Favorite Actresses
These women made some of my favorite films and part of favorite TV shows.
List activity
2K views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
21 people
- Music Artist
- Actress
- Producer
Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards, as well as the Kennedy Center Honor, American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement honor and the Film Society of Lincoln Center Chaplin Award.
She was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1942 to Diana Kind (née Ida Rosen), a singer turned school secretary, and Emanuel Streisand, a high school teacher. Her father died when she was 15 months old. She has a brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister, Roslyn Kind, from their mother's remarriage. As a child she attended the Beis Yakov Jewish School in Brooklyn. She was raised in a middle-class family and grew up dreaming of becoming an actress (or even an actress / conductor, as she happily described her teenage years at one of her concerts).
After a period as a nightclub singer and off-Broadway performer in New York City she began to attract interest and a fan base, thanks to her original and powerful vocal talent. She debuted on Broadway in the 1962 musical comedy "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" by Harold Rome, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a New York Drama Critics Poll award. The following year she reached great commercial success with her first Columbia Records solo releases, "The Barbra Streisand Album" (multiple Grammy winner, including "Best Album of the Year") and "The Second Barbra Streisand Album" (her first RIAA Gold Album); these albums, mostly devoted to composer Harold Arlen, brought her critical praise and, most of all, public acclaim all over the US. In 1964 she had another smash Broadway hit when she portrayed legendary Broadway star Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill; the show's main song, "People", became her first hit single and she appeared on the cover of Time magazine. After many TV appearances as a guest on various music and variety shows (such as an episode of The Judy Garland Show (1963), for which she was nominated for an Emmy), she signed an exclusive contract with CBS for a series of annual TV specials. My Name Is Barbra (1965) (which won an Emmy) and Color Me Barbra (1966) were extremely successful.
After a brief London stage period and the birth of her son Jason Gould (with then-husband Elliott Gould), in summer 1967 she gave a memorable free concert in New York City, "A Happening in Central Park", that was filmed and later broadcast (in an edited version) as a TV special; then she flew to Hollywood for her first movie, Funny Girl (1968), a filming of her stage success. The picture, directed by William Wyler, opened in 1968 and became a hit in the US and abroad, making her an international "superstar" and multiple award winner, including the Best Actress Oscar. After a series of screen musicals, such as Gene Kelly's Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Vincente Minnelli's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), she wanted to try comedies, resulting in such films as The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and What's Up, Doc? (1972). She turned to dramas and turned out Up the Sandbox (1972) and the classic The Way We Were (1973), directed by Sydney Pollack and co-starring Robert Redford. The song "The Way We Were" (written by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman) became one of her biggest hits and most memorable and famous songs.
She returned to TV for a new special conceived as a musical journey covering many world musical styles, Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments (1973), then returned (for contractual reasons) to her Fanny Brice role in a sequel to her hit "Funny Girl" film, Funny Lady (1975), and the next year turned out one of her most personal film projects, A Star Is Born (1976), one of the biggest hits of the year for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress and her second Oscar, for the song "Evergreen". Always extremely busy on the discography side, averaging one album a year throughout the '70s and '80s, she had a string of successful singles and albums, such as "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (duet with Neil Diamond), "Enough is Enough" (with Donna Summer), "The Main Event" (from her film The Main Event (1979) with her friend Ryan O'Neal) and the album "Guilty", written for her by The Bee Gees' Barry Gibb, which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
She debuted as a director with the musical drama Yentl (1983), in which she also portrayed a Jewish girl who is forced to pass herself off as a man to pursue her dreams. The movie received generally positive reviews and the beautiful score by Michel Legrand and lyricists Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman stands up as one of Streisand's finest musical works. The film received several Oscar nominations, winning in two categories, but she was not nominated as Best Director, which disappointed both her and her fans, many of whom consider this the Academy's biggest "snub".
In 1985 her album "The Broadway Album" was an unexpected runaway success, winning a Grammy Award and helping to introduce a new generation to the world of American musical theater. In 1986 she performed in a memorable concert, after 19 years of stage silence, "One Voice". She returned to the screen in Nuts (1987), a drama directed by Martin Ritt, in the role of a prostitute accused of murder who fights to avoid being labeled "insane" at her trial. In 1991 she appeared in The Prince of Tides (1991), which many consider to be the pinnacle of her screen career, playing a psychiatrist who tries to help a man (Nick Nolte) to find the pieces of his past life. The film received seven Oscar nominations (but again NOT for Best Directing), but she did receive a nomination from the DGA (Directors Guild of America) for Best Director. In 1994 she returned to the stage after 27 years for a series of sold-out concerts (for the televised version of one of these, she won another Emmy).
In the 1990s she broke several personal records: with two #1 albums ("Back to Broadway" in 1993 and "Higher Ground" in 1997) and became the only artist to achieve a #1 album on the Billboard charts in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (she extended this record into the 21st century in 2009 with the jazz album "Love is the Answer"). In 1996 she starred in her third picture as director, The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), with Jeff Bridges and Lauren Bacall. The film had a "the girl got the guy" ending, and the same happened to her in real life--the next year she married well known TV actor James Brolin.
In 2000 she focused her career again on concerts ("Timeless") and in 2006-07 with a European tour. She made only two more films--a supporting role as a sex therapist mother in the Ben Stiller comedy Meet the Fockers (2004) and its sequel, Little Fockers (2010), alongside Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. She published a book, "Passion for Design", in 2010 and celebrated her friendship with the Bergmans with an entire album of their songs, "What Matters Most" (2011), that debuted in the top 10.
After a long break from filming, she returned in a starring role for the 2012 holiday season with The Guilt Trip (2012), a mother/son picture co-starring Seth Rogen and directed by Anne Fletcher, and is working on putting together a film version of the well-known Jule Styne musical "Gypsy". In almost 50 years of career, Streisand has contributed to the show business industry in a personal and unique way, collecting a multi-generational fan base; she has a powerful and recognize vocal range, and a raucous and often self-deprecating sense of humor, which doesn't prevent her from showing the serious and dramatic sides of her personality. Her strong political belief in social justice infuses her professional career and personal life, and she makes no bones about what she believes; her willingness to put her money where her mouth is has resulted in some truly vicious attacks by many who hold opposite political views, but that hasn't stopped her from acting on her beliefs. She has been honored with the Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights Campaign, an Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from Brandeis University in 1995, an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2013 and the bestowing by the government of France the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. She supports many humanitarian causes through the Streisand Foundation and has been a dedicated environmentalist for many years; she endowed a chair in environmental studies in 1987 and donated her 24-acre estate to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. In addition, she was the lead founder for the Clinton Climate Change Initiative. This effort brought together a consortium of major cities around the world to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. She is a leading spokesperson and fund-raiser for social and political causes close to her heart and has often dedicated proceeds from her live concert performances to benefit programs she supports.Comedy, musical, drama... she can do it all! One of a kind. No one has ever matched this complete talent.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Eight time Academy Award-nominated actress Glenn Close was born and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. She is the daughter of Elizabeth Mary H. "Bettine" (Moore) and William Taliaferro Close (William Close), a prominent doctor. Both of her parents were from upper-class families.
Glenn was a noted Broadway performer when she was cast in her award-winning role as Jenny Fields in The World According to Garp (1982) alongside Robin Williams. For this role, a breakthrough in film for Close, she later went on to receive an Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The following year she was cast in the hit comedy The Big Chill (1983) for which she received a second Oscar Nomination, once again for Supporting Actress in the role of Sarah Cooper. In her third film, Close portrayed Iris Gaines a former lover of baseball player Roy Hobbs portrayed by Robert Redford, in one of the greatest sports films of all time, The Natural (1984). For a third time, Close was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Close went on to star in films like The Stone Boy (1984), Maxie (1985) and Jagged Edge (1985). In 1987 Close was cast in the box office hit Fatal Attraction (1987) for which she portrayed deranged stalker Alex Forrest alongside costars Michael Douglas and Anne Archer. For this role she was nominated for the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Actress. The following year Close starred in the Oscar Winning Drama Dangerous Liaisons (1988) for which she portrayed one of the most classic roles of all time as Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil, starring alongside John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer. For this role she was nominated once again for the Academy Award and BAFTA Film Award for Best Actress. Close was favorite to win the coveted statue but lost to Jodie Foster for The Accused (1988). Close had her claim to fame in the 1980s. Close starred on the hit Drama series Damages (2007) for which she has won a Golden Globe Award and two Emmy Awards. In her career Close has been Oscar nominated eight times, won three Tonys, an Obie, three Emmys, two Golden Globes and a Screen Actors Guild Award.Extraordinary actress in whatever she does.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Audra McDonald was born on July 3, 1970 in Berlin, Germany as Audra Ann McDonald. She's an actress and singer, best known for her many roles on Broadway. Her mother was a university administrator and her father was a high school principal stationed in West Berlin with the U.S. Army. She has a younger sister and grew up in Fresno, California. She graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School and went on to study classical singing at Julliard, from which she graduated in 1993. A year later, she won her first Tony Award for her role in Carousel. In 1998, she released her first solo album Way Back to Paradise. She was nominated for her first Emmy Award in 2001 for her role in Wit (2001). In 2006, she debuted as an opera singer in a production of a one-act opera La Voix humaine at the Houston Grand Opera. By 2014, she had won 6 Tonys, becoming the first person to win the award in all 4 acting categories. She planned to make her West End debut in 2016 but postponed it in order to go on maternity leave, eventually debuting at the Wyndham's Theater in the West End in June 2017. She has made many TV and movie appearances, most notably in 4 seasons of Private Practice (2007) & in Disney's remake of Beauty and the Beast (2017). She also performs at concerts throughout the U.S. She was married to Peter Donovan from 2000 to 2009, they have a daughter, Zoe Madeline. Since 2012 she's been married to Will Swenson, they have a daughter, Sally James.Reminds me of Barbra Streisand. Another actress that does it all brilliantly!- Producer
- Actress
- Music Department
Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road with her parents and younger sister, chef Gesine Bullock-Prado, and spent much of her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany. She often performed in the children's chorus of whatever production her mother was in. That singing talent later came in handy for her role as an aspiring country singer in The Thing Called Love (1993). Her family moved back to the Washington area when she was adolescent. She later enrolled in East Carolina University in North Carolina, where she studied acting. Shortly afterward she moved to New York to pursue a career on the stage. This led to acting in television programs and then feature films. She gave memorable performances in Demolition Man (1993) and Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), but did not achieve the stardom that seemed inevitable for her until her work in the smash hit Speed (1994). She now ranks as one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood. For her role in The Blind Side (2009) she won the Oscar, and her blockbusters The Proposal (2009), The Heat (2013) and Gravity (2013) made her a bankable star. With $56,000,000, she was listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the highest-paid actress in the world.Three words: The Blind Side!- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Entrancing, gorgeous Lesley Ann Warren started gearing towards a life in show business right off the bat as a young ballerina who trained at the School of American Ballet at the age of 14. Little did she know that Hollywood stardom would arrive on her doorstep in the form of a "Cinderella" story.
The New York-born actress (August 16, 1946) is the daughter of a night club singer, Margot Warren (née Verblow), and real estate agent, William Warren. Her mother had earlier given up her own entertainment career for marriage and family. Growing up, Lesley attended the Professional Children's School at the age of 6 and High School of Music & Art as a young teenager. At age 17, she studied under Lee Strasberg at his Actors Studio, the youngest student to ever be accepted at the time.
Looking for on-camera work, the teenager appeared unbilled as Shelley Winters's young daughter in the melodrama The Chapman Report (1962) and was given a bit in the daytime TV show "The Doctors." The slender, young hopeful gathered early musical stage experience in such shows as "Bye Bye Birdie" (as swooning teen Kim McAfee), then made an auspicious Broadway debut in "110 in the Shade", the 1963 musical version of "The Rainmaker," and won Broadway's "Most Promising Newcomer" Award. She subsequently received the Theatre World Award for her lead work as a "cat burglar" opposite Elliott Gould in the very short-lived (8 performances) musical "Drat! The Cat!" in 1965.
The attention Lesley received from this brief stage venture, however, led to her capturing the beguiling title role in the Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein II TV musical production of Cinderella (1965) with Stuart Damon as her Prince and a glittering, all-star cast in support. The Walt Disney people immediate signed the exquisite "Cinderella" to a fresh-faced ingénue contract. Co-starring in the moderately-received musical showcases The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), Lesley became convinced that she needed to quickly nip the saccharine stereotype in the bud if she was to grow and sustain as an adult actress.
Rebelling against her studio-imposed image, Lesley left Disney determined to pursue roles with more depth, drama and character. Changing her name temporarily to "Lesley Warren" to reinforce her more mature goal, she was hired in 1970 to replace Barbara Bain in the long-running espionage series Mission: Impossible (1966) when Bain left over contractual issues. Audiences were quite cool in their reception to the "new and improved" Lesley and didn't buy her as a femme-fatale replacement for the cool and aloof Ms. Bain.
After only one season, Lesley realized her mission to grow was impossible (in spite of an encouraging Golden Globe nomination) and left the show, seeking greener pastures in the TV mini-movie market. She displayed a wide range of vulnerable neurotics as well as sexier ladies that began to alter her pristine image. Such 1970s material included the plane crash adventure Seven in Darkness (1969) as one of several blind survivors; the love drama Love Hate Love (1971) co-starring Ryan O'Neal; a failed pilot in the title role of Cat Ballou (1971); a mild western as one of The Daughters of Joshua Cabe (1972); the exotic "silent star" biopic The Legend of Valentino (1975); the rags-to-riches story Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue (1977), for which she won a Golden Globe award; the epic WWII story Pearl (1978); and the social melodramas Betrayal (1978) and Portrait of a Stripper (1979). Lesley also impressed with her starring roles in the Civil War miniseries Beulah Land (1980) and as a Polish-Jewish immigrant in Evergreen (1985). On stage, she ambitiously attempted to recreate Scarlett O'Hara opposite Pernell Roberts's Rhett Butler in a 1973 Broadway-bound musical version of "Gone with the Wind: The Musical." The show quickly died on the West Coast before ever reaching New York.
In the early 1980s, Lesley's movie career resurrected itself with a priceless performance as kingpin James Garner's whiny-voiced, peroxide-blonde spitfire Norma Cassidy in the slapstick musical Victor/Victoria (1982). Earning both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, this delightful, scene-stealing turn was followed by a couple of other quality offbeat films that were directed by Alan Rudolph -- Choose Me (1984) and Songwriter (1984). Warren went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination supporting Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson in the former, and a People's Choice Award for the latter. She continued to attempt to spread her wings as a worldly "cougar" type opposite young blond and boyish Christopher Atkins in the critically-panned drama A Night in Heaven (1983). She also played Miss Scarlet in the movie version of the board game Clue (1985).
Award-worthy TV roles for Lesley with a Golden Globe performance as a successful madam in the miniseries Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue (1977). She also received Emmy and Golden Globe noms as the conflicted wife of a naval officer turned Russian double agent (Powers Boothe) in Family of Spies (1990), as well as for her Cable Ace nom for her work as a barmaid who aspires to be a country-western singer in Baja Oklahoma (1988). In 1997, she returned to Broadway with the musical revue "Dream" co-starring Margaret Whiting, which focused on classic "Golden Age" standards.
Entering her sixth decade of acting, Lesley remains highly active well into the millennium with often high-maintenance roles in such films as the Losing Grace (2001), Secretary (2002), My Tiny Universe (2004), When Do We Eat? (2005), The Shore (2006), Stiffs (2010), I Am Michael (2015), The Sphere and the Labyrinth (2015) and 3 Days with Dad (2019). Among her later TV credits are "Touched by an Angel," "The Practice," "Less Than Perfect," "American Princess," and a recurring role as an overly dependent mom named Jinx in the mystery crime series In Plain Sight (2008). Her dim, riotous Norma Cassady role had TV often pitching her as a scatter-brained comedienne, as in her recurring TV guest parts on Will & Grace (1998) and Desperate Housewives (2004).
Lesley has a son, actor/producer Christopher Peters, from her 1967-'73 marriage to makeup artist/hair stylist-cum-film producer Jon Peters. Since 2000, she has been married to advertising exec and sometime actor Ron Taft, a former vice-president at Columbia.Fell in love with her in 79 Park Ave. Loved her ever since.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the period from 1927 until 1964, after which she appeared on television until 1986. It was a career that lasted for 59 years.
Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens on July 16, 1907, in Brooklyn, New York, to working class parents Catherine Ann (McPhee) and Byron E. Stevens. Her father, from Massachusetts, had English ancestry, and her Canadian mother, from Nova Scotia, was of Scottish and Irish descent. Stanwyck went to work at the local telephone company for fourteen dollars a week, but she had the urge (a dream--that was all it was) somehow to enter show business. When not working, she pounded the pavement in search of dancing jobs. The persistence paid off. Barbara was hired as a chorus girl for the princely sum of $40 a week, much better than the wages she was getting from the phone company. She was seventeen, and was going to make the most of the opportunity that had been given her.
In 1928 Barbara moved to Hollywood, where she was to start one of the most lucrative careers filmdom had ever seen. She was an extremely versatile actress who could adapt to any role. Barbara was equally at home in all genres, from melodramas, such as Forbidden (1932) and Stella Dallas (1937), to thrillers, such as Double Indemnity (1944), one of her best films, also starring Fred MacMurray (as you have never seen him before). She also excelled in comedies such as Remember the Night (1939) and The Lady Eve (1941). Another genre she excelled in was westerns, Union Pacific (1939) being one of her first and TV's The Big Valley (1965) (her most memorable role) being her last. In 1983, she played in the ABC hit mini-series The Thorn Birds (1983), which did much to keep her in the eye of the public. She turned in an outstanding performance as Mary Carson.
Barbara was considered a gem to work with for her serious but easygoing attitude on the set. She worked hard at being an actress, and she never allowed her star quality to go to her head. She was nominated for four Academy Awards, though she never won. She turned in magnificent performances for all the roles she was nominated for, but the "powers that be" always awarded the Oscar to someone else. However, in 1982 she was awarded an honorary Academy Award for "superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting." Sadly, Barbara died on January 20, 1990, leaving 93 movies and a host of TV appearances as her legacy to us.- Actress
- Music Department
- Producer
Lauren Graham was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Donna Grant and Lawrence Graham, a candy industry lobbyist. Her father was from New York and her mother was from the American South, and Lauren has Irish, English, and Scottish ancestry. She grew up in Northern Virginia, USA (Fairfax, Arlington, and Great Falls, VA) Graduate of Langley High School, McLean, VA Graduate of Barnard College with a Bachelor's Degree in English. Graduate of Southern Methodist University with a Master's Degree in Acting. She was raised by a single parent, her father. Her parents divorced when she was 5. Growing up she wanted to be a jockey but her height precluded it. She traveled extensively with her father during her childhood and discovered acting while in elementary school. Her resume includes theatre, film and television.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Mary Tyler Moore was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on December 29, 1936. Moore's family relocated to California when she was eight. Her childhood was troubled, due in part to her mother's alcoholism. The eldest of three siblings, she attended a Catholic high school and married upon her graduation, in 1955. Her only child, Richard Meeker Jr., was born soon after.
A dancer at first, Moore's first break in show business was in 1955, as a dancing kitchen appliance - Happy Hotpoint, the Hotpoint Appliance elf, in commercials generally broadcast during the popular sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952). She then shifted from dancing to acting and work soon came, at first a number of guest roles on television series, but eventually a recurring role as Sam, Richard Diamond's sultry answering service girl, on Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1956), her performance being particularly notorious because her legs (usually dangling a pump on her toe) were shown instead of her face.
Although these early roles often took advantage of her willowy charms (in particular, her famously-beautiful dancer's legs), Moore's career soon took a more substantive turn as she was cast in two of the most highly regarded comedies in television history, which would air first-run for most of the '60s and '70s. In the first of these, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Moore played Laura Petrie, the charmingly loopy wife of star Dick Van Dyke. The show became famous for its very clever writing and terrific comic ensemble - Moore and her fellow performers received multiple Emmy Awards for their work. Meanwhile, she had divorced her first husband, and married advertising man (and, later, network executive) Grant Tinker.
After the end of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Moore focused on movie-making, co-starring in five between the end of the sitcom and the start of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), including Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), in which she plays a ditsy aspiring actress, and an inane Elvis Presley vehicle, Change of Habit (1969), in which she plays a nun-to-be and love interest for Presley. Also included in this mixed bag of films was a first-rate television movie, Run a Crooked Mile (1969), which was an early showcase for Moore's considerable talent at dramatic acting.
After trying her hand at movies for a few years, Moore decided, rather reluctantly, to return to television, but on her terms. The result was The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), which was produced by MTM Enterprises, a company she had formed with Tinker, and which later went on to produce scores of other television series. Moore starred as Mary Richards, who moves to Minneapolis on the heels of a failed relationship. Mary finds work at the newsroom of WJM-TV, whose news program is the lowest-rated in the city, and establishes fast friendships with her colleagues and her neighbors. The sitcom was a commercial and critical success and for years was a fixture of CBS television's unbeatable Saturday night line-up. Moore and Tinker were determined from the start to make the sitcom a cut above the average, and it certainly was - instead of going for a barrage of gags, the humor took longer to develop and arose out of the interaction between the characters in more realistic situations. This was also one of the earliest television portrayals of a woman who was happy and successful on her own rather than simply being a man's wife. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) is generally included amongst the finest television series ever produced in America.
Moore ended the sitcom in 1977, while it was still on a high point, but found it difficult to flee the beloved Mary Richards persona - her subsequent attempts at television series, variety programs, and specials (such as the mortifying disco-era Mary's Incredible Dream (1976)) usually failed, but even her dramatic work, which is generally excellent, fell under the shadow of Mary Richards. With time, however, her body of dramatic acting came to be recognized on its own, with such memorable work as in Ordinary People (1980), as an aloof WASP mother who not-so-secretly resents her younger son's survival; in Finnegan Begin Again (1985), as a middle-aged widow who finds love with a man whose wife is slowly slipping away, in Lincoln (1988), as the troubled Mary Todd Lincoln, and in Stolen Babies (1993), as an infamous baby smuggler (for which she won her sixth Emmy Award). She also inspired a new appreciation for her famed comic talents in Flirting with Disaster (1996), in which she is hilarious as the resentful adoptive mother of a son who is seeking his birth parents. Moore also acted on Broadway, and she won a Tony Award for her performance in "Whose Life Is It Anyway?"
Widely acknowledged as being much tougher and more high-strung than her iconic image would suggest, Moore had a life with more than the normal share of ups and downs. Both of her siblings predeceased her, her sister Elizabeth of a drug overdose in 1978 and her brother John of cancer in 1991 after a failed attempt at assisted suicide, Moore having been the assistant. Moore's troubled son Richie shot and killed himself in what was officially ruled an accident in 1980. Moore was diagnosed an insulin-dependent diabetic in 1969, and had a bout with alcoholism in the early 1980s. Divorced from Tinker in 1981 after repeated separations and reconciliations, she married physician Robert Levine in 1983. The union with Levine proved to be Moore's longest run in matrimony and her only marriage not to end in divorce. Despite the opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), in which she throws a package of meat into her shopping cart, Moore was a vegetarian and a proponent of animal rights. She was an active spokesperson for both diabetes issues and animal rights.
On January 25, 2017, Mary Tyler Moore died at age 80 at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut, from cardiopulmonary arrest complicated by pneumonia after having been placed on a respirator the previous week. She was laid to rest during a private ceremony at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Fairfield, Connecticut.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Sarah Jessica Parker was born March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio, to Barbra Forste (née Keck), a teacher who ran a nursery school, and Stephen Parker, a journalist. Her parents divorced, and her mother later remarried to Paul Forste and had four more children, bringing the total to eight. Sarah now had 3 full siblings and 4 half siblings. Her father was of Eastern European Jewish ancestry, and her mother had German, and some English, roots.
Trained in singing and ballet, Sarah was cast in the Broadway production of "The Innocents", which prompted her family to relocate to New Jersey. Already a professional performer (she studied at the American Ballet School and the Professional Children's School), Sarah was cast in "The Sound of Music" (along with four of her siblings), and landed the lead in the Broadway run of "Annie". After a year as the free-spirited orphan, Sarah attended Dwight Morrow High School, while continuing to add more credits to her acting resume. She landed a role in the made-for-TV movie My Body, My Child (1982), before being cast as one of the lead roles in the 1982 sitcom Square Pegs (1982), as high-schooler Patty Green.
Once a graduate, Sarah decided to pursue a full-time acting career rather than further her education. Since Square Pegs (1982) did not last more than a year, Sarah moved on to supporting film roles in movies such as Footloose (1984), Firstborn (1984), and the lead role in the teenage film Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985). Sarah was having lots of fun, although she had yet to land a star-turning role. After more television appearances in series and made-for-TV movies including A Year in the Life (1986), The Room Upstairs (1987) and Dadah Is Death (1988), Sarah finally landed the role of Steve Martin's bubbly lover in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story (1991). More substantial film roles soon followed, starting with a role opposite Nicolas Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) (which foreshadowed her comedic talent), Hocus Pocus (1993) and Ed Wood (1994).
A big Woody Allen fan, she starred opposite the renowned filmmaker in the television movie The Sunshine Boys (1996), and that same year, she landed a starring role in Miami Rhapsody (1995). 1996 was a film intensive year with roles in The First Wives Club (1996), If Lucy Fell (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996). All the while making a name for herself in film, Sarah was gaining respect as a theater actress, with her lead role as a dog (hard to imagine, but true) in the off-Broadway "Sylvia", and her Broadway roles in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (starring her present husband, Matthew Broderick), and the Tony-Award nominated "Once Upon a Mattress".
But Sarah's star has shot up since her portrayal of Manhattan sex-columnist Carrie Bradshaw in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998). Sarah's Golden Globe Best Actress victory in 2000 only underscores the fact that she plays the role of Carrie as though it were literally written for her. Sarah has been happily married to fellow actor Matthew Broderick for quite a while now. Before the marriage, she dated Robert Downey Jr. (who she also lived with), and the late John Kennedy Jr. When not serving as lead actress and producer of Sex and the City (1998), Sarah is a member of Hollywood's Women's Political Committee, and is UNICEF's representative for the Performing Arts.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Anjelica Huston was born on July 8, 1951 to director and actor John Huston and Russian prima ballerina Enrica 'Ricki' Soma. Huston spent most of her childhood overseas, in Ireland and England, and in 1968 first dipped her toe into the world of show business, taking on the lead role of her father's movie A Walk with Love and Death (1969). However, before it was released, her mother died in a car accident, at 39, and Huston relocated to the United States, where the very tall, exotically-beautiful young woman modeled for several years.
While modeling, Huston made sporadic cameo appearances in a couple films, but decided to pursue it as a career in the early '80s. She prepared herself by reaching out to acting coach Peggy Feury and began to get roles. The first notable part was in Bob Rafelson's remake of the classic noir movie The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) (in which Jack Nicholson, with whom Huston had been living since 1973, was the star). After a few more years of on-again, off-again supporting work, her father perfectly cast her as calculating, imperious Maerose, the daughter of a Mafia don whose love is scorned by a hit man (Nicholson again) in his film adaptation of Richard Condon's Mafia-satire novel Prizzi's Honor (1985). Huston won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance, making her the first person in Academy Award history to win an Oscar when a parent and a grandparent (her father and grandfather Walter Huston) had also won one.
Huston thereafter worked prolifically, including notable roles in Francis Ford Coppola's Gardens of Stone (1987), Barry Sonnenfeld's film versions of the Charles Addams cartoons The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993), in which she portrayed Addams matriarch Morticia, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). Probably her finest performance on-screen, however, was as Lilly, the veteran, iron-willed con artist in Stephen Frears' The Grifters (1990), for which she received another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. A sentimental favorite is her performance as the lead in her father's final film, an adaptation of James Joyce's The Dead (1987) -- with her many years of residence in Ireland, Huston's Irish accent in the film is authentic.
Endowed with her father's great height and personal boldness, and her mother's beauty and aristocratic nose, Huston certainly cuts an imposing figure, and brings great confidence and authority to her performances. She clearly takes her craft seriously and has come into her own as a strong actress, emerging from under the shadow of her father, who passed away in 1987. Huston married the sculptor Robert Graham in 1992. The couple lived in Venice Beach until Graham's death in 2008.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Multi Grammy Award-winning singer/comedienne/author Bette Midler has also proven herself to be a very capable actress in a string of both dramatic and comedic roles. Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 1, 1945. She is the daughter of Ruth (Schindel), a seamstress, and Fred Midler, a painter. Her parents, originally from New Jersey, were both from Jewish families (from Russia, Poland, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire).
Midler studied drama at the University of Hawaii and got her musical career started by performing in gay bathhouses with piano accompaniment from Barry Manilow. Her first album was "The Divine Miss M" released in November 1972, followed by the self-titled "Bette Midler" released in November 1973, both of which took off up the music charts, and Bette's popularity swiftly escalated from there.
After minor roles in several film/TV productions, she surprised all with her knockout performance of a hard-living rock-and-roll singer (loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin) in The Rose (1979), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 1986, director Paul Mazursky cast Midler opposite Nick Nolte and Richard Dreyfuss in the hilarious Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), and so began a string of very funny comedic film roles. She played an obnoxious wife who was the victim of a kidnap plot by her scoundrel husband, played by Danny DeVito, in Ruthless People (1986), was pursued by CIA and KGB spies in Outrageous Fortune (1987), played mismatched twins with Lily Tomlin in Big Business (1988) and shone in the tear-jerker Beaches (1988).
Bette matched feisty James Caan in the WWII drama For the Boys (1991), made a dynamic trio with Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton in The First Wives Club (1996), was back on screen with DeVito for the tepid comedy Drowning Mona (2000) and turned up in the glossy remake of The Stepford Wives (2004). Apart from her four Grammy awards, Bette Midler has also won four Golden Globes, one Tony Award, and three Emmy Awards, plus she has sold in excess of 15 million albums worldwide. Most recently, she toured with her sassy "Kiss My Brass" show, and is promoting her album "Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook".- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Southern-bred Mary-Louise Parker was born on August 2, 1964 in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the youngest of four children of Judge John Morgan Parker, and the former Caroline Louise Morell. She is of mostly Swedish, English, and Scottish descent. Her father's occupation took the family both around the country and abroad while growing up.
Parker showed potential in her teens and majored in acting in her college years, graduating from the North Carolina School of the Arts. Beginning her acting career with a part on the daytime soap Ryan's Hope (1975), Mary decided to test the waters in New York, and after work on the off-Broadway stage in the late 1980s, made her Broadway debut with "Prelude to a Kiss" in 1990, where she won the Theatre World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award and a Tony nomination.
Films and TV quickly followed and she quickly gained attention. She provided both poignant and amusing as the token femme friend to a group of gay men in the AIDS drama Longtime Companion (1989), but really caught fire with her feisty, standout performance in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), holding her own against such female powerhouses as Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates and Mary Stuart Masterson. Dubbed by some as the "long-suffering girl next door," she played such noble offbeat miserables and cast-asides in Grand Canyon (1991), Naked in New York (1993), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), The Client (1994) Boys on the Side (1995), in which she was the AIDS victim this time, The Portrait of a Lady (1996), The Maker (1997), Let the Devil Wear Black (1999), Red Dragon (2002) and Pipe Dream (2001).
Preferring quality over quantity, she perfected her craft with offbeat roles in independent features and did not abandon her theater roots. She copped a slew of acting prizes for her stage work in "How I Learned to Drive" (1996) and, most notably, "Proof" in 2000, wherein she won nearly every award there is to attain, including the prestigious Tony. Her marquee name still does not command what it should, but a picture or production with Mary-Louise Parker in it usually guarantees a strong critical reception. Unmarried, she did enter into a longtime companionship with actor Billy Crudup after the twosome appeared opposite each other in the 1996 play, "Bus Stop". They went their separate ways in 2003, amid major controversy (she was pregnant at the time).
Mary Louise continues to divide her time equally and skillfully on TV, film and the stage. The powerful TV miniseries adaptation of Tony Kushner heralded award-winning Broadway play Angels in America (2003), directed by Mike Nichols, earned the actress supporting performance Golden Globe and Emmy awards. She also earned a Tony nomination for the Broadway show, "Reckless", a year later but truly turned heads and wowed audiences the year after that in the highly acclaimed 7-season Showtime series Weeds (2005), earning another Golden Globe and several Emmy nominations for her amazing performance as Nancy Botwin, a relatively naïve suburban housewife and mother who courts serious trouble with the law and drug cartels when she turns into a neighborhood drug dealer for sustenance after her husband dies suddenly.
Into the millennium, Mary has continued with compelling work in such films as RED 2 (2013), R.I.P.D. (2013), Jamesy Boy (2014), Behaving Badly (2014), Chronically Metropolitan (2016), Golden Exits (2017) and Red Sparrow (2018). TV roles have included recurring roles on The Blacklist (2013) and the sci-fi thriller Mr. Mercedes (2017).
Her first child is eighteen-year-old William Atticus Parker -- a director, writer and actor. Adopting a second child from Ethiopia, Mary Louise was acknowledged in 2013 for her significant contributions to Hope North, an organization that works in the educating and healing of young victims caught in Uganda's civil war. Her memoir-in-letters, Dear Mr. You, came out in 2015.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Debra Messing was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the daughter of Jewish American parents, Sandra (née Simons), who has worked as a professional singer, banker, travel and real estate agent, and Brian Messing, a sales executive for a jewelry manufacturer. When Messing was three, she moved with her parents and her older brother, Brett, to East Greenwich, a small town outside Providence, Rhode Island.
During her high school years, she acted (and sang) in a number of high school productions, including the starring role in the musical "Annie" and "Fiddler On the Roof." Messing took lessons in dance, singing, and acting. In 1986, she was Rhode Island's Junior Miss and competed in Mobile, Alabama in the America's Junior Miss scholarship program. While her parents encouraged her dream of becoming an actress, they also urged her to complete a liberal arts education before deciding on acting as a career. Following their advice, she attended Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
In 1990, after graduating summa cum laude from Brandeis with a bachelor's degree in theater arts, Messing gained admission to the elite Graduate Acting Program (which accepts only about 15 new students annually) at New York University, where she earned a master's degree in fine arts after three years.
In 1998, Messing played a lead role as the bio-anthropologist Sloan Parker on ABC's dramatic science fiction television series Prey. During this time her agent approached her with the pilot script for the television show Will & Grace. Messing was inclined to take some time off, but the script intrigued her, and she auditioned for the role of Grace Adler, beating out Nicollette Sheridan, who later guest-starred on the show as a romantic rival of Grace's. Will & Grace became a ratings success, and Messing gained renown.
In 2002, she was named one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" by People Magazine. TV Guide picked her as its "Best Dressed Woman" in 2003. Messing met her husband, Daniel Zelman (an actor and screenwriter), on their first day as graduate students at NYU. The two were married on September 3, 2000, and live in New York City. On April 7, 2004, Messing gave birth to their son, Roman Walker Zelman.- Actress
- Make-Up Department
- Producer
Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Ruth Augusta (Favor) and Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent attorney. Her parents divorced when she was 10. She and her sister were raised by their mother. Her early interest was dance. To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but then she discovered the stage, and gave up dancing for acting. To her, it presented much more of a challenge.
After graduation from Cushing Academy, she was refused admittance to Eva Le Gallienne's Manhattan Civic Repertory. She enrolled in John Murray Anderson's Dramatic School and was the star pupil. She was in the off-Broadway play "The Earth Between" (1923), and her Broadway debut in 1929 was in "Broken Dishes". She also appeared in "Solid South". Late in 1930, she was hired by Universal, where she made her first film, called Bad Sister (1931). When she arrived in Hollywood, the studio representative who went to meet her train left without her because he could find no one who looked like a movie star. An official at Universal complained she had "as much sex appeal as Slim Summerville" and her performance in "Bad Sister" didn't impress.
In 1932, she signed a seven-year deal with Warner Brothers Pictures. Her first film with them was The Man Who Played God (1932). She became a star after this appearance, known as the actress that could play a variety of very strong and complex roles. More fairly successful movies followed, but it was the role of Mildred Rogers in RKO's Of Human Bondage (1934) that would give Bette major acclaim from the film critics. She had a significant number of write-in votes for the Best Actress Oscar, but didn't win. Warner Bros. felt their seven-year deal with Bette was more than justified. They had a genuine star on their hands. With this success under her belt, she began pushing for stronger and more meaningful roles. In 1935, she received her first Oscar for her role in Dangerous (1935) as Joyce Heath.
In 1936, she was suspended without pay for turning down a role that she deemed unworthy of her talent. She went to England, where she had planned to make movies, but was stopped by Warner Bros. because she was still under contract to them. They did not want her to work anywhere. Although she sued to get out of her contract, she lost. Still, they began to take her more seriously after that.
Returning after losing her lawsuit, her roles improved dramatically. In 1938, Bette received a second Academy Award win for her work in Jezebel (1938) opposite the soon-to-be-legendary Henry Fonda. The only role she didn't get that she wanted was Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Warners wouldn't loan her to David O. Selznick unless he hired Errol Flynn to play Rhett Butler, which both Selznick and Davis thought was a terrible choice. It was rumored she had numerous affairs, among them George Brent and William Wyler, and she was married four times, three of which ended in divorce. She admitted her career always came first.
She made many successful films in the 1940s, but each picture was weaker than the last and by the time her Warner Brothers contract had ended in 1949, she had been reduced to appearing in such films as the unintentionally hilarious Beyond the Forest (1949). She made a huge comeback in 1950 when she replaced an ill Claudette Colbert in, and received an Oscar nomination for, All About Eve (1950). She worked in films through the 1950s, but her career eventually came to a standstill, and in 1961 she placed a now famous Job Wanted ad in the trade papers.
She received an Oscar nomination for her role as a demented former child star in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). This brought about a new round of super-stardom for generations of fans who were not familiar with her work. Two years later, she starred in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). Bette was married four times.
In 1977 she received the AFI's Lifetime Achievement Award and in 1979 she won a Best Actress Emmy for Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (1979). In 1977-78 she moved from Connecticut to Los Angeles and filmed a pilot for the series Hotel (1983), which she called Brothel. She refused to do the TV series and suffered a stroke during this time.
Her last marriage, to actor Gary Merrill, lasted ten years, longer than any of the previous three. In 1985, her daughter Barbara Davis ("B.D.") Hyman published a scandalous book about Bette called "My Mother's Keeper." Bette worked in the later 1980s in films and TV, even though a stroke had impaired her appearance and mobility. She wrote a book, "This 'N That", during her recovery from the stroke. Her last book was "Bette Davis, The Lonely Life", issued in paperback in 1990. It included an update from 1962 to 1989. She wrote the last chapter in San Sebastian, Spain.
Sadly, Bette Davis died on October 6, 1989, of metastasized breast cancer, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. Many of her fans refused to believe she was gone.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Known outside her native country as the "Spanish enchantress," Penélope Cruz Sánchez was born in Madrid to Eduardo Cruz, a retailer, and Encarna Sánchez, a hairdresser. As a toddler, she was already a compulsive performer, re-enacting TV commercials for her family's amusement, but she decided to focus her energies on dance. After studying classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory, she continued her training under a series of prominent dancers. At 15, however, she heeded her true calling when she bested more than 300 other girls at a talent agency audition. The resulting contract landed her several roles in Spanish TV shows and music videos, which in turn paved the way for a career on the big screen. Cruz made her movie debut in El laberinto griego (1993) (The Greek Labyrinth), then appeared briefly in the Timothy Dalton thriller Framed (1992). Her third film was the Oscar-winning Belle Epoque (1992), in which she played one of four sisters vying for the love of a handsome army deserter. The film also garnered several Goyas, the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards. Her resume continued to grow by three or four films each year, and soon Cruz was a leading lady of Spanish cinema. Live Flesh (1997) (Live Flesh) offered her the chance to work with renowned Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (who would later be her ticket to international fame), and the same year she was the lead actress in the thriller/drama/mystery/sci-fi film Open Your Eyes (1997), a huge hit in Spain that earned eight Goyas (though none for Cruz). Her luck finally changed in 1998, when the movie-industry comedy The Girl of Your Dreams (1998) won her a Best Actress Goya. Cruz made a few more forays into English-language film, but her first big international hit was Almodóvar's All About My Mother (1999), in which she played an unchaste but well-meaning nun. As the film was showered with awards and accolades, Cruz suddenly found herself in demand on both sides of the Atlantic. Her next big project was Woman on Top (2000), an American comedy about a chef with bewitching culinary skills and a severe case of motion sickness. While in the US, she also signed up to star opposite Johnny Depp in the drug-trafficking drama Blow (2001) and opposite Matt Damon in Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses (2000). Cruz says she's wary of being typecast as a beautiful young damsel, but it's hard to imagine disguising her wide-eyed charms and generous nature. Fortunately, with Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001) (a remake of Open Your Eyes (1997)) and a John Madden collaboration looming in her future, Damsel Penelope isn't likely to disappear just yet.- Producer
- Actress
- Writer
Firebrand Roseanne Barr has long been one of America's funniest and most controversial comedians.
She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Helen (Davis), a cashier and bookkeeper, and Jerome Hershel "Jerry" Barr, a salesman. Her family was Jewish, and had moved to the U.S. from Russia, Lithuania, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She dropped out of high school when she was seventeen, and, after a car accident, was admitted to a mental institution, claiming she was having nightmares and memory loss. She left the institute less than a year later. At seventeen, she gave birth to her first daughter, Brandi Brown, and gave her up for adoption. She began working at a restaurant as a dishwasher and waitress. Her hilarious comments to the customers she waited on led her to doing stand-up comedy at the restaurant. She married Bill Pentland and they had three children together, Jessica, Jennifer, and Jacob Pentland.
Roseanne worked doing stand-up comedy until her August 23, 1985 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) thrust her into the limelight. In 1987, HBO offered her a show of her own, On Location: The Roseanne Barr Show (1987). It was canceled after a short time. In 1989, Roseanne starred opposite Meryl Streep and Ed Begley Jr. in She-Devil (1989). Though her first picture wasn't as successful as she might have hoped, her sitcom, Roseanne (1988), debuted in 1988 and ran for 9 seasons on ABC, co-starring John Goodman. It dealt with real-life issues in a lower middle-class working family. During its first season on ABC, it leaped to #2 in the ratings. After the sitcom's first season, Roseanne gained notoriety when she gave a screeching, crotch-grabbing performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" at a baseball game.
When Roseanne divorced her first husband, Bill Pentland, after 16 years of marriage in 1990 and married Roseanne (1988) co-star Tom Arnold only four days later, her sitcom was already beginning its downward spiral. In 1991, she started to be billed as Roseanne Arnold. Around this time, she began to claim that she, as well as her siblings, had been physically and sexually abused as a child. Both her siblings and parents denied the charges, and lie detector tests used on Roseanne's parents came back negative. The court battles led to ten years of estrangement with her parents and siblings. Her marriage with Arnold lasted four years before she filed for divorce from him for physical abuse and domestic violence. It is still not known if the accusations were true. Although she insisted that he hit her, she admits that he never abused her three children from her previous marriage:
In 1996, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and won, but she was not there to accept it. Luckily, Tom Arnold's exit from "Roseanne" happened towards the end of the sixth season, allowing the show to have an almost smooth ending. However, after the sixth season of Roseanne (1988), the plots started to run dry and ratings began to drop. During the season following her divorce, she insisted on being billed as simply "Roseanne." After Roseanne (1988) was canceled, she went on Broadway to play "The Wicked Witch of the West" in "The Wizard of Oz" to rave reviews.
On Valentine's Day 1995, Roseanne married former bodyguard Ben Thomas. With Thomas, she had her tubal ligation surgery reversed in order to become pregnant with her fifth child, Buck Thomas. In 1997, she slowly began being billed as "Roseanne Thomas", as in the last 11 episodes of Roseanne, as executive producer (she was still "Roseanne" in the cast credits). She guest-starred in The Nanny (1993) as Roseanne Thomas in late 1997. In 2002, she filed for divorce against Thomas for the second time (the first time, in 1998, she dropped the suit), accusing him of being disturbed and claiming that he threatened to run off with their son.
After the divorce, she began to study the Kabballah, a form of Jewish mysticism, and those around her said she became amazingly centered and stable. In the 2000s, she ended the feud with her parents and siblings and went back to being billed as Roseanne Barr. Today, Roseanne Barr Pentland Arnold Thomas spends her time with her family in her home in El Segundo, California.
Always outspoken, Roseanne began commenting on politics in earnest in the 2000s, and unsuccessfully ran for the Green Party's presidential nomination in 2012. She was subsequently chosen as the Peace and Freedom Party's candidate for President of the United States in '12, receiving 61,971 votes in the general election, and placing sixth. Her run is depicted in the documentary Roseanne for President! (2015).
Initially a left-leaning liberal, she became considerably more right-wing throughout the 2010s. Her show Roseanne returned for a tenth season in 2018, to blockbuster ratings, but was canceled after Roseanne sent a racially-offensive tweet that capped off a longer run of incendiary comments.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Precocious, outspoken child-teen starlet of the 1990s, Christina Ricci was born on February 12, 1980 in Santa Monica, California, the youngest of four children of Sarah (Murdoch), a realtor, and Ralph Ricci, a lawyer and therapist. She is of Italian (from her paternal grandfather), Irish, and Scots-Irish descent. She made her screen debut at the age of 9 in Mermaids (1990), in which she worked with Winona Ryder and Cher. Her breakthrough adult role was in The Ice Storm (1997), in which she plays a nymphet who skillfully seduces two brothers. She worked with Johnny Depp and Casper Van Dien in the Tim Burton film Sleepy Hollow (1999).- Music Artist
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Linda Ronstadt was born on 15 July 1946 in Tucson, Arizona, USA. She is a music artist and actress, known for The Pirates of Penzance (1983), An American Tail (1986) and The Abyss (1989).- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
One of America's most loved actresses was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alma Sophia (Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. Her grandparents were all German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born and Paul, a few years older.
Her parents divorced while she was still a child, and she lived with her mother. Like most little girls, Doris liked to dance. At fourteen, she formed a dance act with a boy, Jerry Doherty, and they won $500 in a local talent contest. She and Jerry took a brief trip to Hollywood to test the waters. They felt they could succeed, so she and Jerry returned to Cincinnati with the intention of packing and making a permanent move to Hollywood. Tragically, the night before she was to move to Hollywood, she was injured riding in a car hit by a train, ending the possibility of a dancing career.
It was a terrible setback, but after taking singing lessons she found a new vocation, and at age 17, she began touring with the Les Brown Band. She met trombonist Al Jorden, whom she married in 1941. Jorden was prone to violence and they divorced after two years, not long after the birth of their son Terry. In 1946, Doris married George Weidler, but this union lasted less than a year. Day's agent talked her into taking a screen test at Warner Bros. The executives there liked what they saw and signed her to a contract (her early credits are often confused with those of another actress named Doris Day, who appeared mainly in B westerns in the 1930s and 1940s).
Her first starring movie role was in Romance on the High Seas (1948). The next year, she made two more films, My Dream Is Yours (1949) and It's a Great Feeling (1949). Audiences took to her beauty, terrific singing voice and bubbly personality, and she turned in fine performances in the movies she made (in addition to several hit records). She made three films for Warner Bros. in 1950 and five more in 1951. In that year, she met and married Martin Melcher, who adopted her young son Terry, who later grew up to become Terry Melcher, a successful record producer.
In 1953, Doris starred in Calamity Jane (1953), which was a major hit, and several more followed: Lucky Me (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and what is probably her best-known film, Pillow Talk (1959). She began to slow down her filmmaking pace in the 1960s, even though she started out the decade with a hit, Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960).
In 1958, her brother Paul died. Around this time, her husband, who had also taken charge of her career, had made deals for her to star in films she didn't really care about, which led to a bout with exhaustion. The 1960s weren't to be a repeat of the previous busy decade. She didn't make as many films as she had in that decade, but the ones she did make were successful: Do Not Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968) and With Six You Get Eggroll (1968). Martin Melcher died in 1968, and Doris never made another film, but she had been signed by Melcher to do her own TV series, The Doris Day Show (1968). That show, like her movies, was successful, lasting until 1973. After her series went off the air, she made only occasional TV appearances.
By the time Martin Melcher died, Doris discovered she was millions of dollars in debt. She learned that Melcher had squandered virtually all of her considerable earnings, but she was eventually awarded $22 million by the courts in a case against a man that Melcher had unwisely let invest her money. She married for the fourth time in 1976 and since her divorce in 1980 has devoted her life to animals.
Doris was a passionate animal rights activist. She ran Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets.
Doris died on May 13, 2019, in Carmel Valley Village, California. She was 97.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Jennifer Jason Leigh was born Jennifer Lee Morrow in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of writer Barbara Turner and actor Vic Morrow. Her father was of Russian Jewish descent and her mother was of Austrian Jewish ancestry. She is the sister of Carrie Ann Morrow and half-sister of actress Mina Badie.
Jennifer's parents divorced when she was two. Jennifer worked in her first film at the age of nine, in a nonspeaking role for the film Death of a Stranger (1973). At 14 she attended summer acting workshops given by Lee Strasberg and later landed a role in the Disney TV movie The Young Runaways (1978). She received her Screen Actors Guild membership for an episode of the TV series Baretta (1975) when she was 16. Jennifer performed in several TV movies and dropped out of Pacific Palisades High School six weeks short of graduation for her major role in the film Eyes of a Stranger (1981). Her first major success came as the female lead in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
Jennifer was married to writer/director Noah Baumbach from 2005 to 2013, and the two have a son.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Sarah Silverman was most recently the host of the two-time Emmy-nominated weekly topical series, I Love You America, which streamed on Hulu and also received a Writers Guild Awards nomination.
Silverman is currently working on a musical adaptation of her 2010 memoir and New York Times Bestseller called The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee. The musical, The Bedwetter, will premiere Off Broadway at the Atlantic Theatre Company in April 2020.
On-stage, Silverman continues to cement her status as a force in stand-up comedy. In May 2017, she released her latest standup special A Speck of Dust on Netflix, which culminated in two Emmy Award nominations and a Grammy Award nomination. In 2013, she debuted her hour-long HBO standup special Sarah Silverman: We Are Miracles, which earned her the 2014 Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special." The special received an additional Primetime Emmy Awards nomination that year for "Outstanding Variety Special" in addition to a Writers Guild Awards nomination. In September 2014, Silverman released the special as an audio album through Sub Pop Records, which went on to receive a 2015 Grammy Awards nomination for "Best Comedy Album." Previously, Silverman made an impressive splash with her concert-meets-comedy film Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic, which garnered major attention at the Toronto Film Festival.
In the film world, Silverman was most recently seen opposite Emma Stone and Steve Carell in the critically-acclaimed film Battle of the Sexes, which was based on the true story of the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. She also starred in I Smile Back, the film adaptation of the Amy Koppelman novel. The drama premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was later released in theaters by Broad Green Pictures. Silverman received much praise for her role as "Laney Brooks," culminating in a 2016 Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for "Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role." Her additional film credits include The Book of Henry, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Ashby, A Million Ways to Die in the West, Take This Waltz, Gravy, Peep World, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, The School of Rock, There's Something About Mary, The Way of The Gun. Silverman also lent her voice as "Vanellope" in the Oscar-nominated smash hit Wreck It Ralph and Golden Globe nominated Wreck it Ralph 2: Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Silverman was nominated for a 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series" for her portrayal of a fictionalized version of herself in her Comedy Central series The Sarah Silverman Program. This marked Comedy Central's first ever Emmy nomination in a scripted acting category. Silverman also received a Writers Guild Award nomination for her work on the show. In 2008, Silverman won a Primetime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics" for her musical collaboration with Matt Damon. Additionally, she was honored with a Webby Award for "Best Actress" for her online video "The Great Schlep," in which she persuaded young kids to encourage their grandparents in Florida to vote for President Obama prior to the 2008 Presidential Election.
Silverman has made memorable guest appearances on a number of acclaimed and notable television shows, including Monk, which earned her a 2008 Primetime Emmy Awards nomination for "Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series." Silverman also lends her voice to Emmy Award-winning FOX animated series Bob's Burgers. Her additional television work includes buzzed-about roles on HBO's Crashing, Masters of Sex, The Good Wife, The Larry Sanders Show, Seinfeld, and Mr. Show with Bob and David. Silverman has hosted a number of major awards shows, including the 2007 MTV Movie Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards.
Silverman grew up in New Hampshire and attended one year of New York University. In 1993 she joined Saturday Night Live as a writer and feature performer and has not stopped working since.
She currently lives in Los Angeles.