The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers paid up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors' Fund) was billed as "The Night of 100 Stars" but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.
03-08-1982
3h 2m
THIS
HELLA
Doesn't have an image right now... sorry!has no image... sorry!
Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Clark Jones
Writer:
Hildy Parks
Key Crew
Original Music Composer:
Buz Kohan
Original Music Composer:
Glen Roven
Producer:
Hildy Parks
Executive Producer:
Alexander H. Cohen
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Jane Alexander
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Jane Alexander (born October 28, 1939) is an American actress, author, and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts. Although perhaps best known for playing the female lead in The Great White Hope on both stage and screen, Alexander has played a wide array of roles in both theater and film, and has committed herself to a variety of charitable causes.
Peter Allen (born Peter Richard Woolnough; 10 February 1944 – 18 June 1992) was an Australian singer-songwriter, musician and entertainer, known for his flamboyant stage persona, boundless energy, and lavish costumes. His songs were made popular by many recording artists, including Elkie Brooks, Melissa Manchester and Olivia Newton-John, including Newton-John's first chart topping hit "I Honestly Love You", and the chart topping and Academy Award winning "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" by Christopher Cross. In addition to recording many albums, he enjoyed a cabaret and concert career, including appearances at the Radio City Music Hall riding a camel. His patriotic song "I Still Call Australia Home", has been used extensively in advertising campaigns, and was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2013.
Allen was the first husband of Liza Minnelli. They married on 3 March 1967, separated on 9 April 1970, and were divorced on 24 July 1974. He had a long-term partner, model Gregory Connell (1949–1984). They were together from 1974 until Connell's death in 1984. Allen and Connell died from AIDS-related illnesses eight years apart, with Allen becoming one of the first well-known Australians to die from AIDS. Allen remained ambiguous about his sexuality in that he did not pretend to be straight after divorcing Minnelli, but never publicly came out as gay either. He explained, "I was as out as a not-out celebrity could be then." Despite Allen's outgoing persona, he was an intensely private man who shared little about his personal life even with those close to him. Few people knew he had HIV/AIDS, partly in fear of alienating his conservative, heterosexual fans and thinking audiences would not want to see a performer they knew was sick.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Peter Allen, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was an American television personality, radio personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, writer, and advocate of scientific skepticism. In 1954, he achieved national fame as the co-creator and first host of The Tonight Show, which was the first late night television talk show.
Though he got his start in radio, Allen is best known for his extensive network television career. He gained national attention as a guest host on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. After he hosted The Tonight Show, he went on to host numerous game and variety shows, including his own The Steve Allen Show, I've Got a Secret, and The New Steve Allen Show. He was a regular panel member on CBS's What's My Line?, and from 1977 until 1981 wrote, produced, and hosted the award-winning public broadcasting show Meeting of Minds, a series of historical dramas presented in a talk format.
Allen was a pianist and a prolific composer. By his own estimate, he wrote more than 8,500 songs, some of which were recorded by numerous leading singers. Working as a lyricist, Allen won the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Original Jazz Composition. He also wrote more than 50 books, including novels, children's books, and books of opinions, including his final book, Vulgarians at the Gate: Trash TV and Raunch Radio.
In 1996 Allen was presented with the Martin Gardner Lifetime Achievement Award from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSICOP). He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Hollywood theater named in his honor.
June Allyson (October 7, 1917 – July 8, 2006) was an American film and television actress, popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was a major MGM contract star. Allyson won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in Too Young to Kiss (1951). From 1959–1961, she hosted and occasionally starred in her own CBS anthology series, The DuPont Show with June Allyson. A later generation knew her as a spokesperson for Depend undergarments.
Description above from the Wikipedia article June Allyson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Don Ameche born Dominic Felix Amici May 31, 1908 – December 6, 1993) was a versatile and popular American film actor in the 1930s and '40s, usually as the dapper, mustached leading man. He was also popular as a radio master of ceremonies during this time. As his film popularity waned in the 1950s, he continued working in theater and some TV. His film career surged in a comeback in the 1980s with fine work as an aging millionaire in Trading Places (1983) and a rejuvenated oldster in Cocoon (1985). Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor.
Ameche, standing in at a height of 5' 11" (1.8 m) was born May 31, 1908 (Gemini) in Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA as Dominic Felix Amici to mother, Barbara Edda (Hertel) and father, Felice Amici, a bartender. Has a younger brother Jim Ameche. His father was an Italian immigrant. His mother had German, English, Irish and Scottish ancestry. Americans pronounced his last name incorrectly in Italian ("Ah-mee-see"). So he changed it from "Amici" (correctly pronounced "Ah-mee-chee") into "Ameche", in order to keep the original Italian pronunciation. He had the nickname "The Latin Lover". Married Honore Prendergast on the 6th of December 1932. They had 6 children together. Became a father for the first time at age 25 when his wife Honore gave birth to their son Dominic Felix Ameche--aka Don Ameche Jr. on October 3, 1933. Became a father for the second time at age 27 when his wife Honore gave birth to their son Ronald Ameche on December 30, 1935. He died on January 2, 2001 in Iowa, aged 65. Became a father for the third time at age 31 when his wife Honore gave birth to their son Thomas Anthony Ameche on July 20, 1939. Became a father for the fourth time at age 32 when his wife Honore gave birth to their son Lawrence Michael Ameche on July 20, 1940. Became a father for the fifth time at age 36 when his wife Honore gave birth to their daughter Barbara Balinda Ameche on March 13, 1945. Became a father for the sixth time at age 39 when his wife Honore gave birth to their daughter Constance Victoria Ameche on February 22, 1948. His wife of 54 years, died on the 5th of September 1986. He died on December 6, 1993 at the age of 85 in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA from prostate cancer.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Loni Kaye Anderson (born August 5, 1945) is an American actress who played the role of Jennifer Marlowe on the television sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.
Anderson was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 5, 1945, the daughter of Maxine Hazel (née Kallin), a model, and Klaydon Carl "Andy" Anderson, an environmental chemist and grew up in suburban Roseville.
As a senior at Alexander Ramsey Senior High School in Roseville in 1963, she was voted Valentine Queen of Valentine's Day Winter Formal. She attended the University of Minnesota. As she says in her autobiography, My Life in High Heels, her father was originally going to name her "Leiloni," but then realized to his horror that when she got to her teen years it was liable to be twisted into "Lay Loni." So it was changed to just plain "Loni."
Anderson's most famous acting role came as receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP in Cincinnati. Her pinup photo in a bikini became one of the best-selling wall posters of the 1970s. She and husband Burt Reynolds made one film together, the 1983 stock-car racing comedy Stroker Ace, a huge box-office failure. Shortly after her divorce from Reynolds, she appeared as a regular in the final season (1993–1994) on the NBC sitcom Nurses. Anderson portrayed actress Jayne Mansfield in a made-for-TV biopic with Arnold Schwarzenegger as her husband, Mickey Hargitay. She teamed with Lynda Carter in a 1984 television series, Partners in Crime. Anderson made a series of cameo appearances on television shows in the late 1990s and early 2000s, such as the Spellmans' "witch-trash" cousin on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Vallery Irons' mother on V.I.P. Anderson has been married four times; her first three marriages were to: Bruce Hasselberg (1964–1966), Ross Bickell (1973–1981), and actor (and one-time co-star) Burt Reynolds (1988–1993). On May 17, 2008, Anderson married musician Bob Flick, one of the founding members of the folk band The Brothers Four. The couple had met at a movie premiere in Anderson's native Minneapolis a few years after Flick's group hit No. 2 on the pop charts with "Greenfields" in 1960. The ceremony was attended by friends and family, including son Quinton Reynolds. She has two children: a daughter, Deidra Hoffman (from her first marriage), who is a school administrator in California; and a son, Quinton Anderson Reynolds (born August 31, 1988), whom she and Burt Reynolds adopted. Her autobiography, My Life in High Heels, was published in 1997. Anderson is currently a practicing Lutheran. Description above from the Wikipedia article Loni Anderson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Emmy Award winner Lucie Arnaz is the daughter of television legends Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball and sister of actor Desi Arnaz Jr. Lucie Arnaz appeared from an early age on her mother's TV shows and was prominently featured as Ms Ball's daughter in Here's Lucy from 1968 to 1974. Arnaz branched out into television roles independent of her family from the mid-1970s. In 1975, she played murder victim Elizabeth Short in an NBC telefilm of Who is the Black Dahlia?, and she starred with Lyle Waggoner and Tommy Tune in Welcome to the "World," The Wonderful World of Disney special commemorating the grand opening of Space Mountain at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. In 1978, she appeared in an episode of Fantasy Island as a woman desperately trying to save her marriage. She has continued to make appearances in a number of popular television series over the years, including Murder, She Wrote, Marcus Welby, M.D., Sons and Daughters (CBS, 1991), Will & Grace and Law & Order.
Arnaz also had a short-lived series of her own, The Lucie Arnaz Show, on CBS in 1985. The show was about psychologist Dr. Jane Lucas who answers questions from the public on her radio show called "The Jane Lucas Show" and in a magazine. The show first premiered on April 2, 1985, but was pulled off the air after 4 episodes aired. The remaining two episodes aired on June 4 and June 11, 1985. Another eponymous series, this one a late-night-style talk show, aired for one season from 1995 to 1996. It was unsuccessful, but The Rosie O'Donnell Show would use the same format a year later to much greater success.
She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Special, in 1993 for her documentary about her parents, Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie.
Arnaz has made numerous feature-film appearances, but is best remembered for her debut in The Jazz Singer (1980) in which she co-starred with Neil Diamond and Laurence Olivier. She earned a nomination for the 1981 Golden Globe Award, Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture.
However Arnaz' greatest success has come in the theatre, where she has worked continually since the mid-1970s. She made her Broadway debut in February 1979 in the musical They're Playing Our Song. Arnaz won the Theatre World Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Sonia Walsk. In 1986, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her tour with Tommy Tune in the international company of the musical My One and Only. In 2000 she made her London debut in the new musical The Witches Of Eastwick.
Beatrice Arthur (born Bernice Frankel; May 13, 1922 – April 25, 2009) was an American actress and comedian. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, Arthur began her career on stage in 1947, attracting critical acclaim before achieving worldwide recognition for her work on television beginning in the 1970s as Maude Findlay in the popular sitcoms All in the Family (1971–1972) and Maude (1972–1978) and later in the 1980s and 1990s as Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls (1985–1992).
She won several accolades throughout her career, beginning with the 1966 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for playing Vera Charles in Mame. She won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1977 for Maude and 1988 for The Golden Girls. Arthur has received the third most nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series with nine; only Julia Louis-Dreyfus (11) and Mary Tyler Moore (10) have more. She was inducted into the academy's Television Hall of Fame in 2008.
Her film appearances include Lovers and Other Strangers (1970) and the film version of Mame (1974). In 2002, she starred in the one-woman show Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends. An obituary described Arthur as "the tall, deep-voiced actress whose razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star."
She served in the U.S. Marine Corps Women's Reserve in World War II.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Bea Arthur, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Christopher Atkins (born Christopher Atkins Bomann on February 21, 1961) is an American actor, who became famous with his costarring debut role in the 1980 film The Blue Lagoon.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Christopher Atkins, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske; September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American actress known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks. She began her career as a model. She first appeared as a leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have and Have Not (1944) and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in Bogart movies The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), as well as comedic roles in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. Bacall worked on Broadway in musicals, earning Tony Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. Her performance in the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.
In 1999, Bacall was ranked 20th out of the 25 actresses on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list by the American Film Institute. In 2009, she was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures."
Bacall died on August 12, 2014, at the age of 89. According to her grandson Jamie Bogart, the actress died after suffering from a stroke.
Catherine Bach is an American actress, standing in at a height of 5' 8" (1.73 m)with Natural brunette hair, Voluptuous figure and a Deep sultry voice was born on March 1, 1954 in Warren, Ohio, USA as Catherine Bachman and is the daughter of Norma Jean Kucera (née Verdugo), an acupuncturist, and Bernard Bachman, a rancher. She has one brother, Philip Bachman. Her mother was of Mexican descent and her father was of German ancestry. She is descended from the Verdugo family, one of California's earliest landed families. She grew up on a ranch in South Dakota, where she visited her grandparents in Faith, South Dakota. In 1970, Bach graduated from Stevens High School in Rapid City, South Dakota and briefly studied drama as a major at UCLA where she supplemented her income by making clothes for friends and theatre groups. She was previously married to Peter Lopez and David Shaw. Her first husband is Angela Lansbury's stepson David Shaw. They were married on May 15, 1976 and divorced on August 5, 1981. Her second husband is Peter Lopez. They were married on August 8, 1990 'till his death on April 30, 2010. They have two daughters: Sophia Isabella (born January 1996) and Laura Esmeralda (born October 1998).
She is known for playing Daisy Duke in the television series The Dukes of Hazzard (1979), Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), You Again (2010) and Margo Dutton in African Skies. In 2012, she joined the cast of the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless as Anita Lawson.
Pearl Mae Bailey, born in Virginia on March 29, 1918, was an American actress and singer. Bailey began by singing and dancing in Philadelphia’s black nightclubs in the 1930s, and soon started performing in other parts of the East Coast. In 1941, during World War II, Bailey toured the country with the USO, performing for American troops. After the tour, she settled in New York. Her solo successes as a nightclub performer were followed by acts with such entertainers as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. In 1946, Bailey made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman. Bailey continued to tour and record albums in between her stage and screen performances. Her rendition of "Takes Two to Tango" hit the top ten in 1952. On November 19, 1952, Bailey married jazz drummer Louie Bellson in London. They adopted a child, Tony, in the mid-1950s, and subsequently a girl, Dee Dee J. Bellson, born April 20, 1960. In 1954, she took the role of Frankie in the film version of Carmen Jones, and her rendition of "Beat Out That Rhythm on the Drum" is one of the highlights of the film. She also starred in the Broadway musical House of Flowers. In 1959, she played the role of Maria in the film version of Porgy and Bess, starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. Also that year, she played the role of "Aunt Hagar" in the movie St. Louis Blues, alongside Mahalia Jackson, Eartha Kitt, and Nat King Cole. Though she was originally considered for the part of Annie Johnson in the 1959 film Imitation of Life, the part went to Juanita Moore. A passionate fan of the New York Mets, Bailey sang the national anthem at Shea Stadium prior to game 5 of the 1969 World Series, and appears in the Series highlight film showing her support for the team. She also sang the national anthem prior to game 1 of the 1981 World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers at Yankee Stadium. Bailey, a Republican, was appointed by President Richard Nixon as America's "Ambassador of Love" in 1970. She attended several meetings of the United Nations and later appeared in a campaign ad for President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. Also during the 1970s she had her own television show, and she also provided voices for animations such as Tubby the Tuba (1976) and Disney's The Fox and the Hound (1981). She returned to Broadway in 1975, playing the lead in an all-black production of Hello, Dolly!. At age 67, she earned a B.A. in theology from GeorgetownUniversity in Washington, D.C., in 1985. Later in her career, Bailey was a fixture as a spokesperson in a series of Duncan Hines commercials, singing "Bill Bailey (Won't You Come Home)". In her later years Bailey wrote several books: The Raw Pearl (1968), Talking to Myself (1971), Pearl's Kitchen (1973), and Hurry Up America and Spit (1976). In 1975 she was appointed special ambassador to the United Nations by President Gerald Ford. Her last book, Between You and Me (1989), details her experiences with higher education. In 1988 Bailey received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan. On August 17, 1990, Bailey died of heart condition. She is buried at RollingGreenMemorial Park in West Chester, Pennsylvania. During her lifetime, she won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special, Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale.
Martin Henry Balsam (November 4, 1919 – February 13, 1996) was an American character actor. He is best known for a number of film roles, including detective Milton Arbogast in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Arnold Burns in A Thousand Clowns (1965), which earned him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Juror #1 in 12 Angry Men (1957), and Mr. Green in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), as well as for his role as Murray Klein in the television sitcom Archie Bunker's Place (1979–1983).
Priscilla Barnes is an American stage, film and television actress, best known for playing nurse Terri Alden on the television sitcom "Three's Company".
Warren Beatty is an American actor and filmmaker. He has been nominated for fourteen Academy Awards – four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, three for Original Screenplay, and one for Adapted Screenplay – winning Best Director for Reds (1981). He is also the brother of actress Shirley MacLaine.
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023) was an American singer, actor and activist, who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s. Belafonte is one of the few performers to have received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT), although he won the Oscar in a non-competitive category. He earned his career breakthrough with the album Calypso (1956), which was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.
Belafonte was best known for his recordings of "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)", "Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)", "Jamaica Farewell", and "Mary's Boy Child". He recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. He also starred in films such as Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), Buck and the Preacher (1972), and Uptown Saturday Night (1974). He made his final screen appearance in Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (2018).
Belafonte considered the actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson a mentor, and he was a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He was a vocal critic of the policies of the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations. Belafonte acted as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues.
Belafonte won three Grammy Awards (including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy's 6th Annual Governors Awards and in 2022 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Harry Belafonte, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Anthony Dominick Benedetto (August 3, 1926 - July 21, 2023), known professionally as Tony Bennett, was an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz.
Raised in New York City, Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as an infantryman with the U.S. Army in the European Theatre. Afterwards, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records, and had his first number one popular song with "Because of You" in 1951. Several top hits such as "Rags to Riches" followed in the early 1950s. Bennett then further refined his approach to encompass jazz singing. He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings, Bennett Sings. In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". His career and his personal life then suffered an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era.
Bennett staged a remarkable comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his audience to the MTV Generation while keeping his musical style intact. He remains a popular and critically praised recording artist and concert performer in the 2000s. Bennett has won fifteen Grammy Awards, two Emmy Awards, been named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree. He has sold over 50 million records worldwide. Bennett is also a serious and accomplished painter, creating works under the name Benedetto that are on permanent public display in several institutions. He is also the founder of Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens.
Milton Berle was an Emmy-winning American comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater (1948–55), in 1948 he was the first major star of US television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr. Television to millions during TV's golden age.
Theodore Meir Bikel wa a character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones.
Thomas Edward "Tom" Bosley was an American actor. Bosley is best known for portraying Howard Cunningham on the long-running ABC sitcom Happy Days. He also appeared in: - Murder, She Wrote - Father Dowling Mysteries, and He originated the title role of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical Fiorello!, earning the 1960 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical.
Barry Knapp Bostwick (born February 24, 1945) is an American actor and singer. He is known for playing Brad Majors in the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, replacing Peter Scolari as Mr. Tyler in the sitcom What I Like About You, and playing Mayor Randall Winston in the sitcom Spin City. He has also had considerable fame in musical theater.
Danielle Anne Brisebois (born June 28, 1969) is an American producer, singer-songwriter and former actress. She is most recognized for her role as Stephanie Mills on the sitcoms All in the Family and its spin-off Archie Bunker's Place (for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award), as well as playing Molly in the original Broadway production of the musicalAnnie. In the 1990s she recorded two solo albums, Arrive All Over You andPortable Life, and was a member of the New Radicals and contributed to writing the songs for the album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too. She has written or co-written a number of songs, including Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten", and "Pocketful of Sunshine". In January 2015, Brisebois and writing partner Gregg Alexander were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song Lost Stars from the film Begin Again.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jack Buetel (September 5, 1915 – June 27, 1989) was an American film and television actor.
Born in Dallas, Texas, Buetel moved to Los Angeles, California in the late 1930s with the intention of establishing a film career. Unable to find such work, he was employed as an insurance clerk when he was noticed by an agent who was impressed by his looks.
Introduced to Howard Hughes, who was about to begin filming The Outlaw, Buetel was signed to play the lead role as Billy the Kid, with the previously signed David Bacon being dropped from the film. Hughes also signed another newcomer, Jane Russell, for the female lead, and realizing the inexperience of his two stars, also signed veteran actors Thomas Mitchell and Walter Huston.
Buetel was signed to a standard seven-year contract at $150 per week and was assured by Hughes that he would become a major star. Filmed in late 1940 and early 1941, The Outlaw officially premiered in 1943 but was not widely seen until 1946. It was notable for suggesting the act of sexual intercourse, uncommon in mainstream movies of the era, and for allowing characters to "sin on film", without a suitable punishment also being depicted, in violation of the Production Code. Much of the publicity surrounding the release of the film focused on Jane Russell, and she established a solid film career, despite critics giving her performance in The Outlaw poor reviews.
Buetel's performance was also highly criticised, and he languished with Hughes refusing to allow him to work. The director Howard Hawks tried to secure his services for the film Red River (1948), but after Hughes refused to allow Buetel to take part, Montgomery Clift was chosen and Clift went on to an active film career.
In 1951 Buetel appeared in Best of the Badmen, his first film appearance in eleven years. Over the next few years he appeared in five more films, and made infrequent appearances on television. In 1956, he landed the role of 41-year-old Jeff Taggert in Edgar Buchanan's syndication western series, Judge Roy Bean. Others who appeared regularly in the 39-episode series, set in Langtry, Texas, were Jackie Loughery, X Brands, Tristram Coffin, Glenn Strange, and Lash La Rue. Buetel's last acting role was in a 1961 episode of Wagon Train. He also appeared as himself in the 1982 Night of 100 Stars television special.
He died in Portland, Oregon, and was buried at Portland Memorial Park.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jack Buetel, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
George Burns (January 20, 1896 – March 9, 1996), born Nathan Birnbaum, was an American comedian, actor, and writer.
His career spanned vaudeville, film, radio, and television, with and without his wife, Gracie Allen. His arched eyebrow and cigar smoke punctuation became familiar trademarks for over three quarters of a century. Beginning at the age of 79, Burns' career was resurrected as an amiable, beloved and unusually active old comedian, continuing to work until shortly before his death, in 1996, at the age of 100.
Description above from the Wikipedia article George Burns, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Ellen Burstyn (born Edna Rae Gillooly; December 7, 1932) is an American actress. Known for her portrayal of complicated women in dramas, Burstyn was the recipient of various accolades, and was among the few performers to have won an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony (Triple Crown of Acting).
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Burstyn left school and worked as a dancer and model. She made her stage debut on Broadway in 1957 and soon started to make appearances in television shows. Stardom followed several years later with her acclaimed role in The Last Picture Show (1971), which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her next appearance in The Exorcist (1973), earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film has remained popular and several publications have regarded it as one of the greatest horror films of all time. She followed this with Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
She appeared in numerous television films and gained further recognition from her performances in Same Time, Next Year (1978), which won her a Golden Globe Award, and Resurrection (1980), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), and Requiem For a Dream (2000). For playing a lonely drug-addicted woman in the last one of these, she was again nominated for an Academy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In the 2010s, she made appearances in television series including the political dramas, Political Animals and House of Cards, which have earned her Emmy Award nominations. From 2000 till her death, she had been co-president of the Actors Studio, a drama school in New York City. In 2013, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame for her work on stage.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ellen Burstyn, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
James Edmund Caan (/kɑːn/ KAHN; March 26, 1940 – July 6, 2022) was an American actor who was nominated for several awards, including four Golden Globes, an Emmy, and an Oscar. Caan was awarded a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1978.
After early roles in Howard Hawks's El Dorado (1966), Robert Altman's Countdown (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People (1969), he came to prominence for playing his signature role of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (1972), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. He reprised the role of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974) with a cameo appearance at the end.
Caan had significant roles in films such as Brian's Song (1971), Cinderella Liberty (1973), The Gambler (1974), Rollerball (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), and Alan J. Pakula's Comes a Horseman (1978). He had sporadically worked in film since the 1980s, with his notable performances including roles in Thief (1981), Gardens of Stone (1987), Misery (1990), Dick Tracy (1990), Bottle Rocket (1996), The Yards (2000), Dogville (2003), and Elf (2003).
Description above from the Wikipedia article James Caan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
James Francis Cagney, Jr. (July 17, 1899 – March 30, 1986) was an American film actor. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of roles, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys". In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time.
In his first performing role, Cagney danced dressed as a woman in the chorus line of the 1919 revue Every Sailor. He spent several years in vaudeville as a hoofer and comedian until his first major acting role in 1925. He secured several other roles, receiving good reviews before landing the lead in the 1929 play Penny Arcade. After rave reviews for his acting, Warners signed him for an initial $500 a week, three-week contract to reprise his role; this was quickly extended to a seven year contract. Cagney's seventh film, The Public Enemy, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Notable for its famous grapefruit scene, the film thrust Cagney into the spotlight, making him one of Warners' and Hollywood's biggest stars.
In 1938, he received his first Academy Award Best Actor nomination for Angels with Dirty Faces, before winning in 1942 for his portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He was nominated a third time in 1955 for Love Me or Leave Me. Cagney retired for 20 years in 1961, spending time on his farm before returning for a part in Ragtime mainly to aid his recovery from a stroke.
Cagney walked out on Warners several times over his career, each time coming back on improved personal and artistic terms. In 1935, he sued Warners for breach of contract and won; this marked one of the first times an actor had beaten a studio over a contract issue. He worked for an independent film company for a year while the suit was settled, and also established his own production company, Cagney Productions, in 1942 before returning to Warners again four years later. Jack Warner called him "The Professional Againster", in reference to Cagney’s refusal to be pushed around. Cagney also made numerous morale-boosting troop tours before and during World War II, and was President of the Screen Actors Guild for two years.
Description above from the Wikipedia article James Cagney, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Diahann Carroll (born Carol Diahann Johnson; July 17, 1935 – October 4, 2019) was an American actress, singer and model. She rose to stardom in performances in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including Carmen Jones in 1954 and Porgy and Bess in 1959. In 1962, Carroll won a Tony Award for best actress, a first for a black woman, for her role in the Broadway musical No Strings.
Her 1968 debut in Julia, the first series on American television to star a black woman in a nonstereotypical role, was a milestone both in her career and the medium. In the 1980s she played the role of an interracial diva in the primetime soap opera Dynasty.
Carroll was the recipient of numerous stage and screen nominations and awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress In A Television Series in 1968. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the 1974 film Claudine. She was also a breast cancer survivor and activist.
Lynda Jean Carter (born July 24, 1951) is an American actress and singer, best known for being Miss World USA 1972 and as the star of the 1970s television series The New Original Wonder Woman (1975–77) and The New Adventures of Wonder Woman (1977–79). The epitome of the word "statuesque," brunette, big blue-eyed, and 6' tall Lynda Carter was once considered one of the most beautiful women in the western world. Born and raised in Phoenix, AZ, Carter's height caused considerable awkwardness in high school. Friends encouraged her to become a performer; she began studying voice and by the time she graduated, she was named her school's most talented student. She briefly attended Arizona State University, but dropped out to become a professional singer and tour the country with several rock groups. By 1972, Carter had returned home and entered a local beauty pageant. She won and went on to win the title of Miss World-USA. After that, Carter studied acting in New York. She started her career in television making guest appearances on such shows as Starsky and Hutch, but Carter did not become famous until winning the title role of Wonder Woman in 1975. The Wonder Woman shows originally started out as specials on the ABC network, but by 1976 had been turned into a series. The network canceled the show after one season and it was picked up by CBS and aired there for a few years. When the series ended, she had a somewhat successful career as a Las Vegas entertainer. She also continues to occasionally appear in television movies and as a series guest star. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Nell Carter (born Nell Ruth Hardy; September 13, 1948 – January 23, 2003) was an American singer and actress.
Carter began her career in 1970, singing in the theater, and later crossed over to television. She was best known for her role as Nell Harper on the sitcom Gimme a Break! which originally aired from 1981 to 1987. Carter received two Emmy and two Golden Globe award nominations for her work on the series. Prior to Gimme a Break!, Carter won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical in 1978 for her performance in the Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin' as well as a Primetime Emmy Award for her reprisal of the role on television in 1982
George Richard Chamberlain (born March 31, 1934) is an American actor of stage and screen who became a teen idol in the title role of the television show Dr. Kildare (1961–1966). He subsequently appeared in several TV mini-series, such as Shōgun (1980) and The Thorn Birds (1983) and was the first to play Jason Bourne in the 1988 made for TV movie "The Bourne Identity". Chamberlain has also performed classical stage roles and worked in musical theatre.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Richard Chamberlain, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carol Elaine Channing (January 31, 1921 – January 15, 2019) was an American actress, singer, dancer and comedian. Known for starring in Broadway and film musicals, her characters typically radiated a fervent expressiveness and an easily identifiable voice, whether singing or for comedic effect. Channing also studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City.
She began as a Broadway musical actress, starring in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1949 and Hello, Dolly! in 1964, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the latter. She revived both roles several times throughout her career, most recently playing Dolly in 1995. Channing was nominated for her first Tony Award in 1956 for The Vamp followed by a nomination in 1961 for Show Girl. She received her fourth Tony Award nomination for the musical Lorelei in 1974.
As a film actress, she won the Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Her other film appearances include The First Traveling Saleslady (1956) and Skidoo (1968). On television, she appeared as an entertainer on variety shows, from The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1950s to Hollywood Squares. She had a standout performance as The White Queen in the TV production of Alice in Wonderland (1985), and had the first of many TV specials in 1966, An Evening with Carol Channing.
Channing was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981 and received a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 1995. She continued to perform and make appearances well into her 90s, singing songs from her repertoire and sharing stories with fans, cabaret style. She released an autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, in 2002, and Larger Than Life, a documentary film about her career, was released in 2012.
Cher (born Cheryl Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Dubbed the "Goddess of Pop", she is known for her androgynous contralto voice, multifaceted career, bold visual presentation and continuous reinvention of her image and sound. Her adaptability has fueled multiple comebacks, cementing her status as a cultural icon over a career spanning seven decades. Cher gained fame in 1965 as part of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher, while also achieving solo success with top-ten singles including "All I Really Want to Do" and "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)". In the 1970s, she divorced from Sonny Bono and topped the US Billboard Hot 100 with "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves", "Half-Breed" and "Dark Lady", becoming the female solo artist with the most number-one singles in US history at the time.
Following a hiatus to focus on acting, Cher returned to music with the rock-inflected albums Cher (1987), Heart of Stone (1989) and Love Hurts (1991), earning international number-one singles with "If I Could Turn Back Time" and "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)". She reached a commercial peak with the dance-pop album Believe (1998), which introduced the "Cher effect", an extreme, stylistic use of Auto-Tune to distort vocals. The title track became 1999's number-one song in the US and the UK's best-selling single by a female artist. 21st-century releases include Closer to the Truth (2013) and Dancing Queen (2018), both debuting at number three on the Billboard 200 and becoming her highest-charting solo albums in the US.
Cher rose to television stardom in the 1970s with her CBS shows The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, attracting over 30 million weekly viewers, and the namesake Cher. She made her Broadway debut in 1982 with Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and starred in its film adaptation. She earned critical acclaim for roles in Silkwood (1983), Mask (1985) and Moonstruck (1987), winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for the latter. Cher went on to star in Mermaids (1990), If These Walls Could Talk (1996), where she made her directorial debut, Tea with Mussolini (1999), Burlesque (2010) and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). Her life and career inspired the 2018 jukebox musical The Cher Show.
With 100 million records sold, Cher is among the world's best-selling music artists. Her accolades include an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Grammy, three Golden Globes, the Billboard Icon Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, honors from the Kennedy Center and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Cher is the only solo artist with a number-one single on a Billboard chart in seven consecutive decades, from the 1960s to the 2020s. Her 2002–2005 Living Proof: The Farewell Tour was the highest-grossing concert tour by a female artist at the time, earning US$250 million (about $390 million in 2023). Cher is also known for her fashion, political views, social media presence, philanthropy and activism, including LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS prevention.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Richard Wagstaff "Dick" Clark was an American game-show host, radio andtelevision personality, and businessman. He served as chairman and chief executive officer of Dick Clark Productions, which he sold part of in recent years. Clark is best known for hosting long-running television shows such as American Bandstand, five versions of the game show Pyramid, and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.
Clark was long known for his departing catchphrase, "For now, Dick Clark...so long," delivered with a military salute, and for his youthful appearance, earning the moniker "America's Oldest Teenager."
Clark suffered a significant stroke in late 2004. With speech ability still impaired, Clark returned to his New Year's Rockin' Eve show on December 31, 2005/January 1, 2006. Subsequently, he appeared at the Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006, and every New Year's Rockin' Eve show through the 2011/2012 show.
On April 18, 2012, Clark died of a heart attack at the age of 82.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Dick Clark , licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Joan Henrietta Collins, DBE (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author, and columnist. Flamboyant in her personal life, she is perhaps best known in the United States for the role of the equally flamboyant Alexis Colby in the long running television series Dynasty, as well as being a favorite of Star Trek fans for her appearance as Edith Keeler in the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever".
Description above from the Wikipedia article Joan Collins, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath" although Cook's work was also controversial. Cook is closely associated with anti-establishment comedy that emerged in Britain and the USA in the late 1950s.
Bud Cort (born Walter Edward Cox on March 29, 1948) is an American film and stage actor, writer, and director. He is best known for his portrayals of Harold in Hal Ashby's 1971 film Harold and Maude and the titular hero in Robert Altman's 1970 film Brewster McCloud. Both films have large cult followings today.
Cathy Lee Crosby (born December 2, 1944) is an American actress and former professional tennis player. She achieved TV and film success in the 1980s and was a co-host of the television series That's Incredible!
Arlene Carol Dahl (August 11, 1925 – November 29, 2021) was an American actress active in films from the late 1940s. She was one of the last surviving stars from the Classical Hollywood cinema era. She was also an author and entrepreneur. She founded two companies, Arlene Dahl Enterprises and Dahlia, a fragrance company.
Born in Minnesota to parents of Norwegian descent, Dahl started her acting career in musicals before transitioning to film, where she gained significant roles in MGM productions such as "My Wild Irish Rose" (1947) and "The Bride Goes Wild" (1948). Dahl also starred in adventure films, notably "Caribbean Gold" (1952) and "Desert Legion" (1953).
Despite her acting success, Dahl faced financial challenges, declaring bankruptcy in 1981. She then entered the field of astrology, writing a syndicated column and operating a premium phoneline company. She also wrote numerous books on beauty and astrology.
In her personal life, Dahl had six husbands, including actors Lex Barker and Fernando Lamas, and was the mother to three children the eldest of whom is actor Lorenzo Lamas. She lived between New York City and West Palm Beach, Florida, until her death in 2021.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Arlene Dahl, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis, Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American entertainer.
Primarily a dancer and singer, Davis was a childhood vaudevillian who became known for his performances on Broadway and in Las Vegas, as a recording artist, television and film star, and as a member of Frank Sinatra's "Rat Pack".
At the age of three Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father and "uncle" as the Will Mastin Trio, toured nationally, and after military service, returned to the trio. Davis became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's after the 1951 Academy Awards, with the trio, became a recording artist, and made his first film performances as an adult later that decade. In 1954, he lost his left eye in an automobile accident. Later the same year, he converted to Judaism. In 1960, he appeared in the first Rat Pack movie, Ocean's 11. After a starring role on Broadway in 1956's Mr Wonderful, Davis returned to the stage in 1964's Golden Boy, and in 1966 had his own TV variety show, The Sammy Davis Jr. Show. Davis's career slowed in the late sixties, but he had a hit record with "The Candy Man", in 1972, and became a star in Las Vegas.
As an African American, Davis was the victim of racism throughout his life, and was a large financial supporter of civil rights causes. Davis had a complex relationship with the African American community, and attracted criticism after physically embracing Richard Nixon in 1970. One day on a golf course with Jack Benny, he was asked what his handicap was. "Handicap?" he asked. "Talk about handicap — I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew." This was to become a signature comment, recounted in his autobiography, and in countless articles.
After reuniting with Sinatra and Dean Martin in 1987, Davis toured with them and Liza Minnelli internationally, before dying of throat cancer in 1990. He died in debt to the Internal Revenue Service, and his estate was the subject of legal battles.
Davis was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for his television performances. He was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987, and in 2001, he was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Sammy Davis, Jr., licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres; from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional comedies, though her greatest successes were her roles in romantic dramas.
After appearing in Broadway plays, Davis moved to Hollywood in 1930, but her early films for Universal Studios were unsuccessful. She joined Warner Bros. in 1932 and established her career with several critically acclaimed performances. In 1937, she attempted to free herself from her contract and although she lost a well-publicized legal case, it marked the beginning of the most successful period of her career. Until the late 1940s, she was one of American cinema's most celebrated leading ladies, known for her forceful and intense style. Davis gained a reputation as a perfectionist who could be highly combative, and confrontations with studio executives, film directors and costars were often reported. Her forthright manner, clipped vocal style and ubiquitous cigarette contributed to a public persona which has often been imitated and satirized.
Davis was the co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen, and was the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, was the first person to accrue 10 Academy Award nominations for acting, and was the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. Her career went through several periods of eclipse, and she admitted that her success had often been at the expense of her personal relationships. Married four times, she was once widowed and thrice divorced, and raised her children as a single parent. Her final years were marred by a long period of ill health, but she continued acting until shortly before her death from breast cancer, with more than 100 films, television and theater roles to her credit. In 1999, Davis was placed second, after Katharine Hepburn, on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female stars of all time.
Pamela Dawber (born October 18, 1951) is an American actress best known for her lead television sitcom roles as Mindy McConnell in Mork & Mindy (1978–1982) and Samantha Russell in My Sister Sam (1986–1988).
She has been married to actor Mark Harmon since 1987.
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".
Frances Marion Dee (November 26, 1909 – March 6, 2004) was an American screen and television actress. She starred opposite Maurice Chevalier in the early talkie musical Playboy of Paris (1930). She starred in the film An American Tragedy (1931) in a role later recreated by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1951 re-titled remake A Place in the Sun. She also had a prominent role in the classic 1943 Val Lewton psychological horror film I Walked With a Zombie. Dee was the wife of Hollywood star Joel McCrea.
Danny DeVito (born November 17, 1944) is an American actor, comedian, director, and producer. He first gained prominence for his portrayal of Louie De Palma on Taxi, for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.
DeVito founded the production company Jersey Films with his wife Rhea Perlman.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Colleen Rose Dewhurst (June 3, 1924 — August 22, 1991) was a Canadian-American actress known for a while as "the Queen of Off-Broadway." In her autobiography, Dewhurst wrote: "I had moved so quickly from one Off-Broadway production to the next that I was known, at one point, as the 'Queen of Off-Broadway'. This title was not due to my brilliance but rather because most of the plays I was in closed after a run of anywhere from one night to two weeks. I would then move immediately into another."
Dewhurst was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O’Neill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early dramas on live television, and Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Colleen Dewhurst, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Although born in Madrid, Spain, Placido Domingo spent a major portion of his life living in Mexico City where he graduated from the Mexico City Conservatory. His first operatic performance was in a staging of La Traviata in Monterrey playing Alfredo. He was then a Tenor for the Israel National Opera and subsequently moved to Europe.
Alfred Drake (October 7, 1914 - July 25, 1992) was an American actor and singer.
Born as Alfred Capurro in New York City, the son of parents emigrated from Recco, Genoa, Drake began his Broadway career while still a student at Brooklyn College. He is best known for his leading roles in the original Broadway productions of Oklahoma!; Kiss Me, Kate; Kismet; and for playing Marshall Blackstone in the original production of Babes in Arms, (in which he sang the title song) and Hajj in Kismet, for which he received the Tony Award. He was also a prolific Shakespearean, notably starring as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing opposite Katharine Hepburn.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linda Evans (born on November 18, 1942) is an American actress known primarily for her roles on television. She rose to fame playing Victoria Barkley's (played by Barbara Stanwyck) daughter, Audra Barkley, in the 1960s Western TV series, The Big Valley (1965–1969). Her most prominent role was that of long-suffering heroine Krystle Carrington, the wife of Blake Carrington (played by John Forsythe), in the 1980s ABC prime time television soap opera Dynasty, a role she played from 1981 to 1989.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Linda Evans, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr. (December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000) was an American actor, producer, and decorated naval officer of World War II. He is best-known for starring in such films as The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Gunga Din (1939), and The Corsican Brothers (1941). The son of Douglas Fairbanks and stepson of Mary Pickford, his first marriage was to actress Joan Crawford.
In 1969, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the International Best Dressed List.
The moving image collection of Douglas Fairbanks Jr., held at the Academy Film Archive, includes over 90 reels of home movies.
[biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]
Morgan Fairchild (born Patsy Ann McClenny; February 3, 1950) is an American actress. She achieved prominence during the late 1970s and early 1980s with continuing roles in several television series, in which she usually conveyed a glamorous image. Fairchild began her career in the CBS daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow as Jennifer Pace from 1973 to 1977. In 1978 she appeared on the primetime soap opera Dallas as the first actress to portray Jenna Wade, before taking a lead role in the NBC series Flamingo Road in 1980 (for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama). In 1984, she co-starred in ABC's short-lived primetime soap Paper Dolls, and then appeared in Falcon Crest as attorney Jordan Roberts from 1985 to 1986. Fairchild has also performed in theater and played guest roles in television comedies, including Murphy Brown (for which she was nominated for an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series), Roseanne,Cybill, and Friends. She is a board member of SAG-AFTRA.
Peter Michael Falk (September 16, 1927 – June 23, 2011) was an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo (1968–2003), which earned him four Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
Falk was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Murder, Inc. (1960) and Pocketful of Miracles (1961). He is also known for his collaborations with filmmaker and actor John Cassavetes in films such as: Husbands (1970), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Opening Night (1977), Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky (1976) and the Columbo episode: Étude in Black (1972). Falk's other film roles include It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), The Great Race (1965), Anzio (1968), Murder by Death (1976), The Cheap Detective (1978), The In-Laws (1979), The Princess Bride (1987), Wings of Desire (1987), The Player (1992), and Next (2007).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alice Faye (May 5, 1915 – May 9, 1998) was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career".
She is often associated with the Academy Award–winning standard "You'll Never Know", which she introduced in the 1943 musical film Hello, Frisco, Hello.
Jane Seymour Fonda (born December 21, 1937) is an American actress, activist, and former fashion model. She is the recipient of various accolades including two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, the Honorary Palme d'Or, and the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Born to socialite Frances Ford Seymour and actor Henry Fonda, Fonda made her acting debut with the 1960 Broadway play There Was a Little Girl, for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play, and made her screen debut later the same year with the romantic comedy Tall Story. She rose to prominence during the 1960s with the comedies Period of Adjustment (1962), Sunday in New York (1963), Cat Ballou (1965), Barefoot in the Park (1967), and Barbarella (1968). Her first husband was Barbarella director Roger Vadim. A seven-time Academy Award nominee, she received her first nomination for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress twice in the 1970s, for Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978). Her other nominations were for Julia (1977), The China Syndrome (1979), On Golden Pond (1981), and The Morning After (1986). Consecutive hits Fun with Dick and Jane (1977), California Suite (1978), The Electric Horseman (1979), and 9 to 5 (1980) sustained Fonda's box-office drawing power, and she won a Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in the TV film The Dollmaker (1984).
In 1982, she released her first exercise video, Jane Fonda's Workout, which became the highest-selling VHS of the 20th century. It would be the first of 22 such videos over the next 13 years, which would collectively sell over 17 million copies. Divorced from her second husband Tom Hayden, she married billionaire media mogul Ted Turner in 1991 and retired from acting, following a row of commercially unsuccessful films concluded by Stanley & Iris (1990). Fonda divorced Turner in 2001 and returned to the screen with the hit Monster-in-Law (2005). Although Georgia Rule (2007) was her only other movie during the 2000s, in the early 2010s she fully re-launched her career. Subsequent films have included The Butler (2013), This Is Where I Leave You (2014), Youth (2015), Our Souls at Night (2017), and Book Club (2018). In 2009, she returned to Broadway after a 49-year absence from the stage, in the play 33 Variations which earned her a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, while her major recurring role in the HBO drama series The Newsroom (2012–14) earned her two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. She also released another five exercise videos between 2009 and 2012. Fonda currently stars as Grace Hanson in the Netflix comedy series Grace and Frankie, which debuted in 2015 and has earned her nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.
John Forsythe (born Jacob Lincoln Freund; January 29, 1918 – April 1, 2010) was an American stage, television and film actor. Forsythe starred in three television series, spanning four decades and three genres: as single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the 1950s sitcom Bachelor Father (1957–1962); as the unseen millionaire Charles 'Charlie' Townsend on the 1970s crime drama Charlie's Angels (1976–1981), and as patriarch Blake Carrington on the 1980s soap opera Dynasty (1981–1989). He hosted World of Survival (1971–1977).
Eva Gabor (February 11, 1919 – July 4, 1995) was a Hungarian-born American actress and socialite. She is widely known for her role on Green Acres as Lisa Douglas. She voiced Duchess in The Aristocats as well as Miss Bianca in The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Anthony Geary (born May 29, 1947) is an American actor. He has starred on the ABC daytime drama General Hospital as Luke Spencer from 1978 to 1984 and from 1993 to present.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Anthony Geary, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Andy Gibb was born on March 5, 1958 in Manchester, England, his real name is Andrew Roy Gibb. Son of Huhg and Barbara Gibb, was the younger brother of the also singers Barry, Robin and Maurice. When he was only 6 months old, his family decided to travel to Australia, settling in Redcliffe, Queensland, near Brisbane. Very young even began to play at tourist clubs near the Spanish coast of Ibiza and when he was still a teenager returns home in Isle of Man, United Kingdom, where he lived before moving to Australia. His older brothers had already formed his band called The Bee Gees and always suggested you be part of it, but the great age difference which existed, Barry took him more than once and Robin and Maurice nearly eight years, did that I can not decide. In 1975 he returned to Australia to improve his singing style and start to compose. He recorded a series of songs written by himself, and one came to be released as a single by ATA, a label of artist Col Jove. This was to become the Top 5 of the music list of Sydney in 1976. Due to this issue and the success which brought with it, that same year Andy was invited by who at this time was manager of the Bee Gees, Robert Stigwood, to launch his international career by signing by their record label RSO Records. Time after Andy moved to Miami Beach to work composing with the help of his brother Barry and the co production was supported by Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson. In Australia Andy he had married his girlfriend, Kim Reeder, and they had a daughter on January 25, 1978, who was name Peta Jaye. When Andy decided to leave the country, were separated and subsequently the pointed out that he had only seen his daughter once in 1981. In the United States Andy became the first soloist to have three singles become number one on the Billboard Hot 100. They continued their success one after another and Andy could not be dominated by drugs, became moving in a cocaine addict. Gradually his career was declining. 1979, He was along with the Bee Gees, ABBA and Olivia Newton John, in a benefit concert for UNICEF, which was held at the headquarters of the United Nations and which was broadcast around the world. Andy continued working and did record their last Studio album which I call After Dark and it continued to receive the support of his band of their brothers, especially Barry who never stopped supporting him. In March 1988, Andy turned 30 and celebrated it in London, while he was working in a new production. A few days later was admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, since I had severe pain in the chest. Five days after, on 10 March, he died due to myocarditis, an inflammation in the heart, which would be the product of a long struggle against his terrible addiction to cocaine, which weakened the organ certainly ndolo to death.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Melissa Ellen Gilbert (born May 8, 1964) is an American actress, writer, and producer, primarily in movies and television. Gilbert is best known as a child actress who co-starred as Charles Ingalls's (played by Michael Landon) second daughter, Laura Ingalls Wilder, on the dramatic television series Little House on the Prairie (1974–1984). As an adult, she has a very long list of acting, voicework, writing, producing, and directing credits. Melissa also served two terms as President of the Screen Actors Guild. On June 9, 2009, her autobiography Prairie Tale: A Memoir was released.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Melissa Gilbert, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993) was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987.
She was a prominent film star of the 1910s and 1920s, particularly associated with the films of director D.W. Griffith, including her leading role in Griffith's seminal Birth of a Nation (1915). Her sound-era film appearances were sporadic, but included memorable roles in the controversial western Duel in the Sun (1946) and the offbeat thriller Night of the Hunter (1955). She did considerable television work from the early 1950s into the 1980s, and closed her career playing, for the first time, opposite Bette Davis in the 1987 film The Whales of August.
The American Film Institute (AFI) named Gish 17th among the greatest female stars of all time. She was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1971, and in 1984 she received an AFI Life Achievement Award.
Ruth Gordon Jones (October 30, 1896 – August 28, 1985) was an American actress, screenwriter and playwright. Gordon began her career performing on Broadway at age nineteen. Known for her nasal voice and distinctive personality, she gained international recognition and critical acclaim for film roles that continued into her seventies and eighties. Her later work included performances in Rosemary's Baby (1968), Where's Poppa? (1970), Harold and Maude (1971), Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and Any Which Way You Can (1980).
In addition to her acting career, Gordon wrote numerous plays, film scripts, and books, most notably co-writing the screenplay for the 1949 film Adam's Rib. Gordon won an Oscar, an Emmy, and two Golden Globe Awards for her acting, as well as received three Academy Award nominations for her writing.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ruth Gordon, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Farley Earle Granger Jr. (July 1, 1925 – March 27, 2011) was an American actor, best known for his two collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock: Rope in 1948 and Strangers on a Train in 1951.
Linda Ann Gray (born September 12, 1940) is an American film, stage and television actress, director, producer and former model, best known for her role as Sue Ellen Ewing, the long-suffering wife of Larry Hagman's character J.R. Ewing on the CBS television drama series Dallas (1978–1989, 1991, 2012–2014), for which she was nominated for the 1981 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. The role also earned her two Golden Globe Awards.
Gray began her career in the 1960s in television commercials. In the 1970s, she appeared in numerous TV series before landing the role of Sue Ellen Ewing in 1978. After leaving Dallas in 1989, she appeared opposite Sylvester Stallone in the 1991 film Oscar. From 1994 to 1995, she played a leading role in the Fox drama series Models Inc., and also starred in TV movies, including Moment of Truth: Why My Daughter? (1993) and Accidental Meeting (1994). She went on to reprise the role of Sue Ellen in Dallas: J.R. Returns (1996), Dallas: War of the Ewings (1998), and in the TNT series Dallas (2012–2014), which continued the original series.
On stage, Gray starred as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate in the West End of London in 2001, then on Broadway the following year. In 2007, she starred as Aurora Greenaway in the world premiere production of Terms of Endearment at the Theatre Royal, York and stayed with the production when it toured the United Kingdom. After the second Dallas was cancelled in 2014, Gray again took to the stage, this time in the role of the Fairy Godmother in a London production of Cinderella.
Linda Gray was born in 1940 in Santa Monica, California. She grew up in Culver City, California, where her father, Leslie, who was a watchmaker, had a shop.
Before acting, Gray worked as a model in the 1960s and began her acting career in television commercials, nearly 400 of them—and also made brief appearances in feature films, such as Under the Yum Yum Tree and Palm Springs Weekend in 1963.
Gray began her professional acting career in the 1970s with guest roles on many television series such as Marcus Welby, M.D., McCloud, and Switch, prior to signing with Universal Studios in 1974. She also appeared in the films The Big Rip-Off (1975) and Dogs (1976). In 1977, she was cast as fashion model Linda Murkland, the first transgender series regular on American television, in the television series All That Glitters. The show, a spoof of the soap-opera format, was cancelled after just 13 weeks. Gray was then cast as suspicious wife Carla Cord in the 1977 television movie Murder in Peyton Place. ...
Source: Article "Linda Gray" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Thomas Rocco Barbella, better known as Rocky Graziano, was an American professional boxer and actor who held the World Middleweight title. Graziano is considered one of the greatest knockout artists in boxing history
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joel Grey (born April 11, 1932) is an American stage and screen actor, singer, and dancer, best known for his role as the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret. He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award. He also originated the role of the Wizard in the acclaimed musical Wicked. Grey is currently featured in the Broadway revival of Anything Goes as Moonface Martin.
Charles Sidney Grodin (April 21, 1935 – May 18, 2021) was an American actor, comedian, author, and television talk show host. Grodin began his acting career in the 1960s appearing in TV serials including The Virginian. After a small part in Rosemary's Baby in 1968, he played the lead in Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and supporting roles in Mike Nichols's Catch-22 (1970), the 1976 remake of King Kong, and Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait (1978).
Known for his deadpan delivery and often cast as a put-upon straight man, Grodin became familiar as a supporting actor in many Hollywood comedies of the era, including Real Life (1979), Seems Like Old Times (1980), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), Ishtar (1987), Dave (1993), and Clifford (1994). Grodin co-starred in the action comedy Midnight Run (1988) and in the family film Beethoven (1992). He made frequent appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman.
In the mid-1990s, Grodin retired from acting and wrote autobiographies; he became a talk show host on CNBC and in 2000 a political commentator for 60 Minutes II. He returned to acting with a handful of roles in the mid-2010s, including in Louis C.K.'s FX show Louie and Noah Baumbach's film While We're Young (2014).
Grodin won several awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special in 1978 for the Paul Simon Special alongside Chevy Chase, Lorne Michaels, Paul Simon, and Lily Tomlin. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for The Heartbreak Kid in 1972. He won Best Actor at the 1988 Valladolid International Film Festival for Midnight Run, and the American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for his performance in Dave in 1993.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Charles Grodin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harry Guardino (December 23, 1925—July 17, 1995) was an American actor whose career spanned from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. In 1964, he was cast in a short-lived CBS series entitled The Reporter, a drama about a hard-hitting investigative journalist named Danny Taylor. His principal co-star was Gary Merrill as city editor Lou Sheldon.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Guardino appeared on stage, in films, and on television. His Broadway theatre credits included A Hatful of Rain, One More River (earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance), Anyone Can Whistle, The Rose Tattoo, The Seven Descents of Myrtle, and Woman of the Year.
Guardino's other film credits include Houseboat, Pork Chop Hill (about the Korean War), The Five Pennies, King of Kings, Madigan, Lovers and Other Strangers, and Dirty Harry. He was nominated twice for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. He guest starred on John Cassavetes's 1959-1960 series, Johnny Staccato, the story of a pianist/private detective in New York City.
In 1960, Guardino appeared as Johnny Caldwell in the episodes "Perilous Passage", "The O'Mara's Ladies", and "Daughter of the Sioux" in the NBC western series Overland Trail starring William Bendix and Doug McClure. McClure two years later would join the long-running The Virginian series on NBC after a preceding stint on the CBS detective series Checkmate (TV series).
Guardino had a continuing role as Perry Mason's nemesis, Hamilton Burger, in the 1973 television series The New Perry Mason and a recurring role on Angela Lansbury's Murder, She Wrote. He made guest appearances in dozens of television series, including Studio One, Target: The Corruptors!, The Eleventh Hour, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Kraft Television Theatre, Playhouse 90, Dr. Kildare, The Lloyd Bridges Show, Route 66, Ben Casey, Hawaii Five-O, Love, American Style, The Greatest Show on Earth, Kojak, The Streets of San Francisco, Jake and the Fatman, and Cheers. He had the lead role of Det. Lee Gordon in the 1969 made-for-television suspense film The Lonely Profession.
Guardino died at the age of sixty-nine of lung cancer in Palm Springs, California.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Harry Guardino, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Robert "Bob" Guillaume (November 30, 1927 – October 24, 2017) was an American stage and television actor, best known for his role as Benson Du Bois on the TV-series Soap and the spin-off Benson, voicing the mandrill Rafiki in The Lion King and as Isaac Jaffe on Sports Night. In a career that spanned more than 50 years he worked extensively on stage (including a Tony Award nomination), television (including winning two Emmy Awards), and film.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Guillaume, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Larry Martin Hagman (September 21, 1931 – November 23, 2012, Height 6 feet 1 inch [1.85 m]) was an American film and television actor, director, and producer. He was best known for playing ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1978–1991 primetime television soap opera Dallas, and the befuddled astronaut Major Anthony Nelson in the 1965–1970 sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.
Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of actress Mary Martin. After his parents divorced, he lived with his grandmother in Texas while his mother pursued acting roles. At age 16, Hagman followed his mother into acting and got his start in small theater productions and commercials. He began his acting career in the early 1950s, appearing in Broadway plays and television shows. He had a supporting role in the 1964 film Fail-Safe.
In 1965, Hagman was cast as Major Anthony Nelson in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. The show was a huge success, and Hagman won two Golden Globe Awards for his performance. He left the show in 1970 to pursue other projects.
In 1978, Hagman was cast as J. R. Ewing in the soap opera Dallas. The show was an even bigger success than I Dream of Jeannie, and Hagman won four Emmy Awards for his performance. He remained with the show until it ended in 1991.
In 1995, Hagman underwent a liver transplant. He returned to Dallas in 2012 for a revival of the show. He died of complications from leukemia later that year.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Margaret Hamilton (December 9, 1902 – May 16, 1985) was an American film actress known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. A former schoolteacher, she worked as a character actor in films for seven years before she was offered the role that defined her public image.
In later years, Hamilton made frequent cameo appearances on television sitcoms and commercials. She also gained recognition for her work as an advocate of causes designed to benefit children and animals, and retained a lifelong commitment to public education.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Valerie Harper (August 22, 1939 – August 30, 2019) was an American actress, known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on the 1970s television show The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and for her starring roles on the sitcoms Rhoda (a spin-off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show) and Valerie.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Valerie Harper, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Julia Ann Harris (December 2, 1925 – August 24, 2013) was an American actress. Renowned for her classical and contemporary stage work, she received five Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play.
Harris debuted on Broadway in 1945, against the wishes of her mother, who wanted her to be a society debutante. Harris was acclaimed for her performance as an isolated 12-year-old girl in the 1950 play The Member of the Wedding, a role she reprised in the 1952 film of the same name, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1951, her range was demonstrated as Sally Bowles in the original production of I Am a Camera, for which she won her first Tony award. She subsequently appeared in the 1955 film version.
Harris gave acclaimed performances in films including The Haunting (1963), and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), in which she played opposite Marlon Brando. A method actor, she won Tony awards for The Lark (1956), Forty Carats (1969), The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1973), and The Belle of Amherst (1977). She was also a Grammy Award winner and a three time Emmy Award winner.
Harris was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, received the National Medal of Arts in 1994,[1] and the 2002 Special Lifetime Achievement Tony Award
Description above from the Wikipedia article Julie Harris, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Goldie Jeanne Hawn (born November 21, 1945) is an American actress, director, producer, and occasional singer. She started as a dancer, first in New York and then in Los Angeles. On the cast of TV's Laugh-In, the mod comedy show of the late 1960s, she flubbed jokes in a bikini and became one of the show's most popular co-stars. She then proved the ding-a-ling act was just an act -- she won an Oscar for a supporting role in Cactus Flower (1969, with Walter Matthau) and turned in a solid performance in Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express (1974).
She had her first blockbuster, Private Benjamin in 1980, and has since had a steady career as a leading lady in hits and misses, often acting as her own producer. Some of her movies include Shampoo (1975, starring Warren Beatty), Overboard (1987, with Kurt Russell), Bird on a Wire (1990, with Mel Gibson), Death Becomes Her (1992, with Bruce Willis), Housesitter (1992, with Steve Martin), The First Wives Club (1996, with Diane Keaton), and The Banger Sisters (2002, with Susan Sarandon), among many others.
She has been in a decades-long relationship with actor Kurt Russell and is the mother of actress Kate Hudson, actor Oliver Hudson, and actor Wyatt Russell.
Helen Hayes was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award. Hayes also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, from President Ronald Reagan in 1986. In 1988 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is the namesake of the annual Helen Hayes Awards, which have recognized excellence in professional theatre in the greater Washington, D.C. area since 1984. Perhaps the ultimate respect to be paid to any actor by a producer - of having a theater christened in their name - became a reality for Ms. Hayes in 1955 when the former Fulton Theatre on 46th Street in New York City's Broadway theater district was renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre. When that venue was torn down in 1982 (along with five other neighboring theaters), the operators of the Little Theatre, another standing theater two blocks away on 44th Street, renamed that house in her name, which it has retained ever since.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Helen Hayes, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Florence Agnes Henderson was an American actress and singer. While her career spanned six decades, she is best remembered for her starring role as Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch.
Judd Seymore Hirsch (born March 15, 1935) is an American actor. He is known for playing Alex Rieger on the television comedy series Taxi (1978–1983), John Lacey on the NBC series Dear John (1988–1992), and Alan Eppes on the CBS series Numb3rs (2005–2010). He is also well known for his career in theatre and for his roles in films such as Ordinary People (1980), Running on Empty (1988), Independence Day (1996), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), Uncut Gems (2019) and The Fabelmans (2022).
He has twice won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy, and was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in Ordinary People (1980) and The Fabelmans (2022), the longest gap between Academy Award nominations in history.
Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. Actor Robert De Niro described him as "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human". At a young age Hoffman knew he wanted to study in the arts, and entered into the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music; later he decided to go into acting, for which he trained at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles. His first theatrical performance was 1961's A Cook for Mr. General as Ridzinski. During that time he appeared in several guest roles on television shows like Naked City and The Defenders. He then starred in the 1966 off-Broadway play Eh? where his performance garnered him both a Theatre World Award and Drama Desk Award.
His breakthrough role was as Benjamin Braddock in Mike Nichols' critically acclaimed and iconic film The Graduate (1967), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. His next role was "Ratso" Rizzo in John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969), in which he acted alongside Jon Voight; they both received Oscar nominations, and the film went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. He gained success in the 1970s playing roles that shaped the craft of his acting, crossing genres effortlessly in the western Little Big Man (1970), the prison drama Papillon (1973), playing a controversial and groundbreaking comedian in Bob Fosse's Lenny (1975), Marathon Man alongside Laurence Olivier (1976), and as Carl Bernstein investigating the Watergate scandal in All the President's Men (1976). In 1979, Hoffman starred in the family drama Kramer vs. Kramer alongside Meryl Streep. They both received Academy Awards for their performances.
After a three-year break from films, Hoffman returned in Sydney Pollack's show business comedy Tootsie (1982) about a struggling actor who pretends to be a woman in order to get an acting role. He returned to stage acting with a 1984 performance as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and reprised the role a year later in a television film earning a Primetime Emmy Award. In 1987 he starred alongside Warren Beatty in Elaine May's comedy Ishtar. He won his second Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the autistic savant Ray Babbitt in the 1988 film Rain Man, co-starring Tom Cruise. In 1989, he was nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for playing Shylock in a stage performance of The Merchant of Venice. In the 1990s, he made appearances in such films as Warren Beatty's action comedy adaptation Dick Tracy (1990), Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) as Captain Hook, medical disaster Outbreak (1995), legal crime drama Sleepers (1996), and the satirical black comedy Wag the Dog (1997) alongside Robert De Niro.
Celeste Holm (April 29, 1917 – July 15, 2012) was an American actress. Holm won an Academy Award for her performance in Elia Kazan's Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and was nominated for her roles in Come to the Stable (1949) and All About Eve (1950). She also is known for her performances in The Snake Pit (1948), A Letter to Three Wives (1949), and High Society (1956).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Celeste Holm, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Lena Horne (June 30, 1917 - May 9, 2010) was a singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist.
Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the films Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather.
Due to the Red Scare and her left-leaning political views, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood. Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, Horne took part in the March on Washington in August 1963, and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs and on television, while releasing well-received record albums.
She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway and earned her numerous awards and accolades. She continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000. Horne died on May 9, 2010 in New York City.
During her lifetime, Horne was awarded four Grammys, a Tony, and a NAACP Image Award . She also received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1984.
Ken Howard (1944–2016) was an American actor, best known for his roles in 1776 and on White Shadow. He was the National President of The Screen Actors Guild from 2009 until his death in 2016.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bernard Aloysius Kiernan “Barnard” Hughes (July 16, 1915 – July 11, 2006) was an American actor of theater and film. Hughes became famous for a variety of roles; his most notable roles came after middle age, and he was often cast as a dithering authority figure or grandfatherly elder.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Barnard Hughes, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
George S. Irving (6′ (1.83 m)) was born George Irving Shelasky on November 1, 1922 in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), Live from Lincoln Center (1976) and Underdog (1964). He was previously married to Maria Karnilova (October 14, 1948 - April 20, 2001) with whom he had 2 children. He died of natural causes on December 26, 2016 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Kate Jackson (born October 29, 1948) is an American actress, director, and producer. She is a three-time Emmy Award nominee in the Best Actress category, has been nominated for several Golden Globe Awards, and has won the titles of Favorite Television Actress in England, and Favorite Television Star in Germany—several times—for her work in the television series Scarecrow and Mrs. King.
She also co-produced that series through her production company, Shoot the Moon Enterprises Ltd., with Warner Brothers Television. She is perhaps best known for her role as Sabrina Duncan in the hugely popular 1970s television series Charlie's Angels. Jackson has starred in a number of theatrical and TV films, and played the lead role on the short-lived television adaptation of the film Baby Boom.
Jackson is a breast cancer survivor following two bouts with the disease during the 1980s, and she serves as a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kate Jackson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Judith Ann Jamison (born May 10, 1943) is an American dancer and choreographer. She is the artistic director emerita of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Judith Jamison was born in 1943 to Tessie Brown Jamison and John Jamison Sr. and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her parents and older brother. Her father taught her to play the piano, and violin. She was exposed to the prominent art culture in Philadelphia from a very early age. At the age of six, she began her dance training at Judimar School of Dance. There she studied with Marion Cuyjet who became one of Jamison's early mentors. Under Cuyjet's tutelage, Jamison studied classical ballet, and modern dance. The Judimar studios were treated as a "holy place" and there was always a sense of performance and theatricality in Cuyjet's classes. By the age of eight, Jamison began dancing on pointe and started taking classes in tap, acrobatics, and Dunham technique (which was referred to as "primitive").
A few years later, Cuyjet began sending Jamison to other teachers to advance her dance education. She learned the Cechetti method from Antony Tudor, founder of the Philadelphia Ballet Guild, and studied with Delores Brown Abelson, a graduate of Judimar who pursued a performance career in New York City before returning to Philadelphia to teach. Throughout high school, Jamison was also member of numerous sports organizations, the Glee Club, and the Philadelphia String Ensemble. She studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics, a system that teaches rhythm through movement.
At the age of 17, Jamison graduated from Judimar and began her collegiate studies at Fisk University. After three semesters there, she transferred to the Philadelphia Dance Academy (now the University of the Arts) where she studied dance with James Jamieson, Nadia Chilkovsky, and Yuri Gottschalk. In addition to her technique classes, she took courses in Labanotation, kinesiology, and other dance studies. During this time, she also learned the Horton technique from Joan Kerr, which required great strength, balance, and concentration.
In 1992, Jamison was inducted into Delta Sigma Theta sorority as an honorary member.
In 1964, after seeing Jamison in a master class, Agnes de Mille invited her to come to New York to perform in a new work that she was choreographing for American Ballet Theatre, The Four Marys. Jamison immediately accepted the offer and spent the next few months working with the company. When the performances ended and she found herself in New York without a job, Jamison attended an audition held by Donald McKayle. She felt that she performed very poorly in the audition and claimed, "I felt as if I had two left feet." However, a few days later, a friend of McKayle's, Alvin Ailey, called Jamison to offer her a place in his company – Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. ...
Source: Article "Judith Jamison" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anne Jeffreys (born Annie Jeffreys Carmichael; January 26, 1923 – September 27, 2017) was an American actress and singer.
Born Annie Jeffreys Carmichael on January 26, 1923 in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Jeffreys entered the entertainment field at a young age, having her initial training in voice (she was an accomplished soprano). "She became a member of the New York Municipal Opera Company on a scholarship and sang the lead at Carnegie Hall in such things as La bohème, Traviata, and Pagliacci." However, she decided as a teenager to sign with the John Robert Powers agency as a junior model.
Her plans for an operatic career were sidelined when she was cast in a staged musical review, Fun for the Money. Her appearance in that revue led to her being cast in her first movie role, in I Married an Angel (1942), starring Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. She was under contract to both RKO and Republic Studios during the 1940s, including several appearances as Tess Trueheart in the Dick Tracy series, and the 1944 Frank Sinatra musical Step Lively. She also appeared in the horror comedy Zombies on Broadway with Wally Brown and Alan Carney in 1945 and starred in Riffraff with Pat O'Brien two years later. Jeffreys also appeared in a number of western films and as bank robber John Dillinger's moll in 1945's Dillinger.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Anne Jeffreys, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Ann Jillian (born January 29, 1950) is an American actress, who started acting at age 10. Her career reached its zenith in the 1980s, with her best-known role being that of waitress Cassie Cranston on the sitcom It's a Living.
Van Johnson (1916–2008) was an American film, television theatre and radio actor, singer, and dancer. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II.
James Earl Jones (January 17, 1931 – September 9, 2024) was an American actor. He was described as "one of America's most distinguished and versatile" actors for his performances on stage and screen, and "one of the greatest actors in American history". Over his career, he received three Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1985. He was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 1992, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2009 and the Honorary Academy Award in 2011. His deep voice has been praised as a "stirring basso profondo that has lent gravel and gravitas" to his projects.
Diane Hall Keaton (born Diane Hall; January 5, 1946) is an American actress. Known for her idiosyncratic personality and fashion style, she has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and the AFI Life Achievement Award.
She began her career on stage appearing in the original 1968 Broadway production of the musical Hair. The next year, she received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play nomination for her performance in Woody Allen's comic play Play it Again, Sam. She then made her screen debut in a small role in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970). She rose to prominence with her first major film role as Kay Adams-Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), a role she reprised in its sequels The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990). The films that most shaped her career were those with director and co-star Woody Allen, beginning with the film adaptation of Play It Again, Sam (1972). Her next two films with Allen, Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975), established her as a comic actor. Her fourth, the romantic comedy Annie Hall (1977), won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
To avoid being typecast as her Annie Hall persona, she appeared in several dramatic films, starring in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and Allen's Interiors (1978), and received three more Academy Award nominations for playing feminist activist Louise Bryant in Reds (1981), a woman with leukemia in Marvin's Room (1996), and a dramatist in Something's Gotta Give (2003). Her other popular films include Manhattan (1979), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Father of the Bride Part II (1995), The First Wives Club (1996), The Family Stone (2005), Morning Glory (2010), Finding Dory (2016) and Book Club (2018).
Harold Clifford Keel (April 13, 1919 – November 7, 2004), known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer. He starred in many film musicals of the 1950s. He is best known to modern audiences for his starring role in the CBS television series Dallas from 1981 to 1991, as Clayton Farlow, opposite Barbara Bel Geddes's character, but to an earlier generation, he was known as the star of some of the most famous MGM film musicals ever made, with a rich baritone singing voice.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Howard Keel, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American actor, dancer, singer, filmmaker, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks, and the likable characters that he played on screen. He starred in, choreographed, or co-directed some of the most well-regarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s, until they fell out of fashion in the late 1950s.
Kelly is best known today for his performances in films such as Cover Girl (1944), Anchors Aweigh (1945), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, On the Town (1949), which was his directorial debut, An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Brigadoon (1954), and It's Always Fair Weather (1955). Kelly made his film debut with Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal (1942), and followed by Du Barry Was a Lady (1943), Thousands Cheer (1943), The Pirate (1948), Summer Stock (1950), and Les Girls (1957) among others. After musicals he starred in two films outside the musical genre: Inherit the Wind (1960) and What a Way to Go! (1964). In 1967, he appeared in French director Jacques Demy's musical comedy The Young Girls of Rochefort opposite Catherine Deneuve. Kelly solo directed the comedy A Guide for the Married Man (1967) starring Walter Matthau, and later the extravagant musical Hello, Dolly! (1969) starring Barbra Streisand, recognized with an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Kelly co-hosted and appeared in Ziegfeld Follies (1946), That's Entertainment! (1974), That's Entertainment, Part II (1976), That's Dancing! (1985), and That's Entertainment, Part III (1994).
His many innovations transformed the Hollywood musical, and he is credited with almost single-handedly making the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences. Kelly received an Academy Honorary Award in 1952 for his career achievements; the same year, An American in Paris won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He later received lifetime achievement awards in the Kennedy Center Honors (1982) and from the Screen Actors Guild and American Film Institute. In 1999, the American Film Institute also ranked him as the 15th greatest male screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Gene Kelly, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 – September 14, 1982) was an American actress who, after starring in several significant films in the early to mid-1950s, became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956.
Kelly was born into a prominent Catholic family in Philadelphia. After graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1949, Kelly began appearing in New York City theatrical productions and television broadcasts. She gained stardom from her performance in John Ford's adventure-romance Mogambo (1953), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the drama The Country Girl (1954). Other notable works include the western High Noon (1952), the romantic comedy High Society (1956), and three consecutive Alfred Hitchcock suspense thrillers: Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955).
Kelly retired from acting at age 26 to marry Rainier and began her duties as Princess of Monaco. The couple had three children: Princess Caroline, Prince Albert, and Princess Stéphanie. Her charity work focused on young children and the arts. In 1964, she established the Princess Grace Foundation to support local artisans. Her organization for children's rights, AMADE Mondiale, gained consultive status within UNICEF and UNESCO. Grace's final film contribution was to the documentary The Children of Theatre Street (1977) directed by Robert Dornhelm, where she served as the narrator. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Kelly died at the age of 52 at Monaco Hospital on September 14, 1982, from injuries sustained in a car crash the previous day. She is listed 13th among the American Film Institute's 25 Greatest Female Stars of Classical Hollywood cinema. Her son, Prince Albert, helped establish the Princess Grace Awards in 1984 to recognize emerging performers in film, theatre, and dance.
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".
Description above from the Wikipedia article Deborah Kerr, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Richard Paul Kiley (March 31, 1922 – March 5, 1999) was an American actor. He is best known for his distinguished theatrical career in which he twice won the Tony Award for Best Actor In A Musical.
Robert Klein (born February 8, 1942) is an American stand-up comedian, singer, and actor. He is known for his appearances on stage and screen. He has released four standup comedy specials including, A Child of the 50s (1973), Mind Over Matter (1974), New Teeth (1975), and Let's Not Make Love (1990). The first two albums received Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album nominations. Klein hosted Saturday Night Live in its first season in 1975 and again in 1978. Klein made his Broadway debut in the 1966 production of The Apple Tree opposite Alan Alda. He earned a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical nomination for his performance in Neil Simon's musical comedy They're Playing Our Song (1979).
He is known for his film roles in The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), Mixed Nuts (1994), One Fine Day (1996), Primary Colors (1998), Two Weeks Notice (2002), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), and Reign Over Me (2007). He is also known for his recurring television roles in Law & Order: SVU (2009-2012), The Good Wife (2013-2014), Madam Secretary (2014), Will & Grace (2018-2019). He has received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his specials, Child in his 50's (2001), and Unfair and Unbalanced (2010). He was profiled in the Starz documentary Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg (2016).
As a film character actor, Klugman was the epitome of the everyman. He was one of the pioneers of television acting in the 1950s, and is best remembered for his 1970s TV work as Oscar Madison on "The Odd Couple" (1970) and as the medical examiner on "Quincy M.E." (1976).
Ted Knight (born Tadeusz Wladyslaw Konopka; December 7, 1923 – August 26, 1986) was an American actor well known for playing the comedic roles of Ted Baxter in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Henry Rush in Too Close for Comfort, and Judge Elihu Smails in Caddyshack.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Burt Lancaster, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Frank A. Langella, Jr. (born January 1, 1938) is an American stage and film actor.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Frank Langella, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Linda Lavin (October 15, 1937 - December 29, 2024) was an American actress and singer. She was known for playing the title character in the sitcom "Alice" and for her stage performances, both on and off-Broadway.
After acting as a child, Lavin joined the Compass Players in the late 1950s. She began appearing on Broadway in the 1960s, earning notice in "It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman" in 1966 and receiving her first Tony Award nomination for "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" in 1970. She moved to Hollywood in 1973 and began to work on television, making recurring appearances on the sitcom "Barney Miller" before landing the title role on the hit comedy "Alice," which ran from 1976 to 1985. She appeared in many telefilms and later she appeared in other TV works. She has also played roles in several feature films.
In 1987, she returned to Broadway, starring in "Broadway Bound" (winning a Tony Award), "Gypsy" (1990), "The Sisters Rosensweig" (1993), "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1997–1998) and "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife" (2000–2001), among others. In 2010, she appeared as Ruth Steiner in "Collected Stories," garnering her fifth Tony nomination. She starred in NBC's short-lived sitcom "Sean Saves the World" as Lorna and the CBS sitcom "9JKL." She also starred in the CBS sitcom "B Positive."
Description above from the Wikipedia article Linda Lavin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Michael Learned (born April 9, 1939) is a distinguished American actor, known for her role as Olivia Walton in the long-running CBS drama series The Waltons (1972–1981).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Michele Lee (born June 24, 1942) is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing. She also co-starred with Dean Jones in the 1968 Disney film, The Love Bug.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Michele Lee, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Janet Leigh (born Jeanette Helen Morrison; July 6, 1927 – October 3, 2004) was an American actress, singer, dancer, and author. Her career spanned over five decades. Raised in Stockton, California, by working-class parents, Leigh was discovered at 18 by actress Norma Shearer, who helped her secure a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Leigh appeared in radio programs before her first formal foray into acting, making her film debut in the drama The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947). With MGM, she appeared in many films which spanned a wide variety of genres, which include the crime-drama Act of Violence (1948), the drama Little Women (1949), the comedy Angels in the Outfield (1951), the romance Scaramouche (1952) and the western drama The Naked Spur (1953). She played dramatic roles during the late 1950s, in such films as Safari (1956) and Orson Welles's film noir Touch of Evil (1958). With RKO Radio pictures she co-starred in the romantic comedy Holiday Affair (1949) with Robert Mitchum.
Leigh achieved her biggest success starring as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's psychological thriller Psycho (1960). For her performance, Leigh won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Intermittently, she continued to appear in films, including Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Harper (1966), Night of the Lepus (1972), and Boardwalk (1979). She made her Broadway debut in 1975 in a production of Murder Among Friends. She would also go on to appear in two horror films with her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis: The Fog (1980) and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998).
In addition to her work as an actress, Leigh also wrote four books between 1984 and 2002, two of which were novels. Leigh had two brief marriages as a teenager (one of which was annulled) before marrying actor Tony Curtis in 1951. The pair's highly publicized union ended in divorce in 1962, and after starring in The Manchurian Candidate that same year, Leigh remarried and scaled back her career. She died in October 2004 at age 77, following a year-long battle with vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Janet Leigh, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts (for which he won the 1955 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award), Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger (for which he won the 1973 Best Actor Academy Award), The Out-of-Towners, The China Syndrome, Missing (for which he won 'Best Actor' at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival), Glengarry Glen Ross, Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men.
David Michael Letterman (born April 12, 1947) is an American former television talk show host, comedian, writer, and producer. He hosted a late night television talk show for 33 years, beginning with the February 1, 1982, debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC, and ending with the May 20, 2015, broadcast of the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. In total, Letterman hosted 6,028 episodes of Late Night and Late Show.
Born in 1931, Bronx-born Hal Linden was the son of Charles Lipshitz and Frances Rosen and had an older brother who would become a future professor of music at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. Similarly musical, Hal took up classical clarinet in his late teens and played regularly with symphony orchestras. After graduating from the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan, he studied music at Queens College, moving later to City College to pursue business. Hal also played in dance bands and was asked to join Sammy Kaye on tour before being drafted into the Army, where he sang and provided entertainment for the troops. This sparked an interest in acting, and, upon receiving his discharge, he enrolled at New York's American Theatre Wing where he trained in voice and drama. In 1955, Hal met Frances Martin, a dancer. They married three years later, and she gave up her career to raise a family.
Hal's first Broadway show was in "Bells Are Ringing" where he understudied lead Jeff Moss. During the 1960s, Hal accumulated more musical credits in "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever," "Subways Are for Sleeping," "The Apple Tree" and "The Pajama Game." He won the 1971 Tony award for his role in "The Rothschilds." This particular stage success led to a TV career that culminated in the title role on the popular Barney Miller (1974) sitcom. Emmy-nominated every year the program aired, Hal became a household name. Since that time, he has appeared in other lesser TV series including Blacke's Magic (1986), and Jack's Place (1992). He has held a secondary presence in such films as A New Life (1988) and Out to Sea (1997).
More musical leads such as "I Do! I Do!" and "The Pajama Game" came his way, along with dramatic pursuits in "I'm Not Rappaport" and "The Sisters Rosenzweig." Hal has also undertaken musical tours in his continuing role as clarinetist. He and wife Frances are avid golfers during their spare time.
John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician and lawyer. During his political career, Lindsay was a U.S. congressman, mayor of New York City, and candidate for U.S. president. He was also a regular guest host of Good Morning America.
Gina Lollobrigida (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒiːna lɔlloˈbriːdʒida]; 4 July 1927 - 16 January 2023) was an Italian actress, photojournalist, sculptress and politician. One of the most popular European actresses of the 1950s and early 60s, she was also an iconic sex symbol of the 1950s. She remained an active supporter of Italian and Italian-American causes, particularly the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF), and in 2008 received the NIAF Lifetime Achievement Award at the Foundation's Anniversary Gala.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Gina Lollobrigida, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dorothy Loudon (September 17, 1925 – November 15, 2003) was an American actress and singer. She won the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical in 1977 for her performance as Miss Hannigan in Annie. Loudon was also nominated for Tony Awards for her lead performances in the musicals The Fig Leaves Are Falling and Ballroom, as well as a Golden Globe award for her appearances on The Garry Moore Show. Loudon was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1925 (she later shaved eight years off her age) and raised in Claremont, New Hampshire and Indianapolis, Indiana. She attended Syracuse University on a drama scholarship but did not graduate, and moved to New York City to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She began singing in night clubs, mingling song with ad-libbed comedy patter, and was featured on television on The Perry Como Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.
Loudon made her stage debut in 1962 in The World of Jules Feiffer, a play with incidental music by Stephen Sondheim, under the direction of Mike Nichols. That same year she made her Broadway debut in Nowhere to Go but Up, which ran only two weeks but earned her good reviews and the Theatre World Award. In 1969, The Fig Leaves Are Falling ran for only four performances, although it won her the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance and a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical. Loudon was chosen as the replacement for Carol Burnett when Burnett left The Garry Moore Show in 1962. Although that collaboration was not altogether successful, the excellent reviews she received the same year for her Broadway debut in Nowhere to Go but Up proved prophetic. Coincidentally, the two roles Loudon later played so successfully on Broadway stage —Miss Hannigan and Dotty Otley — were both played by Burnett onscreen. She also was a frequent guest star on many New York based comedy and game shows. In 1979, Loudon starred in the television series Dorothy, in which she portrayed a former showgirl teaching music and drama at a boarding school for girls. It lasted only one season. She appeared in only two films, playing an agent in the film Garbo Talks (1984) and a Southern eccentric in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Myrna Loy (August 2, 1905 – December 14, 1993) was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934). Her successful pairing with William Powell resulted in 14 films together, including five subsequent Thin Man films.
Although Loy was never nominated for a competitive Academy Award, in March 1991 she was presented with an Honorary Academy Award with the inscription "In recognition of her extraordinary qualities both on screen and off, with appreciation for a lifetime's worth of indelible performances."
During World War II, Loy served as assistant to the director of military and naval welfare for the Red Cross. She was later appointed a member-at-large of the U.S. Commission to UNESCO. Her acting career by no means ended in the 1940s. She continued to actively pursue stage and television appearances in addition to films in subsequent decades.
Gavin MacLeod (February 28, 1931 – May 29, 2021) was an American actor notable for playing Joseph "Happy" Haines on McHale's Navy, Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and for his lead role as Captain Merrill Stubing on The Love Boat.
Carole Penny Marshall (October 15, 1943 - December 17, 2018) was an American actress, producer and director. After playing several small roles for television, she was cast as Laverne DeFazio in the sitcom Laverne & Shirley. A ratings success, the show ran from 1976 until 1983, and Marshall received three Golden Globe award nominations for her performance. She progressed to directing films such as Big (1988), the first film directed by a woman to gross in excess of $100 million at the U.S. box office, Awakenings (1990), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and A League of Their Own (1992). In more recent years, she produced Cinderella Man (2005) and Bewitched (2005).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Penny Marshall, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Mary Virginia Martin (December 1, 1913 – November 3, 1990) was an American actress, singer, and Broadway star. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989. She was the mother of actor Larry Hagman.
Martin began her radio career in 1939 as the vocalist on a short-lived revival of The Tuesday Night Party on CBS. In 1940, she was a singer on NBC's Good News of 1940, which was renamed Maxwell House Coffee Time during that year. In 1942, she joined the cast of Kraft Music Hall on NBC, replacing Connie Boswell. She was also one of the stars of Stage Door Canteen on CBS, 1942–1945. Martin was cast in Cole Porter's Leave It to Me!, making her Broadway debut in November 1938 in that production. She became popular on Broadway and received attention in the national media singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". With that one song in the second act, she became a star 'overnight'. Martin reprised the song in Night and Day, a Hollywood film about Cole Porter, in which she played herself auditioning for Porter. As nurse Nellie Forbush, Martin opened on Broadway in South Pacific. Her next major success was in the role of Peter in the Broadway production of Peter Pan. Martin opened on Broadway in The Sound of Music, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Although she appeared in nine films between 1938 and 1943, she was generally passed over for the filmed version of the musical plays. She herself once explained that she did not enjoy making films because she did not have the connection with an audience that she had in live performances. The closest that she ever came to preserving her stage performances was her television appearances as Peter Pan. The Broadway production from 1954 was subsequently performed on NBC television in RCA's compatible color in 1955, 1956, and 1960. Martin also preserved her 1957 stage performance as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun when NBC television broadcast the production live that year.
While Martin did not enjoy making films, she apparently did enjoy appearing on television as she did frequently. Her last feature film appearance was a cameo as herself in MGM's Main Street to Broadway in 1953. Martin made an appearance in 1980 in a Royal Variety Performance in London performing "Honeybun" from South Pacific. Martin appeared in the play Legends with Carol Channing in a one-year US national tour opening in Dallas on January 9, 1986. Martin was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1973. She received the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual honor for career achievements, in 1989. She received the Donaldson Award in 1943 for One Touch of Venus. A special Tony was presented to her in 1948 while she appeared in the national touring company of Annie Get Your Gun for "spreading theatre to the rest of the country while the originals perform in New York." In 1955 and 1956, she received, first, a Tony Award for Peter Pan, and then an Emmy for appearing in the same role on television. She also received Tonys for South Pacific and in 1959 for The Sound of Music.
James Neville Mason, known as James Mason, was an accomplished English actor who made a significant impact on both British and American cinema. He was born on May 15, 1909, in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England, and passed away on July 27, 1984, in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Mason's acting career began in the 1930s, where he initially gained recognition for his stage performances in London's West End. He made his film debut in 1935 with the British film "Late Extra," marking the start of his illustrious on-screen journey.
Throughout his career, Mason showcased his exceptional acting abilities, often portraying complex and morally ambiguous characters. His commanding presence, distinctive voice, and versatile range allowed him to effortlessly transition between genres, from dramas to thrillers and even period pieces.
One of Mason's most acclaimed performances came in 1945 when he starred as the troubled and enigmatic Johnny McQueen in the film "Odd Man Out." His portrayal of the wounded Irish nationalist earned him widespread praise and established him as a respected leading man.
Mason's notable filmography includes memorable roles in films such as "The Wicked Lady" (1945), "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" (1951), "A Star Is Born" (1954), "North by Northwest" (1959), and "Lolita" (1962). His ability to bring depth, sophistication, and complexity to his characters captivated audiences and garnered critical acclaim.
Beyond his film career, Mason also dabbled in producing and directing. He co-produced and starred in the acclaimed film "A Star Is Born," showcasing his multifaceted talent and creative vision.
Throughout his life, Mason was recognized with numerous awards and nominations, including three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor. He was highly regarded by his peers and critics alike for his impeccable craft and his ability to elevate any production he was a part of.
Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni was an Italian film actor. His honours have included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards.
Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he became best known.
He appeared in over one hundred films, starring in over eighty, among them Alfred Hitchcock's espionage thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), Preston Sturges' comedy classics Sullivan's Travels (1941), and The Palm Beach Story (1942), the romance film Bird of Paradise (1932), the adventure classic The Most Dangerous Game (1932), Gregory La Cava's bawdy comedy Bed of Roses (1933), George Stevens' romantic comedy The More the Merrier (1943), William Wyler's These Three, Come and Get It (both 1936) and Dead End (1937), Howard Hawks' Barbary Coast (1935), and a number of western films, including Wichita (1955) as Wyatt Earp and Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962), opposite Randolph Scott.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Joel McCrea, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maureen Therese McGovern (born July 27, 1949) is an American singer and Broadway actress, well known for her renditions of the songs "The Morning After" from the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure; "We May Never Love Like This Again" from The Towering Inferno in 1974; and her #1 Billboard adult contemporary hit "Different Worlds", the theme song from the television series Angie.
Ethel Merman (January 16, 1908 – February 15, 1984) was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's Coming Up Roses", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "It's De-Lovely", "Friendship", "You're the Top", "Anything Goes", and "There's No Business Like Show Business", which later became her theme song.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ethel Merman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Dina Merrill (born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton; December 29, 1923 – May 22, 2017) was an American actress, heiress, socialite, businesswoman, and philanthropist.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Dina Merrill, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johnnie Lucille Collier (April 12, 1923 – January 22, 2004), known professionally as Ann Miller, was an American dancer, singer and actress. She is best remembered for her work in the Classical Hollywood musical films of the 1940s and 1950s.
At age 13 in 1936, Miller became a showgirl at the Bal Tabarin. She was hired as a dancer in the "Black Cat Club" in San Francisco (she reportedly told them she was 18). It was there that she was discovered by Lucille Ball and talent scout/comic Benny Rubin (although some sources say this occurred at Bal Tabarin). This led Miller to be given a contract with RKO in 1936 at the age of 13 (she had also told them she was 18, and apparently provided a fake birth certificate, procured by her father - with the name "Lucy Ann Collier") and she remained there until 1940.
In 1941, she signed with Columbia Pictures, where, starting with Time Out for Rhythm, she starred in 11 B movie musicals from 1941 to 1945. In July 1945, with World War II still raging in the Pacific, she posed in a bathing suit as a Yank magazine pin-up girl. She ended her contract in 1946 with one "A" film, The Thrill of Brazil. The ad in Life magazine featured Miller's leg in a large, red, bow-tied stocking as the "T" in "Thrill". She finally hit her mark in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals such as Easter Parade (1948), On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953).
Miller was famed for her speed in tap dance. Studio publicists concocted press releases claiming she could tap 500 times per minute, but in truth, the sound of ultra-fast "500" taps was looped in later. Because the stage floors were waxed and too slick for regular tap shoes, she had to dance in shoes with rubber treads on the sole. Later she would loop the sound of the taps while watching the film and actually dancing on a "tap board" to match her steps in the film.
Her film career effectively ended in 1956 as the studio system lost steam to television, but she remained active in the theater and on television. She starred on Broadway in the musical Mame in 1969, in which she wowed the audience in a tap number created just for her. In 1979 she astounded audiences in the Broadway show Sugar Babies with fellow MGM veteran Mickey Rooney, which toured the United States extensively after its Broadway run. In 1983, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. She appeared in a special 1982 episode of The Love Boat, joined by fellow showbiz legends Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Della Reese, Van Johnson and Cab Calloway in a storyline that cast them as older relatives of the show's regular characters. Her last stage performance was a 1998 production of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, in which she played hardboiled Carlotta Campion and received rave reviews for her rendition of the song "I'm Still Here".
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Miller has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6914 Hollywood Blvd. In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. To honor Miller's contribution to dance, the Smithsonian Institution displays her favorite pair of tap shoes, which she playfully nicknamed "Moe and Joe".
Liza May Minnelli (born March 12, 1946) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and choreographer. Known for her commanding stage presence and powerful alto singing voice, Minnelli is among a rare group of performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy (Grammy Legend Award), Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). Minnelli is a Knight of the French Legion of Honour.
Daughter of actress and singer Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli, Minnelli was born in Los Angeles, spent part of her childhood in Scarsdale, New York, and moved to New York City in 1961 where she began her career as a musical theatre actress, nightclub performer, and traditional pop music artist. She made her professional stage debut in the 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward and received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for starring in Flora the Red Menace in 1965, which marked the start of her lifelong collaboration with John Kander and Fred Ebb. They wrote, produced or directed many of Minnelli's future stage acts and television series and helped create her stage persona of a stylized survivor, including her career-defining performances of anthems of survival ("New York, New York", "Cabaret", and "Maybe This Time"). Along with her roles on stage and screen, this persona and her style of performance contributed to Minnelli's status as an enduring gay icon.
An acclaimed performance in the drama film The Sterile Cuckoo (1969) marked a film breakthrough for Minnelli and brought her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She later received the award for her performance as Sally Bowles in the musical film Cabaret (1972), which brought her to international prominence. Most of her following films, including Lucky Lady (1975), New York, New York (1977), Rent-a-Cop (1988), and Stepping Out (1991), were not as successful, aside from the major box office hit and critically lauded Arthur (1981) which starred Minnelli. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Lucky Lady, New York, New York and Arthur. She returned to Broadway on a number of occasions, including The Act (1977), for which she received her second Tony Award, as well as The Rink (1984) and Liza's at The Palace.... (2008). Minnelli has also worked on various television formats and has predominantly focused on music hall and nightclub performances since the late 1970s. Her concert performances at Carnegie Hall in 1979 and 1987 and at Radio City Music Hall in 1991 and 1992 are recognized among her most successful. From 1988 to 1990, she toured with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. in Frank, Liza & Sammy: The Ultimate Event.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Liza Minnelli, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Dudley Stuart John Moore CBE (19 April 1935 – 27 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer. Moore first came to prominence in the UK as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He was one of the four writer-performers in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe from 1960 that created a boom in satiric comedy. With a member of that team, Peter Cook, Moore collaborated on the BBC television series Not Only... But Also. As a popular double act, Moore's buffoonery contrasted with Cook's deadpan monologues. They jointly received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance and worked together on other projects until the mid-1970s, by which time Moore had settled in Los Angeles to concentrate on his film acting.
Moore's career as a comedy film actor was marked by hit films, particularly Bedazzled (1967), set in Swinging Sixties London (in which he co-starred with Cook) and Hollywood productions Foul Play (1978), 10 (1979) and Arthur (1981). For Arthur, Moore was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won a Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe for his performance in Micki & Maude (1984). Moore was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987 and was made a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on 16 November 2001 in what was his last public appearance.
Mary Tyler Moore (December 29, 1936 – January 25, 2017) was an American actress, producer, and social advocate. She is best known for her roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977), which "helped define a new vision of American womanhood" and "appealed to an audience facing the new trials of modern-day existence". Moore won seven Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Ordinary People. Moore is also known for her supporting role in the musical film Thoroughly Modern Millie. Moore was an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism and diabetes prevention.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Mary Tyler Moore, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sir Roger George Moore KBE (14 October 1927 – 23 May 2017) was an English actor. He was the third actor to portray fictional secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions/MGM Studios film series, playing the character in seven feature films between 1973 and 1985. Moore's seven appearances as Bond, from Live and Let Die to A View to a Kill, are the most of any actor in the Eon-produced entries.
On television, Moore played the lead role of Simon Templar, the title character in the British mystery thriller series The Saint (1962–1969). He also had roles in American series, including Beau Maverick on the Western Maverick (1960–1961), in which he replaced James Garner as the lead, and a co-lead, with Tony Curtis, in the action-comedy The Persuaders! (1971–1972). Continuing to act on screen in the decades after his retirement from the Bond franchise, Moore's final appearance was in a pilot for a new Saint series that became a 2017 television film.
Moore was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for services to charity. In 2007, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the film industry. He was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2008.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Roger Moore, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Paul Leonard Newman (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008) was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver, auto racing team owner, and auto racing enthusiast. He won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in the 1986 Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money and eight other nominations, three Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, an Emmy award, and many honorary awards.
He also won several national championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing, and his race teams won several championships in open wheel IndyCar racing. Newman was a co-founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all post-tax profits and royalties to charity.
Leonard Nimoy was an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series 1966–1969, multiple films, television and video game sequels.
Nimoy began his career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s, as well as playing the title role in Kid Monk Baroni. In 1953, he served in the United States Army. In 1965, he made his first appearance in the rejected Star Trek pilot, "The Cage", and would go on to play the character of Mr. Spock until 1969, followed by seven further films and a number of guest slots in various sequels. His character of Spock generated a significant cultural impact and three Emmy Award nominations; TV Guide named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters. Nimoy also had a recurring role in Mission: Impossible and a narrating role in Civilization IV, as well as several well-received stage appearances. Nimoy's fame as Spock is such that both his autobiographies, I Am Not Spock (1977) and I Am Spock (1995) detail his existence as being shared between the character and himself.
Nimoy was born to Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Ukraine. His father, Max Nimoy, owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of the city. His mother, Dora Nimoy (née Spinner), was a homemaker. Nimoy began acting at the age of eight in children's and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the accordion—which, his father advised, Nimoy could always make a living with—but his grandfather encouraged him to become an actor. His first major role was at 17, as Ralphie in an amateur production of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!. Nimoy took Drama classes at Boston College in 1953 but failed to complete his studies, and in the 1970s studied photography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has an MA in Education and an honorary doctorate from Antioch University in Ohio. Nimoy served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1953 through 1955, alongside fellow actor Ken Berry and architect Frank Gehry.
Jerome Bernard Orbach (October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004) was an American actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the series Law & Order (1992–2004) and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), as well as for being a noted musical theatre star; his prominent roles included originating the character of El Gallo in The Fantasticks, the longest-running musical play in history, as Chuck Baxter in the original production of Promises, Promises (for which he won a Tony Award), Julian Marsh in 42nd Street, and Billy Flynn in the original production of Chicago.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jerry Orbach, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Frank Oz born Richard Frank Oznowicz; is a British-born American film director, actor, voice actor and puppeteer who is known for creating and performing the characters Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Show and for directing films, including the 1986 Little Shop Of Horrors remake and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. He is also the operator and voice of Yoda in the Star Wars series.
Alfredo James Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an American actor and filmmaker. In a career spanning over five decades, he has received many awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. He is one of the few performers to have received the Triple Crown of Acting. He has also been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the National Medal of Arts.
A method actor and former student of the HB Studio and the Actors Studio, where he was taught by Charlie Laughton and Lee Strasberg, Pacino's film debut came at the age of 29 with a minor role in Me, Natalie (1969). He gained favorable notice for his first lead role as a heroin addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971). Wide acclaim and recognition came with his breakthrough role as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), for which he received his first Oscar nomination, and he would reprise the role in the sequels The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990).
His portrayal of Michael Corleone is regarded as one of the greatest in film history. Pacino received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Serpico (1973), The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon (1975), and ...And Justice for All (1979), ultimately winning it for playing a blind military veteran in Scent of a Woman (1992). For his performances in The Godfather, Dick Tracy (1990), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and The Irishman (2019), he earned Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations.
Other notable portrayals include Tony Montana in Scarface (1983), Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way (1993), Benjamin Ruggiero in Donnie Brasco (1997), and Lowell Bergman in The Insider (1999). He has also starred in the thrillers Heat (1995), The Devil's Advocate (1997), Insomnia (2002), and appeared in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). On television, Pacino has acted in several productions for HBO, including Angels in America (2003) and the Jack Kevorkian biopic You Don't Know Jack (2010), winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for each. Pacino currently stars in the Amazon Video web television series Hunters (2020–present).
He has also had an extensive career on stage. He is a two-time Tony Award winner, in 1969 and 1977, for his performances in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? and The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. Pacino made his filmmaking debut with Looking for Richard (1996), directing and starring in this documentary about Richard III; Pacino had played the lead role on stage in 1977. He has also acted as Shylock in a 2004 feature film adaptation and 2010 stage production of The Merchant of Venice. Pacino directed and starred in Chinese Coffee (2000), Wilde Salomé (2011), and Salomé (2013). Since 1994, he has been the joint president of the Actors Studio.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eldred Gregory Peck (April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003) was an American actor and one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1970s. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck the 12th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
After studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner, Peck began appearing in stage productions, acting in over 50 plays and three Broadway productions. He first gained critical success in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), a John M. Stahl–directed drama which earned him his first Academy Award nomination. He starred in a series of successful films, including romantic-drama The Valley of Decision (1944), Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), and family film The Yearling (1946). He encountered lukewarm commercial reviews at the end of the 1940s, his performances including The Paradine Case (1947) and The Great Sinner (1948). Peck reached global recognition in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing back-to-back in the book-to-film adaptation of Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) and biblical drama David and Bathsheba (1951). He starred alongside Ava Gardner in The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) and Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (1953), which earned Peck a Golden Globe award.
Other notable films in which he appeared include Moby Dick (1956, and its 1998 mini-series), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Cape Fear (1962, and its 1991 remake), The Omen (1976), and The Boys from Brazil (1978). Throughout his career, he often portrayed protagonists with "fiber" within a moral setting. Gentleman's Agreement (1947) centered on topics of antisemitism, while Peck's character in Twelve O'Clock High (1949) dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder during World War II. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), an adaptation of the modern classic of the same name which revolved around racial inequality, for which he received universal acclaim. In 1983, he starred opposite Christopher Plummer in The Scarlet and The Black as Hugh O'Flaherty, a Catholic priest who saved thousands of escaped Allied POWs and Jewish people in Rome during the Second World War.
Peck was also active in politics, challenging the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 and was regarded as a political opponent by President Richard Nixon. President Lyndon B. Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts. Peck died in his sleep from bronchopneumonia at the age of 87.
Anthony Perkins (April 4, 1932 – September 12, 1992) was an American actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion (1956). He made his film debut in The Actress (1953) directed by George Cukor before experiencing success on Broadway with Elia Kazan’s production of Tea and Sympathy (1955).
He quickly became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, working alongside actors such as Henry Fonda (The Tin Star), Sophia Loren (Desire Under the Elms), Shirley MacLaine (The Matchmaker), Audrey Hepburn (Green Mansions), and Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, and Ava Gardner (On the Beach).
He left Hollywood in 1960 and had a successful career in Europe, where he co-starred with Ingrid Bergman (Aimez-vous Brahms?), Melina Mercouri (Phaedra), Brigitte Bardot (Une ravissante idiote), and Romy Schneider, Jeanne Moreau, Elsa Martinelli, and Orson Welles (Le procès). He returned to Hollywood in 1968 with Pretty Poison, which became a cult classic.
In the decades that followed, his career continued to flourish alongside personalities like Diana Ross (Mahogany), Jeff Goldblum (Remember My Name), Elizabeth Taylor (Winter Kills), John Candy (Double Negative), and Lauren Bacall (Murder on the Orient Express). In 1973, he co-wrote The Last of Sheila with Stephen Sondheim.
During his career, he won a Golden Globe, a Cannes Award, and a David di Donatello Award, and was nominated for two Tony Awards and one Academy Award. Perkins died on September 12, 1992, of AIDS complications.
Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer CC (December 13, 1929 - February 5, 2021) was a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1958's Stage Struck, and notable film performances include The Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, The Man Who Would Be King, and The Insider. In a career that spans seven decades and includes substantial roles in each of the dramatic arts, Plummer is probably best known to film audiences as the autocratic widower Captain Georg Johannes von Trapp in the hit 1965 musical film The Sound of Music alongside Julie Andrews. Plummer has also ventured into various television projects, including the legendary miniseries The Thorn Birds.
In the 21st century, his film roles include The Insider as Mike Wallace, Inside Man with Denzel Washington, the Disney–Pixar 2009 film Up as Charles Muntz, the Shane Acker production 9 as '1', The Last Station as Leo Tolstoy, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as Doctor Parnassus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as Henrik Vanger, and Beginners as Hal.
Plummer has won numerous awards and accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a SAG Award, and a BAFTA Award. With his win at the age of 82 in 2012 for Beginners, Plummer is the oldest actor and person ever to win an Academy Award.
On February 5, 2021, Plummer died at his home in Weston, Connecticut, aged 91, after suffering complications from a fall. His family released a statement announcing that Plummer had "died peacefully at his home in Connecticut with his wife Elaine Taylor at his side".
Jane Powell was singing and dancing at an early age. She sang on the radio and performed in theaters before her screen debut in 1944. Through the 1940s and 1950s, she had a successful career in movie musicals. However, in 1957, her career in films ended, as she had outgrown her innocent girl-next-door image. She has made brief returns to acting in front of the camera -- on television, in commercials, and in a workout video. She has had a variety of roles on stage since the end of her movie career, including the musicals "South Pacific," "The Sound of Music," "Oklahoma!," "My Fair Lady," "Carousel," and a one-woman show "The Girl Next Door and How She Grew," from which she took the title of her 1988 autobiography.
From the 1980s to the 2010s, Powell lived with her fifth husband, former child star Dickie Moore, in New York City and Connecticut, active in television and theater through the 2000s. Moore passed away in 2015 and Powell moved full-time to Wilton, Connecticut after that. Jane Powell passed away on September 16, 2021, of natural causes, at the age of 92.
Despite the same last name she is not related to actors William Powell, Dick Powell, or Eleanor Powell.
Stefanie Powers (born Stefania Zofya Paul; November 2, 1942) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Jennifer Hart on the mystery television series Hart to Hart (1979–1984), for which she received nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Stefanie Powers, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Robert Preston (June 8, 1918 – March 21, 1987) was an American stage and film actor and singer, best known for his collaboration with composer Meredith Willson and originating the role of Professor Harold Hill in the 1957 musical The Music Man and the 1962 film adaptation; the film earned him his first of two Golden Globe Award nominations. Preston collaborated twice with filmmaker Blake Edwards, first in S.O.B. (1981) and again in Victor/Victoria (1982). For portraying Carroll "Toddy" Todd in the latter, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 55th Academy Awards.
Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of a garment worker and a record store clerk. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School, training as a musician and playing several instruments, but quit at age sixteen to study acting at the Pasadena Community Playhouse.
Preston made his Broadway debut in 1940 in the play The Philadelphia Story. He went on to star in a number of successful Broadway musicals, including The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), and I Do! I Do! (1966). He also appeared in a number of films, including The Music Man (1962), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960), and Victor/Victoria (1982).
Preston was a versatile actor who could play a wide range of roles. He was known for his charisma, his singing voice, and his comic timing. He was a two-time Tony Award winner and was nominated for an Academy Award. He was also a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Preston died of cancer in 1987 at the age of 68. He was survived by his wife, Catherine Craig; the couple had no children.
A biography of the actor, @Robert Preston - Forever The Music Man”, was published in 2022.
Victoria Principal (born January 3, 1950) is an American actress, producer, entrepreneur, and author, best known for her role as Pamela Barnes Ewing on the American primetime television soap opera series Dallas. After her debut in John Huston's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) (opposite Paul Newman), she earned a Golden Globe nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. After a few disappointing films, Principal decided to leave acting and became a Hollywood talent agent and booking agent, which was her profession from 1975 to late 1977. She then had ambitions to study at law school, and would support herself if needed through small acting roles on television, rather than in feature films, so as to fund her future college tuition. In 1977, she made a return to acting in a guest appearance on the pilot of the television series Fantasy Island which aired on the ABC network, and in the 1977 television film The Night They Took Miss Beautiful on the NBC network. The initial offer to return to acting came when television producer Aaron Spelling directly offered Principal a role in the pilot of his television series Fantasy Island, which she accepted on the condition that the contract stipulated for her role to be written out of the ongoing series, as she was reportedly planning to attend law school. When Principal obtained the pilot audition script for Dallas, her academic career ambitions changed, and she decided to return to the full-time acting profession.
Anthony Quinn (April 21, 1915 – June 3, 2001) was a Mexican-American actor, as well as a painter and writer. He starred in numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful films, including Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, The Guns of Navarone, The Message , " Lion of the Desert" and Federico Fellini's La strada. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice; for Viva Zapata! in 1952 and Lust for Life in 1956.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Anthony Quinn, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Charlotte Rae Lubotsky was born on April 22, 1926, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Russian Jewish immigrants Esther (née Ottenstein), who was a childhood friend of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, and Meyer Lubotsky, a retail tire business owner. She is one of three sisters, along with Miriam and the late Beverly (December 21, 1921 – June 2, 1998).
She graduated from Shorewood High School in 1944. For the first ten years or so of her life, Rae's family lived in Milwaukee, then moved to Shorewood, Wisconsin. She did radio work and was with the Wauwatosa Children's Theatre. At 16, she was an apprentice with the Port Players, a professional theater company that came for the summer to Milwaukee, with several established actors such as Morton DaCosta, who would eventually direct The Music Man on Broadway.
Rae attended Northwestern University, although she did not complete her studies, where she met Cloris Leachman, who many years later succeeded Rae on The Facts of Life for the show's last two seasons. At Northwestern she met several unknown stars and producers, including Agnes Nixon, Charlton Heston, Paul Lynde, Gerald Freedman, Claude Akins and songwriter Sheldon Harnick. When a radio personality told her that her last name wouldn't do, she dropped it, to her father's chagrin. She moved to New York City in 1948, where she performed in the theater and nightclubs. During her early years in New York, she worked at the Village Vanguard (alongside up-and-coming talents such as singer Richard Dyer-Bennet) and at the posh Blue Angel, home to budding talents Barbra Streisand, Mike Nichols and Elaine May. She moved to Los Angeles in 1974
Description above from the Wikipedia article Olivia Ruiz, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Anthony Leonard Randall (born Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg; February 26, 1920 – May 17, 2004) was an American actor, comedian, producer, and director. He is best known for portraying the role of Felix Unger in a television adaptation of the 1965 play, The Odd Couple by Neil Simon, as well as it's updated series and movie. He starred in the sitcom Love, Sidney in which he portrayed the first ever gay lead of a show. He has also been in numerous movies over his long career including many voice roles. In a career spanning six decades, he received six Golden Globe Award nominations and six Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning one Emmy.
Robert Reed was an American actor, mostly known for television roles. His most famous role was that of pater familias Michael Paul "Mike" Brady in the popular sitcom "The Brady Bunch" (1969-1979).
Christopher D'Olier Reeve (September 25, 1952 – October 10, 2004) was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter and author. He achieved stardom for his acting achievements, including his notable motion picture portrayal of the fictional superhero Superman.
On May 27, 1995, Reeve became a quadriplegic after being thrown from a horse in an equestrian competition in Virginia. He required a wheelchair and breathing apparatus for the rest of his life. He lobbied on behalf of people with spinal cord injuries, and for human embryonic stem cell research afterward. He founded the Christopher Reeve Foundation and co-founded the Reeve-Irvine Research Center.
Reeve married Dana Morosini in April 1992, and they had a son, William, born that June. Reeve had two children, Matthew (born 1979) and Alexandra (born 1983), from his previous relationship with his longtime girlfriend, Gae Exton.
Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of the Motown group Commodores; writing and recording the hit singles "Easy", "Sail On", "Three Times a Lady" and "Still", with the group before his departure. In 1980, he wrote and produced the US Billboard Hot 100 number one single "Lady" for Kenny Rogers.
In 1981, Richie wrote and produced the single "Endless Love", which he recorded as a duet with Diana Ross; it remains among the top 20 bestselling singles of all time, and the biggest career hit for both artists. In 1982, he officially launched his solo career with the album Lionel Richie, which sold over four million copies and spawned the singles "You Are", "My Love", and the number one single "Truly".
Richie's second album, Can't Slow Down (1983), reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold over 20 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time; and spawned the number one singles "All Night Long (All Night)" and "Hello". He then co-wrote the 1985 charity single "We Are the World" with Michael Jackson, which sold over 20 million copies. His third album, Dancing on the Ceiling (1986), spawned the number one single "Say You, Say Me" (from the 1985 film White Nights) and the No. 2 hit title track. From 1986 to 1996, Richie took a break from recording; he has since then released seven studio albums. He has joined the singing competition American Idol to serve as a judge, starting from its sixteenth season (2018 to present).
During his solo career, Richie became one of the most successful balladeers of the 1980s, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. He has won four Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year for "We Are the World", and Album of the Year for Can't Slow Down. "Endless Love" was nominated for an Academy Award; while "Say You, Say Me" won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe award for Best Original Song. In 2016, Richie received the Songwriters Hall of Fame's highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award. In 2022, he received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by the Library of Congress; as well as the American Music Awards Icon Award. He was also inducted into Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
Richie was born on June 20, 1949, in Tuskegee, Alabama, the son of Lionel Brockman Richie (1915–1990), a U.S. Army systems analyst, and Alberta R. Foster (1917–2001), a teacher and school principal. His grandmother Adelaide Mary Brown was a pianist who played classical music. On March 4, 2011, he appeared on NBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, which found out that his maternal great-grandfather was the national leader of an early Black American fraternal organization. Notably, J. Louis Brown was: [P]rincipal organizer and Supreme Grand Archon of the Knights of Wise Men, a fraternal organization for black men in the post-Civil War period. Formed in Nashville in 1879, it was a fraternal insurance and burial benefit society, as were so many others during the period. ...
Source: Article "Lionel Richie" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Jason Nelson Robards Jr. (July 26, 1922 – December 26, 2000) was an American actor. Known as an interpreter of the works of playwright Eugene O'Neill, Robards received two Academy Awards, a Tony Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor. He is one of 24 performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jason Robards, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pernell Elvin Roberts, Jr. (May 18, 1928 – January 24, 2010) was an American stage, movie and television actor as well as singer. In addition to guest starring in over 60 television series, he was widely known for his roles as Ben Cartwright's eldest son, Adam Cartwright, on the western series Bonanza, a role he played from 1959 to 1965 — and as chief surgeon Dr. John McIntyre, the title character on Trapper John, M.D. (1979–1986).
He was also widely known for his life-long activism, which included participation in the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 and pressuring NBC to refrain from hiring whites to portray minority characters.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Pernell Roberts, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Clifford Parker Robertson III (September 9, 1923 – September 10, 2011) was an American actor whose career in film and television spanned half a century. Robertson portrayed a young John F. Kennedy in the 1963 film PT 109, and won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the film Charly. On television, he portrayed retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin in the 1976 adaptation of Aldrin's autobiographic Return to Earth, played a fictional character based on Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms in the 1977 miniseries Washington: Behind Closed Doors, and portrayed Henry Ford in Ford: The Man and the Machine (1987). His last well-known film appearances were as Uncle Ben in the 2002–2007 Spider-Man film trilogy.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Cliff Robertson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Ginger Rogers (July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the twentieth century.
During her long career, she made a total of 73 films and is noted for her role as Fred Astaire's partner in a series of ten musical films. She achieved great success in a variety of film roles and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Kitty Foyle. After winning a 1925 Charleston dance contest that launched a successful vaudeville career, she gained recognition as a Broadway actress for her stage debut in Girl Crazy. This led to a contract with Paramount Pictures, which ended after five films. Rogers had her first successful film role as a supporting actress in 42nd Street.
In the 1930s, Rogers' nine films with Fred Astaire gave RKO Pictures some of its biggest successes, most notably Top Hat and Swing Time. But after two commercial failures with Astaire, she branched out into dramatic and comedy films. Her acting was well received by critics and audiences, and she became one of the biggest box-office draws and highest paid actresses of the 1940s. Her performance in Kitty Foyle won her the Oscar for Best Actress.
Rogers' popularity peaked by the end of the decade. She reunited with Astaire in 1949 in the commercially successful The Barkleys of Broadway. After an unsuccessful period in the 1950s, she returned to Broadway in 1965, playing the lead role in Hello, Dolly!. More Broadway roles followed, along with her stage directorial debut in 1985 of an off-Broadway production of Babes in Arms. She also made television acting appearances until 1987. In 1992, Rogers was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors. She died of a heart attack in 1995, at age 83.
Rogers is associated with the phrase "backwards and in high heels", which is attributed to Bob Thaves' Frank and Ernest 1982 cartoon with the caption "Sure he [Astaire] was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did...backwards and in high heels". This phrase is sometimes incorrectly attributed to Ann Richards, who used it in her keynote address to the 1988 Democratic National Convention.
A Republican and a devout Christian Scientist, Rogers married five times with all of them ending in divorce, and having no children. During her long career, Rogers made 73 films, and her musical films with Astaire are credited with revolutionizing the genre. Rogers was a major movie star during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood and is often considered an American icon. She ranks number 14 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of female stars of classic American cinema. Her autobiography Ginger: My Story was published in 1991.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor, vaudevillian, comedian, producer, and radio personality. In a career spanning nine decades and continuing until shortly before his death, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the silent film era.
At the height of a career that was marked by declines and comebacks, Rooney performed the role of Andy Hardy in a series of 16 films in the 1930s and 1940s that epitomized American family values. A versatile performer, he became a celebrated character actor later in his career. Laurence Olivier once said he considered Rooney "the best there has ever been". Clarence Brown, who directed him in two of his earliest dramatic roles, National Velvet and The Human Comedy, said he was "the closest thing to a genius I ever worked with".
Rooney first performed in vaudeville as a child and made his film debut at the age of six. At 14, he played Puck in the play and later the 1935 film adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Critic David Thomson hailed his performance as "one of the cinema's most arresting pieces of magic". In 1938, he co-starred in Boys Town. At 19, he was the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar for his leading role in Babes in Arms, and he was awarded a special Academy Juvenile Award in 1939. At the peak of his career between the ages of 15 and 25, he made 43 films, which made him one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's most consistently successful actors and a favorite of MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer.
Rooney was the top box-office attraction from 1939 to 1941 and one of the best-paid actors of that era, but his career would never again rise to such heights. Drafted into the Army during World War II, he served nearly two years entertaining over two million troops on stage and radio and was awarded a Bronze Star for performing in combat zones. Returning from the war in 1945, he was too old for juvenile roles but too short to be an adult movie star, and was unable to get as many starring roles. Nevertheless, Rooney's popularity was renewed with well-received supporting roles in films such as Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and The Black Stallion (1979). In the early 1980s, he returned to Broadway in Sugar Babies and again became a celebrated star. Rooney made hundreds of appearances on TV, including dramas, variety programs, and talk shows, and won an Emmy in 1982 plus a Golden Globe for his role in Bill (1981).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jane Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011) was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s.
Russell moved from the Midwest to California, where she had her first film role in 1943 with The Outlaw. In 1947, Russell delved into music before returning to films. After starring in multiple films in the 1950s, Russell again returned to music while completing several other films in the 1960s. She starred in over 20 films throughout her career.
Russell married three times and adopted three children and, in 1955, founded the World Adoption International Fund. For her achievements in film, she received several accolades including having her hand and foot prints immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jane Russell, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Isabel Sanford (born Eloise Gwendolyn Sanford; August 29, 1917 – July 9, 2004) was an American stage, film, and television actress and comedian best known for her role as Louise "Weezy" Mills Jefferson on the CBS sitcoms All in the Family (1971–1975) and The Jeffersons (1975–1985). In 1981, she became the second African-American actress to win a Primetime Emmy Award after Gail Fisher, and so far, the only African-American actress to win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Description above from the Wikipedia article Isabel Sanford, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
John Schneider (born April 8, 1960) is an American actor, producer, director, and singer. He is best known for his roles as Bo Duke on the 1980s series The Dukes of Hazzard along with the spinoff series The Dukes and subsequent TV movie, Doug Monroe in the series Heaven Help Us, Professor Collins in Exit to Eden, Larry Lamont on the series Loving, Paul White in the movie Sydney White, Marshall Bowman on Freeform's The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Jack Kincaid on the series Twentsixmiles, William Beck on the series 10,000 Days, Jonathan Kent on Smallville (2001 television adaptation of Superman), and Jim Cryer on Tyler Perry's The Haves and Have Nots.
He's had a number of recurring roles on TV series including Mistresses, Hot in Cleveland, Desperate Housewives, 90210, Nip/Tuck, Dirty Sexy Money, Touched by an Angel, Diagnosis Murder, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Alongside his acting career, he performed as a country music singer in the 1980s, releasing nine studio albums and a greatest hits package, as well as eighteen singles. This total includes "I've Been Around Enough to Know", "Country Girls", "What's a Memory Like You (Doing in a Love Like This)" and "You're the Last Thing I Needed Tonight", all of which reached the top of the Billboard country singles charts.
Description above from the Wikipedia article John Schneider (television actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Rick Schroder, Jr. (born April 13, 1970) is an American Golden Globe Award-winning actor and film director.
He made is film in The Champ before starring on Silver Spoons. He has continued acting as an adult, notably on Lonesome Dove and NYPD Blue.
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.
William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor, musician, singer, author, film director, spokesman and comedian. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of Captain James Tiberius Kirk, commander of the Federation starship USS Enterprise, in the science fiction television series Star Trek, from 1966 to 1969; Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973 to 1974, and in seven of the subsequent Star Trek feature films from 1979 to 1994. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk and being a part of Star Trek, and has co-written several novels set in the Star Trek universe. He has also authored a series of science fiction novels called TekWar that were adapted for television.
Shatner also played the eponymous veteran police sergeant in T. J. Hooker from 1982 to 1986. Afterwards, he hosted the reality-based television series Rescue 911 from 1989 to 1996, which won a People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Dramatic Series. He has since worked as a musician, author, director and celebrity pitchman. From 2004 to 2008, he starred as attorney Denny Crane in the television dramas The Practice and its spin-off Boston Legal, for which he won two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
Brooke Christa Shields (born May 31, 1965) is an American actress, author and model. Some of her better known movies include Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon, as well as TV shows such as Suddenly Susan, That '70s Show and also Lipstick Jungle.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Brooke Shields, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sylvia Sidney (born Sophia Kosow, August 8, 1910 – July 1, 1999) was an American stage, screen and film actress whose career spanned over 70 years. She rose to prominence in dozens of leading roles in the 1930s. She later gained attention for her role as Juno, a case worker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton's film Beetlejuice, for which she won a Saturn Award as Best Supporting Actress. She also was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexis Smith (June 8, 1921 – June 9, 1993) was a Canadian-born stage, film, and television actress. She appeared in several major Hollywood movies in the 1940s and had a notable career on Broadway in the 1970s, winning a Tony Award in 1972.
Allison Smith's career started on Broadway at the age of nine, in the original production of "Evita", quickly followed by her landing the title role of "Annie" on Broadway in the musical "Annie" at the age of ten. She was the longest-running and youngest star of a Broadway musical at that time, playing the role for over 1,000 performances; nearly 3 years. She's given vocal performances at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Radio City Music Hall, and The White House. After "Annie", she was cast on "Kate and Allie", playing the role of "Jennie Lowell" on CBS for six seasons. Allison recurred in all seven seasons of NBC's The West Wing (1999) as "Mallory O'Brien", the chief of staff's daughter / Sam Seaborn's (Rob Lowe's) love interest. She was in the CBS miniseries Helter Skelter (2004), in which she portrayed real-life Charles Manson murderess Patricia Krenwinkel, and gave a stellar performance starring as the guest in the pilot of The Closer (2005). She has starred in several regular television series: Buddy Faro (1998), Spy Game (1997). She played the lead in the independent feature, A Reason to Believe (1995), and supporting roles in such features as Holes (2003) and Switchback (1997). Other theater work includes starring in the L.A. premiere production of David Mamet's "Oleanna", "QED" opposite Alan Alda at the Mark Taper Forum and with Randy Newman in his musical "The Education of Randy Newman", at South Coast Rep, for which her vocal performance got rave reviews. Also a writer, she was born in New York City and raised in Bergen County, New Jersey.
Lois Maureen Stapleton (June 21, 1925 – March 13, 2006) was an American actress. She was the recipient of an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Tony Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award, and is one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting.
Robert Sterling, born William Sterling Hart (November 13, 1917 – May 30, 2006) was an American film and television actor.
The son of baseball player and umpire Bill Hart, he was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a clothing salesman before pursuing an acting career.
After signing with Columbia Pictures in 1939, he changed his name to Robert Sterling to avoid confusion with silent western star William S. Hart. In 1941, Sterling went to MGM. He worked steadily as a supporting player for several years. After serving in World War II as an Army Air Force flight instructor, he returned to Hollywood, but by the end of the decade, his film career had faltered. He did, however, play the non-singing role of Steve Baker, opposite Ava Gardner as Julie, in the hit MGM 1951 film version of Show Boat.
Sterling later revived his acting career on the small screen with numerous appearances on Television.
James Maitland "Jimmy" Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime Achievement award. He was a major MGM contract star. He also had a noted military career and was a World War II and Vietnam War veteran, who rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the United States Air Force Reserve.
Throughout his seven decades in Hollywood, Stewart cultivated a versatile career and recognized screen image in such classics as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, Harvey, It's a Wonderful Life, Shenandoah, Rear Window, Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo. He is the most represented leading actor on the AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) and AFI's 10 Top 10 lists. He is also the most represented leading actor on the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time list presented by Entertainment Weekly. As of 2007, ten of his films have been inducted into the United States National Film Registry.
Stewart left his mark on a wide range of film genres, including westerns, suspense thrillers, family films, biographies and screwball comedies. He worked for a number of renowned directors later in his career, most notably Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Billy Wilder, Frank Capra, George Cukor, and Anthony Mann. He won many of the industry's highest honors and earned Lifetime Achievement awards from every major film organization. He died at age 89, leaving behind a legacy of classic performances, and is considered one of the finest actors of the "Golden Age of Hollywood". He was named the third Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beatrice Whitney Straight (August 2, 1914 – April 7, 2001) was an American theatre, film, and television actress. Hers remains the shortest acting performance in a film to win an Oscar. In her winning role in the 1976 film Network, she was on screen for five minutes and forty seconds. She also received an Emmy nomination for her role in The Dain Curse. Straight can also be recognized as Dr. Lesh in Poltergeist.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Beatrice Straight, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Lee Strasberg (November 17, 1901 – February 17, 1982) was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective". In 1951, he became director of the non-profit Actors Studio, in New York City, considered "the nation's most prestigious acting school". In 1969, Strasberg founded the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City and in Hollywood to teach the work he pioneered. He is considered the "father of method acting in America," according to author Mel Gussow, and from the 1920s until his death in 1982 "he revolutionized the art of acting by having a profound influence on performance in American theater and movies". From his base in New York, he trained several generations of theatre and film's most illustrious talents, including Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and director Elia Kazan. Former student Elia Kazan directed James Dean in East of Eden (1955), for which Kazan and Dean were nominated for Academy Awards. As a student, Dean wrote that Actors Studio was "the greatest school of the theater [and] the best thing that can happen to an actor". Playwright Tennessee Williams, writer of A Streetcar Named Desire, said of Strasberg's actors, "They act from the inside out. They communicate emotions they really feel. They give you a sense of life." Directors like Sidney Lumet, a former student, have intentionally used actors skilled in Strasberg's "Method". Kazan, in his autobiography, wrote, "He carried with him the aura of a prophet, a magician, a witch doctor, a psychoanalyst, and a feared father of a Jewish home.... [H]e was the force that held the thirty-odd members of the theatre together, and made them 'permanent.'" :61 Today, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, and Harvey Keitel lead this nonprofit studio dedicated to the development of actors, playwrights, and directors.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Lee Strasberg, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Donald McNichol Sutherland (July 17, 1935 – June 20, 2024) was a Canadian actor whose film career spanned over 6 decades. He was nominated for eight Golden Globe Awards, winning two for his performances in the television films Citizen X (1995) and Path to War (2002); the former also earned him a Primetime Emmy Award. An inductee of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Canadian Walk of Fame, he also received a Canadian Academy Award for the drama film Threshold (1981). Multiple film critics and media outlets have cited him as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. In 2017, he received an Academy Honorary Award for his contributions to cinema. In 2021, he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Movie/Miniseries for his work in the HBO miniseries The Undoing (2020).
Sutherland rose to fame after starring in films including The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), Fellini's Casanova (1976), 1900 (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Animal House (1978), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Ordinary People (1980), and Eye of the Needle (1981). He later went on to star in many other films where he appeared either in leading or supporting roles such as A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), A Time to Kill (1996), The Assignment (1997), Without Limits (1998), Big Shot's Funeral (2001), The Italian Job (2003), Cold Mountain (2003), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Aurora Borealis (2006) and The Hunger Games franchise (2012–2015).
He was the father of actors Kiefer Sutherland, Rossif Sutherland, and Angus Sutherland.
Lynn Curtis Swann (born March 7, 1952) is an American former football player, broadcaster, politician, and athletic director, best known for his association with the University of Southern California and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He served on the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition from 2002 to 2005. In 2006, he was the Republican nominee for Governor of Pennsylvania.
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. As one of the world's most famous film stars, Taylor was recognized for her acting ability and for her glamorous lifestyle, beauty and distinctive violet eyes.
National Velvet (1944) was Taylor's first success, and she starred in Father of the Bride (1950), A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for BUtterfield 8 (1960), played the title role in Cleopatra (1963), and married her co-star Richard Burton. They appeared together in 11 films, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), for which Taylor won a second Academy Award. From the mid-1970s, she appeared less frequently in film, and made occasional appearances in television and theatre.
Her much publicized personal life included eight marriages and several life-threatening illnesses. From the mid-1980s, Taylor championed HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honour, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, who named her seventh on their list of the "Greatest American Screen Legends". Taylor died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79.
The highly regarded actor Daniel J. Travanti was born Danielo Giovanni Travanty in the southeastern part of Wisconsin on March 7, 1940, but raised for a time in Iowa before returning to his native state. The youngest son of an American Motors auto worker, he showed both athletic and academic prowess in high school on both the football and debate teams.
It was during the course of his studies at the University of Wisconsin that Dan first developed a strong, abiding interest in drama, appearing in many college plays while there. He, in fact, turned down top football scholarships in order to pursue his acting dream. Following training at the Yale School of Drama, he co-starred as Nick with Colleen Dewhurst in a touring company of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in 1965 and he was off and running.
Cicely Louise Tyson (December 19, 1924 – January 28, 2021) was an American actress. In a career which spanned more than seven decades in film, television and theatre, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson received various awards including three Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Tony Award, an Honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Cicely Tyson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Liv Johanne Ullmann (born 16 December 1938) is a Norwegian actress and film director. Recognised as one of the greatest European actresses, Ullmann is known for her numerous acclaimed collaborations with filmmaker Ingmar Bergman.
Ullmann won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama in 1972 for the film The Emigrants (1971), and has been nominated for another four. In 2000, she was nominated for the Palme d'Or for her second directorial feature film, Faithless. She has also received two BAFTA Award nominations, for her performances in Scenes from a Marriage (1973) and Face to Face (1976), and two Academy Award nominations, for The Emigrants and Face to Face. On March 25, 2022, Ullmann was presented with an Honorary Academy Award in recognition of her "bravery and emotional transparency that has gifted audiences with deeply affecting screen portrayals".
Description above from the Wikipedia article Liv Ullmann, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov CBE ( 16 April 1921 – 28 March 2004) was an English actor, writer and dramatist. He was also renowned as a filmmaker, theatre and opera director, stage designer, author, screenwriter, comedian, humourist, newspaper and magazine columnist, radio broadcaster and television presenter. A noted wit and raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. He was also a respected intellectual and diplomat who, in addition to his various academic posts, served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and President of the World Federalist Movement. Ustinov was the winner of numerous awards over his life, including two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor, Emmy Awards, Golden Globes and BAFTA Awards for acting, a Grammy Award for best recording for children, as well the recipient of governmental honours from, amongst others, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. He displayed a unique cultural versatility that has frequently earned him the accolade of a Renaissance man. Miklós Rózsa, composer of the music for Quo Vadis and of numerous concert works, dedicated his String Quartet No. 1, Op. 22 (1950) to Ustinov. In 2003, shortly before his death in 2004, Durham University renamed its Graduate Society as Ustinov College in honour of the significant contributions Sir Peter had made while serving as Chancellor of the University from 1992 onwards. Description above from the Wikipedia article Peter Ustinov, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ben Vereen (born October 10, 1946) is an American actor, dancer, and singer who has appeared in numerous Broadway theatre shows. Vereen graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts.
Jack Warden (born John Warden Lebzelter Jr.; September 18, 1920 – July 19, 2006) was an American actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). He received a BAFTA nomination for the former, and won a Primetime Emmy Award for his performance in Brian's Song (1971).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jack Warden, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work—despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood. His distinctive directorial style featured layered, nonlinear narrative forms, innovative uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unique camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots, and long takes. Welles's long career in film is noted for his struggle for artistic control in the face of pressure from studios. Many of his films were heavily edited and others left unreleased. He has been praised as a major creative force and as "the ultimate auteur."
After directing a number of high-profile theatrical productions in his early twenties, including an innovative adaptation of Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock, Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds performed for the radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety.
Citizen Kane (1941), his first film with RKO, in which he starred in the role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, including The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Touch of Evil (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1965), and F for Fake (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces.
In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics, and a wide survey of critical consensus, best-of lists, and historical retrospectives calls him the most acclaimed director of all time. Andrew Sarris in his influential book of film criticism The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968 included him in the "pantheon" of the 14 greatest film directors who had worked in the United States. Well known for his baritone voice, Welles was also an extremely well regarded actor and was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest American film actors of all time. He was also a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor and an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time. He received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.
Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles during the mid-1970s, and released several comedy albums including Reality ... What a Concept in 1980. He rose to fame playing the alien Mork in the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978–1982). He received his first leading film role in Popeye (1980). Williams went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting (1997). His other Oscar-nominated roles were for Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991).
Williams starred in the critically acclaimed dramas The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990), Patch Adams (1998), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), and World's Greatest Dad (2009). He also starred in family films such as Hook (1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Jack (1996), Flubber (1997), RV (2006), and the Night at the Museum trilogy (2006–2014). He lent his voice to the animated films Aladdin (1992), Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), and its 2011 sequel.
Williams was found dead at his home in Paradise Cay, California, in August 2014, at the age of 63. At the time of his suicide, he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. According to his widow, Williams had experienced depression, anxiety, and increasing paranoia. His autopsy found "diffuse Lewy body disease" and Lewy body dementia professionals said his symptoms were consistent with dementia with Lewy bodies.
Richard Treat Williams (December 1, 1951 – June 12, 2023) was an American actor, author, and aviator. Williams' accolades include nominations for two Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globes, a Primetime Emmy, two Satellite Awards, and an Independent Spirit Award. He appeared in over 75 films and several television series. Williams' career included numerous stage roles.
On June 12, 2023, Williams was involved in a motorcycle crash on Vermont Route 30, near Dorset. According to the Vermont State Police, a 2008 Honda Element in the southbound lane turned into the path of Williams' motorcycle in the northbound lane, who was unable to avoid colliding with it. He was airlifted to Albany Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at the age of 71.
[biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]
Henry Franklin Winkler (born October 30, 1945) is an American actor, director, producer, and author.
Winkler is best known for his role as Fonzie on the 1970s American sitcom Happy Days. "The Fonz," a leather-clad greaser and auto mechanic, started out as a minor character at the show's beginning but had achieved top billing by the time the show ended.
