Born to Win

George Segal (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021) was an American actor and musician. Segal became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles. Some of his most acclaimed roles were in films such as Ship of Fools (1965), King Rat (1965), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), Where's Poppa? (1970), The Hot Rock (1972), Blume in Love (1973), A Touch of Class (1973), California Split (1974), For the Boys (1991), and Flirting with Disaster (1996). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and had won two Golden Globe Awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in A Touch of Class. On television, he was best known for his roles as Jack Gallo on Just Shoot Me! (1997–2003) and as Albert "Pops" Solomon on The Goldbergs (2013–present). Segal was also an accomplished banjo player. He had released three albums and had also performed the instrument in several of his acting roles and on late night television.

Karen Blanche Black (née Ziegler; July 1, 1939 – August 8, 2013) was an American actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter. She rose to prominence for her work in various studio and independent films in the 1970s, frequently portraying eccentric and offbeat characters, and established herself as a figure of New Hollywood. Her career spanned over 50 years and includes nearly 200 credits in both independent and mainstream films. Black received numerous accolades throughout her career, including two Golden Globe Awards, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. A native of suburban Chicago, Black studied theater at Northwestern University before dropping out and relocating to New York City. She performed on Broadway in 1965 before making her major film debut in Francis Ford Coppola's You're a Big Boy Now (1966). Black relocated to California and was cast as an acid-tripping prostitute in Dennis Hopper's road film Easy Rider (1969). That led to a lead in the drama Five Easy Pieces (1970), in which she played a hopeless beautician, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Black made her first major commercial picture with the disaster film Airport 1975 (1974), and her subsequent appearance as Myrtle Wilson in The Great Gatsby (1974) won her a second Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Black starred as a glamorous country singer in Robert Altman's ensemble musical drama Nashville (1975), also writing and performing two songs for the soundtrack, which won a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack. Her portrayal of an aspiring actress in John Schlesinger's drama The Day of the Locust (also 1975) earned her a third Golden Globe nomination, this time for Best Actress. She subsequently took on four roles in Dan Curtis' anthology horror film Trilogy of Terror (1975), followed by Curtis's supernatural horror feature, Burnt Offerings (1976). The same year, she starred as a con artist in Alfred Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot. In 1982, Black starred as a trans woman in the Robert Altman-directed Broadway debut of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, a role she also reprised in Altman's subsequent film adaptation. She next starred in the comedy Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983), followed by Tobe Hooper's remake of Invaders from Mars (1986). For much of the late 1980s and 1990s, Black starred in a variety of arthouse, independent, and horror films, as well as writing her own screenplays. She had a leading role as a villainous mother in Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003), which cemented her status as a cult horror icon. She continued to star in low-profile films throughout the early 2000s, as well as working as a playwright before her death from ampullary cancer in 2013. Description above from the Wikipedia article Karen Black, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia. ​

Paula Prentiss (born March 4, 1938) is an American actress. She is best known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are (1960), What's New Pussycat? (1965), Catch-22 (1970), The Parallax View (1974), and The Stepford Wives (1975). From 1967 to 1968, Prentiss co-starred with her husband Richard Benjamin in the CBS sitcom He & She, for which she received a nomination for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Description above from the Wikipedia article Paula Prentiss, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Héctor Elizondo (born December 22, 1936) is an American actor. Elizondo excelled in sports and later contemplated becoming an educator. Elizondo's first major role was that of "God" in a play for which he won an Obie Award. Since then Elizondo has participated in over eighty films and has made numerous television appearances, including his Emmy Award-winning role on the series Chicago Hope. Description above from the Wikipedia article Héctor Elizondo, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Robert Anthony De Niro (born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2009, De Niro received the Kennedy Center Honor, and earned a Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016. De Niro studied acting at HB Studio, Stella Adler Conservatory, and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. His first collaboration with Scorsese was with the 1973 film Mean Streets. De Niro earned two Academy Awards, one for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II (1974) and the other for Best Actor portraying Jake LaMotta in Scorsese's drama Raging Bull (1980). His other Oscar-nominated roles were for Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978), Awakenings (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and Silver Linings Playbook (2012). Other notable roles include in 1900 (1976), The King of Comedy (1982), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Brazil (1985), The Mission (1986), Goodfellas (1990), This Boy's Life (1993), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), Heat (1995), Casino (1995), Jackie Brown (1997), The Good Shepherd (2006), Joker (2019), and The Irishman (2019). He made his directorial film debut with A Bronx Tale (1993). His comedic roles include Midnight Run (1988), Wag the Dog (1997), Analyze This (1999), the Meet the Parents films (2000-2010), and The Intern (2015). Also known for his television roles, De Niro portrayed Bernie Madoff in the HBO film The Wizard of Lies (2017), earning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie nomination. He received further Emmy Award nominations for producing the Netflix limited series When They See Us (2019), and for portraying Robert Mueller on Saturday Night Live.[1] De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal founded the film and television production company TriBeCa Productions in 1989, which has produced several films alongside his own. Also with Rosenthal, he founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002. Six of De Niro's films have been inducted into the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Marcia Jean Kurtz is an American film, stage, and television actress and director. She has appeared in such films as The Panic in Needle Park, In Her Shoes, Dog Day Afternoon and Big Fan. Kurtz won an Obie Award for her performance as Doris in Donald Margulies' The Loman Family Picnic. She was also nominated for both an Obie and a Drama Desk Award for her role in Martin Sherman's When She Danced. Kurtz also directed Matty Selman's Uncle Phillip's Coat and Evan Handler's Time of Fire. She has appeared several times on the television series Law & Order.

Gerald Tommaso DeLouise (April 30, 1940 – October 8, 2023), known professionally as Burt Young, was an American actor, author, and painter. He played Rocky Balboa's brother-in-law and best friend Paulie Pennino in the Rocky film series, his performance in the first installment of which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Description above from the Wikipedia article Burt Young, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Paul Benjamin (born 1938) is an American actor. Benjamin was born in Pelion, South Carolina. He made his film debut in 1969 as a bartender in Midnight Cowboy. After a small role in Sidney Lumet's The Anderson Tapes, he did extensive television work in the 1970s. A few notable exceptions were a major role in Barry Shear's Across 110th Street, and smaller parts in Gordon Parks' biopic Leadbelly, Arthur Marks' Friday Foster, and Don Siegel's prison film Escape from Alcatraz. He gave exceptional performances in the TV adaptations of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and Gideon's Trumpet. He later starred in the HBO movie The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains, based on the novel by Robert E. Burns. On the big screen in the 1990s, Benjamin worked with some well known directors. He appeared in Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, Robert Townsend's The Five Heartbeats, Bill Duke's Hoodlum, and John Singleton's Rosewood. On television, he appeared in the 1994 pilot episode of ER, which led to his recurring role of homeless man Al Ervin during the next few seasons. Benjamin also worked on the American Masters documentary of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ralph Ellison, which aired on PBS. After 2000, he appeared primarily in small independent films like Stanley's Gig, The Station Agent, Deacons For Defense, and James Hunter's 2004 drama Back in the Day. He recently made a special appearance in the independent film The Talk Man, directed by Gene Gallerano. Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Benjamin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.