Joseph James Dante Jr. (born November 28, 1946) is an American filmmaker, producer, editor and actor. His films—notably Gremlins (1984) alongside its sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)—often mix the 1950s-style B movie genre with 1960s radicalism and cartoon comedy.
Dante's output includes the films Piranha (1978), The Howling (1981), Explorers (1985), Innerspace (1987), The 'Burbs (1989), Matinee (1993), Small Soldiers (1998), and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003). His work for television and cable include the social satire The Second Civil War (1997), episodes of the anthology series Masters of Horror ("Homecoming" and "The Screwfly Solution") and Amazing Stories, as well as Police Squad! and Hawaii Five-0.
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Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American film composer, singer, songwriter, and musician. He came to prominence as the lead vocalist and primary songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since scoring his first studio film in 1985, Elfman has garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall.
Elfman has frequently worked with directors Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, and Gus Van Sant, contributing music to nearly 20 Burton projects, including Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish, and Alice in Wonderland, as well as scoring Raimi's Darkman, A Simple Plan, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Van Sant's Academy Award-winning films Good Will Hunting and Milk. He wrote music for all of the Men in Black and Fifty Shades of Grey franchise films, the songs and score for Henry Selick's animated musical The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the themes for the popular television series Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons.
Among his honours are four Oscar nominations, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy, seven Saturn Awards for Best Music, the 2002 Richard Kirk Award, the 2015 Disney Legend Award, the Max Steiner Film Music Achievement Award in 2017, and the Society of Composers & Lyricists Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022.
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June Foray (born June Lucille Forer; September 18, 1917 – July 26, 2017) was an American voice actress. She was best known as the voice of such animated characters as Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale, Nell Fenwick, Lucifer from Disney's Cinderella, Cindy Lou Who, Jokey Smurf, Granny from the Warner Bros. cartoons directed by Friz Freleng, Grammi Gummi from Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears series, and Magica De Spell, among many others.
Her career encompassed radio, theatrical shorts, feature films, television, records (particularly with Stan Freberg), video games, talking toys, and other media. Foray was also one of the early members of ASIFA-Hollywood, the society devoted to promoting and encouraging animation. She is credited with the establishment of the Annie Awards, as well as being instrumental in the creation of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2001. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame honoring her voice work in television.
Chuck Jones was quoted as saying: "June Foray is not the female Mel Blanc. Mel Blanc was the male June Foray."
Foray died at the age of 99. She had been in declining health since an automobile accident in 2015.
[biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]
Isadore "Friz" Freleng (1906–1995), sometimes credited as I. Freleng, was an American animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros. He introduced and/or developed several of the studio's biggest stars, including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Yosemite Sam (to whom he was said to bear more than a passing resemblance) and Speedy Gonzales. The senior director at Warners' Termite Terrace studio, Freleng directed more cartoons than any other director in the studio (a total of 266), and is also the most honored of the Warner directors, having won four Academy Awards. After Warners shut down the animation studio in 1963, Freleng and business partner David H. DePatie founded DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which produced cartoons (notably The Pink Panther Show), feature film title sequences, and Saturday morning cartoons through the early 1980s. The nickname "Friz" came from his friend Hugh Harman, who initially nicknamed him "Congressman Frizby" after a fictional senator that was in articles in the Los Angeles Examiner. Over time this shortened to "Friz".
An American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, and talk show host. Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple (1985) playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her first Golden Globe Award for her role in the film. In 1990, she starred as Oda Mae Brown, a psychic helping a slain man (Patrick Swayze) find his killer in the blockbuster film Ghost. This performance won her a second Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Notable later films include Sister Act and Sister Act 2, The Lion King, Made in America, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Girl, Interrupted and Rat Race. She is also acclaimed for her roles as the bartender Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Terry Dolittle in Jumpin' Jack Flash. Her latest role is the voice of Stretch in Toy Story 3. Goldberg has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards for her work in television. She was co-producer of the popular game show Hollywood Squares from 1998 to 2004. She has been the moderator of the daytime talk show The View since 2007. Goldberg has a Grammy, two Emmys, two Golden Globes, a Tony, and an Oscar. In addition, Goldberg has a British Academy Film Award, four People's Choice Awards and has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award.
Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening (born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama.
Groening made his first professional cartoon sale of Life in Hell to the avant-garde Wet magazine in 1978. The cartoon is still carried in 250 weekly newspapers. Life in Hell caught the attention of James L. Brooks. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation for the Fox variety show The Tracey Ullman Show. Originally, Brooks wanted Groening to adapt his Life in Hell characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening decided to create something new and came up with a cartoon family, The Simpsons, and named the members after his own parents and sisters — while Bart was an anagram of the word brat. The shorts would be spun off into their own series: The Simpsons, which has since aired over 480 episodes. In 1997, Groening, along with former Simpsons writer David X. Cohen, developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000, which premiered in 1999. After four years on the air, the show was canceled by Fox in 2003, but Comedy Central commissioned 16 new episodes from four direct-to-DVD movies in 2008. Then, in June 2009, Comedy Central ordered 26 new episodes of Futurama, to be aired over two seasons.
Groening has won 11 Primetime Emmy Awards, ten for The Simpsons and one for Futurama as well as a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for his work on Life in Hell.
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Steven Robert Guttenberg (born August 24, 1958) is an American actor, author, businessman, producer, and director. He is known for his lead roles in Hollywood films of the 1980s and 1990s, including Cocoon, Police Academy, Three Men and a Baby, Three Men and a Little Lady, Diner, The Bedroom Window, The Big Green, and Short Circuit.
While still in high school, he attended a summer program at the Juilliard School and studied under John Houseman. After graduating from high school, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. He made his film debut in 1978 in the drama The Boys from Brazil. His breakthrough role came in 1980, when he starred in the comedy Diner. He then went on to star in a string of successful films, including Cocoon, Police Academy, Three Men and a Baby, and Short Circuit.
In the 1990s, his career slowed down, but he continued to work steadily in film and television. He has appeared in such films as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Day After, and Ballers. He has also had recurring roles on the television series Veronica Mars, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and The Goldbergs.
In addition to his acting career, he is also a businessman and producer. He is the co-founder of the production company Guttenflick Pictures. He is also the author of two books, The Guttenberg Bible and The Kids from DISCO.
Guttenberg is married to WCBS-TV reporter Emily Smith. They have been together since 2014 and were married in 2019.
Ronald William Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American filmmaker and actor. Howard first came to prominence as a child actor, guest-starring in several television series, including an episode of The Twilight Zone. He gained national attention for playing young Opie Taylor, the son of Sheriff Andy Taylor (played by Andy Griffith) in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show from 1960 through 1968. During this time, he also appeared in the musical film The Music Man (1962), a critical and commercial success. He was credited as Ronny Howard in his film and television appearances from 1959 to 1973.
Howard was cast in one of the lead roles in the coming-of-age film American Graffiti (1973), which received widespread acclaim and became one of the most profitable films in history. The following year, Howard became a household name for playing Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days, a role he would play from 1974 through 1984. Howard continued appearing in films during this time, such as the western film The Shootist (1976) and the comedy film Grand Theft Auto (1977), which also marked his directorial debut.
In 1984, Howard left Happy Days to focus on directing, producing and occasionally writing variety films and television series. His films include the science-fiction/fantasy Cocoon (1985), the fantasy Willow (1988), the thriller Backdraft (1991), the historical docudrama Apollo 13 (1995), the Christmas comedy How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), the biographical drama A Beautiful Mind (2001), the biographical sports drama Cinderella Man (2005), the thriller The Da Vinci Code (2006), the historical drama Frost/Nixon (2008), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), and the documentary Pavarotti (2019). For A Beautiful Mind, Howard won the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Picture. He was nominated again for the same awards for Frost/Nixon.
In 2003, Howard was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2013. Howard has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions in the television and motion pictures industries.
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Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones (September 21, 1912 – February 22, 2002) was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio. He directed many of the classic short animated cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester, Pepé Le Pew and a slew of other Warner characters. Three of these shorts (Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening and What's Opera, Doc?) were later inducted into the National Film Registry. Chief among Jones' other works was the famous "Hunting Trilogy" of Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit, Duck! (1951–1953).
After his career at Warner Bros. ended in 1962, Jones started Sib Tower 12 Productions and began producing cartoons for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including a new series of Tom and Jerry shorts and the television adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. He later started his own studio, Chuck Jones Productions, which created several one-shot specials, and periodically worked on Looney Tunes related works.
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur. Lucas is known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012.
After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his youth in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.
Lucas's next film, the epic space opera Star Wars (1977), had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and co-wrote the sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). With director Steven Spielberg, he created, produced and co-wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989) and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). He also produced and wrote a variety of films and television series through Lucasfilm between the 1970s and the 2010s.
In 1997, Lucas rereleased the Star Wars trilogy as part of a special edition featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with a Star Wars prequel trilogy comprising The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). He last collaborated on the CGI-animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2014, 2020), the war film Red Tails (2012), and the CGI film Strange Magic (2015).
Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered a significant figure of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement.
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Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is best known for his eponymous annual book of movie capsule reviews, Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, which was published annually from 1969 to 2014.
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Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall (17 September 1928 – 3 October 1998) was an English-American actor, director, and photographer. He is best known for portraying Cornelius and Caesar in the original Planet of the Apes film series, as well as Galen in the spin-off television series.
Maurice James Noble (May 1, 1910 – May 19, 2001) was an American animation production designer, background artist and layout designer whose contributions to the industry spanned more than 60 years. He was a long-time associate and right-hand man of animation director Chuck Jones, especially at Warner Bros. including Disney, MGM, Walter Lantz and Hanna-Barbera in the 1950s. His work contributed to such cartoon classics as Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, What's Opera, Doc? and the Road Runner series.
[biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia; indicated birth/death dates reflect adjustments to match Mr. Noble's grave marker dates]
Gary Roger Rydstrom (born June 29, 1959) is an American sound designer and director. He has won 7 Academy Awards for his work in sound for picture.
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Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, writer and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spielberg is the recipient of various accolades, including three Academy Awards, a Kennedy Center honor, four Directors Guild of America Awards, two BAFTA Awards, a Cecil B. DeMille Award and an AFI Life Achievement Award. Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He moved to California and studied film in college. After directing several episodes for television including Night Gallery and Columbo, he directed the television film Duel (1971) which gained acclaim from critics and audiences. He made his directorial film debut with The Sugarland Express (1974), and became a household name with the 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws. He then directed huge box office successes Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the Indiana Jones original trilogy (1981-89). Spielberg subsequently explored drama in the acclaimed The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987).
After a brief hiatus, Spielberg directed the science fiction thriller Jurassic Park (1993), the highest-grossing film ever at the time, and the Holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993), which has often been listed as one of the greatest films ever made. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the latter and for the 1998 World War II epic Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg continued in the 2000s with science fiction films A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005). He also directed the adventure films The Adventures of Tintin (2011) and Ready Player One (2018); the historical dramas Amistad (1997), Munich (2005), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017); the musical West Side Story (2021); and the semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans (2022). He has been a producer on several successful films, including Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) as well as the miniseries Band of Brothers (2001).
Spielberg co-founded Amblin Entertainment and DreamWorks, and has served as a producer for many successful films and television series. He is also known for his long collaboration with the composer John Williams, with whom he has worked for all but five of his feature films. Several of Spielberg's works are among the highest-grossing and greatest films all time. Premiere ranked him first place in the list of 100 Most Powerful People in Movies in 2003. In 2013, Time listed him as one of the 100 most influential people.