The behind-the-scenes story of how "Casablanca" became an American film classic.
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Rudy Behlmer (October 13, 1926 – September 27, 2019) was an American film historian and writer. He was an expert in the history and evolution of the motion picture industry. Behlmer began his career with KLAC-TV in Hollywood as a stage manager. At the beginning of the 1960s, Behlmer started researching and writing articles on various aspects of film history. One such project, a career piece on film producer David O. Selznick (Gone with the Wind, Rebecca), led to his book Memo from David O. Selznick (1972). It was followed by nine other books as well as numerous magazine articles and film music recording booklets. Behlmer also contributed to a wide variety of works about the Golden Age of Hollywood.
William David Friedkin (August 29, 1935 – August 7, 2023) was an American film, television and opera director, producer, and screenwriter who was closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in documentaries in the early 1960s, he is best known for his crime thriller film The French Connection (1971), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and the horror film The Exorcist (1973), which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Friedkin's other films in the 1970s and 1980s include the drama The Boys in the Band (1970), considered a milestone of queer cinema; the originally deprecated, now lauded thriller Sorcerer (1977); the crime comedy drama The Brink's Job (1978); the controversial thriller Cruising (1980); and the neo-noir thriller To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). Although Friedkin's works suffered an overall commercial and critical decline in the late 1980s, his last three feature films, all based on plays, were positively received by critics: the psychological horror film Bug (2006), the crime film Killer Joe (2011), and the legal drama film The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023), released two months after his death. He also worked extensively as an opera director from 1998 until his death, and directed various television films and series episodes for television. Description above from the Wikipedia article William Friedkin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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.
Caleb Deschanel is an American film cinematographer and film/television director. He has been nominated for six Academy Awards, each time in the field of cinematography. The first nomination came in 1983 for the film The Right Stuff. His second was in 1984 for The Natural, the third in 1996 for Fly Away Home, the fourth in 2000 for The Patriot, the fifth for The Passion of the Christ (2004), and the sixth for Never Look Away (2018). He is the father of actresses Emily Deschanel and Zooey Deschanel.
Carol Sue Littleton, ACE (born October 23, 1942) is an American film editor. Her work includes Body Heat (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Big Chill (1983), Places in the Heart (1984), Silverado (1985), The Accidental Tourist (1988), and Wyatt Earp (1994). She won the Primetime Emmy Award for the ABC movie Tuesdays with Morrie (1999). In January 2024, she received an honorary Oscar for her work. Carol Littleton was born in 1942 in Oklahoma City, but her family later moved to Miami in Northeastern Oklahoma, where she grew up. She attended the University of Oklahoma College of Arts & Sciences, obtaining her bachelor's degree in 1965 and her master's in 1970. Her obsession with film editing started in France, when Littleton became acquainted with French New Wave cinema. During the 1970s, Carol Littleton owned a production company that made commercials. She moved into working as a film editor with director Karen Arthur on Legacy (1975). Other films were to follow, and Littleton received an Academy Award nomination for editing Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Commencing with Body Heat (1981), Littleton had an extended collaboration with the director Lawrence Kasdan. Kasdan hired Littleton for Body Heat not only for her skill but specifically because she was a woman. He believed only a woman editor could bring the eroticism he wanted to the film.[5] Of the 11 films that Kasdan has directed, Littleton edited nine. In the late 1980s, Carol Littleton was elected to and served as the president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. Littleton served as president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild from 1988 to 1991 and as vice president from 1994 to 2001, as well as from 2005 to 2007. Littleton has been elected as a member of the American Cinema Editors and has served as ACE vice president since 2019. She is also a current member of the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Film Editors Branch). Littleton is one of the editors that author Gabriella Oldham interviewed for her book First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors (1992). Carol Littleton was married to cinematographer John Bailey from 1972 until his death in 2023. Description above from the Wikipedia article Carol Littleton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Donald Romain Davis (born February 4, 1957) is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator and trombonist known for his film and television scores. He has also composed opera, concert and chamber music. Description above from the Wikipedia article Don Davis (composer), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Samuel John Goldwyn Jr. (September 7, 1926 – January 9, 2015) was an American film producer. Samuel Goldwyn Jr. was born on September 7, 1926, in Los Angeles, California, the son of actress Frances Howard (1903–1976) and the pioneer motion picture mogul Samuel Goldwyn (1882–1974). He attended Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, Colorado and the University of Virginia. He was raised Catholic like his mother, at her insistence. After serving in the United States Army during World War II, he worked as a theatrical producer in London and for Edward R. Murrow at CBS in New York. He then followed in his father's footsteps and founded the motion picture production companies Formosa Productions, The Samuel Goldwyn Company and Samuel Goldwyn Films. In 1950 Goldwyn married actor Jennifer Howard (1925–1993), the daughter of prominent author and screenwriter Sidney Howard. The couple had four children including actor Tony Goldwyn and studio executive John Goldwyn. They divorced in 1968 and he then married Peggy Elliot, with whom he had two children, including Liz Goldwyn. His second marriage also ended in divorce. At the time of his death he was married to his third wife, Patricia Strawn.
Ingrid Bergman (29 August 1915 – 29 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays. With a career spanning five decades, she is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history. According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, upon her arrival in the U.S. Bergman quickly became "the ideal of American womanhood" and a contender for Hollywood's greatest leading actress. David O. Selznick once called her "the most completely conscientious actress" he had ever worked with. In 1999, the American Film Institute recognised Bergman as the fourth greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema. She won numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, four Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Award and a Volpi Cup. She is one of only four actresses to have received at least three acting Academy Awards (only Katharine Hepburn has four). Born in Stockholm to a Swedish father and a German mother, Bergman began her acting career in Swedish and German films. Her introduction to the U.S. audience came in the English-language remake of Intermezzo (1939). Known for her naturally luminous beauty, she starred in Casablanca (1942) as Ilsa Lund, her most famous role, opposite Humphrey Bogart. Bergman's notable performances in the 1940s include the dramas For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), and Joan of Arc (1948), all of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she won for Gaslight. She made three films with Alfred Hitchcock: Spellbound (1945), with Gregory Peck, Notorious (1946), opposite Cary Grant and Under Capricorn (1949), alongside Joseph Cotten. In 1950, she starred in Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli, released after the revelation she was having an affair with Rossellini; that and her pregnancy prior to their marriage created a scandal in the U.S. that prompted her to remain in Europe for several years. During this time she starred in Rossellini's Europa '51 and Journey to Italy (1954), now critically acclaimed, the former of which won her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. She had a successful return to working for a Hollywood studio in Anastasia (1956), winning her second Academy Award for Best Actress. Soon after, she co-starred with Grant in the romance Indiscreet (1958). In 1969, she starred in the acclaimed and highly successful film Cactus Flower. In later years, Bergman won her third Academy Award, this one for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). In 1978, she starred in Ingmar Bergman's (no relation) Swedish Autumn Sonata receiving her sixth Best Actress nomination. Bergman spoke five languages – Swedish, English, German, Italian and French – and acted in each. In her final role, she portrayed the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the television miniseries A Woman Called Golda (1982) for which she posthumously won her second Emmy Award for Best Actress. In 1974, Bergman discovered she was suffering from breast cancer but continued to work until shortly before her death on her sixty-seventh birthday.
Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the greatest male star of classic American cinema. Bogart began acting in Broadway shows, beginning his career in motion pictures with Up the River (1930) for Fox and appeared in supporting roles for the next decade, regularly portraying gangsters. He was praised for his work as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), but remained cast secondary to other actors at Warner Bros. who received leading roles. Bogart also received positive reviews for his performance as gangster Hugh "Baby Face" Martin, in Dead End (1937), directed by William Wyler. His breakthrough from supporting roles to stardom was set in motion with High Sierra (1941) and catapulted in The Maltese Falcon (1941), considered one of the first great noir films. Bogart's private detectives, Sam Spade (in The Maltese Falcon) and Philip Marlowe (in 1946's The Big Sleep), became the models for detectives in other noir films. His most significant romantic lead role was with Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (1942), which earned him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. 44-year-old Bogart and 19-year-old Lauren Bacall fell in love during filming of To Have and Have Not (1944). In 1945, a few months after principal photography for The Big Sleep, their second film together, he divorced his third wife and married Bacall. After their marriage, they played each other's love interest in the mystery thrillers Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948). Bogart's performances in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and In a Lonely Place (1950) are now considered among his best, although they were not recognized as such when the films were released. He reprised those unsettled, unstable characters as a World War II naval-vessel commander in The Caine Mutiny (1954), which was a critical and commercial hit and earned him another Best Actor nomination. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of a cantankerous river steam launch skipper opposite Katharine Hepburn's missionary in the World War I African adventure The African Queen (1951). Other significant roles in his later years included The Barefoot Contessa (1954) with Ava Gardner and his on-screen competition with William Holden for Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina (1954). A heavy smoker and drinker, Bogart died from esophageal cancer in January 1957.
