Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-50 of 4,175
- Actress
- Soundtrack
The quintessential jet-set Euro starlet, Ursula Andress was born in the Swiss canton of Berne on March 19, 1936, one of six children in a strict German Protestant family. Although often seeming icily aloof, a restless streak early demonstrated itself in her personality, and she had an impetuous desire to explore the world outside Switzerland. (For instance, she was tracked down by Interpol for running away from boarding school at 17 years old.) The stunning young woman found work as an art model in Rome and did walk-on parts in three quickie Italian pictures before coming to Hollywood in 1955 and getting nowhere professionally; a four-month fling with rising star James Dean brought her good publicity but not much else. That same year, still just 19, she met and had an affair with fading matinée idol John Derek, who left his wife Pati Behrs and two kids for Ursula even though she spoke almost no English at the time. In 1957 they eloped to Las Vegas, and the new bride put her acting aspirations on hold for a few years thereafter.
1962 saw the relatively unknown Swiss beauty back on the set, playing opposite Sean Connery in the first movie version of Ian Fleming's fanciful "James Bond" espionage novels, Dr. No (1962). Andress' role as bikini-clad Honey Ryder was somewhat brief, and her Swiss/German accent so thick that her entire performance had to be dubbed by a voiceover artist. Nevertheless, her striking looks and smoldering screen presence made a strong impression on moviegoers, immediately establishing her as one of the most desired women in the world and as an ornament to put alongside some of the most bankable talent of the era, such as Elvis Presley in Fun in Acapulco (1963) and Dean Martin in 4 for Texas (1963). In 1965, she was one of several European starlets to co-star in What's New Pussycat (1965) -- a film that perhaps sums up mid-'60s pop culture better than any other -- written by Woody Allen, starring Allen and Peter Sellers, with music by Burt Bacharach, a title song performed by Tom Jones and much on-screen sexual romping.
Andress appeared in many more racy-for-their time movies in both the United States and Europe, including The 10th Victim (1965), in which she wore a famously ballistic bra, and The Blue Max (1966), where she was aptly cast as the sultry, insatiable wife of an aristocratic World War I German general. She was also featured in Casino Royale (1967), a satirical foray into the world of James Bond, and gave a sparkling performance in the T&A-filled crime caper Perfect Friday (1970). Roles as a prostitute kidnapped by outlaws in Red Sun (1971), a stewardess living on the edge in Loaded Guns (1975), and a bombshell nurse hired to titillate a doddering millionaire to death in The Sensuous Nurse (1975) all provided plenty of excuses to throw her clothes to the wind. In Slave of the Cannibal God (1978), she was notoriously stripped and slathered in orange paint by a pair of nubiles. Then she took on the sophisticated role of Louise de la Valliere, slinky, conspiratorial mistress of King Louis XIV (Beau Bridges) in The Fifth Musketeer (1979).
As for her personal life, Andress separated from Derek in 1964 and got divorced two years later, after falling in love with French superstar Jean-Paul Belmondo on the Malaysian set of Up to His Ears (1965). (Ron Ely, John Richardson and Marcello Mastroianni kept her company during interim.) The relationship with Belmondo hit a wall in 1972, and she was next attached to her leading man from Stateline Motel (1973), Italian heartthrob Fabio Testi. When that didn't work out, Andress jumped into the dating pool, sporadically involved with a host of Lotharios including (but by no means limited to) Dennis Hopper, Franco Nero, John DeLorean and Ryan O'Neal. In 1979, she began what would be a long-term romance with Harry Hamlin, her handsome young co-star from Clash of the Titans (1981) (in which she was cast, predictably, as "Aphrodite"). While subsequently traveling in India, Andress' belly began to swell out of her clothing, and she felt very nauseous. What at first seemed a severe case of "Delhi Belly" turned out to be pregnancy, her first and only, at age 43. Hamlin encouraged her to have the baby, and on May 19, 1980, the international sex symbol gave birth to a boy named Dimitri Hamlin amid much hoopla.
After the birth of her son, Andress scaled back her career, which now focused on slight European productions, as she was raising Dimitri in Italy. This meant turning down a big-budget Mel Brooks film in lieu of Red Bells (1982) (starring old flame Nero). Occasional television stints on the soap opera Falcon Crest (1981) and critically lauded miniseries Peter the Great (1986) helped maintain her visibility as an actress. Dumped by Hamlin in 1983, she started seeing Fausto Fagone, a Sicilian student three decades her junior, in 1986. In 1991, she met a new man when things dwindled with Fagone -- karate master Jeff Speakman. Since the breakup of that relationship, her love life has gone undocumented. She last worked on a film in 2005. Apparently retired from acting, Ursula makes the rounds of charity events and pops up on foreign talk shows every now and then. She divides her time between family in Switzerland, friends in Virginia and Spain, and her properties in Rome and L.A.- Producer
- Actor
- Director
Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Redford, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of drunkenness. However, as a high school student, he had displayed a certain aptitude as a caricaturist and this contributed to his decision to seriously study art. Redford then enjoyed a year-long sojourn travelling around Europe, hitchhiking, living in youth hostels and generally living the painter's life. Eventually, he came to realise that his work was unoriginal and not very good. He therefore returned to New York to pursue studies in theatrical design at the Pratt Institute of Art. He subsequently enrolled in acting classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
By the end of 1960, he was on Broadway in a series of plays including Barefoot in the Park, which launched him to fame. TV and stage experience coupled with all-American good looks led to movies and a breakthrough role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), when the actor was 33. The Way We Were (1973) and The Sting (1973), both in 1973, made Redford No. 1 at the box office for the next three years. Redford used his clout to advance environmental causes and his riches to acquire Utah property, which he transformed into a ranch and the Sundance ski resort. In 1980, he established the Sundance Institute for aspiring filmmakers. Its annual film festival has become one of the world's most influential. Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), won him the Academy Award for Best Director in 1981. He waited eight years before getting behind the camera again, this time for the screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest, The Milagro Beanfield War (1988). He scored with critics and fans in 1992 with the Brad Pitt film A River Runs Through It (1992), and again, in 1994, with Quiz Show (1994), which earned him yet another Best Director nomination.
Redford married Lola Van Wagenen on August 9, 1958; they divorced in 1985 after having four children, one of which died of sudden infant death syndrome. Daughter Shauna Redford, born November 15, 1960, is a painter who married Eric Schlosser on October 5, 1985, in Provo, Utah; her first child, born in January 1991, made Redford a grandfather. Son James Redford, a screenwriter, was born May 5, 1962. Daughter Amy Redford, an actress, was born October 22, 1970. Redford has a half-brother named William, who worked in medical research.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Enduring, strong-featured, and genial star of US cinema, Burt Reynolds started off in T.V. westerns in the 1960s and then carved his name into 1970s/1980s popular culture, as a sex symbol (posing nearly naked for "Cosmopolitan" magazine), and on-screen as both a rugged action figure and then as a wisecracking, Southern type of "good ol' boy."
Burton Leon Reynolds was born in Lansing, Michigan. He was the son of Harriette Fernette "Fern" (Miller) and Burton Milo Reynolds, who was in the army. After World War II, his family moved to Riviera Beach, Florida, where his father was chief of police, and where Burt excelled as an athlete and played with Florida State University. He became an All Star Southern Conference halfback (and was earmarked by the Baltimore Colts) before a knee injury and a car accident ended his football career. Midway through college he dropped out and headed to New York with aspirations of becoming an actor. There he worked in restaurants and clubs while pulling the odd TV spot or theatre role.
He was spotted in a New York City production of "Mister Roberts," signed to a TV contract, and eventually had recurring roles in such shows as Gunsmoke (1955), Riverboat (1959) and his own series, Hawk (1966).
Reynolds continued to appear in undemanding western roles, often playing a character of half Native American descent, in films such as Navajo Joe (1966), 100 Rifles (1969) and Sam Whiskey (1969). However, it was his tough-guy performance as macho Lewis Medlock in the John Boorman backwoods nightmare Deliverance (1972) that really stamped him as a bona-fide star. Reynolds' popularity continued to soar with his appearance as a no-nonsense private investigator in Shamus (1973) and in the Woody Allen comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972). Building further on his image as a Southern boy who outsmarts the local lawmen, Reynolds packed fans into theaters to see him in White Lightning (1973), The Longest Yard (1974), W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975) and Gator (1976).
At this time, ex-stuntman and longtime Reynolds buddy Hal Needham came to him with a "road film" script. It turned out to be the incredibly popular Smokey and the Bandit (1977) with Sally Field and Jerry Reed, which took in over $100 million at the box office. That film's success was followed by Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983). Reynolds also appeared alongside Kris Kristofferson in the hit football film Semi-Tough (1977), with friend Dom DeLuise in the black comedy The End (1978) (which Reynolds directed), in the stunt-laden buddy film Hooper (1978) and then in the self-indulgent, star-packed road race flick The Cannonball Run (1981).
The early 1980s started off well with a strong performance in the violent police film Sharky's Machine (1981), which he also directed, and he starred with Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and with fellow macho superstar Clint Eastwood in the coolly received City Heat (1984). However, other projects such as Stroker Ace (1983), Stick (1985) and Paternity (1981) failed to catch fire with fans and Reynolds quickly found himself falling out of popularity with movie audiences. In the late 1980s he appeared in only a handful of films, mostly below average, before television came to the rescue and he shone again in two very popular TV shows, B.L. Stryker (1989) and Evening Shade (1990), for which he won an Emmy. In 1988, Burt and his then-wife, actress Loni Anderson, had a son, Quinton A. Reynolds (aka Quinton Anderson Reynolds), whom they adopted.
He was back on screen, but still the roles weren't grabbing the public's attention, until his terrific performance as a drunken politician in the otherwise woeful Striptease (1996) and then another tremendous showing as a charming, porn director in Boogie Nights (1997), which scored him a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Like the phoenix from the ashes, Reynolds resurrected his popularity and, in the process, gathered a new generation of young fans, many of whom had been unfamiliar with his 1970s film roles. He then put in entertaining work in Pups (1999), Mystery, Alaska (1999), Driven (2001) and Time of the Wolf (2002). Definitely one of Hollywood's most resilient stars, Reynolds continually surprised all with his ability to weather both personal and career hurdles and his almost 60 years in front of the cameras were testament to his staying ability, his acting talent and his appeal to film audiences.
Burt Reynolds died of cardiac arrest on September 6, 2018, in Jupiter, Florida, U.S. He was eighty two.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern's tremendous career is made up of playing both modern day heroes and legendary villains. Through decades of lauded performances, Dern has acquired the reputation of being one of the most talented and prolific actors of his generation.
Dern currently appears opposite Kristen Wiig, Allison Janney and his daughter Laura in Apple+ TV's acclaimed comedy series "Palm Royale." He also received critical praise for the last season of the Amazon series "Goliath" opposite Oscar winners Billy Bob Thornton and JK Simmons.
Dern appeared as real-life rancher George Spahn in Quentin Tarantino's 10-time Academy Award nominated "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." The film also won the Golden Globes & Critics Choice Awards for Best Picture, among others. He also co-starred in the #1 independent film of 2019, "The Peanut Butter Falcon" and he earned rave reviews for Focus Features' "The Mustang." He has recently appeared in several recent independent film projects including "Reminisce," "The Accidental Texan," "Remember Me," "The Artist's Wife," "Emperor," "Badland," "Death in Texas," "Last Call," and "The Gateway."
In 2018, he starred in two high profile independent films - as Joe Kennedy in "Chappaquiddick" and opposite Matthew McConaughey in Sony's "White Boy Rick." In 2017, he appeared with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford in the Netflix film "Our Souls at Night."
On the television side in 2019 - he memorably guested on Showtime's comedy "Black Monday" and was seen in the Stephen King series "Mr. Mercedes" for the AT&T AUDIENCE Network.
In 2015, Dern reteamed with his "Django Unchained" director Quentin Tarantino in the ambitious & critically-acclaimed "The Hateful Eight." In 2013, Dern earned his second Academy Award nomination for his heralded role in Alexander Payne's "Nebraska." That role also garnered him a Best Actor Award from the Cannes Film Festival and the National Board of Review. He was also nominated for a BAFTA, Golden
Globe, Independent Spirit Award, Broadcast Film Critics Association Award and Screen Actors Guild Award.
Dern was also nominated for an Emmy in 2011 for his portrayal of polygamist patriarch Frank Harlow in HBO's hit drama "Big Love."
A celebrated stage actor, Dern was trained by famed director Elia Kazan at the legendary The Actor's Studio and made his film debut in Kazan's "Wild River" in 1960. In the 60's, Dern also found success as a distinguished television actor. He appeared regularly in contemporary Western TV series, as well as on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." Mr. Hitchcock was such a fan of Dern's that he cast him in "Marnie" and "Family Plot" (Hitchcock's final film).
Also during the 60's, Dern went on to work with director Roger Corman and appeared in several of his classic and decade defining films including "Wild Angels." He also received critical success during that time for films such as "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and "Drive, He Said." Dern goes down in history for his role as Long Hair in "The Cowboys," in which he became the only man ever to kill John Wayne on screen.
Dern went on to star in such classic films like "The King of Marvin Gardens" with Jack Nicholson and Ellen Burstyn as well as playing Tom Buchanan in "The Great Gatsby" (for which he received a Golden Globe nomination). It was his brilliant and powerful performance in Hal Ashby's "Coming Home" that earned him both an Academy Award and Golden Globe nomination.
Dern has starred in over 100 films in his career, including: "Monster," "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte," "Silent Running," "Smile," "Middle Age Crazy," "That Championship Season," "Tattoo," "The 'Burbs," "The Haunting," "All the Pretty Horses," "Masked and Anonymous," "Down in the Valley," "Astronaut Farmer," "The Cake Eaters," "Black Sunday," "After Dark, My Sweet," "Madison," "Diggstown," "Twixt" and "Last Man Standing."
Dern has received several Lifetime Achievement Awards from various film festivals. In 2010, Dern received the prestigious Hollywood Walk of Fame star along with his ex-wife Diane Ladd & daughter Laura Dern, the only family in history to receive their Stars in one ceremony.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Michael Landon was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz, on Saturday, October 31st, 1936, in
Forest Hills, Queens, New York. In 1941, he and his family moved to
Collingswood, New Jersey.
When Eugene was in high school, he participated -- and did very well --
in track and field, especially javelin throwing, and his athletic
skills earned him a scholarship to USC. However, an accident injured
his arm, ending his athletic career -- and his term at USC -- and he
worked a number of odd jobs and small roles to make ends meet and
decided that acting was for him. However, he thought that his real name
was not a suitable one for an aspiring actor, and so "Michael Landon"
was born.
Two of his first big roles were as Tony Rivers in
I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
and as Tom Dooley in the western
The Legend of Tom Dooley (1959).
That same year he was approached by producer
David Dortort to star in a pilot called
The Restless Gun (1957),
which was renamed when the series was picked up to
Bonanza (1959). Landon played Little
Joe Cartwright, the youngest of the three Cartwright brothers, a cocky
and somewhat rebellious youth nevertheless had a way with the ladies.
For 14 years, Landon became the heart and soul of the show, endearing
himself to both younger and older viewers, and he became a household
name during the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1968, after almost ten years of playing Little Joe, he wanted an
opportunity to direct and write some episodes of the show. After the
season finale in 1972, Dan Blocker, who
played his older brother Hoss and was also a close friend, died from a
blood clot in his lung, after gall bladder surgery, but Michael decided
to go back to work, revisiting his own character in a two-part episode
called "Forever."
Bonanza (1959) was finally canceled
in early 1973, after 14 years and 430 episodes. Michael didn't have to
wait long until he landed another successful role that most TV
audiences of the 1970s would thoroughly enjoy, his second TV western,
for NBC,
Little House on the Prairie (1974).
That show was based on a popular book written by
Laura Ingalls Wilder, and he played
enduring patriarch and farmer Charles Ingalls. Unlike
Bonanza (1959), where he was mostly
just a "hired gun," on this show he served as the producer, writer,
director, and executive producer. By the end of its eighth season in
1982, Landon decided to step down from his role on "Little House" as he
saw his TV children grown up and moved out of their father's house, and
a year later, the show was canceled. After 14 years on
Bonanza (1959) and 8 years on
Little House on the Prairie (1974),
it was about time to focus on something else, and once again, he didn't
have to wait too long before
Highway to Heaven (1984)
came along. Unlike the western shows that he did for 23 years, this NBC
fantasy/drama show focused on Jonathan Smith, an angel whose job was to
save peoples' lives and work for God, his boss.
Victor French played ex-cop Mark Gordon,
who turned down a fortune but had redeemed himself by meeting Jonathan.
By the end of the fifth season in 1989, French was diagnosed with lung
cancer and died in June of that same year. Landon was devastated by the
loss and pulled the plug on
Highway to Heaven (1984).
In early 1991, after 35 years of working on NBC, he was axed by the
network, so he moved to CBS to star in the pilot of a two-hour movie,
Us (1991), in which he played Jeff
Hayes, a man freed from prison by new evidence after 18 years
wrongfully spent inside. This was going to be another one of Landon's
shows but, in April 1991, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He
later appeared on
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962)
to talk about his battle with the disease, and many people in the
audience were affected by the courage and energy he showed.
Unfortunately, he was already terminally ill by that time, and on Monday, July
1st, 1991, after a three-month battle, he finally succumbed to the
disease. His family, his colleagues, and his children were all by his
side. His life-time: Saturday, October 31st, 1936 to Monday, July 1st, 1991, was 19,966 days, equaling 2,852 weeks & 2 days.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Multi-talented and unconventional actor/director regarded by many as one of the true "enfant terribles" of Hollywood who led an amazing cinematic career for more than five decades, Dennis Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas. The young Hopper expressed interest in acting from a young age and first appeared in a slew of 1950s television shows, including Medic (1954), Cheyenne (1955) and Sugarfoot (1957). His first film role was in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), quickly followed by Giant (1956) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Hopper actually became good friends with James Dean and was shattered when Dean was killed in a car crash in September 1955.
Hopper portrayed a young Napoléon Bonaparte (!) in the star-spangled The Story of Mankind (1957) and regularly appeared on screen throughout the 1960s, often in rather undemanding parts, usually as a villain in westerns such as True Grit (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968). However, in early 1969, Hopper, fellow actor Peter Fonda and writer Terry Southern, wrote a counterculture road movie script and managed to scrape together $400,000 in financial backing. Hopper directed the low-budget film, titled Easy Rider (1969), starring Fonda, Hopper and a young Jack Nicholson. The film was a phenomenal box-office success, appealing to the anti-establishment youth culture of the times. It changed the Hollywood landscape almost overnight and major studios all jumped onto the anti-establishment bandwagon, pumping out low-budget films about rebellious hippies, bikers, draft dodgers and pot smokers. However, Hopper's next directorial effort, The Last Movie (1971), was a critical and financial failure, and he has admitted that during the 1970s he was seriously abusing various substances, both legal and illegal, which led to a downturn in the quality of his work. He appeared in a sparse collection of European-produced films over the next eight years, before cropping up in a memorable performance as a pot-smoking photographer alongside Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen in Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now (1979). He also received acclaim for his work in both acting and direction for Out of the Blue (1980).
With these two notable efforts, the beginning of the 1980s saw a renaissance of interest by Hollywood in the talents of Dennis Hopper and exorcising the demons of drugs and alcohol via a rehabilitation program meant a return to invigorating and provoking performances. He was superb in Rumble Fish (1983), co-starred in the tepid spy thriller The Osterman Weekend (1983), played a groovy school teacher in My Science Project (1985), was a despicable and deranged drug dealer in River's Edge (1986) and, most memorably, electrified audiences as foul-mouthed Frank Booth in the eerie and erotic David Lynch film Blue Velvet (1986). Interestingly, the offbeat Hopper was selected in the early 1980s to provide the voice of "The StoryTeller" in the animated series of "Rabbit Ears" children's films based upon the works of Hans Christian Andersen!
Hopper returned to film direction in the late 1980s and was at the helm of the controversial gang film Colors (1988), which was well received by both critics and audiences. He was back in front of the cameras for roles in Super Mario Bros. (1993), got on the wrong side of gangster Christopher Walken in True Romance (1993), led police officer Keanu Reeves and bus passenger Sandra Bullock on a deadly ride in Speed (1994) and challenged gill-man Kevin Costner for world supremacy in Waterworld (1995). The enigmatic Hopper continued to remain busy through the 1990s and into the new century with performances in All the Way (2003), The Keeper (2004) and Land of the Dead (2005).
As well as his acting/directing talents, Hopper was a skilled photographer and painter, having had his works displayed in galleries in both the United States and overseas. He was additionally a dedicated and knowledgeable collector of modern art and had one of the most extensive collections in the United States. Dennis died of prostate cancer on May 29, 2010, less than two weeks after his 74th birthday.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
David Carradine was born in Hollywood, California, the eldest son of
legendary character actor John Carradine,
and his wife, Ardanelle Abigail (McCool). He was a member of an acting
family that included brothers
Keith Carradine and
Robert Carradine as well as his
daughters Calista Carradine and
Kansas Carradine, and nieces
Ever Carradine and
Martha Plimpton.
He was born in Hollywood and educated at San Francisco State College,
where he studied music theory and composition. It was while writing
music for the Drama Department's annual revues that he discovered his
own passion for the stage, joining a Shakespearean repertory company
and learning his craft on his feet. After a two-year stint in the army,
he found work in New York as a commercial artist and later found fame
on Broadway in "The Deputy" and "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" opposite
Christopher Plummer. With
that experience he returned to Hollywood, landing the lead in the
short-lived TV series Shane (1966)
before being tapped to star opposite
Barbara Hershey in
Martin Scorsese's first Hollywood film,
Boxcar Bertha (1972). The iconic
Kung Fu (1972) followed, catapulting
Carradine to super-stardom for the next three years, until he left the
series to pursue his film career.
That career included more than 100 feature films, a couple of dozen
television movies, a whole range of theater on and off Broadway and
another hit series,
Kung Fu: A Legend Reborn (1992).
Carradine received the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Film
Review as well as a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of
Woody Guthrie in
Hal Ashby's
Bound for Glory (1976), and he
won critical acclaim for his work as Cole Younger in
The Long Riders (1980). "Kung Fu"
also received seven Emmy nominations in its first season, including one
for Carradine as Best Actor. In addition, he won the People's Prize at
the Cannes Film Festival's "Director's Fortnight" for his work on
Americana (1981), and a second Golden
Globe nomination for his supporting role in
North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985). Among
his other notable film credits were
Gray Lady Down (1978),
Mean Streets (1973),
Bird on a Wire (1990),
The Long Goodbye (1973),
The Serpent's Egg (1977) and
Circle of Iron (1978). He returned
to the screen in what could be his greatest performance, playing the
title role in Quentin Tarantino's
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), for
which he received his fourth Golden Globe nomination. He also continued
his devotion to music, and recorded some 60 tracks in various musical
genres and sang in several movies. He made his home in Los Angeles with
his fifth wife Annie, her four children and their two dogs.
Found dead in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 3, 2009, aged 72.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Jill Ireland was a British-American actress best known for her appearance as "Leila Kalomi", the only woman Mr. Spock ever loved (in the Star Trek (1966) episode, This Side of Paradise (1967)) and for her many supporting roles in the movies of Charles Bronson. She is also known for her battle with breast cancer, having written two books on her fight with the disease and serving as a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society.
Jill Dorothy Ireland was born in London on April 24, 1936, to wine merchant Jack Ireland and his wife Dorothy, who were fated to outlive their daughter. Young Jill started her entertainment career at age 16 as a dancer, and made her screen debut in 1955, in Michael Powell's Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955). On May 11, 1957, she married actor David McCallum, whom she met on the set of the Stanley Baker action picture Hell Drivers (1957). In the mid-'60s, they moved to the United States so McCallum could star as agent "Ilya Kuryakin" in the TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). She got steady work on American television and would co-star with her husband in five episode of the series in 1964, 1965 and 1967.
Ireland separated from McCallum, with whom she had two biological sons and one adopted son, in June 1965. He filed for divorce in August 1966, and it was finalized in February 1967. On October 5, 1968, she married Charles Bronson, who was 15 years her senior and still several years away from coming into his own as a leading man. They had first met when McCallum introduced them on the set of The Great Escape (1963). With Bronson, she had two children, a daughter born to the couple in 1971, and an adopted daughter. They first co-starred together in the 1970 French movie Rider on the Rain (1970), which made Bronson a major star in Europe (she had first played an uncredited bit part in his movie London Affair (1970), released that same year). They starred in 13 more pictures over the next 17 years, a period during which Bronson and Ireland rivaled Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke as the most prolific screen couple. During her marriage to Bronson, Ireland appeared in only one TV episode, one TV movie and one theatrical picture that didn't star her husband.
She was diagnosed with cancer in her right breast in 1984 and underwent a mastectomy. She wrote about her battle and became an advocate for the American Cancer Society, which led to the organization giving her its Courage Award. Ireland was presented with the award by President Ronald Reagan. Tragically, she lost her battle with the disease after it metastasized and died at her home in Malibu, California, on May 18, 1990, aged only 54. She was survived by her husband, children, stepchildren, parents, brother, and extended family.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Hector Elizondo was born in New York City, New York, where he was raised on the Upper West Side
of Manhattan. He is the son of Carmen Medina Reyes and Martín Echevarría
Elizondo. Hector is of Basque and Puerto Rican descent, and "Elizondo" means "at
the foot of the church" in Basque. His lifestyle in his days before acting
was as diverse as the roles he plays today. He was a conga player with
a Latin band, a classical guitarist and singer, a weightlifting coach,
a ballet dancer and a manager of a bodybuilding gym. In his teens, he
played basketball and baseball, and was scouted by the New York Giants
and Pittsburgh Pirates farm teams. After a knee injury ended his dance
career, he switched to drama. Since then, he has frequently appeared on
Broadway, most notably with
George C. Scott in
Arthur Penn's production of "Sly
Fox" for which he received a Drama Desk nomination and for his role as
"God" in "Steambath", which won him an Obie Award. Other theatre
credits include; "The Prisoner of Second Avenue"; "The Great White
Hope"; "Dance of Death" with
Robert Shaw and "The Rose Tattoo"
opposite Cicely Tyson. Countless starring
roles in television include:
Foley Square (1985);
Medal of Honor Rag (1982);
Casablanca (1983) (in which he
recreated the Claude Rains role of police
chief "Capt. Renault");
Freebie and the Bean (1974);
Popi (1975) and as
Sophia Loren's husband in the CBS special
Courage (1986). Guest
appearances include: Kojak (1973);
Kojak: Ariana (1989);
A Case of Immunity (1975);
Baretta (1975);
All in the Family (1971);
The Rockford Files (1974)
and Bret Maverick (1981). In
addition, he also directed
a.k.a. Pablo (1984), the first
show to utilize seven cameras instead of the usual four. On the big
screen, he has been seen in, among others,
American Gigolo (1980);
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974);
Cuba (1979);
Valdez Is Coming (1971) and in
four films directed by Garry Marshall:
Young Doctors in Love (1982);
The Flamingo Kid (1984);
Nothing in Common (1986) and
Overboard (1987). Elizondo starred with
Dan Aykroyd and
Michelle Pfeiffer in PBS'
Tales from the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson (1987)
(based on a collection of
John O'Hara stories) and made his
debut as a stage director with a production of "Villa!" starring
Julio Medina. In addition, he
performed in the 50th anniversary production of "War of the Worlds"
co-starring Jason Robards and the TV-movie
Addicted to His Love (1988)
with Barry Bostwick.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
The son of a Lancashire bookmaker, Albert Finney came to motion pictures via the theatre. In 1956, he won a scholarship to RADA where his fellow alumni included Peter O'Toole and Alan Bates. He joined the Birmingham Repertory where he excelled in plays by William Shakespeare. A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Finney understudied Laurence Olivier at Stratford-upon-Avon, eventually acquiring a reputation as 'the new Olivier'. He first came to critical attention by creating the title role in Keith Waterhouse's "Billy Liar" on the London stage. His film debut soon followed with The Entertainer (1960) by Tony Richardson with whom had earlier worked in the theatre. With the changing emphasis in 60s British cinema towards gritty realism and working-class milieus, Finney's typical screen personae became good-looking, often brooding proletarian types and rebellious anti-heroes as personified by his Arthur Seaton in Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). His exuberant defining role, however, was in the bawdy period romp Tom Jones (1963) in which Finney revealed a substantial talent for comedy. In the same vein, he scored another hit opposite Audrey Hepburn in the charming marital comedy Two for the Road (1967).
By 1965, Finney had branched out into production, setting up Memorial Enterprises in conjunction with Michael Medwin. In 1968, he directed himself in Charlie Bubbles (1968) and three years later produced the Chandleresque homage Gumshoe (1971), in which he also starred as Eddie Ginley, a bingo-caller with delusions of becoming a private eye. From 1972 to 1975, Finney served as artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre. His intermittent forays to the screen confirmed him as a versatile international actor of note, though not what one might describe as a mainstream star. His roles have ranged from Ebenezer Scrooge in the musical version of Scrooge (1970) to Daddy Warbucks in Annie (1982) and (in flamboyant over-the-top make-up) Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). He appeared as Minister of Police Joseph Fouché in Ridley Scott's superb period drama The Duellists (1977) and as a grandiloquent Shakespearean actor in The Dresser (1983) for which he received an Oscar nomination. For the small screen Finney essayed Pope John Paul II (1984) and was a totally believable Winston Churchill in the acclaimed The Gathering Storm (2002). His final movie credit was in the James Bond thriller Skyfall (2012).
Finney was five-times nominated for Academy Awards in 1964, 1975, 1984, 1985 and 2001. He won two BAFTA Awards in 1961 and 2004. True to his working-class roots, he spurned a CBE in 1980 and a knighthood in 2000, later explaining his decision by stating that the 'Sir thing' "slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery". Albert Finney was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2011. He died on February 7 2019 at a London hospital from a chest infection at the age of 82. Upon his death, John Cleese described him as "the best" and "our greatest actor".- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Alan Alda (born under the name Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo) is an American actor, comedian, film director, and screenwriter from New York City. His father was the Italian-American actor Robert Alda. Alda's best known role was playing chief surgeon Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the medical-themed sitcom M*A*S*H (1972-1983) for 11 seasons. He twice won the "Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series" for this role. Alda was later nominated for the "Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor", for his portrayal of career politician Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961) in the biographical film "The Aviator" (2004). The film depicted Brewster's opposition to the commercial interests of Howard Hughes, and the alleged political corruption which caused the end of Brewster's career.
In 1936, Alda was born in the Bronx, New York City. By that time, his father Robert Alda (1914-1986) had already started performing in vaudeville and burlesque theaters. Alda's mother was former beauty queen Joan Browne. Alda had Italian ancestry on his father's side of the family, and Irish ancestry on his mother's side of the family. Alda spend much of his childhood touring the United States with his father, as his father's acting job required frequent travel.
In 1943, Alda contracted polio. His parents chose to administer a painful treatment regimen, "consisting of applying hot woolen blankets to his limbs and stretching his muscles". This treatment had been developed by the Australian nurse Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952), and was based on the principle of muscle rehabilitation. Though the treatment was considered controversial, it seemingly helped Alda to recover his mobility.
Alda received his secondary education at Archbishop Stepinac High School, an all-boys Roman Catholic high school located in White Plains, New York, United States. The school was named in honor of Aloysius Stepinac (1898 - 1960), the Archbishop of Zagreb who was hero-worshiped for his conviction for treason by communist Yugoslavia. Alda received his college education at Fordham University, a Jesuit research university located in New York City. He graduated In 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
During his college years, Alda worked for the radio station WFUV. The station was owned by Fordham University, and was operated by its students. Alda joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) , a training program intended for prospective commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. He subsequently entered the United States Army Reserve. He served for a year at Fort Benning, a United States Army post straddling the Alabama-Georgia border . He then spend 6 months stationed in Korea. His official rank at that time was that of a gunnery officer, though Alda claims that he was placed in charge of a mess tent.
In 1956, Alda was introduced to Jewish-American musician Arlene Weiss (a clarinetist). They soon bonded due to their similar tastes in humor, and started dating each other. They were married on March 15, 1957. They had three daughters, born between 1958 and 1961.
Alda started his acting career in the mid-1950s, as a theatrical actor. He joined the Compass Players (1955-1958), a short-lived improvisational theatre revue which was based in Chicago. He subsequently joined the improvisational group Second City, and the regional theater company Cleveland Play House for its 1958-1959 season. In 1958, he had his first guest star role in television. He appeared in an episode of "The Phil Silvers Show", a military-themed sitcom about a swindler operating within the United States Army.
Alda made his film debut in the comedy-drama film "Gone Are the Days!" (1963). The film was a satire of segregation and bigotry, based on a play written by Ossie Davis (1917-2005). Alda was part of the recurring cast of "That Was the Week That Was" (1963-1965), a political satire series which targeted various political figures of the era. It was based on a British satire series of the same name. Most episodes of the American version are considered lost, though there are surviving audio recordings.
In 1968, Alda had his first starring role in a film. He portrayed sports journalist George Plimpton (1927-2003) in the sports comedy "Paper Lion". The film depicted Plimpton's brief term as a player of the Detroit Lions, and focused on his inexperience and ineptitude as a football player.
Alda played the accountant Morton Krim in the World War II-themed war comedy "The Extraordinary Seaman" (1969). The film depicts four sailors of the United States Navy who have been stranded on an island of the Philippines. They encounter the ghost of a British naval officer who was killed in World War I, and he encourages them to launch an attack on Japanese positions. Due to the ghost's perpetual bad luck, their attack is ill-fated.
Alda next played the male lead in the drama film "Jenny" (1970). In the film, main character Jenny Marsh (played by Marlo Thomas) was impregnated in a one-night-stand and has few options in life. Her acquaintance Delano (played by Alda) agrees to marry her and to claim the child's paternity, in an effort to avoid being drafted for war service. The film depicts the problems of a typical "marriage of convenience" (a marriage contracted for reasons other than that of love and commitment), and Delano's attempts to maintain both his marriage and his long-term relationship with another woman. The film earned 2,825,000 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
Alda also played the main character in the crime film "The Moonshine War" (1970), which was set in Prohibition-era Kentucky. He played John "Son" Martin, a man whose main source of income is the production of moonshine whiskey. An acquaintance in the Internal Revenue Service starts pressuring him for a cut on the profits. When Son refuses, the acquaintance reports his activities to a violent gang leader and his henchmen. Son has to outwit the gang in order to survive. The film was one of several films greenlit by Louis Polk and Herb Solow, the then-new co-leaders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Alda had his first role in a horror film, when he played the main character in the occult-themed horror film "The Mephisto Waltz" (1971). He played music journalist Myles Clarkson, who unexpectedly befriends piano virtuoso Duncan Ely (played by Curd Jürgens). He does not realize that Ely is dying due to cancer, and that he intends to perform a body-swapping spell to take over Clarkson's body. Once the spell succeeds, Ely starts a new career in Clarkson's body and kills Clarkson's daughter. Ely fails to realize that his new "wife" Paula Clarkson (played by Jacqueline Bisset) intends to use the same spell to swap bodies with Ely's adult daughter. Bisset was praised for her "chillingly effective" performance, but film critics argued that Alda had been miscast in this role.
Alda had a scarier role in the psychological thriller "To Kill a Clown" (1972), playing disturbed Vietnam War veteran Evelyn Ritchie. Ritchie was once a military officer, but retired after having one of his legs amputated. He agrees to become the landlord of a young married couple, despite his intense dislike for the artistic lifestyle of his tenant Timothy Frischer (played by Heath Lamberts). He starts treating Frischer as a military subordinate, and insists on keeping both of his tenants as prisoners in their residence. The young couple soon learn that Ritchie has sadistic tendencies, and that he had a history of tormenting his subordinates throughout his military career.
Alda had the big break in his career when cast to play chief surgeon Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the medical-themed sitcom M*A*S*H (1972-1983). The series depicted life within a "Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" (MASH) during the Korean War (1950-1953). It was based on the novel "MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors" (1968) by military surgeon H. Richard Hornberger. The series often questioned the United States' role in the Cold War, and satirized authority figures. Its ratings placed it among the top 10 most viewed shows throughout most of its run, and it was critically acclaimed. Alda appeared in all 256 episodes of the series, which helped him become a household name in the United States. Alda eventually served as the series' producer, creative consultant, and co-writer.
Alda played the male lead in the romantic comedy "Same Time, Next Year" (1978), which was his first film role since the early 1970s. The film depicts an extramarital affair which lasts for 26 years (1951-1977), despite the two lovers only meeting once per year. The film also covers the effects time has on the couple's political ideologies, and how they react to the deaths of various family members. The film was partially shot at the Heritage House Inn in Little River, California. The inn became a popular romantic getaway due to the film's enduring popularity. Alda was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy", but the award was instead won by rival actor Warren Beatty.
Alda was part of the ensemble cast in the comedy film "California Suite" (1978). He played successful screenwriter Bill Warren, who is involved in a custody dispute with his ex-wife, the workaholic Hannah Warren (played by Jane Fonda). Both parents claim custody over their adolescent daughter Jenny Warren (played by Dana Plato), and have little regard for Jenny's plans about her own life. The film's cast was nominated for several awards, but Alda was overshadowed by his co-stars.
Alda received his first screenwriting credit for the political drama film "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" (1979). He also played the film's eponymous character. He portrayed an ambitious American senator, whose marriage seems to be deteriorating. He briefly has an extramarital affair with labor lawyer Karen Traynor (played by Meryl Streep), but decides against seeking a divorce. The film earned about 19.6 million dollars at the worldwide box office. Alda was praised more for his ability as a screenwriter than his acting in this film. Streep was nominated for several acting awards for her supporting role, having a breakthrough in her career.
Alda made his directorial debut with the romantic comedy film "The Four Seasons" (1981), depicting the relationships between three upper middle-class married couples. Alda kept for himself the role of Jack Burroughs, a lawyer who has a tendency towards expressing narrow moral attitudes. The film was an unexpected box office hit, earning about 50,4 million dollars at the box office. It was the ninth highest-grossing film of 1981, and won the "Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film". Alda was again nominated for the "Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy", but the award was instead won by rival actor Dudley Moore.
Alda had a hiatus in his acting and directing career during the early 1980s, as he had to take care of his terminally-ill parents. He attempted a comeback by directing the comedy film "Sweet Liberty" (1986), which parodies Hollywood filmmaking. Alda kept for himself the role of Michael Burgess, a college professor and historical novelist. Burgess wants to oversee the adaptation of his historically-accurate and realistic novel into a Hollywood film, but soon realizes that the film's screenwriter has turned the film into a historically inaccurate soap opera. He then sets out to sabotage the film. The film only earned 14.2 million dollars at the box office, despite the critical praise for its leading actors. The poor box office performance was attributed to its release time at movie theaters. It was directly competing with two more lucrative films, "Top Gun" and "Short Circuit".
Alda's next directing effort was the romantic comedy "A New Life" (1988), which depicted the problems faced by middle-aged divorced people. Alda played Steve Giardino, a workaholic businessman who received a divorce after more than 25 years of marriage. His attempts to pursue a new romance are complicated by his inexperience at dating and his unwillingness to father children again. Giardino soon suffers a heart attack due to his poor eating habits. He falls in love with the female physician attending to his problem, Dr. Kay Hutton (played by Veronica Hamel). The film was a box-office flop, only earning 7,7 million dollars at the box office. Critics found the film pleasant, but predictable.
Alda played pompous television producer Lester in the comedy-drama film "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989). In the film, Lester wants to finance a documentary celebrating his own life and work. He hires his brother-in-law to direct it, documentary filmmaker Clifford "Cliff" Stern (played by Woody Allen). He is unaware that Stern despises him. Stern uses the film to expose Lester's mistreatment of his employees, and Lester's sexual harassment towards actresses. The film earned 18,2 million dollars at the box office. For his role, Alda won the "National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor".
Alda had his final directing credit with the romantic comedy "Betsy's Wedding" (1990). Alda played the main role of Eddie Hopper, a construction contractor who insists on organizing a lavish wedding for his beloved daughter Betsy Hopper (played by Molly Ringwald). Since Eddie can not actually afford the wedding expenses, he requests financial assistance from loan sharks. The film earned 19.7 million dollars at the box office, but its leading actresses (Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy) were both nominated for Golden Raspberry Awards. Unlike Alda's previous directing efforts, critics were mostly hostile towards the film.
Alda played the evil mentor Leo Green in the erotic thriller "Whispers in the Dark" (1992). In the film, main character Ann Hecker (a psychiatrist, played by Annabella Sciorra) seeks help from her mentor Leo Green due to suffering from disturbing dreams. Hecker is soon implicated in the murder of her female patient Eve Abergray (played by Deborah Unger), and then in the murder of the police detective investigating the case. She eventually realizes that her mentor has been obsessed with her for years. He committed both murders in a misguided attempt to protect her. This was Alda's first villainous role in a film since the early 1970s. The film only earned 11.1 million dollars at the box office.
In 1993, Alda became the new host of the science-themed television program "Scientific American Frontiers" (1990-2005). The series was a spin-off of the popular science magazine "Scientific American" (1845-). The show typically focused on new technology, and on scientific and medical discoveries. Alda remained the host for 12 years, and was credited with inspiring youngsters to follow scientific careers.
Alda was reduced to the supporting role of the protagonist's confidant in the black comedy film "Manhattan Murder Mystery" (1993). The main plot involved amateur detectives who were investigating the mysterious death of a neighbor, who seemed to have died twice and on two entirely different locations. They eventually realize that they have stumbled on the deaths of two sisters with a close family resemblance, and that the motive for the murders was their family fortune. The film only earned 11.2 million dollars at the box office. Its perceived failure led to the termination of a long-term deal between director Woody Allen and the film studio TriStar Pictures.
Alda had a more comedic role in the political satire film "Canadian Bacon" (1995). The film satirized international relations between Canada and the United States. Alda played an unnamed President of the United States who wants to start a new war to boost his sagging poll numbers, but lacks a credible enemy to serve as an opponent. He finds that Russia is not interested in renewed hostilities, and a proposal to declare war on international terrorism is rejected as absurd. So he uses a flimsy excuse to declare war on Canada, and uses television channels to transmit anti-Canada propaganda to the gullible American population. The film was a box office flop, despite featuring a large cast of Canadian actors. It is mostly remembered as the final film appearance for actor John Candy.
Alda next had a supporting role in the black comedy "Flirting with Disaster" (1996). In the film, an adult, married man searches throughout the United States for the biological parents who gave him up for adoption. He eventually learns that his biological father is Richard Schlichting (played by Alda), a man who has devoted the last 30 years in producing and distributing "lysergic acid diethylamide" (LSD). The family reunion is less than happy, and the protagonist is introduced to a biological brother who despises him. The film earned 14,7 million dollars at the box office.
Alda had another villainous role in the action thriller film "Murder at 1600" (1997), playing national security adviser Alvin Jordan. In the film, Jordan has organized a conspiracy in order to blackmail the President of the United States into resigning, and to start a second Korean War. The conspiracy involved murdering a White House secretary (who had a brief affair with the president) and framing the President for murdering her. The film earned 41,1 million dollars at the worldwide box office, Alda's most profitable film in a decade.
Alda played news anchorman Kevin Hollander in the media-themed thriller "Mad City" (1997). In the film, a fired museum guard takes several people hostage at his former workplace. The news media decides to exploit the situation for profit, and several reporters compete in trying to get the lion's share of the publicity. The situation escalates until the museum guard becomes a suicide bomber. The film only earned 10.5 million dollars at the box office.
Alda's career had declined in the early 2000s, but this situation was only temporary. In 2004, Alda joined the recurring cast of the political television series "The West Wing" (1999-2006). The series depicted the administration of a fictional United States president and his staff. Alda played Republican senator Arnold Vinick for 28 episodes. His character was depicted as a fiscal conservative, who was opposed to corporate welfare and resented to Christian' right's influence on his political party. Vinick became the new Secretary of State in the finale of the series. For his role, Alda won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2006.
Alda's film career experienced a revival with his portrayal of career politician Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961) in the biographical film "The Aviator" (2004). He was nominated for the "Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor", the first Academy Award nomination in Alda's career. The award was instead won by rival actor Morgan Freeman. The critical acclaim for his role went against years of criticism for his acting abilities. Alda received several new offers for film roles.
Alda remained active as an actor throughout the 2000s and 2010s. He published three different memoirs between 2005 and 2017, covering different aspects of his life and career. In July 2018, he announced in an interview that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2015. While this has not ended his acting career, he feared that the effects could be distracting to viewers of his work.
From 2018 to 2020, Alda had a recurring role in the crime drama television series "Ray Donovan" (2013-2020). The series depicted the life and career of a professional "fixer" of the entertainment industry, in charge of bribes, payoffs, threats, crime-scene clean-up, and other illegal activities. Alda also appeared in the spin-off film "Ray Donovan: The Movie" (2022), which concluded remaining plot-lines from the series. By 2022, Alda was 86-years-old. He may no longer be in his prime, but the aging actor seems to have no plans to retire yet.- Diana Hyland, a striking, knowing beauty with a confident air about her, was born Joan Diane (or Joan Diana) Gentner on January 25, 1936, in Ohio and appeared on stage in summer stock, as a teen, before graduating from Cleveland Heights High School.
Moving to New York in 1955, aged 19, to test her acting mettle, the slim-faced, honey-blonde actress began to find TV roles almost immediately (one of her first being a Robert Montgomery Presents (1950)
episode) in-between supplementing her income as a switchboard operator. Initially billed as Diane Gentner, she changed it to Diana Hyland.
Following a tour of the play, "Look Back in Anger", she broke through quite impressively on the Broadway boards as the damaged (by a long-ago tryst with the lead male character) ingénue of a dangerously powerful Southern politician in the acclaimed 1959 Tennessee Williams production of "Sweet Bird of Youth", starring Paul Newman and Geraldine Page. Her role of "Heavenly Finley" could have made her a film star, had she been allowed to take it to the big screen, but Shirley Knight was given the role in the somewhat sanitized film version.
In the early 1960s, she focused on the small screen with strong, emotional roles on such soaps as Young Dr. Malone (1958) and Peyton Place (1964) (in a
particularly showy role as a minister's alcoholic wife). She also scored well in a series of guest parts, notably The Twilight Zone (1959), The Fugitive (1963), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) and Alcoa Premiere (1961), the
last for which she received an Emmy nomination. She was a particularly sought-after presence on medical shows, as well, spicing up such
popular tearjerkers as Ben Casey (1961),
Dr. Kildare (1961), The Doctors (1963),The Doctors and the Nurses (1962), Medical Center (1969) and
Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969).
She made noticeably few films during her career, her best showcase being that of the unconventional minister's wife opposite
Don Murray's Rev. Norman Vincent Peale in One Man's Way (1964). In addition to a small, downbeat supporting turn in The Chase (1966) starring
Marlon Brando, Robert Redford and
Jane Fonda, she also co-starred with
Fess Parker in the routine western
yarn, Smoky (1966). Remaining focused on television, she continued to brightened up that medium into the 1970s, the last decade of her too-short life, with an emphasis on crime dramas (Kojak (1973), Harry O (1973),
Cannon (1971), Mannix (1967), etc.).
In 1969, Hyland married actor
Joseph Goodson. The couple had one son,
Zachary Goodson (born 1973). The couple eventually split. A highly independent, intelligent and outspoken woman in real-life, she subsequently began a May-December
affair with a much younger actor, John Travolta, in 1976. Travolta, who was 18 years Diana's junior, had just come into his own with the sitcom, Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). The two met while appearing together in the TV-movie,
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976). John played the special-needs title role and Diana, along with Robert Reed, were cast as his parents. Interestingly, around that time, Diana was cast as a sophisticated wealthy woman who has designs on the much younger "Fonz" in the early 1977 Happy Days (1974) episode,
Fonzie's Old Lady (1977).
Around that time, she won the regular role of
Dick Van Patten's wife, "Joan Bradford",
mother to a large brood, in the upcoming family series, Eight Is Enough (1977). Career-wise, things couldn't have looked more promising for the actress. Sadly, it would be a short-lived celebration. A couple of years earlier, Diana had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite undergoing a mastectomy, the cancer returned around Christmas time of 1976 and the disease spread rapidly. The 41-year-old actress died a few months later, on March 27, 1977, having shot just four episodes of her new series. The rest of the episodes during that first season explained her as being "away". When the series returned that fall, it was revealed that her Joan character had also died. The second season was then devoted to having Dick Van Patten's widower character return to the dating scene and eventually remarrying.
With her terribly untimely death, Hollywood lost a truly superb actress. In a most fitting tribute, the actress was awarded a posthumous Emmy for her touching supporting performance in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976). John Travolta accepted on her behalf at the awards ceremony. - Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Kris Kristofferson was born in Brownsville, Texas, to Mary Ann
(Ashbrook) and Lars Henry Kristofferson. His paternal grandparents were
Swedish, and his father was a United States Air Force general who
pushed his son to a military career. Kris was a Golden Gloves boxer and
went to Pomona College in California. From there, he earned a Rhodes
scholarship to study literature at Oxford University. He ultimately
joined the United States Army and achieved the rank of captain. He
became a helicopter pilot, which served him well later. In 1965, he
resigned his commission to pursue songwriting. He had just been
assigned to become a teacher at USMA West Point. He got a job sweeping
floors in Nashville studios. There he met
Johnny Cash, who initially took some
of his songs but ignored them. He was also working as a commercial
helicopter pilot at the time. He got Cash's attention when he landed
his helicopter in Cash's yard and gave him some more tapes. Cash then
recorded Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down", which was voted
the 1970 Song of the Year by the Country Music Association. Kris was
noted for his heavy boozing. He lost his helicopter pilot job when he
passed out at the controls, and his drinking ruined his marriage to
singer Rita Coolidge, when he was reaching
a bottle and half of Jack Daniels daily. He gave up alcohol in 1976.
His acting career nose-dived after making
Heaven's Gate (1980). In recent
years, he has made a comeback with his musical and acting careers. He
does say that he prefers his music, but says his children are his true
legacy.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Mary Tyler Moore was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on December 29, 1936. Moore's family relocated to California when she was eight. Her childhood was troubled, due in part to her mother's alcoholism. The eldest of three siblings, she attended a Catholic high school and married upon her graduation, in 1955. Her only child, Richard Meeker Jr., was born soon after.
A dancer at first, Moore's first break in show business was in 1955, as a dancing kitchen appliance - Happy Hotpoint, the Hotpoint Appliance elf, in commercials generally broadcast during the popular sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952). She then shifted from dancing to acting and work soon came, at first a number of guest roles on television series, but eventually a recurring role as Sam, Richard Diamond's sultry answering service girl, on Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1957), her performance being particularly notorious because her legs (usually dangling a pump on her toe) were shown instead of her face.
Although these early roles often took advantage of her willowy charms (in particular, her famously-beautiful dancer's legs), Moore's career soon took a more substantive turn as she was cast in two of the most highly regarded comedies in television history, which would air first-run for most of the '60s and '70s. In the first of these, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Moore played Laura Petrie, the charmingly loopy wife of star Dick Van Dyke. The show became famous for its very clever writing and terrific comic ensemble - Moore and her fellow performers received multiple Emmy Awards for their work. Meanwhile, she had divorced her first husband, and married advertising man (and, later, network executive) Grant Tinker.
After the end of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Moore focused on movie-making, co-starring in five between the end of the sitcom and the start of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), including Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), in which she plays a ditsy aspiring actress, and an inane Elvis Presley vehicle, Change of Habit (1969), in which she plays a nun-to-be and love interest for Presley. Also included in this mixed bag of films was a first-rate television movie, Run a Crooked Mile (1969), which was an early showcase for Moore's considerable talent at dramatic acting.
After trying her hand at movies for a few years, Moore decided, rather reluctantly, to return to television, but on her terms. The result was The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), which was produced by MTM Enterprises, a company she had formed with Tinker, and which later went on to produce scores of other television series. Moore starred as Mary Richards, who moves to Minneapolis on the heels of a failed relationship. Mary finds work at the newsroom of WJM-TV, whose news program is the lowest-rated in the city, and establishes fast friendships with her colleagues and her neighbors. The sitcom was a commercial and critical success and for years was a fixture of CBS television's unbeatable Saturday night line-up. Moore and Tinker were determined from the start to make the sitcom a cut above the average, and it certainly was - instead of going for a barrage of gags, the humor took longer to develop and arose out of the interaction between the characters in more realistic situations. This was also one of the earliest television portrayals of a woman who was happy and successful on her own rather than simply being a man's wife. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) is generally included amongst the finest television series ever produced in America.
Moore ended the sitcom in 1977, while it was still on a high point, but found it difficult to flee the beloved Mary Richards persona - her subsequent attempts at television series, variety programs, and specials (such as the mortifying disco-era Mary's Incredible Dream (1976)) usually failed, but even her dramatic work, which is generally excellent, fell under the shadow of Mary Richards. With time, however, her body of dramatic acting came to be recognized on its own, with such memorable work as in Ordinary People (1980), as an aloof WASP mother who not-so-secretly resents her younger son's survival; in Finnegan Begin Again (1985), as a middle-aged widow who finds love with a man whose wife is slowly slipping away, in Lincoln (1988), as the troubled Mary Todd Lincoln, and in Stolen Babies (1993), as an infamous baby smuggler (for which she won her sixth Emmy Award). She also inspired a new appreciation for her famed comic talents in Flirting with Disaster (1996), in which she is hilarious as the resentful adoptive mother of a son who is seeking his birth parents. Moore also acted on Broadway, and she won a Tony Award for her performance in "Whose Life Is It Anyway?"
Widely acknowledged as being much tougher and more high-strung than her iconic image would suggest, Moore had a life with more than the normal share of ups and downs. Both of her siblings predeceased her, her sister Elizabeth of a drug overdose in 1978 and her brother John of cancer in 1991 after a failed attempt at assisted suicide, Moore having been the assistant. Moore's troubled son Richie shot and killed himself in what was officially ruled an accident in 1980. Moore was diagnosed an insulin-dependent diabetic in 1969, and had a bout with alcoholism in the early 1980s. Divorced from Tinker in 1981 after repeated separations and reconciliations, she married physician Robert Levine in 1983. The union with Levine proved to be Moore's longest run in matrimony and her only marriage not to end in divorce. Despite the opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), in which she throws a package of meat into her shopping cart, Moore was a vegetarian and a proponent of animal rights. She was an active spokesperson for both diabetes issues and animal rights.
On January 25, 2017, Mary Tyler Moore died at age 80 at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut, from cardiopulmonary arrest complicated by pneumonia after having been placed on a respirator the previous week. She was laid to rest during a private ceremony at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Fairfield, Connecticut.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Dean Robert Stockwell grew up in North Hollywood, the son of Broadway performers Harry Stockwell and Elizabeth "Betty" Stockwell (née Veronica). His vaudevillian father was a replacement Curly in the original production of "Oklahoma!". He was also a decent tenor whose voice was used for the part of Prince Charming in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Dean's mother was a one-time Broadway chorine who used the stage moniker "Betty Veronica." His older brother was the actor Guy Stockwell.
At the age of seven, Dean made his stage debut in a Theater Guild production of Paul Osborn's The Innocent Voyage, in which his brother was also cast. The play ran for nine month. Dean was eventually spotted by a talent scout, and, on the strength of his performance, was signed by MGM in 1945. Under contract until 1947 (and again from 1949 to 1950), Stockwell became a highly sought-after child star in films like Anchors Aweigh (1945), with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, The Green Years (1946) and Song of the Thin Man (1947). His impish, dimpled looks and tousled brown hair combined with genuine acting talent kept him on the box office front line for more than a decade. Having won a Golden Globe Award as Best Juvenile Actor for Gentleman's Agreement (1947) (on loan-out to 20th Century Fox), Stockwell went on to play the title role in an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Kim (1950). He came to admire his co-star Errol Flynn as a sort of role model. Thereafter, Stockwell segued into television for several years until resurfacing as a mature actor in Richard Fleischer's Compulsion (1959), (based on the infamous Leopold & Loeb murder case), co-starring with Bradford Dillman as one of the two young killers, and Orson Welles. He had already played the part on Broadway in 1957, on this occasion partnering Roddy McDowall. His last film role of note in the early 60s was as Edmund Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962). Despite developing a drinking problem on the set (for which he was chastised by Katharine Hepburn), Stockwell gave a solid performance which he later described as a career highlight.
Stockwell dropped out of show biz for some time in the 60s to join the hippie scene at which time he befriended Neil Young and Dennis Hopper. Later in the decade, he made a gleeful comeback in low budget psychedelic counterculture (Psych-Out (1968)) biker films (The Loners (1972)) and horror comedies (The Werewolf of Washington (1973)). Keeping a considerably lower profile during the 70s, he became a frequent TV guest star in popular crime dramas like Mannix (1967), Columbo (1971) The Streets of San Francisco (1972) and Police Story (1973). By the early 80s, work opportunities had become scarcer and Stockwell was compelled to briefly sideline as a real estate broker. He nonetheless managed to make a comeback with a co-starring role in the Wim Wenders road movie Paris, Texas (1984). New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby wrote of his performance "Mr. Stockwell, the former child star, has aged very well, becoming an exceptionally interesting, mature actor." Stockwell subsequently enjoyed high billing in David Lynch's noirish psycho-thriller Blue Velvet (1986) and received an Oscar nomination for his Mafia don Tony "The Tiger" Russo in Married to the Mob (1988). His television career also flourished, as cigar-smoking, womanizing rear admiral Al Calavicci in the popular science fiction series Quantum Leap (1989). The role won him a Golden Globe Award in 1990 and a new generation of fans. When the show ended after five seasons, Stockwell remained gainfully employed for another decade, still frequently seen as political or military authority figures (Navy Secretary Edward Sheffield in JAG (1995), Defence Secretary Walter Dean in Air Force One (1997)) or evil alien antagonists (Colonel Grat in Star Trek: Enterprise (2001), humanoid Cylon John Cavil in Battlestar Galactica (2004)).
Outside of acting, Stockwell embraced environmental issues and exhibited works of art, notably collages and sculptures. In 2015, he was forced to retire from acting after suffering a stroke. Stockwell died on November 7, 2021 due to natural causes at the age of 85.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Few in modern British history have come as far or achieved as much from
humble beginnings as Glenda Jackson did. From acclaimed actress to
respected MP (Member of Parliament), she was known for her high
intelligence and meticulous approach to her work. She was born to a
working-class household in Birkenhead, where her father was a
bricklayer and her mother was a cleaning lady. When she was very young, her father was recruited into the
Navy, where he worked aboard a minesweeper. She graduated from school
at 16 and worked for a while in a pharmacy. However, she found this
boring and dead-end and wanted better for herself. Her life changed
forever when she was accepted into the prestigious Royal Acadamy of
Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 18. Her work impressed all who
observed it. At age 22, she married Roy Hodges.
Her first work came on the stage, where she won a role in an adaptation
of "Separate Tables", and made a positive impression on critics and
audiences alike. This led to film roles, modest at first, but she
approached them with great determination. She first came to the
public's notice when she won a supporting role in the controversial
film Marat/Sade (1967), and is acknowledged to have stolen the show. She quickly
became a member of Britain's A-List. Her first starring role came in
the offbeat drama Negatives (1968), in which she out-shone the oddball material.
The following year, controversial director Ken Russell gave her a starring
role in his adaptation of the 1920s romance Women in Love (1969), in which she co-starred with Oliver Reed. The film was a major success, and Jackson's performance won
her an Academy Award for Best Actress. In the process, she became an
international celebrity, known world-wide, yet she didn't place as much
value on the status and fame as most do. She did, however, become a
major admirer of Russell (who had great admiration for her in return)
and acted in more of his films. She starred in the controversial
The Music Lovers (1971), although it required her to do a nude scene, something that
made her very uncomfortable. The film was not a success, but she agreed
to do a cameo appearance in his next film, The Boy Friend (1971). Although her role
as an obnoxious actress was very small, she once again performed with
great aplomb.
1971 turned out to be a key year for her. She took a risk by appearing
in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), as a divorced businesswoman in a dead-end affair with a
shallow bisexual artist, but the film turned out to be another major
success. She accepted the starring role in the British
Broadcasting Corporation's much anticipated biography of Queen
Elizabeth I, and her performance in the finished film, Elizabeth R (1971), was
praised not only by critics and fans, but is cited by historians as the
most accurate portrayal of the beloved former queen ever seen. The same year, she successfully played the role of Queen Elizabeth I again in the historical drama Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). That
same year, she appeared in the popular comedy series The Morecambe & Wise Show (1968) in a skit
as Queen Cleopatra, which is considered on of the funniest TV skits in
British television, and also proof that she could do comedy just as
well as costume melodrama. One who saw and raved about her performance
was director Melvin Frank, who proceeded to cast her in the romantic comedy
A Touch of Class (1973), co-starring George Segal. The two stars had a chemistry which
brought out the best in each other, and the film was not only a major
hit in both the United States and Great Britain, but won her a second
Academy Award. She continued to impress by refusing obvious commercial
roles and seeking out serious artistic work. She gave strong
performances in The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) and The Incredible Sarah (1976), in which she portrayed the
legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt. However, some of her films didn't register
with the public, like The Triple Echo (1972), The Maids (1975), and Nasty Habits (1977). In addition, her marriage fell apart in 1976. But her career
remained at the top and in 1978 she was named Commander of the Order of
the British Empire. That year, she made a comeback in the comedy
House Calls (1978), co-starring Walter Matthau. The success of this film which led to a
popular television spin-off in the United States the following year. In
1979, she and Segal re-teamed in Lost and Found (1979), but they were unable to overcome the routine script. She again co-starred with Oliver Reed in The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978), but the film was another disappointment.
During the 1980s, she appeared in Hopscotch (1980) also co-starring Walter Matthau, and
HealtH (1980) with Lauren Bacall, with disappointing results, although Jackson
herself was never blamed. Her performance in the TV biography Sakharov (1984),
in which she played Yelena Bonner, devoted wife of imprisoned Russian nuclear
scientist Andrei Sakharov opposite Jason Robards, won rave reviews. However, the next
film Turtle Diary (1985), was only a modest success, and the ensemble comedy
Beyond Therapy (1987) was a critical and box office disaster and Jackson herself got some of the worst reviews of her career.
As the 1980s ended, Jackson continued to act, but became more focused
on public affairs. She grew up in a household that was staunchly
supportive of the Labour Party. She had disliked the policies of
Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, even though she admired some of
her personal attributes, and strongly disapproved of Thatcher's
successor, John Major. She was unhappy with the direction of British
government policies, and in 1992 ran for Parliament. Although running
in an area (Hampstead and Highgate) which was not heavily supportive of
her party, she won by a slim margin and immediately became its most
famous newly elective member. However, those who expected that she
would rest on her laurels and fame were mistaken. She immediately took
an interest in transportation issues, and in 1997 was appointed Junior
Transportation Minister by Prime Minister Tony Blair. However, she was
critical of some of Blair's policies and is considered an inter-party
opponent of Blair's moderate faction. She was considered a traditional
Labour Party activist, but is not affiliated with the faction known as
The Looney Left. In 2000, she ran for Mayor of London, but lost the
Labour nomination to fellow MP Frank Dobson, an ally of Blair, who then
lost the election to an independent candidate, Ken Livingstone.
In 2005, she ran again and won the nomination, but lost to Livingstone, winning 38% of the vote. When Blair announced he would not seek reelection as Prime Minister in 2006, Jackson's name was mentioned as a possible successor, although she didn't encourage this speculation. In 2010, she sought reelection to parliament and was almost defeated, winning by only 42 votes.
In 2013, she responded to the death of Margaret Thatcher by strongly denouncing her policies, which was condemned by many as graceless. In 2015, elections for parliament were called again but she didn't seek reelection. She was succeeded in Parliament by Christopher Philp, a Conservative Party member who had been Jackson's opponent in 2010.- Marj Dusay was born on 20 February 1936 in Hays, Kansas, USA. She was an actress, known for All My Children (1970), Guiding Light (1952) and Star Trek (1966). She was married to Thomas Allen Perine Jr. and John Murray Dusay. She died on 28 January 2020 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Louis Gossett Jr. is one of the most respected and beloved actors on stage, screen and television and is also an accomplished writer, producer and director. Off-screen he is a social activist, educator and author dedicated to enriching the lives of others. Gossett was the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his unforgettable performance as drill Sergeant Emil Foley in "An Officer and a Gentleman." Among his other awards are an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor for his portrayal of Fiddler in the groundbreaking ABC series "Roots," a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for "The Josephine Baker Story" and a Golden Globe for "An Officer and a Gentleman." He has been nominated for seven Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes, one Academy Award, five Images Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards and in 1992 received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Gossett has also received numerous other honors throughout his illustrious career. His film debut was in the 1961 classic movie "A Raisin in the Sun" with Sidney Poitier. Other film credits include "The Deep," "Blue Chips," "Daddy's Little Girls," Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married Too?," "Firewalker," "Jaws-3D," "Enemy Mine" and "Iron Eagle" 1-4, among many others. Television credits include "Extant," "Madam Secretary," "Boardwalk Empire," "Family Guy" and "ER," among dozens of others. Gossett is the author of the bestselling autobiography "An Actor and a Gentleman," in which he chronicles the challenges and triumphs of his 50+ year career. Gossett is recognized as much for his humanitarian efforts as he is for his accomplishments as an actor. In 2006, Gossett founded The Eracism Foundation which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to eradicating racism. The foundation provides young adults with tools to live a racially diverse and culturally inclusive life. Programs focus on fostering cultural diversity, historical enrichment, education and anti-violence initiatives. Gossett was born in Brooklyn and made his stage debut when he was 17 in "Take a Giant Step," which was selected as one of the 10 best Broadway shows of 1953 by The New York Times. He has two adult sons and resides in Malibu, California.- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
Tommy Steele had tried many odd jobs before he turned up at the famous "2
I's" coffee bar in London. There he was "discovered" by Larry Parnes
and became one of Britain's first manufactured pop stars. With his
cheeky grin and gently rocking songs he wasn't the threat to Elvis Presley
that Parnes wanted. Despite this, Tommy has gone on to a long and
rewarding film and stage career.- Actor
- Director
John Saxon appeared in nearly 200 roles in the movies and on television in a more-than half-century-long career that has stretched over seven decades since he made his big screen debut in 1954 in uncredited small roles in It Should Happen to You (1954) and George Cukor's A Star Is Born (1954). Born Carmine Orrico on August 5, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Italian-American parents, Antonio Orrico and Anna (née Protettore), he studied acting with Stella Adler after graduating from New Utrecht High School.
He was discovered by talent agent Henry Willson, the man most famous for creating and representing Rock Hudson (as well as a stable of "beefcake" male stars and starlets), who signed him up after he saw Saxon's picture on the cover of a magazine. Willson brought the 16-year-old to Southern California, changed his name to John Saxon, and launched his career. Saxon made his television debut on Richard Boone's series
Medic (1954) in 1955 and got his first substantial (and credited) role in Running Wild (1955), playing a juvenile delinquent. In the
Esther Williams vehicle The Unguarded Moment (1956) (one of her rare dramatic roles), the film's marketing campaign spotlighted him, trumpeting the movie as "Co-starring the exciting new personality John Saxon.".
By 1958, he seemed to have established himself as a supporting player in A-List pictures, being featured in Blake Edwards's comedy This Happy Feeling (1958) headlined by Debbie Reynolds and Vincente Minnelli's The Reluctant Debutante (1958) with Rex Harrison and Sandra Dee. In the next five years, he worked steadily, including supporting roles in John Huston's The Unforgiven (1960), the James Stewart comedy Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) and Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963) while having first billing in the B-movies Cry Tough (1959) and War Hunt (1962). Fluent in Italian, he made his first pictures in Italy in the period, Agostino (1962) and Mario Bava's The Evil Eye (1963). Despite his good work with major directors, he failed to succeed as a star.
By 1965, he was appearing in the likes of Blood Beast from Outer Space (1965), albeit, top-billed. A more emblematic picture was Sidney J. Furie's The Appaloosa (1966), in which he appeared in Mexican bandito drag as the man who steals the horse of Marlon Brando, another Stella Adler student. Saxon would reprise the role, of sorts, in John Sturges Joe Kidd (1972) in support of superstar Clint Eastwood. In those less politically correct times, many an Italian-American with a dark complexion would be relied on to play Mexicans, Native Americans and other "exotic" types like Mongols. Saxon played everything from an Indian chief on Bonanza (1959) to Marco Polo on The Time Tunnel (1966).
From 1969 to 1972 season, he was a star of the television series The Bold Ones: The New Doctors (1969), playing the brilliant surgeon Theodore Stuart. When the series ended, he took one of his most famous roles when Bruce Lee demurred over casting Rod Taylor as he was too tall. A black belt in karate, Saxon appeared as Roper in Enter the Dragon (1973). He continued to play a wide variety of roles on television and in motion pictures, with key roles in 1974's classic slasher Black Christmas (1974), 1984's groundbreaking A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and the 1990s self-referential horror films New Nightmare (1994) and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996).
John Saxon died of pneumonia on July 25, 2020, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He was 83.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Perky American actress with a sexy style and a flair for comedy. Born
in New Jersey, she was raised by her singer mother in New York,
Michigan, and Oregon. She began acting as a child, in school and local
productions. After college at North Texas State and the University of
Idaho, she went to New York and landed work as a singer at the Radio
City Music Hall and then as a performer in Broadway musicals. She went
to Las Vegas as part of a comedy act and, there, she met
Jack Emrek, who introduced her to film and
television executives in Los Angeles. She made numerous appearances on
television in both comic and dramatic roles and, by the 1960s, was a
familiar and popular personality in movies. She specialized in spunky
types of great humor, innocent sexiness. Although she was off the
screen for much of the late 1970s, she reappeared in a few roles in the
1980s.- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Charles Napier was born in the tiny community of Mt. Union, near Scottsville, Allen County, Kentucky, to Linus Pitts Napier, a tobacco farmer and postman, and his wife, Sara, on April 12, 1936. He attended public school in Scottsville. After graduating high school, he enlisted in the Army in 1954. He rose to the rank of E-5 (Sgt.) while serving as company clerk with Company A 511th Airborne Infantry, 11th Airborne Division. He was a lively character actor who usually played edgy military types and menacing bad guys. His film debut was in Russ Meyer's Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1969).
Napier went on appearing in other Meyer movies, including the homicidal Harry Sledge in Supervixens (1975) and also became a regular playing smaller roles for Jonathan Demme. His memorable portrayals of tough guys included the scheming intelligence officer in Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and the short-tempered front man in The Blues Brothers (1980).- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Shirley Knight was an American actress who appeared in more than 180 feature films, television movies, television series, and Broadway productions in her career playing leading and character roles.
She was a member of the Actors Studio. Knight was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress: for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960) and Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).
In 1976, Knight won a Tony Award for her performance in Kennedy's Children, a play by Robert Patrick. In later years, she played supporting roles in many films, including Endless Love (1981), As Good as It Gets (1997), Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002), and Grandma's Boy (2006). For her performances on television, Knight was nominated eight times for a Primetime Emmy Award (winning three), and she received a Golden Globe Award.- Actor
- Director
- Art Department
Boisterous British actor Brian Blessed is known for his hearty,
king-sized portrayals on film and television. A giant of a man
accompanied by an eloquent wit and booming, operatic voice, Brian was
born in 1936 and grew up in the mining village of Goldthorpe in South
Yorkshire. His father was a miner who wanted a better life for his son;
Brian lost three uncles in the pit. At a young age, he displayed an
acute talent for acting in school productions, but also had a penchant
for boxing, a direction that would be short-lived.
Working various blue-collar jobs from undertaker's assistant to
plasterer, Brian managed to attend the Bristol Old Vic and was off and
running. He has lent his musical talents to several productions - from
playing "Old Deuteronomy" in "Cats" to "The Baron" in the more recent
"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". In the 1970s, he began appearing more and
more on-camera with both classical and contemporary performances. In
costumed television movies, he has played "Porthos" in
The Three Musketeers (1966)
and
The Further Adventures of the Musketeers (1967),
"Augustus" in I, Claudius (1976),
and "Long John Silver" in
Return to Treasure Island (1986)
and has been a part of various reenactments including
Catherine the Great (1995),
Lady Chatterley (1993),
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983)
and Kidnapped (1995).
On film, he has appeared in robust support in several
William Shakespeare
adaptations, including Henry V (1989),
Much Ado About Nothing (1993),
Hamlet (1996), Macbeth (1997) and the title role in King Lear (1999), which he also directed.
More recently, he appeared in
Oliver Stone's epic-scale
Alexander (2004) and in
Kenneth Branagh's film version of
William Shakespeare's
As You Like It (2006).
In recent years, the octogenarian has been heard more than seen with voice work in video games, documentaries and such animated TV programs as Kika & Bob (2007) (as Bob); The Amazing World of Gumball (2011) (as Santa Claus); Wizards vs. Aliens (2012) (as the Necross King); Henry Hugglemonster (2013) (as Eduardo Enormomonster); and Peppa Pig (2004) as Grampy Rabbit.
He is married to British
actress Hildegard Neil, who made an
appearance with him in Macbeth (1997).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Joan O'Brien began her show-biz career while she was in high school, on
a local TV music show in California with Tennessee Ernie Ford. Soon, she was a
successful singer, and made the jump to acting. In about half the films
she ever made, it appeared that Joan played a nurse. Perhaps her most
memorable appearance was in Blake Edwards' Operation Petticoat (1959), as the nurse who gets in
everyone's way because her, umm, "proportions" cause uncomfortable
crowding in a small submarine. Because of her, Cary Grant becomes the
first officer in the history of the U.S. Navy to sink an enemy truck!
She again played a nurse in the Jerry Lewis film, It's Only Money (1962), and yet one more
time with Elvis Presley in It Happened at the World's Fair (1963)--and, according to legend, fired up a hot
off-screen romance with Elvis. Also in 1963, in a strange sort of
"Columbo" connection, she was voted "most likely to wed Robert Vaughn".
Joan's final movie was Get Yourself a College Girl (1964), a "Swinging Sixties" teenfest also
featuring Nancy Sinatra, with music by The Animals and The Dave Clark Five. After that, she
went back to singing for a while, touring with the Harry James Orchestra.
She left show business for good to concentrate on raising her kids, and
later became a successful executive with the Hilton Hotel chain.- Hailing from Long Beach, California, talented character actor Anthony
Zerbe has kept busy in Hollywood and on stage since the late 1960s,
often playing villainous or untrustworthy characters, with his narrow
gaze and unsettling smirk. Zerbe was born May 20, 1936 in Long Beach,
and served a stint in the United States Air Force before heading off to
New York to study drama under noted acting coach
Stella Adler. He made his screen debut as
Dutchie, one of Charlton Heston's fellow
cowhands in the western
Will Penny (1967), played a miner in
The Molly Maguires (1970), was
a post-apocalyptic, lunatic messiah in
The Omega Man (1971), hustled a
naive Paul Newman in
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972),
played a leper colony leader in
Papillon (1973) and a former lawman gone
bad in Rooster Cogburn (1975).
Zerbe also starred alongside
David Janssen in the television
series Harry O (1973) as the urbane,
nattily dressed Lieutenant K.C. Trench, Janssen's sometime nemesis, for
which he picked up an Emmy Award. Definitely in strong demand for
sinister roles, Zerbe played a crazed scientist in the corny
Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978),
was an arrogant father in
The Dead Zone (1983), made a great
General Ulysses S. Grant in
North & South: Book 2, Love & War (1986),
starred in the military drama
Opposing Force (1986) and suffered
a grisly demise in an airlock full of money in the James Bond thriller
Licence to Kill (1989). Most
recently, Zerbe has been seen as Councillor Hamann in
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
and
The Matrix Revolutions (2003).
In addition to his extensive television and film appearances, Zerbe has
appeared in Broadway productions including "The Little Foxes", "Terra
Nova" and "Solomon's Child". He was in residence for five summer
seasons at The Old Globe Theatre playing several key Shakespearean
characters to strong critical acclaim. He has also held residencies at
the Theatre of the Living Arts in Philadelphia, the Arena Stage in
Washington, D.C., and the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. In
2003, he toured across several states with
Roscoe Lee Browne in their production
of "Behind the Broken Words", a performance of 20th-century poetry,
comedy and drama. - Director
- Writer
- Producer
Unlike virtually all his contemporaries, Ken Loach has never succumbed
to the siren call of Hollywood, and it's virtually impossible to
imagine his particular brand of British socialist realism translating
well to that context.
After studying law at St. Peter's College,
Oxford, he branched out into the theater, performing with a touring
repertory company. This led to television, where in alliance with
producer Tony Garnett he produced a series
of docudramas, most notably the devastating "Cathy Come Home" episode
of
The Wednesday Play (1964),
whose impact was so massive that it led directly to a change in the
homeless laws.
He made his feature debut
Poor Cow (1967) the following year, and
with Kes (1969), he produced what is now
acclaimed as one of the finest films ever made in Britain. However, the
following two decades saw his career in the doldrums with his films
poorly distributed (despite the obvious quality of work such as
The Gamekeeper (1968)
and Looks and Smiles (1981)) and
his TV work in some cases never broadcast (most notoriously, his
documentaries on the 1984 miners' strike).
He made a spectacular
comeback in the 1990s, with a series of award-winning films firmly
establishing him in the pantheon of great European directors - his
films have always been more popular in mainland Europe than in his
native country or the US (where
Riff-Raff (1991) was shown with
subtitles because of the wide range of dialects).
Hidden Agenda (1990) won the
Special Jury Prize at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival;
Riff-Raff (1991) won the Felix award
for Best European Film of 1992;
Raining Stones (1993) won the
Cannes Special Jury Prize for 1993, and
Land and Freedom (1995) won the
FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at
the 1995 Cannes Film Festival - and was a substantial box-office hit in
Spain where it sparked intense debate about its subject matter. This
needless to say, was one of the reasons that Loach made the film!- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Paul L. Smith was born on 24 June 1936 in Everett, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Maverick (1994), Popeye (1980) and Dune (1984). He was married to Eve Smith. He died on 25 April 2012 in Ra'anana, Israel.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Brunette Millie Perkins began her career as a New York photographer's model and one-time receptionist at an advertising agency. Her waif-like images in fashion magazines seemed to project both innocence and shyness and made such an impression on the director George Stevens, that he invited her to audition for the lead role in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). Despite her total lack of acting experience, Perkins won out over 10,000 other hopefuls and went on to star in, what would become, her most famous role. An overnight sensation, she received numerous plaudits for her performance but never subsequently succeeded to parlay this into a more enduring stardom.
She was born as Mildred Frances Perkins in Newark, New Jersey. Her mother, Catherine Louise, was of Irish and French-Canadian extraction. Her father, Adolph Perkins, was a captain in the merchant marine, born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Millie was schooled in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. After relocating to New York, she studied drama under Jeff Corey. Following her role as diarist and holocaust victim Anne Frank, she was signed by 20th Century Fox. However, her tenure at the studio turned out to be brief, prematurely ending in her suspension for refusing to play the lead in the bucolic drama Tess of the Storm Country (1960), which she viewed as a retrograde step in her career. Diane Baker went on to star in the role, while Millie's sole credit for Fox was a supporting part in the lacklustre Elvis Presley vehicle Wild in the Country (1961).
Free-lancing, she next appeared in Joshua Logan's box-office flop Ensign Pulver (1964) and as the female lead in two modestly budgeted, off-beat westerns, The Shooting (1966) and Ride in the Whirlwind (1966) (both starring Jack Nicholson, who also co-produced). None of these would have been particularly career enhancing and may have contributed to Millie's six-year long hiatus from screen acting. She made a comeback as a character actress from the mid-70s, latterly in maternal roles (notably in At Close Range (1986), Wall Street (1987) and The Lost City (2005)). On TV, she played Presley's mother Gladys in Elvis (1990), a biopic of the star's early life. She also had recurring roles in the soap Knots Landing (1979), and, as a grandmother, in the drama series Any Day Now (1998). She has taught drama classes at Southern Oregon University at some point in the early 80s, as well as addressing high school drama groups in and around Jacksonville, her adopted home town since 1976.
Millie Perkins retired from screen acting in 2006. She divorced her first husband, the actor Dean Stockwell, after two years of marriage in 1962. She was separated from her second husband, writer-director Robert Thom, with whom she had two daughters.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Tall, slim, remote and boyishly handsome, one of Keir Dullea's most
arresting features is his pale blue eyes, which
featured in a number of watershed films of the
1960s. His major breakthrough (providing him legendary status) was the starring role as astronaut Dave Bowman in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. After that, he persevered quite well on T.V.
and (especially) the stage in a career now surpassing five decades.
Dullea, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, is the son of two book-store
owners, and he was raised in New York's Greenwich Village section. He
graduated from George School in Pennsylvania and attended both Rutgers
and San Francisco State before deciding to pursue summer stock and
regional theatre. Attending the Neighborhood Playhouse, he made his New
York City acting debut in a production of "Sticks and Bones" in 1956.
His first big break came with the pilot program of the
Route 66 (1960) series, and he
proceeded to find other TV roles in
Naked City (1958),
Checkmate (1960) and various
dramatic programs.
Following stage work in "Season of Choice" (1959) and "A Short Happy
Life" (1961), Dullea made an auspicious film debut in a leading role
with The Hoodlum Priest (1961),
playing a troubled street gang member who crosses paths with
Don Murray's determined minister. The
young actor's characters from then on seemed to walk a dangerous
tight-rope of emotions, and his apparent versatility at such a young
age led him to a number of other psychologically scarred portrayals.
Tending to play men younger than he really was, none were more
disturbed than his haphephobic adolescent David (Dullea was twenty-six
at the time) in the deeply felt love story
David and Lisa (1962). Paired
beautifully with Janet Margolin's
schizophrenic Lisa, Dullea won the Golden Globe Award for "Most
Promising Male Newcomer."
In the World War II military drama
The Thin Red Line (1964)he
played an edgy, nervous-eyed private who is pushed to his murderous
brink by a brutal sergeant on Guadacanal. In
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
Dullea portrayed the incestuous brother of
Carol Lynley, who may or may not figure
into the disappearance of Lynley's child. Keir also costarred as the
mysterious intruder who inserts an emotional wedge between gay lovers
Anne Heywood and
Sandy Dennis in the ground-breaking
film about homosexuals, The Fox (1967).
Topping that off, Dullea played the salacious Marquis De Sade himself
in a relatively tame, internationally flavored production of
De Sade (1969). The apex of his film
career, however, came with his lead role in
Stanley Kubrick's epic science-fiction
film,
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968),
as the astronaut Dr. David Bowman.
In the realm of stage acting, Keir made his debut on Broadway in 1967
with "Dr. Cook's Garden" costarring Burl Ives,
and Dullea won some "flower power" stardom two years later as a
sensitive young blind man who attempted to wriggle free of his
protective, overbearing mother. His character also pursues love with a
free-spirited girl, played by
Blythe Danner, in the play "Butterflies
Are Free." By the time the movie of this story was released in 1972
both stars had been replaced by Goldie Hawn
and Edward Albert.
Dullea next went abroad to seek film work in England and in Canada, but
with lukewarm results. He continued to show his odd-man-out appeal on
the Broadway stage as "Brick" in 1970, and in the Broadway revival of
"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in 1974, acting along with
Elizabeth Ashley as "Maggie,"
and in the black comedy "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead!" one year later.
In the years since then, Dullea has acted steadily on the stage in New
York City, and in U.S. regional theatres, in productions of "Sweet
Prince," "The Seagull" and "The Little Foxes,"among others. His
cinematic roles since 1970 have included another "mysterious stranger"
in The Next One (1984), and he also
reprised his "David Bowman" role in
2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984), the sequel to "2001: A Space
Odyssey." Dullea has had four wives: his first was actress
Margot Bennett, and he and his
third wife, Susie Fuller (whom he met during the British performances
of "Butterflies are Free" in London), cofounded the Theater Artists
Workshop of Westport in 1983. Dullea, Fuller and her two children
resided in London for quite a while. After Fuller's death in 1998,
Dullea married for the fourth time in 1999 to actress
Mia Dillon, who is best known for portraying
the character "Babe" in in the play, "Crimes of the Heart" in New York
City. Just a few weeks later they appeared together in the play
"Deathtrap."
Into the millennium, Keir has been featured on film, including the sci-fi adventure Alien Hunter (2003); the senator in The Good Shepherd (2006), along with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, which was directed by Robert De Niro; the romantic comedy The Accidental Husband (2008) starring Uma Thurman; the touching Mark Ruffalo social drama Infinitely Polar Bear (2014); and a prime role in the romantic mystery April Flowers (2017). On TV he was seen in such popular programs as "Law & Order," "Castle" and "Damages." and was seen in the recurring role of a religious cult leader in the fascinating series The Path (2016).- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Robert Gene "Red" West was a close friend of Elvis Presley and a member of Presley's inner circle, known as "The Memphis Mafia". He first met Elvis in high school, where he was a year behind him. West played football for the Memphis Tigers high school football team, boxed in the Golden Gloves and played football for the Jones County Junior College Bobcats playing center.
West lived with his mother, Lois West, in the Hurt Housing project in Memphis. West became Elvis's personal driver in driving Elvis and band members Scotty Moore, Bill Black and later D.J. Fontana to different Southern cities for live appearances from 1955 to 1956. West served in the US Marine Corps from 1956 to late 1958 and was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, which allowed him to stay in contact with Elvis. On August 14, 1958, West's estranged father, Newton Thomas West, died, the same day as Elvis' mother, Gladys Presley.
After Elvis' discharge from the US Army in 1960, West was employed as one of the star's bodyguards. Over the years, Elvis bought West a number of vehicles as he became a world-famous celebrity. West also became a movie stuntman and appeared in 16 of Elvis' films in the 1960s, usually playing extras or bit and supporting parts. West married one of Elvis' secretaries, Pat West, on July 1, 1961. West became a songwriter for songs that Elvis, Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson and Johnny Rivers recorded, including the classic tune "Separate Ways" for Elvis, which won a BMI Award. In addition to the Elvis movies, West appeared in three Robert Conrad TV series The Wild Wild West (1965), Black Sheep Squadron (1976) and The Duke (1979). During the 1970s West, his cousin Del 'Sonny' West, and Dave Hebler served as Elvis' bodyguards, in charge of his daily transportation and keeping weirdo or potentially dangerous fans away from him. On July 13, 1976, Vernon Presley, Elvis' father, fired all three bodyguards, criticizing what he believed to be their heavy-handed tactics. The three later collaborated on a book about their lives as Elvis' bodyguards, which was published just two weeks before Elvis' death in 1977.
West continued his acting and songwriting careers, the former until 2015, two years before his death.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Tall, good-looking James Darren was a student of acting coach Stella Adler
and made his name in the 1950s in a series of teenage-themed films. A
better actor than most of his contemporary teenage heartthrobs, he
nevertheless found it difficult to escape the teen-idol image he got in
pictures like Gidget (1959) and Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961). He also gained fame in the early and
mid-1960s as a singer, with several hits to his credit, including
"Goodbye Cruel World" and "Her Royal Majesty". His film work tapered
off in the 1960s, but he did much TV work and had two hit series,
The Time Tunnel (1966) in the 1960s and T.J. Hooker (1982) in the 1980s.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Lane Smith was born on 29 April 1936 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for My Cousin Vinny (1992), Red Dawn (1984) and The Mighty Ducks (1992). He was married to Deborah Lynn Price and Sydnee Roberta Balaber. He died on 13 June 2005 in Northridge, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Robert Downey Sr. served in the army, played minor-league baseball, was a Golden Gloves champion and off-off Broadway playwright, all before he was 22 years old.
Downey was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elizabeth (McLoughlin), a model, and Robert Elias, who worked in hotel/restaurant management. He took the surname of his stepfather, James Downey, when enlisting in the army. His father was of Lithuanian Jewish descent, while his mother was of half-Irish and half-Hungarian Jewish ancestry. In 1960, he began writing and directing basement-budgeted, absurdist films that gained an underground following: Balls Bluff (1961), Babo 73 (1964), Chafed Elbows (1966) and No More Excuses (1968). Putney Swope (1969) was the first Downey-directed film to earn a mainstream release. A devastating satire of Madison Avenue, it explored what happens when an African-American activist is given carte blanche at an advertising agency. The film was among the year's Top 10 Films in New York Magazine.
Downey thrived in the laissez-faire film world of the 1970s with such irreverent films as Pound (1970), where humans play dogs waiting to be adopted. Around this time he worked on projects for Joseph Papp and the New York Public Theatre, directing David Rabe's play "Sticks and Bones" for CBS (Sticks and Bones (1973)). The strong anti-war sentiments expressed in this live broadcast resulted in a major controversy when its sponsors pulled out at the last minute, and the network had to air the film uninterrupted because it couldn't find a sponsor. His Greaser's Palace (1972) is an outrageous restaging of the life of Christ in "spaghetti western" terms. Time Magazine put this film on its list of the year's Top 10 movies. Downey's take-no-prisoners sense of humor is also apparent in Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight (1975) and Hugo Pool (1997) (world premiere at the Sundance festival in 1997), a film that examines a day in the life of a female pool cleaner in Hollywood. Rittenhouse Square (2005) was the feature presentation of the Galway Film Festival and his second teaming with Max L. Raab, having been a consultant on Raab's award-winning Strut! (2001).
From time to time, Downey acted (badly, according to him) and he can be seen in films such as Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999) and The Family Man (2000). He appeared twice on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), The Dick Cavett Show (1968), IFC's At the IFC Center (1997), Sundance Channel and countless other TV and radio shows. In addition, Downey was a guest speaker at film festivals and universities throughout the country. He developed an update of "Putney Swope." He lived in New York City with his wife, Rosemary Rogers.
Robert was the father of actors Robert Downey Jr. and Allyson Downey.- Arlene Martel is well-known to Star Trek (1966) fans as Spock's Vulcan bride, T'Pring, in the episode, Amok Time (1967). Born Arline Greta Sax to Austrian Jewish immigrants on April 14, 1936 in New York City, she spent her early years in one of the poorest slums in the Bronx. When her mother's boss saw her poor living conditions, he personally underwrote her attendance at an upper-crust boarding school in Connecticut. At age 12, Arlene assumed personal responsibility to audition for New York's famed High School of the Performing Arts. Not only did she gain entrance, she also went on to excel at the school--graduating with the school's top drama award. Her professional career began in her teens when she landed the role of Esther in the Broadway production of "Uncle Willie", also starring Norman Fell.
After heading to Hollywood, Martel began making guest appearances on television series such as The Untouchables (1959), Route 66 (1960) and The Twilight Zone (1959). She had the recurring role of Tiger on the situation comedy Hogan's Heroes (1965). Her facility with accents and dialects enabled her to play a wide variety of characters, earning her the nickname of "The Chameleon". Arlene's relationship with James Dean is chronicled in Joe Hyams' biography, "The James Dean Story". Married and divorced three times, Arlene had three children: Adam Palmer, Avra Douglas and Jodaman Douglas. Martel died at age 78 of a heart attack on August 12, 2014 in Santa Monica, California. She had battled breast cancer some years earlier. - Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Walter Koenig began his acting career in 1962 as an uncredited Sentry in the TV series Combat! (1962), and in the following few years had bit roles in several television shows, until he landed the role that would catapult his career in ways he could never have imagined, as Ensign Pavel Chekov in Star Trek's Original Series (Star Trek (1966)). He went on to reprise that role in all 7 of the original Star Trek movies (The 7th movie, Star Trek: Generations (1994) was mostly ST: The Next Generation, but had the original series section at the beginning, and Kirk at the end), as well as voicing the same character in several of the video games. He has continued to reprise that character in several different Star Trek video's, and TV series, rising in rank to Lieutenant, Commander, Captain and Admiral through the years (his most recent being Admiral Chekov in the pilot of Star Trek: Renegades (2015), which never launched, but that evolved to Renegades (2017), a 2 part, crowd-funded, fan-made mini series that also stars fellow Original Series star Nichelle Nichols (as a character NOT named 'Uhura'). Since it was Fan-Made (and to avoid violating studio rights) they couldn't use the Star Trek Character's names, like Uhura or Chekov, so they simply called him 'The Admiral'. (however the uniforms and technology are remarkably Star Trek like.)
He also had a recurring role of the quintessential scoundrel
Bester on the television series
Babylon 5 (1993). He has been the
"Special Guest Star" in twelve episodes and, at the end of the third
season, the production company applied for an Emmy nomination on his
behalf. He once again played Bester in the spin-off series
Crusade (1999).
In between filming the 4th and 5th Star Trek films he took his first leading role in the video feature,
Moontrap (1988). In an interactive
state-of-the-art video game from Digital Pictures called
Maximum Surge (1996),
Koenig played as Drexel, another scoundrel.
Walter completed worked in the low budget feature film
Drawing Down the Moon (1997)
from Chaos Productions. And has star billing as a German psychologist
in the martial arts picture, Sworn to Justice (1996).
A one character piece that Koenig wrote and performed entitled "You're Never
Alone when You're a Schizophrenic" was a finalist in the 1996 New York
Film Festival awards. Koenig filmed a guest appearance as himself on
the CBS situation comedy
Almost Perfect (1995), did
sketch comedy on the Comedy Central series "Viva Variety" (1996) and
performed on an ESPN sports commercial that aired in the spring of
1998. Walter also hosted a cult movie marathon for Comedy
Central. It played once a week for the course of a month.
Koenig's autobiography, "Warped Factors - A Neurotic's Guide to the
Universe" was released through Taylor Publishing on April 1, 1998. The
audio tape reading of the book by the author has been released through
Dove Video in January 1999. Koenig performed as the Shadow Guy in an
episode of
Diagnosis Murder (1993) and
went to New York to perform in a new radio broadcast version of "War of
the Worlds" in tribute to both H.G. Wells and Orson Welles. From "The
Girls of Summer" to "The Boys in Autumn", Koenig's stage career spans
thirty years and includes stops in New York with "A Midsummer Night's
Dream" (Quince) and "Six Characters in Search of an Author" (Oldest
Son). In Chicago, he guested in "Make a Million" (Johnny) opposite
Jackie Coogan and on the road -- from
Arizon to Philadelphia -- Mark Lenard
(Sarek: Spock's father) and he performed in the short plays "Box and
Cox" (Box) and "Actors" (Dave). They also toured in a two character
play, "The Boys in Autumn", the comedy-drama about the reunion of Tom
Sawyer and Huck Finn forty years later.
By himself, Koenig also starred as Larry the Liquidator in "Other
People's Money" in Reno, Nevada. His Los Angeles productions include
"Steambath" (God), "The White House Murder Case" (Captain Weems),
"Night Must Fall" (Danny), "La Ronde" (Gentleman), "The Typist and the
Tiger" (Paul), and "The Deputy" (Jacobson) among almost two dozen
others ("Blood Wedding", "The Collection", et al.). Directorial credits
include "Hotel Paradiso" for Company of Angles, "Beckett" for Theatre
40, "America Hurrah!" at the Oxford Theater, "Twelve Angry Men" at the
Rita Hayworth Theatre, "Matrix" at the Gascon Theatre Institute, and
"Three by Ten" at Actor's Alley. Walter has performed in the television
movies
Antony and Cleopatra (1984)
(Pompey) opposite Timothy Dalton and
Lynn Redgrave as well as the MOW's
Goodbye, Raggedy Ann (1971)
and
The Questor Tapes (1974).
Walter has written for the television series
The Powers of Matthew Star (1982),
What Really Happened to the Class of '65? (1977),
Family (1976),
Land of the Lost (1974), and
the animated Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973)
series. This actor-writer has seen publication with the non-fiction
"Chekov's Enterprise" and the satiric fantasy novel "Buck Alice and the
Actor-Robot". He also created the three issues of the comic book story
"Raver" published by Malibu Comics. Koenig has taught classes in acting
and directing privately at UCLA, The Sherwood Oaks Experimental Film
College and at the California School of Professional Psychology. Most
recently, he has been an instructor at the Actor's Alley Repertory
Company in Los Angeles, California.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Production Manager
Tall, broad shouldered character actor with Texan drawl first appeared
in support in several Western vehicles both on TV and the cinema in the
mid 1960s. Got himself noticed playing Steve McQueen's younger brother
in Junior Bonner (1972), and then scored the lead role of Buford Pusser (!) in the
unexpected hit Walking Tall (1973), an allegedly true tale about a Southern sheriff
confronting corruption & gangsters with a large wooden club and a mean
attitude. Followed it up by playing a sadistic hit man called Molly, in
Don Siegel's bank heist drama Charley Varrick (1973). Joe Don Baker's next few films
were rather forgettable until he landed the role of police detective
Earl Eischied in To Kill a Cop (1978)....which led him into reprising the same
character in the short lived TV series Eischied (1979). Since then he has
proved he is also quite adept at taking on comedy roles, as well as
picking up plenty of work playing lawmen, military men, politicians
etc. Keep your eye open for him as a nosy police chief in Fletch (1985), a
meglomanical general in The Living Daylights (1987), as a redneck father in Mars Attacks! (1996), and as
intelligence operative Jack Wade in the 007 films Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and
GoldenEye (1995).- A native Chicagoan of Polish descent, veteran character actress Arlene Golonka seemed destined for acting from the start, having been named after silver screen actress Arline Judge, and her childhood was dominated by singing and acting classes. She headed to New York at the age of 19 and began a career on Broadway and in films made in New York City, generally playing bubble-headed or eccentric blondes, often prostitutes.
She relocated to Los Angeles in the late 1960s. There, while continuing to play small roles on the big screen, she established one of the strongest resumes in television of any character actress, appearing in dozens of programs over the following three decades, often repeatedly on the same program and sometimes playing different characters. Her TV appearances included such legendary programs as The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), All in the Family (1971), and M*A*S*H (1972). She may have been best-known for her recurring role as "Millie" on Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). - Actor
- Soundtrack
Frederic Forrest, the Oscar-nominated character actor, was born two days before Christmas Day in 1936 in Waxahachie, Texas, the same home town as director Robert Benton. Forrest had long wanted to be an actor, but he was so nervous that he ran out of auditions for school plays. Later, at Texas Christian University, he took a minor in theater arts while majoring in radio and television studies. His parents opposed his aspirations as a thespian as it was a precarious existence, but he moved on to New York and studied with renowned acting teacher Sanford Meisner. He eventually became an observer at the Actors Studio, where he was tutored by Lee Strasberg. During this time, he supported himself as a page at the NBC Studios in Rockefeller Plaza.
His theatrical debut was in the Off-Broadway production of "Viet-Rock", an anti-war play featuring music. He became part of avant-garde director Tom O'Horgan's stock company at La Mama, appearing in the infamous "Futz", among other productions. After starring in the off-Broadway play "Silhouettes", Forrest moved with the production to Los Angeles, intent on breaking into movies. While the production ran for three months and was visited by agents bird-dogging new talent, Forrest got no offers and had to support himself as a pizza-baker after the show closed. Eventually, he began auditing classes at Actors Studio West, and director Stuart Millar saw him in a student showcase production of Clifford Odets' "Watiting for Lefty" and cast him in When the Legends Die (1972). He copped a 1973 Golden Globe nomination as "Most Promising Newcomer - Male" for the role.
Forrest landed a small but very important part in "Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974). He and Cindy Williams are the two people having that titular conversation (recorded by Gene Hackman: so Forrest's voice is heard throughout the film). And Coppola wasn't done with him! Playing "Chef" in Apocalypse Now (1979) garnered Forrest the best notices of his career, and he parlayed that into Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations as Best Supporting Actor for The Rose (1979), his second hit that year. He was named Best Supporting Actor by the National Society of Film Critics for both films. Then he was cast as the star in Coppola's "One From The Heart". In Apocalypse Now (1979), his character ("Chef") is yelling for the Playboy Playmates from the crowd, one of whom is played by Colleen Camp, who, four years later, would play his hippie wife in the film Valley Girl (1983).- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Andrew Prine, a well-known stage actor also known for military and western
dramas, was first seen in Kiss Her Goodbye (1959), then in The Miracle Worker (1962). Prine, who has a
Texan-sounding voice, was also well remembered in westerns like
Texas Across the River (1966), Generation (1969) and Chisum (1970), which featured his close and well-known
friends Christopher George, John Wayne and Richard Jaeckel. Prine next starred in Simon, King of the Witches (1971),
One Little Indian (1973), The Centerfold Girls (1974) and Grizzly (1976), which also featured Christopher George and Richard Jaeckel.
Prine also wrote his own little dialogue story for Grizzly (1976). During this
time, through the '60s and '70s, Prine was married four times but kept his
acting career up. Prine later was in The Evil (1978), Amityville II: The Possession (1982), Eliminators (1986), Chill Factor (1989)
and Gettysburg (1993), which got Prine a big and great role. Prine is a great
veteran actor in Hollywood who will always be remembered. He has also
been in over 30 great films and made 79 guest appearances.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Born Maurice William Elias in Los Angeles, James Stacy is the son of a Lebanese immigrant father and an American-born mother of Irish-Scottish descent. As a teen, Stacy first aspired to play professional football but settled on a career in the movies after a friend coaxed him into taking some acting classes.
Adopting the screen name James Stacy after his cousin Stacy and one of his movie idols, James Dean, he made his film debut in an uncredited role as a reporter in Sayonara (1957), starring Marlon Brando. Garnering little work or recognition in film, he turned to TV. Although he made notable appearances on The Donna Reed Show (1958) and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952), it wasn't until 1968 that he gained his first big break, playing a young gunfighter on the TV series, Lancer (1968).
Although the show was canceled in 1970, Stacy continued to land smaller roles on TV. In 1973, he lost his left arm and left leg in a serious motorcycle accident that claimed the life of his girlfriend. The resultant medical bills wiped out his savings, but his ex-wives and his Hollywood friends rallied round and threw a benefit for him. Two years later, he made his professional comeback as a newspaper editor in the Western film, Posse (1975), in a role created expressly for him by the film's director, Kirk Douglas. Stacy was nominated twice for an Emmy: for Just a Little Inconvenience (1977) in 1977 and Cagney & Lacey (1981) in 1986. He retired in 1991.
Stacy's personal life was turbulent. Twice-divorced, he was briefly married to actress and singer Connie Stevens (1963-66) and, even more briefly, to actress Kim Darby (1968-69), with whom he had a daughter, Heather Elias.
Stacy is portrayed by Timothy Olyphant in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019).- Tough, gruff, thick-browed, volatile-looking character actor Alex Rocco was born Alessandro Federico Petricone, Jr. on February 29, 1936, to Italian immigrants in Cambridge, Mass. He grew up a member of Boston's Winter Hill gang (his nickname was "Bobo") and was briefly detained regarding a murder at one point after an alleged personal incident triggered the Boston Irish Gang War (1961-1967). Rocco decided to straighten his life and relocated to Hollywood in 1962 following his detainment and release.
Developing an interest in acting, Alex initially trained with such notable teachers as Leonard Nimoy and Jeff Corey in order to curb his thick Boston accent. Working as a bartender during the lean years, his film and TV career finally kick-started in 1965, immediately relying on his sly, lethal menace, toothy toughness, and prior gangland past to realistically portray gritty anti-heroes and villains. He made an effective movie debut, co-starring as a vengeful veterinarian and Vietnam vet who goes after motorcycle "bad boys" following his wife's beating and rape in the exploitation flick Motorpsycho! (1965) directed by Russ Meyer. Despite this bold beginning, it was followed by a disappointing gangster bit in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967) and a nothing role as a police Lieutenant in The Boston Strangler (1968). On TV, he found sporadic work playing thugs and other unsavory types on such TV shows as "Run for Your Life," "Batman" and "Get Smart."
Rocco came into his own in the early 1970s. After featured roles in such violent exploitation like Blood Mania (1970) and Brute Corps (1971), he received a huge boost in an Oscar-winning "A" film. He made a brief but potent impact essaying the role of Las Vegas syndicate boss Moe Green who gets a bullet in the eye during the violently explosive "christening sequence" of Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1972). From there he found a comfortable supporting niche playing various swarthy-looking cronies, hoods and cops in such crime films as The Outside Man (1972), Slither (1973), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) (in which he made good use of his Boston criminal past), Freebie and the Bean (1974), Three the Hard Way (1974) and A Woman for All Men (1975). Similar urban roles followed him on TV with yeoman work on such 1970s cop shows as "The Rookies", "Get Christie Love", "Kojak", "Cannon", "The Blue Knight", "Police Story", "The Rockford Files", "Barnaby Jones", "Dog and Cat", "Baretta", "Starsky and Hutch", "Delvecchio", "CHiPs", "Matt Houston", "Hardcastle and McCormick", and "Simon & Simon", along with the TV movies or miniseries A Question of Guilt (1978), The Gangster Chronicles (1981) and Badge of the Assassin (1985).
In the midst of all this, Alex was handed the starring role of his own series Three for the Road (1975) in which he played a new widower photographer with two teenage sons (played by Vincent Van Patten and Leif Garrett) who assuage their grief by leaving town and "discovering America" together. Although well-received, it was short-lived (13 episodes) as a result of poor scheduling. The actor returned to series TV in the late 1980s and was much more successful as a slick Hollywood agent in The Famous Teddy Z (1989) for which he won a "Supporting Actor" Emmy Award. Other regular comedy series work, such as Sibs (1991), The George Carlin Show (1994), The Division (2001) and Magic City (2012), added to his healthy resume over the years, with over 400 TV appearances racked up in all. Recurring roles on such programs as The Simpsons (1989) and The Facts of Life (1979) (as Nancy McKeon's father) also kept his career going at a steady pace. Other memorably flashy film roles include Freebie and the Bean (1974), The Stunt Man (1980), Lady in White (1988), Get Shorty (1995) and Just Write (1997).
Twice married, Rocco's first wife, Sandra Garrett, a nightclub performer and screenwriter, died of cancer in 2002. He married actress Shannon Wilcox in 2005 and together they appeared in the film Scammerhead (2014). Rocco appeared in two films helmed by his adopted son, screenwriter and director Marc Rocco: Scenes from the Goldmine (1987) and Dream a Little Dream (1989), who died in 2009. Two other children by his first wife were Lucian, a poet, and Jennifer, an attorney. Alex Rocco died of pancreatic cancer on July 18, 2015 at age 79. - Michael Dennis Henry was born August 15th, 1936. He was an athletic professional football player at the time he entered the
movies. He played for the Pittsburgh Steelers (1958-61) and the Los
Angeles Rams (1962-64). During part of that time (1961-64) he was under
contract with Warner Brothers and played a variety of bit parts (TV's Surfside 6 (1960), Hawaiian Eye (1959), Cheyenne (1955) & the movie,
Spencer's Mountain (1963)). He earned the role of Tarzan when series producer, Sy Weintraub began looking for a "younger Burt Lancaster" type, anticipating not only more Tarzan movies but a TV series as well. Weintraub was a Rams fan and had seen a TV documentary about them called Men from the Boys, produced by and featuring Mike Henry. Mike only made three Tarzan movies. He suffered animal bites, food
poisoning, infections, and impossible work schedules in Mexico and
especially Brazil. He wound up suing Weintraub for "maltreatment,
abuse, and working conditions detrimental to my health and welfare."
Just before his second Tarzan release in 1967 he was signed as Sgt.
Kowalski in John Wayne's The Green Berets (1968). He made more movies, including the part of "Junior", as a naive son of Jackie Gleason, with the role of Buford T. Justice! in the Smokey and the Bandit (1977) movie set there were three. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Shirley Anne Field was one of Britain's most highly respected actresses. She starred opposite Laurence Olivier, Albert Finney, Steve McQueen, Michael Caine, Daniel Day-Lewis and Ned Beatty in such classic films as The Entertainer, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The War Lover, Alfie, My Beautiful Laundrette and Hear My Song.
As a teenager, she returned to London, her birthplace. She worked as a photographic model to pay her way through acting school, and had small parts in films. Her break came when she was cast as Tina the Beauty Queen opposite Sir Laurence Oliver in The Entertainer. She credited Tony Richardson, the director, with starting her (proper) career.
Her role as "Doreen" in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning soon followed. Only 22 years old, Shirley Anne was a major film star. Her next movie, Man in the Moon, was featured in a Royal Command Performance. This resulted in her name being above the title in all the major cinemas around Leicester Square. Apparently this is a record to this day.
A friend of Richardson told Shirley how Tony and he had gone to Leicester Square to see her name in lights. She worked with Albert Finney at the Royal Court in Lindsay Anderson production of The Lily White Boys. They later worked together again, on Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, written by Alan Sillitoe.
Hollywood was paying attention. Shirley Anne was cast as the female lead in The War Lover opposite Steve McQueen and Robert Wagner. Then she starred in a Hollywood blockbuster, Kings of the Sun, with Yul Brynner and George Chakiris, filmed in Mexico.
She interspersed her film career with theatre and TV performances in Britain and around the world. She played the lead in Wait until Dark in South Africa. She played the part of "Pamela" in the U.S. television drama Santa Barbara.
In the 1980s, she met up again with Stephen Frears, with whom she had worked when they were both beginners at the Royal Court. He cast her in My Beautiful Laundrette which was a big success and a breakthrough movie Her next big film was Hear My Song, as Cathleen Doyle, was made in the 1990s.
In recent years, she toured in theatre productions such as The Cemetery Club and Five Blue Hair Ladies Sitting on a Green Park Bench. Late in her career, she appeared alongside Flora Spencer Longhurst in Beautiful Relics, a short film directed by Adrian Hedgecock.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Elizabeth MacRae was born in Columbia, South Carolina, and grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She went to the Holton Arms School in Washington, D.C. and later moved to New York City to study acting with Uta Hagen at the Herbert Berghof Studio and the Art Student's League.
Ms. MacRae started acting in movies and TV shows in the mid-1960s. Some of her film roles include parts in For Love or Money (1963), The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964), Everything's Ducky (1961), and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974). On TV, she played Gomer Pyle's girlfriend in a show called Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964) and Festus's girlfriend on Gunsmoke (1955) for three years.
She also appeared as a guest or co-star in over 50 TV series, including Barnaby Jones (1973), Kojak (1973), Mannix (1967), The Fugitive (1963), Dr. Kildare (1961), and many others. The Holton Arms School in Washington, D.C. has scripts and audiovisual material documenting her career.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Nicol Williamson was an enormously talented actor who was considered by
some critics to be the finest actor of his generation in the late 1960s
and the 1970s, rivaled only by
Albert Finney, whom Williamson bested in
the classics. Williamson's 1969 "Hamlet" at the Roundhouse Theatre was
a sensation in London, considered by many to be the best limning of
The Dane since the definitive 20th-century portrayal by
John Gielgud, a performance in that period,
rivaled in kudos only by
Richard Burton's 1964 Broadway
performance. In a sense, Williamson and Burton were the last two great
Hamlets of the century. Finney's Hamlet was a failure, and while
Derek Jacobi's turn as The Dane was widely
hailed by English critics, he lacked the charisma and magnetism -- the
star power -- of a Williamson or Burton.
Playwright John Osborne, whose play
"Inadmissible Evidence" was a star vehicle for Williamson in London's
West End and on Broadway, called him "the greatest actor since
Marlon Brando." While it was unlikely that
Williamson could ever achieved the film reputation of Brando (who but
Brando did?) or the superstar status that Burton obtained and then
lost, his inability to maintain a consistent film career most likely is
a result of his own well-noted eccentricities than it is from any
deficiency in acting skills.
The great critic and raconteur
Kenneth Tynan
(Laurence Olivier's first dramaturg at
the National Theatre) wrote a 1971 profile of Williamson that
elucidated the problem with this potentially great performer.
Williamson's Hamlet had wowed Prime Minister
Harold Wilson, and Wilson in
turn raved about his performance to President
Richard Nixon. Nixon invited Williamson to
stage a one-man show at the White House, which was a success. However,
in the same time period, Williamson's reputation was tarred by his
erratic behavior during the North American tour of "Hamlet". In Boston
he stopped during a performance and berated the audience, which led one
cast member to publicly apologize to the Boston audience. Williamson
would be involved in an even more famous incident on Broadway a
generation later.
Even before the Boston incident, Williamson had made headlines when,
during the Philadelphia tryout of "Inadmissible Evidence," he struck
producer David Merrick whilst
defending Anthony Page. In 1976 he slapped a fellow actor during the
curtain call for the Broadway musical "Rex." Fifteen years later, his
co-star in the Broadway production of "I Hate Hamlet" was terrified of
him after Williamson whacked the actor on his buttocks with a sword,
after the actor had abandoned the choreography.
A great stage actor, who also did a memorable "Macbeth" in London and
on Broadway, Williamson was twice nominated for Tony Awards as Best
Actor (Dramatic), in 1966 for Osborne's "Inadmissible Evidence" (a
performance he recreated in the film version) and in 1974 for a revival
of "Uncle Vanya." On film, Williamson was superb in many roles, such as
the suicidal Irish soldier in
The Bofors Gun (1968) and
Tony Richardson's
Hamlet (1969). He got his chance playing
leads, such as Sherlock Holmes in
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)
and Castle in Otto Preminger's
The Human Factor (1979), and
was competent if not spectacular, likely diminished by deficiencies in
the scripts rather than his own talent. Richardson also replaced
Williamson's rival as Hamlet, Burton, in his adaptation of
Vladimir Nabokov's
Laughter in the Dark (1969).
It was in supporting work that he excelled in film in the 1970s and
1980s. He was quite effective as a supporting actor, such as his Little
John to Sean Connery's Robin Hood in
Richard Lester's
Robin and Marian (1976), was
brilliant in
I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982)
and gave a performance for the ages (albeit in the scenery-chewing
category as Merlin) in
Excalibur (1981). His Merlin lives on
as one of the most enjoyable performances ever caught on film.
Then it was over. While the film work didn't dry up, it didn't reach
the heights anymore. He failed to harness that enormous talent and
convert it into memorable film performances. He did good work as
Louis Mountbatten in a 1986 TV-movie,
but the roles became more sporadic, and after 1997 this great actor no
longer appeared in motion pictures.
Williamson's eccentricities showed themselves again in the early 1990s.
When appearing as the ghost of
John Barrymore in the 1991
Broadway production of Paul Rudnick's "I
Hate Hamlet" on Broadway in 1991, Williamson's co-star quit the play
after being thumped on the buttocks with a sword during a stage fight.
Although critics hailed the performances of the understudy as a "vast
improvement" it caused a sensation in the press. Despite good reviews,
the play lasted only 100 performances.
Surprisingly, Williamson never won an Oscar nomination, yet that never
was a game he seemed to play. In 1970, after his Hamlet triumph, he
turned down a six-figure salary to appear as Enobarbus in
Charlton Heston's film of Shakespeare's
Antony and Cleopatra (1972)_. The role was played by
Eric Porter, but his choice was
justified in that the film was derided as a vanity production and
savaged by critics).
Williamson had been a staple on Broadway, even using his fine singing
voice to appear as Henry VIII in the Broadway musical "Rex" In 1976. He
has not appeared on the Great White Way since his own one-man show
about John Barrymore that he himself crafted, "Jack: A Night on the
Town with John Barrymore," which had enormously successful runs, both
at the Criterion Theater in London, and The Geffen Theater in Los
Angeles playing to packed houses, before closing on Broadway after only
12 performances in 1996.
The "I Hate Hamlet" and "Jack" shows are still talked about on
Broadway. Williamson has joined the ranks of Barrymore, Burton, and
Brando, in that they have become phantoms who haunt the theater and
film that they they served so admirably on the one hand but failed on
the other. All enormously gifted artists, perhaps possessed of genius,
they were discombobulated by that gift that became their curse, the
burden of dreams -- the dreams of their audiences, their collaborators,
their critics. While there is a wistfulness over the loss of such
greatness, there is a relief offered, not so much from a moral tale,
but as a release from guilt for the run-of-the-mill artists lacking
such genius. One can be comforted by the fact that while one lacks the
pearl of such a talent, they also lack the irritating genius that
engenders that pearl.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Born and raised in Winnipeg, Canada, Donnelly Rhodes trained to be a
warden in the National Park Service in Manitoba and joined the Royal
Canadian Air Force as an airman-mechanic before finally settling into
his long and successful career as an actor. Rhodes studied at the
Royal Manitoba Theatre Center and was a member of the first graduating class
of the National Theatre School in Canada. After making his professional
debut on stage as Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar Named Desire, he became
a contract player for Universal Pictures in the U.S., landing film and
television roles ranging from a gunslinger in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) to a country
singer in The Hard Part Begins (1973) to various guest appearances in series such as
Mission: Impossible (1966). Later, he was popular as the suave Phillip Chancellor Sr. on
The Young and the Restless (1973), but left the show in 1976 to avoid devoting too much of his
career to the one role. He continued to work steadily, taking roles in
a wide variety of television and theatrical movies and making guest
appearances on more than 100 television series. Major TV roles saw him
range from dim-witted escaped con Dutch on Soap (1977) to veterinarian and
family man Dr. Grant Roberts on the popular Canadian family series
Danger Bay (1983). More recently, he has appeared in a number of TV movies as
well as in guest spots on popular series such as Sliders (1995) and The X-Files (1993).
Rhodes' diverse interests include music and horses, but his real
passion is boats. He has said that if he hadn't succeeded as an actor,
he would have pursued a career as a naval architect.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Jim Henson never thought that he would make a name of himself in
puppetry; it was merely a way of getting himself on television. The
vehicle that achieved it was
Sam and Friends (1955), a
late-night puppet show that was on after the 11:00 news in Washington
DC. It proved to be very popular and inspired Jim to continue using
puppets for his work. He made many commercials, developing the
signature humor that Henson Productions is known for. A key reason for
the success of his puppets is that Jim realized he didn't need to hide
puppeteers behind a structure when they were in front of a camera. All
he had to do was instruct the camera operators to focus on the puppets
and keep the puppeteers out of the frame. This allowed the puppets to
dominate the image and make them more lifelike. This work on puppets
and television would lead to separate projects that had different
goals. The first one was his work on the
The Jimmy Dean Show (1963)
with the character Rowlf the Dog, the oldest clearly identified
character that Henson Productions still uses. This show provided an
income that allowed Jim to work on a pet project. That project was
Time Piece (1965), a surrealistic
short about time which was nominated for best live-action short Oscar.
Henson shot to prominence when he was approached to use his muppets for
the revolutionary educational show
Sesame Street (1969). The show
was a smash hit and his characters have become staples on public
television. Unforetunately, this also led to Henson being typecast as
only an entertainer for children. He sought to disprove that by being
part of the initial crew of
Saturday Night Live (1975),
but his style and that of the creative staff simply didn't jibe. It was
this circumstance that encouraged him to develop a variety show format
that had the kind of sophisticated humor that
"Sesame Street (1969)" didn't
work with. No American broadcaster was interested, but British producer
Lew Grade was. This led to
The Muppet Show (1976). It
initially struggled both in the ratings and in the search for guest
stars, but in the second season it became a smash hit and would
eventually become the most widely watched series in television history.
Hungry for a new challenge, Henson made
The Muppet Movie (1979), defying
the popular industry opinion that his characters would never work in a
movie. The film became a hit and spawned a series of features which
included the moody fantasy
The Dark Crystal (1982), which
was a drastic and bold departure from the amiable tone of his previous
work. The most successful TV work in the 1980s was
Fraggle Rock (1983), a fantasy
series specifically designed to appeal to as many cultural groups as
possible. During this time he also established the Creature Shop, a
puppet studio that became renowned for being as brilliant with puppetry
as ILM was at special effects. When he died all too soon in 1990, he
was indisputably one of the geniuses of puppetry. More importantly, he
was a man who achieved his phenomenal success while still retaining his
social conscience and artistic integrity as his work in promoting
environmentalism and his brilliant
The Storyteller (1987) series
respectively attest to.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Ron Masak (MAY-SACK) was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a salesman/musician (Floyd Lewis Masak, of Bohemian Czech descent), and a mother (Mildred Alice Rudy, of Irish descent), who was a merchandise buyer. Ron attended Chicago City College, and studied theater at both the CCC and the Drama Guild. He made his acting debut with the Drama Guild in Chicago in Stalag 17 in 1954.
During the course of his career, he starred in 25 feature films and guest starred in some 350 television shows. Perhaps the most beloved character was that of Sheriff Mort Metzger on Murder, She Wrote (1984). He was seen and heard in hundred of television and radio commercials. He was nicknamed the "King of Commercials" by columnist James Bacon.
Trained in the classics, he proved to be equally at home on stage or screen with Shakespeare or slapstick. He played everything from Stanley Kowalski in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and Sakini in 'Teahouse of the August Moon' to Will Stockdale in 'No Time For Sergeants', and Antony in 'Julius Caesar'. As further proof of his versatility, in one production of 'Mr. Roberts', he played Ensign Pulver, and, in another production, he portrayed the title character himself.
In his hometown of Chicago, he was resident leading man at The Candlelight Dinner Playhouse from 1962 to 1966, never missing a single performance. The U.S. Army provided Masak with a platform from which to display his all-around talents for performing, writing and directing. In 1960-61, he toured the world doing vocal impressions in the all-Army show entitled 'Rolling Along' and never missed a show.
Masak continued to demonstrate his range of talent in such films as Ice Station Zebra, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting, Tora! Tora! Tora!, A Time For Dying, Harper Valley PTA, Cops & Roberts and The Man From Clover Grove. It was during Clover Grove that Ron added credits as a lyric writer, as he wrote and sang the title song. He played his first big screen villain starring in No Code of Conduct. Among his many television roles, he starred as Charley Wilson on Love Thy Neighbor, as Count Dracula on The Monkees, and was submitted for an Emmy nomination for one of his ten appearances on Police Story. He was seen on Magnum P.I., Webster, The Law and Harry McGraw, and Columbo. His movies of the week include The Neighborhood, In the Glitter Palace, Pleasure Cove, Once An Eagle, and Nightmare in Chicago.
His variety work included emceeing hundreds of shows for, among others, Kenny Rogers, Diahann Carroll, Alabama, Billy Crystal, The Steve Garvey Classics, Tony Orlando, The Lennon Sisters, Trini Lopez, Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis, Connie Stevens, as well as the Michael Landon Classics and the Beau Bridges Classics.
Masak starred in Second Effort (with Vince Lombardi), Time Management (with James Whitmore), How to Control Your Time (with Burgess Meredith), and Ya Gotta Believe (with Tommy Lasorda, which Masak wrote and directed). He was a sought-after motivational speaker. He traveled across the USA as spokesman for a major brewing company and for 15 years was the voice of the Vlasic Pickle stork. Masak played Lou Costello in commercials for Bran News, McDonald's, and Tropicana Orange Juice. Frequently seen on the talk and game show circuit, he was a celebrity panelist on such game shows as Password, Tattletales, Crosswits, Liar's Club, Showoffs and Match Game. He was a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth.
He devoted his time and energy working with many charities. For eight years, he was the LA host for the Jerry Lewis Telethon and recipient of MDA's first Humanitarian of the Year Award. He served as field announcer for the Special Olympics in support of Special needs children, and was named Man of the Year by Volunteers Assisting Cancer Stricken Families. In addition, he contributed time to work with Multiple Sclerosis, Cystic Fibrosis, and Breast Cancer awareness groups and hosted charity golf tournaments for among others, Childhelp USA, for whom he was a worldwide ambassador.
He and his wife Kay had six children and ten grandchildren.- Charles Dierkop was born on 11 September 1936 in La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA. He was an actor, known for The Sting (1973), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984). He was married to Joan Florence Addis. He died on 25 February 2024 in Los Angeles, California, USA.