Featuring unprecedented access to Jim Henson's personal archives, filmmaker Ron Howard brings us a fascinating and insightful look at a complex man whose boundless imagination inspired the world.
05-18-2024
1h 48m
THIS
HELLA
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Ron Howard
Writer:
Mark Monroe
Production:
Imagine Documentaries, Diamond Docs
Key Crew
Producer:
Margaret Bodde
Producer:
Ron Howard
Producer:
Justin Wilkes
Producer:
Sara Bernstein
Executive Producer:
Meredith Kaulfers
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Jim Henson
Jim Henson was an American film director, television producer and puppeteer, best known as the creator of The Muppets.
Frank Oz born Richard Frank Oznowicz; is a British-born American film director, actor, voice actor and puppeteer who is known for creating and performing the characters Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Show and for directing films, including the 1986 Little Shop Of Horrors remake and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. He is also the operator and voice of Yoda in the Star Wars series.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Dave Goelz (born July 16, 1946) is a puppeteer best-known for his association with The Muppets, and in particular with the Muppet character Gonzo. His other Muppet characters include Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Zoot (the saxophonist of Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem), Beauregard the janitor and Tiny (the humungous chicken in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland) . He also performed the characters of Boober Fraggle and Uncle Travelling Matt on Fraggle Rock. He also performed the puppetry for various characters, including Sir Didymus and Wiseman's Hat (both voiced by David Shaughnessy) in Labyrinth. Outside of Muppeteering, he is the current voice actor for the Disney character Figment. After Jim Henson died in 1990, Goelz took over puppeteering Waldorf in 1992.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Dave Goelz, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia .
Fran Brill (born September 30, 1946) is an actress and puppeteer who worked on Sesame Street beginning in 1970. She was the first female puppeteer hired by Jim Henson, outside of wife Jane Henson. She is best known for performing Prairie Dawn and Zoe. Brill retired from performing in September 2014.
Rita Moreno (born Rosa Dolores Alverío Marcano; December 11, 1931) is a Puerto Rican actress, dancer, and singer. Noted for her work across different areas of the entertainment industry, she has appeared in numerous film, television, and theater projects throughout her extensive career spanning over seven decades.
Her work includes supporting roles in the classic musical films Singin' in the Rain (1952), The King and I (1956), and the 1961 and 2021 film adaptations of West Side Story. Her other notable films include Popi (1969), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Four Seasons (1981), I Like It Like That (1994) and the cult film Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). She is also known for her work on television including the children's television series The Electric Company (1971–1977), and as Sister Peter Marie Reimondo on the HBO series Oz (1997–2003). She voiced the titular role of in Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego? from 1994 to 1999. She also gained acclaim for her roles in Jane the Virgin (2015–2019) and the revival of Norman Lear's One Day at a Time (2017–2020). In theater, she is best known for her role as Googie Gomez in the 1975 musical The Ritz.
Among her numerous accolades, Moreno is one of a few performers to have been awarded an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony (EGOT). She is also one of 24 people who have achieved what is called the Triple Crown of Acting, with individual competitive Academy, Emmy and Tony awards for acting. In 2004, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor bestowed upon her by George W. Bush. In 2009, President Barack Obama presented her with the National Medal of Arts. In 2013, she received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2015, she was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor for her contribution to American culture through performing arts. She was awarded the Peabody Award in 2019. Her life was profiled in the 2021 documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It.
Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American actress. She began her career as a child model before making her acting debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America. After having worked as a model for several years, she began to concentrate on acting, starring in a variety of films including the horror film Phenomena (1985), the musical fantasy film Labyrinth (1986), the romantic comedy Career Opportunities (1991), and the period superhero film The Rocketeer (1991). She received praise for her performance in the science fiction film Dark City (1998) and playing a drug addict in Darren Aronofsky's drama film Requiem for a Dream (2000).
Connelly was named Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education in 2005. She has been the face of Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton fashion advertisements, as well as for Revlon cosmetics. In 2012, she was named the first global face of the Shiseido Company. Magazines, including Time, Vanity Fair, and Esquire, as well as the Los Angeles Times newspaper, have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
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Brian Henson (born November 3, 1963) is an Academy Award-winning puppeteer, director, producer, and technician. The son of puppeteers Jane and Jim Henson, Brian was born in New York City, New York. His sister Lisa is the CEO and he is chairman of The Jim Henson Company.
Lisa Marie Henson (born May 9, 1960) is an American television and film producer who has been involved in television shows such as Sid the Science Kid. She is the CEO of The Jim Henson Company, founded by her parents Jim and Jane Henson.
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Alex Rockwell has been a producer for the Jim Henson Company for many years. She worked at Children's Television Workshop before working directly with Jim Henson.
Known For
Heather Henson
Heather Beth Henson (born December 19, 1970) is an American contemporary puppet artist, the daughter of Jim Henson. She serves on The Jim Henson Company, The Jim Henson Legacy, and the Jim Henson Foundation Boards of Directors. She is also a Trustee of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Connecticut.
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Cheryl Lee Henson (born August 7, 1961) has served as the President of the Jim Henson Foundation since 1992. She is a philanthropist and supporter of puppetry arts and artists, and serves as a board member of The Jim Henson Company. She was honored in 2010 at the LaMama Gala, and in 2011, she won the New Victory Arts Award for her leadership in puppetry.
Michael Kingsbury Frith (born 8 July 1941) is a British artist and television producer. He is the former executive vice-president and creative director of The Jim Henson Company. His contributions to Muppet projects have been extensive and varied.
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Jane Ann Henson (née Nebel; June 16, 1934 – April 2, 2013) was an American puppeteer and co-founder of Muppets, Inc. with her husband Jim Henson.
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George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985), best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the twentieth century, especially for his significant and influential early work—despite his notoriously contentious relationship with Hollywood. His distinctive directorial style featured layered, nonlinear narrative forms, innovative uses of lighting such as chiaroscuro, unique camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots, and long takes. Welles's long career in film is noted for his struggle for artistic control in the face of pressure from studios. Many of his films were heavily edited and others left unreleased. He has been praised as a major creative force and as "the ultimate auteur."
After directing a number of high-profile theatrical productions in his early twenties, including an innovative adaptation of Macbeth and The Cradle Will Rock, Welles found national and international fame as the director and narrator of a 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds performed for the radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was reported to have caused widespread panic when listeners thought that an invasion by extraterrestrial beings was occurring. Although these reports of panic were mostly false and overstated, they rocketed Welles to instant notoriety.
Citizen Kane (1941), his first film with RKO, in which he starred in the role of Charles Foster Kane, is often considered the greatest film ever made. Several of his other films, including The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Touch of Evil (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1965), and F for Fake (1974), are also widely considered to be masterpieces.
In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics, and a wide survey of critical consensus, best-of lists, and historical retrospectives calls him the most acclaimed director of all time. Andrew Sarris in his influential book of film criticism The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968 included him in the "pantheon" of the 14 greatest film directors who had worked in the United States. Well known for his baritone voice, Welles was also an extremely well regarded actor and was voted number 16 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list of the greatest American film actors of all time. He was also a celebrated Shakespearean stage actor and an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety shows in the war years.
Jerome Ravn Juhl (July 27, 1938 – September 26, 2005) was an American television and film writer, best known for his work with Jim Henson, beginning with the sketch comedy program Sam and Friends. As other puppeteers joined Henson's team, Juhl focused increasingly on writing , writing for The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock and The Jim Henson Hour. He was involved in some capacity with all of the Muppet films from The Muppet Movie in 1979 to Muppets from Space in 1999.
Donald George Sahlin (June 19, 1928 – February 19, 1978) was a Muppet designer and builder who worked for Jim Henson from 1962 to 1977. Muppets creator Jim Henson described Sahlin as “the man most responsible for the look of the Muppets.” Sahlin began making puppets at age 11, initially building a shadow theater and cardboard figurines. As an adult he built several puppets for Kukla, Fran and Ollie and created special effects sequences for films such as G.I. Blues and The Time Machine.
His first creation for Jim Henson was Rowlf the Dog, which he built in 1962 for a series of Purina Dog Chow commercials. Don would go on to design and build most of the Muppet characters, including Bert and Ernie, Grover, and Cookie Monster among others. His character designs are often recognizable for their spheroid heads partially bisected to create large mouths. Henson later had a bench in London dedicated to his memory. The series finale of Fraggle Rock is also dedicated to him. After all the regular credits have been shown, a special credit appears which reads "This show is for Don Sahlin".
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Jon Arthur Stone (April 13, 1931 – March 30, 1997) was an American writer, director, and producer who was best known as an original crewmember on the children's television show Sesame Street and is credited with helping to develop characters such as Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird. Stone won 18 television Emmy Awards. Many regard him as among the best children's television writers.
Jerry Nelson (July 10, 1934 – August 23, 2012) was an American puppeteer, best known for his work with The Muppets. Renowned for his wide range of characters and singing abilities, he performed Muppet characters on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and various Muppet movies and specials.
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Alex Poulos (January 6, 1936 – April 14, 2015) was an American actor and stunt performer, best known for his roles as the Werewolf on Dark Shadows and The Baker from Sesame Street.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Stevens first acted in a western theme park in New Jersey, as well as making appearances in Off-Broadway plays before making his first appearance in Dark Shadows. He then appeared for the first time on Sesame Street, where he appeared in "The Number Song" segments as the baker who fell down the stairs while carrying a certain number of pies, cakes or other desserts. Stevens had bit parts in films such as A Lovely Way to Die, Lady in Cement, Hercules in New York, The Groove Tube, and David Cronenberg's Scanners.
As a stunt performer, Stevens worked on projects such as The Gumball Rally, Superman, Three Men and a Baby and Goodfellas before ending his career in 1997, with a stunt job in an episode of Oz.
Stevens died on April 14, 2015, in New York City. He was 79 years old.
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Caroll Edwin Spinney, sometimes credited as Carroll Spinney or Ed Spinney (December 26, 1933 – December 8, 2019), was an American puppeteer most famous for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on the children's television show Sesame Street.
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Kermit Ernest Hollingshead Love (August 7, 1916 – June 21, 2008) was an American puppet maker, puppeteer, costume designer, and actor in children's television and on Broadway. He was best known as a designer and builder with the Muppets, in particular those on Sesame Street.
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Emilio Delgado was a Mexican American television, film and stage actor, voice artist and singer best known for his role as Luis, the Fix-it Shop owner, on the children's television series Sesame Street.
Sonia Manzano is an actress and writer, known for Sesame Street (1969), Follow That Bird (1985) and Firepower (1979). She has been married to Richard Reagan since 1986. They have one child.
William Lee (born William Lubovsky; August 6, 1908 – December 7, 1982) was an American actor who appeared in numerous television and film roles, but was best known for playing Mr. Hooper, the original store proprietor of the eponymous Hooper's Store. He was one of the four original human characters on Sesame Street, from the show's debut in November 1969 until his death on December 7, 1982, at the age of 74.
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While a student at New York's High School of Art and Design, Orman made his theatrical debut in the 1962 topical revue "If We Grow Up." He was an early member of the Free Southern Theater for two years in the mid-1960s and a founding member of Harlem, New York's New Lafayette Theatre, where he acted in and directed numerous plays. His many other stage appearances have included roles in "Julius Caesar" and "Coriolanus" at Joseph Papp's Public Theater, the Broadway production of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Fences", and Matt Robison's one-man play "The Confessions of Stepin Fetchit" at the American Place Theatre. Orman is the recipient of an Audelco Theatre Award and a five-time nominee.
He made his feature film debut in the title role of Universal Studios' 1974 drama, Willie Dynamite and has also appeared in such films as F/X, Striking Distance, New Jersey Drive, Follow That Bird, Twilight's Last Gleaming,The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, and "Jeremy Fink And The Meaning of Life". His television credits include work on such shows as All My Children, Kojak, Sanford and Son, Cosby, Sex and the City, The Wire, andLaw & Order. He most recently appeared on episode 5 of the Garry Trudeau/Amazon streaming production Alpha House. In June 2006, Orman's memoir Sesame Street Dad: Evolution of An Actor was released. In September 2007, his children's book Ricky and Mobo was released. On October 8, 2008, he became the Chief Storyteller of AudibleKids.com (a service of Audible.com), a website for parents, teachers, and children to connect with one another and download and listen to audiobooks oniPods, MP3 players, and computers. In his role as Chief Storyteller, Orman narrates audiobooks and communicates with children, parents and teachers online and at community, literacy and library events, lectures and conferences, and via other media to encourage the use of audiobooks to help build an interest in reading and develop literacy skills. He commented on being Chief Storyteller on October 8, 2008: “When Sesame Streetbegan, television was a new and even controversial medium. But we showed how that technology, if used correctly, could become a powerful learning tool...I see the same kind of opportunity emerging today as parents and educators increasingly view iPods with skepticism. With AudibleKids.com, I believe we can help turn these players into magnificent storytellers, tools for learning, and a way to promote a lifelong love of stories and language.”
His new role was announced at a community event at The Educational Alliance Boys & Girls Club in New York City, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office commended Orman’s life work and willingness to embrace new technology to help encourage children to read books, by naming October 8, 2008 AudibleKids Day in New York City. Orman is a resident of New Jersey. He has four children, Rasheda, Solana, Miles, and Cheyenne. His son, Miles Orman, was on Sesame Street playing Gordon and Susan's adopted son Miles Robinson from the mid-1980s into the early 1990s.
Richard Hunt (August 17, 1951 – January 7, 1992) was an American puppeteer, best known as a Muppet performer on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and other projects for The Jim Henson Company. His roles on The Muppet Show included Scooter, Statler, Janice, Beaker, and Sweetums and characters on Sesame Street included Gladys the Cow, Don Music, and Forgetful Jones.
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Stevland Hardaway Morris (previously Judkins; born May 13, 1950), better known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist. Blind since shortly after birth, Wonder signed with Motown Records' Tamla label at the age of eleven, and continues to perform and record for Motown to this day.
Among Wonder's best known works are singles such as "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "I Wish" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You". Well known albums also include Talking Book, Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. He has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and received twenty-two Grammy Awards, the most ever awarded to a male solo artist. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States. In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's fiftieth anniversary, with Wonder at number five.
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Rollie Krewson (sometimes credited as "Rollin Krewson") is a puppet designer and builder known for her work on various Muppet productions. She interned with Jim Henson's company in the mid-1970s. Although she now works primarily as a designer/builder, she began as a performer, doing small bits on The Muppet Show and other projects.
She has contributed to almost every Henson production since her arrival, and to this day carries her skills through on Sesame Street. Krewson was the designer for Julia, Sesame's autistic Muppet character.
Krewson has received seven Daytime Emmy Awards for her contributions on Sesame Street and has been nominated many times for her work on other Henson productions.
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Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase (born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon. He quickly became a key cast member in the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live, where his Weekend Update skit soon became a staple of the show. As both a performer and writer, he earned three Primetime Emmy Awards out of five nominations. Chase is also well-known for his portrayal of the character Clark Griswold in four National Lampoon's Vacation films, and for his roles in other successful comedies such as Caddyshack (1980), Fletch (1985), and ¡Three Amigos! (1986). He has hosted the Academy Awards twice (1987 and 1988) and briefly had his own late-night talk show, The Chevy Chase Show. He played the character Pierce Hawthorne on the NBC comedy series Community from 2009 to 2014.
Lew Grade, Baron Grade, OStJ (born Lev Winogradsky; 25 December 1906 – 13 December 1998) was a Russian-born British media proprietor and impresario. Originally a dancer, and later a talent agent, Grade's interest in television production began in 1954 when he founded the Incorporated Television Company (ITC; commonly known as ITC Entertainment) to distribute programmes, and following the success of The Adventures of Robin Hood decided to focus on bringing them to the American market. Grade had some success in this field with such series as Gerry Anderson's many Supermarionation series such as Thunderbirds, Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner, and Jim Henson's The Muppet Show. Later, Grade invested in feature film production, but several expensive box-office failures caused him to lose control of ITC, and ultimately resulted in the disestablishment of ATV after it lost its ITV franchise.
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Sir Roger George Moore KBE (14 October 1927 – 23 May 2017) was an English actor. He was the third actor to portray fictional secret agent James Bond in the Eon Productions/MGM Studios film series, playing the character in seven feature films between 1973 and 1985. Moore's seven appearances as Bond, from Live and Let Die to A View to a Kill, are the most of any actor in the Eon-produced entries.
On television, Moore played the lead role of Simon Templar, the title character in the British mystery thriller series The Saint (1962–1969). He also had roles in American series, including Beau Maverick on the Western Maverick (1960–1961), in which he replaced James Garner as the lead, and a co-lead, with Tony Curtis, in the action-comedy The Persuaders! (1971–1972). Continuing to act on screen in the decades after his retirement from the Bond franchise, Moore's final appearance was in a pilot for a new Saint series that became a 2017 television film.
Moore was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for services to charity. In 2007, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the film industry. He was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2008.
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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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Stephen Glenn 'Steve' Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer.
He was born in Waco, Texas, and raised in Southern California, where his early influences were working at Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm and working magic and comedy acts at these and other smaller venues in the area. His ascent to fame picked up when he became a writer for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and later became a frequent guest on The Tonight Show. In the 1970s, he performed his offbeat, absurdist comedy routines before packed houses on national tours. Since the 1980s, having branched away from stand-up comedy, he has become a successful actor, playwright, pianist, banjo player, and juggler, eventually earning Emmy, Grammy, and American Comedy awards.
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Diana Ross (born March 26, 1944) is an American singer, actress, and record producer. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Ross rose to fame as the lead singer of the vocal group the Supremes, which, during the 1960s, became Motown's most successful act, and are the best charting female group in US history, as well as one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time. The group released a record-setting twelve number-one hit singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, including "Where Did Our Love Go", "Baby Love", "Come See About Me", "Stop! In the Name of Love", "You Can't Hurry Love", "You Keep Me Hangin' On", "Love Child", and "Someday We'll Be Together".
Following her departure from the Supremes in 1970, Ross released her eponymous debut solo album that same year, featuring the number-one Pop hit "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". She later released the album Touch Me in the Morning in 1973; its title track reached number 1, as her second solo No. 1 hit. She continued a successful solo career through the 1970s, which included hit albums like Mahogany and Diana Ross and their number-one hit singles, "Theme from Mahogany" and "Love Hangover", respectively. Her 1980 album Diana produced another number-one single, "Upside Down", as well as the international hit "I'm Coming Out". Ross' final single with Motown during her initial run with the company achieved her sixth and final US number-one Pop hit, the duet "Endless Love" featuring Lionel Richie, whose solo career was launched with its success.
Ross has also ventured into acting, with a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award–nominated performance for her performance in the film Lady Sings the Blues (1972); she recorded its soundtrack, which became a number-one hit. She also starred in two other feature films, Mahogany (1975) and The Wiz (1978), later acting in the television films Out of Darkness (1994), for which she also was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, and Double Platinum (1999).
Ross was named the "Female Entertainer of the Century" by Billboard magazine. In 1993, the Guinness Book of World Records declared Ross the most successful female music artist in history, due to her success in the United States and United Kingdom for having more hits than any female artist in the charts, with a career total of 70 hit singles with her work with the Supremes and as a solo artist. In 1988, Ross was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as member of the Supremes, alongside Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard. She was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
She is a 12-time Grammy nominee, never earning a competitive honor, but later became the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. In December 2016, Billboard magazine named her the 50th most successful dance artist of all time. In Billboard magazine's Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Artists chart, she ranked 16th as the lead singer of the Supremes and 26th as a solo artist. In December 2018, Diana Ross consolidated her status as a dance diva by ranking #3 in the Billboard Dance Club Songs Artists year-end chart.
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier; February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than five decades. With a stage show that sometimes included a guillotine, gallows, electric chair, fake blood, boa constrictor and baby dolls, Cooper drew equally from horror movies, vaudeville and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand of heavy metal that was designed to shock.
Alice Cooper originally was a band that consisted of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and Neal Smith on drums. Taking on the name in 1968, the Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit "I'm Eighteen". It was followed in 1972 by the even bigger single "School's Out", which reached #1 in the UK during that summer. The band reached its commercial peak with the transatlantic #1 album Billion Dollar Babies in 1973.
Furnier's solo career as Alice Cooper, legally adopting the band's name as his own, began with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare, and reached his commercial peak with the 1989 hit "Poison". His most recent studio release (his 18th solo album) was in 2008, Along Came a Spider. Expanding from his original Detroit-based garage rock roots, over the years Cooper has experimented with many different musical styles, including art rock, conceptual rock, rock and roll, jazz, new wave, and heavy metal.
He's known for his social and witty persona offstage. The Rolling Stone Album Guide goes so far as to call him the world's most "beloved heavy metal entertainer". He helped to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and is seen as the person who "first introduced horror imagery to rock'n'roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre". Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur, and since 2004 a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper. In 2011, the original Alice Cooper Group was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023) was an American singer, actor and activist, who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s. Belafonte is one of the few performers to have received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT), although he won the Oscar in a non-competitive category. He earned his career breakthrough with the album Calypso (1956), which was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.
Belafonte was best known for his recordings of "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)", "Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)", "Jamaica Farewell", and "Mary's Boy Child". He recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards. He also starred in films such as Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), Buck and the Preacher (1972), and Uptown Saturday Night (1974). He made his final screen appearance in Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (2018).
Belafonte considered the actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson a mentor, and he was a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He was a vocal critic of the policies of the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations. Belafonte acted as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues.
Belafonte won three Grammy Awards (including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy's 6th Annual Governors Awards and in 2022 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category.
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Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE (born Julia Elizabeth Wells; 1 October 1935) is a British film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honours. Andrews was a former British child actress and singer who made her Broadway debut in 1954 with The Boy Friend, and rose to prominence starring in other musicals such as My Fair Lady and Camelot, and in musical films such as Mary Poppins (1964), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and The Sound of Music (1965): the roles for which she is still best-known. Her voice, which originally spanned four octaves, was damaged by a throat operation in 1997.
Andrews had a revival of her film career in 2000s in family films such as The Princess Diaries (2001), its sequel The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), the Shrek animated films (2004–2010), and Despicable Me (2010). In 2003 Andrews revisited her first Broadway success, this time as a stage director, with a revival of The Boy Friend at the Bay Street Theatre, Sag Harbor, New York (and later at the Goodspeed Opera House, in East Haddam, Connecticut in 2005).
Andrews is also an author of children's books, and in 2008 published an autobiography, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years.
Elton John is an English singer, pianist and composer.
He has made appearances in numerous films such as "Born to Boogie" (1972) with Marc Bolan and Ringo Starr; "Tommy" (1975) as the Pinball Wizard; "Spice World" (1997); "The Country Bears" (2002). And in the autobiographies "Elton John: Tantrums & Tiaras" (1997) and "Elton John: Me, Myself & I" (2007).
Mark Richard Hamill (born September 25, 1951) is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer. Hamill is best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy and also well known for voice-acting characters such as the Joker in various animated series, animated films and video games, beginning with Batman: The Animated Series, the Skeleton king in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Master Eraqus in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Skips in Regular Show, and Senator Stampington on Metalocalypse.
Anthony Daniels (born February 21, 1946) is an English actor and mime artist, best known for playing C-3PO in 10 Star Wars films. He is the only actor to have either appeared in or been involved with all theatrical films in the series, and has been involved in many of their spin-offs, including television series, video games, and radio serials.
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Liza May Minnelli (born March 12, 1946) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and choreographer. Known for her commanding stage presence and powerful alto singing voice, Minnelli is among a rare group of performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy (Grammy Legend Award), Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). Minnelli is a Knight of the French Legion of Honour.
Daughter of actress and singer Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli, Minnelli was born in Los Angeles, spent part of her childhood in Scarsdale, New York, and moved to New York City in 1961 where she began her career as a musical theatre actress, nightclub performer, and traditional pop music artist. She made her professional stage debut in the 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward and received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for starring in Flora the Red Menace in 1965, which marked the start of her lifelong collaboration with John Kander and Fred Ebb. They wrote, produced or directed many of Minnelli's future stage acts and television series and helped create her stage persona of a stylized survivor, including her career-defining performances of anthems of survival ("New York, New York", "Cabaret", and "Maybe This Time"). Along with her roles on stage and screen, this persona and her style of performance contributed to Minnelli's status as an enduring gay icon.
An acclaimed performance in the drama film The Sterile Cuckoo (1969) marked a film breakthrough for Minnelli and brought her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She later received the award for her performance as Sally Bowles in the musical film Cabaret (1972), which brought her to international prominence. Most of her following films, including Lucky Lady (1975), New York, New York (1977), Rent-a-Cop (1988), and Stepping Out (1991), were not as successful, aside from the major box office hit and critically lauded Arthur (1981) which starred Minnelli. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Lucky Lady, New York, New York and Arthur. She returned to Broadway on a number of occasions, including The Act (1977), for which she received her second Tony Award, as well as The Rink (1984) and Liza's at The Palace.... (2008). Minnelli has also worked on various television formats and has predominantly focused on music hall and nightclub performances since the late 1970s. Her concert performances at Carnegie Hall in 1979 and 1987 and at Radio City Music Hall in 1991 and 1992 are recognized among her most successful. From 1988 to 1990, she toured with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. in Frank, Liza & Sammy: The Ultimate Event.
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David Lazer started his career with Jim Henson in 1965. As an executive with IBM, he helped develop the Muppet Meeting Films commissioned by IBM. When he later joined Muppets Inc., producing meeting films became standard practice for the company.
Lazer served as executive producer for The Muppet Show where he also acted as a liaison for the show's guest stars. He would show the guest star how to walk on the elevated sets, how to speak to a Muppet (as opposed to the performer), and would make sure the star was comfortable with the very different production atmosphere.
From May to December of 1990, Lazer came out of semi-retirement to serve as acting CEO of Henson Associates.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Steven Whitmire (born September 24, 1958) is an American puppeteer who works with The Jim Henson Company and Sesame Workshop. He has been the performer of two signature Muppets - Kermit the Frog and Sesame Street's Ernie - since the death of their creator, Jim Henson, in 1990. Characters original to Whitmire include Rizzo the Rat, Lips (the trumpet player from Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem), Foo-Foo (Miss Piggy's beloved dog), Fraggle Rock's Wembley Fraggle, and Bean Bunny. Following the death of puppeteer Richard Hunt and Jerry Nelson's departure, Whitmire took over the roles of Beaker and Statler. He also voiced Link Hogthrob in the Muppet Party Cruise.
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John William Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host, comedian, writer, and producer. He is best known as the host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1992). Carson received six Primetime Emmy Awards, the Television Academy's 1980 Governor's Award, and a 1985 Peabody Award. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987. Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992 and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1993.
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James Joseph Frawley (September 29, 1936 – January 22, 2019) was an American director and actor.
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Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her life and served as monarch of 15 of them at the time of her death. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days is the longest of any British monarch and the longest recorded of any female head of state in history.
Brian Froud (born 1947) is an English fantasy illustrator and conceptual designer. He is most widely known for his 1978 book Faeries with Alan Lee, and as the conceptual designer of the Jim Henson films The Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986). According to Wired, Froud is "one of the most pre-emiminent visualizers of the world of faerie and folktale".
Most recently, Froud developed the 2019 streaming television series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
David Robert Jones, known professionally as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, releasing eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Born and raised in South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. “Space Oddity” became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single “Starman” and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards a sound he characterized as “plastic soul,” initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth and released Station to Station. The following year, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that would come to be known as the Berlin Trilogy. Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise. After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes,” its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and “Under Pressure,” a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance, with its title track topping both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. Bowie also continued acting; his roles included Major Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), the Goblin King Jareth in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped concert touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with the release of The Next Day. He remained musically active until he died of liver cancer two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar (2016).
Norman Seeff (born March 5, 1939, in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a photographer and filmmaker. Since moving to the United States in 1969, his work has been focused on the exploration of human creativity and the inner dynamics of the creative process.
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and entrepreneur. Lucas is known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts and Industrial Light & Magic. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012.
After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his earlier student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his youth in early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful, and received five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.
Lucas's next film, the epic space opera Star Wars (1977), had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and co-wrote the sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). With director Steven Spielberg, he created, produced and co-wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989) and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). He also produced and wrote a variety of films and television series through Lucasfilm between the 1970s and the 2010s.
In 1997, Lucas rereleased the Star Wars trilogy as part of a special edition featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with a Star Wars prequel trilogy comprising The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002), and Revenge of the Sith (2005). He last collaborated on the CGI-animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2014, 2020), the war film Red Tails (2012), and the CGI film Strange Magic (2015).
Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered a significant figure of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement.
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Michael Dammann Eisner (born March 7, 1942) is an American businessman.
Eisner was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Walt Disney Company from September 1984 to September 2005. Prior to Disney, Eisner was President and CEO of rival film studio Paramount Pictures from 1976 to 1984, and had brief stints at the major television networks NBC, CBS, and ABC.
Eisner was born to an affluent, secular Jewish family in Mount Kisco, New York. He was raised on Park Avenue in Manhattan. His mother, Margaret (née Dammann), whose family founded the American Safety Razor Company, was the president of the Irvington Institute, a hospital that treated children with rheumatic fever. His father, Lester Eisner, Jr., was a lawyer and regional administrator of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. His great-grandfather, Sigmund Eisner, established a very successful clothing company that was one of the first uniform suppliers to the Boy Scouts of America, and his great-grandmother, Bertha Weiss, belonged to an immigrant family that established the town of Red Bank, New Jersey.
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David Bowe (born January 4, 1964) is an often seen but rarely recognized character actor in American movies and television. His best known role is that of "Weird Al" Yankovic's sidekick, Bob, in 1989's UHF. His other film credits include A Few Good Men (1992), Made in America (1993, starring Whoopi Goldberg), The Rock (1996), Kicking & Screaming (2005) and Rubber (2010).
Bowe also had a recurring role on the short-lived television series Life... and Stuff, which aired in 1997 and co-starred Andrea Martin.
His wife is Olivia.
