Carl Ronald Boenish (April 3, 1941 – July 7, 1984), considered the father of modern BASE jumping, was an American freefall cinematographer, who in 1978 filmed the first jumps from El Capitan using ram-air parachutes. These jumps were repeated, not as a publicity exercise or as a movie stunt, but as part of the development of a recurring recreational activity. This approach defined modern BASE jumping. These were the jumps that popularized BASE jumping more widely among parachutists, likely because Boenish filmed them and presented the footage exceptionally well. Boenish also published BASE Magazine to promote safety in this new sport.
Boenish's cinematography work included the 1969 John Frankenheimer parachuting film classic The Gypsy Moths, starring Burt Lancaster and Gene Hackman, and a National Geographic Explorer segment on jumps from El Capitan.
His life and death is the subject of the 2015 documentary film, Sunshine Superman.
John Michael Frankenheimer (February 19, 1930 – July 6, 2002) was an American film and television director known for social dramas. He won four consecutive Emmy Awards in the 1990s for the television movies Against the Wall, The Burning Season, Andersonville and George Wallace, which also received a Golden Globe award. He was considered one of the last remaining directors who insisted on having complete control over all elements of production, making his style unique in Hollywood.
His 30 feature films and over 50 plays for television were notable for their influence on contemporary thought. He became a pioneer of the "modern-day political thriller," having begun his career at the peak of the Cold War. Many of his films were noted for creating "psychological dilemmas" for his male protagonists along with having a strong "sense of environment," similar in style to films by director Sidney Lumet, for whom he had earlier worked as assistant director. He developed a "tremendous propensity for exploring political situations" which would ensnare his characters.
Movie critic Leonard Maltin writes that "in his time [1960s]... Frankenheimer worked with the top writers, producers and actors in a series of films that dealt with issues that were just on top of the moment—things that were facing us all." Among his credits were The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Birdman of Alcatraz (also 1962), The Train, (1964), Seven Days in May (also 1964) and Ronin (1998).
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Eugene Allen 'Gene' Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is a retired American actor and novelist. He was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning two, he has also won three Golden Globes and two BAFTAs in a career that spanned four decades.
He first came to fame in 1967 with his performance as Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde. His major subsequent films include I Never Sang for My Father (1970); his role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection (1971) and its sequel French Connection II (1975); The Poseidon Adventure (1972); The Conversation (1974); A Bridge Too Far (1977); his role as arch-villain Lex Luthor in Superman (1978), Superman II (1980), and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987); Under Fire (1983); Twice in a Lifetime (1985); Hoosiers (1986); No Way Out (1987); Mississippi Burning (1987); Unforgiven (1992); Wyatt Earp (1994); The Quick and the Dead, Crimson Tide and Get Shorty (all 1995); Enemy of the State (1998); The Royal Tenenbaums (2001); and his final film role before retirement, in Welcome to Mooseport (2004).
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Deborah Jane Trimmer CBE (30 September 1921 – 16 October 2007), known professionally as Deborah Kerr, was a British actress. She was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
During her international film career, Kerr won a Golden Globe Award for her performance as Anna Leonowens in the musical film The King and I (1956). Her other major and best known films and performances are The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), Black Narcissus (1947), Quo Vadis (1951), From Here to Eternity (1953), Tea and Sympathy (1956), An Affair to Remember (1957), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Separate Tables (1958), The Sundowners (1960), The Innocents (1961), The Grass Is Greener (1960), and The Night of the Iguana (1964).
In 1994, having already received honorary awards from the Cannes Film Festival and BAFTA, Kerr received an Academy Honorary Award with a citation recognizing her as "an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance".
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Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster (November 2, 1913 – October 20, 1994) was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile (which he called "The Grin"). Later he took roles that went against his initial "tough guy" image. In the late 1950s Lancaster abandoned his "all-American" image and came to be regarded as one of the best actors of his generation.
Lancaster was nominated four times for Academy Awards and won once — for his work in Elmer Gantry in 1960. He also won a Golden Globe for that performance and BAFTA Awards for The Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Atlantic City (1980). His production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, was the most successful and innovative star-driven independent production company in Hollywood of the 1950s, making movies such as Marty (1955), Trapeze (1956), and Sweet Smell of Success (1957).
Lancaster also directed two films: The Kentuckian (1955) and The Midnight Man (1974).
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Lancaster nineteenth among the greatest male stars of all time.
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Scott Wilson (March 29, 1942 - October 6, 2018) was an American film and television actor.
Wilson has more than 50 film credits from the 1960s to the 2010s, including In the Heat of the Night, In Cold Blood, The Great Gatsby, Dead Man Walking, Pearl Harbor, and Junebug.In 1980, Wilson received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his role in The Ninth Configuration.From 2011 to 2013, Wilson was a main cast member on the AMC television series, The Walking Dead,in which he played veterinarian and Greene family patriarch Hershel Greene. Wilson was well-known especially for his recurring role on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as casino mogul Sam Braun, the father of investigator Catherine Willows.