From its distinctive neighborhoods to its architectural homes, Los Angeles has been the backdrop to countless movies. In this dazzling work, Andersen takes viewers on a whirlwind tour through the metropolis' real and cinematic history, investigating the myriad stories and legends that have come to define it, and meticulously, judiciously revealing the real city that lives beneath.
07-28-2004
2h 49m
THIS
HELLA
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Thom Andersen
Writer:
Thom Andersen
Key Crew
Producer:
Thom Andersen
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Unknown Actor
Known For
Ben Alexander
Nicholas Benton "Ben" Alexander III (June 27, 1911 – July 5, 1969) was an American motion picture actor, who started out as a child actor in 1916. He is best remembered for his role as Officer Frank Smith in the Dragnet franchise.
Jim Backus (1913–1989) was a radio, television, film, and voice actor.
Among his most famous credits are The Alan Young Radio Show, I Married Joan, Gilligan's Island, and Rebel Without a Cause. He also starred on his own show The Jim Backus Show.
Brenda Jean Bakke (born May 15, 1963) is an American actress better known for her role as Lana Turner in L.A. Confidential.
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Barbara O. Jones, also known as Barbarao, Barbara-O, and Barbara O., is an American actor from Ohio[1] best known for her work in the films of the L.A. Rebellion movement of 1970s black filmmakers, starring in films by Haile Gerima and Julie Dash.[2] She also appeared on television alongside Muhammad Ali in Freedom Road and had smaller roles in other films including Demon Seed and on television
Gene Barry (June 14, 1919 – December 9, 2009) was an American stage, screen, and television actor. Barry is known for his portrayal of the title character in the TV series Bat Masterson, among many roles.
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John Richard Basehart (August 31, 1914 – September 17, 1984) was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.
One of his most notable film roles was the acrobat known as "the Fool" in the acclaimed Italian film La strada directed by Federico Fellini. He also appeared as the killer in the film noir classic He Walked by Night (1948), as a psychotic member of the Hatfield clan in Roseanna McCoy (1949), as Ishmael in Moby Dick (1956), and in the drama Decision Before Dawn (1951). He was married to Italian Academy Award-nominated actress Valentina Cortese, with whom he had one son before their divorce in 1960. Cortese and Basehart also costarred in Robert Wise's The House on Telegraph Hill (1951).
Basehart was also noted for his deep, distinctive voice and was prolific as a narrator of many television and movie projects ranging from features to documentaries. In 1980, Basehart narrated the mini-series written by Peter Arnett called Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War that covered Vietnam and its battles from the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945 to the final American embassy evacuation on April 30, 1975. He appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Knight Rider as billionaire Wilton Knight. He is the narrator at the beginning of the show's credits.
In 1971, Basehart played "Captain Sligo", a comical Irishman with a pet buffalo who negotiates a flawed but legal cattle purchase and unconventionally courts a widow with two children, played by Salome Jens, in CBS's western series, Gunsmoke, with James Arness. Basehart appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, and as Hannibal Applewood, an abusive schoolteacher in Little House on the Prairie in 1976.
In 1972, he appeared in the Columbo episode Dagger of the Mind in which he and Honor Blackman played a husband-and-wife theatrical team who were loose parodies of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. In the feature realm, he played a supporting role as a doctor in Rage (1972), a theatrical feature starring and directed by George C. Scott. He made a few TV movies including Sole Survivor (1970) and The Birdmen (1971). Both were based on true stories during World War II.
He died at age 70 following a series of strokes. One month before his death, Basehart was an announcer for the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
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Eugene Hugh Beaumont (February 16, 1909 – May 14, 1982) was an American actor and television director. He was also licensed to preach by the Methodist church. Beaumont is best known for his portrayal of Ward Cleaver on the 1957-1963 television series Leave It to Beaver. He had earlier played the role of the private detective Michael Shayne in a series of films in the 1940s.
William Bendix (January 14, 1906 – December 14, 1964) was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley. He also received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for Wake Island (1942).
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Ann Marie Blyth (born August 16, 1928) is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
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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.
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Lon Chaney, Jr. (February 10, 1906 – July 12, 1973), born Creighton Tull Chaney, was an American character actor. He was best known for his roles in monster movies and as the son of famous silent film actor, Lon Chaney. He is notable for playing Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man movies. Originally credited in films as Creighton Chaney, he was first credited as "Lon Chaney, Jr." in 1935. Chaney had English, French and Irish ancestry.
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William Henry "Bill" Cosby Jr. (born July 12, 1937) is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer and convicted sex offender. He got his start as a nightclub stand-up comic before landing a starring role in the action show I Spy (1965-1968). After various film and television roles, Cosby's greatest success came when he produced and starred in The Cosby Show (1984-1992), a popular sitcom that highlighted the experiences and growth of an upper-middle-class African-American family. Due to this role, he was widely dubbed "America's Dad." After the show ended, he produced and starred in multiple other shows and films. He was a sought-after spokesman from the 1960s until the early 2000s, endorsing a number of products including Jell-O, Kodak film, Ford, Texas Instruments, and Coca-Cola.
Cosby has received several awards including 5 Primetime Emmy Awards, 2 Daytime Emmy Awards, 9 Grammy Awards, 2 Golden Globe Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contribution to television (2002), and several honorary degrees from colleges and universities. Many of his awards have been rescinded due to numerous sexual assault allegations, including the 1998 Kennedy Center Honor, the 2009 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and all but 10 of 72 honorary degrees. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expelled him as a member of the Actors Branch in May 2018.
Approximately 60 women have accused Cosby of various forms of sexual assault in alleged incidents spanning from 1965 to 2008. These allegations became highly publicized in 2014, leading to several civil suits and criminal investigations for cases that had not yet reached the statute of limitations. Many networks, including NBC, removed reruns of The Cosby Show from their schedules. In April of 2018, Cosby was sentenced to three to ten years in prison for multiple counts of aggravated indecent assault. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the conviction in June 2021 due to violation of a prior prosecutorial agreement that Cosby's previous civil suit testimony—in which he admitted to giving drugs to women he wanted to have sex with—would not be used in the criminal trial. He was released from prison later that month after serving almost three years of the sentence and maintains his innocence in all accusations. As of August 2021, there is still one known active civil suit against Cosby.
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Robert Martin Culp (August 16, 1930 – March 24, 2010) was an American actor, scriptwriter, voice actor and director, widely known for his work in television. Culp earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy (1965–1968), the espionage series in which he and co-star Bill Cosby played a pair of secret agents. He also had a recurring role as Warren Whelan on Everybody Loves Raymond.
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Howard Green Duff (November 24, 1913 – July 8, 1990) was an American actor of film, television, stage, and radio.
Duff was born in Charleston, Washington, now a part of Bremerton. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in Seattle in 1932 where he began acting in school plays only after he was cut from the basketball team. His first film role was as an inmate in Brute Force. His other movies include The Naked City (1948), All My Sons (1948), Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949), Panic in the City (1968), In Search of America (1971), A Wedding (1978) and No Way Out (1987).
He appeared in a number of films with his first wife, actress/director Ida Lupino. One of Duff's later performances was as Dustin Hoffman's attorney in the Academy Award-winning Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).
On radio, Duff played Dashiell Hammett's private eye Sam Spade from 1946–1950, starring in The Adventures of Sam Spade on three different networks - ABC, CBS and NBC. In 1951 Steve Dunne took over the role of Sam Spade. Duff also appeared in an episode of Climax! entitled Escape From Fear in 1955.
On television, Duff appeared with his then wife Ida Lupino in the CBS comedy Mr. Adams and Eve from January 1957 through September 1958, in which they played husband and wife film stars named Howard Adams and Eve Drake. He played the young Samuel Langhorne Clemens, in his early life in the West as a satirical and crusading journalist, in the TV series Bonanza ("Enter Mark Twain," season 1, episode 5, 1959). In 1960 he played the male main character in The Twilight Zone episode "A World of Difference" as Arthur Curtis/Jerry Raigan. From October 1960 through April 1961, Duff played Willie Dante, owner of the San Francisco nightclub, Dante's Inferno, in the NBC adventure/drama series Dante. In 1964, Duff guest starred as Harold Baker on the episode "Prodigy" of NBC's medical drama about psychiatry The Eleventh Hour, starring Jack Ging and Ralph Bellamy. In 1990, he guest starred on an episode of The Golden Girls (episode: The Mangiacavallo Curse Makes a Lousy Wedding Present).
From September 1966 through January 1969, Duff portrayed Detective Sergeant Sam Stone in the ABC police drama Felony Squad with costar Dennis Cole. In the 1980s, he appeared on dramas such as NBC's Flamingo Road and Knots Landing, and Dallas, both on CBS.
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Edna Mae Durbin (December 4, 1921 – April 17, 2013), known professionally as Deanna Durbin, was a Canadian-born actress and singer, who moved to the USA with her family in infancy. She appeared in musical films in the 1930s and 1940s. With the technical skill and vocal range of a legitimate lyric soprano, she performed many styles from popular standards to operatic arias. In 1946, Durbin was the second-highest-paid woman in the United States, just behind Bette Davis; her fan club ranked as the world's largest during her active years.
Durbin was a child actress who made her first film appearance with Judy Garland in Every Sunday (1936), and subsequently signed a contract with Universal Studios. She achieved success as the ideal teenaged daughter in films such as Three Smart Girls (1936), One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937), and It Started with Eve (1941). Her work was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy, and led to Durbin being awarded the Academy Juvenile Award in 1938.
As she matured, Durbin grew dissatisfied with the girl-next-door roles assigned to her and attempted to move into sophisticated non-musical roles with film noir Christmas Holiday (1944) and the whodunit Lady on a Train (1945). These films, produced by frequent collaborator and second husband Felix Jackson, were not as successful; she continued in musical roles until her retirement. Upon her retirement and divorce from Jackson in 1949, Durbin married producer-director Charles Henri David and moved to a farmhouse near Paris. She withdrew from public life, granting only one interview on her career in 1983.
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John Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkle, March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an American actor who played brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in Depression-era New York City. In the early 1930s, he became a member of the Group Theater. In 1937, he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner Bros.' stars. Called to testify before the U.S. Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), he denied communist affiliation and refused to "name names", effectively ending his film career. Some have alleged that the stress of this incident led to his premature death at 39 from a heart attack. Garfield is acknowledged as a predecessor of such Method actors as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and James Dean.
Biagio Anthony Gazzarra (August 28, 1930 – February 3, 2012), known as Ben Gazzara, was an American film, stage, and television actor and director. His best known films include Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Voyage of the Damned (1976), Inchon (1981), Road House (1989), The Big Lebowski (1998), Happiness (1998), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Summer of Sam (1999), Dogville (2003) and Paris, je t'aime (2006). He was a recurring collaborator with John Cassavetes, working with him on Husbands (1970), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) and Opening Night (1977).
As the star of the television series Run for Your Life (1965-1968), Gazzarra was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and two Emmy Awards. He won his first, and only, Emmy Award for his role in the television film Hysterical Blindness (2002).
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Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner, generally known as Marjoe Gortner (born January 14, 1944, in Long Beach, California), is a former revivalist who first gained a certain fame in the late 1940s when he became the youngest ordained preacher at the age of four. He then gained outright notoriety in the 1970s when he starred in an Oscar-winning, behind-the-scenes documentary about the lucrative business of Pentecostal preaching. The name "Marjoe" is a portmanteau of the names "Mary" and "Joseph".
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Oliver Norvell Hardy (born Norvell Hardy, January 18, 1892 – August 7, 1957) was an American comic actor and one half of Laurel and Hardy, the double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted from 1927 to 1951. He appeared with his comedy partner Stan Laurel in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles. He was credited with his first film, Outwitting Dad, in 1914. In some of his early works, he was billed as "Babe Hardy".
Oliver Hardy died from cerebral thrombosis on August 7, 1957, at age 65. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 1500 Vine Street, Hollywood, California.
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.
Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope KBE, KC*SG, KSS (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was an American comedian, actor, and entertainer. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films—54 in which he starred. These included a series of seven Road to... musical comedy films with Bing Crosby as Hope's top-billed partner.
In addition to hosting the Academy Awards show 19 times, more than any other host, Hope appeared in many stage productions and television roles and wrote 14 books. The song "Thanks for the Memory" was his signature tune.
Hope was born in the Eltham district of southeast London. He arrived in the United States with his family at the age of four, and grew up near Cleveland, Ohio. After a brief stint in the late 1910s as a boxer, Hope began his career in show business in the early 1920s, initially as a comedian and dancer on the vaudeville circuit, before acting on Broadway. Hope began appearing on radio and in films starting in 1934. He was praised for his comedic timing, specializing in one-liners and rapid-fire delivery of jokes that were often self-deprecating. He helped establish modern American stand-up comedy.
Between 1941 and 1991, Hope made 57 tours for the United Service Organizations (USO), entertaining active duty U.S. military personnel around the world. In 1997, the United States Congress passed a bill that made Hope an honorary veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces. Hope appeared in numerous television specials for NBC during his career and was one of the first users of cue cards.
Hope retired from public life in 1998 and died on July 27, 2003, at the age of 100.
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Lauren Hutton (born November 17, 1943) is an American model and actress. She is best-known for her starring roles in the movies American Gigolo and Lassiter, and also for her fashion modeling career.
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Henry Jaglom is a London-born American film director and playwright.
Jaglom was born to a Jewish family in London, England, the son of Marie (née Stadthagen) and Simon M. Jaglom, who worked in the import-export business. His father was from a wealthy family from Russia and his mother was from Germany. They left for England because of the Nazi regime. Through his mother, he is a descendant of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.
Jaglom trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York, where he acted, wrote and directed off-Broadway theater and cabaret before settling in Hollywood in the late 1960s. Under contract to Columbia Pictures, Jaglom featured in such TV series as Gidget and The Flying Nun and acted in a number of films which included Boris Sagal's The Thousand Plane Raid (1969), Jack Nicholson's Drive, He Said (1971), Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie (1971), Orson Welles' never-completed The Other Side of the Wind and more.
Jaglom's transition from acting in films to creating them was largely influenced by his experience watching the Italian film 8½ (1963). “The film changed my identity. I realized that what I wanted to do was make films. Not only that, but I realized what I wanted to make films about: my own life, to some extent.”
Jaglom began his filmmaking career working with Nicholson on the editing of Hopper's Easy Rider (1969), and made his writing/directing debut with A Safe Place (1971), starring Tuesday Weld, Nicholson and Welles. His next film, Tracks (1976), starred Hopper and was one of the earliest movies to explore the psychological cost on America of the Vietnam War. His third film, the first to be a commercial success, was Sitting Ducks (1980), a comic romp.
Jaglom co-starred in four of his most personal films—Always, But Not Forever (1985), Someone to Love (1987) starring Orson Welles in his farewell film performance, New Year's Day (1989), which introduced David Duchovny, and Venice/Venice (1992) opposite French star Nelly Alard.
In 1983, Jaglom taped lunch conversations with Orson Welles at Los Angeles's Ma Maison. Edited transcripts of these sessions appear in Peter Biskind's book My Lunches With Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles (2013).
As a playwright, has written four plays that have been successfully performed on Los Angeles stages: The Waiting Room (1974), A Safe Place (2003), Always—But Not Forever (2007) and Just 45 Minutes from Broadway (2009/2010). Jaglom is the subject of the Henry Alex Rubin's and Jeremy Workman's documentary Who Is Henry Jaglom? (1997).
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David Janssen was born David Harold Meyer in 1931 in Naponee, Nebraska, to Berniece Mae (Graf) and Harold Edward Meyer, a banker. He was of German, and some Swiss-German and Ulster-Scots, descent. David took the surname of his stepfather, Eugene Janssen. The Janssen family settled in Hollywood when he was a teenager and he attended Fairfax High School, where he developed an interest in acting. His film debut was a bit part in It's a Pleasure (1945), and at the age of 18 signed a contract with 20th Century-Fox. However, the studio dropped him after allegedly becoming disenchanted with his odd hairline and big prominent ears. Janssen had better luck at Universal, where he signed on in the early 1950s and became a supporting player in 32 films before appearing on TV as the star of Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1956). He resumed his movie career in 1961, a year after the series ended. His biggest success came from his lead in the series The Fugitive (1963), playing the haunted, hunted Dr. Richard Kimble, on the run for a murder he didn't commit. After the series ended, Janssen launched himself into a grueling schedule by appearing in lead and supporting roles in movies, but he had better luck with made-for-TV-movie roles and a short-lived series, O'Hara, U.S. Treasury (1971). He had another hit series with the cult favorite Harry O (1973). Janssen continued appearing in lead roles in nearly 20 made-for-TV-movies during the 1970s as well as other TV projects. He died in 1980 from a sudden heart attack at his Malibu home at the age of 48. Unfounded speculation holds that Janssen succumbed to alcoholism, a problem that plagued him most of his adult life. There were even unfounded rumors about drug use. However, a much more reasonable explanation for David Janssen's sudden demise is that this intense, dedicated, determined actor simply worked himself to death.
From an IMDB Mini-Bio for David Janssen
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Peter Edward Ostling (born July 22, 1944), also known as Peter Jason, is an American character actor. He has appeared in over one hundred television shows and eighty films. He played Con Stapleton in the series Deadwood. He was a frequent collaborator with Walter Hill and John Carpenter on their films, eight and six times respectively. He voiced Sergeant Dornan in the video game Fallout 2. Jason starred in supporting roles for the films 48 Hrs. and Arachnophobia.
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Roy Jenson was born on February 9, 1927 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is known for his work on Chinatown (1974), Soylent Green (1973) and Harper (1966). He was married to Marina Petrova and Barbara Dionysius. He died on April 24, 2007 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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).
Alan Walbridge Ladd was an American actor and film and television producer. Ladd found success in film the 1940s and early 1950s, particularly in Westerns and film noirs where he was often paired with Veronica Lake, as she was one of the few Hollywood actresses shorter than he. His popularity diminished in the late 1950s, though he continued to appear in popular films until his death from cerebral edema in January 1964.
Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, but later relocated to North Hollywood, California when his mother re-married. He worked briefly as a studio carpenter (as did his stepfather) and for a short time was part of the Universal Pictures studio school for actors. Intent on acting, he found work in small theatres. He had short term stints at MGM and RKO, and eventually started getting steady work on radio. Ladd began by appearing in dozens of films in small roles, including Citizen Kane , before reaching recognition for his 1942 appearance in This Gun for Hire, invigorating Hollywood's desire for gangster-crime features. His cool, unsmiling persona proved popular with wartime audiences, and he was quickly established as one of the top box office stars of the decade.
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Stan Laurel (born Arthur Stanley Jefferson, 16 June 1890 – 23 February 1965) was an English comic actor, writer, and film director who was part of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. He appeared with his comedy partner Oliver Hardy in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles.
Laurel began his career in music hall, where he developed a number of his standard comic devices, including the bowler hat, the deep comic gravity, and the nonsensical understatement. His performances polished his skills at pantomime and music hall sketches. He was a member of "Fred Karno's Army", where he was Charlie Chaplin's understudy. He and Chaplin arrived in the United States on the same ship from the United Kingdom with the Karno troupe.
Laurel began his film career in 1917 and made his final appearance in 1951. From 1928 onwards he appeared exclusively with Hardy, and Laurel officially retired from the screen following his comedy partner's death in 1957.
In 1961 Laurel was given a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award for his pioneering work in comedy, and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
In 2009, a bronze statue of the Laurel and Hardy duo was unveiled in Laurel's hometown of Ulverston, England.
Asian American actor & stuntman has picked up a cult fan following based around his numerous appearances in high voltage action flicks from the mid-1980s onwards. Al nearly always turns up as a bad guy with his lean muscled physique, incredible agility, amazing martial arts skills, wispy black hair, and Fu-Manchu style mustache!! Best known on-screen as "Endo" torturing 'Mel Gibson' with electric shocks in Lethal Weapon (1987), as "Uli" the chocolate bar stealing terrorist in Die Hard (1988), one of the Wing Kong members in Big Trouble in Little China (1986), as a short Genghis Khan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), and as "Minh" the henchman punching on with 'Brandon Lee' in a blazing laundry in the climax of Rapid Fire (1992). Made his directorial debut in 2000 by writing & directing the low budget Daddy Tell Me a Story (2000).
Jerry Lewis (March 16, 1926 - August 20, 2017) was an American comedian, actor, film producer, writer, film director and singer. He is best-known for his slapstick humor in stage, radio, screen, recording and television. Lewis is also known for his charity fund-raising telethons and position as national chairman for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). Lewis won several awards for lifetime achievements from The American Comedy Awards, The Golden Camera, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and The Venice Film Festival, and he has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Gary Lockwood (born February 21, 1937) is an American actor perhaps best known for his iconic 1968 role as the astronaut Dr. Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He is father of the actress Samantha Lockwood. Both currently live in Los Angeles.
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Perry Lopez (July 22, 1929 - February 14, 2008) was an American film and television actor. His acting career lasted over 40 years before his death in 2008.
Lopez was born in New York City. Lopez began his acting career on in theater, based in New York. He was signed to a contract at Warner Bros. Studios in 1955. Lopez appeared in a number of B-movies and Westerns early on in his career, including the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Young Guns and The Lone Ranger.
Lopez was, perhaps, best known as Lieutenant Lou Escobar in the 1974 film Chinatown, which he starred in opposite Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. He reprised the role sixteen years later (with Escobar promoted to Captain) in The Two Jakes in 1990.
Among his many television appearances, one of his more well-known roles is that of Esteban Rodriguez in the classic Star Trek episode "Shore Leave". Lopez also appeared in an episode of Bonanza, as the cold-blooded outlaw Duke Miller, who kills a man over being first in line to get a haircut. He was Joaquín Castañeda, a mestizo that fought to free his people, on El Zorro, starring Guy Williams. Lopez also appeared in episode 14, "Night Of The Long Knives" originally airing December 16, 1966 of The Time Tunnel television series, in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea -episode "Savage Jungle" and played Pvt. Petuko in Kelly's Heroes (1970).
Lopez died of lung cancer in at The Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills in Beverly Hills, California at age 78. He was survived by several nieces and nephews.
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Lyle Pearce Lovett (born November 1, 1957) is an American singer-songwriter and actor. Active since 1980, he has recorded thirteen albums and released 21 singles to date, including his highest entry, the #10 chart hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, "Cowboy Man". Lovett has won four Grammy Awards, including Best Male Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Album. It's Not Big It's Large was released in 2007, where it debuted and peaked at #2 on the Top Country Albums chart. A new studio album, Natural Forces, was released on October 20, 2009 by Lost Highway Records.
Born to Maleta Martin and Frederick MacMurray (concert violinist). Fred sang and played in orchestras to earn tuition. He was educated at Carroll College, Wis. Fred played with a Chicago orchestra for more than a year. Then he joined an orchestra in Hollywood where he played, did some recording and played extra roles. He then joined a comedy stage band, California Collegians, and went to New York. There he joined "Three's A Crowd" revue on Broadway and on the road. After this show closed, he returned to California and worked in vaudeville. He played the vaudeville circuits and night clubs until cast for major role in "Roberta". Signed by Paramount in 1935.
MacMurray was raised in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin from the age of 5, eventually graduating from Beaver Dam High School (currently the site of Beaver Dam Middle School), where he was a 3-sport star in football, baseball, and basketball. Fred retained a special place in his heart for his small-town Wisconsin upbringing, referring at any opportunity in magazine articles or interviews to the lifelong friends and cherished memories of Beaver Dam, even including mementos of his childhood in several of his films. In "Pardon my Past" (1945), Fred and fellow GI William Demarest are moving to Beaver Dam, WI to start a mink farm.
Handsome American leading man Guy Madison stumbled into a film career and became a television star and hero to the Baby Boom generation. As a young man he worked as a telephone lineman, but entered the Coast Guard at the beginning of the Second World War. While on liberty one weekend in Hollywood, he attended a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast and was spotted in the audience by an assistant to Henry Willson, an executive for David O. Selznick. Selznick wanted an unknown sailor to play a small but prominent part in Since You Went Away (1944), and promptly signed Robert Moseley to a contract. Selznick and Willson concocted the screen name Guy Madison (the "guy" girls would like to meet, and Madison from a passing Dolly Madison cake wagon). Madison filmed his one scene on a weekend pass and returned to duty. The film's release brought thousands of fan letters for Madison's lonely, strikingly handsome young sailor, and at war's end he returned to find himself a star-in-the-making. Despite an initial amateurishness to his acting, Madison grew as a performer, studying and working in theatre. He played leads in a series of programmers before being cast as legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickok in the TV series Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1951). He played Hickok on TV and radio for much of the 1950s, and many of the TV episodes were strung together and released as feature films. Madison managed to squeeze in some more adult-oriented roles during his off-time from the series, but much of this work was also in westerns. After the Hickok series ended Madison found work scarce in the U.S. and traveled to Europe, where he became a popular star of Italian westerns and German adventure films. In the 1970s he returned to the U.S., but appeared mainly in cameo roles. Physical ailments limited his work in later years, and he died from emphysema in 1996. His first wife was actress Gail Russell.
Date of Birth 19 January 1922, Pumpkin Center, California
Date of Death 6 February 1996, Palm Springs, California (emphysema)
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Matt McCoy (born May 20, 1958) is an American actor.
McCoy was born in Washington, D.C.. Since starring as Sgt. Nick Lassard in two Police Academy films, his motion picture credits have included the Curtis Hanson films The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and L.A. Confidential (1997), as well as the action comedy National Security (2003) alongside Martin Lawrence and Steve Zahn. McCoy has also worked regularly on television; his credits include starring in the NBC sitcom We Got It Made, and some guest appearances on Murder, She Wrote, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Golden Girls, The Nanny, L.A. Law, Melrose Place, NYPD Blue, Chicago Hope, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Six Feet Under, The West Wing, Carnivàle, CSI: NY and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. McCoy also played Lloyd Braun in two episodes of Seinfeld (the character was played in a previous episode by Peter Keleghan).
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Ralph Meeker (born Ralph Rathgeber; November 21, 1920 – August 5, 1988) was an American actor. He first rose to prominence for his roles in the Broadway productions of Mister Roberts (1948–1951) and Picnic (1953), the former of which earned him a Theatre World Award for his performance. In film, Meeker is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Mike Hammer in Robert Aldrich's 1955 Kiss Me Deadly.
Meeker went on to play a series of roles that used his husky and macho screen presence, including a lead role in Stanley Kubrick's military courtroom drama Paths of Glory (1957), as a troubled mechanic opposite Carroll Baker in Something Wild (1961), as a World War II captain in The Dirty Dozen (1967), and in the gangster film The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967). Other credits include supporting roles in I Walk the Line (1970) and Sidney Lumet's The Anderson Tapes (1971).
He also had a prolific career in television, appearing as Sergeant Steve Dekker on the series Not for Hire (1959–1960), and in the television horror film The Night Stalker (1972). After suffering a stroke in 1980, Meeker was forced to retire from acting, and died eight years later of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California.
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Salvatore Mineo Jr. (January 10, 1939 – February 12, 1976) was an American actor, singer, and director. He is best known for his role as John "Plato" Crawford in the drama film Rebel Without a Cause (1955), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Mineo also starred in films such as Crime in the Streets, Giant (both 1956), Exodus (1960), for which he won a Golden Globe and received second Academy Award nomination, The Longest Day (1962), and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971).
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Harry Morgan (born Harry Bratsberg) was an American stage, screen, radio, and television actor. He is perhaps best remembered for his television serials roles as Detective Bill Gannon on Dragnet and as Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H.
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Robert Adolph Wilton Morley CBE (26 May 1908 – 3 June 1992) was an English actor who, often in supporting roles, was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment. In Movie Encyclopedia, film critic Leonard Maltin describes Morley as "recognizable by his ungainly bulk, bushy eyebrows, thick lips, and double chin, […] particularly effective when cast as a pompous windbag". More politely, Ephraim Katz in his International Film Encyclopaedia describes Morley as a "a rotund, triple-chinned, delightful character player of the British and American stage and screen."
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Robert Morse (May 18, 1931 – April 20, 2022) was an American actor and singer best known as the star of both the 1961 original Broadway production, for which he won a Tony Award, and the 1967 film adaptation of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and as Bertram Cooper in the critically acclaimed AMC dramatic series Mad Men (2007–2015). He won his second Tony Award for playing Truman Capote in the 1989 production of the one-man play Tru. He reprised his role of Capote in an airing of the play for American Playhouse in 1992, winning him a Primetime Emmy Award.
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Thomas Carroll Neal Jr. (January 28, 1914 – August 7, 1972) was an American actor and boxer best known for appearing in the critically lauded film Detour (1945), for having a tryst with actress Barbara Payton, and for later committing manslaughter.
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Lloyd Benedict Nolan (August 11, 1902 – September 27, 1985) was an American film and television actor. Among his many roles, Nolan is remembered for originating the role of private investigator Michael Shayne in a series of 1940s B movies.
Nolan was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Margaret and James Nolan, who was a shoe manufacturer of Irish descent. He attended Santa Clara Preparatory School and Stanford University, flunking out of Stanford as a freshman "because I never got around to attending any other class but dramatics." His parents disapproved of his choice of a career in acting, preferring that he join his father's shoe business, "one of the most solvent commercial firms in San Francisco."
Nolan served in the United States Merchant Marine before joining the Dennis Players theatrical troupe in Cape Cod. He began his career on stage and was subsequently lured to Hollywood, where he played mainly doctors, private detectives, and policemen in many film roles.
Nolan also contributed solid and key character parts in numerous other films. One, The House on 92nd Street, was a startling revelation to audiences in 1945. It was a conflation of several true incidents of attempted sabotage by the Nazi regime (incidents which the FBI was able to thwart during World War II), and many scenes were filmed on location in New York City, unusual at the time. Nolan portrayed FBI Agent Briggs, and actual FBI employees interacted with Nolan throughout the film; he reprised the role in a subsequent 1948 movie, The Street with No Name.
Nolan appeared three times on NBC's Laramie Western series, as sheriff Tully Hatch in the episode "The Star Trail (1959), as outlaw Matt Dyer in the episode "Deadly Is the Night" (1961)[5] and then as former Union Army General George Barton in the episode "War Hero" (1962).[6] On December 8, 1960, Nolan was cast as Dr. Elisha Pittman, in "Knife of Hate" on Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre. In the story line, Dr. Pittman removed one of the legs of Jack Hoyt (Robert Harland) after Hoyt sustained a gunshot wound from which infection was developing. Hoyt wants to marry Susan Pittman (Susan Oliver), but her father is at first unyielding on the matter.
Nolan starred in The Outer Limits episode "Soldier" written by Harlan Ellison. He appeared in the NBC Western Bonanza as LaDuke, a New Orleans detective. In 1967, Strother Martin and he guest-starred in the episode "A Mighty Hunter Before the Lord" of NBC's The Road West series, starring Barry Sullivan. Also in 1967, Nolan was a guest star in the popular Western TV series The Virginian, in the episode "The Masquerade" and in the first episode of Mannix.
A long-time cigar and pipe smoker, Nolan died of lung cancer on September 27, 1985, at his home in Brentwood, California; he was 83. He is interred at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. CLR
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Edmond O'Brien (September 10, 1915 – May 9, 1985) was an Academy Award-winning American film actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. (1950). His many memorable films included The Killers, White Heat, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Wild Bunch.
He also co-starred with Richard Rust in the NBC legal drama Sam Benedict, which aired during the 1962-1963 television season.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. John Carroll O'Connor (August 2, 1924 – June 21, 2001) best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades. Known at first for playing the role of Major General Colt in the 1970 movie, Kelly's Heroes, he later found fame as the bigoted working man Archie Bunker, the main character in the 1970s CBS television sitcoms All in the Family (1971 to 1979) and Archie Bunker's Place (1979 to 1983). O'Connor later starred in the NBC television crime drama In the Heat of the Night from 1988 to 1995, where he played the role of southern Police Chief William (Bill) Gillespie. At the end of his career in the late 1990s, he played the father of Jamie Stemple Buchman (Helen Hunt) on Mad About You.
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Jürgen Prochnow (born 10 June 1941) is a German-American actor. His international breakthrough was his portrayal of the good-hearted and sympathetic U-boat Commander "Der Alte" ("Old Man") in the 1981 war film Das Boot.
He is also known for his roles in The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975), Dune (1984), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), The English Patient (1996), Air Force One (1997), The Da Vinci Code (2006), and played Sergei Bazhaev on the eighth season of 24 (2010). He is a Goldene Kamera, Bavarian Film Awards, and Bambi Award winner.
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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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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.
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Mitchell Ryan (born January 11, 1934) was an American actor most recently known for playing Edward Montgomery on Dharma & Greg. Ryan was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He served in the US Navy during the Korean War. After the Korean War, he went to the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. There he went on to make his acting debut in Thunder Road along with the Theatre's founder Robert Porterfield.
Ryan was an original cast member on Dark Shadows, His other acting credits include Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Liar, Liar, Magnum Force, Lethal Weapon, Grosse Pointe Blank, Electra Glide in Blue, and Hot Shots! Part Deux. In 1973, he played the lead on Chase.
His Broadway theatre credits include Wait Until Dark, Medea, and The Price.
Ryan was married and divorced twice and is the father of three children.
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Ann Savage (February 19, 1921 – December 25, 2008) was an American film and television actress. She is best-remembered as the cigarette-puffing femme fatale in the critically acclaimed film noir Detour (1945), and starred in more than twenty B movies between 1943 and 1946.
Effectively leaving the film business in the mid-1950s, Savage made occasional appearances on television and worked for industrial and inspirational film producers during the 1950s - 1970s. She made a number of live appearances at film festivals, especially for screenings of Detour, and in 1986, she returned to film with an appearance in Fire with Fire (AKA Captive Hearts) and as a guest on the television series Saved by the Bell.
In 2007, she was cast by director Guy Maddin as his mother in My Winnipeg, "a part that had been tipped to bring her an Academy Award and which introduced her to a legion of new fans."
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Paolo Seganti (born 20 May 1964 in Rovereto, Trentino, Italy), is an Italian actor and model, known for playing Damian Grimaldi in the CBS television soap opera As the World Turns.
James Stacy, was an American film and television actor. He is perhaps best-known for starring in the late 1960's TV western Lancer.
In 1973, Stacy was hit by a drunk driver while driving his motorcycle, resulting in the amputation of his left leg and arm and the death of his girlfriend. He returned to acting in 1975 before retiring in 1992.
Madeleine Marie Stowe Mora (born August 18, 1958) is an American actress. She appeared mostly on television before her role in the 1987 crime-comedy film Stakeout. She went on to star in the films Revenge (1990), Unlawful Entry (1992), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Blink (1993), 12 Monkeys (1995), The General's Daughter (1999), and We Were Soldiers (2002). For her role in the 1993 independent film Short Cuts, she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress.
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An American film and television actor, best known for his portrayal of journalist Edward R. Murrow in the feature film "Good Night, and Good Luck", for which he was nominated for an Academy Award.
Gloria Swanson (March 27, 1899 – April 4, 1983) was an American actress. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Acadamy Award in the Best Actress catagory. In 1929, Swanson successfully transitioned to talkies with The Trespasser. However, personal problems and changing tastes saw her popularity wane during the 1930s when she moved into Theater and TV. Today she is best known for her role as Norma Desmond, a faded silent film start, in the critically aclaimed film Sunset Boulevard (1950).
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Larenz Tate (born September 8, 1975) is an American film and television actor. Tate was born on the west side of Chicago, Illinois. He is the youngest of three siblings whose family moved to California when he was nine years old. Convinced by their parents to enter a drama program at the Inner City Cultural Center, the trio did not take the lessons seriously until classmate Malcolm-Jamal Warner's ascent to fame after being cast on the sitcom The Cosby Show. Subsequently realizing that they could parlay their efforts into a tangible form of success, the siblings began to receive small roles and in 1985, Tate made his small-screen debut in an episode of The New Twilight Zone series. Following appearances in such television series as 21 Jump Street and The Wonder Years, Tate was cast in the television movie The Women of Brewster Place before receiving the recurring role of Steve Urkel's nemesis, Willie Fuffner, in the family comedy series Family Matters (1989). He was also a cast member on the CBS series The Royal Family, starring Redd Foxx and Della Reese, which ended prematurely when Redd Foxx suddenly died. In the video game 187 Ride or Die, Tate voices the main character, Buck. Following numerous small-screen roles, offers began pouring in for Tate, and in late 1992, collaborative filmmaking siblings Albert and Allen Hughes approached him to star in their debut feature Menace II Society. A jarring vision of inner-city desperation and decay, the film found Tate channeling his substantial energy into creating "O-Dog", a trigger-happy teenager. Following up with the little-seen but often-praised television series South Central, Tate would later appear in the family comedy-drama The Inkwell (1994) before re-teaming with the Hughes brothers for Dead Presidents (1995) and taking on the role of a love-stricken young poet in the romantic drama Love Jones (1997). Larenz Tate also played the role of Kenny in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the episode "That's no Lady That's my Cousin". There followed roles in The Postman (as the automotively monikered Ford Lincoln Mercury), the Frankie Lymon biopic Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998, with Tate as Lymon), and 2000's Love Come Down. Though a big theatrical release had eluded Tate for the first few years of the millennial turnover, Tate would soon turn up opposite Laurence Fishburne in the high-octane but critically derided Biker Boyz (2003), A Man Apart (2003), Crash (2004), as music legend Quincy Jones in Ray (2004), and Waist Deep (2006). Larenz was also featured in R&B singer Ashanti's 2003 released music video Rain on Me, where he played the jealous, abusive spouse of Ashanti. The video touched on the subject of domestic abuse. He can be seen in the latest season of FX Network's Rescue Me. Tate is married to Tomasina 'Geneva' Parrott. They have two sons together named Myles and Zander.
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George Tobias (July 14, 1901 – February 27, 1980) was an American character actor.
Born to a Jewish family in New York, he began his acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California. He then spent several years in theater groups before moving on to Broadway and, eventually, Hollywood. In 1939, Tobias signed with Warner Brothers, where he played in supporting roles, many times along with James Cagney, in such movies as Cagney's Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) as well as with Gary Cooper in Sergeant York (1941). Tobias later achieved fame in the 1960s by playing long-suffering neighbor Abner Kravitz on the TV sitcom Bewitched.
George Tobias never married and retired from acting in 1977 after a guest role in the Bewitched sequel Tabitha.
On February 27, 1980, Tobias died of bladder cancer at the age of 78 at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.
The hearse containing his body was stolen on the way to the mortuary. The driver got out to speak to someone, and vandals stole the car. After driving about a mile, they realized that Tobias' body was in the back and fled the car. He is buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, Queens County, New York.
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Lana Turner (February 8, 1921 – June 29, 1995) was an American actress. Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget (1937). She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938). During the early 1940s she established herself as a leading actress in such films as Johnny Eager (1941), Ziegfeld Girl (1941) and Somewhere I'll Find You (1942). She is known as one of the first Hollywood scream queens thanks to her role in the 1941 horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and her reputation as a glamorous femme fatale was enhanced by her performance in the film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Her popularity continued through the 1950s, in such films as The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Peyton Place (1957), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
In 1958, her daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed Turner's lover Johnny Stompanato to death. A coroner's inquest brought considerable media attention to Turner and concluded that Crane had acted in self defense. Turner's next film, Imitation of Life (1959), proved to be one of the greatest successes of her career, but from the early 1960s her roles were fewer. She gained recognition near the end of her career with a recurring guest role in the television series Falcon Crest during 1982 and 1983. Turner made her final television appearance in 1991, and died from throat cancer in 1995.
Diane Venora is an American stage, television and film actress. She graduated from the Juilliard School in 1977 and made her film debut in 1981 opposite Albert Finney in Wolfen. She won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for Bird.
John Keith Vernon (born Adolphus Raymondus Vernon Agopsowicz; February 24, 1932 – February 1, 2005) was a Canadian actor. He made a career in Hollywood after achieving initial television stardom in Canada. He was best known for playing Dean Wormer in Animal House, the Mayor in Dirty Harry and Fletcher in The Outlaw Josey Wales.
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Craig Wasson (born March 15, 1954) is an American actor. He made his film debut in Rollercoaster (1977). He is best known for his roles as Jake Scully in Brian DePalma's Body Double (1984), and Neil Gordon in Chuck Russell's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). For his role as Danilo Prozor in Arthur Penn's Four Friends (1981), he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
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Keenen Ivory Desuma Wayans (born June 8, 1958) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is a member of the Wayans family of entertainers. Wayans first came to prominence as the host and the creator of the 1990–1994 Fox sketch comedy series In Living Color. He has produced, directed and/or written several films, starting with Hollywood Shuffle, which he cowrote, in 1987.
A majority of his films have included him and one or more of his brothers and sisters in the cast.
One of these films, Scary Movie (2000), which Wayans directed, was the highest-grossing movie directed by an African American until it was surpassed by Tim Story's Fantastic Four in 2005. From 1997 to 1998, he hosted the talk show The Keenen Ivory Wayans Show. Most recently, he was a judge for the eighth season of Last Comic Standing.
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John Randolph 'Jack' Webb, also known by the pen name John Randolph, was an American actor, television producer, director, and screenwriter, who is most famous for his role as Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet. He was also the founder of his own production company, Mark VII Limited.
Born in Santa Monica, California, Webb grew up in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles as the child of a single mother after his father left home before he was born.
During World War II, Webb enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces, but he "washed out" of flight training and was granted a hardship discharge to care for his family. Following his discharge, he moved to San Francisco, where a wartime shortage of announcers led to a temporary appointment to his own half-hour comedy radio show on ABC's KGO Radio in 1946. By 1949 he had abandoned comedy for drama, and starred in numerous radio shows until finding success in film and television in the late 1950s.
Webb had a featured role as a crime lab technician in the 1948 film He Walked by Night, a thinly-fictionalized recounting of the 1946 Walker crime spree. This experience gave Webb the idea for Dragnet: a recurring series based on real cases from LAPD police files, featuring authentic depictions of the modern police detective, including methods, mannerisms, and technical language. Following the success of Dragnet, Webb appeared in numerous television shows and specials, including the well-known 1972 series Emergency!
During his work on a revival of Dragnet in 1982, Webb suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 62. His funeral was given full police honors, and then LAPD Chief Daryl Gates retired the badge number 714 used by Webb's Joe Friday of Dragnet fame.
Jo Raquel Welch (née Tejada; September 5, 1940 – February 15, 2023) was an American actress.
Welch first garnered attention for her role in Fantastic Voyage (1966), after which she signed a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox. They lent her contract to the British studio Hammer Film Productions, for whom she made One Million Years B.C. (1966). Although Welch had only three lines of dialogue in the film, images of her in the doe-skin bikini became bestselling posters that turned her into an international sex symbol. She later starred in Bedazzled (1967), Bandolero! (1968), 100 Rifles (1969), Myra Breckinridge (1970), Hannie Caulder (1971), Kansas City Bomber (1972), The Last of Sheila (1973), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Wild Party (1975), and Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976). She made several television variety specials.
Through her portrayal of strong female characters, helping her break the mold of the traditional sex symbol, Welch developed a unique film persona that made her an icon of the 1960s and 1970s. Her rise to stardom in the mid-1960s was partly credited with ending Hollywood's vigorous promotion of the blonde bombshell.[1][2][3] Her love scene with Jim Brown in 100 Rifles also made cinematic history with their portrayal of interracial intimacy.[4] She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy in 1974 for her performance as Constance Bonacieux in The Three Musketeers and reprised the role in its sequel the following year. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Television Film for her performance in Right to Die (1987). Her final film was How to Be a Latin Lover (2017). In 1995, Welch was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in Film History". Playboy ranked Welch No. 3 on their "100 Sexiest Stars of the Twentieth Century" list.
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James Allen Whitmore Jr. (October 1, 1921 – February 6, 2009) was an American film, theatre, and television actor. During his career, Whitmore won three of the four EGOT honors; - a Tony, a Grammy, and an Emmy. Whitmore also won a Golden Globe and was nominated for two Academy Awards. Following World War II, Whitmore appeared on Broadway in the role of the sergeant in Command Decision. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave Whitmore a contract, but his role in the film adaptation was played by Van Johnson. His first major picture for MGM was Battleground, in a role that was turned down by Spencer Tracy, to whom Whitmore bore a noted physical resemblance. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for this role, and won the Golden Globe Award as Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role. Other major films included Angels in the Outfield, The Asphalt Jungle, The Next Voice You Hear, Above and Beyond, Kiss Me, Kate, Them!, Oklahoma!, Black Like Me, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, Tora! Tora! Tora!, and Give 'em Hell, Harry!, a one-man show for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of former U.S. President Harry S Truman. In the film Tora! Tora! Tora!, he played Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey.
Whitmore appeared during the 1950s on many television anthology series. He was cast as Father Emil Kapaun in the 1955 episode "The Good Thief" in the ABC religion anthology series Crossroads. Other roles followed on Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theater, Lux Video Theatre, Kraft Theatre, Studio One in Hollywood, Schlitz Playhouse, Matinee Theatre, and the Ford Television Theatre. In 1958, he carried the lead in "The Gabe Carswell Story" of NBC's Wagon Train, with Ward Bond. Whitmore has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6611 Hollywood Boulevard. The ceremony was held on February 8, 1960.
Michael T. 'Mykelti' Williamson (born March 4, 1957) is an American actor best known for his role as Benjamin Buford 'Bubba' Blue in the 1994 film Forrest Gump, as Detective Bobby 'Fearless' Smith in the critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful crime drama Boomtown, and recently for appearing as the head of CTU for season 8 of the hit TV series 24.
Jonathan Harshman Winters III (November 11, 1925 – April 11, 2013) was an American comedian, actor, author, television host, and artist. He started performing as a stand up comedian before transitioning his career to acting in film and television. Winters received numerous accolades including two Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, the American Academy of Achievement in 1973, and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1999.
Natalie Wood (née Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles.
Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring role at age 8 in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). As a teenager, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), followed by a role in John Ford's The Searchers (1956). Wood starred in the musical films West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962) and received nominations for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). Her career continued with films such as Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969).
During the 1970s, Wood began a hiatus from film and had two daughters: one with her second husband Richard Gregson, and one with Robert Wagner, her first husband whom she married again after divorcing Gregson. She acted in only two feature films throughout the decade, but she appeared slightly more often in television productions, including a remake of From Here to Eternity (1979) for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Wood's films represented a "coming of age" for her and for Hollywood films in general. Critics have suggested that her cinematic career represents a portrait of modern American womanhood in transition, as she was one of the few to take both child roles and those of middle-aged characters.
Wood died off the coast of Santa Catalina Island on November 29, 1981, at age 43, during a holiday break from the production of her would-be comeback film Brainstorm (1983) with Christopher Walken. The events surrounding her death have been the subject of conflicting witness statements, prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under the instruction of the coroner's office, to list her cause of death as "drowning and other undetermined factors" in 2012.
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Jennifer G. Wright (born March 23, 1962) is an American actress who made her film debut portraying the role of Cushie in The World According to Garp in 1982. That same year she made an appearance in Pink Floyd The Wall, playing an American groupie. Wright had roles in both The Wild Life as Eileen and St. Elmo's Fire as Felicia. She also starred with Anthony Michael Hall in the 1986 thriller Out of Bounds, with Adrian Pasdar as Mae in the 1987 cult horror classic Near Dark, and alongside Ilan Mitchell-Smith in the 1988 drama The Chocolate War. Wright had a lead role in 1989's I, Madman, and small parts in the films Young Guns II and The Lawnmower Man.
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Gerald Tommaso DeLouise (April 30, 1940 – October 8, 2023), known professionally as Burt Young, was an American actor, author, and painter. He played Rocky Balboa's brother-in-law and best friend Paulie Pennino in the Rocky film series, his performance in the first installment of which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
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Kurt Vogel Russell (born March 17, 1951) is an American actor. He began acting on television at the age of 12 in the western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963–1964). In the late 1960s, he signed a ten-year contract with The Walt Disney Company, where he starred as Dexter Riley in films, such as The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975). According to Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies, he became the studio's top star of the 1970s.
Russell was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his performance in Mike Nichols' Silkwood (1983). In the 1980s, he starred in several films directed by John Carpenter, including anti-hero roles such as army hero-turned-robber Snake Plissken in the futuristic action film Escape from New York (1981), its sequel Escape from L.A. (1996), the horror film The Thing (1982), and the kung-fu comedy action film Big Trouble in Little China (1986). For his portrayal of rock and roll superstar Elvis Presley in Elvis (1979), he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.
Russell starred in various other films, including Used Cars (1980), The Best of Times (1986), Overboard (1987), Tango & Cash (1989), Backdraft (1991), Tombstone (1993), Stargate (1994), Executive Decision (1996), Breakdown (1997), Vanilla Sky (2001), Miracle (2004), Sky High (2005), Death Proof (2007), The Hateful Eight (2015) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). He also appeared in the Fast & Furious franchise as Mr. Nobody, having starred in Furious 7 (2015), The Fate of the Furious (2017), and F9 (2021), portrayed Ego in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) installments Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and What If...? (2021), and subsequently portrayed Santa Claus in The Christmas Chronicles (2018) and The Christmas Chronicles 2 (2020).
