Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. (February 17, 1925 – January 23, 2021) was an American actor, television director, and writer. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show he developed, Mark Twain Tonight!, performing as Mark Twain, while studying at Denison University. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1966 for his portrayal of Twain. He would continue to perform his signature role for over 60 years, only retiring the show in 2017 due to his failing health. Throughout his career, he also won five Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on television and was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in film.
Holbrook made his film debut in Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966). He later gained international fame for his performance as Deep Throat in the 1976 film All the President's Men. He played Abraham Lincoln in the 1976 miniseries Lincoln and 1985 miniseries North and South. He also appeared in such films as Julia (1977), The Fog (1980), Creepshow (1982), Wall Street (1987), The Firm (1993), Hercules (1997), and Men of Honor (2000).
Holbrook's role as Ron Franz in Sean Penn's Into the Wild (2007) earned him both Academy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor. In 2009, Holbrook received critical acclaim for his performance as recently retired farmer Abner Meecham in the independent film That Evening Sun. He also portrayed Francis Preston Blair in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012).
In 2003, Holbrook was honored with the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush.
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Barbara Hale is an American actress best known for her role as legal secretary Della Street on more than 250 episodes of the long-running Perry Mason television series and later reprising the role in 30 made-for-TV movies.
Hale was born in DeKalb, Illinois, to Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener, and his wife, Wilma Colvin. She is of Scots-Irish ancestry. Hale graduated from high school in Rockford, Illinois, then attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, planning to become an artist. Her performing career began in Chicago when she started modeling to pay for her education. She moved to Hollywood in 1943, and made her first screen appearances playing small parts (often uncredited).
Hale was under contract to RKO Radio Pictures through the late 1940s. She appeared in Higher and Higher (1943) with Frank Sinatra; played leading lady to Robert Mitchum in West of the Pecos (1945); enjoyed top billing in both Lady Luck (1946) opposite Robert Young and The Window (1949) with Arthur Kennedy; and co-starred in Jolson Sings Again (1949), with Larry Parks playing Al Jolson and Hale as Jolson's wife, Ellen Clark. She played the top-billed title role in Lorna Doone (1951) and portrayed Julia Hancock in The Far Horizons (1955) with Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston.
Her flourishing movie career more or less ended when Hale accepted her best known role, Della Street, secretary to attorney Perry Mason, in the TV series with Raymond Burr. The show ran from 1957 to 1966, and she reprised the role in several television movies. Her last performance to date was in 2000 at age 78. In 1967 she guest starred on the ABC series Custer. Hale also had a featured role in the 1970 ensemble film Airport, playing the wife of a jetliner pilot (Dean Martin).
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David Anthony "Tony" Roberts (born October 22, 1939) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in several Woody Allen movies, usually cast as Allen's best friend.
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Victoria Jackson (born August 2, 1959) is an American comedian, actress, and singer best known as a cast member of the NBC television sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL) from 1986 to 1992.
Starting in 2008, she has appeared on various television shows. She has received attention as a vocal critic of President Barack Obama, an active participant in the Tea Party movement, and a vocal proponent of Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories.
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David Rasche (born August 7, 1944) is an American theater, film, and television actor who is best known for his portrayal of the title character in the 1980s satirical police sitcom Sledge Hammer! Since then he has often played characters in positions of authority, in both serious and comical turns. In television he is known for his main role as Karl Muller in the HBO drama series Succession, as well as recurring and guest performances in L.A. Law, Monk, The West Wing, Veep, and Ugly Betty.
Holland Virginia Taylor (born January 14, 1943) is an American actress. She won the 1999 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Judge Roberta Kittleson on ABC's The Practice (1998–2003). For her portrayal of Evelyn Harper on the CBS comedy Two and a Half Men (2003–15), she received a total of four Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
Taylor's other notable television credits include starring roles on the sitcoms Bosom Buddies (1980–82), The Powers That Be (1992–93) and The Naked Truth (1995–98). She also appeared as Jill Ollinger on the soap opera All My Children (1981–83), as Peggy Peabody on The L Word (2004–08), and as Ida Silver on Mr. Mercedes (2017–19). In 2020, she received critical praise and her eighth Primetime Emmy Award nomination for portraying Ellen Kincaid in the Netflix miniseries Hollywood.
Taylor's feature film credits include Romancing the Stone (1984) and its sequel (1985), Alice (1990), To Die For (1995), One Fine Day (1996), George of the Jungle (1997), The Truman Show (1998), Happy Accidents (2000), Keeping the Faith (2000), Legally Blonde (2001), The Wedding Date (2005), Baby Mama (2008), Gloria Bell (2018), Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020), and The Stand In (2020).
Taylor wrote and starred in the one-woman play, Ann, based on the life and work of Ann Richards. For this, she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress.
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James McEachin was born on May 20, 1930 in Rennert, North Carolina. At the age of 18 he joined the US Armed Forces and served in the Korean War earning many medals of valor to include the Purple Heart and Silver Star. After leaving the military he spent time as a policeman and then fireman before moving to California and becoming a record producer. After a short stint in the music industry McEachin went into acting and spent many years in film and television. Not yet content he took time away from acting to become an award-winning author and maker of audio books. In 2005 McEachin was appointed as a US Army Reserve Ambassador and spends his free time speaking to soldiers, veterans and America. In late 2006 he produced the film-short Old Glory, a film short for the soldier, veteran and patriot in us all. In 2008 McEachin opened his one-man play, Above the Call; Beyond the Duty at the John F. Kennedy Center, Washington, DC and his since played Casa Manana, Ft. Worth, TX, Brentwood Theater, Los Angeles, CA, and Merle Reskin Theatre, Chicago, IL.
McEachin is married with three grown children and resides in So Cal.
John Laughlin (born April 3, 1953), sometimes credited as John C. McLaughlin or John McLaughlin, is an American film and television actor.
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The dedication of Sal Viscuso to the craft of acting can be dated to a singular evening in 1967. A college freshman, he happened upon a teleplay of Ronald Ribman's CBS Playhouse: The Final War of Olly Winter (1967) and was so inspired by Ivan Dixon's Emmy-winning rendition of the title role that he entered the drama department the very next day, later explaining, "I felt that there I had found my family." He earned his BA from the University of California at Davis, then went on to study with Olympia Dukakis at NYU School of the Arts, from which he graduated with an MFA.
Opportunities presented themselves rapidly, and Sal made his film debut in the classic The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). An introduction to Burt Metcalfe, associate producer of the iconic series M*A*S*H (1972), led to his move to Los Angeles, and soon Sal was a regular on NBC's sitcom The Montefuscos (1975). He was an off-screen loudspeaker announcer (as well as various other characters) on M*A*S*H (1972); appeared in Gene Wilder's homage to 1920's Hollywood, The World's Greatest Lover (1977); improvised in Robert Altman's Three Women (1977); and played multiple parts on the beloved Barney Miller (1975) (one of which was written especially for him by the show's creator, Danny Arnold).
He was also to feature in what TIME magazine has rated as one of the "Top 100 TV shows of all time," Susan Harris's Soap (1977). His vocationally challenged Father Timothy Flotsky (and the show's depiction of one of the first openly gay characters on network television), created instant controversy that attracted 19 million viewers to the series premiere. Shortly thereafter, Sal commenced his professional association with the Bancroft/Brooks combine of talent, first appearing in Anne Bancroft's Fatso (1980), and then in Mel Brooks' Spaceballs (1987), about which he has remarked, "I continue to get more attention from that project than from anything I've ever done!"
Dyan Cannon (born Samille Diane Friesen; January 4, 1937) is an American actress. Her accolades include a Saturn Award, a Golden Globe Award, three Academy Award nominations, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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