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The Prodigal

NR
DramaAdventure
4/10(7 ratings)

A wealthy young Hebrew traveling in Damascus renounces his faith after he is seduced by an alluring pagan priestess and cheated of his fortune by the High Priest as well.

05-06-1955
1h 52m
The Prodigal
Backdrop for The Prodigal

Main Cast

Lana Turner

Lana Turner

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Lana Turner (February 8, 1921 – June 29, 1995) was an American actress. Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget (1937). She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). During the early 1940s she established herself as a leading actress in such films as Johnny Eager (1941), Ziegfeld Girl (1941) and Somewhere I'll Find You (1942). She is known as one of the first Hollywood scream queens thanks to her role in the 1941 horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and her reputation as a glamorous femme fatale was enhanced by her performance in the film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Her popularity continued through the 1950s, in such films as The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Peyton Place (1957), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1958, her daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed Turner's lover Johnny Stompanato to death. A coroner's inquest brought considerable media attention to Turner and concluded that Crane had acted in self defense. Turner's next film, Imitation of Life (1959), proved to be one of the greatest successes of her career, but from the early 1960s her roles were fewer. She gained recognition near the end of her career with a recurring guest role in the television series Falcon Crest during 1982 and 1983. Turner made her final television appearance in 1991, and died from throat cancer in 1995.

Known For

Edmund Purdom

Edmund Purdom

Edmund Anthony Cutlar Purdom (19 December 1924 – 1 January 2009) was an English actor, voice artist, and director. He worked first on stage in Britain, performing various works by Shakespeare, then later in America on Broadway, until making his way to Hollywood, and eventually spent the remainder of his life appearing in Italian cinema. He is perhaps best known for his starring role in 1954's historical epic The Egyptian. By taking over important roles exited by Mario Lanza and Marlon Brando, Purdom was known by the mid-1950s as "The Replacement Star". Between the 1970s and 90s, he was a regular in European genre cinema, working with directors like Juan Piquer Simón, Joe D'Amato, Sergio Martino, Ruggero Deodato.

Known For

Louis Calhern

Louis Calhern

Carl Henry Vogt (February 19, 1895 – May 12, 1956), known professionally as Louis Calhern, was an American stage and screen actor. For portraying Oliver Wendell Holmes in the film The Magnificent Yankee (1950), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Calhern began working in silent films for director Lois Weber in the early 1920s; the most notable being The Blot in 1921. A 1921 newspaper article commented, "The new arrival in stardom is Louis Calhern, who, until Miss Weber engaged him to enact the leading male role in What's Worth While?, had been playing leads in the Morosco Stock company of Los Angeles." In 1923 Calhern left the movies, but would return to the screen eight years later after the advent of sound pictures. He was primarily cast as a character actor in films while he continued to play leading roles on the stage. He reached his peak in the 1950s as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player. Among his many memorable screen roles were Ambassador Trentino in the Marx Brothers classic Duck Soup (1933) and three that he appeared in at MGM in 1950: a singing role as Buffalo Bill in the film version of the musical Annie Get Your Gun, the double-crossing lawyer and sugar-daddy to Marilyn Monroe in John Huston's film noir The Asphalt Jungle, and his Oscar-nominated performance as Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Magnificent Yankee (re-creating his role from the Broadway stage). He was also praised for his portrayal of the title role in the John Houseman production of Julius Caesar (adapted from the Shakespeare play) in 1953, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Calhern also played the role of the devious George Caswell, the manipulative board member of Tredway Corporation in the 1954 production of Executive Suite. Calhern's other film roles included the grandfather in The Red Pony (1949), adapted from the novel by John Steinbeck and starring Robert Mitchum, and the spy boss of Cary Grant in the Alfred Hitchcock suspense classic Notorious (1946). A performance as Uncle Willie in High Society (1956), a musical remake of The Philadelphia Story, turned out to be his final film. Description above from the Wikipedia article Louis Calhern, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

Audrey Dalton

Audrey Dalton

Audrey Dalton (born on January 21, 1934) is an Irish television and film actress, whose acting career spanned the 1950s through 1970s. She appeared in several B-westerns and other B-movies. Some of her best known movies include Kitten with a Whip and Titanic.

Known For

Neville Brand

Neville Brand

Neville Brand (August 13, 1920 - April 16, 1992) was an American television and movie actor. Description above from the Wikipedia article Neville Brand  licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

Taina Elg

Taina Elg

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Taina Elg (born 9 March 1930, Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish-American actress and dancer. She has appeared on stage, film and television. She was born in Helsinki, but later raised in Turku by her parents, Helena Dobroumova (of Russian descent) and Åke Elg, a pianist. In 1957 she won the Golden Globe for the Foreign Newcomer Award - Female. She won another Golden Globe in 1958 for Best Motion Picture Actress - Musical/Comedy for her performance in Les Girls, tying with her co-star Kay Kendall. In 1958 she was nominated for a Golden Laurel as Top New Female Personality. In 1975 she was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance as Donna Lucia D'Alvadorez in Where's Charley?. She appeared in the original Broadway production of Nine as Guido Contini's mother. From 1980-1981 she played Nicole Bonard/Olympia Buchanan, wife to Asa Buchanan, on ABC's soap opera One Life to Live. Description above from the Wikipedia article Taina Elg, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

Joseph Wiseman

Joseph Wiseman

Joseph Wiseman (May 15, 1918 – October 19, 2009) was a Canadian theater and film actor, best known for starring as the titular antagonist of the first James Bond film, Dr. No, as well as his career on Broadway. He was once called "the spookiest actor in the American theater". Description above from the Wikipedia article Joseph Wiseman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

John Dehner

John Dehner

From Wikipedia John Dehner (November 23, 1915 - February 4, 1992) was an American actor in radio, television, and films. Between 1941 and 1988, he appeared in over 260 films and television programs. Prior to acting, Dehner had worked as an animator at Walt Disney Studios, and later became a radio disc jockey. He was also a professional pianist.

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Sandy Descher

Sandy Descher

Sandra Descher (born November 30, 1945) is an American former child actress of the 1950s.

Known For

Cecil Kellaway

Cecil Kellaway

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Cecil Lauriston Kellaway (22 August 1890 – 28 February 1973) was a South African-born character actor. Cecil Kellaway spent many years as an actor, author, and director in the Australian film industry until he tried his luck in Hollywood in the 1930s. Finding he could get only gangster bit parts, he got discouraged and returned to Australia. Then William Wyler called and offered him a part in Wuthering Heights (1939). Kellaway died 28 February 1973 in Hollywood, California, and his ashes were entombed in the Sanctuary of Remembrance, at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. He received two Best Supporting Actor nominations, for The Luck of the Irish and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Academy Award winning actor Edmund Gwenn, whose real surname was Kellaway also, was his cousin. Description above from the Wikipedia article Cecil Kellaway, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Known For

Henry Daniell

Henry Daniell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Charles Henry Daniell (5 March 1894 – 31 October 1963) was an English actor who had a long and prestigious career on stage as well as in films. He is perhaps best known for his villainous roles in films like The Great Dictator, The Philadelphia Story and The Sea Hawk. Daniell was given few opportunities to play a 'good guy', including a supporting part as Franz Liszt in the biographical film Song of Love (1947). His last name is sometimes spelled "Daniel". Daniell's film debut came in 1929 in Jealousy. He appeared as Professor Moriarty in the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes film The Woman in Green (1945). He appeared in other films such as Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) (playing Garbitsch, to sound like "garbage", a parody of Joseph Goebbels), and The Body Snatcher (1945, with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi) – as well as two other films in the Sherlock Holmes/Basil Rathbone series: The Voice of Terror (1942) and Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943) with fellow Moriarty George Zucco. Daniell played the sleazy Baron de Varville opposite Greta Garbo in Camille (1936). Another early triumph was his portrayal of Cecil in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). He also played the treacherous Lord Wolfingham (no relation to Francis Walsingham) in The Sea Hawk (1940), fighting Errol Flynn in what is often considered one of the most spectacular sword fighting duels ever filmed. When Michael Curtiz cast him in this film, Henry Daniell initially refused because he couldn't fence. Curtiz accomplished the climactic duel through the use of shadows and over-shoulder shots, with a double fencing Flynn with ingenious inter-cutting of their faces. Towards the end of the Second World War, he appeared in one of his most memorable film roles, as the cruel Mr. Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre (1944), opposite Joan Fontaine who played Eyre. That same year he appeared in The Suspect as Charles Laughton's blackmailing next-door neighbour. In the 1950s and 1960s, he did much television, and also appeared as the malevolent Dr. Emil Zurich in Edward L. Cahn's The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959), and in an episode of Maverick, "Pappy" opposite James Garner the same year. An absolute professional, he was always on the set when needed, and impatient when delays in filming took place. Much in demand for his dry, sardonic delivery, Daniell moved easily from big-budget films, such as (uncredited) Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), to television without difficulty. In 1957, Daniell appeared as King Charles II of England in the NBC anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show in the episode "The Trial of Colonel Blood", with Michael Wilding in the title role. In the same year he played the instructing solicitor to Charles Laughton's leading counsel barrister in Witness for the Prosecution (1957). The actor claimed one of his favourite roles was as Tony Curtis' supervisor in the acclaimed Blake Edwards film Mister Cory (1957) at a time when the actor's career was clearly slowing down, but Daniell retained some of the best and most memorable lines in the movie, "A gentleman never grabs. Manners, Mister Cory. I find them a prerequisite in any circumstance."

Known For

Paul Cavanagh

Paul Cavanagh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Paul Cavanagh (8 December 1888 – 15 March 1964) was an English film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films between 1928 and 1959. Cavanagh was born in Chislehurst, Kent, and attended the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Cavanagh studied law in England, earning a master of arts degree at Cambridge. A newspaper article published 17 June 1931, reported, "It is on record that Cavanagh won high honors in mathematics and history." Cavanagh practised "for several years" before he changed professions. He went to Canada "for a year of sightseeing and wandering" before he joined the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. After serving in World War I, he returned to Canada, where he practised law, including revising the statutes of Alberta, but eventually went back to England to practise law. Cavanagh went onto the stage after a stroke of bad luck in 1924 caused him to lose his savings, and later he went into films. In 1926, Cavanagh lost $22,000 in one evening on a roulette wheel in Monte Carlo. An observer offered to provide a letter "to some of my theatrical acquaintances" in London, England. Those contacts led to Cavanagh's role in It Pays to Advertise. Cavanagh first film contract and film came in 1929 with Paramount Pictures. Cavanagh died In London from a heart attack in 1964, aged 75.

Known For

Tracey Roberts

Tracey Roberts

Tracey Roberts (born Blanche Goldstone, 1914 or 1915 – February 8, 2002) was an American actress who became an acting coach. Her name was sometimes seen as Tracy Roberts. From Wikipedia.

Known For

Unknown Actor

Unknown Actor

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George Sawaya

George Sawaya

George Sawaya (August 14, 1923 – September 17, 2003) was an American stuntman and actor. He acted in almost one hundred different films and television episodes, but always as minor characters. His careerwas relatively consistent from the 1950s to the 1980s. Sawaya acted in the original Star Trek several times, first as Chief Humboldt in "The Menagerie, Part I" and then as Klingons in "Errand of Mercy" and "Day of the Dove".

Known For

John George

John George

John George was a Syrian actor who came to the United States in 1912 via France. He appeared in numerous films beginning in 1916. Much later in his career he appeared in several television series. The vast majority of his roles throughout the years were uncredited bit parts. Mr. George's original name was Tufei Filhela; on his 1925 United States citizenship naturalization Declaration of Intention document, he signed his name "Tufei Filhela known as John George". His surname was neither Filthela nor Fatella, as today sometimes is claimed.

Known For

I. Stanford Jolley

I. Stanford Jolley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Isaac Stanford Jolley (October 24, 1900 – December 7, 1978) was an American character actor of film and television, primarily in western roles as cowboys, law-enforcement officers, or villains. Recognized by his slight build, narrow face, and pencil-thin moustache, Jolley appeared some five hundred times on the large or small screen. Isaac Stanford Jolley was born in a circus trailer in Elizabeth, New Jersey, while the circus owned by his father had a three-day stop there.[2] Jolley toured as a child with his father's traveling circus and worked in vaudeville. He was a student of the Edward Clark Academy Theater. Television roles From 1950 to 1953, Jolley first appeared on television with six castings in different role in the series, The Lone Ranger with Clayton Moore. He appeared twice in 1953 in the syndicated western series, The Range Rider. He made two appearances as Parker in Tales of the Texas Rangers, with series stars Willard Parker and Harry Lauter. Jolley guest starred as the henchman Walt, along with Clayton Moore and Darryl Hickman in the 1954 episode "Annie Gets Her Man" of the syndicated Western, Annie Oakley. He appeared as Sheriff Bascom in the 1954 episode "Black Bart" of Stories of the Century. Jolley soon appeared multiple times on a wide range of other western series, including, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (three times), The Cisco Kid (ten), Tales of the Texas Rangers (twice), Sergeant Preston of the Yukon (twice), The Roy Rogers Show (three), The Gene Autry Show (four), Sky King (four), Death Valley Days (five), 26 Men (five appearances, again with Tristram Coffin, the series star), Wanted Dead or Alive (two), Bronco (twice), Tales of Wells Fargo (twice), The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (six), Maverick (six), Lawman (six), Cheyenne (seven), Rawhide (five), Wagon Train (ten), The Virginian (two), Daniel Boone (two), Laredo (two), The Big Valley (three), Bonanza (eight), and Gunsmoke (nine). In 1960, he guest starred as the Indian named Singing Arrow in the series finale, "The Search," of the syndicated western, Pony Express, with Grant Sullivan. In 1962, he was cast as The Stranger in the episode "Quarantine" of the NBC western series, The Tall Man, starring Barry Sullivan, and Clu Gulager. In 1965, Jolley appeared as Enos Scoggins in "The Greatest Coward on Earth" of the Chuck Connors series, Branded. He had also appeared with Connors on ABC's The Rifleman in one of the last episodes of the series in 1963 in the role of Joe Fogner in "Hostages to Fortune" (1963). He appeared four times in 1956 in archival footage on the children's western The Gabby Hayes Show. In 1966, Jolley appeared on the show F Troop as Colonel Ferguson in the episode "Survival of the Fittest". Jolley's last Western roles were in 1976: as (1) a farmer in ABC's The Macahans, the pilot of James Arness's second western series, How the West Was Won, and (2) as a drunkard in the short-lived Tim Matheson and Kurt Russell series The Quest. CLR

Known For

Tom Steele

Tom Steele

Tom Steele (born Thomas Skeoch, 12 June 1909 – 30 October 1990) was a stunt man and actor, best remembered for appearing in serials, especially those produced by Republic Pictures, in both capacities.

Known For

Allison Hayes

Allison Hayes

Born Mary Jane Hayes in Charleston, West Virginia, she was in the class of 1948 at Calvin Coolidge High School. Hayes won the title of Miss District of Columbia. She went on to represent D.C. in the 1949 Miss America pageant. Although she did not win the competition, it provided her with the opportunity to work in local television before moving to Hollywood to work for Universal Pictures in 1954. Taking the name Allison Hayes, she played small roles in a handful of films at Universal for a couple of years. In 1955 she filed a lawsuit against the studio over injuries she sustained while filming her second picture, SIGN OF THE PAGAN. Universal released Hayes from her contract, and she was subsequently signed by Columbia Pictures. After appearing in a handful of Columbia films including COUNT THREE AND PRAY, MOHAWK, and WOLF DOG, Hayes was given in the lead role in ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958). The film would eventually gain a cult following and become the performance for which she is best known. However, it did not escalate Hayes's career at the time. For several years she remained consistently employed in movies and on television (including an extended stint on the soap opera "General Hospital" and several appearances on her friend Raymond Burr's "Perry Mason" series). By the mid-1960s, though, Allison Hayes's career was all but over and she was beset by health problems. She would later admit that the pain of her illness led her to contemplate suicide, and that her symptoms were not taken seriously by doctors. After reading about metal poisoning in factory workers and recognizing the similarity of the symptoms described to her own, she hired a toxicologist to test a calcium supplement she'd been using for an extended time. The tests revealed that the pills contained an extreme amount of lead, and that Hayes was likely suffering from lead poisoning. She mounted a campaign to pressure the Food and Drug Administration into banning the supplement, but her condition deteriorated to the point of total incapacity. In 1976 she was diagnosed with leukemia, and began regular cancer treatment. Allison Hayes died February 26, 1977 at the UCSD Medical Center in La Jolla, California, just short of her 47th birthday. In a letter that arrived after her death, the FDA informed her of amendments being made to the laws governing the importation of nutritional supplements, largely as a result of her advocacy.

Known For

Chuck Roberson

Chuck Roberson

Charles Hugh Roberson (May 10, 1919 – June 8, 1988) was an American actor and stuntman. Roberson was born near Shannon, Texas, the son of farmer Ollie W. Roberson and Jannie Hamm Roberson. Raised on cattle ranches in Shannon, Texas, and Roswell, New Mexico, he left school at 13 to become a cowhand and oilfield roughneck. He married and took his wife and daughter to California, where he joined the Culver City Police Department and guarded the gate at MGM Studios. Following army service in World War II, he returned to the police force. During duty at Warner Bros. studios during a labor strike, he met stuntman Guy Teague, who alerted him to a stunt job at Republic Pictures. Teague had been John Wayne's stunt double for many years and was able to show him the ropes. Chuck also resembled John Carrol whom Roberson doubled in his first picture, Wyoming (1947). He played small roles and stunted in other roles in the same film. He graduated to larger supporting roles in Westerns for Wayne and John Ford, and to a parallel career as a second-unit director. His television appearances include The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Kit Carson, Lawman, Death Valley Days, Have Gun – Will Travel, Laramie, Gunsmoke, The Virginian, Laredo, Bonanza, Daniel Boone, and The Big Valley. Roberson also appeared in Disney's television Westerns The Swamp Fox and Texas John Slaughter. They were part of The Wonderful World of Color. Before that, he portrayed a Confederate Prison Captain in The Great Locomotive Chase. In 1980 he published an autobiography, The Fall Guy: 30 Years as the Duke's Double. Roberson died of cancer on June 8, 1988, in Bakersfield, California, and is buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Hollywood Hills, California, next to his brother, actor Lou Roberson. Bob Dylan drew him as Long Tom in his Beaten Path series, the drawing is entitled "Untitled 1" and is based on a frame from the film Winchester '73 (1950). Roberson and Wayne Burson, another stuntman, were partners in breeding and training racehorses, with Roberson furnishing the horses from his Bakersfield, California, ranch and Burson training them.

Known For

Movie Details

Production Info

Director:
Richard Thorpe
Production:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Key Crew

Adaptation:
Joseph I. Breen
Producer:
Charles Schnee
Hairstylist:
Sydney Guilaroff
Makeup Designer:
William Tuttle
Original Music Composer:
Bronislau Kaper

Locations and Languages

Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en