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- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Tall, thin, wiry Sam Elliott is the classic picture of the American cowboy. Elliott began his acting career on the stage and his film debut was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Although his future wife, Katharine Ross co-starred in the film, the two did not meet until they filmed The Legacy (1978) together. Over the years there would be few opportunities to act in feature westerns, but it would be television that gave him that opportunity, in The Sacketts (1979), The Shadow Riders (1982) and The Yellow Rose (1983), among others. He would also work in non-westerns, usually as a tough guy, as in Lifeguard (1976) and Road House (1989). In 1985 he played Cher's love interest Gar in the drama Mask (1985), and he was in some cop movies such as Fatal Beauty (1987) and Shakedown (1988). In the 1990s, Elliott was back on the western trail, playing everyone from Brig. Gen. John Buford in the film Gettysburg (1993) to Wild Bill Hickok in the made-for-TV movie Buffalo Girls (1995). In 1991 he wrote the screenplay and co-starred with his wife in the made-for-TV western Conagher (1991), and two years later he played Wyatt Earp's brother Virgil in Tombstone (1993), with Kurt Russell as Wyatt. In 1995 the starred as John Pierce the tense thriller The Final Cut (1995), as a former head of a Bomb Squad who must to stop a dangerous bomber. In 1998 he was the narrator of the hilarious comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), playing him as The Stranger, and returned to the Western in the drama The Hi-Lo Country (1998), closing the 20th century with another western, the TV movie You Know My Name (1999).
Sam Elliott started the 21st century with the Stephen Frears' TV movie Fail Safe (2000) playing Congressman Raskob, and The Contender (2000) as Kermit Newman, at the side of Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Gary Oldman, and in We Were Soldiers (2002) as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley, together Mel Gibson. In 2003 he played Gen. Thunderbolt Ross in the Ang Lee's pre-MCU Hulk (2003), repeating in another Marvel superhero movie as Caretaker in Ghost Rider (2007). After participating in the fantasy movie The Golden Compass (2007) and made a stellar cameo in Up in the Air (2009), Elliott played Clay Wheeler in the box office flop comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), starring Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker, and in 2012 he was a supporting character as Mac Macleod in Robert Redford's The Company You Keep (2012). After the playing Coach Moore in the sport drama Draft Day (2014) In 2015 Elliott was hyperactive, appearing in seven different productions including cinema and TV: Digging for Fire (2015), I'll See You in My Dreams (2015), Sam Elliott, the sixth season of Justified (2010) as Avery Markham, and The Good Dinosaur (2015) voicing Butch. Two years later was absolute star in the drama The Hero (2017) as Lee Hayden, and in the sci-fi movie The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot (2018) as Calvin Barr, to shine again as supporting character playing Bradley Cooper's brother Bobby in the multi-nominated Cooper's directorial debut A Star Is Born (2018), sharing scenes with Lady Gaga, coming back again to the western in the TV series 1883 (2021) as Shea Brennan.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Originally trained as a painter, he studied art at Chelsea Art School and London University and taught in his hometown of Northhampton after spending time in the RAF Medical Corps. He was a performer with the Children's Theatre Company and was involved in several productions in London's West End, including two years in "Alibi For a Judge."- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Born in San Antonio, Texas on August 7 1968 during a tour of his legendary parents Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre. Singer, songwriter with global sales of over 12 million albums, Pepe Aguilar is today's the most recognizable voice in Latin music.
Considered by critics of all major newspapers and magazines in the United States as " a real star of Latin music," Pepe has garnered an impressive amount of awards: six Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy awards, thirteen Lo Nuestro Awards - including the coveted "Excellence Award" along several Latin Billboard awards, including a special recognition for his musical legacy. Fifteen of his recordings have reached the top of the Billboard charts, expanding the boundaries of the genre and seducing radio stations that never before had opened the door to this kind of music .
To paraphrase the legendary Rubén Fuentes: "Pepe Aguilar is a before and after in Mexican music."- Writer
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Edward Albee was born on 12 March 1928 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He was a writer, known for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), A Delicate Balance (1973) and Qui a peur de Virginia Woolf? d'Edward Albee (2011). He died on 16 September 2016 in Montauk, New York, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Allan Arbus was born on 15 February 1918 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for M*A*S*H (1972), Coffy (1973) and Damien: Omen II (1978). He was married to Mariclare Costello and Diane Arbus. He died on 19 April 2013 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Born on December 18, 1863, the eldest son of Archduke Karl-Ludwig von Habsburg and his wife, Princess Annunziata di Borbone, Franz Ferdinand was third in line to the thrown of the Austro-Hungarian Empire upon his birth. After his cousin Crown Prince Rudolf committed suicide in 1889 and his father died in 1896, Franz Ferdinand became the heir of his aging uncle Emperor Franz Josef. He eloped with Countess Sophie Chotek in 1900, but this marriage was considered unequal and they were forced to renounce rights of rank and succession for their three children. A radical reformist, Franz Ferdinand had a number of new ideas he planned to implement when he became Emperor, one of them giving Slavs an equal voice in the empire. After the annexation of Bosnia by Austria, he decided to go on a tour of his new province in 1914 in hopes of fostering good will with his new subjects. A Serbian terrorist group called The Black Hand sent three of its members to murder Franz Ferdinand and his wife as they visited Sarajevo. Their first assassination attempt, throwing a bomb at the Archduke's car, failed, though a number of bystanders were wounded. The assassins almost gave up their plans, and one of them, Gavrilo Princip, wandered off down the street. Meanwhile, the Archduke and Archduchess decided to visit the wounded in the hospital, but their driver took a wrong turn and they ended up on the same street as Princip. Seizing his chance, Princip stepped forward and fired several times into the car, fatally wounding both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie. They were raced to the governor's mansion where they were pronounced dead. Not only did this act of violence orphan their three young children, it also set off a series of events that led directly to World War I.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Lionel Atwill was born into a wealthy family and was educated at London's prestigious Mercer School to become an architect, but his interest turned to the stage. He worked his way progressively into the craft and debuted at age 20 at the Garrick Theatre in London. He acted and improved regularly thereafter, especially in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw. Atwill came to the US in 1915 and would appear in some 25 plays on Broadway between 1917 and 1931, but he was already trying his hand in silent films by 1918. He had a sonorous voice and dictatorial British accent that served him well for the stage and just as well for sound movies. He did some Vitaphone short subjects in 1928 and then his first real film role in The Silent Witness (1932) (also titled "The Verdict").
That voice and his bullish demeanor made Atwill a natural for a spectrum of tough-customer roles. As shady noblemen and mad doctors, but also gruff military men and police inspectors (usually with a signature mustache), he worked steadily through the 1930s. He had the chance to show a broader character as the tyrannical but unforgettable Col. Bishop in Captain Blood (1935). It's hard to forget his Inspector Krogh in Son of Frankenstein (1939), wherein he agrees to a game of darts with Basil Rathbone and proceeds to impale the darts through the right sleeve of his uniform (the character sported a wooden right arm). And he sends himself up with rolling and blustering dialogue as the glory-hog ham stage actor Rawitch in the classic To Be or Not to Be (1942) with Jack Benny. However, Atwill effectively ruined his burgeoning film career in 1943 after he was implicated in what was described as an "orgy" at his home, naked guests and pornographic films included--and a rape perpetrated during the proceedings. Atwill "lied like a gentleman," it was said, in the court proceedings to protect the identities of his guests and was convicted of perjury and sentenced to five years' probation.
He was thereafter kept employed on Poverty Row with only brief periods of employment by Universal Pictures, while the rest of Hollywood turned its collective back on him. He is more remembered for the horror films generally than for better efforts, but they have fueled his continued popularity and a bid by the Southern California Lionel Atwill Fan Club to petition for a Hollywood Blvd. star (he never received one).- Composer
- Music Department
- Producer
Herman Beeftink, born in the Netherlands, has made an extensive contribution to film and television with his musical compositions since arriving to America in 1982. He began his path towards musical success while attending the Utrecht Conservatory as a student of piano and composition. His development of original jazz methods lead him to become an educator in the Jazz Department from 1978-1982.
After moving to California, Herman began his career in Los Angeles as a studio musician on many popular TV shows including Cheers, Home Improvement, Roseanne,and 7th Heaven. In the early 90s Herman worked as a TV and film composer on several films for the History Channel (Hollywood Commandos, The Day They Died) and composed 110 episodes for the TV series Miami Sands. Herman also wrote many classical piano and string pieces featured on the hit WB series Gilmore Girls.
Herman continues to work on numerous films and television shows. He has contributed additional music and songs to many films including the box office smash Wild Hogs starring John Travolta and Tim Allen as well as Freaky Friday starring Lindsay Lohan. You can also catch his music in The Simpsons Movie coming July 2007 to a theater near you.- Writer
- Producer
- Art Department
Began his art career in High School when he drew a headless spaceman outside his ship and then spat read paint where the head should have been, causing the illusion of an explosion, and named it "Gesundheit". Went on to draw "filler" cartoons for his local newspaper, and got his editor's front lawn vandalized when he drew a cartoon called "Honky Trek", a ripoff of the then-new Star Trek: The Motion Picture. After the strip ran, crazed Trek fans hanged a dummy from the editor's elm tree in his front lawn with the cartoon stuck in its chest with an arrow. In the early 80's he began drawing "Bloom County", a political satire, for college newspapers. The racy cartoons, often focusing on swinging lawyer Steve Dallas and an unnamed elderly woman, gained a cult following and soon became syndicated. The strip became the subject of a nation wide cult following and sparked a mass marketing campaign. Nation wide recognition came to Breathed in the mid 80s with his creation of Opus, an insecure penguin who reflected the political conscience of America. Opus became a pop culture icon of the 80's with dolls, cartoons, action figures, telephones, and books all dedicated to him. Breathed furthered his fame with his subsequent creation of Bill the Cat, a Garfield ripoff, who was the exact opposite of Opus in that he represented the scum of Americ a- Bill was a drug addicted, alcohol chugging, chain smoking rocker who had been in and out of detox. The combination of Opus and Bill was a hit success, and saved Breathed from the near demise of his strip. With the end of the 80's came the end of Bloom County, which in turn gave billionaire Donald Trump the opportunity to lash out at Breathed for his political views. Breathed retaliated by having his comic strip characters - who were treated as real people who worked in a comic strip - all get fired by Trump, who had a freak accident and had his brain put in Bill's head. This series that ended the strip proved to be the beginning, as fans wrote in saying that the final strips were the best yet. Breathed created "Outland", where Opus, Bill, and several other characters resurfaced in a utopia like world. Outland had a successful four year run but suffered criticism for its parody of the OJ Simpson trial, so in 1995 Breathed ended Outland, its final strip mirroring that of Bloom County. He then started "Opus", a new comic strip featuring Opus, Bill and other characters.- Actor
- Stunts
Wilford Brimley was born on 27 September 1934 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He was an actor, known for The Natural (1984), In & Out (1997) and Cocoon (1985). He was married to Beverly Berry and Lynne Brimley. He died on 1 August 2020 in St. George, Utah, USA.- The archetypal screen tough guy with weatherbeaten features--one film critic described his rugged looks as "a Clark Gable who had been left out in the sun too long"--Charles Bronson was born Charles Buchinsky, one of 15 children of struggling parents in Pennsylvania. His mother, Mary (Valinsky), was born in Pennsylvania, to Lithuanian parents, and his father, Walter Buchinsky, was a Lithuanian immigrant coal miner.
He completed high school and joined his father in the mines (an experience that resulted in a lifetime fear of being in enclosed spaces) and then served in WW II. After his return from the war, Bronson used the GI Bill to study art (a passion he had for the rest of his life), then enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. One of his teachers was impressed with the young man and recommended him to director Henry Hathaway, resulting in Bronson making his film debut in You're in the Navy Now (1951).
He appeared on screen often early in his career, though usually uncredited. However, he made an impact on audiences as the evil assistant to Vincent Price in the 3-D thriller House of Wax (1953). His sinewy yet muscular physique got him cast in action-type roles, often without a shirt to highlight his manly frame. He received positive notices from critics for his performances in Vera Cruz (1954), Target Zero (1955) and Run of the Arrow (1957). Indie director Roger Corman cast him as the lead in his well-received low-budget gangster flick Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), then Bronson scored the lead in his own TV series, Man with a Camera (1958). The 1960s proved to be the era in which Bronson made his reputation as a man of few words but much action.
Director John Sturges cast him as half Irish/half Mexican gunslinger Bernardo O'Reilly in the smash hit western The Magnificent Seven (1960), and hired him again as tunnel rat Danny Velinski for the WWII POW big-budget epic The Great Escape (1963). Several more strong roles followed, then once again he was back in military uniform, alongside Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in the testosterone-filled The Dirty Dozen (1967).
European audiences had taken a shine to his minimalist acting style, and he headed to the Continent to star in several action-oriented films, including Guns for San Sebastian (1968) (aka "Guns for San Sebastian"), the cult western Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) (aka "Once Upon a Time in The West"), Rider on the Rain (1970) (aka "Rider On The Rain") and, in one of the quirkier examples of international casting, alongside Japansese screen legend Toshirô Mifune in the western Red Sun (1971) (aka "Red Sun").
American audiences were by now keen to see Bronson back on US soil, and he returned triumphantly in the early 1970s to take the lead in more hard-edged crime and western dramas, including The Valachi Papers (1972) and the revenge western Chato's Land (1972). After nearly 25 years as a working actor, he became an 'overnight" sensation. Bronson then hooked up with British director Michael Winner to star in several highly successful urban crime thrillers, including The Mechanic (1972) and The Stone Killer (1973). He then scored a solid hit as a Colorado melon farmer-done-wrong in Richard Fleischer's Mr. Majestyk (1974). However, the film that proved to be a breakthrough for both Bronson and Winner came in 1974 with the release of the controversial Death Wish (1974) (written with Henry Fonda in mind, who turned it down because he was disgusted by the script).
The US was at the time in the midst of rising street crime, and audiences flocked to see a story about a mild-mannered architect who seeks revenge for the murder of his wife and rape of his daughter by gunning down hoods, rapists and killers on the streets of New York City. So popular was the film that it spawned four sequels over the next 20 years.
Action fans could not get enough of tough guy Bronson, and he appeared in what many fans--and critics--consider his best role: Depression-era street fighter Chaney alongside James Coburn in Hard Times (1975). That was followed by the somewhat slow-paced western Breakheart Pass (1975) (with wife Jill Ireland), the light-hearted romp (a flop) From Noon Till Three (1976) and as Soviet agent Grigori Borsov in director Don Siegel's Cold War thriller Telefon (1977).
Bronson remained busy throughout the 1980s, with most of his films taking a more violent tone, and he was pitched as an avenging angel eradicating evildoers in films like the 10 to Midnight (1983), The Evil That Men Do (1984), Assassination (1987) and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989). Bronson jolted many critics with his forceful work as murdered United Mine Workers leader Jock Yablonski in the TV movie Act of Vengeance (1986), gave a very interesting performance in the Sean Penn-directed The Indian Runner (1991) and surprised everyone with his appearance as compassionate newspaper editor Francis Church in the family film Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus (1991).
Bronson's final film roles were as police commissioner Paul Fein in a well-received trio of crime/drama TV movies Family of Cops (1995), Breach of Faith: A Family of Cops II (1997) and Family of Cops III: Under Suspicion (1999). Unfortunately, ill health began to take its toll; he suffered from Alzheimer's disease for the last few years of his life, and finally passed away from pneumonia at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in August 2003.
Bronson was a true icon of international cinema; critics had few good things to say about his films, but he remained a fan favorite in both the US and abroad for 50 years, a claim few other film legends can make. - Director
- Actor
- Writer
Belonging to a well-situated family, Charles Browning fell in love at the age of 16 with a dancer of a circus. Following her began his itinerary of being clown, jockey and director of a variety theater which ended when he met D.W. Griffith and became an actor. He made his debut in Intolerance (1916). Working later on as a director, he had his first success with The Unholy Three (1925) (after about 25 unimportant pictures) which had his typical style of a mixture of fantasy, mystery and horror. His biggest hit was the classic Dracula (1931), in which he also appears as the voice of the harbor master.- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Peabo Bryson was born on 13 April 1951 in Greenville, South Carolina, USA. He is an actor and composer, known for Aladdin (1992), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Friday After Next (2002). He has been married to Tanya Boniface since 20 July 2010. They have one child.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Although Frank Cady's most famous role would be that of general-store owner Sam Drucker, one of the less nutty residents of Hooterville in both Green Acres (1965) and Petticoat Junction (1963), he had a history as a film, stage and television actor long before those shows. Cady also appeared on some radio programs including Gunsmoke. In the 1950s, Cady played Doc Williams in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952), along with numerous supporting parts in movies and also appeared in television commercials for (among other products) Shasta Grape Soda. Cady has been most prolific in television and was the only actor to play a recurring character on three TV sitcoms at the same time, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Green Acres (1965), and Petticoat Junction (1963). Usually cast as a gregarious small-town businessman, druggist, store clerk or other type of all-around Midwestern-type good guy, Cady was actually a California native, born in Susanville in 1915. The acting bug bit him when he sang in an elementary school play, and after graduating from Stanford University he headed to London, England, to train in the theater. When World War II broke out he was already in Europe, so he enlisted in the Army Air Force and spent the next several years in postings all over the continent. After his discharge he returned to the US and headed for Hollywood. An agent saw him in a local play, signed him, and he was on his way. One of his earlier--and more atypical--roles was as a seedy underworld character pulled in for questioning in a cop's murder in the noir classic He Walked by Night (1948), and he played a succession of hotel clerks, bureaucrats, henpecked husbands and the like for the next 40+ years. He did much television work from the mid-'50s onward. Cady resided in Wilsonville, Oregon and at the time of his death had two children; daughter, Catherine Turk; son, Steven; three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Cantinflas, born Mario Moreno as the son of a Mexican postal employee, was a prolific and productive Mexican comedian/producer/writer/singer who also knew a fair bit about agriculture and medicine. He was married to Valentina Ivanova from 1936 until her death. He appeared in more than 55 films, including (as Passepartout) Around the World in 80 Days (1956).- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Costume Designer
- Actor
Oleg Cassini Loiewski was born on April 11, 1913, in Paris, France, into the family of Russian diplomat Alexander Loiewski and Italian Countess Marguerite Cassini. His maternal grandfather, Arthur Paul Nicholas, Marquis de Capuzzuchi di Bologna, Count de Cassini, worked for the Russian Tsar Nicholas II as a diplomat in China and the United States.
Cassini spent his early childhood between Russia and Copenhagen, Denmark, where his father was a diplomat with the Russian Embassy. His family were landed aristocracy in Russia until 1917, when the communists seized their ancestral estate and the family fled to Florence, Italy. There Cassini helped his mother, who worked as a fashion designer of hats at the salon of Countess Fabricotti. He also traveled with his mother to Paris twice a year, where he studied and sketched the new French fashions. In the 1920's-1930's Oleg Cassini studied art at the Academia Belle Arte in Florence under Giorgio De Chirico. In 1933 he opened his own design studio.
He won 5 First Prizes at the 1934 International Fashion Competition in Turin, Italy. There Cassini showed a woman's suit in his famous Cossac-style design featuring huge buttons. He moved to New York in 1936 and then to Hollywood. There he worked first for Paramount Pictures and even designed a sarong for Dorothy Lamour. At that time Cassini was paid $250 a week designing wardrobes for the stars of B movies. In the 40's and 50's he designed costumes for 20th Century Fox and other studios and stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Grace Kelly, and Gene Tierney.
Cassini's marriage to Merry Fahrney was brief. Cassini then married Gene Tierney in 1941. As Tierney's parents didn't approve of their union, the couple eloped to Las Vegas, where they used her earrings as wedding rings. He became an American citizen in 1942. He served in the Coast Guard and in the U.S. Cavalry Corps, having become an expert horse rider, and soon earned his lieutenant's bars. After the end of WWII he was discharged and moved back to New York, where he opened the 'Oleg Cassini' Salon on the East 55th Street. In 1950 he played a cameo role of the Fashion Designer to a model, played by his wife, Gene Tierney, in "Where the Sidewalk Ends."
In 1952 Oleg Cassini divorced from Gene Tierney, whose fame grew so much faster, that in Hollywood they began to call him Mr. Gene Tierney. The first of their two daughters was born deaf, due to Tierney's measles infection. Tierney had an affair with then representative John F. Kennedy. Cassini was briefly engaged to Grace Kelly in 1954. She broke their engagement to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco. Before and after his two marriages Cassini was known as a ladies man. He dated actresses Betty Grable, Lana Turner, Ursula Andress among others. He was always seen in the company of starlets, débutantes, heiresses, ingénues, showgirls.
In 1960 Oleg Cassini became the Principal State robe designer chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy, who knew him for years. His solid training in art and his long experience in Hollywood served him well. Cassini created the new image for the First Lady, which became the first memorable fashion line to emerge on TV sets across the world. Cassini's experience with Hollywood cameras gave him the important knowledge of how the clothing would look on the screen, being photographed from a distance. That's how Jacqueline Kennedy's wardrobe was created by Cassini with the emphasis on geometric clarity of lines, pronounced color, sumptuous fabrics, and even the big buttons.
For the President Kennedy's Inauguration in 1961, Cassini dressed the First Lady in a fawn beige wool coat with a small sable collar and a matching pillbox hat. Cassini may have seen pictures of the First Lady of Mexico wearing a pillbox hat a year earlier, but Mrs. Kennedy was the first one to be seen on every TV in the world. Soon, it seemed, women all over the world followed the First Lady's image. In 1963 the world saw another pink pillbox hat by Cassini on Mrs. Kennedy, when she was next to the President when he was assassinated. In less than 3 years Cassini created about three hundred outfits for the First Lady. His creativity was inspired by Russian, Italian, French, Oriental, and Native American cultures.
Cassini is credited for such design accomplishments as the sheath, the A-line, the little white collar dress, the knit, and the military look for women. He claimed credit for introducing the Nehru Jacket in 1966-67, based on a traditional Indian jacket and named after the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Cassini also designed a Johnny Carson line of men's suits. In 1980's Cassini began to lose the public attention. He enjoyed a comeback in 2001, when he introduced the Oleg Cassini Sport line, alluding to his designs and color-schemes of the 60's. He also had a successful bridal business and about 40 licensees across the world. His collection of Jacqueline Kennedy's dresses was displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2001. Some pieces of her wardrobe were sold at auction houses.
Oleg Cassini died on March 17, 2006, on Long Island, New York, where he had an Oyster Bay home, previously owned by the Tiffany family. He was arguably the oldest famous fashion designer in the world.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
Michael Caton-Jones was born on 15 October 1957 in Broxburn, West Lothian, Scotland, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Memphis Belle (1990), Basic Instinct 2 (2006) and City by the Sea (2002).- Actor
- Soundtrack
During his illustrious 40-plus year career, Michael Caton has performed in television, theatre and film both here in Australia and abroad. His foray into the world of show business was an auspicious affair. In 1963 in a 60-seat community theatre called The Twelfth Night Theatre, the then 20-year-old amateur actor was cast in the role of an Irish git. In those early days at The Twelfth Night Theatre Michael joined a group of young performers, some of whom would go on to become some of Australia's most notable actors. Among them were Jack Thompson, Judith McGrath, Carol Burns, Shane Porteous, Harold Hopkins and Henry Crawford who produced The Sullivans, A Town Like Alice & Against the Wind. Since then Michael has appeared in some of Australia's most successful television, stage and cinematic productions; his resume reading like a who's who of the Australian arts.
Michael became a household name in the '70s when he established the popular character of Harry Sullivan in The Sullivans, a role for which he won two Logie Awards. He also appeared in cult series such as Homicide and Cop Shop. His other television credits include Stingers, The Flying Doctors, The Les Darcy Story, Great Expectations, Blue Heelers, All Saints, Wildside and A Country Practice. He appeared in the mini-series Never Tell Me Never, Shadows of the Heart and Come in Spinner.
His film appearances include Three Summers directed by Ben Elton released in 2017, The Interview, The 13th Floor, Monkey Grip and Hoodwinked. He starred in Strange Bedfellows opposite Paul Hogan - a performance that won him the SMH Star of the Year Award in 2004.
One of the highlights of his film career thus far has been playing the legendary role of Dale Kerrigan in the much loved (and much quoted) feature film, The Castle.
Michael has starred in a string of successful stage plays and musicals including Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and Priscilla Queen of the Desert - The Musical, based on the hit film.- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the toothbrush mustache, bowler hat, bamboo cane, and a funny walk.
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in Walworth, London, England on April 16, 1889, to Hannah Harriet Pedlingham (Hill) and Charles Chaplin, both music hall performers, who were married on June 22, 1885. After Charles Sr. separated from Hannah to perform in New York City, Hannah then tried to resurrect her stage career. Unfortunately, her singing voice had a tendency to break at unexpected moments. When this happened, the stage manager spotted young Charlie standing in the wings and led him on stage, where five-year-old Charlie began to sing a popular tune. Charlie and his half-brother, Syd Chaplin spent their lives in and out of charity homes and workhouses between their mother's bouts of insanity. Hannah was committed to Cane Hill Asylum in May 1903 and lived there until 1921, when Chaplin moved her to California.
Chaplin began his official acting career at the age of eight, touring with the Eight Lancashire Lads. At age 18, he began touring with Fred Karno's vaudeville troupe, joining them on the troupe's 1910 United States tour. He traveled west to California in December 1913 and signed on with Keystone Studios' popular comedy director Mack Sennett, who had seen Chaplin perform on stage in New York. Charlie soon wrote his brother Syd, asking him to become his manager. While at Keystone, Chaplin appeared in and directed 35 films, starring as the Little Tramp in nearly all.
In November 1914, he left Keystone and signed on at Essanay, where he made 15 films. In 1916, he signed on at Mutual and made 12 films. In June 1917, Chaplin signed up with First National Studios, after which he built Chaplin Studios. In 1919, he and Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith formed United Artists (UA).
Chaplin's life and career was full of scandal and controversy. His first big scandal was during World War I, at which time his loyalty to England, his home country, was questioned. He had never applied for American citizenship, but claimed that he was a "paying visitor" to the United States. Many British citizens called Chaplin a coward and a slacker. This and other career eccentricities sparked suspicion with FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), who believed that he was injecting Communist propaganda into his films. Chaplin's later film The Great Dictator (1940), which was his first "talkie", also created a stir. In the film, Chaplin plays a humorous caricature of Adolf Hitler. Some thought the film was poorly done and in bad taste. However, the film grossed over $5 million and earned five Academy Award Nominations.
Another scandal occurred when Chaplin briefly dated 22 year-old Joan Barry. However, Chaplin's relationship with Barry came to an end in 1942, after a series of harassing actions from her. In May 1943, Barry returned to inform Chaplin that she was pregnant and filed a paternity suit, claiming that the unborn child was his. During the 1944 trial, blood tests proved that Chaplin was not the father, but at the time, blood tests were inadmissible evidence, and he was ordered to pay $75 a week until the child turned 21.
Chaplin also was scrutinized for his support in aiding the Russian struggle against the invading Nazis during World War II, and the United States government questioned his moral and political views, suspecting him of having Communist ties. For this reason, HUAC subpoenaed him in 1947. However, HUAC finally decided that it was no longer necessary for him to appear for testimony. Conversely, when Chaplin and his family traveled to London for the premier of Limelight (1952), he was denied re-entry to the United States. In reality, the government had almost no evidence to prove that he was a threat to national security. Instead, he and his wife decided to settle in Switzerland.
Chaplin was married four times and had a total of 11 children. In 1918, he married Mildred Harris and they had a son together, Norman Spencer Chaplin, who lived only three days. Chaplin and Harris divorced in 1920. He married Lita Grey in 1924, who had two sons, Charles Chaplin Jr. and Sydney Chaplin. They were divorced in 1927. In 1936, Chaplin married Paulette Goddard, and his final marriage was to Oona O'Neill (Oona Chaplin), daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1943. Oona gave birth to eight children: Geraldine Chaplin, Michael Chaplin, Josephine Chaplin, Victoria Chaplin, Eugene Chaplin, Jane Chaplin, Annette-Emilie Chaplin, and Christopher Chaplin.
In contrast to many of his boisterous characters, Chaplin was a quiet man who kept to himself a great deal. He also had an "un-millionaire" way of living. Even after he had accumulated millions, he continued to live in shabby accommodations. In 1921, Chaplin was decorated by the French government for his outstanding work as a filmmaker and was elevated to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1952. In 1972, he was honored with an Academy Award for his "incalculable effect in making motion pictures the art form of the century". He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1975 New Year's Honours List. No formal reason for the honour was listed. The citation simply reads "Charles Spencer Chaplin, Film Actor and Producer".
Chaplin's other works included musical scores that he composed for many of his films. He also authored two autobiographical books, "My Autobiography" (1964) and its companion volume, "My Life in Pictures" (1974).
Chaplin died at age 88 of natural causes on December 25, 1977 at his home in Vevey, Switzerland. His funeral was a small and private Anglican ceremony according to his wishes. In 1978, Chaplin's corpse was stolen from its grave and was not recovered for three months; he was re-buried in a vault surrounded by cement.
Six of Chaplin's films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress: The Immigrant (1917), The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940).
Charlie Chaplin is considered one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of American cinema, whose movies were and still are popular throughout the world and have even gained notoriety as time progresses. His films show, through the Little Tramp's positive outlook on life in a world full of chaos, that the human spirit has and always will remain the same.- Actor
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Burton Cummings got his start in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada performing in a number of bands. Ultimately, the Guess Who became one of the most popular of all rock bands in the 1970s. Cummings came into contact with several other Winnipeg musicians. Randy Bachman was part of the Guess Who for many years before starting his own band, Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Neil Young was also a Winnipeg musician at the time. Cummings continues as a solo artist and recently released a new album.- Writer
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Surrealist-turned-catholic painter Dalí worked on various movies as well. While a member of the French surrealist group, he co-wrote Un chien andalou (1929) and L'Age d'Or (1930) with Luis Buñuel. The latter may have marked the beginning of a long-lasting quarrel with the surrealists when Dalí did not agree on Buñuel's anti-clericalism. While Dalí's painting style became increasingly conventional, he worked on projects with Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, for whom he wrote the dream sequence of Spellbound (1945). Plans on a movie with the Marx Brothers were dropped. The money Dalí earned in Hollywood and elsewhere, along with his racism and his fascination for Europe's fascist dictators, put an end to his relations with the (at that time mostly trotskyist) surrealists, whose leading figure André Breton since nicknamed Dalí "Avida Dollars" (anagram).- Actor
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Ossie Davis was born on 18 December 1917 in Cogdell, Georgia, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Do the Right Thing (1989), Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) and Grumpy Old Men (1993). He was married to Ruby Dee. He died on 4 February 2005 in Miami Beach, Florida, USA.- Actor
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El DeBarge was born on 4 June 1961 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. He is an actor and composer, known for Short Circuit (1986), Snake Eyes (1998) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005). He is married to Monique DeBarge. They have one child. He was previously married to Tracey Ferguson.- A stage actor from 1927, Albert Dekker was an established Broadway star when he made his film debut ten years later. Tall and with rugged good looks, he often played aggressive character roles, a prime example being his double-crossing gang leader in the classic The Killers (1946). From 1944-46 he served a term in the California legislature representing the Hollywood district. As he got older Dekker, unlike many actors, turned to the stage rather than television, and achieved great success there and on the college lecture circuit. His last role, in The Wild Bunch (1969), was one of his most memorable: the tough railroad detective Harrigan, who hires a murderous group of bounty hunters to track down and kill a gang of outlaws who've been robbing his company's trains.
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It seems that Brian Donlevy started out life as colorfully as any character he ever played on the stage or screen. He lied about his age (he was actually 14) in 1916 so he could join the army. When Gen. John J. Pershing sent American troops to invade Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa--Mexican rebels under Villa's command had raided Columbus, NM, and killed 16 American soldiers and civilians--Donlevy served with that expedition and later, in WW I, was a pilot with the Lafayette Flying Corps, which included the Lafayette Escadrille, a unit of the French Air Force comprised of American and Canadian pilots. His schooling was in Cleveland, OH, but in addition he spent two years at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD. However, he gave up on a military career for the stage. After having landed several smaller roles, he got a part in "What Price Glory" and established himself as a bona fide actor. Later such roles on stage as "Three for One", "The Milky Way" and "Life Begins at 8:30" gave him the experience to head off to Hollywood. Donlevy began his Hollywood career with the silent film A Man of Quality (1926), and his first talkie was Gentlemen of the Press (1929) (in which he had a bit part). There was a five- to six-year gap before he reappeared on the film scene in 1935 with three pictures: Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935), Another Face (1935) and Barbary Coast (1935), which was his springboard into film history. Receiving rave reviews as "the tough guy all in black", acting jobs finally began to roll his way. In 1936 he starred in seven films, including Strike Me Pink (1936), in which he played the tough guy to Eddie Cantor's sweet bumpkin Eddie Pink. In all, from 1926 to 1969 Donlevy starred in at least 89 films, reprising one of his Broadway roles as a prizefighter in The Milky Way (1940), and had his own television series (which he also produced), Dangerous Assignment (1950). In 1939 he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the sadistic Sgt. Markoff in Paramount's Beau Geste (1939), its remake of an earlier silent hit. The Great McGinty (1940), a Preston Sturges comedy about a poor homeless slob who makes it to the governorship of a state with the mob's help, is a brilliant character study of a man and the changes he goes through to please himself, those around him and, eventually, the woman he loves. A line in the film, spoken by Mrs. McGinty, seems a fitting description of the majority of roles Brian Donlevy would play throughout his career: "You're a tough guy, McGinty, not a wrong guy." Donlevy's ability to make the roughest edge of any character have a soft side was his calling card. He perfected it and no one has quite mastered it since. He later, in 1944, reprised that role in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943). By 1935 Donlevy was working for 20th Century-Fox and had just completed filming 36 Hours to Kill (1936) when he became engaged to young singer Marjorie Lane, and they married the next year. The marriage produced one child, Judy, but ended in divorce in 1947. It was 18 years before he remarried again. In 1966, Bela Lugosi's ex-wife Lillian became Mrs. Brian Donlevy, and they were married until his death in 1972. Donlevy had always derived great pleasure from his two diverse interests, gold mining and writing poetry, so it was fitting that after his last film, Pit Stop (1969), he retired to Palm Springs, CA, where he began to write short stories and had his income well supplemented from a prosperous California tungsten mine he owned. Having gone in for throat surgery in 1971 he re-entered the Motion Picture County Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA, on March 10th, 1972. Less than a month later, on April 6, he passed away from cancer.- Actor
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Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of America's finest actors, and would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.
Melvyn Douglas was born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg on April 5, 1901, in Macon, Georgia. His father, Edouard Gregory Hesselberg, a noted concert pianist and composer, was a Latvian Jewish emigrant, from Riga. His mother, Lena Priscilla (Shackelford), from Clark Furnace, Tennessee, was from a family with deep roots in the United States, and the daughter of Col. George Taliaferro Shackelford. Melvyn's father supported his family by teaching music at university-based conservatories. Melvyn dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.
He made his Broadway debut in the drama "A Free Soul " at the Playhouse Theatre on January 12, 1928, playing the role of a raffish gangster (a part that would later make Clark Gable's career when the play was adapted to the screen as A Free Soul (1931) ). "A Free Soul" was a modest success, running for 100 performances. His next three plays were flops: "Back Here" and "Now-a-Days" each lasted one week, while "Recapture" lasted all of three before closing. He was much luckier with his next play, "Tonight or Never," which opened on November 18, 1930, at legendary producer David Belasco's theater. Not only did the play run for 232 performances, but Douglas met the woman who would be his wife of nearly 50 years: his co-star, Helen Gahagan. They were married in 1931.
The movies came a-calling in 1932 and Douglas had the unique pleasure of assaying completely different characters in widely divergent films. He first appeared opposite his future Ninotchka (1939) co-star Greta Garbo in the screen adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's As You Desire Me (1932), proving himself a sophisticated leading man as, aside from his first-rate performance, he was able to shine in the light thrown off by Garbo, the cinema's greatest star. In typical Hollywood fashion, however, this terrific performance in a top-rank film from a major studio was balanced by his appearance in a low-budget horror film for the independent Mayfair studio, The Vampire Bat (1933). However, the leading man won out, and that's how he first came to fame in the 1930s in such films as She Married Her Boss (1935) and Garbo's final film, Two-Faced Woman (1941). Douglas had shown he could play both straight drama and light comedy.
Douglas was a great liberal and was a pillar of the anti-Nazi Popular Front in the Hollywood of the 1930s. A big supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he and his wife Helen were invited to spend a night at the White House in November 1939. Douglas' leftism would come back to haunt him after the death of FDR.
Well-connected with the Roosevelt White House, Douglas served as a director of the Arts Council in the Office of Civilian Defense before joining the Army during World War II. He was very active in politics and was one of the leading lights of the anti-Communist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Helen Gahagan Douglas, who also was politically active, was elected to Congress from the 14th District in Los Angeles in 1944, the first of three terms.
Returning to films after the war, Douglas' screen persona evolved and he took on more mature roles, in such films as The Sea of Grass (1947) (Elia Kazan's directorial debut) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). His political past caught up with him, however, in the late 1940s, and he - along with fellow liberals Edward G. Robinson and Henry Fonda (a registered Republican!) - were "gray-listed" (not explicitly blacklisted, they just weren't offered any work).
Then there was the theater. Douglas made many appearances on Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s, including in a notable 1959 flop, making his musical debut playing Captain Boyle in Marc Blitzstein's "Juno." The musical, based on Sean O'Casey's play "Juno and the Paycock", closed in less than three weeks. Douglas was much luckier in his next trip to the post: he won a Tony for his Broadway lead role in the 1960 play "The Best Man" by Gore Vidal.
Douglas' evolution into a premier character actor was completed by the early 1960s. His years of movie exile seemed to deepen him, making him richer, and he returned to the big screen a more authoritative actor. For his second role after coming off of the graylist, he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Paul Newman's father in Hud (1963). Other films in which he shined were Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (1964), CBS Playhouse (1967) (a 1967 episode directed by George Schaefer called "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", for which he won a Best Actor Emmy) and The Candidate (1972), in which he played Robert Redford's father. It was for his performance playing Gene Hackman's father that Douglas got his sole Best Actor Academy Award nod, in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). He had a career renaissance in the late 1970s, appearing in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), Being There (1979) and Ghost Story (1981). He won his second Oscar for "Being There."
Helen Gahagan Douglas died in 1980 and Melvyn followed her in 1981. He was 80 years old.- Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, to a German Jewish family. He was the son of Pauline (Koch) and Hermann Einstein, a featherbed salesman. Albert began reading and studying science at a young age, and he graduated from a Swiss high school when he was 17. He then attended a Swiss Polytechnic, where he met his first wife. He graduated in 1900, and became a Swiss citizen in 1901. He began working at the Swiss Patent Office and continued his scientific studies. He taught at universities in Prague, Zurich, and Berlin, and continued his research in physics. The onset of World War II led him to move to the United States, and he was granted a post at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey. Einstein was heavily involved in attempting to bring about world peace in his later life, and he continued his scientific research until his death in 1955.
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James Ellroy was born on 4 March 1948 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for L.A. Confidential (1997), Street Kings (2008) and The Black Dahlia (2006).- Music Department
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Ahmet Ertegun was born on 31 July 1923 in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a producer and composer, known for Angel Heart (1987), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). He was married to Ioana (Mica) Maria Banu Grecianu and Jan Holm. He died on 14 December 2006 in New York City, New York, USA.- Pablo Escobar was born on 1 December 1949 in Rionegro, Medellín, Colombia. He was married to María Isabel Santos. He died on 2 December 1993 in Medellin, Colombia.
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An American stuntman who, after more than 30 years in the business, moved into acting and became an acclaimed and respected character actor, Richard Farnsworth was a native of Los Angeles. He grew up around horses and as a teenager was offered an opportunity to ride in films. He appeared in horse-racing scenes and cavalry charges unbilled, first as a general rider and later as a stuntman. His riding and stunting skills gained him regular work doubling stars ranging from Roy Rogers to Gary Cooper, and he often doubled the bad guy as well. Although. like most stuntmen, he was occasionally given a line or two of dialogue, it was not until Farnsworth was over 50 that his natural talent for acting and his ease and warmth before the camera became apparent. When he won an Academy Award nomination for his role in Comes a Horseman (1978), it came as a surprise to many in the industry that this "newcomer" had been around since the 1930s. Farnsworth followed his Oscar nomination with a number of finely wrought performances, including The Grey Fox (1982) and The Natural (1984). In 1999 he came out of semi-retirement for a tour-de-force portrayal in The Straight Story (1999).- Actor
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Endearing, bushy-whiskered Welsh character actor whose screen repertoire seemed to consist for the better part of variations on a similar theme, namely stereotypical stiff-upper-lip or bumbling British gents. The son of an actress and an actor-manager and on stage from early childhood, Fox began his career in repertory theatre. During the last two years of World War II he served on a minesweeper in the Royal Navy. In 1952, he joined the ensemble of Brian Rix's Whitehall Farces as one of the 'Reluctant Heroes' and the 'Simple Spymen'. Buoyed by popular success, he probably developed his stock-in-trade character around this time. Following a stint on the London stage, Fox then landed several small roles in British films and co-starred for the BBC in the short-lived comedy series Three Live Wires (1961). The show's American producer promised him a shot at Hollywood and the actor and his wife promptly moved to Los Angeles. In 1962, Fox made his American stage debut at the Civic Playhouse in the three-act mystery play "Write Me a Murder" by Frederick Knott. The following year he appeared as a blundering waiter in The Danny Thomas Show (1953).
During the 1960's he became a familiar face on television, staking his particular claim to comedy relief fame as the cranky warlock physician Dr. Bombay in Bewitched (1964) (a character he declared was based on a naval officer with whom he served during the war) and as the buffoonish Colonel Rodney Crittenden in Hogan's Heroes (1965) (who was hopefully not based on anyone). He was also a Dr. Watson to Stewart Granger's Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1972), striding a kind of middle ground between the Watson of Nigel Bruce and that of Edward Hardwicke. His many guest roles as assorted 'visiting' English officers included, among others, 12 O'Clock High (1964), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), Columbo (1971) and M*A*S*H (1972). More recently, he appeared as Archibald Gracie IV, survivor (albeit briefly) of the sinking of the Titanic (1997) and as the unflappable aviator Winston Havelock going off to his last 'tally-ho' in The Mummy (1999). His ongoing commitment to theatrical work led to engagements in Canada with Stage West, in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and starring on Broadway in a 1978 production of "3 Rue de L'Amour" with Louis Jourdan and Kathleen Freeman.
In private life, Fox was renowned as an expert theatre historian. He was reputedly a keen gardener, a painter of landscapes and a devotee of performing magic.- Actor
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Foxworthy was born Jeffrey Marshall Foxworthy in Atlanta, Georgia on September 6, 1958.
He followed in his father's footsteps working for IBM in Georgia, but on a dare from friends, he did a few minutes of comedy at an Atlanta comedy club. A few months later, Foxworthy quit his job and started on the stand-up comedy road. His comedy originally centered on family situations, but he soon hit upon his successful "You might be a redneck if..." tagline, which he says signifies "a glorious absence of sophistication." Following two successful albums, Foxworthy joined the growing trend of stand-up comics with their own TV sitcoms.- Actor
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Don Frye dominated the world of mixed martial arts for 6 straight years. A former pro boxer and a licensed firefighter, Don Frye made an impressive professional fight debut by knocking out 6'1", 410 pound Thomas Ramirez in 8 seconds. Frye captured his first Ultimate Fighting Championship on Feb. 16, 1996 defeating Ramirez and two other opponents. On May 17, 1996, Frye defeated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Champion Amaury Bitetti in a wild brawl. After losing his tile to Mark Coleman, Frye went undefeated for the next 8 years, beating among others Ken Shamrock and Tank Abbott. However, age and injuries caught up to Frye, and after going 15-1 in MMA, he retired 20-8-1 (1 no-contest).- Rugged-looking James Gammon first broke into the entertainment industry not as an actor but as a TV cameraman. From there, his weatherbeaten features, somewhat menacing attitude and a tough-as-nails voice--the kind that used to be described in detective novels as "whiskey-soaked"--reminiscent of '40s noir icon Charles McGraw got him work in front of the cameras in TV westerns (though he sounds as if he's from Texas or Oklahoma, he was actually born and raised in Illinois) and he made his film debut in 1967. Not the kind of guy you'd see in a tuxedo in a Noël Coward drawing-room comedy--unless he was one of a gang holding them up--Gammon could play lighter parts also, as evidenced by his work as the manager in the baseball comedy Major League (1989) and in his regular role as Don Johnson's rambunctious father in Johnson's Nash Bridges (1996) series.
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Will Geer was born William Aughe Ghere in Frankfort, Indiana, to Katherine (Aughe), a teacher, and Roy Aaron Ghere, a postal worker. Will admired his grandfather, a man who said hello to trees by their Latin names and who had used what he brought back to Indiana from the California gold rush to build Frankfort's first opera house. Will pursued a college major in botany, from Chicago through a Master's degree at Columbia, but ultimately gave in to his need to perform. Starting with touring company tent shows and river boats, his six-decade career included Broadway, movies, television; many Shakespeare roles; one-man performances as Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. His best known role was his last, Zebulon Walton, grandpa in the long-running television series The Waltons (1972). Less well-known was his life-long role as a political agitator and radical ("Someone who goes to the roots, which is the Latin derivation of radical") and folklorist/folksinger - he toured U.S. government work camps in the 1930s, singing with Woody Guthrie and Burl Ives. He was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1951, he formed the "Theatricum Botanicum," a repertory theater in Topanga Canyon, California, where he not only coached actors but also encouraged outdoor philosophical discussion and, of course, folksinging. At his deathbed, his family sang "This Land Is Your Land" and recited Robert Frost poems. His ashes lie in a corner of the Shakespearean garden on the grounds of his Theatricum Botanicum.- Actor
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Jason Giambi was born on 8 January 1971 in West Covina, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1990), Dirty Deeds (2005) and Arli$$ (1996). He has been married to Kristian Rice since 2 February 2002. They have three children. He was previously married to Dana Mandela.- Actor
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An actor by trade but also a filmmaker, musician, and photographer, Adam Goldberg's career has spanned more than three decades comprising a vast resume of eclectic work both on off the screen. From mining the neuroses of characters for both dramatic and comedic effect, to producing work as a filmmaker with a superlative eye and keen wit, Goldberg has solidified his standing as a unique and prolific presence in the entertainment industry.
Goldberg is a co-star on the hit CBS series "The Equalizer." The show, a re imagining of the classic series and films, follows Robyn McCall (Queen Latifah), an enigmatic woman with a mysterious background who uses her extensive skills to help those with nowhere else to turn. Goldberg is a standout as whip smart, sardonic, and surprisingly fashion conscious computer hacker Harry Keshegian, who is like a brother to McCall and a fiercely supportive husband to his sniper wife Mel (Liza Lapira). "The Equalizer" had a massive debut to over 23 million viewers in 2021 and is currently airing its third season. Brand new episodes will return February 19, 2023, on CBS.
Also in television, Goldberg gained critical acclaim and fostered in a new generation of fans as Mr. Numbers in the award-winning crime drama "Fargo" (FX). He starred opposite Billy Bob Thornton and Colin Hanks on the show, which was inspired by the 1996 film of the same name. Goldberg is also known for his tour de force arcs as Crazy Eddie on "Friends" (NBC) and Nicky Rubinstein on "Entourage" (HBO), as well as starring roles on "The Jim Gaffigan Show," "Taken" (NBC),(NBC), "The Unusuals" (ABC), "NYC 22" (CBS), "The $treet" (FOX), and "God Friended Me" (CBS).
Often recognized for his impressive body of work in film, Goldberg has been hand-picked by Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard for memorable roles in their Academy Award winning projects. A career-changing moment for Goldberg was landing the role of tough, wise-cracking infantryman Private Mellish in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" opposite Tom Hanks. The film went on to receive 5 Academy Awards while also being nominated for Best Picture. From there, he starred in major blockbusters including Academy Award winner "A Beautiful Mind" which marked his second collaboration with director Ron Howard. In 2003 he showcased his talent in comedy, appearing a third time opposite Matthew McConaughey, in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days."
Other seminal performances include playing Christopher Walken's undead and unwitting assistant, Jerry, in Gregrory Widen's cult thriller "The Prophecy," Michael Rapaport's beleaguered roommate in John Singleton's "Higher Learning," appearing in Ron Howard's "EdTV," and portraying a speed freak opposite Val Kilmer and Peter Sarsgaard in DJ Caruso's debut "The Salton Sea." Additional recent work includes starring opposite Bruce Willis and John Goodman in "Once Upon a Time in Venice," and appearing alongside Nicholas Cage and Laurence Fishburne in "Running with the Devil." A filmmaker's actor, Goldberg also appeared, notably, in Tony Scott's "Déjà Vu" opposite Denzel Washington, and in David Fincher's "Zodiac."
Goldberg is known for effortlessly jumping back and forth between mainstream film and television roles with acclaimed passion projects. Namely, the titular role in Jonathan Kesselman's 'Jewxploitation' comedy, "The Hebrew Hammer," his hilarious collaboration with Julie Delpy in "2 Days in Paris," and his portrayal of a brilliant but eccentric musician in the art world satire "(Untitled)" opposite Marley Shelton. Other standouts include his turn as a performance artist opposite Olivia Thirlby in Rafael Palacio Illingworth's "Between Us," and a cult leader who indoctrinates Fran Kranz in the Netflix thriller "Rebirth," both of which premiered the same year at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Born in Santa Monica and raised in LA, Goldberg loved to perform and create from an early age, taking acting classes and studying film and photography since secondary school. His debut in the entertainment industry came with supporting film role in Billy Crystal's "Mr. Saturday Night," but it was his turn as Mike, an intellectual with a chip on his shoulder, in Richard Linklater's iconic, '70s coming of age classic "Dazed and Confused" that introduced Goldberg to an audience that continues to grow as the film captivates new audiences with each generation. Linklater would later make a cameo in Goldberg's directorial debut, "Scotch and Milk," and later host a screening at Austin's Alamo Draft House the same summer Goldberg appeared in Linklater's groundbreaking, psychedelic animation feature, "Waking Life."
Goldberg wrote, directed, starred in, and co-edited "Scotch and Milk" when he was just 24 years old. The stylized black and white film follows a group of young jazz obsessed hipsters trying to reconcile their machismo with their sensitivity. Additionally, Goldberg screened a rough cut for Spielberg during the making of "Saving Private Ryan," which led Spielberg to enlist his post production supervisor to help finish the film. "Scotch and Milk" debuted at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and earned critical acclaim on the festival circuit. This included a particular notable write up in American Cinematography Magazine and featured on the Sundance Channel series "10 Best Films You May Have Never Seen."
Goldberg would go on to co-write the psychological drama "I Love Your Work," starring frequent collaborator Giovanni Ribisi, and featuring Franka Potente, Christina Ricci, and Joshua Jackson. The film follows an actor whose life goes south after he forms an obsession with a young film student. Goldberg composed and arranged music for the film alongside The Flaming Lips' multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, and it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival where the film was picked up for theatrical distribution. He also directed, co-edited, and produced the surreal documentary short "Running with the Bulls" for the Independent Film Channel, and most recently co-wrote, directed, edited, and starred in the Sony feature film "No Way Jose," in which he plays a washed-up indie rocker going through a midlife crisis.
While working in film and television has been a huge part of Goldberg's life, his passion for photography and music have garnered their own cult following over the years, establishing him something of a modern day renaissance man. As a musician, Goldberg has recorded four albums under his moniker The Goldberg Sisters - two of which he recorded with a an eclectic array of musicians, and the last two of which he recorded in his home studio playing every instrument. As part of his 2018, 14-track album entitled "HOME: A Nice Place to Visit" Goldberg released a limited edition vinyl set that included a stunning large-format photo book, marrying his love for soundscapes and photography. Goldberg also directed the accompanying videos. Show Gallery in Los Angeles hosted an exhibition of the work where Goldberg played some of the tracks from the record utilizing loop pedals and other effects. The Goldberg Sisters discography also includes: Stranger's Morning (2013), The Goldberg Sisters (2011), and Landy (2009). https://music.apple.com/us/artist/the-goldberg-sisters/422885644
As a photographer Goldberg's signature dreamy, double exposures shot on film document and explore people, landscapes, and create cinematic scenes from which viewers can draw their own interpretations. Goldberg is also known for his style and passion for fashion, which he attributes to his mom with whom he used to go vintage clothes shopping on Melrose in the '80s. Any follower of his Instagram will take note of his extensive tagging of small brands, bespoke makers, and his support of slow fashion writ large. Everything he wears on "The Equalizer" - clothes and accessories - are either straight out of Goldberg's closet (a dedicated room in his house, he's not proud of this, nor is his wife thrilled) or handpicked by the actor.
Goldberg currently divides his time between Los Angeles and New York with his wife and two sons.
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First came to notice as a contestant on Groucho Marx's quiz show, You Bet Your Life (1950). His highly amusing personality won him bit parts in films, and he continued to work as a minor supporting player for years. He is the brother of Jose Gonzales-Gonzales. His most famous role was on John Wayne's movie Rio Bravo (1959).- Actor
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Gale Gordon was born on 20 February 1906 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Our Miss Brooks (1952), Here's Lucy (1968) and The 'Burbs (1989). He was married to Virginia Gordon. He died on 30 June 1995 in Escondido, California, USA.- Producer
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Irv Gotti was born on 26 June 1970 in Hollis, Queens, New York City, New York, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Romeo Must Die (2000), The Fast and the Furious (2001) and Rush Hour (1998). He is married to Debbie Lorenzo. They have two children.- Actor
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Alan Hale decided on a film career after his attempt at becoming an opera singer didn't pan out. He quickly became much in demand as a supporting actor, starred in several films for Cecil B. DeMille and directed others for him. With the advent of sound, Hale played leads in a few films but soon settled down into a career as one of the busiest character actors in the business. He was one of the featured members of what became known as the "Warner Brothers Stock Co.", a corps of character actors and actresses who appeared in scores of Warner Bros. films of the 1930s and 1940s. Hale's best-known role is probably in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), one of several films he made with his friend Errol Flynn, in which he played Little John, a role he played in two other films: Robin Hood (1922) and Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950).- Actor
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Although his parents were never in show business, as a young boy Oliver Hardy was a gifted singer and, by age eight, was performing with minstrel shows. In 1910 he ran a movie theatre, which he preferred to studying law. In 1913 he became a comedy actor with the Lubin Company in Florida and began appearing in a long series of shorts; his debut film was Outwitting Dad (1914). He appeared in he 1914-15 series of "Pokes and Jabbs" shorts, and from 1916-18 he was in the "Plump and Runt" series. From 1919-21 he was a regular in the "Jimmy Aubrey" series of shorts, and from 1921-25 he worked as an actor and co-director of comedy shorts for Larry Semon.
In addition to appearing in two-reeler comedies, he found time to make westerns and even melodramas in which he played the heavy. He is most famous, however, as the partner of British comic Stan Laurel, with whom he had played a bit part in The Lucky Dog (1921). in the mid-1920s both he and Laurel wee working for comedy producer Hal Roach, although not as a team. In a moment of inspiration Roach teamed them together, and their first film as a team was 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926). Their first release for Roach through MGM was Sugar Daddies (1927) and the first with star billing was From Soup to Nuts (1928). They became a huge hit as a comedy team, and after several years of two-reelers, Roach decided to star them in features, their first of which was Pardon Us (1931).
They clicked with audiences in features, too, and starred in such classics as Way Out West (1937), March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934) and Block-Heads (1938). They eventually parted ways with Roach and in the mid-1940s signed on with Twentieth Century-Fox.
Unfortunately, Fox did not let them have the autonomy they had at Roach, where Laurel basically wrote and directed their films, though others were credited, and their films became more assembly-line and formulaic. Their popularity waned and less popular during the war years, and they made their last film for Fox in 1946.
Several years later they made their final appearance as a team in a French film, a troubled and haphazard production eventually, after several name changes, called Utopia (1950), generally regarded to be their worst film. Hardy appeared without Laurel in a few features, such as Zenobia (1939) with Harry Langdon, The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) in a semi-comedic role as a frontiersman alongside John Wayne and Riding High (1950), in a cameo role. He died in 1957.- Producer
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Broderick Stephen Harvey, Sr. is an American television host, actor, writer, producer, and comedian. He hosts The Steve Harvey Morning Show, Family Feud, Celebrity Family Feud, the Miss Universe competition, Family Feud Africa, and the arbitration-based court comedy Judge Steve Harvey.
Harvey began his career as a comedian. He performed stand-up comedy in the early 1980s and hosted Showtime at the Apollo and The Steve Harvey Show on The WB. He was later featured in The Original Kings of Comedy after starring in the Kings of Comedy Tour. His last stand-up show was in 2012.
Harvey is the host of both Family Feud and Celebrity Family Feud, holding this role since 2010. He also hosted Little Big Shots, Little Big Shots Forever Young, and Steve Harvey's Funderdome. As an author, he has written four books, including his bestseller Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, which was published in March 2009.
In 2017, Harvey founded Steve Harvey Global, an entertainment company that houses his production company East 112 and various other ventures. He launched an African version of Family Feud and also invested in the HDNet takeover along with Anthem Sports and Entertainment. He and his wife Marjorie are the founders of The Steve and Marjorie Harvey Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on youth education.
He is a seven-time Daytime Emmy Award winner, two-time Marconi Award winner, and a 14-time NAACP Image Award winner in various categories.- Actor
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If ever there was a Great Dane in Hollywood it was Jean Hersholt - and one of its great hearts as well. He was from a well-known Danish stage and entertainment family that had toured throughout Europe performing with young Jean as an essential cast member. He graduated from the Copenhagen Art School and continued expanding his stage experience and evidently decided early that he wanted to work in films. He did just two very early (1906) silent films in Germany. Hersholt emigrated from Denmark to the US while still a young man in 1913. Like many another European he came to America to seek further opportunities. Unlike many other European actors who appeared on Broadway in their early American careers, Hersholt never trod The Great White Way. He moved on to Hollywood in 1914 where the future of silent movies had taken the lead. He started as a movie extra then progressed into small feature player roles from 1915 through 1917. For that latter year he had no less than 17 bit parts.
By the 1920s his roles were substantial feature pieces, but most of these were as villains - in fact, a concoction of really vile characters. His theater experience serving him well, he played them so well that he much sought after by directors. Several of his 1920s films were landmarks of the silent era, an early one being The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) which helped propel Rudolf Valentino into the stellar heights. Hersholt became popular and well paid. And certainly his signature silent role was the lead character of Marcus Schouler in the Erich von Stroheim great film Greed (1924), based on the novel McTeague. Stroheim, who spent far more time in front of the camera as an actor, was already well know as a task master and perfectionist director. He went through 42 reels of film for the picture - a numbing nine hours of screen time (shown only once at that length in a private studio screening). He cut the film to five hours, but it was further whittled to a bit over two for release, causing Stroheim to quip bitterly of the editor, "The only thing he had on his mind was his hat!" The powerful film was still there, but the massive editing resulted in whole roles disappearing, not to mention some telltale continuity. Stroheim's need for realism resulted in the climax of the movie to be shot in Death Valley. Still hot in the fall time, Hersholt endured like a veteran but required a hospital stay after sweating away 27 pounds.
Fortunately into the later 1920s Hersholt's roles expanded into a more realistic balance of characters-more virtuous roles - but still some shady fellows and especially the unsuspected, and thus surprising, guilty party in the ever popular murder mysteries. He worked for Samuel Goldwyn for about a year (1923-1924), for Paramount from 1927 through 1929, and several other studios during the period. By the end of the silent era, including those early primitive part mono features with small bits of audio music, sound effects, or dialog, Hersholt was a tried veteran of 75 films. His first all mono sound film was The Climax (1930) and despite a Germanic accent, he had a pleasant, mellow voice and a camera friendly presence that ensured him continued success. The variety ran the gamut from a sturdy supporting part in Grand Hotel (1932), to supporting Boris Karloff and a pretty hot Myrna Loy in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), and doing the same in Dinner at Eight (1933). Busy with nine movies in 1930, he also moved into people's living rooms on radio as well during that year.
Of course, for some time Hersholt was a mature actor-simply meaning he had many secondary roles as doctors and professors and nobles of many sorts and increasingly he appeared as benign fatherly types. Father roles of the 20s continued into the 30s - augmented with grandfather roles as well. He was the father of Sonja Henie in that charismatic champion ice skater's first Hollywood film One in a Million (1936), and he is perhaps best remembered as the embittered but deeply caring grandfather of Shirley Temple in the beloved Heidi (1937). But it was another role as a doctor that would provide a continuing vehicle for Hersholt and something of a fateful direction for the actor. The mid-30s were abuzz with the births of the Dionne Quintuplets in Canada. Hollywood jumped on it with usual alacrity, highlighting the story and the officiating obstetrician, Dr. Dafoe, who was translated into Dr. John Luke, in The Country Doctor (1936). Hersholt brought the right ingredients to the part of Luke and two years later a sequel followed, Five of a Kind (1938). Hersholt thought the character good medicine all round and was enthusiastic about a series of movies, but Dafoe himself blocked this idea. Nevertheless, in 1937 Hersholt had already germinated a new radio series to continue portraying a dedicated and kindly small town doctor. For a character name Hersholt turned to his most beloved author, his countryman, literary light Hans Christian Andersen, for a name-Dr. Christian. It was a hit and, and he convinced RKO Radio Pictures to bankroll a series of six Dr. Christian films (1939-41).
These latter and a few other films would mark the end of Hersholt's film career, but he was so very busy otherwise. His familiarity with Andersen was a scholarly avocation and labor of love, furthered by enthusiastic collecting of a library of important Andersen editions and related bibliography (which would later go to the Library of Congress). His English translation (see Trivia below) of the Andersen corpus of fairy tales (including his addition of several other Andersen stories from the author's private papers) remains perhaps the most comprehensive and best effort-even more so for Hersholt personal interpretation of Andersen. Hersholt would also write several articles about Andersen and edit The Andersen-Scudder-Letters (1948). Among other literary pursuits Hersholt also co-wrote a novel based on his Dr. Christian character.
It was in Hersholt's generous nature to give back something in gratitude for the acting career afforded him in Hollywood. His payment was rich indeed: the Motion Picture Relief Fund, the retirement home and hospital inspired by it and generated from it (see Trivia below), and the great charitable work that Hersholt would perform were paid back with two Academy Awards, the second after his tenure as president of the Academy. These special honors would be the seed of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (see Trivia below). But in 1956 Hersholt was dying of cancer - and yet that would not stop him from one more good turn. His beloved Dr. Christian character was going to TV (produced by the Ziv Studios), and he was asked to symbolically pass the baton to the new Dr. Christian, Macdonald Carey. With a tremendous effort, Hersholt, now withered to 95 pounds braved the first episode shooting, capping his life with one last magnificent example of his humanity.- Actor
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John Hillerman, who most famously played the impeccably urbane Englishman Jonathan Quayle Higgins III (VC !) -- Tom Selleck's sophisticated majordomo in Magnum, P.I. (1980) --, was of French, German and Austrian descent, raised in a small Texas town and educated at a Catholic high school. He majored in journalism at the University of Texas, enlisted in the Air Force and spent the period from 1953 to 1957 stationed at Ft. Worth. There, he unexpectedly landed a choice role in a community theatre production of "Death of a Salesman" and discovered acting to be to his liking. Having a photographic memory benefited Hillerman greatly, as it enabled him to learn his lines quickly. He professed to be able to memorize a page of dialogue in the space of a minute. There remained the problem of his Texas accent, however. Following demobilization, he traveled to New York where it took him a year to lose his drawl, studying elocution under the tutelage of voice coach Fanny Bradshaw (who encouraged him to listen to recordings of Laurence Olivier reciting "Hamlet"). All the while, Hillerman lived the life of a typical struggling actor, having taken up residence in a lower East Side tenement and living on home-made turkey soup. After fifteen years of stage work and with a meager $700 to his name, he decided to try to change his luck by making the journey to Hollywood.
His first major break came when he was picked for a small part in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971)). From then on he was rarely out of work, although initially tasked with only smallish supporting roles. By the mid-70s, after memorable back-to-back turns in Blazing Saddles (1974) and Chinatown (1974), Hillerman had established his credentials. His first opportunity to shine in a recurring TV role was as pompous radio sleuth Simon Brimmer ("Policemen snoop, without a glimmer. To solve the case, call Simon Brimmer...") who persistently got it all very wrong in TV's Ellery Queen (1975). A self-declared Anglophile with a solid acting background in plays by Noël Coward, he fairly jumped at the chance to portray Selleck's genteel sidekick Higgins in "Magnum" which was to become his personal favorite and career-defining role.- Born the fourth of six children to Austrian customs officer Alois Hitler--who had been married twice before--and the former Klara Polzl, Adolf Hitler grew up in a small Austrian town in the late 19th century. He was a slow learner and did poorly in school. He was frequently beaten by his authoritarian father. Things got worse when Adolf's older brother, Alois Jr., ran away from home. His mild-mannered mother occasionally tried to shield him, but was ineffectual. Adolf's attempt to run away at 11 was unsuccessful. At the age of 14 he was freed when his hated father died - an event that he did not mourn.
Hitler dropped out of high school at age 16 and went to Vienna, where he strove to become an artist, but was refused twice by the Vienna Art Academy. By this time Hitler had become an ardent German nationalist--although he was not German but Austrian--and when World War I broke out, he crossed into Germany and joined a Bavarian regiment in the German army. He was assigned as a message runner but also saw combat. Temporarily blinded after a gas attack in Flanders in 1918, he received the Iron Cross 2nd Class and was promoted from private to corporal. In 1918, when the war ended, Hitler stayed in the army and was posted to the Intelligence division. He was assigned to spy on several radical political parties that were considered a threat to the German government. One such organization was the German Workers' Party. Hitler was drawn by party founder Dietrich Eckart, a morphine addict who propagated doctrines of mysticism and anti-Semitism. Hitler soon joined the party with the help of his military intelligence ties. He became party spokesman in 1919, renamed it the National Socalist German Workers Party (NSDAP/NAZI) and declared himself its Führer (leader) one year later. In 1920 Hitler's intelligence handler, Munich-based colonel named Karl Haushofer, introduced the swastika insignia. In 1921 Haushofer founded the paramilitary Storm Troopers ("Sturmabteilung", or SA), composed of German veterans of WWI and undercover military intelligence officers. They helped Hitler to organize a coup attempt--the infamous "beer hall putsch"--against the Bavarian government in Munich in 1923, but it failed. The "rebels" marched on Munich's city hall, which was cordoned off by police. Hitler's men fired at the police and missed; the police fired back and didn't, resulting in several of Hitler's fellow Nazis being shot dead. Hitler himself was arrested, convicted of treason and sent to prison. During his prison time he was coached by his advisers and dictated his book "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") to his deputy Rudolf Hess. He only served several months in prison before being released. By 1925 the Nazi party was in much better straits both organizationally and financially, as it had secured the backing of a large group of wealthy conservative German industrialists, who funneled huge amounts of money into the organization. Hitler was provided with a personal bodyguard unit named the "Schutzstaffel", better known as the SS. The Nazis began to gain considerable support in Germany through their network of army and WWI veterans, and Hitler ran for President in 1931. Defeated by the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler next attempted to become Chancellor of Germany. Through under-the-table deals with powerful conservative businessmen and right-wing politicians, Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January 1933. One month later, a mysterious fire--which the Nazis claimed had been started by "terrorists" but was later discovered to have been set by the Nazis themselves--destroyed the Reichstag (the building housing the German parliament). Then Hitler's machine began to issue a series of emergency decrees that gave the office of Chancellor more and more power.
In March of 1933 Hitler persuaded the German parliament to pass the Enabling Act, which made the Chancellor dictator of Germany and gave him more power than the President. Two months later Hitler began "cleaning house"; he abolished trade unions and ordered mass arrests of members of rival political groups. By the end of 1933 the Nazi Party was the only one allowed in Germany. In June of 1934 Hitler turned on his own and ordered the purge of the now radical SA--that he now saw as a potential threat to his power--which was led by one of his oldest friends, a thug and street brawler named Ernst Röhm. Röhm's ties to Hitler counted for nothing, as Hitler ordered him assassinated. Soon President Hindenburg died, and Hitler merged the office of President with the office of Chancellor. In 1935 the anti-Jewish Nuremburg laws were passed on Hitler's authorization. A year later, with Germany now under his total control, he sent troops into the Rhineland, which was a violation of the World War I Treaty of Versailles. In 1938 he forced the union of Austria with Germany and also took the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia near the German border with a large ethnic German population, on the pretext of "protecting" the German population from the Czechs. In March 1939 Hitler overran the rest of Czechoslovakia. On 23 August 1939 Hitler and Joseph Stalin made a non-aggression treaty. In September of 1939 Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland. France and the British Commonwealth and Empire declared war on Germany. In 1940 Germany occupied Denmark, Norway and the Low Countries, and launched a major offensive against France. Paris fell and France surrendered, after which Hitler considered invading the UK. However, after the German Air Force was defeated in the Battle of Britain, the invasion was canceled. The British had begun bombing German cities in May 1940, and four months later Hitler retaliated by ordering the Blitz. In 1941 German troops assisted Italy, which under dictator Benito Mussolini was a German ally, in its takeover of Yugoslavia and Greece. Meanwhile, in Germany and the occupied countries, a program of mass extermination of Jews had begun.
On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union. In addition to more than 4,000,000 German troops, there were additional forces from German allies Romania, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Spain and Finland, among others. Hitler used multinational forces in order to save Germans for the future colonization of the Russian lands. Following the detailed Nazi plan, code-named "Barbarossa," Hitler was utilizing resources of entire Europe under Nazi control to feed the invasion of Russia. Three groups of Nazi armies invaded Russia: Army Group North besieged Leningrad for 900 days, Army Group Center reached Moscow and Army Group South occupied Ukraine, reached Caucasus and Stalingrad. After a series of initial successes, however, the German Armies were stopped at Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad. Leningrad was besieged by the Nazis for 900 days until the city of 4,000,000 virtually starved itself to death. Only in January of 1944 was Marshal Georgi Zhukov able to finally defeat the German forces and liberate the city, finally lifting the siege after a cost of some 2,000,000 lives. In 1943 several major battles occurred at Kursk (which became the largest tank battle in history), Kharkov and Stalingrad, all of which the Germans lost. The battle for Stalingrad was one of the largest in the history of mankind. At Stalingrad alone the Germans lost 360,000 troops, in addition to the losses suffered by Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Croatian and other forces, but the Russians lost over one million men. By 1944--the same year the Western allies invaded occupied Europe--Germany was retreating on both fronts and its forces in Africa had been completely defeated, resulting in the deaths and/or surrender of several hundred thousand troops. Total human losses during the six years of war were estimated at 60,000,000, of which 27,000,000 were Russians, Ukrainians, Jews and other people in Soviet territory. Germany lost over 11,000,000 soldiers and civilians. Poland and Yugoslavia lost over 3,000,000 people each. Italy and France lost over 1,000,000 each. Most nations of Central and Eastern Europe suffered severe--and in some cases total--economic destruction.
Hitler's ability to act as a figurehead of the Nazi machine was long gone by late 1944. Many of his closest advisers and handlers had already fled to other countries, been imprisoned and/or executed by the SS for offenses both real--several assassination attempts on Hitler--and imagined, or had otherwise absented themselves from Hitler's inner circle. For many years Hitler was kept on drugs by his medical personnel. In 1944 a group of German army officers and civilians pulled off an almost successful assassination attempt on Hitler, but he survived. Hitler, by the beginning of 1945, was a frail, shaken man who had almost totally lost touch with reality. The Russians reached Berlin in April of that year and began a punishing assault on the city. As their forces approached the bunker where Hitler and the last vestiges of his government were holed up, Hitler killed himself. Just a day earlier he had married his longtime mistress Eva Braun. Hitler's corpse was taken to Moscow and later shown to Allied Army Commanders and diplomats. Joseph Stalin showed Hitler's personal items to Winston Churchill and Harry S. Truman at the Potsdam Conference after the victory. Hitler's personal gun was donated to the museum of the West Point Military Academy in New York. Some of his personal items are now part of the permanent collection at the National History Museum in Moscow, Russia. - Actor
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Glenn Hughes was born on 18 July 1950 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Can't Stop the Music (1980) and Married... with Children (1987). He died on 4 March 2001 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Saddam Hussein was a bloody and brutal dictator who kept his country of Iraq at war almost constantly after assuming power in 1979. At least one million people died due to the machinations of Saddam. After his regime was toppled by the U.S. invasion of 2003, he wound up on a gallows, his life terminated at the end of a hangman's noose.
Saddam invaded neighboring Iran in 1980 and waged war for seven years and 11 months, making it the longest conventional war in the 20th Century. Saddam had hoped to take advantage of what he perceived as the chaos of the Iranian revolution to settle border disputes and suppress his own Shi'ite Muslim population. (Iran is predominantly Shi'ite while Hussein was a Sunni Muslim.) The war ended in a stalemate with approximately 500,000 Iraqis and 400,000 Iranians dead. Both sides, major oil producers, suffered economic losses of half-a-trillion dollars. Saddam used poison gas against Iranian troops, an atrocity even Adolf Hitler didn't engage on the battlefields of World War II.
Beginning in 1986 and continuing through 1989, Saddam launched a deliberate campaign of genocide against the Kurds in northern Iraq. The campaign also targeted areas populated by other minorities, including Assyrians and Jews. In 1988, his forces launched a poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja that killed as many as 5,000 people and injured as many as 10,000. In all, Saddam's three-year-long genocide against the Kurds and other minorities claimed as many as 182,000 lives.
In 1990, the war-monger Saddam invaded Kuwait with the intention of looting and annexing the oil-rich country. An international coalition was put together by the first President George Bush and freed Kuwait but left Saddam in power. His son President George W. Bush put together a second coalition army dominated by American and British forces that invaded Iraq in March 2003 to depose the dictator.
The invasion was launched on the pretext that he possessed weapons of mass destruction and was in league with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that had launched the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Both charges were false, but it led to Saddam's capture in December 2003. He was subsequently tried and executed by the Iraqi interim government for the killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites in 1982. His death sentence was carried out on December 30, 2006. - Actor
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Jack Alexander Huston is a British actor. He appeared as Richard Harrow in the HBO television drama series Boardwalk Empire. He also had a supporting role in the 2013 film American Hustle, portrayed the eponymous Ben-Hur in the 2016 historical drama, and appeared as one of the main characters in the fourth season of the FX anthology series Fargo (2020).- Actor
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With his bald head, firm jawline and bristling moustache, Lionel Jeffries played a nice line of English eccentrics. This belied his RADA training. Following military service in WWII, he played his major roles - everything from Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) to the Marquis of Queensberry in The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) - in the 1960s.
His surprisingly brief career as a director included the highly popular family films The Railway Children (1970) and The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972).- Actor
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Since the demise of the legendary John Holmes in March 1988, the short, mustachioed, heavyset Ron Jeremy has assumed the mantle as the number one U.S. male star of adult cinema. However, don't confuse Ron with the similar looking mustachioed 1970/'80s adult film star, Harry Reems, who has long since retired from the adult film industry. Portly Ron is not blessed with film star looks and a chiseled six-pack (a decidedly unchiseled 12- or 18-pack would be more like it) - his appeal and talents lie in other areas (which happen to be in his long 'member' measuring nearly 10 inches, erect!) and his "regular guy" appearance and amazing endurance in front of the camera have undoubtedly contributed to his phenomenal success in an industry notorious for dumping those men who can't perform on cue.
He's also one of the very few adult film stars to make the jump into mainstream cinema, with minor appearances in movies such as Reindeer Games (2000), Detroit Rock City (1999) and The Boondock Saints (1999). He was born Ron Jeremy Hyatt on March 12, 1953, in New York City and graduated from Cardozo High School (Queens, NY) in 1971, attained a masters degree from Queens College and then commenced special educational teaching in the New York City area. In 1978, a girlfriend sent his photo off to "Playgirl" magazine for appearance in its "Boy Next Door" pages. It was an understatement to say that Ron was deluged with female fan mail, and letters of interest from adult filmmakers!
Beginning in 1979, he has appeared in well over 800 adult feature films including Inside Seka (1980), Debbie Does Dallas Part II (1981), Terms of Endowment (1986) Lust of Blackula (1987), 21 Hump Street (1988) and Natural Born Thrillers (1994). At 50+ years of age, the charismatic and often comedic Ron Jeremy is still appearing in front of the camera in adult films and he's definitely attained iconic status in the adult entertainment industry and beyond.- Actor
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Scatman John was born on 13 March 1942 in El Monte, California, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Project Power (2020), Nothing to Lose (1997) and BASEketball (1998). He was married to Judy. He died on 3 December 1999 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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This tall, sandy-haired, mustachioed actor from Texas, born Justus McQueen, adopted the name of the character he portrayed in his first film, Battle Cry (1955). Jones, with his craggy, gaunt looks, first appeared in minor character roles in plenty of WWII films including The Young Lions (1958), The Naked and the Dead (1958), Hell Is for Heroes (1962) and Battle of the Coral Sea (1959). However, 1962 saw him team up with maverick director Sam Peckinpah for the first of Jones' five appearances in his films. Ride the High Country (1962) saw Jones play one of the lowlife Hammond brothers. Next he appeared alongside Charlton Heston in Major Dundee (1965), then Peckinpah cast him, along with his real-life friend Strother Martin, as one of the scummy, murderous bounty hunters in The Wild Bunch (1969). Such was the chemistry between Jones and Martin that Peckinpah teamed them again the following year in The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and Jones' final appearance in a Peckinpah film was in another western, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973). Two years later Jones directed the cult post-apocalyptic film A Boy and His Dog (1975) starring a young Don Johnson. He has continued to work in Hollywood, and as the lines on his craggy face have deepened, he turns up more frequently as crusty old westerners, especially in multiple TV guest spots. He turned in an interesting performance as a seemingly good ol' boy Nevada cowboy who was actually a powerful behind-the-scenes player in state politics who leaned on Robert De Niro's Las Vegas mob gambler in Martin Scorsese's violent and powerful Casino (1995).- Actor
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Liz Smith, the premier entertainment columnist in New York, once predicted that Randy Jones, embodying the persona of the cowboy, would be the first of the Village People to achieve individual fame. And she was right! Charming and handsome, RJ has become celebrated internationally not only as the sexy Cowboy of the award winning group, but also as a world class bon vivant shooting to stardom and selling in excess of 90 million units to date.
Having starred with Village People in the motion picture, Can't Stop The Music (directed by Nancy Walker and co-starring Valerie Perrine), RJ's face and/or voice have also appeared in the films, Nutty Professor Ii: The Klumps, In & Out, As Good As It Gets, Down Periscope, The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, Wayne's World 2, Addams Family Values, One Night At Mccool's, Dumb & Dumberer, Je Te Tiens and Big Trouble. Among his many television appearances have been American Bandstand, Musikladen, Soul Train, The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show, NBC's The Big Show, several Bob Hope Specials, Married With Children, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, multiple hostings of Midnight Special, Oprah Winfrey, The American Music Awards, Love Boat, ABC's 20/20, two consecutive years of New Year's Rockin' Eve with Dick Clark, NBC daytime drama, Texas, The Bernie Mac Show, VH-1's Behind The Music, Legends, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, The Simpsons, King Of The Hill, VH-1's It's Only Rock & Roll, BBC's Top Of the POPS, Live With Regis And Kelly, The Tonight Show, VH-1's I Love The 70s, Hollywood Rocks The Movies, and even Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
RJ has completed filming his lead role in the independent film comedy Three Long Years. RJ plays a male nurse in the film...yet another character icon?
Showered with commendations in his career, including the keys to several American cities, RJ counts the American Music Award, the Georgie Award, presented by the American Guild of Variety Artists, and the Billboard Dance Forum Award as perfect companions to Germany's prestigious Golden Lion and Bravo Awards, presented for Popular Music Excellence, not to mention the more than 75 Gold and Platinum records garnered worldwide. RJ is an American Library Association Nominated Author for his book, Outsounds. His place defined as an icon in popular culture history, RJ's accomplishments have been cited in The World Book Encyclopedia, Guinness' Book Of Hits, Dick Clark's First Twenty-Five Years Of Rock `N Roll, and The Rolling Stone Illustrated History Of Rock & Roll. He has also been featured in the VH-1 History Of Rock & Roll as well as profiled in the E! True Hollywood Story.
RJ has appeared on the covers and in the pages of Rolling Stone Magazine, Details, Interview, Us Magazine, Time, Newsweek, Gq, Playboy, People, Paris Match, New York, Maxim, Playgirl, Bravo Magazine, Stern, Rocky Magazine, Modern Screen, After Dark, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Post , The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and countless other major international newspapers and magazines throughout the world. Paparazzi have frequently photographed him with some of the world's most beautiful and best known women and men. Confirming his expert taste in beauty and style, RJ has been emcee, judge, and guest performer in various international beauty contests around the globe.
RJ has performed at many of New York City's classic and trendy nightspots, such as Studio 54, The Village Gate, Hurrah, The China Club, The Bottom Line, Private Eyes, The Palace, Xenon, The Knitting Factory, Tatou, Magique, Roseland, 2001 Odyssey, The Ritz, The Tunnel, Limelight, CBGB, The Pyramid and The Paladium. Films, numerous television appearances and S.R.O. performances in such venues as New York City 's Madison Square Garden , The Metropolitan Opera House, Radio City Music Hall , Japan 's Budokan, Hollywood 's Greek Theatre, London 's Hippodrome, Sydney 's Hordern Pavillion and the Olympia in Paris along with a Command Performance have made RJ's face and talents known worldwide.
Some of RJ's stage performances have been onstage with Grace Jones in her original ground breaking stage shows and as Principal Artist with Agnes De Mille's American Heritage Dance Theatre, The Anna Sokolow Dance Company, Pauline Koner's Dance Consort and North Carolina Dance Theatre as well as in regional and touring companies of the Broadway musicals Meet Me In St. Louis, with Kathy Rigby, Carousel, with Ed Ames and Marsha Hunt, Funny Girl with Carol Lawrence, Oklahoma, Music Man, Hello Dolly!, Mame!, Gershwin's Girl Crazy, My Fair Lady, Applause, The Grass Harp, and Brigadoon, among many others.- Actor
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Stacy Keach has played to grand success a constellation of the classic and contemporary stage's greatest roles, and he is considered a pre-eminent American interpreter of Shakespeare. His SRO run as "King Lear" at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. received the best reviews any national leader has earned in that town for decades. Peter Marks of the Washington Post called Mr. Keach's Lear "magnificent". He recently accepted his third prestigious Helen Hayes Award for Leading Actor in 2010 for his stellar performance. His next stage appearance premiering January 13, 2011 at the Lincoln Center in New York is "Other Desert Cities" by Jon Robin Baitz and teaming him with Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin and Elizabeth Marvel.
His latest television series, Lights Out (2011), on the FX network is a major new mid-season dramatic show, taking him back to the world of boxing which has been a rich setting for him before, notably in Huston's Fat City (1972) which ignited Keach's career as a film star.
Versatility embodies the essence of Stacy Keach's career in film and television as well as on stage. The range of his roles is remarkable. His recent performance in Oliver Stone's "W" prompted fellow actor Alec Baldwin to blog an impromptu review matching Huston's amazement at Keach's power. Perhaps best known around the world for his portrayal of the hard-boiled detective, Mike Hammer, Stacy Keach is also well-known among younger generations for his portrayal of the irascible, hilarious Dad, Ken Titus, in the Fox sitcom, Titus, and more recently as Warden Henry Pope in the hit series, Prison Break. Following his triumphant recent title role performance in King Lear for the prestigious Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Keach joined the starring cast of John Sayles' recent film, Honeydripper. In the most recent of his non-stop activities, he has completed filming Deathmatch for the Spike Channel, and The Boxer for Zeitsprung Productions in Berlin, Germany.
German audiences will also see him as one of the co-stars in the multi-million dollar production of Hindenburg: The Last Flight (2011), scheduled to air in January, 2011 with worldwide release thereafter. Mr. Keach co-stars in the new FX series entitled Lights Out (2011) about a boxing family, where he plays the Dad-trainer of two boxing sons played by Holt McCallany and Pablo Schreiber. The series is also scheduled to air in January, 2011. Keach returns to the New York stage at the start of the 2011 in Jon Robin Baitz's new play, "Other Desert Cities," at the Lincoln Center.
Capping his heralded accomplishment on the live stage of putting his own stamp on some of the theatre world's most revered and challenging roles over the past year when he headed the national touring company cast of "Frost/Nixon," portraying Richard M. Nixon, bringing still another riveting characterization to the great legit stages of Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, the nation's capitol and other major cities. He won his second Best Actor Helen Hayes Award for his outstanding performance. His second triumphant portrayal of King Lear in the past three years, this time for the Shakespeare Theatre Company in the nation's capital earned reviews heard around the world, with resulting offers for him to repeat that giant accomplishment in New York, Los Angeles and even Beijing.
An accomplished pianist and composer, Mr. Keach composed the music for the film, Imbued (2009), directed by Rob Nilssen, a celebrated film festival favorite, in which Keach also starred. He has also completed composing the music for the Mike Hammer audio radio series, "Encore For Murder", written by Max Collins, directed by Carl Amari, and produced by Blackstone Audio.
Mr. Keach began his film career in the late 1960's with _The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter_, followed by _The New Centurions_ with George C. Scott; Doc Holiday with Faye Dunaway in the film 'Doc' (1971); an over-the-hill boxer,Billy Tully in Fat City (1972); directed by John Huston, and The Long Riders (1980), which he co-produced and co-wrote with his brother, James Keach, directed by Walter Hill. On the lighter side, his characterization of Sgt. Stedenko in Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke (1978), and the sequel, Nice Dreams (1981), gave a whole new generation a taste of Mr. Keach's comedic flair, which he also demonstrated in Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud (1970), playing the oldest living lecherous Wright Brother; and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) where he played a crazed albino out to kill Paul Newman.
Historical roles have always attracted him. In movies he has played roles ranging from Martin Luther to Frank James. On television he has been Napoleon, Wilbur Wright, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Barabbas, Sam Houston, and Ernest Hemingway, for which he won a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a mini-series and was nominated for an Emmy in the same category. He played an eccentric painter, Mistral, in the Judith Krantz classic, Mistral's Daughter (1984), a northern spy in the civil war special, The Blue and the Gray (1982), more recently as the pirate Benjamin Hornigold in the Hallmark epic Blackbeard (2006).
As a director, his production of Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy (1973) for PBS was, according to Mr. Miller in his autobiography, Timebends, "the most expressive production of that play he had seen." He won a Cine Golden Eagle Award for his work on the dramatic documentary, The Repeater, in which he starred and also wrote and directed.
But it is perhaps the live theatre where Mr. Keach shines brightest. He began his professional career with the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1964, doubling as Marcellus and the Player King in a production of Hamlet directed by Joseph Papp and which featured Julie Harris as Ophelia. He rose to prominence in 1967 in the Off-Broadway political satire, MacBird, where the title role was a cross between Lyndon Johnson and Macbeth and for which he received the first of his three Obie awards. He played the title roles in Henry 5, Hamlet (which he played 3 times), Richard 3, Macbeth, and most recently as King Lear in Robert Falls' modern adaptation at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, which Charles Isherwood of the NY Times called "terrific" and "a blistering modern-dress production that brings alive the morally disordered universe of the play with a ferocity unmatched by any other production I've seen." Mr. Keach's stage portrayals of Peer Gynt, Falstaff and Cyrano de Bergerac, and Hamlet caused the New York Times to dub him "the finest American classical actor since John Barrymore."
Mr. Keach's Broadway credits include his Broadway debut, Indians, where he played Buffalo Bill and was nominated for a Tony award as Best Actor. He starred in Ira Levin's Deathtrap, the Pulitzer Prize winning Kentucky Cycle (for which he won his first Helen Hayes award as Best Actor), the Rupert Holmes one-man thriller, Solitary Confinement, where Mr. Keach played no less than six roles, all unbeknownst to the audience until the end of the play. In the musical theatre, he starred in the national tour of Barnum, played the King in Camelot for Pittsburgh's Civic Light Opera, and the King in The King and I, which he also toured in Japan. He starred in the Jon Robin Baitz play, Ten Unknowns, at the Mark Taper Forum in 2003. The LA Times said: "And then there's Keach. What a performance! How many actors can manage such thunder and such sweet pain. He's been away from the LA stage too long. Welcome back."
In 2004, he starred as Scrooge in Boston's Trinity Rep musical production of A Christmas Carol; earlier in 2004, he starred as Phil Ochsner in Arthur Miller's last play Finishing The Picture, directed by Robert Falls at the Goodman Theatre.
As a narrator his voice has been heard in countless documentaries; as the host for the Twilight Zone radio series; numerous books on tape, including the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. In the year 2000, he recorded a CD of all of Shakespeare's Sonnets. He recently recorded the voice of St. Paul for a new audio version of The New Testament:, The Word of Promise and Job for the Old Testament edition. He is the narrator on CNBC's new hit show, American Greed (2007), and recently narrated the award-winning documentary, The Pixar Story (2007). He has also reprised his role as Mike Hammer in the Blackstone audio series, the most recent being "Encore for Murder". A charter-member of LA Theatre Works, Mr. Keach recently played the title role in Bertolt Brecht's Galileo, recorded both for radio and CD. He was seen on CBS's hit show Two and a Half Men (2003) as the gay Dad of Charlie's fiance.
Stacy Keach also believes strongly in 'giving back' and has been the Honorary Chair for the Cleft Palate Foundation for the past twenty-five years. He is also the national spokesman for the World Craniofacial organization. He has served on the Artist's Committee for the Kennedy Center Honors for two decades, is on the board of directors for Genesis at the Crossroads, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to bringing peoples of combatant cultures together through the shared artistic expressions of the visual and culinary arts, music, dance, and theater. He also serves on the artistic board for Washington DC's Shakespeare Theatre National Council, where he was also honored in 2000 with their prestigious Millennium Award for his contribution to classical theatre. Some years ago Hollywood honored him with a Celebrity Outreach Award for his work with charitable organizations.
He has been the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from Pacific Pioneer's Broadcasters, the San Diego Film Festival, the Pacific Palisades Film Festival, and The 2007 Oldenburg Film Festival in Germany. Later this year, he will be awarded the 2010 Lifetime Award from the St. Louis Film Festival. In 2008, he received the Mary Pickford Award for versatility in acting.
Mr. Keach was a Fulbright scholar to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, attended the University of California at Berkeley and the Yale Drama School. He has always been a star of the American stage, especially in Shakespearen roles such as Hamlet, Henry 5, Coriolanus, Falstaff, Macbeth, Richard 3, and most recently, King Lear.
Of his many accomplishments, Mr. Keach claims that his greatest accomplishment is his family. He has been married to his beautiful wife Malgosia for twenty-five years, and they have two wonderful children, Shannon Keach (1988), and daughter Karolina Keach (1990).- Actor
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Author, actor, comedian, composer and producer. He was educated at the New York School of Theatre, and received the Sylvania Television Award. Joining the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1957, he composed a number of songs and themes, a number of which were used in his famed television comedy sketches including "Mr. Question Man". His other popular-songs included "Ugly Duckling", "So Good to Me", "The Patty Cake", "The Irving Wong Song", and many more.- Music Artist
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Led Zeppelin are a popular British band best known for their iconic "Stairway to Heaven" as well as for co-creating the music genre of heavy metal. Since their nine albums were recorded between 1968 and 1979, Led Zeppelin has been one of the most popular bands of all time, having sold more than 300 million records and millions of concert tickets worldwide.
The quartet was conceived at the end of the Hippie love era, in a group marriage of blues, rock and roll, soul, rockabilly, folk ballad, jazz, classical and Eastern music, and something else scattered over some woozy sounds of their songs. It was their mutual artistic stimulation, their group interplay and imagination that incorporated mythology and mysticism, and concocted their inimitable style, and established the concept of album-oriented rock career.
Jimmy Page was already an experienced lead guitarist who worked with multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones in 1967, and they agreed to work on the next project. In August 1968 Page invited Robert Plant and John Bonham to join his band, the New Yardbirds, for a September tour in Scandinavia. In October 1968 they took the name Led Zeppelin, which stemmed from a humorous conversation among several musicians about their chances of going down like a lead balloon. However, British bands were highly anticipated in the USA, and the Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun signed the new band without even seeing them.
Their debut album, 'Led Zeppelin', recorded and mixed in just about 36 hours in October 1968, at Olympic Studios in London, kicked open the door for all extremes and experiments. The phallic image of the blown up Hindenburg airship on the cover, designed by George Hardie, announced the hardening of rock and coming of the new super-group. While ascending to musical success as a powerhouse band, Led Zeppelin explored a variety of styles, from English folk ballads to blues and rock, and created their own inimitable style.
Prior to the release of their first album, Led Zeppelin made live appearances at the University of Surrey and in London in October 1968, then went on their first American tour in December 1968. In their first year, Led Zeppelin made four concert tours in the USA, and another four tours in the UK. Their second album was recorded entirely on the road at several American recording studios, and was an even greater success than the first one. "Whole Lotta Love", "Heartbreaker", "Living, Loving Maid", and "Ramble On" became big international hits.
Each member of the quartet contributed to their compositions, thus setting a fine example of group creativity. Their songs and albums rambled on with the highly versatile voice-guitar interplay. Plant's incredible vocal range and Page's enchanting guitar solos were as responsible for the band's singularity as its musical wanderlust. Plant's and Page's musicianship was supported by the tight playing by John Paul Jones on bass, and John Bonham on drums. The intense interaction of all four players on stage gave their live performances a visual counterpoint to well intertwined harmonic and rhythmic structures of their compositions.
Their third album, Led Zeppelin III, influenced by folk and Celtic music, offered more inventiveness with acoustic/electric sound-work, and revealed more of the band's versatility with such compositions as the "Immigrant Song" and "Since I've Been Loving You". With the release of their fourth, and most popular album, Led Zeppelin achieved a reputation of the biggest band in the world. 'Stairway to Heaven' became the most played radio hit, several other songs became rock classics, and nobody knows how many more times their lines would help other musicians (like the opening riff from "How Many More Times" was later used by Pink Floyd in their hit "Money").
Capitalizing on the success of their first four albums, the band toured extensively in the 1970s. At that time they chartered a private jet, nicknamed the Starship, that carried the band's name and later added the famous 'Swan Song' winged Apollo image on the tail. Going to California turned into a ritual of wildness and excess, most notably at the Hyatt House hotel on the Sunset strip in Los Angeles, known colloquially as the "Riot House" for a series of some most exciting off-stage events, such as riding a motorcycle inside the hotel and throwing TV set out of the window. One of their concerts under a heavy thunderstorm in Florida ended with police using tear gas, and led to a temporary pause in their concert tours.
During the 70s their career was interrupted several times by accidents, deaths and other unfortunate events. In September 198O on the eve of an American tour, John Bonham accidentally died from pulmonary edema after a day of drinking. In December 1980, Led Zeppelin disbanded, albeit the public could still feel their presence. In 1982 a collection of out-takes from various sessions from the 70s was released as their last album, Coda. During the 80s the remaining three members experienced a serious communication breakdown, until they briefly united for a short set in 1985, and once again, in 1988, with Bonham's son, Jason, for the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary show.
In 1994 Page and Plant showed their softer side when they performed live together on 'MTV Unplugged', which was released the same year as album titled 'No quarter'. Then they made an international tour with an orchestra. In 1995 Page and Plant were joined by Jones when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, albeit the three former band-mates did not perform together. By that time Jimmy Page as well as Robert Plant had pursued individual careers touring and recording with their own bands.
Another ten years gone. Page's and Plant's call-and-response interplay took them through good times and bad times. Their sonic originality had sparked imagination and creativity in millions of open minds. Singers, songwriters, armies of music fans and a rainbow of dedicated 'led heads', as well as guitarists and guitar collectors worldwide remained united through the acquired experience and conditioning to the Led Zep sounds.
Hats off to Led Zeppelin, who opened the new extremes of musical expression, and are now back in the light confirming their presence. Their long anticipated reunion in December 2007 was a true celebration day. Their live performance was as tight as a rock band can be, and their living, loving song remains the same since we've been loving them. That's the way!
Thank you, Friends.- Actor
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A familiar name thanks to his handsome, brush-mustachioed titular cop on a popular 70's TV show, Bronx-born actor/singer/musician Hal Linden (né Harold Lipschitz, March 20, 1931) was the son of Lithuanian immigrant Charles Lipshitz and his wife Frances Rosen. He had one older brother, Bernard, who would become a future Professor of Music at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. Similarly musical, Hal took up classical clarinet in his late teens and went on to play regularly with symphony orchestras. After graduating from the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan, he studied music at Queens College, moving later to City College where he earned a degree in business. Hal supplemented his income playing in dance bands and was asked, at one point, to join Sammy Kaye on tour. Around this time he changed his marquee name to the more inviting "Hal Linden."
This mild invitation into professional show business sparked an interest in acting. Upon receiving his discharge, Hal enrolled at New York's American Theatre Wing where he trained in voice and drama. Eventually drafted into the Army in 1952, he utilized his talents by singing and providing entertainment for the troops. Discharged in 1954, he turned to summer stock and met Frances Martin, a dancer, the following year while both were in the chorus of "Mr. Wonderful" in Cape Cod. They married three years later and she willingly gave up her career to raise a family (four children).
During the early 1950s, he toured with Sammy Kaye and Bobby Sherwood and His Orchestra, among other bands. Hal's first Broadway show was with the 1956 musical "Bells Are Ringing" where he understudied lead Sydney Chaplin in the role of Jeff Moss. He later took over the role. He would make a bigger impression as Billy Crocker in the Broadway revival of Cole Porter in 1962. Hal accumulated more musical credits with leads in "Something More," "Illya, Darling" and "The Apple Tree" (as the Devil).
Although Hal also appeared in a couple of straight plays during this time ("Angel in the Pawnshop," "Three Men on a Horse"), he would win the 1971 Tony award for his earnest portrayal of Mayer Rothschild in the musical "The Rothschilds." This was quickly followed by the title role in the musical "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window," "The Enclave," "The Pajama Game," and other stage roles.
Hal's musical prominence finally led to legit television parts in the early 70's with guest appearances on "Circle of Fear," "Mr. Inside/Mr. Outside" and "The F.B.I." This, in turn, gave him the clout to be tested in a star role, that of the personable precinct boss on the highly popular Barney Miller (1975) sitcom. The long-running comedy program lasted eight seasons and Hal was subsequently Emmy-nominated each year, becoming a highly pleasant household name thanks to his warmly masculine looks, easy charm and dazzling smile.
Accommodating this TV triumph was several light and heavy TV-movie vehicles, including How to Break Up a Happy Divorce (1976), Father Figure (1980), The Other Woman (1983) and the two-person musical I Do! I Do! (1983) co-starring Lee Remick. Following that, Hal has appeared in other shorter-run TV series -- the title magician in Blacke's Magic (1986), title restaurateur in Jack's Place (1992) and as the beleaguered patriarch in the domestic sitcom The Boys Are Back (1994).
Although film stardom eluded Hal, he has supported a handful of films, including A New Life (1988), Just Friends (1996), Out to Sea (1997), Dumb Luck (2001), Time Changer (2002), Light Years Away (2008), Stevie D (2016), The Samuel Project (2018) and Grand-Daddy Day Care (2019). A much bigger presence on TV, Hal dominated with a number of guest appearances -- "The Golden Girls," "The Nanny," "Touched by an Angel," "Law & Order," "Will & Grace," "The King of Queens," "Hot in Cleveland," "2 Broke Girls" and "Grey's Anatomy." In 2006 and 2007, he enjoyed a recurring role on the daytime soap The Bold and the Beautiful (1987).
In between, he continued to impress on the stage with performances in such acclaimed plays and musicals as "Company," "Cabaret," "I'm Not Rappaport," "Tuesdays with Morrie," "The Sisters Rosenzweig" and "A Christmas Carol," while continuing musical tours as a clarinetist. The national chairman of the March of Dimes for many years, Hal's career length has now surpassed six decades. His wife Frances died in 2010.- Actor
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Fulton Mackay was born on August 12, 1922 in Paisley, Scotland. He was an actor and writer, best known for his portrayal of authoritarian prison warder Mr Mackay in one of the BBC's most popular sitcoms, Porridge (1974), as well as appearing in Local Hero (1983), Defense of the Realm (1985) and Doing Time (1979). He was married to Sheila Manahan. He died on June 6, 1987 in London, England.- Actor
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The bushy-browed, cigar-smoking wise-cracker with the painted-on moustache and stooped walk was the leader of The Marx Brothers. With one-liners that were often double entendres, Groucho never cursed in any of his performances and said he never wanted to be known as a dirty comic. With a great love of music and singing (The Marx Brothers started as a singing group), one of the things Groucho was best known for was his rendition of the song "Lydia the Tattooed Lady."- Producer
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Phil McGraw was born in Vinita, Oklahoma, to Anne Geraldine "Gerrie" (Stevens) and Joseph J. "Joe" McGraw, Jr., an equipment supplier for oil fields. He earned his doctorate degree in psychology from the University of North Texas [1979]. In 1980 he founded Courtroom Sciences, Inc., a full-service trial sciences firm. As president of CSI, he has traveled extensively throughout the United States, Europe and the Far East consulting with clients including Fortune 500 companies, major networks and airlines. He has also conducted seminars on life strategies and goal acquisition for tens of thousands of participants from the general public and corporate America.
His relationship columns appear in each monthly issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. He has written three books - "Life Strategies: Doing What Works, Doing What Matters", "Relationship Rescue", and "Family First".- Actor
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The words "suave" and "debonair" became synonymous with the name Adolphe Menjou in Hollywood, both on- and off-camera. The epitome of knavish, continental charm and sartorial opulence, Menjou, complete with trademark waxy black mustache, evolved into one of Hollywood's most distinguished of artists and fashion plates, a tailor-made scene-stealer, if you will. What is often forgotten is that he was primed as a matinée idol back in the silent-film days. With hooded, slightly owlish eyes, a prominent nose and prematurely receding hairline, he was hardly competition for Rudolph Valentino, but he did possess the requisite demeanor to confidently pull off a roguish and magnetic man-about-town. Fluent in six languages, Menjou was nearly unrecognizable without some type of formal wear, and he went on to earn distinction as the nation's "best dressed man" nine times.
Born on February 18, 1890, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was christened Adolphe Jean Menjou, the elder son of a hotel manager. His Irish mother was a distant cousin of novelist / poet James Joyce ("Ulysses") (1882-1941). His French father, an émigré, eventually moved the family to Cleveland, where he operated a chain of restaurants. He disapproved of show business and sent an already piqued Adolphe to Culver Military Academy in Indiana in the hopes of dissuading him from such a seemingly reckless and disreputable career. From there Adolphe was enrolled at Stiles University prep school and then Cornell University. Instead of acquiescing to his father's demands and obtaining a engineering degree, however, he abruptly changed his major to liberal arts and began auditioning for college plays. He left Cornell in his third year in order to help his father manage a restaurant for a time during a family financial crisis. From there he left for New York and a life in the theater.
Adolphe toiled as a laborer, a haberdasher and even a waiter in one of his father's restaurants during his salad days, which included some vaudeville work. Oddly enough, he never made it to Broadway but instead found extra and/or bit work for various film studios (Vitagraph, Edison, Biograph) starting in 1915. World War I interrupted his early career, and he served as a captain with the Ambulance Corps in France. After the war he found employment off-camera as a productions manager and unit manager. When the New York-based film industry moved west, so did Adolphe.
Nothing of major significance happened for the fledgling actor until 1921, an absolute banner year for him. After six years of struggle he finally broke into the top ranks with substantial roles in The Faith Healer (1921) and Through the Back Door (1921), the latter starring Mary Pickford. He formed some very strong connections as a result and earned a Paramount contract in the process. Cast by Mary's then-husband Douglas Fairbanks as Louis XIII in the rousing silent The Three Musketeers (1921), he finished off the year portraying the influential writer/friend Raoul de Saint Hubert in Rudolph Valentino's classic The Sheik (1921).
Firmly entrenched in the Hollywood lifestyle, it took little time for Menjou to establish his slick prototype as the urbane ladies' man and wealthy roué. Paramount, noticing how Menjou stole scenes from Charles Chaplin favorite Edna Purviance in Chaplin's A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923), started capitalizing on Menjou's playboy image by casting him as various callous and creaseless matinée leads in such films as Broadway After Dark (1924), Sinners in Silk (1924), The Ace of Cads (1926), A Social Celebrity (1926) and A Gentleman of Paris (1927). His younger brother Henri Menjou, a minor actor, had a part in Adolphe's picture Blonde or Brunette (1927).
The stock market crash led to the termination of Adolphe's Paramount contract, and his status as leading man ended with it. MGM took him on at half his Paramount salary and his fluency in such languages as French and Spanish kept him employed at the beginning. Rivaling Gary Cooper for the attentions of Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1930) started the ball rolling for Menjou as a dressy second lead. Rarely placed in leads following this period, he managed his one and only Oscar nomination for "Best Actor" with his performance as editor Walter Burns in The Front Page (1931). Not initially cast in the role, he replaced Louis Wolheim, who died ten days into rehearsal. Quality parts in quality pictures became the norm for Adolphe during the 1930s, with outstanding roles given him in The Great Lover (1931), A Farewell to Arms (1932), Forbidden (1932), Little Miss Marker (1934), Morning Glory (1933), A Star Is Born (1937), Stage Door (1937) and Golden Boy (1939).
The 1940s were not as golden, however. In addition to entertaining the troops overseas and making assorted broadcasts in a host of different languages, he did manage to get the slick and slimy Billy Flynn lawyer role opposite Ginger Rogers' felon in the "Chicago" adaptation Roxie Hart (1942), and continued to earn occasional distinction in such post-WWII pictures as The Hucksters (1947) and State of the Union (1948). His last lead was in the crackerjack thriller The Sniper (1952), in which he played an (urbane) San Francisco homicide detective tracking down a killer who preys on women in San Francisco, and he appeared without his mustache for the first time in nearly two decades. Also active on radio and TV, his last notable film was the classic anti-war picture Paths of Glory (1957) playing the villainous Gen. Broulard.
Adolphe's extreme hardcore right-wing Republican politics hurt his later reputation, as he was made a scapegoat for his cooperation as a "friendly witness" at the House Un-American Activities Commission hearing during the Joseph McCarthy Red Scare era. Following his last picture, Disney's Pollyanna (1960), in which he played an uncharacteristically rumpled curmudgeon who is charmed by Hayley Mills, he retired from acting. He died after a nine-month battle with hepatitis on October 29, 1963, inside his Beverly Hills home. Three times proved the charm for Adolphe with his 1934 marriage to actress Verree Teasdale, who survived him. The couple had an adopted son named Peter. His autobiography, "It Took Nine Tailors" (1947), pretty much says it all for this polished, preening professional.- Music Department
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A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and a classically trained oboist, Mitch Miller first entered the pop music scene in 1948 at Mercury Records, where he guided such acts as Vic Damone, Frankie Laine and Patti Page to success. In 1950 he was lured by Goddard Lieberson to Columbia Records as that label's A&R director, where he made stars out of Tony Bennett, Johnnie Ray, Guy Mitchell and many others. Miller himself first shot to prominence in the late 1950s with his "Sing Along" series of albums, which ultimately led to his own series, Sing Along with Mitch (1961). His opposition to rock and roll, however, undercut Columbia's market position for several years until after he left the label in 1965. In recent years he has occasionally served as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras across the country.- Eddie Mustafa Muhammad is a former WBA Light Heavyweight champion. His first title shot was against WBA light heavyweight champion Victor Emilio Galindez but he lost on points. He then got a second title shot for the WBA title this time against Marvin Johnson. Muhammad stopped Johnson in the 11th round and won the WBA light heavyweight title. He defended his title 3 times until losing it to Michael Spinks in a 15 round points decision.
Professional Record 50-8-1 (39). - Actor
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Offbeat funnyman Martin Mull was born on August 18, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois, the oldest of three children of Betty, an actress and director, and Harold Mull, a carpenter. He was raised in Ohio. The blond-maned, blue-eyed comedian with the sad, droopy mustache first came in contact with the arts by honing in on his innate talents as a painter. In order to pay his art school tuition, he started organizing bands. At around the same time, he discovered that stand-up comedy was another way to allow his creative juices to flow.
Martin's early recognition as a humorist led to a recording contract, and, over the years, he would be Grammy-nominated several times for a number of eccentric comedy albums. His gimmick and allure came in the form of a dry, humorless delivery and a bland, highly conservative-looking demeanor, which masked a sly, witty and ultra-hip philosophy.
Gaining popularity in the 1970s, he finally broke into TV with the cult soap opera parody Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) in which he played Garth Gimble, a volatile wife abuser whose comeuppance occurred in the form of an aluminum Christmas tree (impaled) in his home closet. Martin was so popular on the show that he was resurrected in the spin-off series Fernwood Tonight (1977) as twin brother Barth Gimble, who was a co-host of the town's television program along with Fred Willard's Jerry Hubbard character.
After this peak, Martin became a sought-after guest on the talk show circuit, not to mention variety specials and TV movies. He tried his hand at producing and starring in his own sitcom Domestic Life (1984) but the series failed. He also added his special brand of merriment to films over the years, some of them being decent, such as FM (1978), Serial (1980), Mr. Mom (1983) and Clue (1985) in the role of the tweedy-looking Colonel Mustard, while most have been either formula schtick or just plain drivel, as in Take This Job and Shove It (1981), Rented Lips (1987), which he produced and wrote, Cutting Class (1989), Far Out Man (1990) with Cheech & Chong, and Mr. Write (1994).
Martin's extensive TV credits include starring roles in the comedy series His & Hers (1990) co-starring Stephanie Faracy as a fellow doctor; and The Jackie Thomas Show (1992) starring Tom Arnold; and recurring comedy roles including a restaurant boss in the hit "domestic goddess" series Roseanne (1988); a principal in Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996); a high school teacher in The Ellen Show (2001); plus 'Til Death (2006), Life in Pieces (2015), I'm Sorry (2017), Arrested Development (2003), The Cool Kids (2018) and The Ranch (2016). Martin has also lent his voice to the animated comedies Family Dog (1993), Teamo Supremo (2002), Danny Phantom (2003) and American Dad! (2005). Millennium film credits include featured roles in The Year That Trembled (2002), Come Away Home (2005), Relative Strangers (2006), Killers (2010), And They're Off (2011) and A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018).
Martin's first passion has always been art and the distinguished multi-media artist's work has been showcased in galleries throughout the world. He also authored the book "Painting, Drawing and World," which is a compilation of ten years of his work. Mull is married to a composer and musician, Wendy, and they have a daughter, Maggie Mull.- Director
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Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.
Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color.
His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and An Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne, and are considered among the most important early science fiction films.
Méliès died of cancer on 21 January 1938 at the age of 76.
In 2016, a Méliès film long thought lost, A Wager Between Two Magicians, or, Jealous of Myself (1904), was discovered in a Czechoslovak film archive.- Rick Nelson is known for Bad Interview (2018) and Survivor (2000).
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Leaving his hometown of Dayton, Ohio, Stephen Nichols traveled West, not in search of "fame and fortune," but to become a monk. He landed in Hollywood at the Self-Realization Fellowship Temple, where he studied yoga, cooked vegetarian meals for the residents and lived the monk's life preparing to enter the ashram. After three years of deep meditation, celibacy, and a steady diet of the films of Truffaut, Bergman and Cassavetes, Nichols realized being a monk was not his path. On a dare, Nichols auditioned for the Theater Academy of Los Angeles City College where he realized that acting and directing was his true calling. Nichols began his acting career in Los Angeles theater during its renaissance in the early 80s and has been honored with Drama-logue and L.A. Weekly Awards for his performances in such notable productions as Pieces of Time, for his portrayal of real-life killer, Donald Bashor, for the suicidal drug-dealer Hart in the long-running, smash hit, Delirious, and as Jim Morrison during the last thirty-six hours of his life in The Lizard King. He also appeared at LATC in Rick Clutchey's The Cage, in the award-winning production of Michael Cristofer's The Shadow Box, and Love Letters, at the Canon Theater. Nichols also starred in He Hunts at the Geffen Playhouse, starred in the U.S. premiere of Joe Pintaro's electrifying The Dead Boy. Nichols also portrayed Ricky Roma in Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross at Pacific Resident Theatre. Nichols has starred in several feature films including the WWII drama Heaven's Tears, the horror classic Witchboard, Choices, with Demi Moore, and as the unsuspecting cyborg in the sci-fi thriller Phoenix with Brad Dourif. He has appeared in many other films including, Merchants of Venus with Michael York and Beverly D'Angelo, Cover Me, with Paul Sorvino and Eliot Gould, The Glass Cage, with Eric Roberts, Checkmate, and A Hard Rain with John Mahoney. As one of the most enduring stars of daytime television, Nichols portrayed the infamous Steven "Patch" Johnson on NBC's Days of Our Lives, which earned him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Leading Role and five Soap Opera Digest Best Actor Awards. He is also known for his portrayals of Stefan Cassadine on ABC's General Hospital and Tucker McCall on CBS's Young and the Restless. Nichols co-starred as Tommy Simmons in the series Second Chances with Jennifer Lopez and as Brad Dimitri on 2000 Malibu Road. Among his numerous TV appearances, two favorites are as Jesse James opposite Pierce Brosnan and Eric Idle in the NBC mini-series Around the World in 80 Days and playing opposite Dennis Hopper in Crash. Nichols has directed for both stage and screen. He wrote and directed his first short film, Get the Dime, starring Daniel Bess Emily Bergl and Robert Picardo. The wrenching drama tells the story of a callous young actor's life-changing wake-up call while researching a role as a transgender woman. It was an official selection at the prestigious Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films and several others. Following that he directed the short, I See, starring Ptolemy Slocum and Julie Pinson about an NSA-obsessed paranoiac and the effect it has on his marriage, as well as a satire of our surveillance state. Upcoming, Nichols will direct the feature-length, supernatural thriller inspired by true events, Medulla.- Actor
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Nick Offerman was born in Joliet, Illinois, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Parks and Recreation (2009), The Founder (2016), 21 Jump Street (2012), 22 Jump Street (2014), We Are The Millers (2013), and Fargo (2014). He has been married to Megan Mullally since September 20, 2003.- Actor
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Warner Oland was born Johan Verner Olund in the small village of Nyby in Bjurholm parish in the county of Vasterbotten, Sweden, on October 3, 1879. Bjurholm is situated about 60 kilometers outside the town of Umea. His family emigrated to the US on October 15, 1892. His father Jonas was a shopkeeper and his mother was Maria Johanna (nee Forsberg).
After finishing grade school and working on Broadway during his 20s, Oland settled in California in the early 1910s, where he worked odd jobs. The movie industry was in its beginning stages in Hollywood, and Johan Olund--changing his name to the more Americanized "Warner Oland"--worked as a stage actor for a while before getting small parts in films in the 1910s and 1920s. As Hollywood made the transition from silent to sound pictures in the late 1920s (Oland co-starred in Warner Brothers' groundbreaking part-talkie The Jazz Singer (1927)), he began landing more prominent roles.
His greatest success came in 1931 when he was cast in the role of Charlie Chan, a Honolulu-based Chinese-American police detective in Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), based on the popular detective mystery series by Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933] which was produced by Fox Films. His performance as the seemingly mild-mannered but razor-sharp Asian detective won him critical acclaim, which resulted in his playing Chan again in the sequel, The Black Camel (1931).
The success of the Chan character turned into a cash cow for Fox Studios and Oland became a valuable property. It seems incredible today, but in Fox's pre-Shirley Temple period, Oland was considered the only guaranteed profit maker on the lot. He became wealthy and bred miniature schnauzers. Although seemingly happy, Oland became increasingly dependent upon alcohol and exhibited bizarre delusional behavior after periods of drinking.
Oland appeared in a total of 16 Charlie Chan feature films from 1931 to 1937. The Chan films were budgeted approaching 1930s A-picture levels (approximately $275,000) and were usually shot within tight 30-day schedules, three films per year (sadly, a number of these have apparently been lost). The series was pretty much the only guaranteed profit-maker the ailing studio could bank on during the days leading to its takeover by ex-Warner's production chief Darryl F. Zanuck in 1935, that resulted in its transformation from Fox Films into Twentieth Century-Fox.
From 1931 to 1935 Oland did other films besides the Chan series, but he was increasingly relegated to roles that didn't vary much beyond mysterious Asians, and in mid-1935 he became so identified as Charlie Chan that he was assigned to the series exclusively. His last eight films were all Chan entries, usually co-starring Keye Luke, who played Chan's Number One Son. While considered somewhat stereotypical today, these films were met with wide critical acclaim and all were hugely profitable. The best of the series is generally considered to be Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), featuring lavish set design and a particularly effective menacing villain in Boris Karloff.
Oland's physical and mental problems slowly began to catch up to him, and in 1937 he was said to have suffered a nervous breakdown apparently due to some kind of mental dementia. The Fox executives, knowing that Oland was one of its biggest money earners, kept his alcoholism and mental problems hidden from the public. In November 1937, Edith, his wife of 30 years, filed for divorce. In January 1938 "Charlie Chan at (the) Ringside" began production at Fox's Western Avenue lot under the direction of James Tinling with an increasingly erratic Oland. After a few days shooting inside Studio 6, Oland walked out and never returned. He was heard complaining the studio was possessed by voodoo and feared contracting pneumonia. Over the next month there were numerous negotiations between Oland and SAG (Oland had been an early member) and production was briefly resumed, then suspended after Oland again failed to report to work. He was hospitalized and released, then decided to return to his mother's home in Sweden. Oland's film career, unbeknown to him, was over. In the interim, producer Sol M. Wurtzel, desperate to salvage the property, ordered the Chan picture reworked as Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938), with minor supporting cast changes. Successful negotiations were made with the Biggers' estate and the film was quickly shot with Peter Lorre and released April 7, 1938. The film itself remains an anachronism in the Moto series, as it contains much Chan-like dialog, tacked on Moto-esque action scenes and a guest-starring role by Keye Luke. Regardless, it was also a hit.
During his visit to Sweden, Oland negotiated a reconciliation with Edith but contracted bronchial pneumonia and died there on August 6, 1938, at age 57. Ironically, Fox contract (and Chan series) director John G. Blystone died the same day.
Numerous actors were tested to fill Oland's shoes as Charlie Chan, among them Cy Kendall, Walter Connolly, J. Edward Bromberg, Noah Beery Jr., Michael Visaroff and Leo Carillo (Kendall and Connelly had played Chan on radio). The series continued at Fox for another 11 entries with Sidney Toler, who was signed by Zanuck in mid-October 1938. Toler injected more humor into the character as scripts became somewhat more pedestrian. By 1942 Fox considered the series exhausted and it would ultimately be sold to low-budget studio Monogram Pictures and continue on even after Toler's death in 1947 with Roland Winters in the role through six dismal films into 1949.
In a postscript, Fox director Norman Foster paid a subtle tribute to Oland in the next Moto film, Mr. Moto's Last Warning (1938). During that movie's production in August 1938, cast and crew learned of Oland's passing in his native Sweden. Over the title Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938), on the bill of the Sultana Theatre of Variety, they placed the banner "Last Day."- Actor
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Michael Allan Patton was born on January 27th 1968 in California. He formed the band Mr Bungle at the age of 15, and after Jim Martin (of Faith No More) heard Mr Bungle, Mike was asked to join Faith No More as a permanent full time vocalist. After a turbulent career which lasted until April 1998, Faith No More broke up and since then Mike has participated and created some of the most bizarre and creative musical works ever to exist, including his brainchild Fantomas.- Actor
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Efren Ramirez has been working as a professional actor for many years. Initially, his career consisted of guest star appearances on television, as he appeared in diverse roles on "E.R.", "AMERICAN DAD", "JUDGING AMY", "THE DISTRICT", "MAD TV", and "SCRUBS."
However, it was his memorable portrayal of "PEDRO" in the feature film "NAPOLEON DYNAMITE" that dramatically launched what has become a hugely prolific acting career with an unusually diverse series of performances in Film, Television, Drama, Comedy...every imaginable medium and genre.
In the years since that film was released, Efren Ramirez has appeared in scores of films and television shows, including leading roles in the HBO film "WALKOUT"; with Edward James Olmos, "EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH"; opposite Dane Cook and Dax Shepard, "CRANK" and CRANK HIGH VOLTAGE; opposite Jason Statham, (playing his own twin brother in the sequel.) He also appeared in "GAMER" with Gerard Butler, "WHEN IN ROME" with Kristen Bell, "CROSSING THE HEART" opposite Kris Kristofferson, "HOUSE OF MY FATHER" opposite Will Ferrell, and HBO's EASTBOUND AND DOWN" with Danny McBride.
Most recently, you can expect to see him in FOX's Television hit "THE GRINDER" with Rob Lowe and the animated series "BORDERTOWN" with Hank Azaria and Alex Bernstein, HULU's "DEADBEAT" with Tyler Labine, and the film "MIDDLESCHOOL: THE WORST YEARS OF MY LIFE" based on the James Patterson best seller.
Efren Ramirez currently resides in Los Angeles and New York. When he isn't filming, he is spinning records as a guest D.J. in clubs all across the country. He has published his first book DIRECT YOUR OWN LIFE. Efren recently returned from a USO TOUR visiting our troops in Bahrain, UAE, Dubai, and Africa. He frequently speaks to students at high schools and universities and is very involved with charitable organizations.- Actor
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Mark Brandon Read was born on 17 November 1954 in Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He was an actor and writer, known for Chopper (2000), Start Options Exit (2014) and Trojan Warrior (2002). He was married to Margaret Cassar and Mary-Ann Hodge. He died on 9 October 2013 in Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.Chopper Read- Actor
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Sam Roberts was born on 2 October 1974 in Pointe Claire, Québec, Canada. He is an actor and composer, known for S.W.A.T. (2003), Beyond Borders (2003) and Sam Roberts: Hard Road (2003). He has been married to Jen since 2004.- Producer
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Dan Rowan was a comedian most famous as the straight man to Dick Martin, with whom he co-hosted the watershed TV program Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967) from 1968-1973. The comedian debuted into small-town life as Daniel Hale David in Beggs, Oklahoma on July 22, 1922, the son of show people. As a child, Rowan toured the carnival circuit with his mother in father as part of a song and dance act. Orphaned in 1933, he eventually was adopted by a family in Denver, Colorado. He moved to Hollywood after high school, and obtained employment as a writer at Paramount Studios. Rowan joined the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II, where he distinguished himself as a P-40 fighter plane pilot in the Pacific Theater. Rowan was credited with downing two Japanese aircraft (it took five kills to be named an ace during World War II), but he was shot down and seriously wounded in New Guinea. During his military career, Rowan was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Air Medal, and the Purple Heart.
Demobilized, Dan Rowan returned to California and married Phyllis Mathis in 1946. He and Phyllis had three children, Thomas, Mary Ann (who was briefly married to actor and professional Presidential brother-in-law Peter Lawford, and Christie. (Rowan divorced his first wife and married again, to Adriana Van Ballegooyen in 1963). He eventually teamed up with Dick Martin in a comedy act that toured the night-club circuit and played Las Vegas. Rowan & Martin had made TV appearances before on such programs as "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Merv Griffin" before being hired by NBC to host a comedy special in the summer of 1967. In an era of "Be-Ins" and "Love-Ins" (an outgrowth of the "Sit-Ins" of the Civil Rights Movement, itself a reflection of the autoworkers' sit-ins of the late 1930s staged to win labor union recognition), NBC wanted to host a "Laugh-In". The middle-aged Rowan & Martin were picked as the hosts. The success of the special lead to the scheduling of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967) as part of NBC's regular line-up in 1968, programmed against the popular Lucille Ball on CBS.
A hybrid comedy-variety program that proved a counterpoint to the more satirical and political The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967) on rival network CBS, "Laugh-In" was rooted in traditional vaudeville like most musical/variety series of the time, but had an improvisational, anarchic style. This style, which downplayed appearances of guest stars like Jack Benny, Johnny Carson, John Wayne, Zsa Zsa Gabor and even Richard Nixon in favor of the cast of regulars, reflected the late '60s zeitgeist. As hosts, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin did not dominate their variety show as did a contemporary like Dean Martin. Part of the fun and the freshness of the series was that the two co-hosts were continually being undermined by the appearances of the regulars, during which a comedic "all-hell" would break loose. The sight-gags and appearance of the eccentric performers created a sense of the unexpected that proved intoxicating to TV audiences. (The regular cast included announcer Gary Owens, Emmy-winner Ruth Buzzi, Henry Gibson, Emmy-winner Arte Johnson, Alan Sues, Jo Anne Worley, and Judy Carne, while the regularly appearing guest stars included Tiny Tim, Peter Lawford and Henny Youngman).
The dynamic of the two co-hosts also was anarchic, as Dan Rowan's straight-man continually was undermined by the silliness and outright other-world imbecility of Dick Martin's comic persona. In this, Martin was an ally of the cast, who appeared willy-nilly during the broadcast, without discernible rhyme or reason other than making merry. Rowan, as the "mature" member of the hosting ensemble, was less a conductor of the comedy show than a ring-master who seemed to have found himself put down inside the center of the lion's den, with a hopelessly inept lion-tamer (Martin) as his partner.
"Laugh-In" was considered revolutionary at the time in terms of production, as it broke away from the old proscenium stage production that had dominated variety shows on TV since the beginning of broadcast television after World War II. The program was produced with a quick-cutting, fragmentary editing style that not only reflected current avant-garde movie production techniques but fully realized the power of video. It was an audacious melding of form and content, and "Laugh-In" proved to be a huge hit and was one of the highest-rated series of the late 1960s. It would prove to be the single most influential TV show in terms of its influence on comedy until the debut of the more conventionally produced Saturday Night Live (1975) in 1975.
"Laugh-In" won three Emmys at the 1968 Emmy Awards, for Outstanding Musical or Variety Program (for the 1967 Special), for Best Musical or Variety Series, and for Best Writing (shared by ten writers, including series creator Digby Wolfe). Due to its topicality and because it so closely caught the spirit of the '60s and reflected that era's aesthetic, "Laugh-In" quickly dated and never packed the punch in syndication that other retired TV shows did. Nothing becomes old-fashioned more quickly than the fashionable. However, "Laugh-In" also proved ground-breaking in its introduction and use of female and minority performers, bringing to a mainstream audience such diverse entertainers as the great, "Chitlin Circuit" African-American comedian Dewey 'Pigmeat' Markham and the young, Emmy-nominated Goldie Hawn, who would go on to a long movie-career as an Oscar-winning comedienne and top box-office star. Rowan & Martin attempted to launch a movie career, but their attempt to become the late '60s answer to Martin & Lewis with the ill-conceived The Maltese Bippy (1969) flopped. After "Laugh-In" was canceled in 1973, Rowan occasionally made some TV program and game show appearances, but eventually retired to Florida. A type II diabetic, he died of lymphatic cancer in Manasota Key, Florida on September 22, 1987. He was 65 years old.- Director
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Aaron Ruell was born on 23 June 1976 in Fresno, California, USA. He is a director and actor, known for Napoleon Dynamite (2004), Everything's Gone Green (2005) and Mary (2005). He is married to Yuka Ruell.- Producer
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Hironobu Sakaguchi was born on 25 November 1962 in Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan. He is a producer and writer, known for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), Final Fantasy Chronicles (2001) and Final Fantasy IV (1991).- Actor
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Avery Schreiber's 1960s and 1970s partner on the comedy stage was Jack Burns, the slimmer, chatty, clean-cut, better-looking dunderhead. Avery Schreiber was the Oliver Hardy counterpart who bore the brunt of Burns' verbal drone. This rumpled, gap-toothed, hefty-sized master of the slow boil stood out among the crowd with his huge trademark walrus mustache, thick thatch of curly black hair, slim teddy bear eyes and mischievous grin. Together the pair became a staple of TV variety shows, mainstays on such classic entertainment as "The Ed Sullivan Show," "The Dean Martin Show" and "The Hollywood Palace."
Born in 1935 in Chicago, Illinois, of modest means, Schreiber's father was a common laborer while his mother made do as a secretary. At 17 Schreiber enlisted in the Armed Services and eventually became a part of the All-Army Talent Show. This satisfaction of putting on variety shows and entertaining prompted his move into a career of comedy. Winning a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse, he instead decided to stay closer to home and attend night school at the University of Chicago while studying his craft at the Goodman Theatre. A cabaret show brought him to the attention of the renown improv troupe Second City in 1960, where he remained for five years developing sketches and characters.
It was at Second City that Schreiber met Jack Burns, a former Boston news anchorman, in 1962. The Irish/Jewish duo began performing together on cruise ships and elsewhere. Jack Paar first introduced "Burns & Schreiber" to TV on his "Tonight Show" program in 1964. The duo's most identifiable skit was the "taxi cab" routine with Avery as a beleaguered cabbie at the mercy of Burns' relentlessly gabby and nonsensical customer, with Burns punctuating every conversation with a repeated "Huh?...Huh?...Huh?" Political satire was also a strong, popular platform for Schreiber both with Burns (the album "The Watergate Comedy Hour") and without. Schreiber was at his very best skewering politicos.
Both trained actors, they also gave each other the freedom to work solo. Burns would repeat as Deputy Warren Ferguson on The Andy Griffith Show (1960) for a time and Schreiber was a regular as the broadly villainous Captain Mancini on My Mother the Car (1965), now better known as the Edsel of 60s TV shows.
At their peak, the duo appeared as regulars on the summer replacement musical variety series Our Place (1967), then earned the right to front their own summer series with The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour (1973). It was hard to figure out who in this duo was the funnyman and who was the straightman although Avery was considered the more reactive of the two.
Breaking up once in 1968 because they felt stale, they reteamed for a time in 1972, but split again later when Burns decided to leave the limelight and devote himself exclusively to writing. Schreiber continued providing guest comedy relief on "Alice," "The Rockford Files" and "The Dukes of Hazzard" and sitting on game show panels.
He also kept close ties to the stage throughout his career. Directing a Broadway revue entitled "How to Be a Jewish Mother" in 1967, he performed in (Second City) Paul Sills' production of "Ovid's Metamorphosis." Schreiber also performed in productions of "Hamlet," "Showboat" and "Fiddler on the Roof." He last appeared on Broadway in "Welcome to the Club" in 1989, which was a short-lived Cy Coleman musical.
Households knew him best for his various Doritos corn chip ads in a sundry of disguises (chef, sultan, pilot), all of them perturbed by people loudly crunching on the popular snack. In addition to acting, Schreiber taught improv theater in and out of his L.A.-based area.
In 1994, Schreiber suffered a heart attack, aggravated by his diabetes. Although he survived triple by-pass surgery, he never fully recovered. He died at age 66 in Los Angeles of a heart attack and was survived by his wife of 40 years, Rochelle Isaacs, and their two children, Jenny and Joshua.- Actor
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Campbell Scott is an American actor, producer and director. His roles include Steve Dunne in Singles, Mark Usher in House of Cards, Joseph Tobin in Damages, and Richard Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Scott was born on July 19, 1961, in New York City, the son of American actor George C. Scott (1927-1999) and Canadian-American actor Colleen Dewhurst (1924-1991). He graduated from John Jay High School with friend Stanley Tucci before graduating from Lawrence University in 1983.- Actor
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Thomas William Selleck is an American actor and film producer, best known for his starring role as Hawaii-based private investigator "Thomas Magnum" on the 1980s television series, Magnum, P.I. (1980).
Selleck was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Martha (Jagger), a homemaker, and Robert Dean Selleck, a real estate investor and executive. He is of mostly English descent, including recent immigrant ancestors. Selleck has appeared extensively on television in roles such as "Dr. Richard Burke" on Friends (1994) and "A.J. Cooper" on Las Vegas (2003). In addition to his series work, Selleck has appeared in more than fifty made-for-TV and general release movies, including Mr. Baseball (1992), Quigley Down Under (1990), Lassiter (1984) and, his most successful movie release, Three Men and a Baby (1987), which was the highest grossing movie in 1987.
Selleck also plays "Jesse Stone" in a series of made-for-TV movies, based on the Robert B. Parker novels. In 2010, he appears as "Commissioner Frank Reagan" in the drama series, Blue Bloods (2010) on CBS.- Actor
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Dan "The Beast" Severn is a legend in amateur and professional wrestling and Martial Arts. Born in Coldwater, Michigan, on June 9, 1959, he excelled in wrestling in both high school and college. A winner of over 500 amateur victories and numerous titles, he was an alternate on the USA Olympic Wrestling team. Severn turned to professional Wrestling and captured the National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Title; a title which he held for 10 years. In the early 1990s, he entered the world of Mixed Martial Arts. He excelled, winning numerous world championships. Severn defeated such greats as Ken Shamrock, Conan Silvera, David Abbott, Oleg Taktarov, Anthony Macias, and Bart Vale. His mixed martial arts record is 77-11-7. He is a noted barnstormer and has been defeating opponents on a monthly basis for the past three years.- Writer
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William Shakespeare's birthdate is assumed from his baptism on April 25. His father John was the son of a farmer who became a successful tradesman; his mother Mary Arden was gentry. He studied Latin works at Stratford Grammar School, leaving at about age 15. About this time his father suffered an unknown financial setback, though the family home remained in his possession. An affair with Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior and a nearby farmer's daughter, led to pregnancy and a hasty marriage late in 1582. Susanna was born in May of 1583, twins Hamnet and Judith in January of 1585. By 1592 he was an established actor and playwright in London though his "career path" afterward (fugitive? butcher? soldier? actor?) is highly debated. When plague closed the London theatres for two years he apparently toured; he also wrote two long poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece". He may have spent this time at the estate of the Earl of Southampton. By December 1594 he was back in London as a member of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the company he stayed with the rest of his life. In 1596 he seems to have purchased a coat of arms for his father; the same year Hamnet died at age 11. The following year he purchased the grand Stratford mansion New Place. A 1598 edition of "Love's Labors" was the first to bear his name, though he was already regarded as England's greatest playwright. He is believed to have written his "Sonnets" during the 1590s. In 1599 he became a partner in the new Globe Theatre, the company of which joined the royal household on the accession of James in 1603. That is the last year in which he appeared in a cast list. He seems to have retired to Stratford in 1612, where he continued to be active in real estate investment. The cause of his death is unknown.- Japanese character actor Takashi Shimura was one of the finest film actors of the 20th century and a leading member of the "stock company" of master director Akira Kurosawa. A native of southern Japan, Shimura was a descendant of the samurai warrior class. Following university training, he founded a theatre company, Shichigatsu-za ("July Theatre"). In 1930 he joined a professional company, Kindai-za ("Modern Theatre"). Four years later he signed with the Kinema Shinko film studio. He found a niche playing samurai roles for various studios, then signed a long-term contract with Toho Studios in 1943. He appeared in an average of six films a year for Toho over the next four decades. His greatest critical acclaim came in more than 20 roles for Kurosawa, though he is almost as well recognized outside Japan for his kindly doctor role in the original "Godzilla" (Godzilla (1954)). Shimura's triumph was his unforgettable performance as a dying bureaucrat in Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952). He continued to act steadily, in good films and bad, almost until his death, culminating with Kurosawa's Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980). He is often described as filling the spot for Kurosawa that Ward Bond filled for John Ford--an ever-present and reliable character player who consistently supplied a solidity and strength to whatever film he appeared in. Shimura was definitely a finer actor than Bond, of the most versatile "chameleons" in the world cinema, a great artist with enormous range in sublime interpretations, from Ikiru (1952)'s diffident clerk to the leader of the Seven Samurai in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954). He died in 1982, a reluctant icon of Japanese cinema.
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Movie roles are sometimes based upon what the audience expects to see. If the role called for the tall stereotypical Englishmen with the stiff upper lip and stern determination, that man would be C. Aubrey Smith, graduate of Cambridge University, a leading Freemason and a test cricketer for England. Smith was 30 by the time he embarked upon a career on the stage. It took another 20 plus years before he entered the flickering images of the movies. By 1915, Smith was over 50 in a medium that demanded young actors and starlets. For the next ten years, he appeared in a rather small number of silent movies, and after that, he faded from the scene. It was in 1930, with the advent of sound, that Smith found his position in the movies and that position would be distinguished roles. He played military officers, successful business men, ministers of the cloth and ministers of government. With the bushy eyebrows and stoic face, he played men who know about honour, tradition, and the correct path. He worked with big stars such as Greta Garbo, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Shirley Temple. As for honours, Smith received the Order of the British Empire in 1938 and was knighted in 1944. He continued to work up to the time of his death.- Actor
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Abandoned as an infant, and then raised by wolves in the Mojave Desert, is certainly not an accurate description of Paul's upbringing. Rather, he was the son of an Air Force Major and a hospital administrator. Paul and his three sisters moved from Sacramento, California to Anchorage, Alaska to Phoenix, Arizona, finally settling down in Denver, Colorado.- Composer
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After his parents, Jack and Sadie, separated when he was 14, he lived with his father, a prosperous accountant, but it was his mother who had the greatest impact on him. At 19, he married Pam soon after leaving Sunderland, but in 1977, she was replaced by Annie Lennox, whom he met in 1977 after she had dropped out of the Royal College of Music. He was so taken with her that he asked her to marry him; instead, they moved in together and formed the band 'The Tourists', splitting up four years later. Some years later, he met Siobhan Fahey, who after leaving 'Bananarama' had formed 'Shakespears Sister'. They married in 1987, eventually having two sons, Sam Hurricane and Django James Lawless.
He has a £2 million house in Encino, Los Angeles, featuring a helicopter landing pad, a swimming pool, and a four-acre garden; a £750,000 converted warehouse in Hampstead, London; and a £2 million apartment in Covent Garden, London. He has a great love of cars, owning a £250,000 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, resprayed like the cover of his Spiritual Cowboy album, and a 1956 Silver Cloud which was one of only seven made. He's reputed to be worth around £30 million.- Writer
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John Stossel was born on 6 March 1947 in Chicago Heights, Illinois, USA. He is a writer and actor, known for 20/20 (1978), Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death? with John Stossel (1994) and The Blame Game: Are We a Country of Victims? (1994). He has been married to Ellen Abrams since 16 January 1983. They have two children.- Producer
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Paul Teutul Sr. was born on 1 May 1949 in Yonkers, New York, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for Wild Hogs (2007), American Chopper: The Series (2002) and Algorithm: BLISS (2020). He has been married to Beth Dillon since 29 July 2007. He was previously married to Paula Teutul.- Actor
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David Tomlinson is best known for his role as George Banks in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964). As a youth he spent a short spell in the guards. He joined the RAF in WW2 where he survived the trauma of a plane crash on his first solo flight due to engine failure, then becoming a flying instructor for the remainder of the war. He began his film career in the pre-war British film Quiet Wedding (1941) and followed that with Leslie Howard's 'Pimpernel' Smith (1941). Altogether he has made over 50 films and on stage he has had long-running successes in many plays including "The Little Hut" with Robert Morley and Roger Moore as his understudy. During the 1930s he understudied Alec Guinness. By the time he went to Hollywood to make Mary Poppins (1964) he was a veteran film and stage actor. David returned to Disney to great success in The Love Bug (1969) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). David was close friends with Errol Flynn, Robert Morley and Peter Sellers. He also spent time with Walt Disney whilst they discussed his role in Mary Poppins (1964). He retired in the early 1980s after an exemplary career on film and stage, and will always be remembered as one of the centuries greatest character actors.- Music Department
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Arturo Toscanini was the most celebrated conductor of his time, considered by many to be the greatest conductor of the twentieth century. He revolutionized musical interpretation by frequently insisting that his orchestras play the music exactly as written, a highly unusual practice in the nineteenth century, when Toscanini began his career. He conducted the world premieres of such operas as Puccini's "La Boheme" and "Turandot", and Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci". During his lifetime and for a short while afterwards,he was revered by critics (and still is by the older ones.) Today's younger critics, however, tend to look down on him, and call his fidelity to the printed score "lack of imagination" - a term which shows a total misunderstanding of Toscanini's achievements.- Writer
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Ted Turner was born on November 19, 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA as Robert Edward Turner III. He is the founder of CNN, Turner Broadcast System (TBS) and Turner Network Television (TNT). He was previously married to Jane Fonda, Jane Shirley Smith and Judy Nye. He started in the business as a writer and producer but had a bigger vision.- Joe Weider was a Canadian bodybuilder and entrepreneur who co-founded the International Federation of BodyBuilders (IFBB) alongside his brother Ben Weider. He was also the creator of the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding contest. Joe Weider was the publisher of several bodybuilding and fitness-related magazines, most notably Muscle & Fitness, Flex, Men's Fitness and Shape, and the manufacturer of a line of fitness equipment and fitness supplements. Weider was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His parents were Louis and Anna Weider, Polish Jewish emigrants from the town of Kurów, Poland. Joe published the first issue of Your Physique magazine in 1940, and built a set of barbells out of car wheels and axles the same year out of the family garage on Coloniale Street in Montreal. He designed numerous training courses beginning in the 1950s, including the Weider System of Bodybuilding. Arnold Schwarzenegger credited Weider with inspiring him to enter bodybuilding and to come to the United States. Weider died of heart failure on March 23, 2013 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California at the age of 93.
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Bruce Weitz was born on 27 May 1943 in Norwalk, Connecticut, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Hill Street Blues (1981), Half Past Dead (2002) and Deep Impact (1998). He has been married to Vivian Davis since 2 December 1986. They have one child. He was previously married to Cecilia Hart.- Actor
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Strong-featured Australian actor Vernon Wells was born December 1945 in Rushworth, rural Victoria, to Eva Maude (Jackson) and Michael Wells. He initially worked in a quarry, and then as a salesman. He was noticed by casting agents and started to appear in Australian TV commercials, print ads, local Australian TV shows such as "Homicide" and "Matlock Police".
His first cinema appearance was a minor role in Felicity (1978), a low budget, erotic fantasy film. However, Wells was then fortunate to be cast as the homicidal biker "Wez", in the big budget Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) filmed around Silverton near Broken Hill in outback New South Wales, Australia. It's the role for which he is probably best known to international audiences, as Wells portrays a psychotic, post apocalyptic gang leader who relentlessly pursues hero Mel Gibson, before meeting a spectacular death at the film's finale. Hollywood beckoned for Wells, and he spoofed his mad biker role in the popular teen comedy Weird Science (1985), before taking on another villainous role as the treacherous ex-soldier "Bennett", who foolishly double crosses Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando (1985). Once more, Wells meets a dramatic end, as he is impaled against a boiler at the film's conclusion, as big Arnold remarks "Let off some steam, Bennett".
Wells continued to find regular work as a "villain" of one description or another, predominantly in B-grade thrillers or action films including Last Man Standing (1987), Circuitry Man (1990), Kick of Death (1997) and Starforce (2000). The talented Wells then landed a recurring role as futuristic criminal "Ransik" in the highly popular "Power Rangers" TV series, and subsequent series of films including _Power Rangers Time Force: Photo Finish (2001)_, _Power Rangers Time Force: The End of Time (2002)_ and _Power Rangers Time Force: Dawn of Destiny (2002)_.- Actor
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American stage actor who appeared frequently on television and occasionally but impressively in films. A Marine Corps veteran of the Second World War, he worked on Broadway and on tour in stage productions after the war. In the late 1950s, he became an increasingly familiar face on American television, following a strong performance in the film Sweet Smell of Success (1957), in which he played the smarmy fellow who gets a dalliance with the unwilling Barbara Nichols in exchange for a favor to Tony Curtis's Sidney Falco. Cads and pompous politicians became White's strong suit, but he achieved his greatest fame as the unctuous Larry Tate on the hit TV series Bewitched (1964). He continued to work in the theatre, particularly as a member of acclaimed Theatre West company in Los Angeles and at the Mark Taper Forum there. In December, 1988, White's 33-year-old son, Jonathan, was killed in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, UK. White, who had been widowed soon after Jonathan's birth, was embittered and enraged by this new tragedy. He became reclusive for a time, but was returning to some social activity and theatre work when he died of a massive heart attack in 1990, just a few days prior to the second anniversary of his son's death. He was survived by his daughter.- Music Artist
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Few would have guessed that "Weird Al" Yankovic - who as a shy, accordion-playing teenager got his start sending in homemade tapes to the Dr. Demento Radio Show - would go on to become a pop culture icon and the biggest-selling comedy recording artist of all time, with classic song and music video parodies such as "Eat It," "Like a Surgeon," "Smells Like Nirvana," "Amish Paradise," "White & Nerdy" and "Word Crimes." Now in his fourth decade as America's foremost song parodist, he has been honored with four Grammy® Awards and fifteen nominations, including a 2015 win for his 14th studio album Mandatory Fun.
Alfred Matthew Yankovic was born on October 23, 1959, in the Los Angeles suburb of Lynwood, to Mary Elizabeth (Vivalda) and Nick Louis Yankovic. His father was of Yugoslavian descent and his mother was of Italian and English ancestry. He first took up the accordion when a salesman came around to solicit business for a music school. His parents decided on the accordion because of polka king Frankie Yankovic (no relation). As a child and young teen, Al watched a lot of television, which gave him much inspiration for his later work. He also became a fan of such musician/comedians as Allan Sherman and Spike Jones. He became especially acquainted with these musicians through the radio show of Barry Hansen, aka "Dr. Demento", which would later become a great source of publicity for his talents. After an extraordinary career at Lynwood High School, where Al graduated as valedictorian, he attended the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo to study architecture, a field he is said to have chosen because it was listed first in the catalog (although he has said that he really chose it on the advice of a guidance counselor). It was at Cal Poly that Al had a radio show and earned the nickname "Weird Al". Although he had sent tapes to Dr. Demento in the past, it was at Cal Poly where he recorded his first real published piece, a parody of the popular "My Sharona" by The Knack, called "My Bologna". After the astounding success of that song, forever to be known as the "bathroom recording" as it was recorded in the acoustically perfect mens' room, Al began his phenomenal career, which has spanned twelve albums, numerous compilations, a box set, movies, videos and edible underwear. He has also done a great deal to advance the cause of accordion-wielding weirdos, for which we can all be thankful.
In addition to his 1989 cult hit feature film UHF, his late 1990s CBS Saturday morning series The Weird Al Show and numerous AL-TV specials he has made for MTV and VH1 over the years, Yankovic has remained a staple of film and television, from appearances on The Simpsons and 30 Rock to performing on the 2014 Primetime Emmy Awards. More recently he guested on ABC's Galavant (as a singing monk) and The Goldbergs (as the '80s version of himself). In the spring of 2015 Yankovic joined the fifth and final season of IFC's Comedy Bang! Bang! as its co-host and bandleader. Al can be heard as the voice of the title character in Disney XD's animated series Milo Murphy's Law. Additional voiceover work includes Gravity Falls, Wander Over Yonder, Adventure Time, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, The 7D, Teen Titans Go!, We Bare Bears, Pig Goat Banana Cricket, Uncle Grandpa, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Bojack Horseman, and the DC animated feature Batman vs. Robin. Other notable past projects include the 2009 themed attraction Al's Brain: A 3-D Journey through the Human Brain, featuring cameos by everybody from his mother-in-law to Paul McCartney. Two years later, Comedy Central broadcast and released the concert special "Weird Al" Yankovic Live: The Alpocalypse Tour, filmed at Toronto's venerable Massey Hall. Yankovic added "New York Times bestselling author" to his resumé in 2011 with the release of his children's book, When I Grow Up (HarperCollins), followed two years later by My New Teacher and Me! An animated series based on his children's books is being developed in partnership with the Jim Henson Company. 2012 saw the release of Weird Al: The Book (Abrams), an illustrated hardcover on Al's life and career, and in 2015 Yankovic became not only MAD Magazine's cover boy, but the first Guest Editor in their 63-year history. 2016 saw the release of George Fest: A Night to Celebrate the Music of George Harrison, featuring Al's live performance of "What is Life?" The past year has seen the June premiere of the Dreamworks animated film Captain Underpants, for which Al co-wrote and performed the film's theme song, and the release by NECA Toys of the second in its line of retro-clothed Weird Al action figures. In August, Al wrote and performed "The North Korea Polka (Please Don't Nuke Us)" on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
In May 2017, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced that Weird Al would be receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In November of this year, Legacy Recordings will release Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of "Weird Al" Yankovic, a career-spanning box set of all 14 of Al's studio albums remastered for 150-gram vinyl and CD formats, plus an exclusive rarities album and 120-page book of archival photos, all housed in a replica of Weird Al's trademark accordion. Released in July 2014, Mandatory Fun became the first comedy album in history to debut at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, and the first to reach the top of the chart since 1963. Yankovic set the U.S. record on Spotify for having the most tracks from one album in the viral top 10 at one time, taking the first four spots. Internationally, the album debuted in the Top 10 in both Canada and Australia (#3 and #9 respectively). In addition, "Word Crimes" debuted in the Billboard Top 40, making Al one of only four artists to have had Top 40 singles in each of the last four decades - the other three are Michael Jackson, Madonna and U2. For Mandatory Fun, Al blew up the internet by releasing eight music videos in eight days, including "Tacky" (the star-studded parody of Pharrell Willliams' "Happy") and "Word Crimes" (an animated grammar lesson to the tune of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines"). Combined, the videos accrued more than 46 million views in their first week. In 2015 and 2016, Weird Al's Mandatory World Tour encompassed 200 shows throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia, including two nights with a full orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl and a tour-ending sold-out show at New York's Radio City Music Hall. Among his many other past music and video milestones, Yankovic's 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwood spawned the Platinum Billboard Top 10 anthem "White & Nerdy," while the video spent two straight months at #1 on iTunes.
Weird Al has launched The Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, playing stripped-down shows in smaller, more intimate theatres across North America with his band of over three decades.- Producer
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One of the kingpins of Hollywood's studio system, Zanuck was the offspring of the ill-fated marriage of the alcoholic night clerk in Wahoo, Nebraska's only hotel and the hotel owner's daughter. Both parents had abandoned him by the time he was 13. At 15, he joined the U.S. Army, and he fought in Belgium in World War I. Mustered out, he kept himself alive with a series of desultory jobs -- steelworker, foreman in a garment factory, professional boxer -- while pursuing a career as a writer. He turned his first published story (for "Physical Culture, " a pulp magazine) into a film scenario for William Russell; his next important sale was to Irving Thalberg. Although often described as barely literate, Zanuck turned out to have a knack for movie plots. After a well-paid apprenticeship with Mack Sennett, Syd Chaplin and Carl Laemmle, Zanuck hit his stride by devising (with Malcolm St. Clair) the Rin Tin Tin series of police-dog movies for Warner Brothers. For Warner, under his own name and three pseudonyms, he ground out as many as 19 scripts a year and became head of production at age 23. He helped forge that studio's style with such films as The Jazz Singer (1927), The Public Enemy (1931) and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932). In 1933, after the Warners made it clear that Zanuck would never be more than an employee, he quit to form Twentieth Century Films (with backing from Louis B. Mayer and Joseph M. Schenck). In 1935, Twentieth absorbed a bankrupt giant, Fox. Zanuck ruled the combined studio for decades. He became known as the most "hands-on" of the major studio bosses, taking particular pride in his talent for remaking movies in the cutting room. His signature productions were such sentimental, content-laden dramas as How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), and Twelve O'Clock High (1949). In the late fifties, Zanuck relinquished day-to-day control of the studio, left his wife, and moved to Europe to concentrate on producing. Many of his later films were designed in part to promote the careers of his successive girlfriends, Bella Darvi, Juliette Gréco, Irina Demick and Geneviève Gilles -- none of whom found much favor with directors or audiences. After the success of The Longest Day (1962), Zanuck returned to run 20th Century-Fox; he promoted his son, Richard D. Zanuck, to head of production, then engineered his firing in a messy boardroom brawl. Within a few months, in May 1971, Zanuck himself was deposed. He was the last studio boss of his era to go down.