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1-50 of 3,882
- Actor
- Production Designer
- Soundtrack
Born in Japan, Makoto Iwamatsu was living there with his grandparents while his parents studied art in the United States, when Japan and the U.S. went to war in 1941. His parents remained in the U.S., working for the Office of War Information, and, at the cessation of the conflict, were granted U.S. residency by Congress. "Mako", as he became known, joined his parents in New York and studied architecture.
He entered the U.S. Army in the early 1950s and acted in shows for military personnel, discovering a talent and love for the theatre. He abandoned his plans to become an architect and instead enrolled at the famed Pasadena Community Playhouse. Following his studies there, he appeared in many stage productions and on television. In 1966, he won an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his first film role, as the coolie "Po-Han" in The Sand Pebbles (1966). He worked steadily in feature films since.
He appeared on Broadway in the leading role in Stephen Sondheim's "Pacific Overtures", and co-founded and served as artistic director for the highly-acclaimed East-West Players theatre company in Los Angeles.
Following a long battle with cancer, Mako passed away on July 21, 2006, at the age of 72. He was survived by his wife, Shizuko Hoshi (who co-starred in episodes of M*A*S*H (1972)) as well, and his children and grandchildren.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Born September 30, 1952, in Royton, near Oldham, England, Jack Wild was
discovered by talent agent
June Collins, mother of rock star
Phil Collins. His breakthrough came
when he landed the role of Oliver in the London stage production of
"Oliver!" When it came to casting the film, the role of the Artful
Dodger went to Jack, a role that resulted in his getting an Oscar
nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Fresh from this success, Jack was
offered the lead role in the American television series
H.R. Pufnstuf (1969). This
Sid Krofft and
Marty Krofft production featured Wild as a
boy marooned in an enchanted land with puppets and actors in elaborate
costumes. The success of this program led to Wild reprising the role
for the film version, Pufnstuf (1970).
Other roles followed, including
Melody (1971) and
Flight of the Doves (1971).
Around the same time, Wild released three albums ("The Jack Wild
Album"; "Everything's Coming up Roses", featuring along with cover
numbers a couple of new songs written by up-and-coming songwriter
Lynsey de Paul; and "Beautiful World").
By 1972, however, he was already being demoted to the role of
supporting actor for
The Pied Piper (1972). He also
appeared in
Our Mutual Friend (1976).
He returned to films in two small roles: the miller's son in
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
and a peddler in Basil (1998). Wild
underwent surgery for oral cancer in July 2004, and had some vocal
cords and part of his tongue removed. Unfortunately, the cancer proved
untreatable and he died on 1 March 2006.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Christopher Shannon Penn was born on October 10, 1965 in Los Angeles, California, the third son of actress Eileen Ryan (née Annucci) and director, actor, and writer Leo Penn. His siblings are musician Michael Penn and actor Sean Penn. His father was from a Lithuanian Jewish/Russian Jewish family, and his mother is of half-Italian and half-Irish descent.
Penn set out to follow in his parents' footsteps and started acting at age twelve in the Loft Studio.
While in high school he and his brother Sean made several shorts with
their classmates, which included such would-be stars as
Emilio Estevez and
Rob Lowe. Penn made his onscreen debut
in the Christopher Cain movie,
Charlie and the Talking Buzzard (1979).
After a few years Penn caught the eye of acclaimed director
Francis Ford Coppola, who cast him
in a supporting role in the teen drama
Rumble Fish (1983). Although the film
was a flop critically and commercially, Penn's career was well under
way.
That same year he acted in
All the Right Moves (1983), a
high school drama film starring a young
Tom Cruise. The next year Penn gave a
performance in Footloose (1984),
starring Kevin Bacon and dealing
with a small town which bans rock & roll music. The movie was a smash
hit, and remains a classic to this day. Penn followed this up with a
villainous role in Clint Eastwood's
Pale Rider (1985), and the crime movie
At Close Range (1986), starring
Christopher Walken.
Penn acted in a few smaller productions until he was cast as Travis
Brickley in the sports drama
Best of the Best (1989). Penn's
character is a martial arts fighter who joins the other main characters
when they enter a taekwondo tournament against the Korean team. The
movie spawned several sequels, though Penn only appeared in the first
and second films. A few more jobs followed until Penn landed what is
known as his most famous movie:
Quentin Tarantino's
Reservoir Dogs (1992). The indie
crime film concerned a heist gone wrong, as the criminals search for a
rat in their midst. Penn played the role of Nice Guy Eddie, the son of
the old gangster that arranges the heist. The film continues to receive
acclaim as a classic movie and as the start of Tarantino's directing
career. Penn also acted in the Tarantino-scripted
Tony Scott crime movie
True Romance (1993), albeit in a
much smaller role. Penn also took a supporting role in the ensemble
film Short Cuts (1993) by
Robert Altman.
After participating in these acclaimed films, Penn took on several
smaller projects, including a role as the villain in the second
"Beethoven" movie. In this period of time, Penn acted in such films as
the crime film
Mulholland Falls (1996), set in
the 1950s. Penn then gave one of his greatest performances in the
Abel Ferrara crime drama
The Funeral (1996). The movie starred
Christopher Walken, Penn, and
Vincent Gallo as three brothers who are
involved in the world of crime, even as it threatens to take them all
down. Penn plays Chez, the middle brother, who has a very short temper.
Penn also sang a song in the film as his character. While the film was
well received critically and Penn received an award for Best Supporting
Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his excellent performance,
The Funeral (1996) went largely
unseen. Penn followed up with the Canadian film
The Boys Club (1996), the crime
thriller One Tough Cop (1998), and
a supporting role in the hit comedy
Rush Hour (1998).
Following his latest success, Penn acted in the drama-comedy
The Florentine (1999), the English
comedy
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2001),
and the crime thriller
Murder by Numbers (2002). Penn
was also one of the many stars that acted in the box office failure
Masked and Anonymous (2003),
starring Bob Dylan. The last few years of his
career mainly featured supporting roles in such movies as
After the Sunset (2004),
Starsky & Hutch (2004), and the
Canadian crime film
King of Sorrow (2007), his last
film appearance. Throughout his life Penn had had battles with heart
disease and multiple drug use. He was found dead in his home on January
24, 2006. He was only forty years old.
Penn left behind a career that featured many roles in small,
independent productions as well as several very well-known films. Penn
worked with several esteemed directors and fellow actors, lending his
talent to both television and film. Although he never received nearly
as much attention or as many awards as his brother Sean, Chris Penn will always
be remembered by those who watch movies and appreciate his work.- Actor
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Jack Palance quite often exemplified evil incarnate on film, portraying some of the most intensely feral villains witnessed in 1950s westerns and melodrama. Enhanced by his tall, powerful build, icy voice, and piercing eyes, he earned two "Best Supporting Actor" nominations early in his career. It would take a grizzled, eccentric comic performance 40 years later, however, for him to finally grab the coveted statuette.
Of Ukrainian descent, Palance was born Volodymyr Ivanovich Palahniuk (later taking Walter Jack Palance as his legal name) on February 18, 1919 (although some sources, including his death certificate, cite 1920) in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania (coal country), one of six children born to Anna (nee Gramiak) and Ivan Palahniuk. His father, an anthracite miner, died of black lung disease. Palance worked in the mines in his early years but averted the same fate as his father. Athletics was his ticket out of the mines when he won a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina. He subsequently dropped out to try his hand at professional boxing. Fighting under the name "Jack Brazzo", he won his first 15 fights, 12 by knockout, before losing a 4th round decision to future heavyweight contender Joe Baksi on December 17, 1940.
With the outbreak of World War II, his boxing career ended and his military career began, serving in the Army Air Force as a bomber pilot. Wounded in combat and suffering severe injuries and burns, he received the Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal. He resumed college studies as a journalist at Stanford University and became a sportswriter for the San Francisco Chronicle. He also worked for a radio station until he was bit by the acting bug.
Palance made his stage debut in "The Big Two" in 1947 and immediately followed it understudying Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in the groundbreaking Broadway classic "A Streetcar Named Desire", a role he eventually took over. Following stage parts in "Temporary Island" (1948), "The Vigil" (1948), and "The Silver Tassle" (1949), Palance won a choice role in "Darkness of Noon" and a Theatre World Award for "Promising New Personality." This recognition helped him secure a 20th Century-Fox contract. The facial burns and resulting reconstructive surgery following the crash and burn of his WWII bomber plane actually worked to his advantage. Out of contention as a glossy romantic leading man, Palance instead became the archetypal intimidating villain equipped with towering stance, imposing glare, and killer-shark smile.
He stood out among a powerhouse cast that included actors such as Richard Widmark, Zero Mostel and Paul Douglas in his movie debut in Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950), as a plague-carrying fugitive. He was soon on his way. Briefly billed as Walter Jack Palance before eliminating the first name, the actor made fine use of his former boxing skills and war experience for the film Halls of Montezuma (1951) as a boxing Marine in Richard Widmark's platoon. He followed this with the first of his back-to-back Oscar nods. In Sudden Fear (1952), only his third film, he played rich-and-famous playwright Joan Crawford's struggling actor/husband who plots to murder her and run off with gorgeous Gloria Grahame. Finding just the right degree of intensity and menace to pretty much steal the proceedings without chewing the scenery, he followed this with arguably his finest villain of the decade, that of sadistic gunslinger Jack Wilson who takes on Alan Ladd's titular hero, played by Shane (1953), in a classic showdown.
Throughout the 1950s, Palance doled out strong leads and supports such as those in Man in the Attic (1953) (his first lead), The Big Knife (1955) and the war classic Attack (1956). Mixed in were a few routine to highly mediocre parts in Flight to Tangier (1953), Sign of the Pagan (1954) (as Attila the Hun), and the biblical bomb The Silver Chalice (1954). In between filmmaking were a host of television roles, none better than his down-and-out boxer in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956), a rare sympathetic role that earned him an Emmy Award.
Back and forth overseas in the 1960s and 1970s, Palance would dominate foreign pictures in a number of different genres -- sandal-and-spear spectacles, biblical epics, war stories and "spaghetti westerns." Such films included The Battle of Austerlitz (1960), The Mongols (1961), Barabbas (1961), Night Train to Milan (1962), Contempt (1963), The Mercenary (1968), Marquis de Sade's Justine (1969), The Desperados (1969), It Can Be Done Amigo (1972), Chato's Land (1972), Blood and Bullets (1976), Welcome to Blood City (1977). Back home, he played Fidel Castro in Che! (1969) while also appearing in Monte Walsh (1970), Oklahoma Crude (1973) and The Four Deuces (1975).
On the made-for-television front, Jack played a number of nefarious nasties to perfection, ranging from Mr. Hyde (The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968)) to Dracula in Dracula (1974) to Ebenezer Scrooge in a "Wild West" version of the Dickens classic Ebenezer (1998). He also played one of the Hatfields in The Hatfields and the McCoys (1975). Jack switched gears to star as a "nice guy" lieutenant in the single-season TV cop drama Bronk (1975). In later years, the actor mellowed with age, as exemplified by roles in Bagdad Cafe (1987), but could still display his bad side as he did as an evil rancher, crime boss or drug lord in, respectively, Young Guns (1988), Batman (1989) and Tango & Cash (1989). Into his twilight years he showed a penchant for brash, quirky comedy capped by his Oscar-winning role in City Slickers (1991) and its sequel. He ended his film career playing Long John Silver in Treasure Island (1999).
His three children by his first wife, actress Virginia Baker -- Holly Palance, Brooke Palance, and Cody Palance -- all pursued acting careers and appeared with their father at one time or another. A man of few words off the set, he owned his own cattle ranch and displayed other creative sides as a exhibited painter and published poet.
His last years were marred by both failing health and the 1998 death of his son Cody from melanoma. He was later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died at the Santa Barbara County home of his daughter, Holly Palance, in 2006.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois.
Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish
immigrant. She had one sibling, a sister, Blanche. Her father moved the family to Brooklyn when she was still young so that he, a tailor's cutter, could find steadier work closer to the city's garment industry. An unfailing interest in acting began quite early for Shelley, and she appeared in high school plays. By her mid- to late teens she had already been employed as a Woolworth's store clerk, model, borscht belt vaudevillian and nightclub chorine, all in order to pay for her acting classes. During a nationwide search in 1939 for GWTW's Scarlett O'Hara, Shelley was advised by auditioning director George Cukor to get acting lessons, which she did. Apprenticing in summer stock, she made her Broadway debut in the short-lived comedy "The Night Before Christmas" in 1941 and followed it with the operetta "Rosalinda" (1942) initially billing herself in both shows as Shelley Winter (without the "s").
Within a short time, Shelley pushed ahead for a career out west. Hollywood proved to be a tough road. Toiling in bit roles for years,
many of her scenes were excised altogether during her early days. Obscurely used in such movies as What a Woman! (1943), The Racket Man (1944),
Cover Girl (1944) and Tonight and Every Night (1945), her breakthrough did not occur until 1947, and it happened on both the stage and big screen. Not only did she win the replacement role of Ado Annie Carnes in "Oklahoma!" on Broadway but, around the same time, scored excellent notices on film as the party girl waitress who ends up a victim of deranged strangler (and Oscar winner) Ronald Colman in the
critically-hailed A Double Life (1947) directed by Cukor. From this moment, she achieved a somewhat earthy film stardom, playing second-lead broads who often met untimely ends (as in Cry of the City (1948) and The Great Gatsby (1949)), or tawdry-black-stockinged and feather-boa-adorned leads, as in South Sea Sinner (1950) in which her eclectic co-stars included Macdonald Carey and Liberace!
As a tarnished glamour girl and symbol of working-class vulgarity in Hollywood, Shelley was about to be written off in pictures altogether
when one of her finest movie roles arrived on her front porch. Her best hard luck girl storyboard showed up in the form of depressed,
frumpy-looking Alice Tripp, a factory girl seduced and abandoned by wanderlust Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951). Favoring gorgeous society girl Elizabeth Taylor who is totally out of his league, Clift is subsequently blackmailed by Winters' pathetic (and now pregnant) character into marrying her. For her desperate efforts, she is purposely drowned by Clift after he tips their canoe. The role, which garnered Shelley her first Oscar nomination, finally plucked her out of the sordid starlet pool she was treading and into the ranks of serious femme star contenders. But not for long.
Winters just couldn't escape the lurid bottle-blonde quality she instilled in her characters. During what should have been her peak time in films were a host of badly-scripted "B" films. The obvious, two-dimensional chorines, barflies, floozies and gold diggers
she played in Behave Yourself! (1951), Frenchie (1950), Phone Call from a Stranger (1952), Playgirl (1954), and also Mambo (1954), in which
co-starred second husband Vittorio Gassman, pretty much said it all. She grew extremely disenchanted and decided to return to
dramatic study. Earning membership into the famed Actors' Studio, she went to Broadway and earned kudos, thereby reestablishing her
reputation as a strong actress with the drug-themed play "A Hatful of Rain" (1955). Co-starring in the show was the up-and-coming Anthony Franciosa, who became her third husband in 1957. Her renewed dedication to pursuing quality work was shown by her appearances in a number of heavyweight theater roles including Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1955). In later years, the Actors' Studio enthusiast became one of its most respected coaches, shaping up a number of today's fine talents with the Strasberg "method" technique.
By the late 1950s, she had started growing in girth and wisely eased into colorful character supports. The switch paid off. After a sterling
performance as the ill-fated wife of sadistic killer Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955),
she scored big in the Oscar department when she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the shrill and hypertensive but doomed Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). From this period sprouted a host of revoltingly bad mamas, blowsy matrons, and trashy madams in such film fare as Lolita (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), The Balcony (1963) Wives and Lovers (1963), and A House Is Not a Home (1964). She topped things off as the abusive prostitute mom in A Patch of Blue (1965) who was not above pimping her own blind daughter (the late Elizabeth Hartman) for household money. The actress managed to place a second Oscar on her mantle for this riveting support work.
With advancing age and increasing size, she found a comfortable niche in the harping Jewish wife/mother category with loud, flashy,
unsubtle roles in Enter Laughing (1967), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) and, most notably, The Poseidon Adventure (1972). She earned another Oscar nomination for "Poseidon" while portraying her third drowning victim. At around the same time, she scored quite well as the indomitable Marx Brothers' mama in "Minnie's Boys" on Broadway in 1970.
In the 1970s and 1980s, she developed into an oddly-distracted personality on TV, making countless talk show appearances and becoming quite the raconteur and incessant name dropper with her juicy Hollywood behind-the-scenes tales. Candid would be an understatement when she published two scintillating tell-all autobiographies that reached the bestsellers list. "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley" (1981) and "Shelley II: The Middle of My Century" (1989) detailed dalliances with Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, William Holden, Sean Connery and Clark Gable, to name just a few.
Thrice divorced (her first husband was a WWII captain; her only child, Vittoria, was the daughter of her second husband,
Gassman), she remained footloose and fancy free after finally breaking it off with the volatile Franciosa in 1960. Her stormy
marriages and notorious affairs, not to mention her ambitious forays into politics and feminist causes, kept her name alive for decades. She worked in films until the beginning of the millennium, her last film being the easily-dismissed Italian feature
La bomba (1999). She enjoyed Emmy-winning TV work and had the recurring role of Roseanne Barr's tell-it-like-it-is grandmother on the comedienne's self-named sitcom. Her last years were marred by failing health and, for the most part, she was confined to a wheelchair. Suffering a heart attack in October of 2005, she died in a Beverly Hills nursing home of heart failure on January 14, 2006.
It was reported that only hours earlier on her deathbed she had entered into a "spiritual" union with her longtime companion of 19 years, Gerry McFord; a relationship of which her daughter disapproved. Gregarious, brazen, ambitious and completely unpredictable -- that would be Shelley Winters, the storyteller, whose amazing career lasted over six colorful decades.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Robert Altman was born on February 20th, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri,
to B.C. (an insurance salesman) and Helen Altman. He entered St. Peters
Catholic school at the age six, and spent a short time at a Catholic
high school. From there, he went to Rockhurst High School. It was then
that he started exploring the art of exploring sound with the cheap
tape recorders available at the time. He was then sent to Wentworth
Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri where he attended through
Junior College. In 1945, he enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and became a
copilot of a B-24. After his discharge from the military, he became
fascinated by movies and he and his first wife, LaVonne Elmer, moved to
Hollywood, where Altman tried acting (appearing in the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)),
songwriting (he wrote a musical intended for Broadway, "The Rumors are
Flying"), and screen-writing (he co-wrote the screenplay for the film
Bodyguard (1948) and wrote the story (uncredited) for Christmas Eve (1947)), but he could not
get a foot hold in Tinseltown. After a brief fling as publicity
director with a company in the business of tattooing dogs, Altman
finally gave up and returned to his hometown of Kansas City, where he
decided he wanted to do some serious work in filmmaking. An old friend
of his recommended him to a film production company in Kansas City, the
Calvin Co., who hired him in 1950. After a few months of work in
writing scripts and editing films, Altman began directing films at
Calvin. It was here (while working on documentaries, employee training
films, industrial and educational films and advertisements) that he
learned much about film making. All in all, Altman pieced together
sixty to sixty-five short films for Calvin on every subject imaginable,
from football to car crashes, but he kept grasping for more challenging
projects. He wrote the screenplay for the Kansas City-produced feature
film Corn's-A-Poppin' (1955), he produced and directed several television commercials
including one with the Eileen Ford Agency, he co-created and directed the
TV series The Pulse of the City (1953) which ran for one season on the independent Dumont
network, and he even had a formative crack at directing local community
theater. His big-screen directorial debut came while still at Calvin
with The Delinquents (1957) and, by 1956, he left the Calvin Co., and went to
Hollywood to direct Alfred Hitchcock's TV show. From here, he went on to direct
a large number of television shows, until he was offered the script for
M*A*S*H (1970) in 1969. He was hardly the producer's first choice - more than
fifteen other directors had already turned it down. This wasn't his
first movie, but it was his first success. After that, he had his share
of hits and misses, but The Player (1992) and, more recently, Gosford Park (2001) were
particularly well-received.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Native New Yorker and Italianate Bruno Kirby tended towards assertive,
pushy, streetwise characters and was armed with a highly distinctive
scratchy tenor voice that complemented his slim eyes and droopy puss
and accentuated his deadpan comedic instincts on film and TV. The
well-regarded character actor was born Bruno Giovanni Quidaciolu on April 28,
1949, in New York City, the son of Lucille (Garibaldi) and actor Bruce Kirby. He was raised in NY's Hell's Kitchen section.
In the late 1960s he moved with his family to California. His career
began to rev up in the early 1970s with a part in the TV pilot episode
of M*A*S*H (1972) and roles in the
films
The Young Graduates (1971),
The Harrad Experiment (1973),
Cinderella Liberty (1973) and
Superdad (1973). Most notable of all,
however, was his featured part as Young Clemenza alongside
Robert De Niro's young Vito Corleone in
The Godfather Part II (1974).
Bruno also played
Richard S. Castellano's son in the
short-lived ethnic sitcom
The Super (1972). Coincidentally,
Castellano played older Clemenza in the original
The Godfather (1972).
On stage in the 1980s and 1990s, Bruno appeared in "On the Money"
(1983) and "Geniuses" (1985) and later replaced
Kevin Spacey on Broadway in "Lost in
Yonkers" in 1991. In 1997 he showcased off-Broadway, playing writer
Alan Zweibel in "Bunny Bunny," Zweibel's
tribute to comedienne Gilda Radner and
their close 14-year friendship.
Bruno's close association with director
Rob Reiner and actor
Billy Crystal arguably led to the apex of
his film career. In the early 1980s he chummed around with both Reiner
and Crystal on a softball team, along with writer/actor/director
Christopher Guest. Bruno wound
up playing Crystal's best buddy in two of Crystal's biggest box-office
hits --
When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
and City Slickers (1991). He also
appeared in Reiner's cult hit
This Is Spinal Tap (1984).
Other important film roles for him included his humorless lieutenant in
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987),
the refined salesman named "Mouse" in
Tin Men (1987) and
Marlon Brando's nephew in
The Freshman (1990), that more or
less amusingly parodied the "Godfather" association.
Bruno was equally effective in taut, heavier stories and supported such
up-and-coming stars as
Leonardo DiCaprio in the dark and
downbeat
The Basketball Diaries (1995)
and Johnny Depp in the mob family-styled
drama Donnie Brasco (1997). On TV
he was a regular on
It's Garry Shandling's Show. (1986),
played dogged prosecutor
Vincent Bugliosi in the miniseries
Helter Skelter (2004),
which was a reenactment of the
Charles Manson family horror, and
appeared on the more popular shows of the day, such as
Entourage (2004). He was married
for the first time to actress Lynn Sellers
in 2004 at age 55. His brother John is a well-known acting coach. An
occasional TV director to boot, Bruno was diagnosed with leukemia
shortly before his death on August 14, 2006, after having completed his
part in the film Played (2006) starring
Gabriel Byrne.- Actor
- Soundtrack
A bold, blunt instrument of hatred and violence at the onset of his film career, Peter Boyle recoiled from that repugnant, politically incorrect "working class" image to eventually play gruff, gentler bears and even comedy monsters in a career that lasted four decades.
He was born on October 18, 1935, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, to Alice (Lewis) and Francis Xavier Boyle. He eventually moved to Philadelphia, where his father was a sought-after local TV personality and children's show host. His paternal grandparents were Irish immigrants, and his mother was of mostly French and British Isles descent. Following a solid Catholic upbringing (he attended a Catholic high school), Peter was a sensitive youth and joined the Christian Brothers religious order at one point while attending La Salle University in Philadelphia. He left the monastery after only a few years when he "lost" his calling.
Bent on an acting career, Boyle initially studied with guru Uta Hagen in New York. The tall (6' 2"), hulking, prematurely bald actor wannabe struggled through a variety of odd jobs (postal worker, waiter, bouncer) while simultaneously building up his credits on stage and waiting for that first big break. Things started progressing for him after appearing in the national company of "The Odd Couple" in 1965 and landing TV commercials on the sly. In the late 60s he joined Chicago's Second City improv group and made his Broadway debut as a replacement for Peter Bonerz in Paul Sills' "Story Theatre" (1971) (Sills was the founder of Second City). Peter's breakout film role did not come without controversy as the hateful, hardhat-donning bigot-turned-murderer Joe (1970) in a tense, violence-prone film directed by John G. Avildsen. The role led to major notoriety, however, and some daunting supporting parts in T.R. Baskin (1971),
Slither (1973) and as Robert Redford's calculating campaign manager in The Candidate (1972). During this time his political radicalism found a visible platform after joining Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland on anti-war crusades, which would include the anti-establishment picture Steelyard Blues (1973). This period also saw the forging of a strong friendship with former Beatle John Lennon.
Destined to be cast as monstrous undesirables throughout much of his career, he played a monster of another sort in his early film days, and thus avoided a complete stereotype as a film abhorrent. His hilarious, sexually potent Frankenstein's Monster in the cult Mel Brooks spoof Young Frankenstein (1974) saw him in a sympathetic and certainly more humorous vein. His creature's first public viewing, in which Boyle shares an adroit tap-dancing scene with "creator" Gene Wilder in full Fred Astaire regalia, was a show-stopping audience pleaser. Late 70s filmgoers continued to witness Boyle in seamy, urban settings with brutish roles in Taxi Driver (1976) and Hardcore (1979). At the same time he addressed several TV mini-movie roles with the same brilliant darkness such as his Senator Joe McCarthy in Tail Gunner Joe (1977), for which he received an Emmy nomination, and his murderous, knife-wielding Fatso in the miniseries remake of From Here to Eternity (1979).
While the following decade found Peter in predominantly less noteworthy filming and a short-lived TV series lead as remote cop Joe Bash (1986), the 90s brought him Emmy glory (for a guest episode on The X-Files (1993)). Despite a blood clot-induced stroke in 1990 that impaired his speech for six months, he ventured on and capped his enviable career on TV wielding funny but crass one-liners in the "Archie Bunker" mold on the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). A major Emmy blunder had Boyle earning seven nominations for his Frank Barrone character without a win, the only prime player on the show unhonored. He survived a heart attack while on the set of "Everybody Loves Raymond" in 1999, but managed to return full time for the remainder of the series' run through 2005.
Following a superb turn as Billy Bob Thornton's unrepentantly racist father in the sobering Oscar-winner Monster's Ball (2001), the remainder of his films were primarily situated in frivolous comedy fare such as The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), The Santa Clause 2 (2002), Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), typically playing cranky curmudgeons. Boyle died of multiple myeloma (bone-marrow cancer) and heart disease at New York Presbyterian Hospital in 2006, and was survived by his wife Lorraine and two children. He was 71.- Actor
- Director
- Music Department
Dennis Weaver first became familiar to television audiences as Matt Dillon's assistant Chester Goode in Gunsmoke (1955). After playing the part for nine years, he moved on to star in his own series, Kentucky Jones (1964). However, the show failed to find mass appeal and was cancelled after just one season. Weaver had to wait another five years before finally emerging as a TV star in his own right. Beginning in 1971, he portrayed the titular Marshal Sam McCloud, a lawman from Taos, New Mexico, working in New York to learn the ways of policing in Manhattan's 27th Precinct under the auspices of a frequently apoplectic Chief of Detectives, Peter Clifford (J.D. Cannon). Accented in a slow Texan drawl (his regular catchphrase was "There you go..") and decked out with cowboy hat, lasso and sheepskin jacket, McCloud went about his tasks pretty much the same way he would have done out in the West -- often to the chagrin of his boss, nevertheless always apprehending the villain in the end (sometimes on horseback). His fractious relationship with Clifford provided much of the enjoyment inherent in the show. Weaver later recalled "McCloud was the kind of role I left Gunsmoke to get... I wanted to be a leading man instead of a second banana." Between 1971 and 1977, McCloud (1970) (based in part on the Clint Eastwood film Coogan's Bluff (1968)) was part of Universal's "Mystery Movie" which filled a slot at NBC with films lasting from 74 to 97 minutes (longer than your average TV episode) and which rotated several productions, the most important being Columbo (1971) (Peter Falk), Banacek (1972) (George Peppard), McMillan & Wife (1971) (Rock Hudson) and Hec Ramsey (1972) (Richard Boone).
Weaver hailed from Joplin, Missouri, where his father (who was of mixed English, Irish, Scottish, Cherokee, and Osage ancestry) worked for the local electric company. Young Dennis proved himself a gifted track and field athlete while studying for a degree in fine arts at the University of Oklahoma. During World War II, he served as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy. After the war, Weaver forsook sports for a career on the stage, undertaking further drama classes at the Actor's Studio in New York. One of his fellow alumni was actress Shelley Winters who later helped him to get into films. Following his Broadway debut in "Come Back, Little Sheba", Weaver found work in plays by Tennessee Williams off-Broadway and then made his movie debut at Universal in the western Horizons West (1952). He made several more pictures, mostly westerns, but was largely cast in minor roles. He languished in relative obscurity until he landed several guest spots on Jack Webb's Dragnet (1951). His career really took off with McCloud and with the Steven Spielberg-directed Duel (1971), a thriller made for the small screen (essentially a one-man show) in which a lone driver is menaced by a sinister petrol tanker driven by an unseen force. He later found other regular television work (Stone (1979), Emerald Point N.A.S. (1983) and Buck James (1987)), but none of these managed to recapture his earlier successes. In Lonesome Dove: The Series (1994), he was true to his colors, playing western hero Buffalo Bill Cody, a.k.a. Buffalo Bill.
Weaver served as President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1973 to 1975. He was in the forefront of environmental activism, a proponent of alternative energy and recycling (his Colorado home, called "Earthship", was primarily constructed from recycled tires and aluminium cans).- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Don Knotts, the legendary television character actor, was born Jesse Donald Knotts on July 21, 1924 in Morgantown, West Virginia, to William Jesse Knotts and the former Elsie Luzetta Moore. He was the youngest of four sons in a family that had been in America since the 17th century.
His first stint as an entertainer was as a ventriloquist, performing paid gigs at parties and other events in Morgantown. He decided to make a stab at a career in show business, moving to New York City after graduating from high school, but he only lasted in the Big Apple for a few weeks. He decided to go to college, enrolling at West Virginia University but, when World War II engulfed America, he enlisted in the United States Army. The 19-year-old soldier was assigned to the Special Services Branch, where he entertained the troops. It was while in the Army that Don ditched ventriloquism for straight comedy.
Don returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized. After graduating with a degree in theater in 1948, he married and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the character "Windy Wales" on "The Bobby Benson Show". From 1953 to 1955, he was a regular on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow (1951). Destiny intervened when he was cast in the small role of the psychiatrist in the Broadway play "No Time for Sergeants", which starred Andy Griffith, who would play a large part in Don's future career. Don also appeared in the film adaption of the play with Griffith.
Don's big break before he hooked up again with Andy Griffith was a regular gig on the The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956) hosted by Steve Allen, starting in 1956. He became well-known for his "nervous man" shtick in the "Man-on-the-Street" segments that were a staple of Allen's show. His character in the segments was a very nervous man obviously uptight about being interviewed on camera. He developed this into the fidgety, high-strung persona that he used successfully for the rest of his career.
When "The Tonight Show" moved to Hollywood in 1959 with new host Jack Paar, Don also moved to California as a regular. However, he was soon cast in Andy Griffith's new television series about a small-town sheriff, The Andy Griffith Show (1960), in the role that would make him a legend. For playing "Deputy Barney Fife", Don was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor five times from 1961 to 1967, winning each time. He soon tasted big-screen success, starring in The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Don cut back his appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (1960) to concentrate on making movies after signing a five-year contract with Universal Pictures. For Universal, Don appeared in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). His mid-1960s popularity as a movie comedian began to wane towards the end of the decade, and the contract was not renewed. Don returned to television as the star of his own variety show, but it was quickly canceled.
During the 1970s, Don had a spotty career, appearing in regional theater and making guest appearances on other television series. He eventually made some slapstick movies with Tim Conway for the Walt Disney Company, but it wasn't until the end of the decade that he tasted real success again. He was cast as would-be-swinger landlord "Ralph Furley" on the popular sitcom Three's Company (1976) after the original landlords, "The Ropers", were spun off into their own series. Since the show was canceled in 1984, he appeared as "Barney Fife" for a 1986 reunion of The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and in television guest spots, including a recurring gig as the pesky neighbor "Les Calhoun" on Griffith's Matlock (1986) series until 1992.
He remained busy for the next ten years touring with plays and doing voice-over work for cartoons. In 2005, Don provided the voice of "Mayor Turkey Lurkey" in Disney's animated film Chicken Little (2005). It turned out to be one of his final films. He died at age 81 on February 24, 2006.- Actress
- Writer
- Director
The late Adrienne Shelly was born in Queens, New York, to Elaine Langbaum
and Sheldon Levine. After graduating Jericho High School in Jericho, New
York, she enrolled at Boston University and majored in film production. She
dropped out after her junior year and moved to Manhattan, where she made
a name for herself in independent films with her work in
The Unbelievable Truth (1989)
and Trust (1990).
She eventually moved behind the camera, writing and directing
I'll Take You There (1999)
and Waitress (2007) (her final film).
On November 1, 2006, Adrienne Shelly was murdered. She was survived by
her husband Andy Ostroy and their daughter Sophie.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jack Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter, Jr. on September 18, 1920 in Newark,
New Jersey, to Laura M. (Costello) and John Warden Lebzelter. His father
was of German and Irish descent, and his mother was of Irish ancestry.
Raised in Louisville, Kentucky, at the age of seventeen, young Jack Lebzelter
was expelled from Louisville's DuPont Manual High School for repeatedly
fighting. Good with his fists, he turned professional, boxing as a
welterweight under the name "Johnny Costello", adopting his mother's
maiden name. The purses were poor, so he soon left the ring and worked
as a bouncer at a night club. He also worked as a lifeguard before
signing up with the U.S. Navy in 1938. He served in China with the
Yangtze River Patrol for the best part of his three-year hitch before
joining the Merchant Marine in 1941.
Though the Merchant Marine paid better than the Navy, Warden was
dissatisfied with his life aboard ship on the long convoy runs and quit
in 1942 in order to enlist in the U.S. Army. He became a paratrooper
with the elite 101st Airborne Division, and missed the June 1944
invasion of Normandy due to a leg badly broken by landing on a fence
during a nighttime practice jump shortly before D-Day. Many of his
comrades lost their lives during the Normandy invasion, but the future
Jack Warden was spared that ordeal. Recuperating from his injuries, he
read a play by Clifford Odets given to
him by a fellow soldier who was an actor in civilian life. He was so
moved by the play, he decided to become an actor after the war. After
recovering from his badly shattered leg, Warden saw action at the
Battle of the Bulge, Nazi Germany's last major offensive. He was
demobilized with the rank of sergeant and decided to pursue an acting
career on the G.I. Bill. He moved to New York City to attend acting
school, then joined the company of Theatre
'47 in Dallas in 1947 as
a professional actor, taking his middle name as his surname.
This repertory company, run by
Margo Jones,
became famous in the 1940s and '50s for producing Tennessee Williams's
plays. The experience gave him a valuable grounding in both classic and
contemporary drama, and he shuttled between Texas and New York for five
years as he was in demand as an actor. Warden made his television debut
in 1948, though he continued to perform on stage (he appeared in a
stage production in
Arthur Miller's
Death of a Salesman (1966)).
After several years in small, local productions, he made both his
Broadway debut in the 1952 Broadway revival of Odets' "Golden Boy" and,
three years later, originated the role of "Marco" in the original
Broadway production of Miller's "A View From the Bridge". On film, he
and fellow World War II veteran,
Lee Marvin (Marine Corps, South
Pacific), made their debut in
You're in the Navy Now (1951)
(a.k.a. "U.S.S. Teakettle"), uncredited, along with fellow vet
Charles Bronson, then billed as
"Charles Buchinsky".
With his athletic physique, he was routinely cast in bit parts as
soldiers (including the sympathetic barracks-mate of
Montgomery Clift and
Frank Sinatra in the Oscar-winning
From Here to Eternity (1953).
He played the coach on TV's
Mister Peepers (1952) with
Wally Cox.
Aside from
From Here to Eternity (1953)
(The Best Picture Oscar winner for 1953), other famous roles in the
1950s included Juror #7 (a disinterested salesman who wants a quick
conviction to get the trial over with) in
12 Angry Men (1957) - a film that
proved to be his career breakthrough - the bigoted foreman in
Edge of the City (1957) and one
of the submariners commended by
Clark Gable and
Burt Lancaster in the World War II drama,
Run Silent Run Deep (1958).
In 1959, Warden capped off the decade with a memorable appearance in
The Twilight Zone (1959)
episode,
The Lonely (1959),
in the series premier year of 1959. As "James Corry", Warden created a
sensitive portrayal of a convicted felon marooned on an asteroid,
sentenced to serve a lifetime sentence, who falls in love with a robot.
It was a character quite different from his role as Juror #7.
In the 1960s and early 70s, his most memorable work was on television,
playing a detective in
The Asphalt Jungle (1961),
The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965)
and N.Y.P.D. (1967). He opened up
the decade of the 1970s by winning an Emmy Award playing football coach
"George Halas" in
Brian's Song (1971), the
highly-rated and acclaimed TV movie based on
Gale Sayers's memoir, "I Am Third". He
appeared again as a detective in the TV series,
Jigsaw John (1976), in the
mid-1970s,
The Bad News Bears (1979)
and appeared in a pilot for a planned revival of
Topper (1937) in 1979.
His collaboration with
Warren Beatty in two 1970s films
brought him to the summit of his career as he displayed a flair for
comedy in both Shampoo (1975) and
Heaven Can Wait (1978). As the
faintly sinister businessman "Lester" and as the perpetually befuddled
football trainer "Max Corkle", Warden received Academy Award
nominations as Best Supporting Actor. Other memorable roles in the
period were as the metro news editor of the "Washington Post" in
All the President's Men (1976),
the German doctor in
Death on the Nile (1978), the
senile, gun-toting judge in
And Justice for All (1979),
the President of the United States in
Being There (1979), the twin car
salesmen in Used Cars (1980) and
Paul Newman's law partner in
The Verdict (1982).
This was the peak of Warden's career, as he entered his early sixties.
He single-handedly made
Andrew Bergman's
So Fine (1981) watchable, but after that
film, the quality of his roles declined. He made a third stab at TV,
again appearing as a detective in
Crazy Like a Fox (1984) in
the mid-1980s. He played the shifty convenience store owner "Big Ben"
in Problem Child (1990) and its two
sequels, a role unworthy of his talent, but he shone again as the
Broadway high-roller "Julian Marx" in
Woody Allen's
Bullets Over Broadway (1994).
After appearing in Warren Beatty's
Bulworth (1998), Warden's last film was
The Replacements (2000) in 2000.
He then lived in retirement in New York City with his girlfriend,
Marucha Hinds. He was married to French stage actress
Wanda Ottoni, best known for her role as
the object of Joe Besser's desire in
The Three Stooges short,
Fifi Blows Her Top (1958). She
gave up her career after her marriage. They had one son, Christopher,
but had been separated for many years.- Actress
- Director
- Soundtrack
Kasey Rogers was born Josie Imogene Rogers in Morehouse, Missouri, to Ina Mae (Mocabee) and Eben Elijah Rogers. She moved
with her family to California at age two and a half. She got the nickname "Casey" when her neighborhood playmates discovered how well she handled a
baseball bat ("I could hit a baseball farther than anybody in grammar
school except Robert Lewis - he and I were always the opposing captains
of the sixth grade baseball teams!"); she later changed the "C" in "Casey" to a "K". Paramount changed her name to Laura Elliott during her late
1940s-early '50s stint there, but she went back to Kasey Rogers soon
after leaving that studio. Twice-married and the mother of four (and a
grandmother), Rogers turned her talents to writing and development,
including the proposed new TV series Son of a Witch.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Legendary actor Glenn Ford was born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford in Sainte-Christine-d'Auvergne, Quebec, Canada, to Hannah Wood (Mitchell) and Newton Ford, a railroad executive. His family moved to Santa Monica, California when he was eight years old. His acting career began with plays at high school, followed by acting in West Coast, a traveling theater company.
Ford was discovered in 1939 by Tom Moore, a talent scout for 20th Century Fox. He subsequently signed a contract with Columbia Pictures the same year. Ford's contract with Columbia marked a significant departure in that studio's successful business model. Columbia's boss, Harry Cohn, had spent decades observing other studios'-most notably Warner Brothers-troubles with their contract stars and had built his poverty-row studio around their loan-outs. Basically, major studios would use Columbia as a penalty box for unruly behavior-usually salary demands or work refusals. The cunning Cohn usually assigned these stars (his little studio could not normally afford then) into pictures, and the studio's status rose immensely as the 1930s progressed. Understandably, Cohn had long resisted developing his own stable of contract stars (he'd first hired Peter Lorre in 1934 but didn't know what to do with him) but had relented in the late 1930s, first adding Rosalind Russell, then signing Ford and fellow newcomer William Holden. Cohn reasoned that the two prospects could be used interchangeably, should one become troublesome. Although often competing for the same parts, Ford and Holden became good friends. Their careers would roughly parallel each other through the 1940s, until Holden became a superstar through his remarkable association with director Billy Wilder in the 1950s.
Ford made his official debut in Fox's Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence (1939), and continued working in various small roles throughout the 1940s until his movie career was interrupted to join the Marines in World War II. Ford continued his military career in the Naval Reserve well into the Vietnam War, achieving the rank of captain. In 1943 Ford married legendary tap dancer Eleanor Powell, and had one son, Peter Ford. Like many actors returning to Hollywood after the war (including James Stewart and Holden (who had already acquired a serious alcohol problem), he found it initially difficult to regain his career momentum. He was able to resume his movie career with the help of Bette Davis, who gave him his first postwar break in the 1946 movie A Stolen Life (1946). However, it was not until his acclaimed performance in a 1946 classic film noir, Gilda (1946), with Rita Hayworth, that he became a major star and one of the the most popular actors of his time. He scored big with the film noir classics The Big Heat (1953) and Blackboard Jungle (1955), and was usually been cast as a calm and collected everyday-hero, showing courage under pressure. Ford continued to make many notable films during his prestigious 50-year movie career, but he is best known for his fine westerns such as 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and The Rounders (1965). Ford pulled a hugely entertaining turn in The Sheepman (1958) and many more fine films. In the 1970s, Ford made his television debut in the controversial The Brotherhood of the Bell (1970) and appeared in two fondly remembered television series: Cade's County (1971) and The Family Holvak (1975). During the 1980s and 1990s, Ford limited his appearance to documentaries and occasional films, including a nice cameo in Superman (1978).
Glenn Ford is remembered fondly by his fans for his more than 100 excellent films and his charismatic silver screen presence.- Actor
- Writer
Born by the Atlantic Ocean, Jeremy Slate also had a Pacific Ocean view
when he lived in Malibu, California. In between oceans he has traveled
the world.
He attended a military academy, joined the US Navy at 16 and was barely
18 when his destroyer joined the invasion of Normandy on D-Day (June 6,
1944). Aboard that destroyer at Omaha Beach that day, he vowed if he
survived the attack he would make his life a never-ending series of
adventures. He has lived up to that promise with adventures as a
lifeguard, a swimming instructor, the first person to swim across the
Long Island Sound after the war, college graduate with honors in
English, writer, songwriter, screenwriter, a radio announcer, actor and
director.
After the war he attended St. Lawrence University, graduating with
honors. He was president of the student body, editor of the college
literary magazine, a football player and backfield coach of the only
undefeated freshman team in the school's history. A campus radio
personality in his senior year, he married the queen of his
fraternity's ball. Chosen for the school's honor society, he was a big
man on campus. After graduating, he became a professional radio
sportscaster and DJ for CBS and ABC affiliates while beginning a family
that ultimately included three sons and two daughters, but
unfortunately the marriage ended in divorce.
As a young man with a growing family, he had a promising career as a
public relations executive with W.R. Grace and Co. For six years he
worked for Grace as travel manager for its president,
Peter Grace. He then joined the
Grace Steamship Line and moved with his family to Lima, Peru.
While in Peru he joined a professional theater group and became
involved with the production of "The Rainmaker" at the Professional
English Language Theater in Lima. He was awarded the Tiahuanacothe, the
Peruvian equivalent of the Tony award, for his portrayal of the
character Starbuck. After a year of training, he left W.R. Grace to
pursue a theatrical career and was cast in a small, significant role in
the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Look Homeward, Angel" on Broadway and
did 254 performances.
Known as one of the more talented members of Hollywood's beach boy set
of the 1960s, Slate sent feminine hearts aflutter as the star of the
1960 TV series
The Aquanauts (1960). His
career included numerous guest-starring roles in popular television
programs of the 1950s and 1960s. He guest-starred in nearly 100
television shows as well as appearing in 20 feature films.
While about half of his portrayals have been heavies, Jeremy is equally
adept at comedy and has worked with some of Hollywood's best. He was
punched out by Elvis Presley in
Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962),
Frankie Avalon broke a guitar over his
head in I'll Take Sweden (1965),
he was knocked silly by Van Johnson
in Wives and Lovers (1963), was
shot by John Wayne in
True Grit (1969), died spectacularly
while trying to save the Duke's life in
The Sons of Katie Elder (1965),
was shot between the eyes by Billy Jack
(Tom Laughlin in
The Born Losers (1967) and went
up in flames in
The Lawnmower Man (1992).
Jeremy wrote the screen story for
Hell's Angels '69 (1969).
During the filming of this biker film (which he described as a "western
on wheels") he broke his leg, and never rode a motorcycle again.
An accomplished country-and-western songwriter and a BMI member, Jeremy
wrote the lyrics to the Tex Ritter top-ten
song "Just Beyond the Moon" and also wrote the lyrics for "Every Time I
Itch (I Wind Up Scratchin' You)" recorded by
Glen Campbell on Capitol Records.
Jeremy Slate died on November 19, 2006, from complications following
surgery for esophageal cancer.- Actor
- Producer
Character actor Paul Gleason was adept at playing tough guys and white collar sleazebags, making his film debut in
Winter A-Go-Go (1965). He made a name for himself portraying these unlikeable characters. A native of Jersey City, New Jersey, Gleason studied extensively at the Actor's Studio in New York City in the mid-60s with Lee Strasberg (his mentor) and was seen in
a handful of Roger Corman productions
before landing a a three-year role on the TV soap opera
All My Children (1970). He appeared in over 60 films, with key roles in
Trading Places (1983),
Die Hard (1988),
Miami Blues (1990),
Boiling Point (1993) and
National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002). However, he is
perhaps best remembered for his role as the no-nonsense principal
"Richard Vernon" in
The Breakfast Club (1985). He also guest-starred in numerous television series, including
Hill Street Blues (1981),
Dawson's Creek (1998) and
Friends (1994). Gleason passed away
of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer at a Burbank, California
hospital on May 29th 2006 at the age of 67.- Actress
- Soundtrack
One of the early sound era's most attractive young leading ladies,
doll-faced Marian Marsh enjoyed a short yet significant film career as
the star of several memorable 1930s melodramas opposite some of the
cinema's best, most charismatic lead actors. Her youthful, wide-eyed
innocence combined with an innate delicacy to make a storybook heroine
who was the perfect counterbalance to the licentious characters who
often menaced her on film. So successful was she as a damsel in
distress that she quickly became typecast, which impeded her
development as an actress and helped bring her film career to a
premature end.
The youngest of four children of a German chocolate manufacturer and
his French-English wife, the future star was born Violet Ethelred Krauth on
October 17, 1913, on the island of Trinidad, British West Indies. When
World War I ruined his business, Mr. Krauth moved the family to
Massachusetts, where his children developed an appreciation for the
arts and theater.
During the mid 1920s, Violet's older sister Jean Fenwick became a student at
Paramount's Astoria studio and later a Paramount contract player. When
Jean signed a contract with FBO Pictures in Hollywood, the Krauth
family moved to the West Coast, where Violet attended La Conte Junior
High School and later Hollywood High. In 1928 Jean helped her
strikingly attractive golden-haired sister secure a screen test with
Pathe Studios, which promptly signed her but dropped her after a short
film appearance. After another short pact with
Samuel Goldwyn, Violet, now known as
Marilyn Morgan, opted to study acting and voice with Nance O'Neil. In 1929 Warners signed the 16-year-old, who
changed her name once again, this time to Marian Marsh.
Despite appearances in 30 short films starring James Gleason
and a small part in
Hell's Angels (1930), Marian's
career seemed headed to oblivion when she won the role of her life in
Svengali (1931), Warner's film remake of
George L. Du Maurier's 1894 novel "Trilby"; the tragic tale of an artists'
model who becomes a great singing diva under the hypnotic tutelage of
the malevolent Svengali (charismatically portrayed by
John Barrymore). According to
Miss Marsh, she was tested for the plum role several times before being
selected by Barrymore, apparently because she resembled his wife,
Dolores Costello.
The immense critical and financial success of the film combined with
young Miss Marsh's rave reviews to raise her Hollywood stock. Selected
as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1931, she became one of filmdom's
top up-and-coming actresses. Hoping to exploit her growing popularity
and capitalize on her ability to project warmth, sincerity and inner
strength on screen, Warners cast her as virginal heroines in a series
of films. Of special note were her compelling performances as the
daughter of a woman driven to suicide by amoral newspaper editor
Edward G. Robinson in
Five Star Final (1931), a
ballerina menaced by evil clubfooted puppeteer
John Barrymore in
The Mad Genius (1931), a sexy teen
smitten with mature
William Powell in
The Road to Singapore (1931),
and the fast talking Cinderella secretary of skirt-chasing financier
Warren William in
Beauty and the Boss (1932).
Just when it appeared as if Marian was on the verge of superstardom,
she seemed to fall out of favor at Warners. After the critical failure
of the much ballyhooed drama
Under Eighteen (1931), a disappointed,
exhausted Marian rebelled against the studio, which retaliated by not
picking up her option. Her career never fully recovered.
After she departed Warners, the 19-year-old freelance actress
compounded her problems and further diminished her reputation by
accepting film work overseas and at minor studios. Although her
performances in such films as
The Sport Parade (1932), the
British comedy
Over the Garden Wall (1934)
and
A Girl of the Limberlost (1934)
were admirable, low-budget production values and other assorted
problems doomed the projects.
In 1935 Marian signed a two-year pact with Columbia Pictures and tried
with some success to resurrect her foundering career. Of the eight
Columbia pictures she made during the period 1935-36, four were
memorable. She was excellent, if typecast, as a young girl mixed up
with crooks and gangsters in the entertaining melodrama
Counterfeit (1936), as the
bespectacled daughter of a retailer in love with a shyster salesman in
the charming B comedy
Come Closer, Folks (1936), as
an accursed young woman forced to marry murderer
Boris Karloff in the fondly remembered
suspense classic
The Black Room (1935), and notably
as the beautiful prostitute Sonya in
Josef von Sternberg's controversial
film version of Fyodor Dostoevsky's
timeless novel
Crime and Punishment (1935)
starring Peter Lorre. Her
performance in the latter is without a doubt one of the best, if not
the best, of her career.
When her Columbia contract expired in 1936, Marian once again
squandered her momentum and talent by appearing in routine second
features. From 1937 to 1938, she made seven mostly forgettable films,
the best of which was Republic's B drama
Youth on Parole (1937), in which
Marian was poignant as a girl suffering the rejection and prejudice
associated with being a parolee.
In March 1938 Miss Marsh, long one of Hollywood's most eligible
bachelorettes, wed stockbroker Albert Scott, the former husband of
actress Colleen Moore. After the
marriage she made only five more feature films. "I loved acting," she
told author Richard Lamparski, "but I had become a professional because
we needed the money. In 1938 I married a businessman and just drifted
away from acting." PRC's money-starved comedy
House of Errors (1942) is her
last film to date.
In the late 1950s Marian, was briefly
lured back to acting, appearing in an episode of the popular
John Forsythe sitcom "Bachelor
Father" and an episode of
Schlitz Playhouse (1951)
before retiring in 1959. One year later she married aviation pioneer
and wealthy entrepreneur Clifford Henderson and moved to Palm Desert,
California, a town Henderson founded in the 1940s.
In the 1960s Marian founded Desert Beautiful, a non-profit,
all-volunteer conservation organization to promote environmental and
beautification programs. "We planted palm trees along the West Coast
and were the first to plant palms in the lower valley [Coachella] to
Palm Springs. If you want to leave something behind, plant a tree!" she
told author Dan Van Neste in a 1998 interview.
After Cliff Henderson died in 1984, Marian continued to live in the
Henderson ranch house continuing her charitable work. Miss Marsh remained in Palm Desert through 2005 and died in 2006. Near her end, Miss March was less active but still committed to her beloved Desert Beautiful. She retains fond
memories of her filmmaking years and expresses appreciation for the
continuing interest in her career. When asked how she'd like to be
remembered in 1998, the modest, ever-gracious star simply replied, "For
doing my best. I think anything I've ever tried, I tried to do my best.
In the end, that's all you can do!"- Actor
- Sound Department
Billy Mauch was born on 6 July 1921 in Peoria, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Penrod's Double Trouble (1938), The Prince and the Pauper (1937) and Roseanna McCoy (1949). He was married to Marjorie Barnewolt. He died on 29 September 2006 in Palatine, Illinois, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
A remarkably seasoned actor of stage, screen and television, Darren
McGavin has notched in excess of 200 performances; however, he is most
fondly remembered by cult TV fans as heroic newspaper reporter Carl
Kolchak in the classic but short-lived horror TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974). In a
long and varied career, McGavin has often turned up as authority
figures including policemen, military officers, stern-faced business
executives or father figures; however, he is equally adept at
light-hearted comedic performances.
Darren McGavin was born William Lyle Richardson on May 7, 1922, in Spokane, Washington, to Grace Mitton (Bogart) and Reed D. Richardson. His mother was from Ontario, Canada. He received his dramatic arts training at New York's Neighborhood
Playhouse and the Actors Studio, and debuted on screen in an uncredited
role in A Song to Remember (1945). Several standard roles followed over the next decade
before he landed the key role of Louie the drug pusher in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and
Capt. Russ Peters in The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955), both directed by Otto Preminger. Each of these
performances showcased McGavin's versatility, and his virile looks
scored him the role of Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled private eye in Mike Hammer (1958).
McGavin stayed continually employed throughout the 1960s, appearing in
such films as The Great Sioux Massacre (1965), The Outsider (1967), The Challengers (1970) and The Tribe (1970). In addition, he
was regularly guest-starring in dozens of TV shows, including Gunsmoke (1955),
Dr. Kildare (1961), Mission: Impossible (1966) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). In 1971 he landed the role of cynical
reporter Carl Kolchak in the low-budget horror thriller The Night Stalker (1972), about
a vampire running amok in Las Vegas. The film was a monster ratings
winner (pun intended!) and the highest-rated telemovie of 1972, and
original scriptwriters were soon hard at work on a punchier sequel.
The Night Strangler (1973) saw Kolchak in Seattle (after being booted out of Las Vegas by
the police), and this time on the trail of a serial killer seeking the
elixir of eternal youth. The second movie was equally successful, and
spawned the short-lived TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974) with Simon Oakland as McGavin's
long-suffering editor and a host of weekly guest stars including
Jim Backus, Phil Silvers, Richard Kiel, Tom Skerritt, Scatman Crothers and Larry Storch.
"Kolchak" only lasted one season, but it became a bona-fide cult
classic, and many years later its premise of "the unknown amongst us"
inspired writer Chris Carter to create the phenomenally successful
long-running TV series The X-Files (1993), which saw McGavin guest-star in several
episodes.
McGavin remained busy throughout the rest of the 1970s and into the
1980s, appearing in Airport '77 (1977), as Gen. George S. Patton in the TV miniseries
Ike: The War Years (1979), alongside Rock Hudson in the uneven sci-fi miniseries The Martian Chronicles (1980) and
a few years later endeared himself to to a whole new generation of fans
with his superb performance as the vitriolic, yet buffoonish, father in
the delightful Christmas classic A Christmas Story (1983). The always versatile McGavin
also popped up as a detective in Turk 182 (1985), assisted Arnold Schwarzenegger in cleaning
up the mob in Raw Deal (1986) and was a doctor in the bizarre zombie/cop/zombie
cop film Dead Heat (1988).
At this point it's worth mentioning that, along with his film and TV
work, McGavin has also enjoyed an illustrious career on the stage, with
appearances in dozens of critically acclaimed productions across the
length and breadth of the US. He has appeared in stage presentations of
"Death of a Salesman", "The Rainmaker", "The King and I" and "Blood
Sweat & Stanley Poole", to name a few.
In 1990 the opportunity arose for McGavin to play another somewhat
stern, yet comedic, father figure, this time as "Bill Brown" to Candice Bergen
in the much loved sitcom Murphy Brown (1988). McGavin was again wonderful, and his
entertaining performances resulted in an Emmy Award nomination in 1990. Several
other film roles followed in the 1990s, in such films as Adam Sandler's hit
Billy Madison (1995). He died on 25th February 2006 at the age of 83.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Producer
The only son of
Green Acres (1965) star
Eddie Albert and Mexican
actress/dancer Margo, Edward Laurence
Albert managed to come out from under his father's strong shadow and
make a gallant showing of his own as a gifted thespian. Born in Los
Angeles on February 20, 1951, Edward's multi-cultural heritage and
talented gene pool allowed him to become a man of many talents:
songwriter, drummer, singer, photographer and, most importantly,
activist.
Growing up, he inherited an early interest in music and the performing
arts. He made an auspicious film debut at the age of 14 in
The Fool Killer (1965)
co-starring as a young runaway who teams up with a tormented Civil War
veteran (Anthony Perkins), a
teaming that leads to murder. A strong, mature role for such a
youngster, his next film appearance wouldn't come about until seven
years later. In the meantime Edward attended Oxford University and was
studying psychology at UCLA when offered the breakthrough of a
lifetime.
Signed up to play the difficult role of blind Don Baker--played on
Broadway by Keir Dullea--who yearns for
freedom away from his domineering mom (Oscar winner
Eileen Heckart) and finds it in the arms
of a liberated lass named Jill (Goldie Hawn)
in
Butterflies Are Free (1972),
Edward easily captured the hearts of millions with his tender,
life-affirming performance. Edward walked home with the cinema's Golden
Globe Award as "Male Newcomer of the Year." A confident, intelligent
actor with a serene handsomeness and 1000-watt smile who just happened
to possess the most magnetic pale eyes this side of
Meg Foster, Edward was on a seemingly
strong path to film stardom. Although he never found a comparable
success to "Butterfly," he did follow it up with another theater comedy
favorite, 40 Carats (1973), in which he
had a dalliance with older actress
Liv Ullmann. He also played
Charlton Heston's military son in
Midway (1976), followed by highly visible
roles in
The Domino Principle (1977)
and The Greek Tycoon (1978).
When film stardom did not pan out, Edward saw TV as a welcoming medium
and made up for his sudden lack of star power with wonderful turns in
major TV minimovies, notably
The Last Convertible (1979).
By the 1980s he had started making the rounds in formula low-budget
action films and usually fared best when his flashy villainous side
came into view. While such obvious movie titles as
The House Where Evil Dwells (1982),
Fist Fighter (1988),
Demon Keeper (1994) and
Stageghost (2000) pointed out the lack
of quality in his offerings, it did provide a steady income and
visibility. He also made frequent guest appearances on such shows as
Falcon Crest (1981),
L.A. Law (1986),
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993)
and
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993)
that kept him in the public eye. A solid regular as both good guy and
bad guy on series TV, he gave his life (and, it seems, his paycheck) to
the Beast after three seasons on
Beauty and the Beast (1987)
and, in contrast, played the dastardly Dr. Bennett Devlin on the
daytime soap Port Charles (1997)
for its first three seasons. Edward also used his vocal talents in
animation involving such superhero icons as
The Fantastic Four (1978),
Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994) and "The Power
Rangers".
From his father and mother Edward developed a deep love and
appreciation for the land and the diversity of cultures. As such, he
divided his time between acting work and activism just as his father
had done. Having owned a ranch in Malibu for over 30 years, he was a
strong, positive influence and passionate spokesperson when it came to
environmental and cultural affairs. In recent years he served on the
California Coastal Commission and California Native American Heritage
Commission.
Long married to lovely British-born actress
Katherine Woodville, the couple's
daughter, Thais, continued the family musical tradition as a
singer/songwriter for the rock group Sugar in Wartime. Following his
mother's passing from brain cancer in 1985, Edward became a selfless
caregiver to his aging father, who began to develop early signs of
Alzheimer's disease in the 1990s. His father lived for more than a
decade in declining health, dying in May 2005. In early 2005, Edward
discovered he too was seriously ill after being diagnosed with lung
cancer. He died surrounded by family on September 22, 2006, at the
relatively young age of 55.- Mickey Hargitay was born on 6 January 1926 in Budapest, Hungary. He was an actor, known for The Loves of Hercules (1960), Delirium (1972) and Bloody Pit of Horror (1965). He was married to Ellen Hargitay, Jayne Mansfield and Mary Birge. He died on 14 September 2006 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Fair complexioned, cold-eyed actor Richard Bright notched up an impressive array of character performances of often shifty, or deadly
characters on the wrong side of the law. He first came to attention as a burglar in the engrossing The Panic in Needle Park (1971), and then followed it the following year playing a slick con artist hustling naive Ali MacGraw for the bank robbery loot in The Getaway (1972), before Steve McQueen pummels Bright to get the money back.
In 1972, he made his first appearance as bodyguard/enforcer "Al Neri", protecting Al Pacino in The Godfather (1972), and returned in the same role in The Godfather Part II (1974) and, 16 years later, he was back once again still protecting mob boss Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III (1990).
The actor's features endeared him to casting agents looking for both criminals and cops. He also appeared in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Sam Raimi's crazy Crimewave (1985), the union tale Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story (1992) and Witness to the Mob (1998). In addition, he appeared regularly on TV in police/drama shows such as Hill Street Blues (1981), Houston Knights (1987), Third Watch (1999) and The Sopranos (1999). - Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Andreas from a working-class Greek-American family. Attracted
from early childhood to being on stage when at 4 his mother took him to
see a community theater performance, he took theatre as an
extra-curricular activity in high school. He then majored in it at St.
Louis University, where he worked his way through school doing things
like waiting on tables. Next, after earning a drama fellowship,
Katsulas received a Master's Degree in Theater Arts from one of the
nation's top schools for the genre, Indiana University in Bloomington,
Indiana.
With never a doubt or hesitation, Andreas jumped right into the
professional theater world, performing in plays in his native St. Louis
with the Loretto-Hilton Repertory Theater. This was followed by work
with the Theatre Company of Boston. After that, Katsulas moved to New
York to some challenging off-off-Broadway theater at La Mama. This was
followed by a fifteen-year heart and soul involvement with Peter
Brook's International Theatre Company in Paris, performing around the
world with a challenging combination of improvisational theater in
every imaginable circumstance and space, and "prepared" theater pieces
in traditional, as well as unconventional, theatrical spaces. Katsulas
trod the boards from Lincoln Center in New York and The Kennedy Center
in Washington, D.C., to the "mean streets" of Brooklyn and marketplaces
in remote African Villages. There were performances from elite Theater
Festivals in Iran, Avignon and Belgrade: in prisons & mental
institutions; at rock quarries in Australia; on barrios in Venezuela;
in sewage plants in Switzerland; winding through the streets of Venice,
Italy; in the fields with farm workers in California, near the lakes of
Minnesota with Native Americans, in sometimes extreme conditions like
snow, rain, and intensive heat.
During a hiatus from the stage, a part in
Michael Cimino's
The Sicilian (1987) brought Andreas
to Los Angeles, after which he was immediately cast as Joey Venza in
Ridley Scott's
Someone to Watch Over Me (1987),
then as Arthur, the chauffeur, in
Blake Edwards's
Sunset (1988).
In early 2005, Andreas was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer; he
passed away a year later, in Los Angeles. He had lived there since
1986, and had hoped to return to working in the theater before his
far-too-early death, just over three months shy of his 60th birthday. - Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Tony Jay was a British actor and narrator. He is known for his deep and distinctive British voice. He was well-known for voicing Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Megabyte from ReBoot, Monsieur D'Arque from Beauty and the Beast, Shere Khan from The Jungle Book 2, Magneto in X-Men Legends and the Elder God in the Legacy of Kain. He was considered to portray Obi-Wan in Star Wars before he was turned down by George Lucas.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Enigmatic, dark-haired foreign import Alida Valli was dubbed "The Next
Garbo" but didn't live up to postwar expectations despite her cool,
patrician beauty, remote allure and significant talent. Born in Pola,
Italy (now Croatia), on May 3, 1921, the daughter of a Tridentine
journalist and professor and an Istrian homemaker, she studied
dramatics as a teen at the Motion Picture Academy of Rome and Centro
Sperimentale di Cinematografia before snaring bit roles in such films
as
Il cappello a tre punte (1935)
["The Three-Cornered Hat"] and
I due sergenti (1936) ["The Two
Sergeants"]. She made a name for herself in Italy during WWII playing
the title role in
Manon Lescaut (1940), won a Venice
Film Festival award for
Piccolo mondo antico (1941)
["Little Old World"] and was a critical sensation in
We the Living (1942) ["We the Living"]. She
briefly abandoned her career, however, in 1943, refusing to appear in
what she considered fascist propaganda, and was forced into hiding. The
next year she married surrealist painter/pianist/composer
Oscar De Mejo. They had two children, and
one of them, Carlo De Mejo, became an
actor. She divorced in 1955, then she came back to Italy,
Following her potent, award-winning work in the title role of
Eugenie Grandet (1946), she was
discovered and contracted by
David O. Selznick to play the murder
suspect Maddalena Paradine in
Alfred Hitchcock's
The Paradine Case (1947). She
was billed during her Hollywood years simply as "Valli," and Selznick
also gave her top femme female billing in
Carol Reed's classic film noir
The Third Man (1949), but for every
successful film--such as the ones previously mentioned--she experienced
such failures as
The Miracle of the Bells (1948),
and audiences stayed away. In 1951 she bid farewell to Hollywood and
returned to her beloved Italy. In Europe again, she was sought after by
the best directors. Her countess in
Luchino Visconti's
Senso (1954) was widely heralded, and she
moved easily from ingénue to vivid character roles. Later standout
films encompassed costume dramas as well as shockers and had her
playing everything from baronesses to grandmothers in such films as
Eyes Without a Face (1960)
["Eyes Without a Face"],
Le gigolo (1960),
Oedipus Rex (1967) ["Oedipus Rex"],
The Big Scare (1974),
1900 (1976),
Suspiria (1977),
Luna (1979),
Inferno (1980),
Aspern (1982),
A Month by the Lake (1995)
and, her most recent,
Angel of Death (2001).- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Paul Carr was born on 1 February 1934 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for Akira (1988), Star Trek (1966) and The Time Tunnel (1966). He was married to Merrily M Hirsch and Evan MacNeil. He died on 17 February 2006 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
American leading lady whose sweet smile and sunny disposition made her
the prototypical girl-next-door of American movies of the 1940s. Raised
in semi-poverty in Bronx neighborhoods by her divorced mother, Allyson
(nee Ella Geisman) was injured in a fall at age eight and spent four
years confined within a steel brace. Swimming therapy slowly gave her
mobility again, and she began to study dance as well. She entered dance
contests after high school and earned roles in several musical short
films. In 1938, she made her Broadway debut in the musical "Sing Out
the News." After several roles in the chorus of various musicals, she
was hired to understudy Betty Hutton in "Panama Hattie." Hutton's measles
gave Allyson a shot at a performance and she impressed director George Abbott
so much that he gave her a role in his next musical, "Best Foot
Forward." She was subsequently hired by MGM to recreate her role in the
screen version. The studio realized what it had in her and offered her
a contract.
Her smoky voice and winning personality made her very popular and she
made more than a score of films for MGM, most often in musicals and
comedies. She became a box-office attraction, paired with many of the
major stars of the day. In 1945, she married actor-director Dick Powell,
with whom she occasionally co-starred. Following Powell's death from
cancer in 1963, she retreated somewhat from film work, appearing only
infrequently on screen and slightly more often in television films.
Occasional nightclub appearances and commercials were her only other
public performances since, and she died of pulmonary respiratory
failure and acute bronchitis on July 8, 2006, after a long
illness.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in Campgaw, New Jersey, Jane Waddington Wyatt came from a New York
family of social distinction (her father was a Wall Street investment
banker and her mother was a drama critic). Jane was raised from the age
of three months in New York City and attended the fashionable Chapin
School and later Barnard College. After two years of college, she left
to join the apprentice school of the Berkshire Playhouse at
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where for six months she played an
assortment of roles. One of her first jobs on Broadway was as
understudy to Rose Hobart in a production of
"Trade Winds"--a career move that cost her her slot on the New York
Social Register. Wyatt made the transition from stage to screen and was
placed under contract at Universal, where she made her film debut in
director James Whale's
One More River (1934). She went
back and forth between Universal and Broadway (and co-starred in
Frank Capra's Columbia film
Lost Horizon (1937) on loan out from
Universal). In the 1950s, she co-starred with
Robert Young in
Father Knows Best (1954),
the classic sitcom chronicling the life and times of the Anderson
family in the Midwestern town of Springfield. Jane Wyatt died at age 96
of natural causes at her home in Bel-Air, California, on October 20,
2006.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Dana Reeve was born on 17 March 1961 in Teaneck, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for Everyone's Hero (2006), Loving (1983) and Above Suspicion (1995). She was married to Christopher Reeve. She died on 6 March 2006 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Possessing one of TV's more identifiable mugs, Jewish-American
character actor Milton Selzer was here, there and everywhere in the
1960s and 1970s, playing a host of usually unsympathetic mobsters,
gamblers, and crooks with a sad, almost pathetic quality in about every
popular crime story offered, notably
The Untouchables (1959),
The Fugitive (1963),
Hawaii Five-O (1968) and
Mission: Impossible (1966).
Always in demand with his trademark glum face, bulb nose and
spoon-shaped ears, Selzer went on to enjoy a five-decade plus career.
Milton was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1918 but moved with his
family while young to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Graduating from
Portsmouth High School in 1936, he studied at the University of New
Hampshire before serving in World War II. Moving to New York, he
trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and The New School in
the 1940s and received his first big break with minor roles in the
Broadway classical plays "Richard III", "Julius Caesar" and "Arms and
the Man". In the late 1950s, Selzer turned to film and (especially) to
TV's "Golden Age", making an early mark in solid ethnic roles (German,
Arab, etc.)
He finally made a definitive move to Los Angeles in 1960. Occasional
movies included
The Last Mile (1959),
The Young Savages (1961),
Alfred Hitchcock's
Marnie (1964),
The Cincinnati Kid (1965),
The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968),
In Enemy Country (1968) and
Lady Sings the Blues (1972),
but it was the small screen that proved a sounder medium for him. With
hundreds upon hundreds of guest parts to his credit, he also was called
upon to play more upstanding gents including store-owners, judges and
colonels on occasion, always offering a solid, authentic presence to
every sound stage he set foot on.
In later years Selzer managed a few regular series roles including
Needles and Pins (1973) and
The Famous Teddy Z (1989).
Broaching 80 years old, he officially retired in the late 1990s and
passed away of pulmonary and stroke complications just shy of age 88 in
Oxnard, California.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Robert Donner was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey,
Michigan and Texas. Robert joined the Navy after he graduated from high
school and served almost 4 years. After he left the Navy he stayed on
the West Coast and worked as a shipping clerk, salesman, bartender,
commercial artist, gardener, and insurance investigator. Robert
attended San Fernando Valley State College (now California State
University, Northridge), at nights taking courses in Art History,
Psychology and speech. During this time, Robert Donner lived in Studio
City and became friends with actor Clint Eastwood who lived in his apartment
building. Clint urged Robert to study drama, telling him he was
humorous and had a good face. When Robert was not acting he was active
in athletics, and was known as one of Hollywood's most enthusiastic
golfers. He was a member of the former "Hollywood Hackers" and carried
a seven handicap and was the leader of a group of entertainment
industry professionals known as Don Porter's Thursday Golf Group as
well as joining others at many of the Celebrity Golf Tournaments who
raise money for various charities around the world. Robert also played
in many tennis tournaments and was frequently called upon during
"Celebrity Nights" in which he performed stand-up comedy and promised
not to sing. His reputation in this area also led him to become known
as one of Hollywood's "in demand" Corporate Speakers.- Tom Bell was one of the UK's finest actors but he never achieved the
star billing or recognition he so richly deserved. His career spanned
some 50 years. Time and time again, Bell gave memorable performances.
From the able seaman ordered to be flogged by a sadistic officer,
played by Dirk Bogarde, in the film, "HMS Defiant" (AKA "Damn the
Defiant") to Sergeant Otley in the ITV TV productions, "Prime Suspect"
to the vengeful character of Frank Ross in the Euston Films
mini-series, "Out". Bell was the consummate professional and he never
ever gave a bad performance. When the kitchen sink dramas became
fashionable in the 1960s and floods of angry young men emerged onto the
scene, he was in good company along with Albert Finney and Tom Courtney
to name just a couple. However, in his younger days, he had a British
working class rebellious streak which stood in the way of any success
he might have had in the UK or US film industry even though he never
created problems when working on a production. One incident in the
early 1960s probably damaged his career more than any other. A little
the worse for drink, he stood up at an awards function and asked Prince
Phillip to, "Tell us a joke!" In fact, so the story goes, Prince
Phillip handled the problem well by replying, "If you want jokes, you
should get a comedian". At the time, Bell was seated at the table of
the Producer and Director of, "The L-Shaped Room", namely Richard
Attenbourgh and Brian Forbes who, probably seeing their future chances
of knighthoods slipping away, urged him to sit down and keep quiet. It
was reported that Leslie Caron, who starred with Bell in "The L-Shaped
Room", later talked to Prince Phillip who said he was amused by the
actor's remarks, even if Attenbourough and Forbes were not. From then
on, though not being totally "blacklisted", his reputation as a trouble
maker followed him for several years.
From the 1970s until he died on October 4th 2006, Bell came into his
own with a long list of impressive TV credits. His one venture into
Hollywood, was when he appeared in an episode of "The Virginian" and a
"B" movie, "In Enemy Country". Bell gave, as usual excellent
performances in both productions but Hollywood left him unimpressed and
he returned to the UK. - Canadian-born actor Arthur Hill was raised in the Saskatchewan town of Melfort. The son of a lawyer, he served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII before receiving his college education at the University of British Columbia. Intending on following in his father's footsteps in the field of law, he supported himself in school with a job doing radio theatre with the Canadian Broadcasting Co.
Continuing to pursue his interest in acting for a time in Seattle, he married fellow actress Peggy Hassard and subsequently made a major move in 1948, at age 26, to England where he slowly built up a fine, steadfast theatre reputation for himself along with occasional radio, film and TV roles. Making his London stage debut with "Home of the Brave" in 1948, he achieved major attention playing Cornelius Hackl in the Thornton Wilder classic "The Matchmaker", a role he took successfully to Broadway. Other important work on stage included "Man and Superman" (1951) and "Look Homeward Angel (1957).
In 1962, he, Uta Hagen, George Grizzard and Melinda Dillon bowled over Broadway audiences as the vitriolic foursome in Edward Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' Hill won both the Tony and New York Drama Critics awards for his role as George, the browbeaten academician and husband of Hagen's emasculating Martha (played by theatre legend Uta Hagen, who also won a Tony Award for her performance), who manages to turn the tables on her in front of two young guests invited for an ill-fated nightcap .
This led to stable work in Hollywood films in the 1960s with stalwart support roles in The Ugly American (1963), Harper (1966), Rabbit, Run (1970) and The Andromeda Strain (1971). This, in turn, led to an abundance of television work in the 1970s where Hill found a comfortable white-collar niche as mild-mannered, gray-haired professionals and an occasional shady villain. He earned star status with his own series Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law (1971), and in such quality mini-movies as Death Be Not Proud (1975) and Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys (1976), among others.
He retired in the 1990s and later was suffered from Alzheimer's disease, which claimed his life at an assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, California. At the time of his death on October 23, 2006, he was survived by his second wife, Anne-Sophie Taraba, and his son, Douglas. (Hill's first wife, Peggy, had died in 1998, also of complications from Alzheimer's disease.) - Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Although Red Buttons is best known as a stand-up comic, he is also a
successful songwriter, an Academy Award-winning actor (and has been
nominated for two Golden Globe awards) and an accomplished singer. Born
Aaron Chwatt in New York City's Lower East Side, Buttons (who got his
name from a uniform he wore while working as a singing bellhop) started
his show-business career singing on street corners as a child. At 16 he
got a job as part of a comedy act playing the famed Catskills resort
area in upstate New York (his partner was future actor Robert Alda).
Buttons worked the burlesque circuit as a comic and even landed a role
in a Broadway play, "Vicki", in 1942. He soon joined the U.S. Marine
Corps, and in 1943 was picked for a role in Moss Hart's service play
"Winged Victory" on Broadway, and soon afterwards journeyed to
Hollywood to make the film version. After his discharge from the
service he returned to Broadway, both in plays and as a comic with
several big-band orchestras. He was successful enough that he got his
own TV series, The Red Buttons Show (1952), on CBS. It lasted three years and won Buttons
an Emmy for Best Comedian. He worked steadily for the next several
years, and in 1957 got his big film break in the drama Sayonara (1957) with
Marlon Brando, in which he played an American soldier stationed in Japan who
struggled against the societal and racist pressures of both American
and Japanese cultures because of his love for a Japanese woman. His
performance garnered him an Academy Award, and more film roles
followed. He played a paratrooper in The Longest Day (1962), was nominated for a Golden Globe for Harlow (1965) and again for
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). He had a part in the TV series The Double Life of Henry Phyfe (1966) and has done pretty
much every kind of TV show there is, from variety to comedy to soap
operas. He gained further renown in the 1970s for his appearances on
the "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" where he performed his "Never Got a
Dinner" act to great acclaim. He has played Las Vegas for years, has a
star on Hollywood Boulevard (corner of Hollywood and Vine) and has
appeared in numerous telethons and charitable events, for which he has
been honored by such organizations as the Friars Club and the City of
Hope Hospital.- Emmy and Tony Award-winner Barnard Hughes forged a career as one of American's most successful character actors, equally at home and successful on stage, the silver screen, and television. Most of his success came after middle-age. He made his Broadway debut in 1939 in Mary McCarthy's "Please, Mrs. Garibaldi", a flop that lasted only four performances. He appeared in another 22 Broadway shows, his last being Noël Coward's "Waiting in the Wings, which closed in the year 2000. His Broadway career lasted spanned 61 years and eight decades. Along the way, he won the 1978 Tony Award as best Actor in a play for Da (1988), his most famous role, which also brought him the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actor in a Play. (He won a lifetime achievement Drama Desk Award in 2000.) He also was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1973 for Much Ado About Nothing (1973), which was fitting, as it was in Shakespeare repertory that he honed his craft.
Hughes was born Bernard Aloysius Kiernan Hughes on July 16, 1915, in Bedford Hills, New York, to Irish immigrants Marcella "Madge" (Kiernan) and Owen Hughes. Bedford Hills is a hamlet lying 41 miles north of the heart of Broadway in Times Square (He changed the spelling of his Christian name on the advice of a numerologist; thespians are very superstitious). After graduating from the La Salle Academy and attending Manhattan College, he joined New York City's Shakespeare Fellowship Repertory Co. He was a member of the company for two years. He did not actually appear on Broadway in Shakespeare until 1964, when he played Marcellus to Richard Burton's Hamlet (1964). Off-Broadway, he played Polonius to Stacy Keach's Obie Award-winning Hamlet in 1972. His only other Shakespearean turn on the boards of the Great White Way was as Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing" in the 1972-73 season, which brought him his first Tony nomination. Off-Broadway, he also appeared as the Chorus in "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" and Sir John Falstaff in "The Merry Wives of Windsor". Back on Broadway, his most prominent role other than "Da" (which he also played in the roadshow tour) was as the Old Man opposite Alec Baldwin in Prelude to a Kiss (1992). Hughes had a 54 year-long screen career, equally adept in television as in movies. He was a regular on the soap opera Guiding Light (1952) from 1961-66. Though Hughes was a highly effective dramatic actor, he had a flair for comedy and appeared on such sit-coms as _"The Phil Silvers Show" (TV series) and _"Car 54, Where Are You?" (1962)_ before having recurring roles on "All In the Family" (1971) as a priest and on The Bob Newhart Show (1972) as Bob's father in the 1970s. He eventually headlined his own sit-com in the mid '70s, Doc (1975), which had a successful first season but was canceled early into its second after the network demanded changes to boost ratings. Instead, the ratings sank. His break-through performance in the movies arguably was a the messianic doctor who was a victim of malpractice and turned avenger in Paddy Chayefsky's The Hospital (1971) in 1971. It came two years after a small but memorable part in Best Picture Oscar winner Midnight Cowboy (1969), as he middle-aged gay mamma's boy who picks up self-styled "hustler" Joe Buck with disastrous consequences. Hughes married actress Helen Stenborg in 1950 and they remained married until his death on July 11, 2006, five days before what would have been his 91st birthday. The couple had two children, theatrical director Doug Hughes (who was also a Tony-winner) and a daughter, actress Laura Hughes. - Elizabeth Allen was born on 25 January 1929 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for Donovan's Reef (1963), The Carey Treatment (1972) and The Fugitive (1963). She was married to Baron Karl von Vietinghoff-Scheel. She died on 19 September 2006 in Fishkill, New York, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Academy Award-winner Maureen Stapleton was born June 21, 1925 in Troy,
New York, to Irene (née Walsh) and John P. Stapleton. Her family was of
Irish descent. Maureen moved to New York City at the age of eighteen
and did modeling to pay the bills. Already a Tony Award-winner, she
made her Academy Award-nominated film debut in
Lonelyhearts (1958) supporting
four-time Academy Award-nominee Montgomery Clift, and
Myrna Loy in
Lonelyhearts (1958). Maureen was was
nominated for an Oscar again for her performance in
Airport (1970). She played the wife of D.
O. Guerrero (played by Academy Award-winner
Van Heflin). Eight years later she
went on to earn a third Oscar nomination for her performance as
Diane Keaton,
Kristen Griffith, and
Mary Beth Hurt's stepmother Pearl, in
the Woody Allen drama
Interiors (1978). Apparently, four
times worked as a charm when Maureen took the Oscar home for her
performance in which she portrayed the Lithuanian-born anarchist Emma
Goldman in Warren Beatty's
Reds (1981).- Actor
- Soundtrack
In the late 1920s, Lewis worked as a circus performer, but ultimately
decided on college, earning a Ph.D. in child psychology from Columbia
University. He taught school and wrote two children's books. In 1949,
at the suggestion of a friend, Lewis turned to acting and joined the
Paul Mann Actor's Workshop in New York. Lewis worked in burlesque and
vaudeville theaters across the country, which eventually led to
Broadway. By the 1950s, television was booming, and Lewis took
advantage of the work appearing on almost every live show out of his
home base of New York City. His most famous regular TV roles were
Officer Leo Schnauser on Car 54, Where Are You? (1961) and Grandpa on The Munsters (1964). When these
shows ended, he opened a restaurant in New York called "Grampa's" in
Greenwich Village. He has since produced a home video for children and
appeared on WTBS in a series of Saturday morning programs for
children.- Moose was the youngest of a litter of four, yet was also the biggest,
hence his name. Hyper and destructive as a pup, he eventually found his
way to Birds & Animals Unlimited, where he got his job playing Eddie on
'Frasier', before going on to act in the film
My Dog Skip (2000), along with his
son, Enzo. - Robert Earl Jones was born on 3 February 1910 in Senatobia, Mississippi, USA. He was an actor, known for The Sting (1973), Sleepaway Camp (1983) and Witness (1985). He was married to Ruth Connolly, Jumelle P. Jones and Ruth Williams. He died on 7 September 2006 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Moira was born the daughter of Harold Charles King, a civil engineer, in Dunfermline, Scotland. She was educated at Dunfermline High School, Ndola in Zambia (formerly
Northern Rhodesia) and Bearsden Academy, Scotland. She received her
professional training at the Mayfair School and The Nicholas Legat
Studio. She made her debut in the International Ballet with 1941 and
then danced at Sadler's Wells in 1942. From 1942 to 1952 she danced all
the major classic roles and a full repertoire of revivals and new
ballets. Her first role as prima ballerina was "Sleeping Beauty" at the Royal Opera
House, Covent Garden in 1946 which was followed by 'Coppelia' and. 'Swan Lake'. She toured the United States with the
Sadler's Wells Ballet in 1949 and in 1950/51. She toured as Sally
Bowles in "I am a Camera" in 1955 and appeared at the Bristol Old Vic
as "Major Barbara" in 1956. Although these performances were the start
of her secondary career as an actress, she continued her primary career
as a ballerina. She has appeared on TV as a ballerina and as an
actress- Writer
- Actor
- Music Department
Steve Irwin was born in 1962 to parents Lyn and Bob Irwin, who were
animal naturalists. He shared the love for animals all his life,
stemming from being raised at the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park.
There, he partook in daily duties of animal feeding and care. He
quickly established himself with the Queenland's government on the
process of the country's Crocodile Relocation Program, in which the
reptiles could be transferred and relocated to proper localties in the
most absolute humane, non-tranquilizing manner. He frequently
implements the non-tranquilizing factor in his televison show The Crocodile Hunter's Croc Files (1999).
Steve married fellow naturalist, Terri Irwin (Baines) in 1992. She
joined him in his adventures and efforts in almost every episode of his
show. They had one daughter, Bindi Sue Irwin, who was born July 24,
1998. He died in September 2006 following an attack by a stingray, off
the Great Barrier Reef.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Amzie Strickland was born on 10 January 1919 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. She was an actress, known for Doc Hollywood (1991), Pretty Woman (1990) and Matinee Theatre (1955). She was married to Frank Behrens. She died on 5 July 2006 in Spokane, Washington, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Phillip Pine was born on 16 July 1920 in Hanford, California, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Cat Ate the Parakeet (1972), Star Trek (1966) and The Twilight Zone (1959). He was married to Madelyn Conner Keen (Lynn Kenton). He died on 22 December 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.- Writer
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Clean cut and smoothly handsome as a youth, Mike Evans got on board the Norman Lear TV train in the early 1970s and took a straight ride to sitcom stardom in both a landmark comedy series and its black-oriented spin-off. Born Michael Jonas Evans in Salisbury,
North Carolina, on November 3, 1949, his dentist father and school instructor mother moved the family to Los Angeles when Mike was quite
young. Graduating from Los Angeles High School, he attended Los Angeles City College before his abrupt TV success. Landing the role of black next-door neighbor Lionel Jefferson in Lear's iconic sitcom All in the Family (1971) was a lucky fluke -- something every fledgling actor should get to experience. In fact, Mike was still attending acting school when he was cast in the 1971 show at age 21. The series altered the course of TV comedy while tackling many then-taboo subjects, including racial prejudice. Due to the quality of the cast and writing, the series managed to thoroughly engage and entertain an audience despite being fronted by a blue-collar bigot in the form of Archie Bunker (played by the great Carroll O'Connor). As the calm, intelligent, level-headed Lionel, son of hothead George (Sherman Hemsley) and his beleaguered wife, Louise Jefferson (Isabel Sanford), Lionel's liberal-minded stance was more akin to Archie's live-in younger generation. As friend to Archie's daughter, Gloria, and her husband, Mike, Lionel had to somehow tolerate his grouchy neighbor's exasperating politically incorrect banter but made up for it with clever, carefully worded digs at the often-clueless Archie. During the run of the show, Mike also boosted his visibility with the TV movies Killer by Night (1972), Call Her Mom (1972), and Voyage of the Yes (1973), costarring Desi Arnaz Jr., not to
mention the Disney family comedy feature Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), starring Kurt Russell. The hit series spun the Jefferson clan into its own "moving-on-up" sitcom The Jeffersons (1975) four years later. The "moving on up" was from Queens to a "deluxe apartment" in Manhattan, where the burgeoning, financially successful George now held court as head intolerant. Mike's character eventually met and fell for Jenny, the beautiful product of an interracial marriage. This became a major source of combustible comedy material that initially fed the new sitcom. In the meantime, Mike and writing partner Eric Monte also cocreated and were writing for another Lear sitcom, Good Times (1974), which was a spin-off of Lear's comedy hit Maude (1972), which in turn was a spin-off of sitcom daddy All in the Family (1971). The major responsibilities and hardships of writing for "Good Times", which became one of the first TV sitcoms to feature a primarily African American cast in quite some time, took its toll, and Mike began making fewer appearances as Lionel. In fact, he left the role completely in the fall of 1975 after only eight months to focus on his writing and was replaced by actor Damon Evans (no relation to Mike), who inhabited the part for four seasons. Mike eventually reclaimed the part in 1979 after the cancellation of "Good Times". His character of Lionel, however, had dwindled so significantly in importance that he left the show again in 1981, this time for good. The family show ended its long run in 1985 after a decade. Mike took on a low profile after his 1970s successes and was not seen onscreen again. By this time he had delved into Southern California real estate. He died of throat cancer in 2006 at age 57 at his mother's home in Twentynine Palms, California.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Michael Taliferro was born on 23 August 1961 in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Life (1999), The Replacements (2000) and Bad Boys (1995). He died on 4 May 2006 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Arthur Scofield Franz was born in Perth Amboy, NJ, to Dorothy and Gustav Franz, German immigrants. He was a reliable character actor in many 1940s and 1950s "B" pictures, often cast as a friendly small-town businessman or professional (as in The Doctor and the Girl (1949)) or the lead's sympathetic friend (as in Invaders from Mars (1953)). He wasn't confined to just "B" pictures, however. He had good parts in such major productions as Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and Alvarez Kelly (1966) and acquitted himself well. However, the film he's probably best remembered for is
Edward Dmytryk's solid little "B" thriller The Sniper (1952), in which he turned in an outstanding performance as a mentally unstable
ex-soldier in San Francisco who, after being rejected by a woman he was interested in, snaps and terrorizes the city by taking out his old army
rifle and stalking and picking off women. - Director
- Producer
- Writer
Richard firmly established his credentials with such epics as The Vikings (1958) , 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Barabbas (1961) and also proved to be a master of intimate drama with Compulsion (1959) , which won Cannes Festival awards for the male stars. He won an Academy Award for one of his earliest films - a documentary Design for Death (1947) . In 1947 the rapidly rising director met Stanley Kramer and Carl Foreman who hired him for their first film together So This Is New York (1948) , One of his most memorable accomplishments 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) which grossed well over $25 million since it's release in 1953.- Franciosa was born Anthony Papaleo on October 25, 1928, in New York City. The son of a construction worker and seamstress who divorced when he was a year old, he seldom saw his father after this and never man really got to know the other. After graduating high school, during a visit to a YMCA to take a free dance lesson, Franciosa came across an audition for a play. Intrigued, he auditioned and was offered a part.
Franciosa began acting professionally, taking his mother's maiden name as his stage name, and had his breakthrough in Calder Willingham's play "End as a Man" (1955), which opened off-Broadway at the Theatre de Lys on September 15, 1953 and transferred to Broadway on October 14 after 32 performances. It was directed by Jack Garfein and co-starred Ben Gazzara (who won a Theatre World Award and would appear in the movie version), both of whom were associated with the Actors Studio, as was Franciosa. His first wife, Beatrice Bakalyar, was a writer.
In 1955, he first appeared in the role that would make him famous: "Polo Pope", the brother of a heroin addict, in an Actors Studio workshop production of Michael V. Gazzo's A Hatful of Rain (1957). The production later moved to Broadway, where Franciosa earned an Outer Critics Circle Award and a Tony Award nomination. Hollywood beckoned, and he made his film debut in Robert Wise's This Could Be the Night (1957) with Paul Douglas and Jean Simmons.
He appeared in Actors Studio co-founder Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957) before reprising the role of "Polo Pope" in Fred Zinnemann's A Hatful of Rain (1957). Franciosa won an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in 1958 for "Hatful" and, with his good looks, was a very hot commodity in Hollywood. He followed up his strong debut by starring in a variety of top A-list films, including George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind (1957), Martin Ritt's The Long, Hot Summer (1958) and The Naked Maja (1958), in which he played painter Francisco Jose de Goya, opposite Ava Gardner.
Franciosa's career began to run out of momentum almost as quickly as it had started, as he rapidly developed a reputation as a combative personality, earning him a reputation as "difficult". Although he starred in George Roy Hill's adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Period of Adjustment (1962), by 1964 he was reduced to appearing in a TV series, Valentine's Day (1964), which lasted a single season. In 1968 he was cast as one of three alternating leads in the television series The Name of the Game (1968), a spin-off from the 1966 TV movie Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966) (the first TV-movie ever made as a pilot for a TV series that was subsequently picked up as a series). Although the show was popular with audiences, Franciosa was fired after appearing in the first two seasons; NBC justified giving him the sack because the actor's mercurial temper was causing too many problems on the set. Looking back at his career in a 1996 interview, Franciosa acknowledged that he was too inexperienced to handle sudden stardom. "It was an incredible amount of attention, and I wasn't quite mature enough psychologically and emotionally for it".
He starred in the series Matt Helm (1975), which only lasted one season, but his talent and charm meant he was in demand throughout the five decades of his career, though not in the kinds of roles that characterized the first two decades of his star period. He continued to act in supporting roles in movies and starring roles in TV movies and series until he retired in 1996. He appeared in one last project, "Manifest Mysteries: Coronation" (2006), shortly before his death on January 19, 2006 in Los Angeles, at the age of 77, five days after that of his ex-wife, actress Shelley Winters. - Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Aaron Spelling graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas,
Texas, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree. Before that, he attended Forest
Avenue High. He started as a writer and sold his first script to
Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre (1955). He wrote for various television shows, including Playhouse 90 (1956).
After he wrote his first pilot he became a producer for Four Star
Productions. He partnered with Danny Thomas and formed Thomas-Spelling
Productions. In 1972 he formed Aaron Spelling Productions, and then
joined with Leonard Goldberg for Spelling-Goldberg Productions. In 1986 his
company went public and formed Spelling Entertainment, Inc. In 1995, he
became vice-chairman of Spelling Entertainment, Inc., and chairman of
Spelling Television, a subsidiary. Spelling Entertainment owns World
Vision (syndication), Hamilton Projects and Republic Pictures. It also
owns a software company called Virgin Interactive. Hamilton Projects
handles merchandising for Spelling's shows. The main office is located
at 5700 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, California.