Her story is well-known — the lonely child who yearned for affection and approval which she finally seemed to find as Hollywood's greatest love goddess. But even though she scaled heights few could even dream of, she was one of the loneliest of stars.
04-19-1986
1h 0m
THIS
HELLA
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Directors:
Suzette Winter, Gene Feldman
Writers:
Suzette Winter, Gene Feldman
Production:
Wombat Productions, DeVillier Donegan Enterprizes, Cinemax, Janson Media
Key Crew
Executive Producer:
Ron Devillier
Executive Producer:
Stephen Janson
Executive Producer:
Brian Donegan
Sound:
Pawel Wdowczak
Associate Producer:
Stephen Janson
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson; 1 June 1926 – 4 August 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2021) by the time of her death in 1962. Long after her death, Monroe remains a major icon of pop culture. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her sixth on their list of the greatest female screen legends from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Multiple film critics and media outlets have cited Monroe as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in a total of 12 foster homes and an orphanage; she married at age sixteen. She was working in a factory during World War II when she met a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career, which led to short-lived film contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in late 1950. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. She faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photographs prior to becoming a star, but the story did not damage her career and instead resulted in increased interest in her films.
By 1953, Monroe was one of the most marketable Hollywood stars; she had leading roles in the film noir Niagara, which overtly relied on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her star image as a "dumb blonde". The same year, her nude images were used as the centerfold and on the cover of the first issue of Playboy. She played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, but she was disappointed when she was typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project but returned to star in The Seven Year Itch (1955), one of the biggest box office successes of her career.
When the studio was still reluctant to change Monroe's contract, she founded her own film production company in 1954. She dedicated 1955 to building the company and began studying method acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Later that year, Fox awarded her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary. Her subsequent roles included a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop (1956) and her first independent production in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her role in Some Like It Hot (1959), a critical and commercial success. Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits (1961).
Richard Widmark (December 26, 1914 – March 24, 2008) was an American actor of films, stage, radio and television.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death. Early in his career Widmark specialized in similar villainous or anti-hero roles in films noir, but he later branched out into more heroic leading and support roles in westerns, mainstream dramas and horror films, among others.
At his death, Widmark was the earliest surviving Oscar nominee in the Supporting Actor category, and one of only two left from the 1940s (the other having been James Whitmore). For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Widmark has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
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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.
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Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom in silent films during the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" after 1927. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.
Bow appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as Mantrap (1926), It (1927), and Wings (1927). She was named first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929 and second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930. Her presence in a motion picture was said to have ensured investors, by odds of almost two-to-one, a "safe return". At the apex of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters in a single month (January 1929).
Two years after marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada. Her final film, Hoop-La, was released in 1933. In September 1965, Bow died of a heart attack at the age of 60.
Carl Henry Vogt (February 19, 1895 – May 12, 1956), known professionally as Louis Calhern, was an American stage and screen actor. For portraying Oliver Wendell Holmes in the film The Magnificent Yankee (1950), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Calhern began working in silent films for director Lois Weber in the early 1920s; the most notable being The Blot in 1921. A 1921 newspaper article commented, "The new arrival in stardom is Louis Calhern, who, until Miss Weber engaged him to enact the leading male role in What's Worth While?, had been playing leads in the Morosco Stock company of Los Angeles."
In 1923 Calhern left the movies, but would return to the screen eight years later after the advent of sound pictures. He was primarily cast as a character actor in films while he continued to play leading roles on the stage. He reached his peak in the 1950s as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player. Among his many memorable screen roles were Ambassador Trentino in the Marx Brothers classic Duck Soup (1933) and three that he appeared in at MGM in 1950: a singing role as Buffalo Bill in the film version of the musical Annie Get Your Gun, the double-crossing lawyer and sugar-daddy to Marilyn Monroe in John Huston's film noir The Asphalt Jungle, and his Oscar-nominated performance as Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Magnificent Yankee (re-creating his role from the Broadway stage). He was also praised for his portrayal of the title role in the John Houseman production of Julius Caesar (adapted from the Shakespeare play) in 1953, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Calhern also played the role of the devious George Caswell, the manipulative board member of Tredway Corporation in the 1954 production of Executive Suite.
Calhern's other film roles included the grandfather in The Red Pony (1949), adapted from the novel by John Steinbeck and starring Robert Mitchum, and the spy boss of Cary Grant in the Alfred Hitchcock suspense classic Notorious (1946). A performance as Uncle Willie in High Society (1956), a musical remake of The Philadelphia Story, turned out to be his final film.
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Charles Douville Coburn (June 19, 1877 – August 30, 1961) was an American film and theatre actor. Best known for his work in comedies, Coburn received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1943's The More the Merrier.
Coburn was born in Macon, Georgia, the son of Scotch-Irish Americans Emma Louise Sprigman (May 11, 1838 Springfield, Ohio – November 12, 1896 Savannah, Georgia) and Moses Douville Coburn (April 27, 1834 Savannah, Georgia – December 27, 1902 Savannah, Georgia). Growing up in Savannah, he started out at age 14 doing odd jobs at the local Savannah Theater, handing out programs, ushering, or being the doorman. By age 17 or 18, he was the theater manager. He later became an actor, making his debut on Broadway in 1901. Coburn formed an acting company with actress Ivah Wills in 1905. They married in 1906. In addition to managing the company, the couple performed frequently on Broadway.
After his wife's death in 1937, Coburn relocated to Los Angeles, California and began film work. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a retired millionaire playing Cupid in The More the Merrier in 1943. He was also nominated for The Devil and Miss Jones in 1941 and The Green Years in 1946. Other notable film credits include Of Human Hearts (1938), The Lady Eve (1941), Kings Row (1942), The Constant Nymph (1943), Heaven Can Wait (1943), Wilson (1944), Impact (1949), The Paradine Case (1947), Everybody Does It (1950), Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952), Monkey Business (1952), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and John Paul Jones (1959). He usually played comedic parts, but Kings Row and Wilson were dramatic parts, showing his versatility.
For his contributions to motion pictures, in 1960, Coburn was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6268 Hollywood Boulevard.
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Elisha Vanslyck Cook, Jr. (December 26, 1903 – May 18, 1995) was an American character actor who made a career out of playing cowardly villains and weedy neurotics in dozens of films. He was perhaps most noted for his portrayal of the "gunsel" Wilmer, who tries to intimidate Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.
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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.
Joseph Paul DiMaggio (born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio; November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999), nicknamed "Joltin' Joe", "the Yankee Clipper", and "Joe D.", was an American baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees. He is widely considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time and is best known for setting the record for the longest hitting streak in baseball (56 games from May 15 – July 16, 1941), which still stands today.
He was a three-time American League (AL) Most Valuable Player Award winner and an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons. During his tenure with the Yankees, the club won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships. His nine career World Series rings are second only to fellow Yankee Yogi Berra, who won ten.
At the time of his retirement after the 1951 season, he ranked fifth in career home runs (361) and sixth in career slugging percentage (.579). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955 and was voted the sport's greatest living player in a poll taken during baseball's centennial year of 1969. His brothers Vince (1912–1986) and Dom (1917–2009) were also major league center fielders.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces on February 17, 1943, rising to the rank of sergeant. He spent most of his military career playing for baseball teams and in exhibition games, and superiors gave him special privileges due to his prewar fame. Embarrassed by his lifestyle, he requested that he be given a combat assignment but was turned down. He was released on a medical discharge in September 1945, due to chronic stomach ulcers.
In January 1937, he met actress Dorothy Arnold on the set of Manhattan Merry-Go-Round. He announced their engagement on April 25, 1939, they married on November 19, 1939, and had a son, Joseph Paul DiMaggio Jr. (1941–1999). They divorced in 1944, while he was on leave from the Yankees during World War II.
He and actress Marilyn Monroe eloped on January 14, 1954. The union was troubled from the start by his jealousy and controlling attitude; he was also physically abusive. After returning from New York City to Hollywood in October 1954, she filed for divorce after only nine months of marriage. He underwent therapy, stopped drinking alcohol, and expanded his interests beyond baseball.
He reentered her life as her marriage to Arthur Miller was ending. On February 10, 1961, he secured her release from Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in Manhattan. She joined him in Florida where he was a batting coach for the Yankees. Their "just friends" claim did not stop remarriage rumors from flying. Bob Hope "dedicated" Best Song nominee "The Second Time Around" to them at the 33rd Academy Awards.
According to Maury Allen's biography, he was told that DiMaggio left his employ on August 1, 1962, because he had decided to ask Monroe to remarry him. Four days later, on August 5, she was found dead in her Brentwood home.
Devastated, he claimed her body and arranged for her funeral. He barred Hollywood's elite and members of the Kennedy family from attending, including President John F. Kennedy. He had a half-dozen red roses delivered to her crypt three times a week for 20 years. He refused to talk about her publicly or otherwise exploit their relationship. He never married again.
Tom Ewell (born Samuel Yewell Tompkins) was an American stage, screen, and television actor. He is noted for having Starred alongside two of Classic Hollywood's Iconic Bombshells, first reprising his stage role in The Seven Year Itch (1955), which he starred Opposite Marilyn Munroe in what is considered one of her most iconic roles and then the following year The Girl Can't Help it (1956) alongside Jayne Mansfield in her breakthrough role. Ewell had 70 credits in film and television.
William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901 – November 16, 1960) was an American film actor. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Gable seventh among the greatest male stars of all time.
Gable's most famous role was Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh. His performance earned him his third nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor; he won for It Happened One Night (1934) and was also nominated for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Later performances were in Run Silent, Run Deep, a submarine war film, and his final film, The Misfits (1961), which paired Gable with Marilyn Monroe, also in her last screen appearance.
During his long film career, Gable appeared opposite some of the most popular actresses of the time. Joan Crawford, who was his favorite actress to work with, was partnered with Gable in eight films, Myrna Loy was with him seven times, and he was paired with Jean Harlow in six productions. He also starred with Lana Turner in four features, and with Norma Shearer in three. Gable was often named the top male star in the mid-30s, and was second only to the top box-office draw of all, Shirley Temple.
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Betty Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model, and singer. Grable was enrolled in Clark's Dancing School at the age of three. At age 13, Grable and her mother set out for Hollywood with the hopes of stardom. There she landed several minor parts in films such as Whoopee!, New Movietone Follies of 1930, Happy Days and Let's Go Places.
In 1932, she signed with RKO Radio Pictures. The bit parts continued for the next three years until Grable was cast in By Your Leave. One of her big roles was in College Swing.. When she landed the role of Glenda Crawford in Down Argentine Way, the public finally took notice of her. Stardom came through comedies such as Coney Island and Sweet Rosie O'Grady. Her famous pin-up pose during World War II adorned barracks all around the world. With that pin-up and as the star of lavish musicals, Betty became the highest-paid star in Hollywood in 1947. Later her studio 20th Century-Fox insured her legs for a million dollars.
Betty continued to be popular until the mid-1950s, when musicals went into a decline. Her last film was How to Be Very, Very Popular. She then concentrated on Broadway and nightclubs.
She was married to actor Jackie Coogan (1937–1939) and musician Harry James (1943–1965).
Betty Grable died at age 56 of lung cancer on July 2, 1973.
Jean Harlow (born Harlean Harlow Carpenter; March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) was an American actress. Known for her portrayal of "bad girl" characters, she was the leading sex symbol of the early 1930s and one of the defining figures of the pre-Code era of American cinema. Often nicknamed the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde", Harlow was popular for her "Laughing Vamp" screen persona. Though her screen persona changed dramatically during her career, one constant was her sense of humor. She was given superior movie roles to show off her looks and nascent comedic talent. Harlow was in the film industry for only nine years, but she became one of the biggest stars in the US, whose image in the public eye has endured. Harlow was consistently voted one of the strongest box office draws in the United States from 1933 onward, often surpassing that of MGM's top leading ladies, such as Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer. Her movies also continued to make huge profits at the box office even during the middle of the Depression. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Harlow No. 22 on its greatest female screen legends of classical Hollywood cinema list.
Darryl Hickman (July 28, 1931 - May 21, 2024) emerged as a prominent American actor whose career transitioned from childhood stardom to adult roles. Starting in the industry at a young age, he showcased his talent in notable films like "The Grapes of Wrath" and "The Human Comedy." Hickman's versatility allowed him to navigate between acting and later, directing, contributing to television shows such as "The Wonderful World of Disney" and "Gunsmoke." His passion for the craft extended to writing, publishing insightful books on the entertainment business and being an acting coach. Hickman's enduring career spanned decades, marking him not only as a seasoned performer but also as a multifaceted contributor to the entertainment world.
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).
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Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname The Great Stone Face. He was recognized as the seventh-greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Keaton the 21st-greatest male star of all time.
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.
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Joshua Lockwood Logan III (October 5, 1908 – July 12, 1988) was an American stage and film director and writer.
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Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian.
Martin's hit singles included Memories Are Made of This, That's Amore, Everybody Loves Somebody, Mambo Italiano, Sway, Volare and Ain't That a Kick in the Head.
Nicknamed the King of Cool, he was one of the members of the Rat Pack and a major star in concert stage/night clubs, recordings, motion pictures, and television.
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977) was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers.He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born. He also had a successful solo career, most notably as the host of the radio and television game show You Bet Your Life. His distinctive appearance, carried over from his days in vaudeville, included quirks such as an exaggerated stooped posture, glasses, cigars, and a thick greasepaint mustache and eyebrows.
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Victor John Mature was an American stage, film and television actor.
In July 1942 Mature attempted to enlist in the U.S. Navy but was rejected for color blindness. He enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard after taking a different eye test the same day. He was assigned to the USCGC Storis (WMEC-38), which was doing Greenland patrol work. After 14 months aboard the Storis, Mature was promoted to the rate of Chief Boatswain's Mate. In 1944 he did a series of War Bond tours and acted in morale shows. He assisted Coast Guard recruiting efforts by being a featured player in the musical revue "Tars and Spars" which opened in Miami, Florida in April of 1944 and toured the United States for the next year. In May 1945 Mature was reassigned to the Coast Guard manned troop transport USS Admiral H. T. Mayo (AP-125) which was involved in transferring troops to the Pacific Theater. Mature was honorably discharged from the Coast Guard in November 1945 and he resumed his acting career.
Film career
After the war, Mature was cast by John Ford in My Darling Clementine, playing Doc Holliday opposite Henry Fonda's Wyatt Earp. For the next decade, Mature settled into playing hard-boiled characters in a range of genres such as Westerns and Biblical films, such as The Robe (with Richard Burton and Jean Simmons) and its popular sequel, Demetrius and the Gladiators (with Susan Hayward). Mature also starred with Hedy Lamarr in Cecil B. DeMille's Bible epic, Samson and Delilah (1949) and as Horemheb in The Egyptian (1954) with Jean Simmons and Gene Tierney. He reportedly stated he was successful in Biblical epics because he could "make with the holy look".
He also starred with Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and, according to her autobiography, had a romantic relationship with her.
After five years of retirement, he was lured back into acting by the opportunity to parody himself in After the Fox (1966), co-written by Neil Simon. In a similar vein in 1968 he played a giant, The Big Victor, in Head, a potpourri movie starring The Monkees. The character poked fun at both his screen image and, reportedly, RCA Victor who distributed Colgems Records, the Monkees's label. Mature enjoyed the script while admitting it made no sense to him, stating "All I know is it makes me laugh."
Mature was famously self-deprecatory about his acting skills. Once, after being rejected for membership in a country club because he was an actor, he cracked, "I'm not an actor — and I've got sixty-four films to prove it!" He was quoted in 1968 on his acting career: "Actually, I am a golfer. That is my real occupation. I never was an actor. Ask anybody, particularly the critics."
Victor Mature died of leukemia in 1999, at his Rancho Santa Fe, California home, at the age of 86. He was buried in the family plot at St. Michael's Cemetery in his hometown of Louisville.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Victor Mature has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6780 Hollywood Blvd.
Gary Fred Merrill (August 2, 1915 – March 5, 1990) was an American film and television character actor whose credits included more than fifty feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances.
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Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter.
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Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time. Mitchum is largely remembered for his starring roles in several major works of the film noir style, and is considered a forerunner of the anti-heroes prevalent in film during the 1950s and 1960s.
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Donald Patrick "Don" Murray (July 31, 1929-February 2, 2024) was an American actor.
Murray was born in Hollywood, California. He attended East Rockaway High School (class of 1947) in East Rockaway, New York where he played football and track, was a member of the student government and glee club and joined the Alpha Phi Chapter of the Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity. From high school he went on to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Murray had a long and varied career in films and television, including his role as Sid Fairgate in the long-running prime-time soap opera Knots Landing from 1979 to 1981. He was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actor in Bus Stop (1956) in which he co-starred with Marilyn Monroe.
He starred as a blackmailed United States senator in Advise & Consent (1961), a film version of a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Allen Drury that was directed by Otto Preminger and cast Murray opposite Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton. He also co-starred with Steve McQueen in the film Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) and played the ape-hating Governor Breck in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972).
In addition to acting, Murray directed a film based on the book The Cross and the Switchblade (1970) starring Pat Boone and Erik Estrada, and he scripted two episodes of Knots Landing ("Hitchhike" parts 1 & 2) in 1980.
Murray starred with Otis Young in the ground breaking ABC western television series The Outcasts (1968-69) featuring an interracial bounty hunter team in the post-Civil War West.
Murray decided to leave Knots Landing after two years to concentrate on other projects, although some sources say he left over a salary dispute. The character's death was notable at the time because it was considered rare to "kill off" a star character. The death came in the second episode of season three, following up on season two's cliffhanger in which Sid's car careered off a cliff. To make viewers off doubt the character would actually die, Murray was listed in the newly created credit sequence for season three; the character survived the plunge off the cliff (thus temporarily reassuring viewers), but died shortly afterwards in hospital.
Although he effectively distanced himself from the series after his exit in 1981, Murray later contributed an interview segment for Knots Landing: Together Again, a non-fiction reunion special made in 2005.
Murray was the first husband of actress Hope Lange. They had two children, including actor Christopher Murray.
Tommy Noonan (born Thomas Noone ( April 29, 1921 – April 24, 1968) was a comedy genre film performer, screenwriter and producer. He acted in a 65 projects including high-profile films as well as B movies from the 1940s through the 1960s and he made several tv appearances also; he is best known for his supporting performances as Gus Esmond, wealthy fiancé of Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe), in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and as musician Danny McGuire in A Star Is Born (1954). In addition to starring alongside Marilyn Monroe, Noonan is also noted for having played love interests to Jayne Mansfield in Promises..... Promises! (1963) and Mamie Van Doren in 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt (Which he also directed) (1964), making him the only actor to play love interests to the 3 former who were dubbed the 3 Ms of Golden Age Hollywood.
Sheree North (January 17, 1932 – November 4, 2005) was an American actress, singer, and dancer.
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Arthur O'Connell (March 29, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an American stage and film actor. He appeared in films (starting with a small role in Citizen Kane) in 1941 and television programs (mostly guest appearances). Among his screen appearances were Picnic, Anatomy of a Murder, and as the watch-maker who hides Jews during WWII in The Hiding Place.
A veteran vaudevillian, O'Connell, from New York City, made his legitimate stage debut in the mid 1930s, at which time he fell within the orbit of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. Welles cast O'Connell in the tiny role of a reporter in the closing scenes of Citizen Kane (1941), a film often referred to as O'Connell's film debut, though in fact he had already appeared in Freshman Year (1939) and had costarred in two Leon Errol short subjects as Leon's conniving brother-in-law.
After numerous small movie parts, O'Connell returned to Broadway, where he appeared as the erstwhile middle-aged swain of a spinsterish schoolteacher in Picnic - a role he'd recreate in the 1956 film version, earning an Oscar nomination in the process. Later the jaded looking O'Connell was frequently cast as fortyish losers and alcoholics; in the latter capacity he appeared as James Stewart's boozy attorney mentor in Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and the result was another Oscar nomination. In 1962 O'Connell portrayed the father of Elvis Presley's character in the motion picture Follow That Dream, and in 1964 in the Presley-picture Kissin' Cousins.
O'Connell continued appearing in choice character parts on both TV and films during the 1960s, but avoided a regular television series, holding out until he could be assured top billing. He appeared as Joseph Baylor in the 1964 episode "A Little Anger Is a Good Thing" on the ABC medical drama about psychiatry, Breaking Point. The actor accepted the part of a man who discovers that his 99-year-old father has been frozen in an iceberg on the 1967 sitcom The Second Hundred Years, assuming he'd be billed first per the producers' agreement. Instead, top billing went to newcomer Monte Markham in the dual role of O'Connell's father and his son. O'Connell accepted the demotion to second billing as well as could be expected, but he never again trusted the word of any Hollywood executive.
Ill health forced O'Connell to significantly reduce his acting appearances in the mid '70s, but the actor stayed busy as a commercial spokesman, a friendly pharmacist who was a spokesperson for Crest toothpaste. At the time of his death from Alzheimer's disease in California in May 1981, O'Connell was appearing solely in these commercials, by his own choice.
O'Connell was buried in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York.
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Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft and John Gielgud, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles. Late in his career, he had considerable success in television roles.
His family had no theatrical connections, but Olivier's father, a clergyman, decided that his son should become an actor. After attending a drama school in London, Olivier learned his craft in a succession of acting jobs during the late 1920s. In 1930 he had his first important West End success in Noël Coward's Private Lives, and he appeared in his first film. In 1935 he played in a celebrated production of Romeo and Juliet alongside Gielgud and Ashcroft, and by the end of the decade he was an established star. In the 1940s, together with Richardson and John Burrell, Olivier was the co-director of the Old Vic, building it into a highly respected company. There his most celebrated roles included Shakespeare's Richard III and Sophocles's Oedipus. In the 1950s Olivier was an independent actor-manager, but his stage career was in the doldrums until he joined the avant garde English Stage Company in 1957 to play the title role in The Entertainer, a part he later played on film. From 1963 to 1973 he was the founding director of Britain's National Theatre, running a resident company that fostered many future stars. His own parts there included the title role in Othello (1965) and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1970).
Among Olivier's films are Wuthering Heights (1939), Rebecca (1940), and a trilogy of Shakespeare films as actor-director: Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948), and Richard III (1955). His later films included The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), Sleuth (1972), Marathon Man (1976), and The Boys from Brazil (1978). His television appearances included an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence (1960), Long Day's Journey into Night (1973), Love Among the Ruins (1975), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976), Brideshead Revisited (1981) and King Lear (1983).
Olivier's honours included a knighthood (1947), a life peerage (1970) and the Order of Merit (1981). For his on-screen work he received four Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, five Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. The National Theatre's largest auditorium is named in his honour, and he is commemorated in the Laurence Olivier Awards, given annually by the Society of London Theatre. He was married three times, to the actresses Jill Esmond from 1930 to 1940, Vivien Leigh from 1940 to 1960, and Joan Plowright from 1961 until his death.
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Jean Peters (October 15, 1926 – October 13, 2000) was an American actress, known as a star of 20th Century Fox in the late 1940s and early 1950s and as the second (or possibly third) wife of Howard Hughes. Although possibly best remembered for her siren role in Pickup on South Street (1953), Peters was known for her resistance to be turned into a sex symbol, preferring to play unglamorous, down-to-earth women.
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her life and served as monarch of 15 of them at the time of her death. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days is the longest of any British monarch and the longest recorded of any female head of state in history.
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Gregory Ratoff (20 April 1897 — 14 December 1960) was a Russian-born American film director, actor and producer. His most famous role as an actor was as producer Max Fabian who feuds with star Margo Channing (Bette Davis) in All About Eve (1950).
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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.
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Robert Bushnell Ryan (November 11, 1909 – July 11, 1973) was an American actor who often played hardened cops and ruthless villains.
Ryan was born in Chicago, Illinois, the first child of Timothy Ryan and his wife Mabel Bushnell Ryan. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1932, having held the school's heavyweight boxing title all four years of his attendance. After graduation, the 6'4" Ryan found employment as a stoker on a ship, a WPA worker, and a ranch hand in Montana.
Ryan attempted to make a career in show business as a playwright, but had to turn to acting to support himself. He studied acting in Hollywood and appeared on stage and in small film parts during the early 1940s.
In January 1944, after securing a contract guarantee from RKO Radio Pictures, Ryan enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served as a drill instructor at Camp Pendleton, in San Diego, California. At Camp Pendleton, he befriended writer and future director Richard Brooks, whose novel, The Brick Foxhole, he greatly admired. He also took up painting.
Ryan's breakthrough film role was as an anti-Semitic killer in Crossfire (1947), a film noir based on Brooks's novel. The role won Ryan his sole career Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. From then on, Ryan's specialty was tough/tender roles, finding particular expression in the films of directors such as Nicholas Ray, Robert Wise and Sam Fuller. In Ray's On Dangerous Ground (1951) he portrayed a burnt-out city cop finding redemption while solving a rural murder. In Wise's The Set-Up (1949), he played an over-the-hill boxer who is brutally punished for refusing to take a dive. Other important films were Anthony Mann's western The Naked Spur, Sam Fuller's uproarious Japanese set gangland thriller House of Bamboo, Bad Day at Black Rock, and the socially conscious heist movie Odds Against Tomorrow. He also appeared in several all-star war films, including The Longest Day (1962) and Battle of the Bulge (1965), and The Dirty Dozen. He also played John the Baptist in MGM's Technicolor epic King of Kings (1961) and was the villainous Claggart in Peter Ustinov's adaptation of Billy Budd (1962).
In his later years, Ryan continued playing significant roles in major films. Most notable of these were The Dirty Dozen, The Professionals (1966) and Sam Peckinpah's highly influential brutal western The Wild Bunch (1969).
Ryan appeared several times on the Broadway stage. His credits there include Clash by Night, Mr. President and The Front Page, the comedy drama about newspapermen.
He appeared in many television series as a guest star, including the role of Franklin Hoppy-Hopp in the 1964 episode "Who Chopped Down the Cherry Tree?" on the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour. Similarly, he guest starred as Lloyd Osment in the 1964 episode "Better Than a Dead Lion" in the ABC psychiatric series, Breaking Point. In 1964, Ryan appeared with Warren Oates in the episode "No Comment" of CBS's short-lived drama about newspapers, The Reporter, starring Harry Guardino in the title role of journalist Danny Taylor. Ryan appeared five times (1956–1959) on CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater and twice (1959 and 1961) on the Zane Grey spin-off Frontier Justice. He appeared three times (1962–1964) on the western Wagon Train.
George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a British film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His career as an actor spanned over forty years. His heavy upper-class English accent and smooth bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters. He is perhaps best known as Jack Favell in Rebecca (1940), Scott ffolliott in Foreign Correspondent (1940, a rare heroic part), The Saran of Gaza in Samson and Delilah (1949), the most popular film of the year, Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950, for which he won an Oscar), Sir Brian De Bois-Guilbert in Ivanhoe (1952), King Richard the Lionheart in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), Mr. Freeze in a two-parter episode of Batman (1966), the voice of the malevolent man-hating tiger Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967), the suave crimefighter The Falcon during the 1940s (a role eventually bequeathed to his elder brother, Tom Conway), and Simon Templar, The Saint, in five films made in the 1930s and 1940s.
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Max Showalter (June 2, 1917 – July 30, 2000), also credited as Casey Adams, was an American film, television, and stage actor, as well as a composer, pianist, and singer. One of Showalter's most memorable roles was as Jean Peters' character's husband in the 1953 film Niagara.
Barbara Stanwyck (July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress. A film and television star, she was known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence and was a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra. After a short stint as a stage actress, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood, before turning to television. Stanwyck was nominated for the Academy Award four times, and won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. She was the recipient of honorary lifetime awards from the Motion Picture Academy, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Golden Globes, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Screen Actors Guild, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is ranked as the eleventh greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.
Susan Elizabeth Strasberg (May 22, 1938 – January 21, 1999) was an American actress.
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Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926) was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik.
His sudden death at age 31 caused mass hysteria among his female fans, propelling him into icon status. Though his films are not as well known today, his name is still widely known.
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David Wayne (January 30, 1914 – February 9, 1995) was an American actor with a career spanning nearly 50 years.
Early life and career
Wayne was born Wayne James McMeekan in Traverse City, Michigan, the son of Helen Matilda (née Mason) and John David McMeekan. He grew up in Bloomingdale, Michigan. Wayne's first major Broadway role was Og the leprechaun in Finian's Rainbow, for which he won the Theatre World Award and the first ever Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. While appearing in the play, he and co-star Albert Sharpe were recruited by producer David O. Selznick to play Irish characters in the film Portrait of Jennie (1948).
It was in 1948 as well that Wayne became one of those fortunate 50 applicants (out of approximately 700) granted membership in New York's newly formed Actors Studio. He was awarded a second Tony for Best Actor in a Play for The Teahouse of the August Moon and was nominated as Best Actor in a Musical for The Happy Time. He originated the role of Ensign Pulver in the classic stage comedy Mister Roberts and also appeared in Say, Darling, After the Fall, and Incident at Vichy.
Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American actress whose career spanned almost six decades. She appeared in numerous films, and won Academy Awards for The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and A Patch of Blue (1965), and received nominations for A Place in the Sun (1951) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972). Other roles Winters appeared in include A Double Life (1947), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Lolita (1962), Alfie (1966), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), and Pete's Dragon (1977). In addition to film, Winters appeared in television, including a years-long tenure on the sitcom Roseanne, and also authored three autobiographical books.
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