawl quickly exposed, he was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 29, 1955, and raised in a highly conservative, deeply religious atmosphere in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His father, a Lieutenant Colonel with the Army, was killed in a plane crash when he was only 11.
Uncertain about his direction in life, an inescapable propensity for comedy and high camp, not to mention an impish mug and pocket-sized structure, led him straight to Los Angeles in an attempt to break into commercials and on-camera work. Following training with acting coach Carolyne Barry, who ran the Professional Artist's Group during the 80s, Leslie soon found himself highly marketable in commercial spots (Doritos, Fosters Beer, etc.). TV would invariably be the next step, finding him progressively better parts on such programs as "The Fall Guy," "The Wizard," "Night Court," "Newhart" and "Midnight Caller." He then earned a regular role on the short-lived comedy-fantasy series The People Next Door (1989) starring Alan Parker. Inspired by "The Far Side" comic strip, the show starred Jeffrey Jones as a cartoonist who could materialize his wild imagination.
Leslie began in films in the late 1980s with a bit part in the Richard Pryor comedy Moving (1988) and followed it with the role of Iggy, a hunch-backed Igor counterpart, in the whacked horror spoof Frankenstein General Hospital (1988) starring comic actor Mark Blankfield as the mad doctor. In primarily low-budget film projects at the onset, Leslie was part of such off-the-wall material as Ski Patrol (1990), Missing Pieces (1991), Hero (1992), Jason Goes to Hell (1993), Barcelona (1994), Eat Your Heart Out (1997) and Black Velvet Pantsuit (1995), to name a few.
Into the 1990s, Leslie involved himself more and more into writing. Avid L.A. theatergoers would recognize him for such prone-to-misfit characters as Brother Boy, an institutionalized drag queen, in "Sordid Lives," and Peanut, a habitual barfly, in "Southern Baptist Sissies." His own one-man testimonials, such as the off-Broadway "Hysterical Blindness" and "Like a Dog on Linoleum," display his adeptness at baring his soul and exposing his childhood agonies on stage amid laughter and tears. These highly introspective shows, however, came at a price. A self-proclaimed substance abuser and sexaholic, Jordan finally faced his inner demons and reached full recovery in 1996.
TV was an exceptionally inviting medium over the years with a number of offbeat roles coming his way. Noted for his catchy guest work on such shows as Murphy Brown (1988), Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993), Caroline in the City (1995), Star Trek: Voyager (1995), and Weird Science (1994), among many others, he was also a supporting regular on various series including the comedy Top of the Heap (1991) starring Joseph Bologna and pre-Friends (1994), Matt LeBlanc; the legal series Reasonable Doubts (1991) in a season (1992-1993) as an assistant public defender; the crime drama Bodies of Evidence (1992) starring Jennifer Hortin and George Clooney; and the John Ritter/Markie Post romantic comedy Hearts Afire (1992).
Into the millennium, he got to experienced the joy of seeing one of his own writing projects come to full fruition with the semi-autobiographical film Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel (2000). He was also given the chance to recreate his "Big Brother" role in Sordid Lives (2000) to the big screen. The work continued to flow in such film supports as I'll Wave Back (2000), The Gristle (2001), Moving Alan (2003), the short film Farm Sluts (2003), Madhouse (2004), another short film Sissy Frenchfry (2005), Undead or Alive: A Zombedy (2007), Eating Out: All You Can Eat (2009), Mangus! (2011), the critically-acclaimed [link=tt1454029, his stage role as "Peanut" in the gay-themed Southern Baptist Sissies (2013) written and directed by Del Shores, another co-star role as an HOA "dictator" in Whoa! (2013), Lucky Dog (2015), Fear, Inc. (2016), the "Sordid Lives" sequel A Very Sordid Wedding (2017) and the romantic film Until We Meet Again (2022).
TV was even better to him with both delightful and sadly touching work on such series as Ally McBeal (1997), Boston Public (2000), Judging Amy (1999), Monk (2002), Reba (2001), Boston Legal (2004), Ugly Betty (2006), Desperate Housewives (2004), Raising Hope (2010), and American Horror Story (2011). The topper, however, was Leslie's dryly cynical, part-time role as mincing elitist Beverley Leslie, the tiny thorn in Megan Mullally's backside on the resoundingly popular sitcom Will & Grace (1998). Leslie went on to earn an Emmy trading wicked barbs with Mullally's Karen character, playing the hilarity up for all its worth. He also appeared in the cult TV movie The Last Sharknado: It's About Time (2018).- A native of Shueyville, Iowa, Taylor is a graduate of Northwestern University's School of Speech.
Robin Lord Taylor has appeared in several acclaimed television series, such as The Walking Dead (2010), Law & Order (1990), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) The Good Wife (2009) and Person of Interest (2011) He also had a recurring role as "Darrell, the 'Late Show' page with the fake British accent" on "The Late Show with David Letterman."
Taylor is perhaps best known for his roles as Abernathy Darwin Dunlap in the cult comedy Accepted (2006) (starring opposite Jonah Hill and Justin Long) and Oswald "The Penguin" Cobblepot in Gotham (2014). He also appeared in the hit independent horror film Would You Rather (2012) and starred opposite Bryan Cranston and Alice Eve in the independent film Cold Comes the Night (2013). He has also appeared in several other films that have been prominently featured on the festival circuit, most notably Another Earth (2011) which won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. He was featured in Spike Lee (Venice Film Festival), The House Is Burning (2006) (produced by Wim Wenders, Cannes Film Festival), Pitch (2006) (Cannes Film Festival) and Assassination of a High School President (2008) (Sundance).
Taylor co-created and co-starred in "Creation Nation," a live talk show with Billy Eichner, which they performed at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, as well as at the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival and in many venues throughout New York City and Los Angeles. He has also appeared onstage in "Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom," "The Shooting Stage," "Henry IV" and "No. 11 Blue and White," as well as numerous productions in Stephen Sondheim's Young Playwrights Festival at the Cherry Lane Theater.
He resides in New York City. - Actor
- Producer
- Location Management
David Yost was born on 7 January 1969 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always (2023), Power Rangers Cosmic Fury (2023) and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993).- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
Celebrity comedian ANT was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He is an actor, comedian , host, producer and writer. In July 1993, he legally changed his name to ANT from Anthony Steven Kalloniatis. The correct orthography is ANT, spelled in all caps.
Born to Greek immigrant parents (Lee and Maria - whom he talks about frequently in his stand-up routines), Ant was raised strict Greek Orthodox. As he entered adulthood he ventured away from strict Orthodoxy and studied many other religions including Taoism, Hinduism and even Scientology. ANT believes that he is just a spiritual being looking for answers.
ANT attended Londonderry High School and the University of New Hampshire where he was affectionately known as "what's your name again?" Inebriated at a bar one night, he got up on stage at a local talent contest and performed a crude stand-up routine for the first time. He lost. But a seed was planted and he knew comedy was his calling. College didn't seem to suit his growing fascination with stand-up comedy, and in 1986 he dropped out of college after only attending a single semester.
In 1993 he moved to Los Angeles and began performing comedy full time. It didn't take long for the networks to take notice of him and in 1994, starred in the Fox Television pilot, "Howe High." From there he went on to a co-starring role as Barry Wallenstein on the WB series, "Unhappily Ever After," (Created by Ron Leavitt of Married with Children).
Throughout his career, ANT has appeared on many series and specials including the remake of To Tell The Truth where he replaced Paula Poundstone as a regular celebrity panelist. Other shows include; Tosh.0, America's Next Top Model, The Insider, Kathy Griffin: My life on the D list, The Jamie Foxx Show, For your love, Son of a beach, Gene Simmons: Family Jewels, Sweet Valley High, Queer as Folk, Weekends at the DL, Nightstand, The Dennis Miller Show, But Can They Sing, Steve Harvey's Big Time, The Tyra Banks show, Comics Unleashed and many others.
His big opportunity came with NBC's Last Comic Standing. A weekly reality show featuring stand-up comedians competing to be crowned the funniest comic in America. Over 10,000 comedians tried out. ANT advanced all the way to the semi-finals in Las Vegas but did not make it into the house. The second season, he made it into the house and was 6th runner up out of hundreds of thousands of comedians. Then NBC ordered a third season of LCS, and the format was changed slightly. Season one would do battle against season two in LCS: The Battle of the Best. With ANT's hilarious help season (2) easily bested season one and went on to win every head to head challenge and ultimately the competition.
He used that forward momentum parlaying it into a hosting job on the VH1 series, Celebrity Fit Club. He has been the host of the hit series for 6 of its 7 unprecedented seasons (no other VH1 series has gone on to 7 seasons). That year he also released his hit live performance DVD entitled, "ANT: America's Ready".
In 1997, ANT moved out of his comfort zone, becoming a celebrity participant on the VH1 series, CelebraCadabra (magic with the stars). There he revealed a deep rooted fear of clowns. He was eliminated 2nd when dressed as a grocery store candy aisle; he was mauled by a rambunctious group of 2nd graders all vying for something sweet. After his departure from the series, the ratings tumbled and VH1 brought ANT back in subsequent episodes to appease angry fans.
Over his career, ANT has appeared on numerous occasions on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno (9 times), The Howard Stern Radio show, and garnered his own series on MTV Network's Logo Channel which bears his name: The U.S of ANT.
In features, he can be seen in Twin Falls, Idaho, I am Comic, Circuit, Angels Baby!, Another Gay Movie, National Lampoon's Totally Baked, The Underground Comedy Movie (with Michael Clarke Duncan), and Sister Mary.
He has 3 siblings, Andrea, Althea and Frank. In January of 2007 he signed on to be a Spokesman for the diet company Nutrisystem after losing 43 pounds on their program. ANT is developing several projects for television and he continues to tour with his stand-up comedy around the country. His blog, "The ANT colony" attracts millions of visitors each year and has enlightened millions more with it's unique mixture of spirituality and humor.- Producer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Ross Mathews was born on 24 September 1979 in Mount Vernon, Washington, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for RuPaul's Drag Race (2009), Days of Our Lives (1965) and RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2012).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jim Verraros was born on 8 February 1983 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is an actor, known for Eating Out (2004), Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds (2006) and Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild! (2008). He has been married to Bill Brennan since 6 September 2009.- Producer
- Actor
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Carson Lee Kressley was born on 11 November 1969 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA. Growing up, he was very interested in horses and owned his first pony (named Sparky) when he was five years old. Carson still loves horses and is now a world champion equestrian. In 1987, he graduated high school and went on to study at Gettysburg College from which he graduated in 1991 (magna cum laude and phi beta kappa) with degrees in Finance and Fine Arts. Following his college graduation, Carson worked as a stylist for Ralph Lauren for many years before auditioning for Queer Eye (2003).
In 2004, after Carson's first year with "Queer Eye", the show won an Emmy for "outstanding reality program". Post "Queer Eye" Carson appeared as the critically acclaimed host of "How to Look Good Naked" and a fan favorite contestant on Dancing with the Stars 13th season. In April 2012 Shop NBC launched Carson's collection of affordable glamour wear, "Love, Carson".- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Robert Reed was an American actor, mostly known for television roles. His most famous role was that of pater familias Michael Paul "Mike" Brady in the popular sitcom "The Brady Bunch" (1969-1979). He returned to this role in several of the sitcom's sequels and spin-offs.
Reed was born under the name "John Robert Rietz Jr. " in 1932. His birthplace was Highland Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. His parents were government worker John Robert Rietz Sr. and homemaker Helen Teaverbaugh. The couple were childhood sweethearts and married each other at age 18. Reed was their only child.
Due to his father's career transfers, Reed moved often as a child. He spend part of his childhood in Navasota, Texas and Shawnee, Oklahoma. The senior Reitz eventually retired from his government positions, and started a new life as a cattle farmer in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The Reitz family moved to a farm there.
As a youth, Reed joined the 4-H agricultural club, and demonstrated calves in agricultural shows. He was already fascinated with acting and music, and started performing as a theatrical and singer before he graduated high school. He had a side career as a radio announcer for local radio stations, and also helped produce radio dramas.
Reed graduated from Muskogeee's Central High School in 1950. He soon enrolled at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied drama. His mentor was acting coach Alvina Krause (1893-1981). During his university years, Reed played the leading role in 8 different plays. Following his graduation, Reed studied abroad at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
With the completion of his studies, Reed started a career as a theatrical actor. He appeared in summer stock productions in Pennsylvania, and joined the off-Broadway theatre group "The Shakespearewrights" which (as their name suggested) specialized in Shakespearean plays. Reed had leading roles in the group's productions of "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". He left the group to join the Chicago-based Studebaker Theatre company.
By the late 1950s, Reed remained a relatively obscure theatrical actor. He moved to Los Angeles in hope of finding higher-profile roles in film or television. In 1959, Reed made his television debut in a guest star role in the sitcom "Father Knows Best". He next had guest star roles in the science fiction series "Men into Space" (1959-1960), and the Western series "Lawman" (1958-1962). His film debut was the horror film "Bloodlust!" (1961), playing the human prey of a sadistic hunter. The film was a loose adaptation of the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" (1924) by Richard Connell (1893-1949).
Reed had his first major role in television as lawyer Kenneth Preston in the courtroom drama series "The Defenders" (1961-1965). Reed played the son and junior partner of lawyer Lawrence Preston (played by E. G. Marshall), in a series featuring a father-son legal team. The series lasted for 132 episodes, and was a ratings hit. The series earned a total of 22 Primetime Emmy Award nominations during its run.
Following the cancellation of "The Defenders", Reed was mostly reduced to supporting roles in television. He appeared in (among others) "Family Affair"," Ironside", "The Mod Squad", and "Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre". In 1968, Reed signed a contract to play a lead role in the television adaptation of the play "Barefoot in the Park" (1963) by Neil Simon. When it was decided that the television adaptation would feature a mostly African-American cast, Reed was offered a leading role in "The Brady Bunch" as a consolation prize.
"The Brady Bunch" lasted for 117 episodes, though it never was among the highest-rated shows on television. It found a larger audience in syndication after its cancellation, and has remained a cult favorite. Reed was not happy with the often silly scripts of the sitcom, and had regular arguments about suggested re-writes with the show's producer Sherwood Schwartz (1916-2011). On the other hand, Reed formed long-lasting friendships with most members of the series' main cast.
Reed refused to appear in the fifth season finale of "The Brady Bunch", because he felt its script was unacceptable. He was fired from the series, and the production team considered replacing him with a new actor for the series' sixth season. However, the fifth season turned out to be the final one, with network ABC deciding to cancel the series.
While "The Brady Bunch" was still ongoing, Reed had the recurring role of Lt. Adam Tobias in the detective series "Mannix". He played the role for 22 episodes, running from 1968 to 1975. With the series' cancellation in 1975, Reed was left with no regular roles for the first time since the late 1960s.
Reed's next notable role was that of transgender Dr. Pat Caddison in the two-part episode "The Fourth Sex" (1975) of the medical drama Medical Center". The role was critically well-received, and Reed was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award, the "Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series". The award was instead won by rival actor Ed Asner (1929-).
Reed had a regular role as Teddy Boylan in the dramatic miniseries "Rich Man, Poor Man" (1976), and a prominent guest appearance as Dr. William Reynolds in the miniseries "Roots" (1977). For the first role, Reed was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. The Award was instead won by rival actor Anthony Zerbe (1936-). For the second role, Reed was nominated again for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. The award was instead again won by rival actor Ed Asner.
Reed reunited with his friends from the Brady Bunch in the sequel series "The Brady Bunch Hour" (1976-1977), which only lasted for 9 episodes. He next played Mike Brady in the television film "The Brady Girls Get Married" (1981), the television film "A Very Brady Christmas" (1988), and the short-lived sequel series "The Bradys" (1990). The attempts to turn the popular sitcom into a dramatic series were not met with success.
Reed had another lead role in television as Dr. Adam Rose on the medical drama "Nurse" (1981-1982). The series only lasted for 25 episodes. Otherwise, Reed was reduced to mostly playing guest star roles again. His last guest star role appeared in 1992 episode of the crime drama "Jake and the Fatman".
In November 1991, Reed was diagnosed with colon cancer. As his health deteriorated, Reed increasingly isolated himself. He only allowed visits from his daughter Karen Rietz and close friend Anne Haney (1934-2001). In May 1992, he died at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California. He was 59-years-old. He was buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, Illinois.
Following his death, his death certificate revealed that Reed was HIV positive. While he was not suffering from AIDS, doctors were unable to determine whether HIV contributed to the deterioration of his health and his eventual death. How and when Reed contracted HIV remains unknown. Reed had managed to avoid having information about his personal life leaking to the press during his career, and also avoided sharing details about it even with his friends.
Reed is still fondly remembered for his television work, while his theatrical career has largely faded from memory.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Franklyn Seales was a stage and television actor best remembered for playing the finicky business manager Dexter Stuffins on the NBC sit-com "Silver Spoons." He also appeared in films, most notably as the real-life cop killer in "The Onion Field."
One of eight children, Seales was born in 1952 on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. In 1960, Seales' family emigrated to the United States, where they settled in New York City.
A painter since age six, Seales planned to study art at Pratt Institute. But then John Houseman noticed Seales when he was helping a friend to audition by performing the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet." Signed on the spot to a full scholarship at Juilliard, Seales studied acting as a member of Houseman's Acting Company, during the early 1970s.
Seales' first big break was the PBS broadcast of the television drama The Trial of the Moke (1978). He portrayed Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the first black graduate of West Point.
Seales' film debut was in the true-crime drama The Onion Field (1979). He portrayed a weak, gullible ex-con who's just out of jail when a fast-talking killer, played by James Woods, talks him into a senseless crime that results in the murder of a police officer.
From 1983 to 1987, Seales played the character for which he was best remembered, the finicky business manager Dexter Stuffins on the NBC situation-comedy Silver Spoons (1982), which also starred John Houseman as stoic Grandpa Stratton.
Toward the end of his life, Seales worked mainly in the non-profit Equity-waver theatre on the Westside of Los Angeles. He appeared in plays ranging from the theater of the absurd to Shakespeare. Los Angeles Times critic Lawrence Christon called Seales "one of America's most compelling stage actors."
As a member of the all-star L.A. Theatre Works, Seales was one of a company of 36 actors who contributed $6,000 each for the pleasure of performing classic plays together on the radio. Some of the Theater Works other members were James Earl Jones, Ted Danson, Richard Dreyfuss, Bonnie Bedelia, Stacy Keach, Michael York, and Ed Asner.
Seales last appeared in "Nothing Sacred," at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in the fall of 1988. A comedic adaptation of Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons," it was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Seales appeared as Uncle Havel, an aristocratic fop and former military man. For his characterization, Seales relied on his recollections of the English colonels and majors of his native St. Vincent, when it was still a British colony, "with their little sticks and stiff mustaches."
Although he was acclaimed for his versatility, Seales admitted that being a light-skinned black man had limited the roles that were available to him.
Franklyn Seales died on Monday, May 14, 1990 from complications from AIDS at his family's home in Brooklyn, New York. He had been too ill to work for several months. In its obituary, the Los Angeles Times said that "Seales as an actor came to be seen as a link between the tradition of black Africa and the sophistication of classical Anglo drama."
He was survived by his mother, three brothers and three sisters. A memorial service was planned at Juilliard.- Actor
- Producer
Chad Allen was born on 5 June 1974 in Cerritos, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993), TerrorVision (1986) and Happy New Year, Charlie Brown (1986).- Actor
- Soundtrack
A graduate of NYC's Professional Performing Arts High School, Iacono is best known for his portrayal of the title character on MTV's, "The Hard Times of RJ Berger."
Iacono was first featured on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," after she discovered his unique talents for impersonating Frank Sinatra and Ethel Merman, at age 8.
Starting out as child actor in the NYC theater scene, Paul has appeared in over 100 theatrical productions, including Noël Coward's "Sail Away" at Carnegie Hall with Elaine Stritch and Marian Seldes, "Mame" opposite Christine Ebersole at the Papermill Play House and John Guare's "Landscape of the Body" at Signature Theater with Lili Taylor and Sherie Rene Scott.
On the big screen, Paul starred in MGM's remake of "Fame," "No God, No Master" with David Strathairn and Darren Stein's teen comedy, "G.B.F." Upcoming films include Drew Barrymore's, "Animal," "Rhymes with Banana" with Zosia Mamet and Judith Light, and "Unreachable By Conventional Means," with Alexandra Daddario and Tovah Feldshuh.
As a creator, Paul wrote and produced the NY play, "Prince/Elizabeth," and is in development on his second pilot, "GIF'ted."
Paul is a Leukemia survivor, having been diagnosed in 1997. He works closely with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, helping raise hope and awareness for the disease.
Iacono is openly gay and a major LGBTQ activist, having publicly come out in Michael Musto's Village Voice Column in April 2012. He was named one of OUT Magazine's 100 most influential gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people for 2013.