Hello, Dolly! 1969 premiere
Friday December 19th, TCL Chinese Theatre
6925 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028
6925 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028
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- 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.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Walter Matthau was best known for starring in many films which included Charade (1963), The Odd Couple (1968), Grumpy Old Men (1993), and Dennis the Menace (1993). He often worked with Jack Lemmon and the two were Hollywood's craziest stars.
He was born Walter Jake Matthow in New York City, New York on October 1, 1920. His mother was an immigrant from Lithuania and his father was a Russian Jewish peddler and electrician from Kiev, Ukraine. As a young boy, Matthau attended a Jewish non-profit sleep-away camp. He also attended Surprise Lake Camp. His high school was Seward Park High School.
During World War II, Matthau served in the U.S. Army Air Forces with the Eighth Air Force in Britain as a Consolidated B-24 Liberator radioman-gunner, in the same 453rd Bombardment Group as James Stewart. He was based at RAF Old Buckenham, Norfolk during this time. He reached the rank of staff sergeant and became interested in acting.
Matthau appeared in the pilot of Mister Peepers (1952) alongside Wally Cox. He later appeared in the Elia Kazan classic, A Face in the Crowd (1957), opposite Patricia Neal and Andy Griffith, and then appeared in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), with Kirk Douglas, a film Douglas has often described as his personal favorite. Matthau then appeared in Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. In 1968, Matthau made his big screen appearance as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple (1968) alongside Jack Lemmon. The two were also in the sequel (The Odd Couple II (1998)) as well as Grumpy Old Men (1993) and Grumpier Old Men (1995). Matthau was in Dennis the Menace (1993), alongside Mason Gamble. On July 1, 2000, Matthau died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California. He was 79 years old.- Actress
- Soundtrack
- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Writer
In a six-decade-plus career (she started out as a radio performer at age 14), there are very few facets of entertainment that lovely singer/actress Polly Bergen has not conquered or, at the very least, touched upon. A nightclub and Columbia recording artist of the 50s and 60s, she is just as well known for her film and Emmy-winning dramatic performances as she is for her wry comedic gifts. In the leaner times, she has maintained quite well with her various businesses. Truly one for the ages, Polly has, at age 70+, nabbed a Tony nomination for her gutsy "I'm Still Here" entertainer Carlotta in Stephen Sondheim's "Follies", and was still dishing out the barbs as she recently demonstrated as Felicity Huffman's earthy mom on Desperate Housewives (2004).
Born in Knoxville, Tennessee as Nellie Burgin on July 14, 1930, her family, which included father William, mother Lucy and sister Barbra, eventually moved to Los Angeles. By the time she was 14, Polly was singing professionally on radio and managed to scrape up singing gigs with smaller bands around and about the Southern California area. She attended Compton Junior College before Paramount mogul Hal B. Wallis caught sight of her and signed her up with his studio. Having made an isolated film debut (as Polly Burgin) a year earlier in the Monogram western Across the Rio Grande (1949), Wallis showcased her as a decorative love interest in the slapstick vehicles of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, the (then) hottest comedy team in Hollywood. But At War with the Army (1950), That's My Boy (1951) and The Stooge (1951) did little for Polly although she presented herself well. MGM and Universal had the idea to cast her in a more serious vein with co-starring roles in their dramas Escape from Fort Bravo (1953), Arena (1953) and Cry of the Hunted (1953), but again she was overlooked. Disasppointed, she decided to abandon her lucrative film contract and seek work elsewhere.
That "elsewhere" came in the form of 1950s TV. Focusing on her singing, she promoted her many albums for Columbia by guest-starring on all the top variety shows of the times. This culminated in her own variety program, The Polly Bergen Show (1957). The song "The Party's Over" became her traditional show-closer and signature tune. Polly also showed some marquee mettle on the cabaret and nightclub circuits, performing at many of the top hotels and showrooms throughout the country. She made her Broadway debut along with Harry Belafonte in "John Murray Anderson's Almanac" in 1953, and went on to appear in such stage shows as "Top Man" and "Champagne Complex". A delightfully engaging game show panelist to boot, she took a regular seat on the To Tell the Truth (1956) panel for five seasons.
Polly tended to display a looser, down-to-earth personality to induce laughs but she was also was formidable dramatic player and fashion plate quite capable of radiating great charm, poise and elegance. For her role as alcoholic torch singer Helen Morgan in the special TV showcase The Helen Morgan Story (1957) , she took home the Emmy award. Unfortunately for Polly, Ann Blyth took on the role of the tragic singer in the film version (with Gogi Grant providing the vocals), in what could have been a significant return to films for her.
Instead, Polly had to wait another five years for that to happen. As the wife of Gregory Peck and designated victim of revengeful psychopath Robert Mitchum in the taut movie thriller Cape Fear (1962), her film career reignited. Other opportunities came in the form of her distraught mental patient in The Caretakers (1963), which found her at odds with nurse Joan Crawford and doctor Robert Stack; the sparkling comedy Move Over, Darling (1963), which placed her in a comedy triangle with "other wife" Doris Day and husband James Garner; and as the first woman Chief Executive of the White House in the frothy comedy tidbit Kisses for My President (1964) opposite bemused "First Gentleman" Fred MacMurray. In what was to be a tinge of deja vu, Polly again saw her movie career dissipate after only a couple of vehicles. True to form, the indomitable Polly rebounded on TV.
A mild string of TV-movies came her way as she matured into the 1970s and 1980s, most notably the acclaimed miniseries The Winds of War (1983), which reunited her with Robert Mitchum, this time as his unhappy, alcoholic wife. This, along with her participation in the sequel, War and Remembrance (1988), earned Polly supporting Emmy nominations. In the years to come, she would find herself still in demand displaying her trademark comic grit in such shows as The Sopranos (1999), Commander in Chief (2005) and Desperate Housewives (2004).
Polly returned to singing in 1999 after nearly a three-decade absence (due to health and vocal issues). Quite huskier in tone, she went on to delight the New York musical stage with stand-out performances in "Follies" (2001), "Cabaret" (2002) and "Camille Claudel" (2007). Polly still made nightly appearances and had even put together singing concert tours on occasion.
Polly has authored three best-selling beauty books outside the acting arena and has demonstrated a marked level of acumen in the business world. Founding a mail-order cosmetics business in 1965, she sold it to Faberge eight years later. She also developed her own shoe and jewelry lines.
Married (1950-1955) to MGM actor Jerome Courtland during her first movie career peak, she later wed topflight agent/producer Freddie Fields in 1957, a union that lasted 18 years and produced two adopted children, Pamela and Peter. A third marriage in the 1980s also ended in divorce. An assertive voice when it comes to women's rights and issues, her memoir "Polly's Principles" came out in 1974.
Polly played a grandmother in her last film, the dramedy Struck by Lightning (2012), and died two years later on September 20, 2013, at the age of 84.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
George Burns was an American actor, comedian, singer, and published author. He formed a comedy duo with his wife Gracie Allen (1895-1964), and typically played the straight man to her zany roles. Following her death, Burns started appearing as a solo performer. He once won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and continued performing until his 90s. He lived to be a centenarian, was viewed as an "elder statesman" in the field of comedy.
Burns was born under the name "Nathan Birnbaum" in 1896, and was nicknamed "Nattie" by his family. His father was Eliezer "Louis" Birnbaum (1855-1903), a coat presser who also served a substitute cantor at a local synagogue in New York City. His mother was Hadassah "Dorah" Bluth (1857-1927), a homemaker. Both parents were Jewish immigrants, originally from the small town of Kolbuszowa in Austrian Galicia (currently part of Poland). Kolbuszowa had a large Jewish population until World War II, when the German occupation forces in Poland relocated the local Jews to a ghetto in Rzeszów.
The Birnbaums were a large family, and Burns had 11 siblings. He was the 9th eldest of the Birnbaum Children. In 1903, Louis Birnbaum caught influenza and died, during an ongoing influenza epidemic. Orphaned when 7-years-old, Burns had to work to financially support his family. He variously shined shoes, run errands, selling newspapers, and worked as a syrup maker in a local candy shop.
Burns liked to sing while working, and practiced singing harmony with three co-workers of similar age. They were discovered by letter carrier Lou Farley, who gave them the idea to perform singing in exchange for payment. The four children soon started performing as the "Pee-Wee Quartet", singing in brothels, ferryboats, saloons, and street corners. They put their hats down for donations from their audience, though their audience was not always generous. In Burns' words: "Sometimes the customers threw something in the hats. Sometimes they took something out of the hats. Sometimes they took the hats."
Burns started smoking cigars c. 1910, when 14-years-old. It became a lifelong habit for him. Burns' performing career was briefly interrupted in 1917, when he was drafted for service in World I. He eventually failed his physical exams, due to his poor eyesight.
By the early 1920s, he adopted the stage name "George Burns", though he told several different stories of why he chose the name. He supposedly named himself after then-famous baseball player George Henry Burns (1897-1978), or the also famous baseball player George Joseph Burns (1889-1966). In another version, he named himself after his brother Izzy "George" Birnbaum, and took the last name "Burns" in honor of Burns Brothers Coal Company.
Burns performed dance routines with various female partners, until he eventually married his most recent partner Gracie Allen in 1926. Burns made his film debut in the comedy short film "Lambchops" (1929), which was distributed by Vitaphone. The film simply recorded one of Burns and Allen's comedy routines from vaudeville.
Burns made his feature film debut in a supporting role of the musical comedy "The Big Broadcast" (1932). He appeared regularly in films throughout the 1930s, with his last film role for several years appearing in the musical film "Honolulu" (1939). Burns was reportedly considered for leading role in "Road to Singapore" (1940), but the studio replaced him with Bob Hope (1903-2003).
Burns and Allen started appearing as comic relief for a radio show featuring bandleader Guy Lombardo (1902-1977). By February 1932, they received their own sketch comedy radio show. The couple portrayed younger singles, until the show was retooled in 1941 and started featuring them as a married couple. By the fall of 1941, the show had evolved into a situational comedy about married life. Burns and Allen's supporting cast included notable voice actors Mel Blanc, Bea Benaderet, and Hal March.
The radio show finally ended in 1949, reworked into the popular television show "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" (1950-1958). Allen would typically play the "illogical" housewife, while Burns played the straight man and broke the fourth wall to speak to the audience. The couple formed the production company McCadden Corporation to help produce the show.
Allen developed heart problems during the 1950s, and by the late 1950s was unable to put up the energy needed for the show. She fully retired in 1958. The show was briefly retooled to "The George Burns Show" (1958-1959), but Burns comedic style was not as popular as that of his wife. The new show was canceled due to low ratings.
Following Allen's death in 1964, Burns attempted a television comeback by creating the sitcom "Wendy and Me" (1964-1965) about the life of a younger married couple. The lead roles were reserved for Ron Harper and Connie Stevens, while Burns had a supporting role as their landlord. He also performed as the show's narrator.
As a television producer, Burns produced the military comedy "No Time for Sergeants", and the sitcom "Mona McCluskey". As an actor, he mostly appeared in theaters and nightclubs. Burns had a career comeback with the comedy film "The Sunshine Boys" (1975), his first film appearance since World War II. He played faded vaudevillian Al Lewis, who has a difficult relationship with his former partner Willy Clark (played by Walter Matthau). The role was met with critical success, and Burns won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. At age 80, Burns was the oldest Oscar winner at the time. His record was broken by Jessica Tandy in 1989.
Burns had his greatest film success playing God in the comedy film "Oh, God!" (1977). The film 51 million dollars at the domestic box office, and was one of the greatest hits of 1977. Burns returned to the role in the sequels "Oh, God! Book II" (1980) and "Oh, God! You Devil" (1984). He had a double role as both God and the Devil in the last film.
Burns had several other film roles until the 1990s. His most notable films in this period were the musical comedy "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1978), the comedy film "Just You and Me, Kid" (1979), the caper film "Going in Style" (1979), and the fantasy-comedy "18 Again!" (1988). The last of the four featured him as a grandfather who exchanges souls with his grandson.
Burns' last film role was a bit part in the mystery film "Radioland Murders" (1994), which was a box office flop. In July 1994, Burns fell in his bathtub and underwent surgery to remove fluid in his skull. He survived, but his health never fully recovered. He was forced to retire from acting and stand-up comedy.
On January 20, 1996, Burns celebrated his 100th birthday, but was in poor health and had to cancel a pre-arranged comeback performance. In March 1996, he suffered from cardiac arrest and died. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, next to Gracie Allen.- Actress
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Barbi Benton was born on 28 January 1950 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for How Did a Nice Girl Like You... (1970), X-Ray (1981) and Fantasy Island (1977). She has been married to George Gradow since 14 October 1979. They have two children.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
British-born actress who appeared in both British and American films, but who found her greatest success in Hollywood second leads. After a variety of jobs, including nurse, chorus girl and milkmaid, Barnes entered vaudeville. She appeared in more than a score of short comedies with comedian Stanley Lupino before making her feature bow in 1931. Two years later she achieved prominence as one of the half-dozen wives of the King in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). The following year she moved to Hollywood and began a career as the smart-aleck pal of the lead or as the angry "other woman." Barnes also played numerous leading roles, but spent most of the 1930s and 40s in strong supporting parts. In 1940 she married football star (and later producer) M.J. Frankovich and after the war, they moved to Italy and appeared in several films there and elsewhere in Europe. She retired from films in 1954, but returned for a few roles in the late 60s and early 70s. She worked busily with numerous charities until her death in 1998.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Milton Berle was an American comedian and actor.
Berle's career as an entertainer spanned over 80 years, first in silent films and on stage as a child actor, then in radio, movies and television. As the host of NBC's Texaco Star Theatre (1948-55), he was the first major American television star and was known to millions of viewers as "Uncle Miltie" and "Mr. Television" during the first Golden Age of Television. He was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in both radio and TV.
Berle won the Emmy for Most Outstanding Kinescoped Personality in 1950. In 1979, Berle was awarded a special Emmy Award, titled "Mr. Television." He was twice nominated for Emmys for his acting, in 1962 and 1995.
Berle was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1984. On December 5, 2007, Berle was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Burt Bacharach was a well known and multi award winning singer and song writer.
Over 1,000 different artists have recorded Bacharach's songs. From 1961 to 1972, most of Bacharach and David's hits were written specifically for and performed by Dionne Warwick, but earlier associations (from 1957 to 1963) saw the composing duo work with Marty Robbins, Perry Como, Gene McDaniels, and Jerry Butler. Following the initial success of these collaborations, Bacharach wrote hits for singers such as Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, and B.J. Thomas. Bacharach wrote 73 U.S. and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He worked on many sound tracks including the smash hit, "Beware of the Blob" for the version of The Blob (1958) starring Steve McQueen.
He was married four times, lastly to Jane Hansen from 1993 until his death. They had two children. He also had two other children.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Music Department
Glen Campbell was born on 22 April 1936 in Billstown, Arkansas, USA. He was a music artist and actor, known for True Grit (1969), Shindig! (1964) and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019). He was married to Kim Campbell, Sarah Jan Barg, Billie Jean Nunley and Diane Marie Kirk. He died on 8 August 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Joan Collins is an English actress from Paddington, London. She is most famous for playing the role of vengeful schemer Alexis Carrington Colby in the soap opera "Dynasty" (1981-1989). In 1997, She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama. In 2015, She was promoted to the rank of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to charity.
She was the daughter of talent agent Joseph William Collins (1902-1988) and his wife, dance teacher Elsa Bessant, (1906-1962). Joseph was born in South Africa, and of Jewish descent. As a talent agent, his most famous clients were Shirley Bassey, the Beatles, and Tom Jones. Elsa was born in the United Kingdom to an Anglican family.
Collins was educated at Francis Holland School in London, an independent day school for girls. She made her theatrical debut c. 1942, as a child actress. She had a role in a performance of the play "A Doll's House" (1879) by Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). In 1949, She started training as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. In 1950, she signed a contract with a British film studio, the Rank Organisation of businessman Joseph Arthur Rank, 1st Baron Rank (1888-1972).
Collins made her film debut in the short film "Facts and Fancies" (1951), and her feature film debut in "Lady Godiva Rides Again" (1951), where she played an unnamed Beauty Queen Contestant. She had supporting roles as the Greek maid Marina in "The Woman's Angle" (1952) and gangster's moll Lil Carter in "Judgment Deferred" (1952).
Collins had her big break when cast as juvenile delinquent Norma Hart in prison drama "I Believe in You" (1952). She was hailed as Britain's new "bad girl" and started being offered high-profile roles in British films. The next stage in her career started when cast as Princess Nellifer of Egypt in the historical epic "Land of the Pharaohs" (1955), an international production . While the film was not successful at the box office, it became a cult classic and Nellifer was one of her most recognizable roles. Studio executive Darryl Francis Zanuck (1902-1979) was sufficiently impressed to offer her a 7-year-long contract with American studio 20th Century Fox. She took the offer.
Collins' first American film was the historical drama "The Virgin Queen" (1955), where she shared the top-billing with established stars Bette Davis and Richard Todd. She then played the leading role of actress Evelyn Nesbit (1884/1885-1967) in the biographical film "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing" (1955). The role was intended for established actress Marilyn Monroe, but she replaced Monroe based on a studio decision.
Collins was placed on loan to studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for her next role, that of gold digger Crystal in "The Opposite Sex" (1956). She received the top billing in the refugee-themed film "Sea Wife" (1956), and enjoyed box-office success with the interracial-love themed drama "Island in the Sun" (1957). In the drama film "The Wayward Bus" (1957), she received top-billing over her co-star Jayne Mansfield. Her next films included the spy thriller "Stopover Tokyo" (1957), the Western "The Bravados" (1958), the comedy "Rally Round the Flag, Boys" (1959), the caper film "Seven Thieves" (1960), and the biblical epic Esther and the King (1960).
By 1960, Collins was one of 20th Century Fox's biggest stars, but she demanded a release from her studio contract. She had campaigned for the title role in the upcoming production of "Cleopatra", but the studio chose to cast Elizabeth Taylor in the role. Collins felt slighted. As a freelance actress for most of the 1960s, she had few film roles. Among her most notable roles was playing the leading lady in "The Road to Hong Kong" (1962), the last film in the long-running "Road to ..." series. The male leads for the entire series were Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, but their usual leading lady Dorothy Lamour was considered too old for the role. Collins replaced Lamour.
Collins started appearing frequently on television guest star roles. Among her most notable television roles was the villainous Siren in "Batman", and pacifist spokeswoman Edith Keeler in "Star Trek: The Original Series". "Road to ..." played in only one episode of Star Trek, the time-travel episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" (1967). However the episode is regarded among the best episodes in the entire Star Trek franchise, with Collins considered one of the most memorable guest stars in the original series.
In 1970, Collins returned to her native United Kingdom. She started appearing frequently in British thriller and horror films of the decade. Among her films was revenge-themed drama "Revenge" (1971),science fiction film "Quest for Love" (1972), horror anthology "Tales from the Crypt" (1972), psychological horror "Fear in the Night" (1972), thriller "Dark Places", horror anthology "Tales That Witness Madness" (1973), and horror film "I Don't Want to Be Born" (1975).
Collins appeared in a few comedies in-between horror films, but none was particularly successful. She returned to the United States in order to play a role in the giant monster film "Empire of the Ants" (1977). She then returned to mostly appearing in thriller roles. She was catapulted back to stardom with the lead role of nymphomaniac Fontaine Khaled in the erotic drama "The Stud" (1978), an adaptation of a novel written by her younger sister Jackie Collins. The film was a surprise box office hit, earning 20 million dollars at the worldwide box office. "Road to ..." returned to the role of Fontaine in the sequel film ''The Bitch'' (1979), which was also a hit.
Collins found herself in high demand in both stage and film. But she gained more notoriety with the television role of Alexis Carington in "Dynasty". She started appearing in the role in the second season of the soap opera. Her performance is credited with the subsequent rise of the show's Nielsen's ratings. She became a household name, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1983.
By 1985, "Dynasty" was the number-one show in the United States, beating out rival soap opera "Dallas". Collins was nominated six times for a Golden Globe Award for her role, winning once in 1983. She was also once nominated for an Emmy as Best Actress in a Drama Series. Collins was viewed as a sex symbol at the time, and in 1983 appeared in a 12-page photo layout for Playboy magazine. She was 50-years-old, unusually old for a Playboy model.
Collins appeared in a total of 195 episodes of "Dynasty". The series was canceled with the last episode of its 9th season, due to falling ratings. New ABC entertainment president Bob Iger (1951-) is credited with ending the series as soon as possible. The show had a cliffhanger ending, and several of its subplots were not resolved. Collins returned to the role of Alexis in the sequel mini-series "Dynasty: The Reunion" (1991). The miniseries only lasted for 2 episodes, but resolved several subplots and was a ratings hit.
Throughout the 1990s., Collins returned to guest star roles in television. She appeared in (among others) "Roseanne", "Egoli: Place of Gold", and "The Nanny", She had the recurring role of Christina Hobson in the short-lived soap opera "Pacific Palisades" (1997). She appeared in 7 of its 13 episodes. Her next notable soap opera role was that of so-called "rich bitch" Alexandra Spaulding in 2002 episodes of the long-running series "Guiding Light". Collins was the third actress to play this role. following Beverlee McKinsey and Marj Dusay.
In film, Collins played Pearl Slaghoople, Wilma Flintstone's mother, in "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" (2000). It was the second live-action film based on the popular animated series "The Flintstones". In 2006, she toured the United Kingdom with "An Evening with Joan Collins", an one-woman show where she narrated the highs and lows of her career and life. She later toured the word with both this show and its sequel "Joan Collins Unscripted".
Collins had a notable guest star-role as Ruth Van Rydock in the television film "Agatha Christie's Marple: They Do It with Mirrors" (2009). The film was an adaptation of the 1952 novel by Agatha Christie, where Ruth is an old school friend of Jane Marple, who assigned Jane to investigate a home for juvenile delinquents.
Collins played herself in three episodes of the sitcom "Happily Divorced" (2011-2013). She had the recurring role of Crystal Hennessy-Vass in the sitcom "Benidorm" (2007-2018). She had another recurring role as Alexandra, Grand Duchess of Oxford in the soap opera "The Royals" (2015-2018).
Collins had two different roles in the horror anthology series "American Horror Story". She played wealthy grandmother Evie Gallant, and witch Bubbles McGee. She appeared in a total of four episodes in 2018.
By 2024, Collins was 90-years-old. She has never retired from acting, and she continues to appear in new roles.- Actress
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One of television's premier African-American series stars, elegant actress, singer and recording artist Diahann Carroll was born Carol Diann (or Diahann) Johnson on July 17, 1935, in the Bronx, New York. The first child of John Johnson, a subway conductor, and Mabel Faulk Johnson, a nurse; music was an important part of her life as a child, singing at age six with her Harlem church choir. While taking voice and piano lessons, she contemplated an operatic career after becoming the 10-year-old recipient of a Metropolitan Opera scholarship for studies at New York's High School of Music and Art. As a teenager she sought modeling work but it was her voice, in addition to her beauty, that provided the magic and the allure.
When she was 16, she teamed up with a girlfriend from school and auditioned for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts show using the more exotic sounding name of Diahann Carroll. She alone was invited to appear and won the contest. She subsequently performed on the daily radio show for three weeks. In her late teens, she began focusing on a nightclub career and it was here that she began formulating a chic, glamorous image. Another TV talent show appearance earned her a week's engagement at the Latin Quarter.
Broadway roles for black singers were rare but at age nineteen, Diahann was cast in the Harold Arlen/Truman Capote musical "House of Flowers". Starring the indomitable Pearl Bailey, Diahann held her own quite nicely in the ingénue role. While the show itself was poorly received, the score was heralded and Diahann managed to introduce two song standards, "A Sleepin' Bee" and "I Never Has Seen Snow", both later recorded by Barbra Streisand.
In 1954 she and Ms. Bailey supported a riveting Dorothy Dandridge as femme fatale Carmen Jones (1954) in an all-black, updated movie version of the Georges Bizet opera "Carmen." Diahann later supported Ms. Dandridge again in Otto Preminger's cinematic retelling of Porgy and Bess (1959). During this time she also grew into a singing personality on TV while visiting such late-nite hosts as Jack Paar and Steve Allen and performing.
Unable to break through into the top ranks in film (she appeared in a secondary role once again in Paris Blues (1961), a Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward vehicle), Diahann returned to Broadway. She was rewarded with a Tony Award for her exceptional performance as a fashion model in the 1962 musical "No Strings," a bold, interracial love story that co-starred Richard Kiley. Richard Rodgers, whose first musical this was after the death of partner Oscar Hammerstein, wrote the part specifically for Diahann, which included her lovely rendition of the song standard "The Sweetest Sounds." By this time she had already begun to record albums ("Diahann Carroll Sings Harold Arlen" (1957), "Diahann Carroll and Andre Previn" (1960), "The Fabulous Diahann Carroll" (1962). Nightclub entertaining filled up a bulk of her time during the early-to-mid 1960s, along with TV guest appearances on Carol Burnett, Judy Garland, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and Danny Kaye's musical variety shows.
Little did Diahann know that in the late 1960s she would break a major ethnic barrier on the small screen. Though it was nearly impossible to suppress the natural glamour and sophistication of Diahann, she touchingly portrayed an ordinary nurse and widow struggling to raise a small son in the series Julia (1968). Despite other Black American actresses starring in a TV series (i.e., Hattie McDaniel in "Beulah"), Diahann became the first full-fledged African-American female "star" -- top billed, in which the show centered around her lead character. The show gradually rose in ratings and Diahann won a Golden Globe award for "Best Newcomer" and an Emmy nomination. The show lasted only two seasons, at her request.
A renewed interest in film led Diahann to the dressed-down title role of Claudine (1974), as a Harlem woman raising six children on her own. She was nominated for an Oscar in 1975, but her acting career would become more and more erratic after this period. She did return, however, to the stage with productions of "Same Time, Next Year" and "Agnes of God". While much ado was made about her return to series work as a fashionplate nemesis to Joan Collins' ultra-vixen character on the glitzy primetime soap Dynasty (1981), it became much about nothing as the juicy pairing failed to ignite. Diahann's character was also a part of the short-lived "Dynasty" spin-off The Colbys (1985).
Throughout the late 1980s and early 90s she toured with her fourth husband, singer Vic Damone, with occasional acting appearances to fill in the gaps. Some of her finest work came with TV-movies, notably her century-old Sadie Delany in Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (1999) and as troubled singer Natalie Cole's mother in Livin' for Love: The Natalie Cole Story (2000). She also portrayed silent screen diva Norma Desmond in the musical version of "Sunset Blvd." and toured America performing classic Broadway standards in the concert show "Almost Like Being in Love: The Lerner and Loewe Songbook." She then had recurring roles on Grey's Anatomy (2005) and White Collar (2009).
Diahann Carroll died on October 4, 2019, in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
- Soundtrack
The daughter of a West Virginia druggist, Joanne Dru came to New York in 1940. In New York she worked as a model and was cast by Al Jolson as one of the showgirls in his Broadway play "Hold Onto Your Hats." When the show closed in 1941, she married popular singer Dick Haymes and went with him to Hollywood. Discovered by a talent scout while working in the theater, Joanne made her screen debut in Abie's Irish Rose (1946), and that picture almost ended her career. Two years later she "redeemed" herself with her role in the classic Howard Hawks western Red River (1948). She followed that with another western, John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), again playing opposite John Wayne. Unfortunately, her success in those two classics resulted in the scripts being submitted to her consisting of mostly westerns, and she got typecast (this from a woman who said, "I simply hated horses...").
In 1950 she was cast in another John Ford western, Wagon Master (1950), which became the basis for the Ward Bond TV series Wagon Train (1957). Even though she played in films other than westerns--All the King's Men (1949), The Pride of St. Louis (1952) and Hell on Frisco Bay (1955), for example--it was the westerns for which she was remembered. By the late 1950s westerns were running out of steam and so was her screen career, so she turned to TV, where she appeared on shows such as Playhouse 90 (1956).
In 1960 Joanne was cast in the role of the Eastern owner of a dude ranch in the comedy series Guestward Ho! (1960). Perhaps even funnier is that she would play an Easterner after all those westerns is the fact that her character name was Babs. The show ended in 1961.- Actor
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Cleft-chinned, steely-eyed and virile star of international cinema who rose from being "the ragman's son" (the name of his best-selling 1988 autobiography) to become a bona fide superstar, Kirk Douglas, also known as Issur Danielovitch Demsky, was born on December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York. His parents, Bryna (Sanglel) and Herschel Danielovitch, were Jewish immigrants from Chavusy, Mahilyow Voblast (now in Belarus). Although growing up in a poor ghetto, Douglas was a fine student and a keen athlete and wrestled competitively during his time at St. Lawrence University. Professional wrestling helped pay for his studies as did working on the side as a waiter and a bellboy. However, he soon identified an acting scholarship as a way out of his meager existence, and was sufficiently talented to gain entry into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his Broadway debut in "Spring Again" before his career was interrupted by World War II. He joining the United States Navy in 1941, and then after the end of hostilities in 1945, returned to the theater and some radio work. On the insistence of ex-classmate Lauren Bacall, movie producer Hal B. Wallis screen-tested Douglas and cast him in the lead role in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). His performance received rave reviews and further work quickly followed, including an appearance in the low-key drama I Walk Alone (1947), the first time he worked alongside fellow future screen legend Burt Lancaster. Such was the strong chemistry between the two that they appeared in seven films together, including the dynamic western Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), the John Frankenheimer political thriller Seven Days in May (1964) and their final pairing in the gangster comedy Tough Guys (1986). Douglas once said about his good friend: "I've finally gotten away from Burt Lancaster. My luck has changed for the better. I've got nice-looking girls in my films now."
After appearing in "I Walk Alone," Douglas scored his first Oscar nomination playing the untrustworthy and opportunistic boxer Midge Kelly in the gripping Champion (1949). The quality of his work continued to garner the attention of critics and he was again nominated for Oscars for his role as a film producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and as tortured painter Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), both directed by Vincente Minnelli. In 1955, Douglas launched his own production company, Bryna Productions, the company behind two pivotal film roles in his career. The first was as French army officer Col. Dax in director Stanley Kubrick's brilliant anti-war epic Paths of Glory (1957). Douglas reunited with Kubrick for yet another epic, the magnificent Spartacus (1960). The film also marked a key turning point in the life of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted during the McCarthy "Red Scare" hysteria in the 1950s. At Douglas' insistence, Trumbo was given on-screen credit for his contributions, which began the dissolution of the infamous blacklisting policies begun almost a decade previously that had destroyed so many careers and lives.
Douglas remained busy throughout the 1960s, starring in many films. He played a rebellious modern-day cowboy in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), acted alongside John Wayne in the World War II story In Harm's Way (1965), again with The Duke in a drama about the Israeli fight for independence, Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), and once more with Wayne in the tongue-in-cheek western The War Wagon (1967). Additionally in 1963, he starred in an onstage production of Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," but despite his keen interest, no Hollywood studio could be convinced to bring the story to the screen. However, the rights remained with the Douglas clan, and Kirk's talented son Michael Douglas finally filmed the tale in 1975, starring Jack Nicholson. Into the 1970s, Douglas wasn't as busy as previous years; however, he starred in some unusual vehicles, including alongside a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in the loopy western comedy The Villain (1979), then with Farrah Fawcett in the sci-fi thriller Saturn 3 (1980) and then he traveled to Australia for the horse opera/drama The Man from Snowy River (1982).
Unknown to many, Kirk has long been involved in humanitarian causes and has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the US State Department since 1963. His efforts were rewarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1981), and with the Jefferson Award (1983). Furthermore, the French honored him with the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. More recognition followed for his work with the American Cinema Award (1987), the German Golden Kamera Award (1987), The National Board of Reviews Career Achievement Award (1989), an honorary Academy Award (1995), Recipient of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award (1999) and the UCLA Medal of Honor (2002). Despite a helicopter crash and a stroke suffered in the 1990s, he remained active and continued to appear in front of the camera. Until his passing on February 5 2020 at the age of 103, he and Olivia de Havilland were the last surviving major stars from the Golden Years of Hollywood.- Actress
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- Writer
Patty Duke was born Anna Marie Duke on December 14, 1946 in Elmhurst, Queens County, New York, to Frances Margaret (McMahon), a cashier, and John Patrick Duke, a cab driver and handyman. She was seven eighths Irish and one eighth German. Her acting career began when she was introduced to her brother Ray Duke's managers, John and Ethel Ross. Soon after, Anna Marie became Patty, the actress. Patty started off in commercials, a few movies and some bit parts. Her first big, memorable role came when she was chosen to portray the blind and deaf Helen Keller in the Broadway version of "The Miracle Worker". The play lasted almost two years, from October 19, 1959 to July 1, 1961 (Duke left in May 1961).
In 1962, The Miracle Worker (1962) became a movie and Patty won an Academy Award for best supporting actress. She was 16 years old, making her the youngest person ever to win an Oscar. She then starred in her own sitcom titled The Patty Duke Show (1963). It lasted for three seasons, and Patty was nominated for an Emmy. In 1965, she starred in the movie Billie (1965). It was a success and was the first movie ever sold to a television network. That same year, she married director Harry Falk. Their marriage lasted four years. She starred in Valley of the Dolls (1967), which was a financial but not a critical success. In 1969, she secured a part in an independent film called Me, Natalie (1969). The film was a box-office flop, but she won her second Golden Globe Award for her performance in it. In the early 1970s, she became a mother to actors Sean Astin (with writer Michael Yell) and Mackenzie Astin (with actor John Astin).
In 1976, she won her second Emmy Award for the highly successful mini-series, Captains and the Kings (1976). Other successful TV films followed. She received two Emmy nominations in 1978 for A Family Upside Down (1978) and Having Babies III (1978). She won her third Emmy in the 1979 TV movie version of The Miracle Worker (1979), this time portraying "Annie Sullivan".
In 1982, she was diagnosed with manic-depressive illness. In 1984, she became President of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). In 1986, she married Michael Pearce, a drill sergeant whom she met while preparing for a role in the TV movie, A Time to Triumph (1986). In 1987, she wrote her autobiography, "Call Me Anna". In 1989, she and Mike adopted a baby, whom they named "Kevin". Her autobiography became a TV movie in 1990, with Patty playing herself, from her 30s onward. In 1992, she wrote her second book, "A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depression Illness".
Duke had a long and successful career. She was a political advocate on, among other issues, the Equal Rights Amendment, AIDS awareness, and nuclear disarmament. She died on March 29, 2016, aged 69, in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, of sepsis from a ruptured intestine.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Angie Dickinson was born in Kulm, North Dakota, in 1931, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Brown. Mr. Brown was the publisher of The Kulm Messenger. The family left North Dakota in 1942 when Angie was 11 years old, moving to Burbank, California. In December of 1946, when she was a senior at Bellamarine Jefferson High School in Burbank, she won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights Contest. Two years later her sister Janet, did likewise. Being the daughter of a printer, Angie at first had visions of becoming a writer, but gave this up after winning her first beauty contest. After finishing college she worked as a secretary in a Burbank airplane parts factory for 3-1/2 years. In 1953 she entered the local Miss America contest one day before the deadline and took second place. In August of the same year she was one of five winners in a beauty contest sponsored by NBC and appeared in several TV variety shows. She got her first bit part in a Warner Brothers movie in 1954 and gained television fame in the TV series The Millionaire (1955) and got her first good film role opposite John Wayne and Dean Martin in Rio Bravo (1959). Her success then climbed until she became one of the nation's top movie stars.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Samantha Eggar was born on 5 March 1939 in Hampstead, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for The Collector (1965), Hercules (1997) and The Brood (1979). She was previously married to Tom Stern.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Eva Gabor was born on February 11, 1919 in Budapest, Hungary, to Jolie Gabor (née Janka Tilleman) and Vilmos Gabor (born Farkas Miklós Grün), a soldier. Her older siblings were Magda Gabor, an actress, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, an actress and socialite. Her parents were both from Jewish families. She went to Hollywood, California, to act in the 1930s. Her mother escaped from Nazi-occupied Budapest in the 1940s, also settling in the U.S.
Eva appeared both in films and on Broadway in the 1950s, as well as in several "A"-movies, including The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), starring Elizabeth Taylor, and Artists and Models (1955), which featured Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
In 1953, she was given her own television talk show, The Eva Gabor Show (1953). Throughout the rest of the 1950s and early 1960s, she appeared on television and in movies. She appeared on one episode of the mystery series Justice (1954), and was on the game show What's My Line? (1950) as the "mystery challenger". Her film appearances during this period include a remake of My Man Godfrey (1957), Gigi (1958) and It Started with a Kiss (1959).
However, she is best remembered as Lisa Douglas, the socialite turned farm wife on Green Acres (1965) with co-star Eddie Albert playing her attorney husband Oliver Wendell Douglas. Eva Gabor died at age 76 from respiratory failure and pneumonia on July 4, 1995 in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
- Additional Crew
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Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was born on September 29, 1904 in London, England, to Nancy Sophia (Greer) and George Garson, a commercial clerk. Of Scottish and Ulster-Scots descent, Garson displayed no early interest in becoming an actress. Educated at the University of London intending to become a teacher, she opted instead to take a job at an advertising agency. During her off hours she appeared in local theatrical productions, gaining a reputation as an extremely talented and charismatic performer. During a stage production of "Old Music," Garson was offered a studio contract by MGM Vice President of Production Louis B. Mayer while he was on a visit to London looking for new talent. Garson's very first film under that arrangement was the immensely popular Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), earning her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress - the first of six she would receive. The following year would see Greer in the highly acclaimed Pride and Prejudice (1940) as "Elizabeth Bennet". 1941 saw her earn a second nomination for her role as Edna Gladney in Blossoms in the Dust (1941), but it was the moving, if propagandist, Mrs. Miniver (1942), in a role that she would forever be known by, that actually brought her the Oscar statuette as Best Actress.
As Marie Curie in Madame Curie (1943), she would draw yet another nomination, and the same the next year in Mrs. Parkington (1944). It began to seem that any movie she was part of would be an automatic success. Sure enough, in 1945, she won yet another nomination, for her role as "Mary Rafferty" in The Valley of Decision (1945). Still, Garson began to chafe at the unbroken stream of "noble woman" roles in which the studio was casting her. MGM felt that they had an winning formula and saw no compelling reason to alter it. Two standard seven-year contract extensions kept her at MGM until 1954 when, by mutual consent, she left the only studio she had ever known. In 1946, Greer appeared in Adventure (1945), which was a flop at the box-office. 1947's Desire Me (1947) was no less a disaster, downward spiral finally arrested with the hit That Forsyte Woman (1949). The next year, she reprised her role as "Kay Miniver" in The Miniver Story (1950), though audiences were unsurprisingly put off by her character's untimely demise from cancer, leaving screen husband Walter Pidgeon to soldier on alone.
For the remainder of the 1950s, she endured several predictably unappreciated films. Then, 1960 found her cast in the role of Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello (1960). This film was, perhaps, her finest work and landed her seventh and final Academy Award nomination. Her final screen appearances were in The Singing Nun (1966) as "Mother Prioress" and The Happiest Millionaire (1967). After a few TV movies, Garson retired to the New Mexico ranch she shared with her husband, millionaire Buddy E.E. Fogelson. She concentrated on the environment and other various charities. By the 1980s, she was suffering from chronic heart problems, prompting her to slow down. That was the cause of her death on April 6, 1996 in Dallas, Texas, at age 91.- Actor
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Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood, except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. However, the real truth was that she had been placed in a mental institution, where she would remain for years, and he was never told about it (he would not see his mother again until he was in his late 20s).
He left school at age 14, lying about his age and forging his father's signature on a letter to join Bob Pender's troupe of knockabout comedians. He learned pantomime as well as acrobatics as he toured with the Pender troupe in the English provinces, picked up a Cockney accent in the music halls in London, and then in July 1920, was one of the eight Pender boys selected to go to the United States. Their show on Broadway, "Good Times", ran for 456 performances, giving Grant time to acclimatize. He would stay in America. Mae West wanted Grant for She Done Him Wrong (1933) because she saw his combination of virility, sexuality and the aura and bearing of a gentleman. Grant was young enough to begin the new career of fatherhood when he stopped making movies at age 62.
One biographer said Grant was alienated by the new realism in the film industry. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he had invented a man-of-the-world persona and a style - "high comedy with polished words". In To Catch a Thief (1955), he and Grace Kelly were allowed to improvise some of the dialogue. They knew what the director, Alfred Hitchcock, wanted to do with a scene, they rehearsed it, put in some clever double entendres that got past the censors, and then the scene was filmed. His biggest box-office success was another Hitchcock 1950s film, North by Northwest (1959) made with Eva Marie Saint since Kelly was by that time Princess of Monaco.
Although Grant retired from the screen, he remained active. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed. Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle - Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Airlines in 1987) and MGM.
Grant expressed no interest in making a career comeback. He was in good health until almost the end of his life, when he suffered a mild stroke in October 1984. In his last years, he undertook tours of the United States in a one-man-show, "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. On November 29, 1986, Cary Grant died at age 82 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Davenport, Iowa.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second male star of Golden Age of Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). Grant was known for comedic and dramatic roles; his best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963).- Actress
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A native of Berlin, Maryland, Linda Harrison was Miss Berlin at 16, then a model in New York's Garment Center. Homesickness brought her back to Maryland, where she entered and won the state beauty pageant. During the finals in the Miss International contest (held in Long Beach, California), she was "spotted" by talent scout Mike Medavoy and presented at 20th Century-Fox. Throughout her acting years at Fox, and amidst movie roles in Planet of the Apes (1968), Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) and others, she dated studio boss Richard D. Zanuck and married him in 1968. They were divorced in 1978, but she's appeared in three of his movies since then.- Actress
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Goldie Jeanne Hawn was born November 21, 1945 in Washington, D.C. to Laura Hawn, who owned a dance school, and Rut Hawn, a band musician. She has one sister, entertainment publicist Patti Hawn; a brother, Edward, died in infancy before her birth. She was raised in the Jewish religion. Her mother was Jewish and the daughter of Hungarian immigrants. Her father was Presbyterian. At the age of three, Goldie began taking ballet and tap dance lessons, and at the age of ten she danced in the chorus of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo production of "The Nutcracker". At the age of 19 she ran and instructed a ballet school, having dropped out of college where she was majoring in drama. Before going into the film business she worked as a professional dancer.
Hawn made her feature film debut in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), with a small role as a giggling dancer. Her first big role came in 1969, where she played opposite Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman in Cactus Flower (1969), a role which earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. After the Oscar win her career took off and she followed with roles in successful comedies such as There's a Girl in My Soup (1970) and Shampoo (1975), and more dramatic roles in The Girl from Petrovka (1974) and The Sugarland Express (1974). In 1978, she starred alongside Chevy Chase in the box office hit, Foul Play (1978). In 1980 she starred in another box office hit, Private Benjamin (1980), where she also served as producer. During the 1980s she starred in hit movies such as Best Friends (1982), Protocol (1984) and Wildcats (1986). In 1987, she appeared with her boyfriend Kurt Russell in Overboard (1987), which became both a critical and box office disappointment. Her career slowed down after that until 1990 when she starred alongside Mel Gibson in Bird on a Wire (1990). In 1992 she starred in the successful film, Death Becomes Her (1992), with Meryl Streep and Bruce Willis, which was followed by another successful film HouseSitter (1992), which co-starred Steve Martin. In 1996 she played the role of an aging alcoholic actress in the comedy, The First Wives Club (1996), with Diane Keaton and Bette Midler; it became a critical and financial success. She also starred in the Woody Allen film Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and The Out-of-Towners (1999), which reunited her with Martin. In 2001 and 2002 she starred in Town & Country (2001) with Warren Beatty, and The Banger Sisters (2002) with Susan Sarandon.
Goldie has been married twice. First to dancer/director Gus Trikonis from 1969 to 1973. In 1976 she married musician Bill Hudson and became a mother for the first time that year, when she gave birth to their son Oliver Hudson. In 1979, she had her second child with Hudson, daughter Kate Hudson. The marriage ended in divorce in 1980. Since 1983, she has been having a relationship with actor Kurt Russell. Their son Wyatt Russell was born in 1986. Goldie is also a de-facto stepmother to Kurt's son Boston Russell. She has eight grandchildren.- Producer
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Noted Hollywood producer Ross Hunter served in Army intelligence during World War II. After the war he signed with Columbia Pictures and appeared in a number of forgettable B-movies. He then became a producer and produced more than 60 films. Most of his films tended to be bright confections, many for Universal Pictures, with stars such as Debbie Reynolds and Julie Andrews. He also produced his share of "three-hankie weepers", including such fare as Imitation of Life (1959), a remake of an earlier film (Imitation of Life (1934)) that resurrected the career of Lana Turner. His production principle was that audiences should leave the theater either laughing or crying. His biggest success was Airport (1970), for which he received his only Oscar nomination. It was such a hit that in 1973 he remarked, "For three years, Universal's been living on 'Airport'." He ended his long career at Universal, joining Columbia in 1971 and then Paramount in 1974, where he produced made-for-TV movies.- Producer
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Hugh Hefner was born on 9 April 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a producer and actor, known for Miss March (2009), Hop (2011) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). He was married to Crystal Hefner, Kimberley Conrad and Mildred Williams. He died on 27 September 2017 in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Laurence Harvey was a British movie star who helped usher in the 1960s with his indelible portrait of a ruthless social climber, and became one of the decade's cultural icons for his appearances in socially themed motion pictures.
Harvey was born Zvi Mosheh Skikne on October 1, 1928 in Joniskis, Lithuania, to Ella (Zotnickaita) and Ber Skikne. His family was Jewish. The youngest of three brothers, he emigrated with his family, to South Africa in 1934, and settled in Johannesburg. The teenager joined the South African army during World War II, and was assigned to the entertainment unit. His unit served in Egypt and Italy, and after the war the future Laurence Harvey returned to South Africa and began a career as an actor. He moved to London after winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He then did his apprenticeship in regional theatre, moving to Manchester in the 1940s. The tyro actor reportedly supported himself as a hustler while appearing with the city's Library Theatre. Even at this point in his life he was known to be continually in debt and adopted a firm belief in living beyond his means, a pattern that would continue until his premature death. His lifestyle would often dictate working on less worthy projects for the sake of a paycheck.
His film debut came in House of Darkness (1948), and he was soon signed by Associated British Studios. His early film roles proved underwhelming, and his attempt to become a stage star was disastrous - his debut in the revival of "Hassan" was a notorious flop. After failing in the commercial theater in London's West End, Harvey joined the company of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon for the 1952 season. Regularly panned by critics during his stint on the boards in the Bard's works, he built up his reputation as a personality by becoming combative, telling the press that he was a great actor despite the bad reviews. Someone was listening, as Romulus Pictures signed him in 1953 and began building him up as a star.
Harvey was cast as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (1954), a film that exemplified the main problem that kept Harvey from major stardom (but subsequently would serve him quite well in a handful of roles): his screen persona was emotionally aloof if not downright frigid. Despite his icy portrayal of the great romantic hero Romeo, Harvey attracted enough attention in Hollywood to be brought over by Warner Bros. and given a lead role in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954).
In Old Blighty with Romulus after his Hollywood adventure, Harvey met his future wife Margaret Leighton on the set of The Good Die Young (1954). Other film appearances included I Am a Camera (1955) and Three Men in a Boat (1956), the latter becoming his first certified hit, and even greater success was to come. The colorful Harvey, a press favorite, became notorious for his high-spending, high-living ways. He found himself frequently in debt, his travails faithfully reported by entertainment columnists. More fame was to come.
After making three flops in a row, Harvey began a brief reign as the Jack the Lad of British cinema with the great success of Room at the Top (1958). That film and Look Back in Anger (1959), which was also released that year, inaugurated the "kitchen sink" school of British cinema that revolutionized the country's film industry and that of its cousin, Hollywood, in the 1960s.
Harvey was born to play Joe Lampton, if not in kin, then in kind. Lampton was a working-class bloke who dreams of escaping his social strata for something better. It was a perfect match of actor and role, as the icy Harvey persona made Joe's ruthless ambition to climb the greasy pole of success fittingly chilling. In bringing Joe to life on the screen, Harvey was more successful than Richard Burton (a far better actor) had been in limning the theater's Jimmy Porter in the film adaptation of John Osborne's seminal "Look Back in Anger," despite Burton's own working-class background. Burton's volcanic use of his mellifluous voice, a great instrument, is much too hot for the the small universe on the screen, a case of projection that is so intense that it overwhelms the character and the film (it took Burton another half-decade to learn to act on film, and a half-decade more to lose that gift). Whereas Burton had to learn to rein it in, Harvey's already tightly controlled persona made the social-climbing Lampton resonate. Harvey fits the skin of the character much better than does Burton. Despite not being an authentic specimen, the success of his performance as a working-class man-on-the-make proved to be the vanguard of a new generation of screen characters that would be played by the real thing: Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Terence Stamp and Michael Caine, among others. "Room at the Top" signaled the appearance of the New Wave of British cinema. For his role as Joe, Harvey received his first (and only) Academy Award nomination.
While historically significant, "Room at the Top" is no longer ranked at the summit of other, more contemporary kitchen-sink dramas, such as Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), Tony Richardson's A Taste of Honey (1961) and Lindsay Anderson's This Sporting Life (1963), or even John Schlesinger's provincial comedy Billy Liar (1963), films that made stars out of the authentic working-class/provincial actors Finney, Alan Bates, Richard Harris and Courtenay, respectively. The virtue of the film is its emotional honesty about the manipulation of personal relationships for social gain in postwar Britain, a system that after a decade under the Conservatives had become self-satisfied and complacent. In its portrayal of class warfare, the film offers the most intense critique of the British class system offered by any film from the British New Wave, including "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning," which never leaves the confines of the working-class strata its main character, Arthur Seaton, is stuck in and ultimately reconciled to.
That Joe chooses a woman other than the one he really loves in order to gain social mobility, engaging in emotional manipulation of other human beings, is a brutal indictment of the class structure of postwar Britain. Joe, on his way to his wedding and his great chance, has lost his humanity. His failure is symbolic of Britain's failure as well. It is the haughtiness and narcissism of the actor Harvey (qualities his screen persona engenders in film after film) that elucidates Lampton's weakness. A further irony of Harvey's effective, if ersatz, portrayal of working-class Joe is that it made him such a success - he soon went off to Hollywood to play opposite box-office titan Elizabeth Taylor in BUtterfield 8 (1960), thus losing out on further opportunities to appear in the British New Wave he helped introduce. As well as supporting Taylor in her Oscar-winning turn in "Butterfield 8" (the two became close friends), a badly miscast Harvey also co-starred as Texas hero Col. James Travis in John Wayne's bloated budget-buster The Alamo (1960).
With the exception of the lead in the British Jungle Fighters (1961)- a war picture that was decidedly NOT New Wave - Harvey did not appear again in a major British film until 1965, when he returned to the other side of the pond to reprise Joe in the "Room" sequel Life at the Top (1965). However, if he had never gone Hollywood, he might never have been cast in his other signature role: Raymond Shaw, the eponymous The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Once again, the match of actor and character was ideal, as Harvey's coldness and affect-free acting perfectly embodied the persona of the programmed assassin. The film, and Harvey's performance in it, are classic.
In this Hollywood interlude, Harvey also appeared in the screen adaptations of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke (1961) opposite the great Geraldine Page, Oscar-nominated for her role, and the artistically less successful Walk on the Wild Side (1962), supported by the legendary Barbara Stanwyck, French beauty Capucine and a young Jane Fonda. The critics were less kind to his acting in these outings, and, indeed, the rather elegant Harvey does seem miscast as Dove Linkhorn, the wandering Texan created by hardboiled Nelson Algren, reduced to working in an automotive garage by the exigencies of the Great Depression. Critics were even less kind when Harvey tried to follow in Leslie Howard's footsteps in the remake of Of Human Bondage (1964).
Although he could not know it then, Harvey had reached the zenith of his career. In 1962 he won the Best Actor prize at the Munich film festival in 1962 for his role in The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962). Honors for Harvey were few after this point. He co-starred with Paul Newman and Claire Bloom in Martin Ritt's film version of the Broadway re-envisioning of Akira Kurosawa's cinematic masterpiece Rashomon (1950). The result, The Outrage (1964), in which Newman played a murderous Mexican bandit and Harvey his victim, was an unqualified flop that still boggles the mind of viewers unfortunate enough to stumble upon it, so outrageous is the idea of casting Newman as a Mexican killer (a role originated by Rod Steiger on the Broadway stage). Harvey, very often a wooden presence in his less inspired performances, was appropriately upstaged by the tree he remained tied to throughout most of the film.
Along with "Life at the Top," Harvey appeared in support of Oscar-winner Julie Christie in John Schlesinger's Darling (1965), an allegedly "mod" look at the jaded and superficial existence of what was then termed the "jet set." Despite its "New Wave"-like cutting and visual sense, "Darling" - which was embraced wholeheartedly by Hollywood and originally had been envisioned as a vehicle for Shirley MacLaine - was, at its heart, an old-fashioned Hollywood-style morality play, a warning that the wages of sin lead to emotional emptiness, hardy a revolutionary idea in 1965. Christie was excellent - particularly as she metamorphosed from Dolly-bird to a more mature sort of hustler - and first-male lead Dirk Bogarde always proved an interesting actor, but it was Harvey who most clearly embodied the zeitgeist of the picture. Once again, his coldness did him well as he limned the executive who manipulates and is manipulated by Christie's Diana character.
Harvey had become at this point a kind of good-luck charm for actresses with whom he appeared. Simone Signoret, Elizabeth Taylor and Christie won Best Actress Oscars after appearing in films with him, and Geraldine Page and "Room at the Top" co-star Hermione Baddeley were both Oscar-nominated in the period after appearing opposite Harvey. Alas, no one else collected kudos in a Harvey picture: he reached the high-water mark of his career in 1962, and his star was already in in decline to a murkier, less-lustrous part of the Hollywood/international cinema firmament.
Another irony of Harvey's career is that, despite ushering in the British New Wave and a cinema more independent of the meat-grinder ethos of the Hollywood and British studios catering to popular taste, he would have been better served in the 1930s and 1940s as a contract player at a major studio. Like Michael Wilding (who also became the third husband of Harvey's first wife, Margaret Leighton), another handsome man of limited gifts who nonetheless could be quite affecting in the right role, Harvey's career likely would have thrived under the studio system, with an interested boss to guide him. Like Minniver Cheever, however, he was unfortunate to have been born after his time.
As it was, the next (and last) decade of Harvey's screen life was a disappointment, with the actor relegated to less and less prestigious pictures and international co-productions that needed a "star" name. In the 1970s, Harvey became largely irrelevant as a player in the motion picture industry. His luck had run out. Good friend Liz Taylor, whose string of motion picture successes had also run its course, had him cast in Night Watch (1973), and he directed the last picture in which he appeared, Welcome to Arrow Beach (1973). If he had lived, he might have made the transition to director (he had earlier directed The Ceremony (1963) and finished directing A Dandy in Aspic (1968) after the death of original director Anthony Mann).
Laurence Harvey died on November 25, 1973, from stomach cancer. He publicly revealed that he was dismayed by being afflicted with the fatal disease, as he had always been careful with the way he ate. Sadly, his personal luck, just as capricious as his professional career, had also gone into eclipse. One of the more colorful characters to grace the screen was dead at the age of 45, exiting the stage far too soon for the legions of fans that still admired him despite the downturn in his fortunes.- Actor
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Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the third son of Harriet Catherine (Curran) and James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman. His father was of Irish descent and his mother was of Irish and German ancestry.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the largest and most powerful studio in Hollywood when Gene Kelly arrived in town in 1941. He came direct from the hit 1940 original Broadway production of "Pal Joey" and planned to return to the Broadway stage after making the one film required by his contract. His first picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was For Me and My Gal (1942) with Judy Garland. What kept Kelly in Hollywood were "the kindred creative spirits" he found behind the scenes at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The talent pool was especially large during World War II, when Hollywood was a refuge for many musicians and others in the performing arts of Europe who were forced to flee the Nazis. After the war, a new generation was coming of age. Those who saw An American in Paris (1951) would try to make real life as romantic as the reel life they saw portrayed in that musical, and the first time they saw Paris, they were seeing again in memory the seventeen-minute ballet sequence set to the title song written by George Gershwin and choreographed by Kelly. The sequence cost a half million dollars (U.S.) to make in 1951 dollars. Another Kelly musical of the era, Singin' in the Rain (1952), was one of the first 25 films selected by the Library of Congress for its National Film Registry. Kelly was in the same league as Fred Astaire, but instead of a top hat and tails Kelly wore work clothes that went with his masculine, athletic dance style.
Gene Kelly died at age 83 of complications from two strokes on February 2, 1996 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California.- Actress
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Actress and singer Lainie Kazan first made her mark with her Broadway debut in 1961 with the musical The Happiest Girl in the World. The following year, she appeared in another musical, Bravo Giovanni. She eventually served as Barbra Streisand's understudy for the lead role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl (1968), and when Streisand was unable to perform, due to a throat condition, Kazan took her place in both a matinee and evening performance for one day of the show's run. Always the tireless entertainer, Kazan has contributed her talents to an endless list of film and television projects roles; perhaps her most talked-about role is of the hilarious mom Maria Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), and its sequel, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016).- Actress
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An actress from the age of 6, Anita appeared with Walter Hampden in the Broadway production of Peter Ibbetson. As a juvenile actor, Anita used the name Louise Fremault and made her film debut at 9 in the film The Sixth Commandment (1924). She continued to make films as a child actor, and in 1929, Anita dropped her "Fremault" surname, billing herself by her first and second names only. Unlike many child actors, her film career continued as a teenager, and as a blue-eyed blonde, Anita became a star in Warner Brothers costume dramas such as Madame Du Barry (1934), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), and Marie Antoinette (1938). Anita complained that her looks often interfered with her chances to obtain serious roles. With her ethereal beauty, she continued to appear in ingénue roles into the 1940s as she played girlfriends, sisters, and daughters. By 1940, Anita was only in her mid 20s, but her career had turned to 'B' movies, and her time on the big screen ended with the rehashed Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1947). In 1956, Anita was cast as Johnny Washbrook's mother, Nell McLaughin, on the Television series My Friend Flicka (1955), the story of a boy and his black horse. Anita was also the substitute host of The Loretta Young Show (1953) when Loretta Young was recuperating from surgery. Other shows Anita hosted included Theater of Time (1957) and Spotlight Playhouse (1958). Her television guest roles included Mannix (1967) and Mod Squad (1968). Anita devoted her final years to various philanthropic causes.- Actress
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Janet Leigh was the only child of a couple who often moved from town to town. Living in apartments, Janet was a bright child who skipped several grades and finished high school when she was 15. A lonely child, she would spend much of her time at movie theaters. She was a student, studying music and psychology, at the University of the Pacific until she was "discovered" while visiting her parents in Northern California. Her father was working the desk at a ski resort where her mother worked as a maid. Retired MGM actress Norma Shearer saw a picture of Janet on the front desk and asked if she could borrow it. This led to a screen test at MGM and a starring role in The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947). MGM was looking for a young naive country girl and Janet filled the bill perfectly. She would play the young ingénue in a number of films and work with such stars as Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Orson Welles and Judy Garland. She appeared in a number of successful films, including Little Women (1949), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Scaramouche (1952), Houdini (1953) and The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), among others. Janet would appear in a variety of films, from comedies to westerns to musicals to dramas. Of her more than 50 movies, she would be remembered for the 45 minutes that she was on the screen in the small-budget thriller Psycho (1960). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this 1960 classic would include the shower scene that would become a film landmark. Even though her character is killed off early in the picture, she would be nominated for an Academy Award and receive a Golden Globe. Her next film would be The Manchurian Candidate (1962), in which she starred with Frank Sinatra. For the rest of the decade, her appearances in films would be rare, but she worked with Paul Newman in Harper (1966). In the 1970s she appeared on the small screen in a number of made-for-TV movies. In 1980, she appeared alongside her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog (1980), and later, in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998). Janet Leigh died at age 77 in her home in Beverly Hills, California on October 3, 2004.- Actor
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Burt Lancaster, one of five children, was born in Manhattan, to Elizabeth (Roberts) and James Henry Lancaster, a postal worker. All his grandparents were immigrants from the north of Ireland. He was a tough street kid who took an early interest in gymnastics. He joined the circus as an acrobat and worked there until he was injured. In the Army during WWII he was introduced to the USO and to acting. His first film was The Killers (1946), and that made him a star. He was a self-taught actor who learned the business as he went along. He set up his own production company in 1948 with Harold Hecht and James Hill to direct his career. He played many different roles in pictures as varied as The Crimson Pirate (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), Elmer Gantry (1960) and Atlantic City (1980).
His production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, produced such films as Paddy Chayefsky's Marty (1955) (Oscar winner 1955) and The Catered Affair (1956). In the 1980s he appeared as a supporting player in a number of movies, such as Local Hero (1983) and Field of Dreams (1989). However, it will be the sound of his voice, the way that he laughed, and the larger-than-life characters he played that will always be remembered.- Actress
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Singer and actress Abbe Lane made a splash in the 50s and 60s with revealing costumes and a seductive style of dancing. Far removed from her sultry Latin image, she was born Abigail Francine Lassman in Brooklyn, of Jewish parentage. Abbe began performing on radio from the age of four and first appeared on screen two years later (under her birth name) in the Vitaphone featurette Toyland Casino (1938), warbling "Five and Ten Cent Soldiers on Parade". Billed as Abbe Marshall --probably in deference to her father's first name 'Abbey'-- she became a hoofer on Broadway by her mid-teens (having lied about her age to get into musicals), before finagling a gig on television as a vocalist for bandleader Vincent Lopez. While performing a calypso number in the 1948 Broadway musical As Girls Go, she was spotted by the charismatic Spanish maestro Xavier Cugat and hired on the spot. For the next few years, she became 'Cugie's' featured vocalist and the 'Rumba King's' star attraction.
Despite a considerable difference in their respective ages (he was thirty-two years her senior), Lane and Cugat married in 1952. During their twelve years together, Lane sang on several Cugat LP's and was featured --with her hair dyed blonde-- on the cover of "The Best of Cugat", a compendium of hits released by Mercury Records. In 1958, Abbe co-starred on Broadway opposite Tony Randall in Oh, Captain, a musical comedy based on the English motion picture The Captain's Paradise (1953). She also sidelined as a nightclub singer, recorded a popular album with Tito Puente's orchestra, entitled "Be Mine Tonight" and appeared in a handful of Hollywood pictures.
Frustrated with being typecast in American films merely as "a decorative accessory", Lane joined Cugat in Italy in 1956 and enjoyed almost immediate screen success. Her first motion picture lead was in I girovaghi (1956), as a fiery dancer who enchants Peter Ustinov's itinerant puppeteer. The following year, she partnered Gabriele Ferzetti (as a suave jewel thief) in the caper comedy Parola di ladro (1957) and starred alongside Totò and Vittorio De Sica in another comedy, The Lady Doctor (1957). Aside from romances and musicals, Lane also featured in peplum (Caesar Against the Pirates (1962)) and as the tempestuous ex-flame of daredevil fire fighter Cornel Wilde (who also directed) in the Paramount love-triangle melodrama Maracaibo (1958), which was filmed on location in Venezuela.
In 1956, Cugat returned to New York while his spouse opted to remain in Italy. The bandleader had no intention of raising a family and this ultimately led to the couple's divorce in June 1964. Lane did not stay single for long. By November, she had moved back to America and married Harvard graduate and Hollywood theatrical agent Perry Leff. The union produced two sons and endured until Leff's death in 2020.
Though unable to reignite her career as an actress, Lane went on to appear as panelist or singer on numerous TV variety shows throughout the 60s and 70s, hosted by the era's most prominent emcees, including Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, David Frost, Jack Paar, Merv Griffin and Johnny Carson. In her later years, Lane tended to distance herself from her previous sensual image. In January 1993, she published a semi-autobiographical novel, entitled But Where is Love?, a thinly-veiled account of her early career and turbulent marriage to Cugat.
Abbe Lane has a star on the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.- Actor
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Trini Lopez was an American singer and actor who had 16 Top 40 songs on the charts from 1963 through 1968. He was born Trinidad López III in the Little Mexico neighborhood of Dallas, Texas on May 15, 1937. He started performing with his own band when he was 15 years old and caught the eye of rock and roll legend Buddy Holly, who recommended him to a music producer who signed Lopez and his band, "The Big Beats," to Columbia Records.
Lopez eventually quit "The Big Beats" to go solo, but none of the singles he cut made the charts. He moved to Los Angeles to audition as a vocalist for Buddy Holly's old band "The Crickets," but didn't get the job. Performing in night clubs, he was discovered by Frank Sinatra, who signed Lopez to his label, Reprise Records.
His cover of "If I Had a Hammer" from his first album, which was released in 1963, made it to #3 on the charts, eventually earning a gold disc with sales exceeding one million copies. His other big hits were "Lemon Tree" and "I'm Comin' Home, Cindy", both of which made it to #2 on the Easy Listening chart, and "Michael", "Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now" and "The Bramble Bush", which made it to $7, #6 and #4, respectively.
Lopez's acting career was essentially still-born when he walked off the set of The Dirty Dozen (1967) at the urging of Sinatra (who supposedly thought his music career would stall if he continued to work on the movie, which had gone over its scheduled shooting date) or was fired by director Robert Aldrich for being disagreeable. He appeared infrequently as an actor over the next 10 years, mostly on television. In addition to singing and acting, Lopez designed two guitars for the Gibson Guitar Corporation, the Trini Lopez Standard and the Lopez Deluxe.
Trini Lopez was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame in 2003.- Actress
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Marianne McAndrew was born on 26 November 1942 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She is an actress, known for Hello, Dolly! (1969), WALL·E (2008) and The Bat People (1974). She was previously married to Stewart Moss.- Actress
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Patricia Morrow was born on 17 February 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Peyton Place (1964), Surf Party (1964) and Return to Peyton Place (1972). She was previously married to Carl Lance Brisson.- Actor
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Anthony Newley was born in Hackney, London, England, to Frances Grace Newley and George Kirby, a shipping clerk. He was attracted to acting, after seeing an ad for a child actor in a Fleet Street window. He attended the Italia Conti Stage School from the age of 14 and, two years later, played the Artful Dodger in David Lean's film, Oliver Twist (1948). Newley was called up to the Army for his National Service and, by the late 1950s, had a hit song Idol on Parade (1959), while in the movie of the same name. He married his first wife, Tiller Girl Ann Lynn in 1956 but it was a rocky marriage and they divorced in 1963. He was in the pop charts seven times in 1960, twice at Number One with "Why?" and "Do You Mind?" written by Lionel Bart. In 1961, he collaborated with Leslie Bricusse on the hit stage show, Stop the World: I Want to Get Off (1966). After long runs in London and on Broadway, it was made into a film, starring Millicent Martin, with the hit song "What Kind of Fool Am I?". In 1963, he married Rank starlet Joan Collins. She described him at the time as "A half-Jewish Cockney git" and herself as a "half-Jewish princess from Bayswater via Sunset Boulevard". Newley's film career thrived, most notably with acting roles in Doctor Dolittle (1967) and The Cockleshell Heroes (1955), and as a writer and composer. His partnership with Bricusse continued with "The Roar of the Greasepaint: The Smell of the Crowd" and many other Oscar, Grammy and Ivor Novello award-winning collaborations. They had hit songs such as "The Candy Man" and "Goldfinger". His marriage to Joan Collins broke up in 1971. He had two of his four children with her. Tony was married a third time, to former air hostess Dareth Rich, only to divorce again. He once said "My only regret is that, in a show business career, you can have no private life". Alone and facing a battle against cancer, Newley moved in with his mother Gracie - now in her 90s - at her home in Esher, Surrey. The stage performances continued but were nothing to match his heyday. His last TV appearance was in "The Lakes" in February 1999. Anthony Newley died in April of that year.- Actress
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Milwaukee-born Nancy Ann Olson was the daughter of Henry, a physician, and Evelyn Olson, and educated at the University of Wisconsin. Discovered on stage after transferring to California's UCLA, the pretty, peaches-and-cream blonde was quickly signed by Paramount Studios in 1948 and almost immediately handed co-starring parts after an uncredited bit part in Portrait of Jennie (1948).
After playing in the film Canadian Pacific (1949), Olson went on to win the role of script girl Betty Schaefer, who attracts never-do-well screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) and irks the reclusive and increasingly deranged former film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in the towering classic Sunset Boulevard (1950). Olson received an Oscar nomination for "Best Supporting Actress" for her role. Her pairing with Holden, in fact, went over so well, they were teamed in a succession of standard features: Union Station (1950), Force of Arms (1951), and Submarine Command (1951), none holding a candle to their "Sunset" pairing. Other male co-stars during this active period included John Wayne as Big Jim McLain (1952), Steve Forrest in So Big (1953) (one of her finer post "Sunset" roles), and Will Rogers Jr. in The Boy from Oklahoma (1954).
Her increasing status in Hollywood came to a virtual halt in the mid-1950s, after marrying renowned lyricist Alan Jay Lerner (who later wrote "On a Clear Day..." and "Camelot"). She abruptly put her acting on hold in favor of raising their two daughters and her career never fully recovered. The couple divorced in 1957 and she decided to return full-time to acting but by the late 1950s she was perceived as too mature to now play the fresh-faced, girl-next-door type for which she was so identified.
Disney Studios came to the rescue, however, in the early 1960s and gave her mid-career an added luster by playing Fred MacMurray's love interest in both The Absent Minded Professor (1961) and Son of Flubber (1962). Her poise, charm and ever-animated appeal was absolutely in sync with the studio's squeaky-clean image, and adding just the right amount of feisty, feminine starch for the light slapstick happenings around her. Other Disney films in which she participated included Pollyanna (1960) and Snowball Express (1972). She also made an uncredited cameo appearance in the Flubber (1997) remake starring Robin Williams.
Olson went on to find sunny work on Broadway, notably in the plays "The Tunnel of Love," "Send Me No Flowers" and "Mary, Mary". In the 1970s and 1980s, she came back with a couple of secondary parts on regular series TV, but the shows were both short-lived. She retired for all intents and purposes in the mid-1980s. Her second marriage in 1962 to record executive Alan Livingston, who also created the TV character of Bozo the Clown, was long lasting (he died in 2009) and their son, Christopher Livingston has three film credits as, variously, director, editor, cinematographer, producer and actor.- Actor
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Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, to Bernice Mae (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. He had Irish (from his paternal grandmother), English, and some German, ancestry. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the movies every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play "The Morning Star" (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (1944).
Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles. He appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (1946), he was again nominated for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (1948) and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II.
With a string of hits to his credit, Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) and Moby Dick (1956). He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (1953). Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). In the early 1960s, he appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (1962) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), which dealt with the way people live. He also gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (1961), one of the biggest box-office hits of that year.
In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1972) and The Dove (1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (1976). After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (1977) and the monstrous Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (1978). In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (1982) and The Scarlet and the Black (1983). In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (1991).
In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights and civil rights. In 2003, his Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute. Gregory Peck died at age 87 on June 12, 2003 in Los Angeles, California.- Actor
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Rex was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Louisiana. He became one of the most prolific movie critics in the country, and for decades has written entertainment columns for The New York Observer.
In 1970, Rex made his movie debut, playing Myron in Myra Breckinridge (1970) - Myron was the young man whose post sex-change operation persona was played by Raquel Welch. But Rex's success came in reviewing movies, not starring in them.
Rex currently lives in New York - at the Dakota, one of Manhattan's most expensive and exclusive apartment buildings (John Lennon was shot there). Rex also owns a spread in an elite corner of rural Connecticut, and is a single man-about-town. Movie stars may come and go, but movie reviews by Rex Reed go on forever.- Actor
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Tall, suave and sophisticated Cesar Romero actually had two claims to fame in Hollywood. To one generation, he was the distinguished Latin lover of numerous musicals and romantic comedies, and the rogue bandit The Cisco Kid in a string of low-budget westerns. However, to a younger generation weaned on television, Romero was better known as the white-faced, green-haired, cackling villain The Joker of the camp 1960s TV series Batman (1966), and as a bumbling corporate villain in a spate of Walt Disney comedies, such as chasing a young Kurt Russell in the fun-packed The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969). Fans and critics alike agreed that Romero was a major talent who proved himself an enduring and versatile star in an overwhelming variety of roles in a career as an actor, dancer and comedian that lasted nearly 60 years.
Cesar Romero was born of Cuban parents in New York City in February 1907. He attended the Collegiate School and Riverdale Country School before working as a ballroom dancer. He first appeared on Broadway in the 1927 production of Lady Do, and then in the stage production of Strictly Dishonorable. His first film role was in The Shadow Laughs (1933), after which he gave strong performances in The Devil Is a Woman (1935) and in the Shirley Temple favorite, Wee Willie Winkie (1937).
Critics and fans generally agree that Romero's best performance was as the Spanish explorer Cortez in Captain from Castile (1947). However, he also shone in the delightful Julia Misbehaves (1948) and several other breezy and lighthearted escapades. In 1953 he starred in the 39-part espionage TV serial Passport to Danger (1954), which earned him a considerable income due to a canny profit-sharing arrangement. Although Romero became quite wealthy and had no need to work, he could not stay away from being in front of the cameras. He continued to appear in a broad variety of film roles, but surprised everyone in Hollywood by taking on the role of "The Joker" in the hugely successful TV series Batman (1966). He refused to shave his trademark mustache for the role, and close observation shows how the white clown makeup went straight on over his much loved mustache! The appearances in Batman were actually only a small part of the enormous amount of work that Romero contributed to television. He guest-starred in dozens of shows, including Rawhide (1959), 77 Sunset Strip (1958), Zorro (1957), Fantasy Island (1977) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). However, it was The Joker for which his TV work was best remembered, and Romero often remarked that for many, many years after Batman ended, fans would stop him and ask him to chuckle and giggle away just like he did as The Joker. Romero always obliged, and both he and the fans just loved it!
With a new appeal to a younger fan base, Romero turned up in three highly popular Disney comedies: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972) and The Strongest Man in the World (1975) as corrupt but inept villain A.J. Arno. Throughout the remainder of the 1980s Romero remained busy, and even at 78 years of age the ladies still loved his charm, and he was cast as Jane Wyman's love interest in the top-rated prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest (1981), playing Peter Stavros from 1985 to 1987.
Although Romero stopped acting in 1990, he remained busy, regularly hosting classic movie programs on cable television. A talented and much loved Hollywood icon, he passed away on New Year's Day 1994, at the age of 86.- Actor
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Dale Robertson, the actor who made his name in television Westerns in the 1950s and '60s, was born on July 14, 1923, in Harrah, Oklahoma. After serving in a tank crew and in the combat engineers in North Africa and Europe during World War II, the twice-wounded Robertson started his acting career while still on active duty in the U.S. Army. While stationed at San Luis Obispo, California, had a photograph taken for his mother. A copy of the photo displayed in the photo shop window attracted movie scouts, and the six foot tall, 180-lb. Robertson soon was on his way to Hollywood. Will Rogers Jr., whose father is the most famous son of Oklahoma, told him to avoid formal training and keep his own persona. Robertson took his advice and avoided acting classes.
Robertson was typecast in Western movies and TV shows when the genre was still America's favorite. He headlined two TV series, Tales of Wells Fargo (1957), in which he played the roving trouble-shooter Jim Hardie, and Iron Horse (1966), in which he won a railway in a poker game. He also served as one of the hosts, along with Ronald Reagan, of the syndicated series Death Valley Days (1952) during the 1960s. Robertson later appeared in the inaugural season of Dynasty (1981).
Robertson is a recipient of the Golden Boot Award in 1985, and was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers and the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. He is retired on a ranch near Oklahoma City, not far from his birthplace of Harrah.- Actor
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Mike Romanoff, the former Harry F. Gerguson, was a successful "professional impostor." He accumulated an enormous fount of knowledge in his numerous travels and occupations around the world (and he attended, however briefly, several leading universities). When Hollywood filmmakers needed a technical adviser for a movie set in Europe, Romanoff claimed to be an expert and drew a comfortable salary. The genial Romanoff was a popular figure among the movie colony, and he opened a restaurant that was frequented by many film stars. Romanoff made few screen appearances, but he can be seen in all his fraudulent glory in Sing While You're Able (1937). David Niven was a close friend, and in his book "Bring On the Empty Horses" he devotes a chapter to the colorful Romanoff.- Actress
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Ann Rutherford was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The daughter of a former Metropolitan Opera singer, John Rutherford, and her actress mother, Lillian Mansfield, was destined for show business.
Not long after her birth, her family moved to California, where she made her stage debut in 1925.
Ann appeared in many plays and on radio for the next nine years before making her first screen appearance in Waterfront Lady (1935).
Ann's talent was readily apparent, and she was signed to three films in 1935: Waterfront Lady (1935), Melody Trail (1935), and The Fighting Marines (1935).
By now, she was a leading lady in the fabled Westerns with two legends, John Wayne and Gene Autry.
By the time Ann was 17, she inked a deal with MGM, where she would gain star status for her portrayal of "Polly Benedict" in the popular "Andy Hardy" series with Mickey Rooney. Ann's first role as "Polly" was in 1938, in You're Only Young Once (1937).
Three more Hardy films were produced that same year: Out West with the Hardys (1938), Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), and Judge Hardy's Children (1938).
Ann found time to play in other productions, too. One that is still loved today is the Charles Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol (1938), in which she played the sweet role of the Spirit of Christmas Past.
In 1939, Ann played the role of "Annie Hawks" in Of Human Hearts (1938) in addition to three more Andy Hardy films.
That year also saw Ann land a role in the most popular film in film history. She played "Careen O'Hara," Scarlett's little sister, in Gone with the Wind (1939). Plenty of fans of the Andy Hardy series went to see it just for Ann. The film was unquestionably a super hit.
She then resumed making other movies. While working for MGM, Ann, along with the other stars, was under the watchful eye of movie mogul Louis B. Mayer.
Mayer was no different from any other film tycoon except for the fact that he ran the classiest studio in Hollywood. The bottom line was profit, and Mayer couldn't really maximize profits unless he kept performers' salaries minimized as much as possible. Most tried to get raises and failed. Even Mickey Rooney was decidedly underpaid during his glory years at MGM.
But not Ann Rutherford. When she asked for a raise, she took out her bankbook and, showing him the amount it contained, and told Mayer she had promised her mother a new house. Ann got her raise.
In 1942 at the age of 22, Ann appeared in her last Andy Hardy film, Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942).
She then left MGM and freelanced her talent. Ann was still in demand.
In 1943, she appeared in Happy Land (1943), but it was a little later in her career when she appeared in two big hits.
In 1947, she played Gertrude Griswold in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and Donna Elena in Adventures of Don Juan (1948) in 1948.
After that, Ann appeared in several TV programs and didn't return to the silver screen until 1972, in They Only Kill Their Masters (1972).
Her last role came in 1976 in the dismal Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), whereupon she retired.
Ann was approached to play the older Rose in 1998's mega hit Titanic (1997) but turned it down.
She happily enjoyed her retirement being constantly deluged with fan mail and granting several interviews and appearances.
She died at her Beverly Hills home on June 11, 2012 with her close friend Anne Jeffreys by her side. She was 94 years old.- Actress
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Her real name was Frances "Fanny" Rose Shore, and she was born in Winchester, Tennessee. Stricken with polio at 18 months of age, she recovered after receiving the Sister Kenny treatment. She became a cheerleader at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville and went on to graduate from Vanderbilt University in 1938, where she majored in sociology. She took voice and acting lessons on the side and sang on radio station WSM in Nashville. In 1938 she left Tennessee for New York City and began singing on radio station WNCW in New York. Her first recordings were with bandleader Xavier Cugat, and she later changed her named to Dinah after her success with the song of the same name. She received numerous Emmy awards for television specials and productions and appeared in many films. She was married to actor George Montgomery, with whom she had one daughter and adopted a son.- Actress
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Demure British beauty Jean Simmons was born January 31, 1929, in Crouch End, London. As a 14-year-old dance student, she was plucked from her school to play Margaret Lockwood's precocious sister in Give Us the Moon (1944). She had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), produced by Gabriel Pascal, starring Vivien Leigh, and co-starring her future husband Stewart Granger. Pascal saw potential in Simmons, and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract to the J. Arthur Rank Organization, and she went on to make a name for herself in such major British productions as Great Expectations (1946) (as the spoiled, selfish Estella), Black Narcissus (1947) (as a sultry native beauty), Hamlet (1948) (playing Ophelia to Laurence Olivier's great Dane and earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination), The Blue Lagoon (1949) and So Long at the Fair (1950), among others.
In 1950, she married Stewart Granger, and that same year, she moved to Hollywood. While Granger was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned RKO Pictures. Hughes was eager to start a sexual relationship with Simmons, but Granger put a stop to his advances. Her first Hollywood film was Androcles and the Lion (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. It was followed by Angel Face (1952), directed by Otto Preminger with Robert Mitchum. To further punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to Paramount, where William Wyler wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film Roman Holiday (1953); the role made a star of Audrey Hepburn. A court case freed Simmons from the contract with Hughes in 1952. They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money. Simmons also agreed to make three more movies under the auspices of RKO, but not actually at that studio - she would be lent out. MGM cast her in the lead of Young Bess (1953) playing a young Queen Elizabeth I with Granger. She went back to RKO to do the extra film under the settlement with Hughes, titled Affair with a Stranger (1953) with Mature; it flopped.
Simmons went over to 20th Century Fox to play the female lead in The Robe (1953), the first CinemaScope movie and an enormous financial success. Less popular was The Actress (1953) at MGM alongside Spencer Tracy, despite superb reviews; it was one of her personal favorites. Fox asked Simmons back for The Egyptian (1954), another epic, but it was not especially popular. She had the lead in Columbia's A Bullet Is Waiting (1954). More popular with moviegoers was Désirée (1954), where Simmons played Désirée Clary to Marlon Brando's Napoleon Bonaparte. Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller Footsteps in the Fog (1955). She then starred in the musical Guys and Dolls (1955) with Brando and Frank Sinatra; she used her own singing voice and earned her first Golden Globe Award. Simmons played the title role in Hilda Crane (1956) at Fox, a commercial failure. So, too, were This Could Be the Night (1957) and Until They Sail (1957), both at MGM. Simmons had a big success, though, in The Big Country (1958), directed by Wyler. She starred in Home Before Dark (1958) at Warner Bros. and This Earth Is Mine (1959) with Rock Hudson at Universal.
Simmons divorced Granger in 1960 and almost immediately married writer-director Richard Brooks, who cast her as Sister Sharon opposite Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960), a memorable adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel. That same year, she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) and played a would-be homewrecker opposite Cary Grant in The Grass Is Greener (1960).
Off the screen for a few years, Jean captivated moviegoers with a brilliant performance as the mother in All the Way Home (1963), a literate, tasteful adaptation of James Agee's "A Death in the Family". However, after that, she found quality projects somewhat harder to come by, and took work in Life at the Top (1965), Mister Buddwing (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), Rough Night in Jericho (1967), The Happy Ending (1969) (a Richard Brooks film for which she was again Oscar-nominated, this time as Best Actress).
Jean continued making films well into the 1970s. In the 1980s, she appeared mainly in television miniseries, such as North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and The Thorn Birds (1983). She made a comeback to films in 1995 in How to Make an American Quilt (1995) co-starring Winona Ryder and Anne Bancroft, and most recently voiced the elderly Sophie in the English version of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004). She now resided in Santa Monica, California, with her dog, Mr. Gates, and her two cats, Adisson and Megan. Jean Simmons died of lung cancer on January 22, 2010, nine days before her 81st birthday.- Actress
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Nancy Sandra Sinatra was born the first child of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Barbato Sinatra on June 8, 1940 in Jersey City, New Jersey. Her first television appearance was with her father and Elvis Presley in 1959. She first appeared as a film actress in For Those Who Think Young (1964) and Get Yourself a College Girl (1964). Nancy appeared alongside Elvis in the musical comedy Speedway (1968). She also had a successful career as a singer with two United States chart-toppers ("These Boots Are Made for Walking" and the duet with her father called "Somethin' Stupid") as well as numerous other chart entries including the John Barry / Leslie Bricusse penned theme song to the James Bond film You Only Live Twice (1967). Lee Hazlewood wrote many of her songs and sang with her on some of them. By the early 1970s, she was covering new ground by recording songs from other writers such as Bob Dylan, Smokey Robinson, Lynsey de Paul and Roy Wood. In recent years, Nancy has made a comeback also not hindered by the recent successful re-recording of "Somethin' Stupid" by Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman.- Actress
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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
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A new reigning 1960s international sex symbol took to the cinematic throne as soon as Raquel Welch emerged from the sea in her purposely depleted, furry prehistoric bikini. Tantalizingly wet with her garb clinging to all the right amazonian places, One Million Years B.C. (1966), if nothing else, captured the hearts and libidos of modern men (not to mention their teenage sons) while producing THE most definitive and best-selling pin-up poster of that time.
She was born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois, the first of three children of Bolivian-born Armando Carlos Tejada, an aerospace engineer, and his wife, Josephine Sarah (Hall). The family moved to San Diego, California (her father was transferred) when Raquel was only two. Taking dance lessons as a youngster, she grew up to be quite a knockout and nailed a number of teen beauty titles ("Miss Photogenic," "Miss La Jolla," "Miss Contour," "Miss Fairest of the Fair" and "Miss San Diego").
With her sights set on theater arts, she studied at San Diego State College on a scholarship starting in 1958 and married her first husband, high school sweetheart James Welch, the following year. They had two children: Damon Welch (born 1959), who later became an actor/production assistant, and actress Tahnee Welch (born 1961). Tahnee went on to take advantage of her own stunning looks as an actress, most notably with her prime role in Cocoon (1985).
Off campus, she became a local TV weather girl in San Diego and eventually quit college. Following the end of her marriage in 1962 (although Raquel and James Welch didn't divorce until 1964), she packed up her two children and moved to Dallas, Texas, where she modeled for Neiman-Marcus and worked as a barmaid for a time.
Regrouping, she returned to California and made the rounds of film/TV auditions. She found work providing minor but sexy set decoration on the small screen (Bewitched (1964), McHale's Navy (1962) and The Virginian (1962)) as well as the large screen (Elvis Presley's Roustabout (1964) and Doris Day's Do Not Disturb (1965)). Caught in the midst of the "beach party" craze, it's not surprising to find out that her first major film role was A Swingin' Summer (1965), which concentrated more on musical guests The Righteous Brothers and Gary Lewis & The Playboys than on Welch's outstanding assets. But 20th Century-Fox certainly took notice and signed her up.
With her very first film under contract (actually, she was on loan out to Britain's Hammer Studios at the time), she took on One Million Years B.C. (1966) (the remake of One Million B.C. (1940), in the role originated by Carole Landis), and the rest is history. Welch remained an international celebrity in her first few years of stardom. In England, she was quite revealing as the deadly sin representing "lust" for the comedy team of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in their vehicle Bedazzled (1967), and as the title secret agent in the spy spoof Fathom (1967). In Italy, she gained some exposure in primarily mediocre vehicles opposite such heartthrobs as Marcello Mastroianni.
Back in the U.S., however, she caused quite a stir in her groundbreaking sex scenes with black athlete Jim Brown in the "spaghetti western" 100 Rifles (1969), and as the transgender title role in the unfathomable Myra Breckinridge (1970). Adapted from Gore Vidal's novel, she created some unwelcome notoriety by locking horns with septuagenarian diva Mae West on the set. The instant cult movie certainly didn't help Welch's attempt at being taking seriously as an actress.
Box office bombs abounded. Try as she might in such films as Kansas City Bomber (1972) and The Wild Party (1975), which drew some good reviews for her, her sexy typecast gave her little room to breathe. With determination, however, she partly offset this with modest supporting roles in larger ensemble pieces. She showed definite spark and won a Golden Globe for the swashbuckler The Three Musketeers (1973), and appeared in the mystery thriller The Last of Sheila (1973). She planned on making a comeback in Cannery Row (1982), even agreeing to appear topless (which she had never done before), but was suddenly fired during production without notice. She sued MGM for breach of contract and ultimately won a $15 million settlement, but it didn't help her film career and only helped to label her as trouble on a set.
TV movies became a positive milieu for Welch as she developed sound vehicles for herself such as The Legend of Walks Far Woman (1980) and Right to Die (1987), earning a Golden Globe nomination for the latter project. She also found a lucrative avenue pitching beauty products in infomercials and developing exercise videos (such as Jane Fonda).
Welch took advantage of her modest singing and dancing abilities by performing in splashy Las Vegas showroom acts and starring in such plausible stage vehicles as "Woman of the Year" and "Victor/Victoria". She spoofed her own image on occasion, most memorably on Seinfeld (1989). Into the millennium, she co-starred in the Hispanic-oriented TV series American Family (2002) and the short-lived comedies Welcome to the Captain (2008) and Date My Dad (2017), along with the movies Tortilla Soup (2001), Legally Blonde (2001), Forget About It (2006) and How to Be a Latin Lover (2017).
Her three subsequent marriages were to producer/agent Patrick Curtis (who produced her TV special, Raquel (1970)), director André Weinfeld (who directed her in several fitness videos), and pizza parlor owner Richie Palmer, who was 14 years her junior. All these unions ended in divorce.
She died at 2:25 a.m. on February 15, 2023, aged 82, at her Los Angeles home after suffering a cardiac arrest. She had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease.- Army Archerd was born on 13 January 1922 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Burke's Law (1963) and Gable and Lombard (1976). He was married to Selma Archerd and Joan Carol Paul. He died on 8 September 2009 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Anne Douglas was born on 23 April 1919 in Hanover, Germany. She was a producer and actress, known for Peg Leg, Musket & Sabre (1973), Deep River (2009) and Kirk Douglas: Before I Forget (2009). She was married to Kirk Douglas and Albert Buydens. She died on 29 April 2021 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.- Katherine 'Kitty' Spiegel LeRoy was born on 14 May 1904 in East Orange, New Jersey, USA. She was married to Mervyn LeRoy, Sidney Marcus Spiegel Jr., Ernie Byfield and William Paul Rend II. She died on 6 February 1996 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.
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Ronald Reagan had quite a prolific career, having catapulted from a Warner Bros. contract player and television star, into serving as president of the Screen Actors Guild, the governorship of California (1967-1975), and lastly, two terms as President of the United States (1981-1989).
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, to Nelle Clyde (Wilson) and John Edward "Jack" Reagan, who was a salesman and storyteller. His father was of Irish descent, and his mother was of half Scottish and half English ancestry.
A successful actor beginning in the 1930s, the young Reagan was a staunch admirer of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (even after he evolved into a Republican), and was a Democrat in the 1940s, a self-described 'hemophiliac' liberal. He was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947 and served five years during the most tumultuous times to ever hit Hollywood. A committed anti-communist, Reagan not only fought more-militantly activist movie industry unions that he and others felt had been infiltrated by communists, but had to deal with the investigation into Hollywood's politics launched by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, an inquisition that lasted through the 1950s. The House Un-American Activities Committee investigations of Hollywood (which led to the jailing of the "Hollywood Ten" in the late '40s) sowed the seeds of the McCarthyism that racked Hollywood and America in the 1950s.
In 1950, U.S. Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas (D-CA), the wife of "Dutch" Reagan's friend Melvyn Douglas, ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate and was opposed by the Republican nominee, the Red-bating Congressman from Whittier, Richard Nixon. While Nixon did not go so far as to accuse Gahagan Douglas of being a communist herself, he did charge her with being soft on communism due to her opposition to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Nixon tarred her as a "fellow traveler" of communists, a "pinko" who was "pink right down to her underwear." Gahagan Douglas was defeated by the man she was the first to call "Tricky Dicky" because of his unethical behavior and dirty campaign tactics. Reagan was on the Douglases' side during that campaign.
The Douglases, like Reagan and such other prominent actors as Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, were liberal Democrats, supporters of the late Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal, a legacy that increasingly was under attack by the right after World War II. They were NOT fellow-travelers; Melvyn Douglas had actually been an active anti-communist and was someone the communists despised. Melvyn Douglas, Robinson and Henry Fonda - a registered Republican! - wound up "gray-listed." (They weren't explicitly black-listed, they just weren't offered any work.) Reagan, who it was later revealed had been an F.B.I. informant while a union leader (turning in suspected communists), was never hurt that way, as he made S.A.G. an accomplice of the black-listing.
Reagan's career sagged after the late 1940s, and he started appearing in B-movies after he left Warner Bros. to go free-lance. However, he had a eminence grise par excellence in Lew Wasserman, his agent and the head of the Music Corp. of America. Wasserman, later called "The Pope of Hollywood," was the genius who figured out that an actor could make a killing via a tax windfall by turning himself into a corporation. The corporation, which would employ the actor, would own part of a motion picture the actor appeared in, and all monies would accrue to the corporation, which was taxed at a much lower rate than was personal income. Wasserman pioneered this tax avoidance scheme with his client James Stewart, beginning with the Anthony Mann western Winchester '73 (1950) (1950). It made Stewart enormously rich as he became a top box office draw in the 1950s after the success of "Winchester 73" and several more Mann-directed westerns, all of which he had an ownership stake in.
Ironically, Reagan became a poor-man's James Stewart in the early 1950s, appearing in westerns, but they were mostly B-pictures. He did not have the acting chops of the great Stewart, but he did have his agent. Wasserman at M.C.A. was one of the pioneers of television syndication, and this was to benefit Reagan enormously. M.C.A. was the only talent agency that was also allowed to be a producer through an exemption to union rules granted by S.A.G. when Reagan was the union president, and it used the exemption to acquire Universal International Pictures. Talent agents were not permitted to be producers as there was an inherent conflict of interest between the two professions, one of which was committed to acquiring talent at the lowest possible cost and the other whose focus was to get the best possible price for their client. When a talent agent was also a producer, like M.C.A. was, it had a habit of steering its clients to its own productions, where they were employed but at a lower price than their potential free market value. It was a system that made M.C.A. and Lew Wasserman, enormously wealthy.
The ownership of Universal and its entry into the production of television shows that were syndicated to network made M.C.A. the most successful organization in Hollywood of its time, a real cash cow as television overtook the movies as the #1 business of the entertainment industry. Wasserman repaid Ronald Reagan's largess by structuring a deal by which he hosted and owned part of General Electric Theater (1953), a western omnibus showcase that ran from 1954 to 1961. It made Reagan very comfortable financially, though it did not make him rich. That came later.
In 1960, with the election of the Democratic President John F. Kennedy, the black and gray lists went into eclipse. J.F.K. appointed Helen Gahagan Douglas Treasurer of the United States. About this time, as the civil rights movement became stronger and found more support among Democrats and the Kennedy administration, Reagan - fresh from a second stint as S.A.G. president in 1959 - was in the process of undergoing a personal and political metamorphosis into a right-wing Republican, a process that culminated with his endorsing Barry Goldwater for the Republican presidential nomination in 1964. (He narrated a Goldwater campaign film played at the G.O.P. Convention in San Francisco.) Reagan's evolution into a right-wing Republican sundered his friendship with the Douglases. (After Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, Melvyn Douglas said of his former friend that Reagan turned to the right after he had begun to believe the pro-business speeches he delivered for General Electric when he was the host of the "G.E. Theater.")
In 1959, while Reagan was back as a second go-round as S.A.G. president, M.C.A.'s exemption from S.A.G. regulations that forbade a talent agency from being a producer was renewed. However, in 1962, the U.S. Justice Department under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy successfully forced M.C.A. - known as "The Octopus" in Hollywood for its monopolistic tendencies - to divest itself of its talent agency.
When Reagan was tipped by the California Republican Party to be its standard-bearer in the 1965 gubernatorial election against Democratic Governor Pat Brown, Lew Wasserman went back in action. Politics makes strange bedfellows, and though Wasserman was a liberal Democrat, having an old friend like Reagan who had shown his loyalty as S.A.G. president in the state house was good for business. Wasserman and his partner, M.C.A. Chairman Jules Styne (a Republican), helped ensure that Reagan would be financially secure for the rest of his life so that he could enter politics. (At the time, he was the host of "Death Valley Days" on TV.)
According to the Wall Street Journal, Universal sold Reagan a nice piece of land of many acres north of Santa Barbara that had been used for location shooting. The Reagans sold most of the ranch, then converted the rest of it, about 200 acres, into a magnificent estate overlooking the valley and the Pacific Ocean. The Rancho del Cielo became President Reagan's much needed counterpoint to the buzz of Washington, D.C. There, in a setting both rugged and serene, the Reagans could spend time alone or receive political leaders such as the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, and others.
Reagan was known to the world for his one-liners, the most famous of them was addressed to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. "Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall" said Reagan standing in front of the Berlin Wall. That call made an impact on the course of human history.
Ronald Reagan played many roles in his life's seven acts: radio announcer, movie star, union boss, television actor-cum-host, governor, right-wing critic of big government and President of the United States.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Nancy Reagan was born on 6 July 1921 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Hellcats of the Navy (1957), Night Into Morning (1951) and Donovan's Brain (1953). She was married to Ronald Reagan. She died on 6 March 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Hugh O'Brian had the term "beefcake" written about him during his nascent film years in the early 1950s, but he chose to avoid the obvious typecast as he set up his career.
O'Brian was born Hugh Charles Krampe on April 19, 1925, in Rochester, New York, to Ohio-born parents Edith Lillian (Marks) and Hugh John Krampe, a United States Marine Corps officer. His paternal grandparents were German immigrants, while his mother was of half German Jewish and half English/Scottish descent. O'Brian first attended school at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, then Kemper Military School in Booneville, Missouri. Moving from place to place growing up, he managed to show off his athletic prowess quite early. By the time he graduated from high school, he had lettered in football, basketball, wrestling and track. Originally pursuing law, he dropped out of the University of Cincinnati in 1942 (age 19) and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Upon his discharge he ended up in Los Angeles. Hugh joined a little theater group and a Santa Barbara stock company, where he developed his acting chops and slowly built up his résumé. He was discovered for TV by director/actress Ida Lupino, which opened the door to his signing with Universal Studios for films.
Hugh's gentlemanly ruggedness, similar to a James Garner or a Gene Barry, was ideal for pictures, and his lean physique and exceptionally photographic mug had the modest, brown-eyed, curly-haired looker plastered all over the movie magazines. He rebelled against the image for the most part and, as a result, his years with Universal were not as fruitful as they could have been. For the duration, he was pretty much confined as a secondary player to standard action pictures such as The Return of Jesse James (1950), The Cimarron Kid (1952), The Battle at Apache Pass (1952), Red Ball Express (1952), Son of Ali Baba (1952), The Lawless Breed (1952), Seminole (1953), Saskatchewan (1954) and Drums Across the River (1954). It was Rock Hudson who earned all of the Universal glamour guy roles and the out-and-out stardom that could easily have been Hugh's. In 1954, he left Universal to freelance but did not fare any better with more serviceable roles in White Feather (1955) and The Twinkle in God's Eye (1955).
Hugh finally earned top status in the "B" action adventure The Brass Legend (1956) but it did little to advance his film career. Offered the starring role in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955) on TV, a year later, it became a mainstay hit and Hugh an "overnight" star. During his six-year run on the western classic, he managed to show off his singing talents on variety shows and appeared on Broadway, replacing Andy Griffith for a week in the musical "Destry Rides Again" in January of 1960.
The hirsutely handsome bachelor remained a durable talent throughout the 60s and 70s with plentiful work on the big screen, including Come Fly with Me (1963), Love Has Many Faces (1965), Ten Little Indians (1965), Ambush Bay (1966), Africa: Texas Style (1967), Strategy of Terror (1969), John Wayne's last film The Shootist (1976), and Bruce Lee's last film Game of Death (1978), as well as with the TV-movies Wild Women (1970), Harpy (1971), Murder on Flight 502 (1975), Benny and Barney: Las Vegas Undercover (1977), Murder at the World Series (1977), Cruise Into Terror (1978). He also starred in the crime adventure series Search (1972), but never got the one role to earn the critical attention he merited. In addition, he kept busy on the summer stock circuit.
In later years, he appeared in the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny DeVito comedy "Twins"; returned as "Wyatt Earp" in the TV movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991) and Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone (1994); and made guest appearances on such TV shows as "Fantasy Island," "The Love Boat," "Matt Houston," "Murder, She Wrote," "L.A. Law" and made his last on-camera appearance on the series "Call of the Wild" in 2000.
A sports enthusiast, his hobbies included sailing, tennis, swimming and long-distance bicycling, and his many philanthropic efforts did not go unrecognized. His proudest achievement was the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY), which he founded in 1958 after spending considerable time with Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his clinic in Africa. Struck by the impassioned work being done by Schweitzer, O'Brian set up his own program to help develop young people into future leaders. O'Brian was awarded honorary degrees by several prestigious institutions of higher learning. The perennial bachelor finally "settled down" and tied the knot at age 81 with longtime companion Virginia Barber, who was close to three decades his junior. They lived in his Benedict Canyon home.
Hugh died on September 5, 2016, in Beverly Hills, California, of natural causes.- Cheryll Clarke was born in 1927 in Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for Princess of the Nile (1954) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955). She died in 1989 in California, USA.
- George Behrend is known for Nine, Dalmuir West (1962).
- Juli Reding was born on 28 November 1935 in Quanah, Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for Tormented (1960), Burke's Law (1963) and Sea Hunt (1958). She was married to Herbert L. Hutner, Reese Taylor and Mr. West. She died on 16 September 2021 in Springfield, Missouri, USA.
- E.E. Fogelson was born on 16 February 1900 in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. He was an actor, known for Pepe (1960). He was married to Greer Garson and Mattie Maud (Mary) Perry. He died on 1 December 1987 in Dallas, Texas, USA.
- Actress
Anita Mey was born on 2 May 1912. She was an actress, known for Heidi (1952), Heidi and Peter (1955) and Die Cocktailparty (1964). She died in 2006 in Kronberg im Taunus, Hesse, Germany.- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Production Manager
Richard D. Zanuck was born on 13 December 1934 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a producer and production manager, known for Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Cocoon (1985) and Jaws (1975). He was married to Lili Fini Zanuck, Linda Harrison and Lili Gentle. He died on 13 July 2012 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Art Department
Henry Hathaway, son of a stage actress and manager, started his career as a child actor in westerns directed by Allan Dwan. His movie career was interrupted by World War I. After his discharge he briefly tried a career in finance but returned to Hollywood to work as an assistant director under such directors as Frank Lloyd, Paul Bern, Josef von Sternberg and Victor Fleming, whom Hathaway credited for his eventual success. In 1932 he directed his first picture, Heritage of the Desert (1932), a western. His approach has been described as uncomplicated and straightforward, while at the same time noted for their striking visual effects and unusual locations. He had a reputation as being difficult on actors, but stars such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe benefited under his direction. Although Hathaway was a highly successful and reliable director working within the Hollywood studio system, his work has received little attention from critics.- Additional Crew
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jeannie Coyne was a talented dancer who was a long time assistant of Gene Kelly and appeared in a few of his films. Her biggest role would be to dance with Bobby Van in the "From this moment on" number from Kiss Me Kate (1953). Coyne would later become Kelly's second wife and bear him two children, but unfortunately died in 1973 of leukemia.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
One of the most critically and commercially successful screenwriters in Hollywood history, Lehman grew up on Long Island, graduated from NY's City College. One of his first jobs was as a copywriter for a Broadway publicist. This experience would later be reflected in his novel and screenplay, "Sweet Smell of Success." He also worked as a radio comedy writer, and as editor of a financial magazine. He freelanced short stories for the likes of Collier's magazine and one of these fiction piece 'The Comedian' led to his first job in Hollywood as a screenwriter for Paramount in the mid 1950s. Nick Roddick, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, praised Lehman as "a champion of the well-crafted, what-happens-next screenplay." Served as president of the Writers Guild of America from 1983-85.- Paul Ziffren was born on 18 July 1913 in Davenport, Iowa, USA. He was married to Muriel Ziffren and Phyllis Rochelle Kolinsky Ziffren Deutsch Owensmith. He died on 31 May 1991 in Malibu, California, USA.
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Freddie Fields was born on 23 July 1923 in Ferndale, New York, USA. He was a producer, known for American Gigolo (1980), Victory (1981) and Glory (1989). He was married to Corinna Tsopei, Cherie Latimer, Polly Bergen and Edith Fellows. He died on 11 December 2007 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Director
Lawrence Turman was born on 28 November 1926 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a producer and director, known for The Graduate (1967), The Thing (1982) and The River Wild (1994). He was married to Margaret Buckley, Suzanne Rita Trieb and Lorie Berger. He died on 1 July 2023 in Woodland Hills, California, USA.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
William Dozier was an American TV and movie producer who made it to the top of the TV heap briefly in the mid-1960s with his show Batman (1966). Born on February 13, 1908 in Omaha, Nebraska, Dozier was also known for his wives. After divorcing his first wife, he was married to Oscar-winner Joan Fontaine from 1946 to 1951 and to movie star Ann Rutherford from 1953 to his death on April 23, 1991.
In 1948, he and Fontaine launched Rampart Productions, which produced Max Ophüls' Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) starring his wife, and You Gotta Stay Happy (1948), which starred Fontaine and James Stewart. He served as executive producer on both pictures.
Turning to TV as the new decade of the Fifties dawned, Dozier produced the series Danger (1950), which ran for five years from 1950-55. In the Fifties and Sixties, he continued his career as a TV producer, bringing to the tube the short-lived TV series Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers (1953) (1953), The Loner (1965) (1965).
In 1966, he achieved the height of TV success with "Batman" which ran for three seasons and was a cultural sensation. The TV show spun off a Batman: The Movie (1966) feature film. That same year, he also launched , a modest success, and The Tammy Grimes Show (1966), a notorious flop that shot five episodes and was canceled after four.
Dozier retired as a producer after the 1969 movie _The Big Bounce (1969) flopped, though he enjoyed a modest second career as an actor in the Seventies and early Eighties.- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Throughout his long and successful career as a producer, director and writer, George Schlatter has been responsible for hundreds of hours of television series and specials. He changed the face of television when he created and produced such breakthrough series as Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967) and Real People (1979). Over the years, Mr. Schlatter has received numerous honors and awards including 25 Emmy Award nominations, five Emmys, three Image Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Television Critics Awards, the International Radio & Television "Man of the Year" Award, Directors Guild Award, Producers Guild "Man of The Year" Award, as well as many others. When the Television Academy celebrated its 25th Anniversary, they honored him for his outstanding contribution to television. In 1989, he was awarded a star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame. In 1992, Paul Newman and Frank Sinatra, on behalf of the Scott Newman Center, honored him with a tribute dinner for his showmanship and involvement to so many charitable causes. In 1996, the Museum of Television & Radio did a special tribute to him for his contributions in the world of television.
Fifteen years ago, he established the American Comedy Awards, an annual televised event designed to acknowledge the contributions and achievements of comedic actors and performers. "Of all the work I've done, I am perhaps most proud of my involvement in the early careers of performers like Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, Roseanne Barr, Robin Williams, Ellen DeGeneres and others who have gone on to greater heights. Working with stars is rewarding, but helping to create stars is the most fulfilling of all accomplishments".
Mr. Schlatter is a veteran of over 30 years in network television. He produced the first 5 years of the Grammy Awards plus series and specials starring Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Eddie Murphy, Cher, Elton John, Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson, Doris Day, Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, Shirley MacLaine, Bill Cosby, Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Diana Ross, Lena Horne, Dinah Shore, Nat 'King' Cole and scores of others.
In honor of Frank Sinatra's milestone 80th birthday, Mr. Schlatter produced the Emmy-winning critically acclaimed two-hour Special Sinatra: 80 Years My Way (1995). His recent credits include the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards, The American Film Institute Life Achievement Award AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to Dustin Hoffman (1999) and to Harrison Ford, The 54th Presidential Inaugural Opening Ceremonies and Muhammad Ali's 60th Birthday Celebration.
In the past few seasons, he produced the highly successful Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in: 25th Anniversary Reunion (1993), the Emmy-award winning 'Sammy Davis Jr''s 60th Anniversary Celebration, Muhammad Ali's 50th Birthday Celebration, Frank Sinatra's 75th Birthday Celebration, The 25th Anniversary Of The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, The USO 50th Anniversary Welcome Home America, as well as the Comedy Hall Of Fame Specials, A Party For Richard Pryor, The People's Choice Awards, Frank, Liza And Sammy: The Ultimate Event, The American Television Awards, and the Thanksgiving Special Sinatra Duets. He is married to former actress Jolene Brand who was a regular on the The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952) and they have two daughters. Andrea Justine is also a champion equestrian rider. Their daughter Maria S. Schlatter is an Emmy award winning television producer.- Jolene Brand was born on 31 July 1934 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for Zorro (1957), The Ernie Kovacs Show (1961) and Rescue 8 (1958). She has been married to George Schlatter since 10 June 1956. They have two children.
- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Gus Trikonis was a very efficient and underrated director of delightfully down-and-dirty '70s drive-in, low-budget, exploitation fare. Born on November 21, 1937, in New York City, Trikonis began his show business career as both an actor and a dancer in Broadway plays and movies. His most popular film role was as Indio in the magnificent musical classic West Side Story (1961). He made his debut as director in 1969 with the biker flick Five the Hard Way (1969), following it with the pleasingly silly soft-core romp The Student Body (1976) and the marvelously lively psycho trash gem The Swinging Barmaids (1975). The first-rate Nashville Girl (1976) and the immensely entertaining Moonshine County Express (1977) were two superior entries in the then-fashionable redneck picture sub-genre. The Evil (1978) was likewise a strong and scary haunted house horror item. The hilariously rowdy blue collar comedy Take This Job and Shove It (1981) was Trikonis' biggest mainstream success, while the extremely fun and funky Dance of the Dwarfs (1983) was a nifty blend of both the jungle action adventure and monster horror movie genres. By the early '80s Trikonis began directing mostly for television. He did a bunch of made-for-TV pictures and directed episodes of such TV shows as Baywatch (1989), Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995), Quantum Leap (1989), Baywatch Nights (1995), Burke's Law (1994), The Commish (1991), Hunter (1984), Wiseguy (1987), The Flash (1990) and The Twilight Zone (1985). Trikonis was married to screen megastar Goldie Hawn. Outside of acting and directing, Trikonis has done several oil paintings.- Actress
- Soundtrack
It is perhaps ironic that the film for which this performer is best remembered was also her musical swansong and one of her very last motion picture appearances. That was, of course, South Pacific (1958), with Mitzi Gaynor famously cast as feisty Ensign Nellie Forbush, warbling "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair". She had not been first choice for the role: director Joshua Logan wanted Elizabeth Taylor while Richard Rodgers was fixated on Doris Day. Since neither was available, they had to settle on Mitzi. In retrospect, her performance (she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award) was perhaps the best thing about the movie. Hers was the only voice (other than that of Ray Walston) that was not dubbed in post- production. South Pacific was marred by Logan's lethargic direction and by garish hues, due to the use of colour filters in several lengthy sequences. The picture nonetheless became one of the highest grossing films of the 50s.
She was born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber of Hungarian aristocratic ancestry. Her father was violinist, cellist and music director Henry de Czanyi von Gerber, her mother Pauline was a dancer. Mitzi began performing in public from the age of four. Her family moved from Detroit to Hollywood when she was eleven. There, she was trained as a ballerina in the corps de ballet. Just three years later, she was on stage as a singer and dancer with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Company in a production of Roberta. While playing the lead in Victor Herbert's Naughty Marietta, Gaynor was discovered by a 20th Century Fox talent scout, auditioned and signed to a seven year contract. She made her screen debut as a dancer in My Blue Heaven (1950), singing 'Live Hard, Work Hard, Love Hard'. The studio kept her initials but changed her name from Gerber to Gaynor, likely in deference to Janet Gaynor, one of their major box-office stars of the 20s and 30s.
Aged 19, vivacious, blonde, slightly snub-nosed and undeniably cute, Mitzi began her career as a lead performer in musicals, acting alongside some of the genre's most prominent names. Now a headliner in her own right, she portrayed 19th century entertainer Lotta Crabtree in the biopic Golden Girl (1951), a South Sea Islander in Down Among the Sheltering Palms (1952) and the 'Queen of Vaudeville', Eva Tanguay, in The I Don't Care Girl (1953). All were minor box-office hits. Arguably her best role was that of Emily Ann Stackerlee in Damon Runyon's Bloodhounds of Broadway (1952), with Gaynor at her exuberant best, dancing and singing "Bye Low". Her final picture -- before Fox dropped her contract-- was the star-studded extravaganza There's No Business Like Show Business (1954). In this, she played second fiddle to Ethel Merman, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor and Dan Dailey.
That same year (1954) and not long away from the limelight, Gaynor married the very savvy talent agent and public relations executive Jack Bean. Bean soon quit his job with MCA to set up his own agency, Bean & Rose, which was largely about shepherding and rejuvenating Gaynor's career. She signed a new contract with Paramount in 1955 which resulted in a trio of films, the best of which was The Joker Is Wild (1957), starring Frank Sinatra as vaudevillian and night club entertainer Joe E. Lewis and Gaynor as his chorus girl wife. Next up, she played another showgirl in Les Girls (1957). This stodgy and confusingly scripted enterprise was chiefly notable for being Gene Kelly 's final appearance in a major musical and for the show-stopping number "Why Am I So Gone About That Gal?" performed by Kelly and Gaynor (both dressed as bikers, effectively lampooning Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953)).
After South Pacific (a part which her husband managed to secure for her) Gaynor made only a handful of films. Her last effort was For Love or Money (1963), a matrimonial comedy starring Kirk Douglas. In 1963, Gaynor retired from films, explaining that she felt 'kind of ordinary' as an actress. She considered her talents to be better suited to the stage, to live performances. Consequently, the latter part of her career was spent on the nightclub circuit (especially in Las Vegas) and in television specials. In the 90s, Gaynor's career found a new lease of life as a featured columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, chronicling the golden years.
Gaynor's many accolades have included a Golden Laurel (1958). She received a star on the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard in 1960, and, in 2017, she was inducted into the Great American Songbook Hall of Fame. Jack Bean, her husband of 52 years died of pneumonia at the couple's Beverly Hills home on December 4 2006.- William Frye was born on 5 October 1921 in Salinas, California, USA. He was a producer, known for Raise the Titanic (1980), Thriller (1960) and Airport '77 (1977). He died on 3 November 2017 in Palm Desert, California, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dame Judith Anderson was born Frances Margaret Anderson on February 10, 1897 in Adelaide, South Australia. She began her acting career in Australia before moving to New York in 1918. There she established herself as one of the greatest theatrical actresses and was a major star on Broadway throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Her notable stage works included the role of Lady Macbeth, which she played first in the 1920s, and gave an Emmy Award-winning television performance in Macbeth (1960). Anderson's long association with Euripides' "Medea" began with her acclaimed Tony Award-winning 1948 stage performance in the title role. She appeared in the television version of Medea (1983) in the supporting character of the Nurse.
Anderson made her Hollywood film debut under director Rowland Brown in a supporting role in Blood Money (1933). Her striking, not conventionally attractive features were complemented with her powerful presence, mastery of timing and an effortless style. Anderson made a film career as a supporting character actress in several significant films including Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), for which she was Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actress. She worked with director Otto Preminger in Laura (1944), then with René Clair in And Then There Were None (1945). Her remarkable performance in a supporting role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) fit in a stellar acting ensemble under director Richard Brooks.
Anderson was awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1960 Queen's New Year's Honours List for her services to the performing arts. Living in Santa Barbara in her later years, she also had a successful stint on the soap opera Santa Barbara (1984) and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in 1984. In the same year, at age 87, she appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) as the High Priestess, and was nominated for a Saturn Award for that role. She was awarded Companion of the Order of Australia in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to the performing arts. Anderson died at age 94 of pneumonia on January 3, 1992 in Santa Barbara, California.- Director
- Additional Crew
- Music Department
Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, his father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, Minelli worked in the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set designer and costumer, adopting a Latinized version of his father's first name when he was hired as an art-director by Radio City Music Hall. The fall of 1935 saw his directorial debut for a Franz Schubert revue, At Home Abroad. The show was the first of three, in the best Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. spirit, before receiving Arthur Freed's offer to work at MGM. This was his second try at Hollywood -- a short unsuccessful contract at Paramount led nowhere. He stayed at MGM for the next 26 years. After working on numerous Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland vehicles, usually directed by Busby Berkeley, Arthur Freed gave him his first directorial assignment on Cabin in the Sky (1943), a risky screen project with an all-black cast. This was followed by the ambitious period piece Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) whose star Judy Garland he married in 1945. Employing first-class MGM technicians, Minnelli went on directing musicals -- The Band Wagon (1953) - as well as melodramas -- Some Came Running (1958) - and urban comedies like Designing Woman (1957), occasionally even working on two films simultaneously. Minnelli is one of the few directors for whom Technicolor seems to have been invented. Many of his films included in every one of his movies features a dream sequence.- Lee Anderson was born on 16 October 1909 in the UK. She was an actress, known for Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1947) and E! True Hollywood Story (1996). She was married to Vincente Minnelli. She died on 11 November 2009 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.
- Don Marshall's heyday was on the small screen in the 60's and 70's. The athletic and clean cut actor is best remembered as first officer and co-pilot Dan Erickson in Irwin Allen's ground-breaking science-fiction series Land of the Giants (1968). Having excelled at football, pole vaulting and other sports at college, he happily undertook most of his own stunt work. Along with Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek (1966)) and Greg Morris (Mission: Impossible (1966)), Don was one of the precious few African-American actors of that period to be regularly featured as a prime time lead on screen. 'Land of the Giants' ran for a mere two seasons (51 episodes in all) and went off the air simply because the props became too expensive to produce. Over the years it acquired a steady cult following among science-fiction aficionados.
Don had started out as an engineering student in the mid-50's and took up acting on the advice of a friend. He studied drama at the workshop of Hollywood acting coach Robert Gist and pursued theatre arts at Los Angeles City College. Following brief stage experience, he then segued into television. His acting career still nascent, he landed a small role (as a marine engaged to Nichelle Nichols) in an episode of The Lieutenant (1963), a short-lived venture produced by Gene Roddenberry. A few years later, he was again recruited by Roddenberry to play the part of astrophysicist Boma for the Star Trek episode "The Galileo Seven" (reuniting him with Bob Gist who served as director). Don was given the chance to show his acting credentials in several powerful scenes interacting with Leonard Nimoy.
In subsequent years, he busied himself with roles on many diverse kinds of TV shows ranging from Daktari (1966) and Ironside (1967) to Julia (1968). On the big screen, he acted in the violent 'blaxploitation' prison drama Terminal Island (1973) and was one of the leads in the schlock sci-fi outing The Thing with Two Heads (1972). By the mid-70's, plum roles became relatively scarce and Don focused on running his own production company (DJM Productions) which specialized in turning out commercials and documentary subjects. Latterly, Don became a regular attendee of sci-fi conventions who always spoke appreciatively of the genre and of Roddenberry in particular. He died on October 30, 2016 in Los Angeles, Calif. aged, 80. - Producer
- Production Manager
- Writer
Al Simon, born in New York, received a degree in English Literature from Columbia University in 1932, and a law degree from NYU. Later he taught a radio course and was director of publicity for New York's WHN. He then fought for the U.S. army in WWII. He helped to invent the three-camera system in the 1940s. He later became president of Filmways Productions.- Actress
- Soundtrack
An incredible piece of 1960s eye candy, Jill St. John absolutely smoldered on the big screen, a trendy presence in lightweight comedy, spirited adventure and spy intrigue who appeared alongside some of Hollywood's most handsome male specimens. Although she was seldom called upon to do much more than frolic in the sun and playfully taunt and tempt as needed, this tangerine-topped stunner managed to do her job very, very well. A remarkably bright woman in real life, she was smart enough to play the Hollywood game to her advantage and did so for nearly two decades before looking elsewhere for fun and contentment.
Jill St. John was actually born Jill Oppenheim in 1940 in Los Angeles. On stage and radio from age five, she was pretty much prodded by a typical stage mother. Making her TV debut in The Christmas Carol (1949), Jill began blossoming and attracting the right kind of attention in her late teens. She signed with Universal Pictures at age 16 and made her film debut as a perky support in Summer Love (1958) starring then-hot John Saxon. Moving ahead, she filled the bill as a slightly dingy love interest in such innocuous fun as The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (1959), Holiday for Lovers (1959), Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963), Who's Minding the Store? (1963) and Honeymoon Hotel (1964).
Whether the extremely photogenic Jill had talent (and she did!) or not never seemed to be a fundamental issue with casting agents. By the late '60s she had matured into a classy, ravishing redhead who not only came equipped with a knockout figure but some sly, suggestive one-liners as well that had her male co-stars (and audiences) more than interested. She skillfully traded sexy quips with Anthony Franciosa in the engaging TV pilot to the hit series The Name of the Game (1968) and scored a major coup as the ever-tantalizing Tiffany Case, a ripe and ready Bond girl, in Diamonds Are Forever (1971) opposite Sean Connery's popular "007" character. She also co-starred with Bob Hope in the dismal Eight on the Lam (1967), but the connection allowed her to be included in a number of the comedian's NBC specials over the years. A part of Frank Sinatra's "in" crowd, she worked with him on both Come Blow Your Horn (1963) and Tony Rome (1967).
On camera, Jill's glossy femme fatales had a delightfully brazen, tongue-in-cheek quality to them. Off-camera, she lived the life of a jet-setter and was known for her romantic excursions with such eligibles as Jack Nicholson, David Frost, Joe Namath, Bill Hudson, Roman Polanski and even Henry Kissinger. Of her four marriages, which included laundry heir Neil Dubin, the late sports car racer Lance Reventlow, son of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, and easy-listening crooner Jack Jones, she seems to have found her soulmate in present husband Robert Wagner, whom she married in 1990 after an eight-year courtship. Jill first met Wagner when they were both just beginning their careers as contract players at 20th Century Fox. The couple share credits on several productions, notably Banning (1967) as well as the top-tier TV movies How I Spent My Summer Vacation (1967) and Around the World in 80 Days (1989).
Abandoning acting out of boredom, she has returned only on rare occasions. She played against type as a crazed warden in the prison drama The Concrete Jungle (1982) and has had some fun cameos alongside Wagner both on film (The Player (1992)) and even TV (Seinfeld (1989)). In the late 1990s they started touring together in A.R. Gurney's popular two-person stage reading of "Love Letters." Jill's lifelong passion for cooking (her parents were restaurateurs) has turned profitable over the years. She has written a cookbook and appeared as a TV chef and "in-house" cooking expert on Good Morning America (1975). She also served as a food columnist for the USA Weekend newspaper. On the philanthropic front, she is founder of the Aunts Club, a Rancho Mirage-based group of special women who contribute at least $1,000 per year to provide financial support for a child.
She was glimpsed more recently in the films The Calling (2002) and The Trip (2002) and she and Wagner had small roles as Santa and Mrs. Claus in the TV movie Northpole (2014). The Wagners make their home in Aspen.- Actor
- Soundtrack
George Raft was born and grew up in a poor family in Hell's Kitchen, at the time one of the roughest, meanest areas of New York City. He was born George Ranft, and was the son of Eva (Glockner) and Conrad Ranft, a department store deliveryman. His parents were both of German descent. In his youth, he showed a great interest in, and aptitude for, dancing. That, combined with his dark good looks and sharp dressing, made him a local favorite at such spots as the El Fey Club with Texas Guinan. In 1928, Raft went to Hollywood to try his luck at acting. His first big role was as the coin-tossing henchman in Scarface (1932). His career was marked by numerous tough-guy roles, often a gangster or convict. The believability with which he played these, together with his lifelong associations with such real-life gangsters as Owney Madden and Bugsy Siegel, added to persistent rumors that he was also a gangster. The slightly shady reputation may have helped his popularity early on, but it made him somewhat undesirable to movie executives later in his career. He somewhat parodied his gangster reputation in Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959).- Carol Grace was born on 11 September 1924 in Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Gangster Story (1959), Mikey and Nicky (1976) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955). She was married to Walter Matthau and William Saroyan. She died on 20 July 2003 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Additional Crew
Lee Solters was born on 23 June 1919 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He is known for Yentl (1983), Hardly Working (1980) and Keaton's Cop (1990). He died on 18 May 2009 in West Hollywood, California, USA.- Writer
- Producer
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David Horowitz, the Creator, Host and Executive Producer of the popular television program "Fight Back! With David Horowitz", has been at the forefront of bringing consumer issues into public awareness for nearly 35 years.
David has won 15 Emmy Awards for his "Fight Back!" television series, documentaries, and news programs. To honor his consumer reporting, he has received over 400 awards from government, industry, and citizens' groups.
"Fight Back!" enjoyed a run of eighteen seasons in syndication. It is one of the longest running shows to date of any genre.
Over the course of his career, David has been an on air reporter at NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNBC where he has received accolades for his courageous reporting tactics. In 1963, David opened the first Saigon News Bureau for NBC, and served as a network correspondent and cameraman during the Vietnam War.
In 1971, he risked his life providing the only live television coverage of the earthquake in Los Angeles on a worldwide broadcast originating from the NBC studio parking lot in Burbank.
In 1989, he was held hostage by a gun-wielding mental patient during a live news broadcast on KNBC. The event was broadcast internationally. The "gun" turned out to be a toy. David used the incident to create a global campaign to mark "look a like" weapons and toys so they can be easily identified instead of being confused with real weapons.
David made over forty appearances as a guest on the "Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." Johnny's character "David Howitzer" charmed and amused audiences worldwide. David was a guest correspondent on "The Today Show" for eight years. He has been a featured guest on a broad range of other talk, news, and variety television shows including: "Oprah Winfrey" the "Late Show with David Letterman," "The Jay Leno Show," and "20/20".
In addition to his television appearances, David has written syndicated newspaper columns and has eight best-selling books. His radio features on Jones Radio Network and his long-form show, "Fight Back! Talk Back!" on Talk Radio Network aired from 2001-2005. He is a regular contributor to "The Costco Connection" magazine which has a readership of over seven million people worldwide.
From 2002-2004, David was a member of the FCC's Consumer Advisory Board in Washington. He was a member of the Los Angeles Board of Directors and the National Board of Directors for AFTRA from 2006-2009. David has consulted for international corporations and makes regular personal appearances at universities all over the country.
As the CEO of FightBack.com, he runs the premiere online website for consumer concerns. David also runs a non-profit organization called the "FightBack! Foundation for Consumer Education." He is devoted to guiding young people towards careers as consumer affairs professionals in business, government, politics, and journalism.- Actress
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Green-eyed beauty Jean Elizabeth Peters flashed across the screen as a bright star during her relatively brief tenure in Hollywood. After just seven years under contract to 20th Century-Fox (1947-54), she joined in the reclusive lifestyle of her eccentric billionaire husband, Howard Hughes, and all but vanished from public view.
Jean was born in Canton, Ohio, in October of 1926. Her father died when she was ten years old. Her mother owned a tourist camp on the outskirts of town and there was enough money around to send Jean to college. She received the latter part of her tertiary education at Ohio State University and graduated with a diploma qualifying her as an English teacher. A campus popularity contest she won ended her plans as an English teacher because it came with a trip to Hollywood and a screen test. In short order, "Miss Ohio State University" was offered a seven-year contract at 20th Century-Fox with a starting salary of $150 a week.
After being picked by Darryl F. Zanuck to co-star opposite Tyrone Power in the studio's splashy big-budget swashbuckler Captain from Castile (1947), Jean came to the attention of Howard Hughes. She discreetly dated him for the remainder of the decade and continued to live an unpretentious lifestyle, rarely seen in public and eschewing the Hollywood nightlife and parties. A self-confessed tomboy, she rarely wore make-up in private and preferred to dress in jeans rather than glamorous gowns. She and her mother lived in a smallish bungalow in Bel-Air, paid for by Hughes. After relative success in her second feature, Deep Waters (1948), she became increasingly dissatisfied with the prissy roles she was assigned in her subsequent efforts. She was no shrinking violet when it came to defending her interests: she refused outright to appear in Yellow Sky (1948) (a part she thought as "too sexy") and Sand (1949), and her contract was consequently terminated. She returned to farm life in Ohio, but was back in New York in 1951 to be screen-tested by Elia Kazan for the epic biopic of Mexican revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata! (1952), shot on location in Mexico with Marlon Brando in the lead.
Fox wisely used Jean during the next few years for similarly unglamorous outdoor roles, notably as the titular heroine of Anne of the Indies (1951), a tempestuous girl living in the Georgia swamps in Lure of the Wilderness (1952), a gum-chewing dame innocently involved in espionage in Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street (1953) and as Burt Lancaster's Indian squaw in the hard-hitting western Apache (1954). She got good notices in all of these films and was now recognized as a major star. As a result, she was cast in the prestigious film noir Niagara (1953), opposite Joseph Cotten and Marilyn Monroe (both of whom she befriended) and the Spencer Tracy western Broken Lance (1954). Under a new contract with Fox, Jean was now no longer in a position to refuse an assignment and, though basically unhappy with her part in Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), the picture proved to be one of her most popular pictures to date. Her next film, A Man Called Peter (1955), was to be her swan song. Following a 33-day marriage to a Texan oilman which ended in a whirlwind divorce, Jean finally married Howard Hughes in a secret ceremony and left public life for the next 13 years. She never gave interviews and retreated to an isolated hilltop mansion above the Santa Monica Mountains. In 1969 she resurfaced, studying for a degree in sociology at UCLA under an assumed name.
When Jean's marriage to Hughes ended in June 1971, the actress settled for the relatively modest sum of $70,000 a year and happily waived any further claims on the estate. That same year she got married for the third time, to 20th Century-Fox vice-president Stan Hough. Her screen career was briefly resuscitated when she was cast in the miniseries Arthur Hailey's the Moneychangers (1976) and she was last seen in an episode of Murder, She Wrote (1984). She devoted her final years to charitable causes and never spoke in public about her years with Howard Hughes.