Hail, Hero!

John Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914 – January 5, 1990) was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage", especially in the original casts of Arthur Miller plays on Broadway. He won the 1949 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Miller's Death of a Salesman. He also won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for the 1955 film Trial, and was a five-time Academy Award nominee.

Teresa Wright (October 27, 1918 – March 6, 2005) was an American actress. Her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination came in 1941 for her debut work in The Little Foxes. She received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1942 for her performance in Mrs. Miniver. That same year, she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for her performance in Pride of the Yankees opposite Gary Cooper. She is also known for her performances in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Wright received three Emmy Award nominations for her performances in the Playhouse 90 original television version of The Miracle Worker (1957), in the Breck Sunday Showcase feature The Margaret Bourke-White Story, and in the CBS drama series Dolphin Cove (1989). She earned the acclaim of top film directors, including William Wyler, who called her the most promising actress he had directed, and Alfred Hitchcock, who admired her thorough preparation and quiet professionalism.

Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the AFI Life Achievement Award. The elder son of Kirk Douglas and Diana Dill, Douglas earned his Bachelor of Arts in drama from the University of California, Santa Barbara. His early acting roles included film, stage, and television productions. Douglas first achieved prominence for his performance in the ABC police procedural television series The Streets of San Francisco, for which he received three consecutive Emmy Award nominations. In 1975, Douglas produced One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, having acquired the rights to the Ken Kesey novel from his father. The film received critical and popular acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Picture, earning Douglas his first Oscar as one of the film's producers. Douglas went on to produce films including The China Syndrome (1979) and Romancing the Stone (1984), for which he received the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy, and The Jewel of the Nile (1985). Douglas received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor (a role he reprised in the sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 2010). Other notable roles include in Fatal Attraction (1987), The War of the Roses (1989), Basic Instinct (1992), Falling Down (1993), The American President (1995), The Game (1997), Traffic (2000), and Wonder Boys (2000). In 2013, for his portrayal of Liberace in the HBO film Behind the Candelabra, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. Douglas starred as an ageing acting coach in the Netflix comedy series The Kominsky Method (2018–2021), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best ctor—television series  musical or omedy. He has portrayed Hank Pym in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Ant-Man (2015). Douglas has received notice for his humanitarian and political activism. He sits on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, is an honorary board member of the anti-war grant-making foundation Ploughshares Fund, and he was appointed as a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 1998. He has been married to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones since 2000. Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Douglas, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

John Larch (October 4, 1914 - October 16, 2005) was an American film and television actor. After his lead role in the radio serial Captain Starr of Space (1953–54), John Larch entered films in 1954. He usually appeared in westerns (How The West Was Won) and action films, including Miracle of the White Stallions as General George S. Patton Jr. (1963), Collision Course: Truman vs. MacArthur as General Omar Bradley (1976), replacing James Gregory as Mac in the Matt Helm movie The Wrecking Crew (1969) starring Dean Martin, Sharon Tate and Elke Sommer. Larch, an old friend of Clint Eastwood, appeared in Eastwood films, including Dirty Harry (1971) and Play Misty for Me (1971). He also appeared on a number of television programs, including Naked City (three episodes), Route 66 (three episodes), The Fugitive (two episodes), The Invaders, The Restless Gun (four episodes), Gunsmoke (seven episodes), The Virginian (four episodes), Bonanza, Hawaii Five-0, Mission Impossible (two episodes), The Troubleshooters, Bus Stop, Laramie, The Law and Mr. Jones, and possibly most famously as Bill Mumy's father in The Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" in 1961. He also appeared in two other The Twilight Zone episodes, playing a psychiatrist in "Perchance to Dream" and the sheriff in "Dust". Description above from the Wikipedia article John Larch, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Was an American actress, perhaps best known for her portrayal of Bernice Edgar in Alfred Hitchcock's film Marnie (1964). Most of her work has been on television, including appearances on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Perry Mason, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-O, Murder, She Wrote, Designing Women (as Perky, the mother of Julia and Suzanne Sugarbaker), and The X-Files. Latham was also the first person to learn the real circumstances of Dr Richard Kimble's wife's death in the final episode of The Fugitive (1967). She has also appeared in the films Mass Appeal (1984) and Love Field (1992). Latham's Broadway theatre credits include a 1956 revival of Major Barbara, Invitation to a March (1960), and Isle of Children (1962). Description above from the Wikipedia article  Louise Latham, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Charles Drake (October 2, 1917 – September 10, 1994) was an American actor.Drake was born as Charles Ruppert in New York City. He graduated from Nichols College and became a salesman. In 1939, he turned to acting and signed a contract with Warner Brothers. He wasn't immediately successful. World War II interrupted his career; soon after his military service was complete, Drake returned to Hollywood in 1945, his contract with Warner Brothers ended. In the 1940s, he did some freelance work, like A Night in Casablanca. In 1949 he moved to Universal Studios. In 1955, Drake turned to television as one of the stock-company players on Robert Montgomery Presents and three years later he became the host of the British TV espionage weekly Rendezvous. In 1959, he starred in the Western film, No Name on the Bullet, where he played a doctor dedicated to saving a small town from a dangerous assassin. In 1967 he played the part of Oliver Greer in The Fugitive episode The One That Got Away. He played in 83 films between 1939 and 1975, including Scream, Pretty Peggy. More than 50 were dramas, but he also acted in comedies, science fiction, horror and film noir. He died on September 10, 1994 in East Lyme, Connecticut, aged 76. Description above from the Wikipedia article  Charles Drake, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Peter Strauss (born February 20, 1947) is an American television and movie actor, known for his roles in several television miniseries in the 1970s and 1980s. He was born in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. Description above from the Wikipedia article Peter Strauss, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Virginia Christine Ricketts was an American stage and screen film actress. She began training for a theatrical career with actor/ director Fritz Feld whom she married in 1940. In 1942, she made her stage debut in the Los Angeles production of "Hedda Gabler". While performing in the play, she was spotted by an agent from Warner Bros. who signed her to a film contract with the studio. Virginia Christie appeared in more than 170 feature films and TV-productions.

Heather Menzies Urich (December 3, 1949 – December 24, 2017) was a Canadian–American model and actress, known for her roles as Louisa von Trapp in the 1965 film The Sound of Music. Beautiful, sunny, and engaging blonde actress Heather Menzies was born on December 3, 1949 in Toronto, Canada. Her family moved to the United States when Heather was eleven. She graduated from Hollywood High School and subsequently attended the Falcon Studio's University of the Arts in Hollywood. Heather made a strong and promising film debut as Louisa von Trapp in the delightful classic musical The Sound of Music (1965). Menzies also appeared with The Sound of Music (1965) star Julie Andrews in the epic drama Hawaii (1966). After initially establishing herself as an innocent ingénue in the 1960s, Heather reinvented herself with a much sexier image in the 1970s. She did a nude pictorial for the August 1973 issue of "Playboy." Heather gave an extremely sweet and appealing performance as mad scientist Strother Martin's lovely and loyal daughter in the enjoyably oddball horror feature Sssssss (1973). Menzies was likewise quite spirited and personable as a feisty skip tracer in the terrific fright film cult favorite Piranha (1978). On television, Heather achieved her greatest fame as scantily clad fugitive Jessica in the short-lived, but still popular Logan's Run (1977) science fiction TV series. Among the numerous TV shows Menzies did guest spots on are The Farmer's Daughter (1963), Dragnet 1967 (1967), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969), The Love Boat (1977), T.J. Hooker (1982), Bonanza (1959), S.W.A.T. (1975), and Love, American Style (1969). Heather appeared with her late actor husband Robert Urich on several occasions: She acted in three episodes of Vega$ (1978) and one episode of Spenser: For Hire (1985), plus had a small role in the offbeat science fiction mystery thriller Endangered Species (1982). Moreover, Menzies first met Urich on the set of a TV commercial they acted in together. An ovarian cancer survivor, Heather resided in Los Angeles with her three children and worked for the Urich Fund for Sarcoma Research at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Menzies died from brain cancer at age 68 on December 24, 2017.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia John Qualen (born Johan Mandt Kvalen, December 8, 1899 – September 12, 1987) was a Canadian-American character actor of Norwegian heritage who specialized in Scandinavian roles. Qualen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the son of immigrants from Norway; his father was a Lutheran minister and changed the family's original surname, "Kvalen", to "Qualen" – though some sources give Oleson, later Oleson Kvalen as Qualen's earlier surnames. His father's ministering meant many moves and John was 20 when he graduated from Elgin High School in 1920. Though he was awarded a scholarship to Northwestern University after he won an oratory contest he never attended college. In a Milwaukee Journal interview he said he needed to start working and did so with the Chattaqua Circuit. Eventually reaching Broadway, he gained his big break as the Swedish janitor in Elmer Rice's Street Scene. His movie career began when he recreated the role in the film version. This was followed by his appearance in John Ford's Arrowsmith (1931) which began a more than thirty year membership in the director's "stock company", with important supporting roles in The Searchers (1956), Two Rode Together (1961), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964). Appearing in well over one hundred films, and acting extensively on television into the 1970s, Qualen performed many of his roles with various accents, usually Scandinavian, often intended for comic effect. Three of his more memorable roles showcase his versatility. Qualen assumed a Midwestern dialect as Muley, who recounts the destruction of his farm by the bank in Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940), and as the confused killer Earl Williams in Howard Hawks' classic comedy His Girl Friday (also 1940). As Berger, the jewelry-selling Norwegian resistance member in Michael Curtiz' Casablanca (1942), he essayed a light Scandinavian accent, but put on a thicker Mediterranean accent as the homeward-bound fisherman Locota in William Wellman's The High and the Mighty (1954) Qualen was treasurer of The Authors Club and historian of The Masquers, Hollywood's social group for actors. John Qualen was blind in his later years. He died of heart failure in 1987 in Torrance, California, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale. He was survived by his three daughters.