Emmy Award Winning Actors
Lead and Supporting Awards for Drama or Comedy Series
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- Producer
- Actress
- Production Manager
The woman who will always be remembered as the crazy, accident-prone, lovable Lucy Ricardo was born Lucille Desiree Ball on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York, the daughter of Desiree Evelyn "DeDe" (Hunt) and Henry Durrell "Had" Ball. Her father died before she was four, and her mother worked several jobs, so she and her younger brother were raised by their grandparents. Always willing to take responsibility for her brother and young cousins, she was a restless teenager who yearned to "make some noise". She entered a dramatic school in New York City, but while her classmate Bette Davis received all the raves, she was sent home; "too shy". She found some work modeling for Hattie Carnegie's and, in 1933, she was chosen to be a "Goldwyn Girl" and appear in the film Roman Scandals (1933).
She was put under contract to RKO Radio Pictures and several small roles, including one in Top Hat (1935), followed. Eventually, she received starring roles in B-pictures and, occasionally, a good role in an A-picture, like in Stage Door (1937) or The Big Street (1942). While filming Too Many Girls (1940), she met and fell madly in love with a young Cuban actor-musician named Desi Arnaz. Despite different personalities, lifestyles, religions and ages (he was six years younger), he fell hard, too, and after a passionate romance, they eloped and were married in November 1940. Lucy soon switched to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she got better roles in films such as Du Barry Was a Lady (1943); Best Foot Forward (1943) and the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy vehicle Without Love (1945). In 1948, she took a starring role in the radio comedy "My Favorite Husband", in which she played the scatterbrained wife of a Midwestern banker. In 1950, CBS came knocking with the offer of turning it into a television series. After convincing the network brass to let Desi play her husband and to sign over the rights to and creative control over the series to them, work began on the most popular and universally beloved sitcom of all time.
With I Love Lucy (1951), she and Desi promoted the 3-camera technique now the standard in filming sitcoms using 35mm film (the earliest known example of the 3-camera technique is the first Russian feature film, "Defence of Sevastopol" in 1911). Desi syndicated I Love Lucy. Lucille Ball was the first woman to own her own studio as the head of Desilu Productions.
Lucille Ball died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, age 77, of an acute aortic aneurysm on April 26, 1989 in Los Angeles, CA.I Love Lucy
The Lucy Show- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Art Carney was an American actor with a lengthy career but is primarily remembered for two roles. In television, Carney played municipal sewer worker Ed Norton in the influential sitcom "The Honeymooners" (1955-1956). In film, Carney played senior citizen Harry Coombes in the road movie "Harry and Tonto" (1974). For this role, Carney won the Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 1918, Carney was born in an Irish American family in Mount Vernon, New York. His father was publicist Edward Michael Carney, and his mother was housewife Helen Farrell. Carney was the youngest of the family's six sons. He was educated at Mount Vernon High School (at the time called "A.B. Davis High School").
In the 1930s, Carney was a singer with the orchestra of big band leader Horace Heidt (1901-1986). They appeared often in radio shows, and were regulars in the pioneering game show Pot o' Gold (1939-1947). Carney had an uncredited cameo in the film adaptation "Pot o' Gold" (1941), which was his film debut.
His career was interrupted when he was drafted for World War II service. He served as an infantryman and machine gun crewman for the duration of the war. He fought in the Invasion of Normandy (1944), where he was wounded in the leg by shrapnel. Following his injury, his right leg was shorter than his left one. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life.
Following the War, Carney appeared regularly on radio as a character actor. He also served as a celebrity impersonator, imitating the voices of (among others) Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Dwight David Eisenhower. He had a recurring role as the Red Lantern in the fantasy adventure series "Land of the Lost" (1943-1948), and another as Charlie the doorman in radio and television version of the sitcom The Morey Amsterdam Show (1948-1950).
Carney was first paired with fellow actor Jackie Gleason (1916-1987) in 1950, in a comedy sketch appearing in the variety series "Cavalcade of Stars" (1949-1952). Gleason appeared as lunchroom loudmouth Charlie Bratten, and Carney as mild-mannered victim Clem Finch. Due to good chemistry between the two actors, Carney became a show regular and appeared in several other comedy sketches with Gleason. "Cavalcade of Stars" was eventually reworked into "The Jackie Gleason Show" (1952-1957), with Gleason as the lead actor and Carney as his sidekick.
The most notable of the recurring sketches was "the Honeymooners", pairing the verbally abusive Ralph Kramden (Gleason) with his optimistic best friend Ed Norton (Carney). The sketch eventually was eventually given its own series, "The Honeymooners" (1955-1956). The series only lasted for 1 season, and a total of 39 episodes. The sitcom was canceled due to low ratings, but found success in syndication. Its depiction of the American working class was popular and influenced several other sitcoms. The popular animated sitcom "The Flintstones" (1960-1966) started as a Honeymooners parody, with the character Barney Rubble based on Ed Norton.
Due to his popularity as Gleason's sidekick, Carney was offered a number of lead roles in television. He starred in the television special "Art Carney Meets Peter and the Wolf" (1958), adapted from the story "Peter and the Wolf" (1936) by Sergei Prokofiev. He was eventually given his own show "Art Carney Special" (1959-1961), which was not particularly successful.
Carney had few notable guest star roles in television during the 1960s. He played an alcoholic department store Santa Claus in the episode "The Night of the Meek" (1960) of The Twilight Zone, and portrayed the villain "The Archer" in two episodes of "Batman". He opened the 1970s by playing both Santa Claus and villain Cosmo Scam in the Christmas television special "The Great Santa Claus Switch" (1970), where he appeared alongside Jim Henson's Muppets.
Carney had suffered a career decline until the 1970s, in part due to his alcoholism. He first found success in film as the leading character "Harry and Tonto" (1974), as a lonely senior citizen who goes on a cross-country journey with his pet cat. His critical success in the role and winning an Academy Award helped revive his career. He was offered many new film roles, though few leading ones.
Among his better-known film roles were the deranged preacher John Wesley Gore in "W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings" (1975), aging detective Ira Wells in "The Late Show" (1977), senile surgeon Dr. Amos Willoughby in "House Calls" (1978), and thrill-seeking bank robber Al in "Going in Style". During this period, Carney won both the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor and the Pasinetti Award for Best Actor.
Carney had a notable role in the television film "Star Wars Holiday Special" (1978) as Trader Saun Dann, a member of the Rebel Alliance. In the 1980s, Carney was mostly reduced to minor roles again. He is better remembered as the kind-hearted farmer Irv Manders in the horror film "Firestarter" (1984) and theatrical producer Bernard Crawford in the comedy-drama "The Muppets Take Manhattan" (1984). He mostly retired from acting by the late 1980s.
Carney emerged from retirement to play the supporting role of Frank Slater in "Last Action Hero" (1993). Frank is depicted as the "favorite second cousin" of the film's protagonist Jack Slater (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger). Frank's death provided motivation for the revenge-seeking protagonist. Frank's final line in the film was "I'm outta here", and this was indeed Carney's last appearance in a film before his death.
Carney lived in retirement until 2003. He died in his sleep in November 2003, in his home near Westbrook, Connecticut. His death was attributed to unspecified "natural causes". He was 85 years old and had reportedly managed to stay sober since he originally quit drinking in 1974. He is interred at the Riverside Cemetery in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
Carney was survived by his wife Jean Myers, who died in October 2012. Carney was the grandfather of politician Devin Carney, who served in the Connecticut General Assembly.The Jackie Gleason Show
The Honeymooners- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born as Vivian Roberta Jones in Cherryvale, Kansas, she had a brother and four sisters. Her family moved to Independence, Kansas, and later studied drama under Anna Ingleman and William Inge. Their next move, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, brought her to that city's Little Theatre, which provided her the money she needed to study under Eva Le Gallienne in New York. After arriving in 1932 she had trouble finding stage work until she began a two-year stint in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's "Music in the Air".
She next understudied Ethel Merman in the hit "Anything Goes." Her first starring role was as Kay Thompson's last minute replacement in "Hooray for What!", starring Ed Wynn. In 1945, while starring in a touring company of "Voice of the Turtle" she had a nervous breakdown. After undergoing psychotherapy and limited movie work, she returned to the play at the La Jolla (California) Playhouse, where she was seen by Desi Arnaz who decided she was perfect for the role of Ethel Mertz (Ball and Arnaz's first choice, Bea Benaderet, was unavailable) in the I Love Lucy (1951) television series.
At first she didn't want the part (too frumpy), and hated being cast as the wife of William Frawley (she was 42, he was 64, and the two never got along). Frawley, an alcoholic and on the professional skids had actively campaigned for the role of Fred Mertz after learning that Gale Gordon was also unavailable. Desi Arnaz hired him, but only under strict conditions regarding alcohol consumption and professionalism. The runaway success of the series forced the two to work together but Frawley never forgave Vance for a comment she made about the disparity in their ages, which he overheard. After I Love Lucy (1951) ended she divorced her third husband, married again to John Dodds, and they moved to Stamford, Connecticut, the first time she had lived east of the Mississippi (aside from work) in many years.
In 1962, she began work on The Lucy Show (1962), but the pressures of long-distance commuting didn't suit her, so after three years she limited her herself to guest appearances. In 1974, she and her husband moved to Belvedere, California (just north of San Francisco Bay) so she could be near her sister. She battled ill-health throughout much of the 1970s and died in 1979, aged 70, of breast and bone cancer.I Love Lucy- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Sweet, sweeter, sweetest. No combination of terms better describes the screen persona of lovely Loretta Young. A&E's Biography (1987) has stated that Young "remains a symbol of beauty, serenity, and grace. But behind the glamour and stardom is a woman of substance whose true beauty lies in her dedication to her family, her faith, and her quest to live life with a purpose."
Loretta Young was born Gretchen Young in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 6, 1913, to Gladys (Royal) and John Earle Young. Her parents separated when Loretta was three years old. Her mother moved Loretta and her two older sisters to Southern California, where Mrs. Young ran a boarding house. When Loretta was 10, her mother married one of her boarders, George Belzer. They had a daughter, Georgianna, two years later.
Loretta was appearing on screen as a child extra by the time she was four, joining her elder sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (later better known as Sally Blane), as child players. Mrs. Young's brother-in-law was an assistant director and got young Loretta a small role in the film The Only Way (1914). The role consisted of nothing more than a small, weeping child lying on an operating table. Later that year, she appeared in another small role, in The Primrose Ring (1917). The film starred Mae Murray, who was so taken with little Loretta that she offered to adopt her. Loretta lived with the Murrays for about a year and a half. In 1921, she had a brief scene in The Sheik (1921).
Loretta and her sisters attended parochial schools, after which they helped their mother run the boarding house. In 1927, Loretta returned to films in a small part in Naughty But Nice (1927). Even at the age of fourteen, she was an ambitious actress. Changing her name to Loretta Young, letting her blond hair revert to its natural brown and with her green eyes, satin complexion and exquisite face, she quickly graduated from ingenue to leading lady. Beginning with her role as Denise Laverne in The Magnificent Flirt (1928), she shaped any character she took on with total dedication. In 1928, she received second billing in The Head Man (1928) and continued to toil in many roles throughout the '20s and '30s, making anywhere from six to nine films a year. Her two sisters were also actresses but were not as successful as Loretta, whose natural beauty was her distinct advantage.
The 17-year-old Young made headlines in 1930 when she and Grant Withers, who was previously married and nine years her senior, eloped to Yuma, Arizona. They had both appeared in Warner Bros.' The Second Floor Mystery (1930). The marriage was annulled in 1931, the same year in which the pair would again co-star on screen in a film ironically titled Too Young to Marry (1931). By the mid-'30s, Loretta left First National Studios for rival Fox, where she had previously worked on a loan-out basis, and became one of the premier leading ladies of Hollywood.
In 1935, she made Call of the Wild (1935) with Clark Gable and it was thought they had an affair where Loretta got pregnant thereafter. Because of the strict morality clauses in their contracts - and the fact that Clark Gable was married - they could not tell anybody except Loretta's mother. Loretta and her mother left for Europe after filming on The Crusades finished. They returned in August 1935 to the United States, at which time Gladys Belzer announced Loretta's 'illness' to the press. Filming on Loretta's next film, Ramona, was also cancelled. During this time, Loretta was living in a small house in Venice, California, her mother rented. On November 6, 1935, Loretta delivered a healthy baby girl whom she named Judith. It wasn't until the 1990s when she was watching Larry King Live where she first heard the word 'date rape' and upon finding out exactly what it was, professed to her friend and biographer Edward Funk and her daughter-in-law Linda Lewis, that she had gone through the same with Clark Gable. "That's what happened between me and Clark."
In 1938, Loretta starred as Sally Goodwin in Kentucky (1938), an outstanding success. Her co-star Walter Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Peter Goodwin.
In 1940, Loretta married businessman Tom Lewis, and from then on her child was called Judy Lewis, although Tom Lewis never adopted her. Judy was brought up thinking that both parents had adopted her and did not know, until years later, that she was actually the biological daughter of Loretta and Clark Gable. Four years after her marriage to Tom Lewis, Loretta had a son, Christopher Lewis, and later another son, Peter Charles.
In the 1940s, Loretta was still one of the most beautiful ladies in Hollywood. She reached the pinnacle of her career when she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in The Farmer's Daughter (1947), the tale of a farm girl who rises through the ranks and becomes a congresswoman. It was a smash and today is her best remembered film. The same year, she starred in the delightful fantasy The Bishop's Wife (1947) with David Niven and Cary Grant. It was another box office success and continues to be a TV staple during the holiday season. In 1949, Loretta starred in the well-received film, Mother Is a Freshman (1949) with Van Johnson and Rudy Vallee and Come to the Stable (1949). The latter garnered Loretta her second Oscar nomination, but she lost to Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress (1949). In 1953, Loretta made It Happens Every Thursday (1953), which was to be her final big screen role.
She retired from films in 1953 and began a second, equally successful career as hostess of The Loretta Young Show (1953), a half-hour television drama anthology series which ran on NBC from September 1953 to September 1961. In addition to hosting the series, she frequently starred in episodes. Although she is most remembered for her stunning gowns and swirling entrances, over the broadcast's eight-year run she also showed again that she could act. She won Emmy awards for best actress in a dramatic series in 1954, 1956 and 1958.
After the show ended, she took some time off before returning in 1962 with The New Loretta Young Show (1962), which was not so successful, lasting only one season. For the next 24 years, Loretta did not appear in any entertainment medium. Her final performance was in a made for TV film Lady in the Corner (1989).
By 1960, Loretta was a grandmother. Her daughter Judy Lewis had married about three years before and had a daughter in 1959, whom they named Maria. Loretta and Tom Lewis divorced in the early 1960s. Loretta enjoyed retirement, sleeping late, visiting her son Chris and daughter-in-law Linda, and traveling. She and her friend Josephine Alicia Saenz, ex-wife of John Wayne, traveled to India and saw the Taj Mahal. In 1990, she became a great-grandmother when granddaughter Maria, daughter of Judy Lewis, gave birth to a boy.
Loretta lived a quiet retirement in Palm Springs, California until her death on August 12, 2000 from ovarian cancer at the home of her sister Georgiana and Georgiana's husband, Ricardo Montalban.The Loretta Young Show- Actress
- Soundtrack
Audrey Meadows was born in New York City as Audrey Cotter, the youngest of four children. After she was born, her family returned to Wu'chang, China, where they worked as missionaries. Her family returned to the US and settled in New England when Audrey was age 6, and she and sister Jayne Meadows attended an all-girls boarding school. After high school, Jayne went to NYC with the goal of becoming an actress and finally convinced her little sister to join her in show business, but as a singer instead of an actress. Audrey spent months working on the Broadway show "Top Banana" and then got a job on The Bob & Ray Show (1951). She then replaced Pert Kelton as the most famous and best-loved "Alice Kramden" of The Honeymooners (1955). After "The Honeymooners" ended, she went on to do films, such as Take Her, She's Mine (1963) and That Touch of Mink (1962), and even portrayed Ted Knight's mother-in-law in the 1980s sitcom Too Close for Comfort (1980). But her heart--and ours--will forever remain in that two-burner-stove Chauncey Street kitchen.The Jackie Gleason Show- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Quiet, soft-spoken Robert grew up in California and had some stage experience with the Pasadena Playhouse before entering films in 1931. His movie career consisted of playing characters who were charming, good-looking--and bland. In fact, his screen image was such that he usually never got the girl. Louis B. Mayer would say, "He has no sex appeal," but he had a work ethic that prepared him for every role that he played. And he did play in as many as eleven films per year for a decade starting with The Black Camel (1931). He was notable as the spy in Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936), but the '40s was the decade in which he was to have most of his best roles. These included Northwest Passage (1940); Western Union (1941); and H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941). Good roles followed, from the husband of Dorothy McGuirein Claudia (1943) to the detective in Crossfire (1947), but they were becoming scarce. In 1949, Robert started a radio show called "Father Knows Best" wherein he played Jim Anderson, an average father with average situations--a role which was tailor-made for him. Basically retiring from films, he starred in this program for five years on radio before it went to television in 1954. After a slight falter in the ratings and a switch from CBS to NBC, it became a mainstay of television until it was canceled in 1960. He continued making guest appearances on various television shows and working in television movies. In 1969, he starred as Dr. Marcus Welby in the TV movie A Matter of Humanities (1969). The Marcus Welby series that followed ran from 1969 through 1976 and featured James Brolin as his assistant, Dr. Steven Kiley--the doc with the bike. After the series ended, Robert, now in his seventies, finally licked his 30-year battle with alcohol and occasionally appeared in television movies through the 1980s.Father Knows Best
Marcus Welby, M.D.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A sparkling, entertaining, highly energetic presence ever since her early days (from age 4) as a singing and tap dancing child vaudevillian, Nanette Fabray was once billed as "Baby Nanette".
She was born in Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada, then moved to the United States, to Louisiana-born parents, Lily Agnes (McGovern) and Raoul Bernard Fabares, a train conductor whose own father was from France. She worked with the top headliners of the era, notably Ben Turpin, in the Los Angeles area. She also sang on radio. It was widely rumored that she appeared in the "Our Gang" ("Little Rascal") film shorts of the late 1920s; however, this was not true. Later the young hopeful received a scholarship to the Max Reinhardt School of the Theatre and appeared in the school's productions of "The Miracle", "Six Characters in Search of an Author" and "A Servant with Two Masters", all in 1939.
The musical comedy stage, however, would be Nanette's forte. Appearing in such hit New York productions as "Meet the People" (1940), "Let's Face It" (1941), "By Jupiter" (1943) and "Bloomer Girl" (1945), she capped this period of great productivity earning awards for her Broadway work in "High Button Shoes" (1947 - Donaldson Award), and "Love Life" (1948 - Tony and Donaldson Awards).
Strangely, Nanette never obtained a strong foothold when it came to film. Aside from secondary roles in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, and the melodrama A Child Is Born (1939), her one claim to movie fame would be her vital participation in the blockbuster MGM musical The Band Wagon (1953) in which she memorably performed the songs "That's Entertainment" and "Louisiana Hayride," and joined Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan in the standout "Triplets" number.
Into the 1950s, Nanette started checking out what television could do as a possible medium for her. It did a lot. She managed a fine feat by winning two consecutive Emmy awards as Sid Caesar's partner on the now-called Caesar's Hour (1954) following the departure of the seemingly irreplaceable Imogene Coca earlier. This led to Nanette eventually starring in her own sitcom, the short-lived Westinghouse Playhouse (1961) (aka "Yes, Yes, Nanette"), in the role of a Broadway star who becomes a makeshift mom after marrying a widower (Wendell Corey) with two children.
Broadway musicals continued to flourish with parts in "Arms and the Girl" (1950) and "Make a Wish" (1951). Nanette later copped another Tony nomination starring as a fictional "First Lady" opposition "President" Robert Ryan in the musical "Mr. President" (1962). Other tailor-made stage vehicles for her came in the form of "Plaza Suite", "Wonderful Town", "Never Too Late", "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" and "Cactus Flower", among others.
On the TV front, Nanette adjusted well into a lively and graceful support player. She served up a number of delightfully daffy moms, wisecracking friends and intrusive relatives in guest appearances -- sometimes alongside her own niece, actress Shelley Fabares, as was in the case of their regular roles on One Day at a Time (1975). Nanette was also a popular game show personality during the '60s and '70s, appearing on The Hollywood Squares (Daytime) (1965), The New High Rollers (1974), Password (1961) and The Match Game (1962), among others. The singer-comedienne could be counted on for TV musical variety appearances courtesy of headliners Dinah Shore, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and Carol Burnett.
Most importantly, Nanette's humanitarian efforts over the years were long recognized. A positive force as a hearing-impaired performer, she gave much time and effort in achieving equality for all types of handicapped and disabled people, including actors. Nanette was the widow (since 1973) of writer and sometime director/producer Ranald MacDougall, appearing in a few of his credited works, including the film The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1970), the TV pilot Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966) and the TV-movie Magic Carpet (1972). She and MacDougall have one child. Still as lively as ever, Nanette appeared in a 2007 L.A. musical revue, "The Damsel Dialogues".
Nanette died on February 22, 2018, in Palos Verdes, California. She was 97.Caesar's Hour- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Carl Reiner is a legend of American comedy, who achieved great success as a comic actor, a director, producer and recording artist. He won nine Emmy Awards, three as an actor, four as a writer and two as a producer. He also won a Grammy Award for his album "The 2,000 Year Old Man", based on his comedy routine with Mel Brooks.
Reiner was born in The Bronx, to Bessie (Mathias) and Irving Reiner, a watchmaker. His father was an Austrian Jewish immigrant and his mother was a Romanian Jewish immigrant. At the age of sixteen, while working as a sewing machine repairman, he attended a dramatic workshop sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. The direction of his life was set.
In the 1970s, some sources claimed that Reiner made his movie debut in New Faces of 1937 (1937), but that is unlikely as he would have only been fifteen years old at the time. (the movie shares the same plot as his erstwhile partner Mel Brooks' classic The Producers (1967), with a crooked producer planning to fleece his "angels" by producing a flop and absconding with the money). He didn't appear on screen, silver or small, until he made his television debut in 1948 in the short-lived television series, The Fashion Story (1948), then became a regular, the following year, on The Fifty-Fourth Street Revue (1949), another television series with a brief life.
Reiner made his Broadway debut in 1949 in the musical "Inside U.S.A.", a hit that ran for 399 performances. His next Broadway show, the musical revue "Alive and Kicking" (1950) was a flop, lasting just 43 performances. Max Liebman, the producer/director/writer/composer, had been called in to provide additional material after the show's troubled six week out-of-town preview in Boston. It didn't help -- the show closed after six weeks on Broadway -- but an important contact had been made.
Leibman was a producer-director on Your Show of Shows (1950), one of the great television series, and he hired Reiner to appear on the show in the middle of its first season. Reiner's first gig on the revue-like show was interviewing The Professor, a character played by Sid Caesar. He became central to the comedy portions of the show and, in 1953, he racked up the first of six Emmy Award nominations for acting. (In all, he was nominated for an Emmy Award a total of 13 times). When, in 1954, "Your Show of Shows" was split up by the network into its constituent parts, Reiner continued on with Sid in Caesar's Hour (1954). (Imogene Coca was given her own show, which lasted one season, and Leibman was allowed to produce specials).
"Your Show or Shows" had been a Broadway-style revue, featuring skits such as dancing (including a young Bob Fosse) whereas "Caesar's Hour" was pure comedy. "Your Show of Shows" had had a great cast, another other than Coca, most of the cast, including Reiner, Howard Morris, and Nanette Fabray (who went on to win an Emmy Award) moved over to "Caesar's Hour". In his three seasons on the show, he was nominated three more times for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor, winning twice in 1957 and 1958. But it was its stable of comedy writers that was essential to the great success of both "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". In addition to Mel Brooks, the writing staff included Neil Simon, his brother Danny Simon, Larry Gelbart and Mel Tolkin. (There are rumors that the young Woody Allen served as the writing staff's typist).
Reiner had sat in informally with the writers during "Your Show of Shows", but he began writing formally for "Caesar's Hour", having learned his craft from all of the other writers. As a self-described uncredited "writer without portfolio", he was able to leave writers' meetings at 6 P.M., if he wanted to. This gave him the time to work on a semi-autobiographical novel. Published in 1958, Enter Laughing (1967) is about a young man in 1930s New York trying to make it in show business. It was transformed into a play and, eventually, adapted into a movie in 1967, and a musical, many years later.
In 1959, he created the pilot for a television series, "Man of the House", in which he would play a writer, Rob Petrie, who balanced his family life with the demands of working as a writer for a comedy show headlined by an egotistical comedic genius modeled after Sid Caesar (a "benign despot" who lacked social skills, according to Reiner). The series was rooted in his experience on "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". The network didn't pick up the pilot at first, as CBS executives claimed the main character, which was clearly autobiographical on Reiner's part, was too New York, too Jewish and too intellectual. In 1960, Reiner teamed up with Mel Brooks on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956), and their routine "The 2000 Year Old Man" was a huge success. Reiner played the straight man to Brooks in the routine, which was spun-off into five comedy albums, bringing them a Grammy Award. They also made an animated television special based on their shtick in 1975.
Though CBS turned down "Man of the House", with the two-time Emmy Award-winning comedian Reiner as the lead, it was still interested in the series. However, they wanted a different actor in the lead role, and the casting of the protagonist came down to Johnny Carson and Dick Van Dyke. Carson was a game show host of no great note at the time, but Van Dyke was in the smash Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie (1963), for which he won a Tony Award. He got the role and another chapter of television history was made, when Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam all were cast in leading roles. Reiner, himself, would eventually play the role of Alan Brady, the abrasive Sid Caesar-like comic convinced of his own genius, in the last few seasons of the series' five-year run.
Another milestone in television comedy, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), brought Reiner five more Emmy Awards, three for writing and two as the producer of the series. In 1966, Reiner and the other principals, including executive producer Sheldon Leonard and Dick Van Dyke, decided to end the series at the height of its popularity and critical acclaim. (The show won Emmy Awards as best show and best comedy in 1965 and 1966, respectively). Twenty-nine years after the show was ended, Reiner reprised the role of Alan Brady on Mad About You (1992), winning his eighth (and so far, last) Emmy Award, this time as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
It was on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" that Reiner first became a director. His feature film debut, as a director, was with the film adaptation of the play Joseph Stein had adapted from his 1958 novel, Enter Laughing (1967). His work as a writer-director, with Dick Van Dyke, in creating a Stan Laurel-type character in The Comic (1969) was not a success, but Where's Poppa? (1970) became a cult classic and Oh, God! (1977), with George Burns, and The Jerk (1979), with Steve Martin, were smash hits. The last film he directed was the romantic comedy That Old Feeling (1997).
Reiner's career continued into the 21st century, when most of his contemporaries had retired or passed. He was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2000 and acted in the remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its two sequels. He also appeared as a voice artist in the film Good Boy (2003), and the animated series The Cleveland Show (2009) (he even wrote an episode for the series rooted in his "Your Show of Shows" experience). He was also a regular on the series Hot in Cleveland (2010) (with fellow nonagenarian Betty White), and appeared on an episode of Parks and Recreation (2009) in 2012. His last film role was as the voice of Carl Reineroceros in Toy Story 4 (2019), opposite his old compatriot Mel Brooks.
Carl Reiner died at age 98 of natural causes on June 29, 2020, in Beverly Hills, California.Caesar's Hour- Actress
- Editorial Department
- Soundtrack
Actress and entertainer Pat Carroll played everything from chatterbox wives to wicked stepsisters on TV, and from Gertrude Stein to Shakespeare's Falstaff on stage. Even at 80 plus, the plucky comedienne showed no sign of stopping any time The riotous Pat Carroll was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1927, the daughter of Angela (Meagher) and Maurice Clifton Carroll. Her family moved to Los Angeles when Pat was five, and there began performing in local stage productions. She graduated from Hollywood's Immaculate Heart High School, an all-girls Catholic school, then attended Immaculate College, also in Los Angeles, and Catholic University of America.
Following her college graduation, she began performing comedy in nightclubs and gained early experience with appearances in resort areas. Her stage debut in 1947 with a role in "The Goose and the Gander" starring Gloria Swanson led to hundreds of stock roles. She made her off-Broadway debut in the play "Come What May" in 1950. Also a talented singer, she earned a Tony nomination for her Broadway work in the singing revue "Catch a Star" in 1955, and then enjoyed a number of brash showcases in such musicals as "On the Town," "Once Upon a Mattress" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown".
It was, however, the "golden age" of TV that truly took advantage of Pat's adroit talents. An initial "second banana" regular on the variety programs The Red Buttons Show (1952) and The Saturday Night Revue (1953), she copped an Emmy award for her work on Caesar's Hour (1954) as Howard Morris' wife and earned fine reviews from her recurring role on the sitcom The Danny Thomas Show (1953) playing Bunny Halper, the pert and plucky wife of Danny Thomas' nightclub manager Charlie Halper (Sid Melton).
Pat's down-to-earth demeanor, chummy disposition and hearty, infectious laugh made her a popular guest on all the major talkfests and a welcomed panelist on such game shows as "You Don't Say," "To Tell the Truth," "I've Got a Secret" and "Password". In 1965, she co-starred on TV as one of the wicked stepsisters in the endearing Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Cinderella (1965), which starred Lesley Ann Warren as the princess-to-be. In later years she won recurring/regular roles on the last season of Too Close for Comfort (1980) [retitled in 1986 as "The Ted Knight Show"] and the Suzanne Somers' sitcom She's the Sheriff (1987).
As a character actress, the cropped-blond comedienne never made much of a dent in film, which included supporting roles in With Six You Get Eggroll (1968) with Doris Day and The Brothers O'Toole (1973) with John Astin. In the late 1970s her career received a huge shot in the arm with the award-winning, one-woman show "Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein", which she also produced and won multiple theater awards, including the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk trophies. A complete departure from her usual comedy antics, audiences saw a burgeoning dramatic actress in the making. Taking the show on the road for four years, she also won a Grammy for her recorded version of the performance in 1981. She then returned to Broadway after thirty years to appear in the play "Dancing in the End Zone" (1985).
Pat surprised her fans by continuing vigorously in this vein. She began taking on Shakespearean roles and earning critical acclaim. For her interpretations of Sir John Falstaff in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet" she won bookend Helen Hayes awards. A life member of The Actors Studio, other challenging stage roles over the years have included Volpone, Mother Courage (another Helen Hayes award), the Stage Manager in "Our Town" and the Chorus in a Broadway revival of "Electra".
Still interested in tickling the funny bone on occasion, she performed in a number of adaptations of the wacky musical comedy "Nunsense" playing the Reverend Mother. If this weren't enough, she extended herself into directing, helming a musical version of "Alice in Wonderland" for The Kennedy Center, as well as productions of "Private Lives and "The Supporting Cast".
With the late 1980s, Pat became a voice-over favorite on numerous animated programs -- notably for Disney as the sea witch Ursula in The Little Mermaid (1989) and other voices in A Goofy Movie (1995). Into the millennium, the feisty character lady still gave voice life to many Disney related characters and in video games and special projects. Some elderly film work includes Outside Sales (2006), Freedom Writers (2007), Nancy Drew (2007), Bridesmaids (2011) and BFFs (2014). She also guested on the drama series ER (1994) and provided the voice of Old Lady Crowley in the Disney TV animated series Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (2017).
She had three children (oldest son Sean and daughters Kerry and Tara) by late husband Lee Karsian, a one-time manager and talent agent. Tara Karsian is a character actress from stage, film and TV. Kerry Karsian is a casting director.Caesar's Hour- Actress
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Ann B. Davis made her debut in show business at age 6 earning $2.00 in a puppet show. At the University of Michigan, Ann planned to study medicine but got the acting bug from her brother who was the lead dancer in the national company of "Oklahoma" for over a year. Ann then spent six years in little theaters, stock companies, touring musicals, and such until she got her break as "Schultzie", the secretary on "The Bob Cummings Show." Before Hollywood, Ann spent a summer at the Cain Park Theater and, during a year at the Erie Playhouse in Erie, Pennsylvania, she studied everything about show production and played dozens of roles ranging from teenagers to characters over 60. In 1949, she arrived at Porterville, California and spent three years at the Barn theater.
She then moved down the coast to Monterey, where she appeared at the Wharf theater. From there she decided to try Hollywood. Anne has also played many parts on stage including "The Women", "Twelfth Night", "Dark Of The Moon", and others. Her mother, Marguerite Scott Davis, appeared with professional stock companies for over thirty years.The Bob Cummings Show- Actor
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Born Raymond William Stacy Burr on May 21, 1917 in New Westminster, British Columbia, he spent most of his early life traveling. As a youngster, his father moved his family to China, where the elder Burr worked as a trade agent. When the family returned to Canada, Raymond's parents separated. He and his mother moved to Vallejo, California, where she raised him with the aid of her parents. As he got older, Burr began to take jobs to support his mother, younger sister and younger brother. He took jobs as a ranch hand in Roswell, New Mexico; as a deputy sheriff; a photo salesman; and even as a nightclub singer.
During World War II, he served in the United States Navy. In Okinawa, he was shot in the stomach and sent home. In 1946, Burr made his film debut in San Quentin (1946). From there, he appeared in more than 90 films before landing the titular character on Perry Mason (1957), the role for which he was best-known. Decades later, he reprised the role opposite former co-star Barbara Hale in a series of NBC television movies. At age 65, he returned to teaching drama as a professor of theatre at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park.
After a brave battle with cancer, Burr died at age 76 on September 12, 1993 at his ranch home in Geyserville, Sonoma County, California. Married once, the union ended in divorce. He had no children.Perry Mason- Actor
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Veteran comedic actor Tom Poston, he with the bugged-out eyes that commonly accentuated a vague look of bewilderment, was born in Columbus, Ohio, on October 17, 1921. By age nine, the young boy was appearing with an acrobatic troupe.
Poston later attended Bethany College in West Virginia when World War II broke out and he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps. He won medals for his courage under fire, and rose to the rank of captain. While he never returned to Bethany College, he would later receive an honorary doctorate from the institution. Following his military service, Poston went to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA), training with acting guru Sanford Meisner, among others. Making his Broadway debut in 1947 in José Ferrer's production of "Cyrano de Bergerac", Poston had the makings of a serious dramatic actor, appearing in such classics as "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" and "King Lear".
Although he also appeared seriously in TV drama in the early stages, comedy would become his forte. Hosting the amusing daily TV show "Entertainment" led to his biggest break on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956). He, Louis Nye, Don Knotts, and other members of Allen's stock company became famous for their hilarious characters in Allen's famed sketch sequences. Poston himself would be best remembered as the "Man on the Street" interviewee who could never remember his own name. Winning an Emmy during those four seasons (1956-60), Poston went on to host another program, this time a game show, entitled Split Personality (1959).
He developed an affinity for parlor games and appeared as a panelist on other quiz shows as well, notably To Tell the Truth (1956). Given a chance to star in his own comedy films by the early 1960s, Poston went completely unnoticed in such blah vehicles as Zotz! (1962) and The Old Dark House (1963), which failed to capitalize on his delightfully bungling, eccentric humor, although he did turn in a very funny supporting performance as a perpetually soused playboy in the Dick Van Dyke comedy Cold Turkey (1971).
After his movie career dried up, television again became the object of his affection, usually in service to other stars. Alongside such top comedians as Bob Newhart (Newhart (1982)) and Robin Williams (Mork & Mindy (1978)), Poston's absent-minded "second banana" foils found their engaging niche. The comedic actor also continued with light comedy theater vehicles such as "Forty Carats", "Come Blow Your Horn", "Plaza Suite", and "Mary, Mary", and even managed a few musicals ("A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and "Fiddler on the Roof").
Poston had a pre-fame first marriage that ended in divorce. His second wife was film actress Jean Sullivan. Their daughter, Francesca Poston, also became an actress. He had two other children by third wife Kay, who was 22 years his junior: son Jason and daughter Hudson. They divorced in 1975, but remarried in 1980 and remained together until her death at age 54 in 1998 from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). He and Kay appeared on many telethons to discuss the crippling disease. Three years later, Poston found happiness again when he married Suzanne Pleshette (they originally met while appearing in the 1959 Broadway comedy "Golden Fleecing", then worked again together on the old The Bob Newhart Show (1972)). He continued to provide glum, baggy-eyed comedy relief on TV as an octogenarian up until the end. Sadly, while wife Suzanne was battling cancer, Poston passed away unexpectedly of respiratory failure at his Los Angeles home on April 30, 2007, after a brief illness. Pleshette died on January 19, 2008.
The stalwart actor may not have nabbed top comic superstardom in his heyday, but he certainly enjoyed a long, durable career doing what he did best -- acting goofy and giving audiences a reason to smile.The Steve Allen Show- Actor
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Dennis Weaver first became familiar to television audiences as Matt Dillon's assistant Chester Goode in Gunsmoke (1955). After playing the part for nine years, he moved on to star in his own series, Kentucky Jones (1964). However, the show failed to find mass appeal and was cancelled after just one season. Weaver had to wait another five years before finally emerging as a TV star in his own right. Beginning in 1971, he portrayed the titular Marshal Sam McCloud, a lawman from Taos, New Mexico, working in New York to learn the ways of policing in Manhattan's 27th Precinct under the auspices of a frequently apoplectic Chief of Detectives, Peter Clifford (J.D. Cannon). Accented in a slow Texan drawl (his regular catchphrase was "There you go..") and decked out with cowboy hat, lasso and sheepskin jacket, McCloud went about his tasks pretty much the same way he would have done out in the West -- often to the chagrin of his boss, nevertheless always apprehending the villain in the end (sometimes on horseback). His fractious relationship with Clifford provided much of the enjoyment inherent in the show. Weaver later recalled "McCloud was the kind of role I left Gunsmoke to get... I wanted to be a leading man instead of a second banana." Between 1971 and 1977, McCloud (1970) (based in part on the Clint Eastwood film Coogan's Bluff (1968)) was part of Universal's "Mystery Movie" which filled a slot at NBC with films lasting from 74 to 97 minutes (longer than your average TV episode) and which rotated several productions, the most important being Columbo (1971) (Peter Falk), Banacek (1972) (George Peppard), McMillan & Wife (1971) (Rock Hudson) and Hec Ramsey (1972) (Richard Boone).
Weaver hailed from Joplin, Missouri, where his father (who was of mixed English, Irish, Scottish, Cherokee, and Osage ancestry) worked for the local electric company. Young Dennis proved himself a gifted track and field athlete while studying for a degree in fine arts at the University of Oklahoma. During World War II, he served as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy. After the war, Weaver forsook sports for a career on the stage, undertaking further drama classes at the Actor's Studio in New York. One of his fellow alumni was actress Shelley Winters who later helped him to get into films. Following his Broadway debut in "Come Back, Little Sheba", Weaver found work in plays by Tennessee Williams off-Broadway and then made his movie debut at Universal in the western Horizons West (1952). He made several more pictures, mostly westerns, but was largely cast in minor roles. He languished in relative obscurity until he landed several guest spots on Jack Webb's Dragnet (1951). His career really took off with McCloud and with the Steven Spielberg-directed Duel (1971), a thriller made for the small screen (essentially a one-man show) in which a lone driver is menaced by a sinister petrol tanker driven by an unseen force. He later found other regular television work (Stone (1979), Emerald Point N.A.S. (1983) and Buck James (1987)), but none of these managed to recapture his earlier successes. In Lonesome Dove: The Series (1994), he was true to his colors, playing western hero Buffalo Bill Cody, a.k.a. Buffalo Bill.
Weaver served as President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1973 to 1975. He was in the forefront of environmental activism, a proponent of alternative energy and recycling (his Colorado home, called "Earthship", was primarily constructed from recycled tires and aluminium cans).Gunsmoke- Actress
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Barbara Hale was born on April 18, 1922 in DeKalb, Illinois, to Wilma (née Colvin) and Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener. She had one sister, Juanita. As a young girl, she intended to major in art and drawing but to work her way through The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, she began her professional career as a model for a comic strip called "Ramblin' Bill."
Hale is best remembered as Della Street, long-time secretary to attorney Perry Mason on the TV series Perry Mason (1957) from 1957 to 1966 and again in over 25 Perry Mason TV movies from 1985 to 1995. She married actor Bill Williams in 1946. He was best remembered for his portrayal of Kit Carson in The Adventures of Kit Carson (1951) from 1951 to 1955. The couple had three children - two daughters: Jody (born in 1947), Juanita (born in 1953), and, in 1951, a son, William Katt (the spitting image of his father), and actor in his own right, probably best known as the titular character's ill-fated prom date in the film Carrie (1976) and, later, as Ralph Hinkley, the klutzy superhero on the quirky 1980s adventure series The Greatest American Hero (1981) (from 1981 to 1986).Perry Mason- Actress
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Born in Campgaw, New Jersey, Jane Waddington Wyatt came from a New York family of social distinction (her father was a Wall Street investment banker and her mother was a drama critic). Jane was raised from the age of three months in New York City and attended the fashionable Chapin School and later Barnard College. After two years of college, she left to join the apprentice school of the Berkshire Playhouse at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where for six months she played an assortment of roles. One of her first jobs on Broadway was as understudy to Rose Hobart in a production of "Trade Winds"--a career move that cost her her slot on the New York Social Register. Wyatt made the transition from stage to screen and was placed under contract at Universal, where she made her film debut in director James Whale's One More River (1934). She went back and forth between Universal and Broadway (and co-starred in Frank Capra's Columbia film Lost Horizon (1937) on loan out from Universal). In the 1950s, she co-starred with Robert Young in Father Knows Best (1954), the classic sitcom chronicling the life and times of the Anderson family in the Midwestern town of Springfield. Jane Wyatt died at age 96 of natural causes at her home in Bel-Air, California, on October 20, 2006.Father Knows Best- Actor
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"Straight Shooting" -- whether skeet shooting, or portraying Eliot Ness -- Robert Stack always told it like it was, and shot straight. Born in Los Angeles, California, the younger son of James Langford Stack (1860-1928), the owner of an advertising agency, and Mary Elizabeth Modini Wood (1891-1975), he was originally named Charles Langford Modini Stack at birth by his mother but his father soon changed the name to Robert Langford Stack. (The name Robert reportedly referred to no one in particular.) His elder brother and only sibling was James Langford Stack (1916-2006).
His parents had divorced when he was one-year-old, and his mother took him to Europe when he was three. He did not learn to speak English until he was six years old. His brother, James Langford Stack Jr., stayed in the United States with their father. Young Robert spoke fluent Italian and French, but had to learn English when they returned to Los Angeles. His mother and father remarried in 1928. Robert took drama courses at USC. He was not interested in team sports, so he took up skeet shooting. In 1935, he came in second in the National Skeet Shooting Championship (held in Cleveland) and, in 1936, his 5-man team broke the standing record at the National Skeet Championships (held in St. Louis).
Stack arrived at Universal City Studios in 1939, when the movie studio (once riding high on the successes of movies such as Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931)) was in financial trouble, and looking for a superstar. That superstar was Deanna Durbin (acquired from MGM), and Stack made his screen debut as her lover in First Love (1939). At first, he did not want to listen to the makeup man who had told him, "no blond has ever made it as a leading man", and insisted on dyeing his hair black and uncurling it. That makeup man was genius and Oscar winner, Jack P. Pierce (who had done all the monsters for Universal), and Stack became a matinee idol, overnight. After two more movies, he was teamed with Durbin again, in Nice Girl? (1941). he was now a bona-fide star, but Universal was still only paying him $150 a week. For the next 10 years, Stack did Westerns, war movies and romantic comedies.
Stack had fond memories for Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), a movie produced by his friend, John Wayne, which meant 12 weeks filming in sunny Mexico. The movie had a great script; unfortunately, two bullfighters were gored while filming. There were several weeks of delays, they could not get a crew or a sound stage, until they realized that, in Mexico, it is necessary to bribe the local union; some money was passed and filming started, immediately. There were wild times, and lots of tequila. Robert became a local legend; when some Mexicans asked him what he did in the War, Robert said: "I taught machine gun." The rumor spread: "Roberto teaches chingas!" (that's Spanish for "hookers"). In 1952, he made movie history (much like Al Jolson had done in 1927, being in the first "talkie") -- he starred in Bwana Devil (1952), the first 3-D movie. This gave startling effects to the story, which was based on real-life lion attacks in Africa.
Stack attended the premiere, and recalled people's reactions to the 3-D lion scenes: "People in the audience jumped out of their seats, some even fainted." The movie broke box office records, and immediately started the demand to film more movies in 3-D (such as House of Wax (1953)). Around 1955, Robert (Hollywood's most eligible bachelor) was introduced to Rosemarie Bowe, by mutual agent Bill Shiffrin. Rosemarie had been under contract to MGM and Columbia, making such movies as Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and The Golden Mistress (1954). The couple wed two years later and had two children: Elizabeth Stack and Charles Stack. The former perennial bachelor found out he liked being married and being a father. His onscreen fame had grown and, for Written on the Wind (1956), he received an Academy Award nomination. Unfortunately, this did not sit well with 20th-Century Fox, which had him under contract, and had lent him to Universal for this picture. His contract with Fox came to an end. Stack made the transition to the new medium that was sweeping the country: television. He delivered breakout performances in his signature role as T-man (Treasury agent) Eliot Ness on The Untouchables (1959) which, after the pilot, ran for four seasons (118 episodes). And there was also the television movie, The Scarface Mob (1959).
There were some funny behind-the-scenes anecdotes, such as this one: there is no scene which stood out more as the most potentially evil, and risky in terms of audience acceptance, as the "bacio di morte" ("kiss of death"), the Sicilian gesture whenever a Capo (Neville Brand) kissed a Mafia soldier (Frank DeKova) to send him out as an executioner. The two actors were nervous enough about this scene (two guys had never kissed on television before), but then some crewman decided to be a prankster and told each star, in private, just before filming, "look out -- your co-star likes kissing guys" (a complete deception, of course). There were some unfortunate anecdotes: Joseph Wiseman was a fine actor, but trained to work on the New York stage with props; he was not accustomed to real Hollywood sets. In a 1960 episode of "The Untouchables", Stack was supposed to take an axe and smash up a brewery. He hit a real pipe, the axe ricocheted off the metal, and cut through his Achilles tendon. "I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life", Stack commented. They wrote a role for Wiseman as a crippled, renegade chemist a few weeks later in "The Antidote", which Stack noted, "was one of our half-dozen top shows". Stack went on to do television series, such as The Name of the Game (1968) alternating lead with Gene Barry and Anthony Franciosa, then later Most Wanted (1976), and he pleasantly surprised everyone with his flair for comedies in movies like 1941 (1979) and Airplane! (1980).
Stack hosted Unsolved Mysteries (1987) and did more zany humor in Caddyshack II (1988), Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996) and BASEketball (1998). He also provided the voice of the character Ultra Magnus in The Transformers: The Movie (1986). He portrayed the no-nonsense G-man Ness again in The Return of Eliot Ness (1991). Stack was being treated for prostate cancer when he died at age 84 on May 14, 2003 at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, after suffering a heart attack.The Untouchables- Actress
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Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the period from 1927 until 1964, after which she appeared on television until 1986. It was a career that lasted for 59 years.
Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens on July 16, 1907, in Brooklyn, New York, to working class parents Catherine Ann (McPhee) and Byron E. Stevens. Her father, from Massachusetts, had English ancestry, and her Canadian mother, from Nova Scotia, was of Scottish and Irish descent. Stanwyck went to work at the local telephone company for fourteen dollars a week, but she had the urge (a dream--that was all it was) somehow to enter show business. When not working, she pounded the pavement in search of dancing jobs. The persistence paid off. Barbara was hired as a chorus girl for the princely sum of $40 a week, much better than the wages she was getting from the phone company. She was seventeen, and was going to make the most of the opportunity that had been given her.
In 1928 Barbara moved to Hollywood, where she was to start one of the most lucrative careers filmdom had ever seen. She was an extremely versatile actress who could adapt to any role. Barbara was equally at home in all genres, from melodramas, such as Forbidden (1932) and Stella Dallas (1937), to thrillers, such as Double Indemnity (1944), one of her best films, also starring Fred MacMurray (as you have never seen him before). She also excelled in comedies such as Remember the Night (1939) and The Lady Eve (1941). Another genre she excelled in was westerns, Union Pacific (1939) being one of her first and TV's The Big Valley (1965) (her most memorable role) being her last. In 1983, she played in the ABC hit mini-series The Thorn Birds (1983), which did much to keep her in the eye of the public. She turned in an outstanding performance as Mary Carson.
Barbara was considered a gem to work with for her serious but easygoing attitude on the set. She worked hard at being an actress, and she never allowed her star quality to go to her head. She was nominated for four Academy Awards, though she never won. She turned in magnificent performances for all the roles she was nominated for, but the "powers that be" always awarded the Oscar to someone else. However, in 1982 she was awarded an honorary Academy Award for "superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting." Sadly, Barbara died on January 20, 1990, leaving 93 movies and a host of TV appearances as her legacy to us.The Barbara Stanwyck Show
The Big Valley- Actor
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Don Knotts, the legendary television character actor, was born Jesse Donald Knotts on July 21, 1924 in Morgantown, West Virginia, to William Jesse Knotts and the former Elsie Luzetta Moore. He was the youngest of four sons in a family that had been in America since the 17th century.
His first stint as an entertainer was as a ventriloquist, performing paid gigs at parties and other events in Morgantown. He decided to make a stab at a career in show business, moving to New York City after graduating from high school, but he only lasted in the Big Apple for a few weeks. He decided to go to college, enrolling at West Virginia University but, when World War II engulfed America, he enlisted in the United States Army. The 19-year-old soldier was assigned to the Special Services Branch, where he entertained the troops. It was while in the Army that Don ditched ventriloquism for straight comedy.
Don returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized. After graduating with a degree in theater in 1948, he married and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the character "Windy Wales" on "The Bobby Benson Show". From 1953 to 1955, he was a regular on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow (1951). Destiny intervened when he was cast in the small role of the psychiatrist in the Broadway play "No Time for Sergeants", which starred Andy Griffith, who would play a large part in Don's future career. Don also appeared in the film adaption of the play with Griffith.
Don's big break before he hooked up again with Andy Griffith was a regular gig on the The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956) hosted by Steve Allen, starting in 1956. He became well-known for his "nervous man" shtick in the "Man-on-the-Street" segments that were a staple of Allen's show. His character in the segments was a very nervous man obviously uptight about being interviewed on camera. He developed this into the fidgety, high-strung persona that he used successfully for the rest of his career.
When "The Tonight Show" moved to Hollywood in 1959 with new host Jack Paar, Don also moved to California as a regular. However, he was soon cast in Andy Griffith's new television series about a small-town sheriff, The Andy Griffith Show (1960), in the role that would make him a legend. For playing "Deputy Barney Fife", Don was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor five times from 1961 to 1967, winning each time. He soon tasted big-screen success, starring in The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Don cut back his appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (1960) to concentrate on making movies after signing a five-year contract with Universal Pictures. For Universal, Don appeared in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). His mid-1960s popularity as a movie comedian began to wane towards the end of the decade, and the contract was not renewed. Don returned to television as the star of his own variety show, but it was quickly canceled.
During the 1970s, Don had a spotty career, appearing in regional theater and making guest appearances on other television series. He eventually made some slapstick movies with Tim Conway for the Walt Disney Company, but it wasn't until the end of the decade that he tasted real success again. He was cast as would-be-swinger landlord "Ralph Furley" on the popular sitcom Three's Company (1976) after the original landlords, "The Ropers", were spun off into their own series. Since the show was canceled in 1984, he appeared as "Barney Fife" for a 1986 reunion of The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and in television guest spots, including a recurring gig as the pesky neighbor "Les Calhoun" on Griffith's Matlock (1986) series until 1992.
He remained busy for the next ten years touring with plays and doing voice-over work for cartoons. In 2005, Don provided the voice of "Mayor Turkey Lurkey" in Disney's animated film Chicken Little (2005). It turned out to be one of his final films. He died at age 81 on February 24, 2006.The Andy Griffith Show- Actress
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Character actress Shirley Booth could play everything in all facets of show business, whether it was Miss Duffy the Tavern Owner's Man Crazy Daughter on "Duffy's Tavern", the sassy maid on TV's Hazel (1961) or the pathetic woman in Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). For those who only know her through her sitcom, it might be hard to believe she was a seasoned theatrical veteran, having appeared on Broadway from 1925-70. She was highly regarded as a stage actress and ranks as one of the premier talents of the 20th-century theatre.Hazel- Actor
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With over 150 Film and TV appearances to his credit, E. G. Marshall was arguably most well known as the imperturbable Juror No. 4 in the Sidney Lumet legal drama 12 Angry Men (1957).
Some of his stand-out performances are in Creepshow (1982), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), and Nixon (1995).
Marshall married three times and had seven children.The Defenders- Pamela Brown trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Her first appearance was as "Juliet" in "Romeo and Juliet" at Stratford-on-Avon in 1936. She followed this with a variety of roles for the Old Vic Company in London. She appeared on Broadway in the 1947 production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde. Her screen debut was in One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. She went on to star in two more of Powell's films and they lived together until her unfortunately early death from cancer. Her memorable face with eyes you can drown in & a resonant voice always made Pamela an actress worth watching. She was often cast as an eccentric or mysterious character which suited her perfectly.Victoria Regina
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Glenda Farrell began as the archetypal wisecracking blonde in 1930s gangland films like Little Caesar (1931) and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932). Diminutive, grey-eyed and undeniably sassy, she was a seasoned performer long before Warner Brothers snapped her up as a contract player in 1929. She made her debut on the stage as a 7 year-old playing Little Eva in "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Via provincial theatre Glenda eventually made her way to Broadway where she scored a palpable hit in "Life Begins" (later recreating her role for the screen). That attracted the Hollywood talent scouts and her movie contract followed in due course. Though seemingly destined for typecasting as hardboiled gangster molls, showgirls and gold diggers, it was her role as fast-talking, resourceful girl reporter Torchy Blane in her own series of films (beginning with Smart Blonde (1937)) that made her a star, albeit a minor one. She later recalled "Warners never made you feel you were just a member of the cast. They might star you in one movie and give you a bit part in the next...You were still well paid and you didn't get a star complex. We were a very close group..."
Glenda was also paired with another livewire, Joan Blondell, for a series of high octane, madcap farces which consistently made money at the box office. Inevitably, though, her roles became more and more repetitive. After her contract with Warner Brothers expired, she continued to appear with diminishing effectiveness in films for Universal (1938) and Columbia (1942-44). In the 50s, Glenda made the transition to more mature character roles, alternating screen work with Broadway plays -- pretty much throughout the remainder of her acting career -- eventually winning a Primetime Emmy Award in 1963 as Best Supporting Actress for the television series Ben Casey (1961). She took ill during a stage performance of "Forty Carats" in New York in 1969 and died at her home two years later. As the wife of a former U.S. Army colonel, Glenda became the only actress to be interred in the cemetery of West Point Military Academy.Ben Casey- Actress
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Mary Tyler Moore was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on December 29, 1936. Moore's family relocated to California when she was eight. Her childhood was troubled, due in part to her mother's alcoholism. The eldest of three siblings, she attended a Catholic high school and married upon her graduation, in 1955. Her only child, Richard Meeker Jr., was born soon after.
A dancer at first, Moore's first break in show business was in 1955, as a dancing kitchen appliance - Happy Hotpoint, the Hotpoint Appliance elf, in commercials generally broadcast during the popular sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952). She then shifted from dancing to acting and work soon came, at first a number of guest roles on television series, but eventually a recurring role as Sam, Richard Diamond's sultry answering service girl, on Richard Diamond, Private Detective (1956), her performance being particularly notorious because her legs (usually dangling a pump on her toe) were shown instead of her face.
Although these early roles often took advantage of her willowy charms (in particular, her famously-beautiful dancer's legs), Moore's career soon took a more substantive turn as she was cast in two of the most highly regarded comedies in television history, which would air first-run for most of the '60s and '70s. In the first of these, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Moore played Laura Petrie, the charmingly loopy wife of star Dick Van Dyke. The show became famous for its very clever writing and terrific comic ensemble - Moore and her fellow performers received multiple Emmy Awards for their work. Meanwhile, she had divorced her first husband, and married advertising man (and, later, network executive) Grant Tinker.
After the end of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), Moore focused on movie-making, co-starring in five between the end of the sitcom and the start of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), including Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), in which she plays a ditsy aspiring actress, and an inane Elvis Presley vehicle, Change of Habit (1969), in which she plays a nun-to-be and love interest for Presley. Also included in this mixed bag of films was a first-rate television movie, Run a Crooked Mile (1969), which was an early showcase for Moore's considerable talent at dramatic acting.
After trying her hand at movies for a few years, Moore decided, rather reluctantly, to return to television, but on her terms. The result was The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), which was produced by MTM Enterprises, a company she had formed with Tinker, and which later went on to produce scores of other television series. Moore starred as Mary Richards, who moves to Minneapolis on the heels of a failed relationship. Mary finds work at the newsroom of WJM-TV, whose news program is the lowest-rated in the city, and establishes fast friendships with her colleagues and her neighbors. The sitcom was a commercial and critical success and for years was a fixture of CBS television's unbeatable Saturday night line-up. Moore and Tinker were determined from the start to make the sitcom a cut above the average, and it certainly was - instead of going for a barrage of gags, the humor took longer to develop and arose out of the interaction between the characters in more realistic situations. This was also one of the earliest television portrayals of a woman who was happy and successful on her own rather than simply being a man's wife. The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) is generally included amongst the finest television series ever produced in America.
Moore ended the sitcom in 1977, while it was still on a high point, but found it difficult to flee the beloved Mary Richards persona - her subsequent attempts at television series, variety programs, and specials (such as the mortifying disco-era Mary's Incredible Dream (1976)) usually failed, but even her dramatic work, which is generally excellent, fell under the shadow of Mary Richards. With time, however, her body of dramatic acting came to be recognized on its own, with such memorable work as in Ordinary People (1980), as an aloof WASP mother who not-so-secretly resents her younger son's survival; in Finnegan Begin Again (1985), as a middle-aged widow who finds love with a man whose wife is slowly slipping away, in Lincoln (1988), as the troubled Mary Todd Lincoln, and in Stolen Babies (1993), as an infamous baby smuggler (for which she won her sixth Emmy Award). She also inspired a new appreciation for her famed comic talents in Flirting with Disaster (1996), in which she is hilarious as the resentful adoptive mother of a son who is seeking his birth parents. Moore also acted on Broadway, and she won a Tony Award for her performance in "Whose Life Is It Anyway?"
Widely acknowledged as being much tougher and more high-strung than her iconic image would suggest, Moore had a life with more than the normal share of ups and downs. Both of her siblings predeceased her, her sister Elizabeth of a drug overdose in 1978 and her brother John of cancer in 1991 after a failed attempt at assisted suicide, Moore having been the assistant. Moore's troubled son Richie shot and killed himself in what was officially ruled an accident in 1980. Moore was diagnosed an insulin-dependent diabetic in 1969, and had a bout with alcoholism in the early 1980s. Divorced from Tinker in 1981 after repeated separations and reconciliations, she married physician Robert Levine in 1983. The union with Levine proved to be Moore's longest run in matrimony and her only marriage not to end in divorce. Despite the opening credits of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), in which she throws a package of meat into her shopping cart, Moore was a vegetarian and a proponent of animal rights. She was an active spokesperson for both diabetes issues and animal rights.
On January 25, 2017, Mary Tyler Moore died at age 80 at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut, from cardiopulmonary arrest complicated by pneumonia after having been placed on a respirator the previous week. She was laid to rest during a private ceremony at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Fairfield, Connecticut.The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show- Albert Paulsen's pronounced accent and clipped manner may have marked him as German, Austrian or some East European nationality--roles he played often--but he was actually born in Guyaquil, Ecuador, in 1925. Although he did appear in some films and on stage, he was mainly a television actor, with numerous appearances in dramas and action shows, especially in such series as Mission: Impossible (1966) and Combat! (1962), and played a succession of Communist spies, Russian generals, East European dictators, Nazi officers and the like. However, he did show up once on the comedy series The Odd Couple (1970) playing a European opera star who wasn't quite as uptight as everyone thought he was. He died in his sleep in Los Angeles, CA, in 2004.One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
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Ruth White was born on 24 April 1914 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, USA. She was an actress, known for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968). She died on 3 December 1969 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, USA.Little Moon of Alban- Actor
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Dick Van Dyke was born Richard Wayne Van Dyke in West Plains, Missouri, to Hazel Victoria (McCord), a stenographer, and Loren Wayne Van Dyke, a salesman. His younger brother was entertainer Jerry Van Dyke. His ancestry includes English, Dutch, Scottish, German and Swiss-German. Although he had small roles beforehand, Van Dyke was launched to stardom in the musical "Bye-Bye Birdie" (1960), for which he won a Tony Award, and, then, later in the movie based on that play, Bye Bye Birdie (1963). He has starred in a number of films through the years including Mary Poppins (1964), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) and Fitzwilly (1967), as well as a number of successful television series which won him no less than four Emmy Awards and three made-for-CBS movies. After separating from his wife, Margie Willett, in the 1970s, Dick later became involved with Michelle Triola. Margie and Dick had four children born during the first ten years of their marriage: Barry Van Dyke, Carrie Beth Van Dyke, Christian Van Dyke and Stacy Van Dyke, all of whom are now in their sixties and seventies, and married themselves. He has seven grandchildren, including Shane Van Dyke, Carey Van Dyke, Wes Van Dyke and Taryn Van Dyke (Barry's children) and family members often appear with him on Diagnosis Murder (1993).The Dick Van Dyke Show- Actor
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Bill Cosby is one of the world's most well-known entertainers and comedians. William Henry Cosby, Jr. was born on July 12, 1937, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Anna Pearl (Hite), a maid and William Henry Cosby, Sr., a U.S. Navy sailor. After 10th grade, Cosby joined the Navy and completed high school through a correspondence course. He later took up an athletics scholarship at Temple University, supporting himself during his studies by tending bar, where his easy going style and witty joking with the clientèle prompted suggestions that he try stand-up comedy. This he did and was soon to be discovered by the legendary Carl Reiner.
In his early twenties, he appeared on many well-known variety programs including The Ed Sullivan Show (1948). His big break came in 1965 when he appeared as "Alexander Scott" in I Spy (1965), winning numerous Emmys for his performance. He later appeared in The Bill Cosby Show (1969), playing a teacher, although originally the show only lasted for two years. He then created a Filmation cartoon based on many of his high school buddies including Weird Harold, Dumb Donald, Mushmouth, and others: the show was, of course, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1972). The theme was humorous but also focused on Cosby's more educational side. He studied for many years during his career in the 1960s and 1970s, and he received a doctorate in Education from the University of Massachusetts. Cosby also starred in some highly successful movies such as Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Let's Do It Again (1975), A Piece of the Action (1977), Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976), and California Suite (1978). During his early years he also made some comedy albums that sold very well; his most notable comedy song being "Little Old Man." He was one of the original cast members of The Electric Company (1971), and he was featured in the series Pinwheel (1976) during the late 1970s and then appeared in the mediocre The Devil and Max Devlin (1981).
In 1984, 'Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids' stopped production, and The Cosby Show (1984) commenced. The show was originally intended to follow a blue-collar family, but finally ended up portraying a white-collar family. It was originally rejected by ABC, accepted by a then-floundering NBC, and was an almost instant success. From 1985 to 1987 the show broke viewing records, with Cosby becoming perhaps the strongest driving force in television during the eighties. Despite this great success, he arguably created his own downfall. The Cosby Show led what was considered by many at that time to be the best night of television: the line-up included Night Court (1984), Hill Street Blues (1981), and Family Ties (1982), which all followed The Cosby Show.
Cosby was dissatisfied with the way minorities were portrayed on television. He produced the TV series A Different World (1987) and insisted that this program should follow the Cosby Show, rather than Family Ties. A Different World was set in an historically Black college and concentrated on young people and education. Impact was felt on the show immediately; at its peak, the Cosby Show logged an estimated 70 million viewers. However, after the scheduling reshuffle, the show lost roughly 20% of its massive audience. However, Cosby was still riding high in the early nineties until massive competition from The Simpsons (1989).
The Cosby Show finally ended in 1992, conceding to The Simpsons (1989), with the final production considered to be one of the highest-rated shows of the season and featured a pleading Cosby asking for peace in riot-torn Los Angeles during the height of the Rodney King riots. Cosby never seemed able to top the success of the Cosby Show; his film Leonard Part 6 (1987) was considered to be one of the worst American films in history and may have contributed in part to his downfall as a film actor, along with his performance in Ghost Dad (1990). He did attempt a minor comeback in 1996 starring in the Robin Williams film Jack (1996), which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola; and in another show, Cosby (1996), (starring Phylicia Rashad, who appeared as his wife in the previous Cosby Show). Since then he has produced films such as Men of Honor (2000), and shows including Little Bill (1999).
Sadly, his son Ennis was murdered in 1997. Throughout the years, Bill Cosby has taken a socially conscious tone, often associated with family values, coupled with a distinctly urban spin on his style.I Spy- Actress
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Making a career out of a post-nasal drip, this scene-stealing character comedienne was one of the best Broadway and Hollywood had to offer. It's too bad, then, that she wasn't utilized in films more often for this slight, chinless, parrot-faced, squawky-voiced bundle of (kill)joy could draw laughs from a well with a mere sniffle, gulp, or stare.
Plaintive Alice Pearce was born in New York City, the only child of a bank vice-president, but was raised in different European schools -- wherever her father had business. Eventually Alice settled back in NYC and began to gather experience in summer stock shows. She became a huge hit on the nightclub circuit which eventually paved the way to Broadway. She drew raves in the "New Faces of 1943" and was sensational in the role of Lucy Schmeeler, the sexless, adenoidal blind date, in the New York smash "On the Town" the very next year. As a testament to her talent, Alice was the only performer kept on board when Gene Kelly transferred the sailors-on-leave musical to film. Strangely, this did not lead to a slew of comedy vehicles, but Alice certainly sparked a number of fluffy films, even in the tiniest of roles -- never more so than as the hypochondriac patient who expounds on her physical ailments ad nauseam while overly-attentive Jerry Lewis suffers through a wrenching series of "sympathy pains" in The Disorderly Orderly (1964). It's slapstick comedy at its very best.
TV proved an attractive medium for her as well, hosting her own variety show briefly in 1949. Her career ended on a high note as the nagging, irrepressibly nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz in the Bewitched (1964) sitcom. Ideally teamed with George Tobias as her hen-pecked husband, Abner, the two provided non-stop hilarity -- her frightened gulps, blank gaze and confused exasperation coupled with his dour disgust was comedy heaven. Sadly, Pearce developed ovarian cancer and died in 1966, only two seasons into the show. She was only 48. She quite deservedly won an Emmy trophy for her work a few months after her death. Hollywood lost a treasured talent in Alice Pearce, gone way before her time.Bewitched- Actor
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Distinguished character player James Firman Daly first appeared on stage in his home town of Wisconsin Rapids in 1928. He was set on acting from an early age, and was strongly encouraged by his parents. His father was in the fuel business and his mother at one time a CIA employee. Upon leaving school, Daly studied dramatic arts at various Midwestern colleges, eventually graduating from Grinnell in Iowa. His acting career was then put on hold as a result of the war and he served in all three of the service branches, the last four years spent in the navy as an ensign.
Daly's acting career got off to a good start once he arrived in New York in 1946, landing a part as understudy to Gary Merrill in the long-running hit play "Born Yesterday" on Broadway. By the time he appeared in his third play, "Man and Superman" (1949), he was billed third in the cast and won a Daniel Blum Award for his performance. Subsequently, Daly had a busy time on stage, both on and off-Broadway. He co-starred three times with the legendary Helen Hayes, most famously in "The Glass Menagerie" in 1950. That same year he also collected the Theater Guild Award as the star of "Major Barbara". His other theatrical roles of note included "Billy Budd", "Saint Joan", "The Merchant of Venice" and (on tour with Colleen Dewhurst) "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".
A hard-working actor and intent on diversifying into different media, Daly clearly understood the potential of live television drama. He made his small screen debut in the late 1940s and soon starred in early Playhouse productions. Within a few years he featured in his own weekly syndicated series, Foreign Intrigue (1951), about a family of foreign correspondents in Europe. This was one of the first TV shows to be shot on location and it necessitated his and his family's temporary relocation to Paris and Stockholm. Throughout the next twenty years, Daly remained much in demand as a reliable leading television actor with 'gravitas', often playing tragic or despairing figures. He was commanding as the titular star of Give Us Barabbas! (1961). Four years later, he picked up an Emmy for his role in the Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951) episode "The Eagle and the Cage".
Another memorably poignant portrayal was in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "A Stop at Willoughby", with Daly as a salesperson driven to the brink of a nervous breakdown, desperately escaping his world to a fantasy town in his own mind where life is perpetually simple and peaceful. He was also David Vincent's ill-fated business partner and friend in the pilot episode "Beach-Head", one of the first victims of The Invaders (1967). Many viewers will remember Daly as 'Flint', the solitary near-immortal from the Star Trek (1966) episode "Requiem for Methuselah". There were countless other guest starring roles and even a few choice movie parts, such as Planet of the Apes (1968). Daly enjoyed another recurring role in the long-running (170 episodes) Medical Center (1969) as resident 'elder statesman' to young surgeon Chad Everett. He had just completed filming on an episode of "Roots: The Next Generations" and was scheduled to appear in the play "Equus" at the historic Westchester Theatre, Tarrytown Music Hall, when he died of a heart attack at the age of 59.Eagle in a Cage- Actress
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Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and model, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee made her stage debut at age 4 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, playing the abducted princess in "L'Orocolo". After graduating from high school, she won a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where she studied acting with Sanford Meisner. When she was a teenager Grant established herself as a formidable Broadway talent when she won The Critics' Circle Award for her portrayal of the shoplifter in "Detective Story". She reprised the role in the film version (Detective Story (1951), a performance that garnered her the Cannes Film Festival Citation for Best Actress as well as her first Academy Award Nomination. Immediately following her screen debut, however, Lee became a victim of the McCarthy-era blacklists in which actors, writers, directors, etc., were persecuted for supposedly "Communist" or "progressive" political beliefs, whether they had them or not. Except for an occasional role, she did not work in film or television for 12 years. In 1965 Lee re-started her acting career in the TV series Peyton Place (1964), for which she won an Emmy Award as Stella Chernak, and she later garnered her first Academy Award for Shampoo (1975), also receiving Academy Award nominations for The Landlord (1970) and Voyage of the Damned (1976). Since 1980 Lee has been concentrating on her directorial career, which began as part of the Women's Project at The Americal Film Institute (AFI); her adaptation of August Strindberg's, "Stronger, The" was consequently selected as one of the 10 best films ever produced for AFI. In 1987 she received an Academy Award for the HBO documentary, Down and Out in America (1985) and directed Nobody's Child (1986) for CBS, for which she received the Directors Guild Award. In 1983 she received the Congressional Arts Caucus Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting and Independent Filmmaking. Subsequently, Women in Film paid tribute to her in 1989, with its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award. Both the New York City Council and the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors have recognized Ms. Grant for the contribution her films have made to the fight against domestic violence.Peyton Place- Actor
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Don Adams was born in New York, to a father of Hungarian Jewish descent, and a mother of German and Irish ancestry. He had a sister, Gloria, and a brother, Dick Yarmy. He served in the U.S. Marines in World War II and contracted malaria during the fighting on Guadalcanal island. After the war he began a career as a stand-up comic. He married singer Adelaide Adams and adopted her last name as his stage surname. He had seven children altogether, (four with his first wife, two with his second, one with his third): Caroline Adams, Christine, Catherine, Cecily Adams, Stacey Adams, Sean, Beige. His television career began when he won the Ted Mack & the Original Amateur Hour (1948) talent contest. His most famous role, of course, is as bumbling, incompetent, clueless yet endearing secret agent Maxwell Smart in the classic sitcom/spy spoof Get Smart (1965), although he also had a career as a television director and a Broadway and theatrical dramatic actor.Get Smart- Actress
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Barbara Bain was born in Chicago, graduating from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology. She then relocated to New York City where she gained work as a dancer and high-fashion model. Ms. Bain studied with Martha Graham, permanently cementing her love of dance; however, it was with Lee Strasberg at the prestigious Actors Studio that she discovered her true first love - acting. She is probably best known for her work in the landmark television series Mission: Impossible (1966), created by Bruce Geller, where she created the pivotal role of Impossible Missions Force Agent "Cinnamon Carter", and, in the process, became the first actress in the history of television to receive three consecutive Emmy Awards for Best Dramatic Actress. Ms. Bain followed with the role of "Dr. Helena Russell" in the now classic British syndicated science fiction television series Space: 1999 (1975), created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson. Her stage work has garnered her Los Angeles Critic's Circle and DramaLogue Awards for her work on Arthur Kopit's "Wings", Samuel Beckett's "Happy Days" and Eugène Ionesco's "The Chairs". Ms. Bain has worked on behalf of numerous charitable causes and is the founder of the Screen Actors Guild's "BookPals" Program which currently has some 300 of her colleagues reading to children in Los Angeles schools. Following the success of the program there, she helped the program to develop in other major cities throughout North America.Mission: Impossible- Actress
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Frances Bavier was born in New York City on December 14, 1902. Her first Broadway appearance was in April 1925 in "The Poor Nut," the start of a successful Broadway career. She traveled with the USO to entertain the U.S. troops in the Pacific during World War II. Her last appearance on Broadway was in the 1951 play, "Point of No Return" starring Henry Fonda. It ran for 356 performances.
Her first movie was the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), which was also the first time Frances appeared with Olan Soule. He later went on to play Mayberry's choir director, John Masters, on the The Andy Griffith Show (1960). In the movie, they were both boarders in the rooming house where the alien stayed. She made many movies during the 50s and appeared on TV as featured characters on shows like It's a Great Life (1954) and The Eve Arden Show (1957) before what would become her most famous role, that of Aunt Bee to Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) and Opie Taylor (Ron Howard) on The Andy Griffith Show (1960).The Andy Griffith Show- Actor
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One of Hollywood's finest character / "Method" actors, Eli Wallach was in demand for over 60 years (first film/TV role was 1949) on stage and screen, and has worked alongside the world's biggest stars, including Clark Gable, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brynner, Peter O'Toole, and Al Pacino, to name but a few.
Wallach was born on 7 December 1915 in Brooklyn, NY, to Jewish parents who emigrated from Poland, and was one of the few Jewish kids in his mostly Italian neighborhood. His parents, Bertha (Schorr) and Abraham Wallach, owned a candy store, Bertha's Candy Store. He went on to graduate with a B.A. from the University of Texas in Austin, but gained his dramatic training with the Actors Studio and the Neighborhood Playhouse. He made his debut on Broadway in 1945, and won a Tony Award in 1951 for portraying Alvaro Mangiacavallo in the Tennessee Williams play "The Rose Tattoo".
Wallach made a strong screen debut in 1956 in the film version of the Tennessee Williams play Baby Doll (1956), shined as "Dancer", the nattily dressed hitman, in director Don Siegel's film-noir classic The Lineup (1958), and co-starred in the heist film Seven Thieves (1960). Director John Sturges then cast Wallach as vicious Mexican bandit Calvera in The Magnificent Seven (1960), the western adaptation of the Akira Kurosawa epic Seven Samurai (1954). The Misfits (1961), in the star-spangled western opus How the West Was Won (1962), the underrated WW2 film The Victors (1963), as a kidnapper in The Moon-Spinners (1964), in the sea epic Lord Jim (1965) and in the romantic comedy How to Steal a Million (1966).
Looking for a third lead actor in the final episode of the "Dollars Trilogy", Italian director Sergio Leone cast the versatile Wallach as the lying, two-faced, money-hungry (but somehow lovable) bandit "Tuco" in the spectacular The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) (aka "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"), arguably his most memorable performance. Wallach kept busy throughout the remainder of the '60s and into the '70s with good roles in Mackenna's Gold (1969), Cinderella Liberty (1973), Crazy Joe (1974), The Deep (1977) and as Steve McQueen's bail buddy in The Hunter (1980).
The 1980s was an interesting period for Wallach, as he was regularly cast as an aging doctor, a Mafia figure or an over-the-hill hitman, such as in The Executioner's Song (1982), Our Family Honor (1985), Tough Guys (1986), Nuts (1987), The Two Jakes (1990) and as the candy-addicted "Don Altabello" in The Godfather Part III (1990). At 75+ years of age, Wallach's quality of work was still first class and into the 1990s and beyond, he has remained in demand. He lent fine support to Vendetta: Secrets of a Mafia Bride (1990), Teamster Boss: The Jackie Presser Story (1992), Naked City: Justice with a Bullet (1998) and Keeping the Faith (2000). Most recently Wallach showed up as a fast-talking liquor store owner in Mystic River (2003) and in the comedic drama King of the Corner (2004).
In early 2005, Eli Wallach released his much anticipated autobiography, "The Good, The Bad And Me: In My Anecdotage", an enjoyable reading from one of the screen's most inventive and enduring actors.
Eli Wallach was very much a family man who remained married to his wife Anne Jackson for 66 years. When Wallach died at 98, in 2014, in Manhattan, NY, he was survived by his wife, three children, five grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.The Poppy is Also a Flower- Actress
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Agnes was born of Anglo-Irish ancestry near Boston, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister (her mother was a mezzo-soprano) who encouraged her to perform in church pageants. Aged three, she sang 'The Lord is my Shepherd' on a public stage and seven years later joined the St. Louis Municipal Opera as a dancer and singer for four years. In keeping with her father's dictum of finishing her education first (then being permitted to do whatever she wished with her career), Agnes attended Muskingum College (Ohio), and, subsequently, the University of Wisconsin. She graduated with an M.A. in English and public speaking and later added a doctorate in literature from Bradley University to her resume. When her family moved to Reedsburg, Wisconsin, where her father had a pastorate, Agnes taught public school English and drama for five years. In between, she went to Paris to study pantomime with Marcel Marceau.
In 1928, she began training at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts and graduated with honors the following year. In order to supplement her income , Agnes had turned to radio early on. She had her first job in 1923 as a singer for a St. Louis radio station. Her love for that medium remained with her all her life. From the 1930s to the 50s, she appeared on numerous serials, dramas and children's programs. She was Min Gump in "The Gumps" (1934), the 'dragon lady' in "Terry and the Pirates" (1937), Margot Lane of classic comic strip fame in "The Shadow", Mrs.Danvers in "Rebecca" and the bed-ridden woman about to meet her end in "Sorry, Wrong Number". Acting on the airwaves was so important to her that she would insist on its continuation as a precondition of a later contract with MGM. Significantly, through her radio work on "The Shadow"and "March of Time" in 1937, she met and befriended fellow actor Orson Welles. Welles soon invited her to join him and Joseph Cotten as charter members of his Mercury Theatre on the Air. Agnes was involved in the famous "War of the Worlds" broadcast of 1938 which attracted nationwide attention and resulted in a lucrative $100,000 per picture deal with RKO in Hollywood. The Mercury players (the other principals were Ray Collins, Everett Sloane, Paul Stewart and George Coulouris) packed up and went west.
An ebullient and versatile character actress, Agnes was impossible to typecast: she could play years older than her age, appear as heroine or villainess, tragedienne or comedienne. In her first film, the iconic Citizen Kane (1941), she played the titular character's mother. She received her greatest critical acclaim for her emotive second screen performance as Aunt Fanny Minafer in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). In addition to being voted the year's best female performer by the New York Film Critics she was also nominated for an Academy Award. Through the years, Agnes would be nominated three more times: for her touching portrayal of the jaded but sympathetic Baroness Conti in Mrs. Parkington (1944); for her role as the title character's Aunt Aggie in Johnny Belinda (1948) and for playing Velma, the hard-boiled, suspicious housekeeper of Bette Davis in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), co-starring her old friend Joseph Cotten. Other notable film appearances included Jane Eyre (1943), with Orson Welles, The Woman in White (1948) as Countess Fusco), The Lost Moment (1947) (as a 105-year old woman) and Dark Passage (1947), a classic film noir in which she had third billing behind Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as the treacherous , malevolent Madge Rapf. She had a rare starring role in the campy horror flick The Bat (1959), giving (according to the New York Times of December 17) 'a good, snappy performance'.
On Broadway, she appeared in such acclaimed plays as "All the King's Men" and "Candlelight". She enjoyed success with "Don Juan in Hell", touring nationally: the first time (1951-2) with Charles Laughton and Cedric Hardwicke, the second time (though receiving fewer critical plaudits) with Ricardo Montalban and Paul Henreid in 1973. She also starred with Joseph Cotten in "Prescription Murder" (1962). While not a great critical success, this was much liked by audiences and it introduced a famous detective named Lieutenant Columbo. From 1954, she also toured the U.S. and Europe with her own a one-woman show entitled "The Fabulous Redhead". Agnes performed numerous times on television before landing the role of Endora on Bewitched (1964). One particularly interesting part came her way through the director Douglas Heyes who remembered her from "Sorry, Wrong Number". He cast her in the starring - and indeed, only role in The Invaders (1961). As the lonely old woman confronted by tiny alien invaders in her remote farmhouse, Agnes never utters a single word and cleverly acts her scenes as a pantomime of unspoken terror.
Of course, the genial Agnes Moorehead has been immortalized as Elizabeth Montgomery's flamboyant witch-mother, Endora, although that was not a role the actress wished to be remembered for (in spite of several Emmy Award nominations). Indeed, she had thought this whole witchcraft theme to be rather far-fetched and was somewhat taken aback by the show's huge popularity. Agnes had a special clause inserted in her contract which limited her appearances to eight out of twelve episodes which gave her the opportunity to also work on other projects. Commenting on the acting profession in one of her many interviews (New York Times, May 1, 1974), she found the key to success in being " sincere in your work " and to "just go right on whether audiences or critics are taking your scalp off or not".The Wild Wild West- Actor
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Werner Klemperer, everyone's favorite TV German Air Force colonel, was best known for his role as the bumbling Col. Wilhelm Klink on the comedy series Hogan's Heroes (1965). Although he'll forever be known as the blustering but inept German commandant of Stalag 13, Klemperer was in fact a talented dramatic actor, as evidenced by his acclaimed performance as an arrogant, unrepentant Nazi judge being tried for crimes against humanity in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). His identification with Nazi roles notwithstanding, Klemperer was in real life the son of a Jew who fled with his family from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. When he was offered the Col. Klink role, Klemperer only agreed to do it if the show's producers promised that Klink would never succeed in any of his schemes. "Col. Klink" earned Klemperer five Emmy nominations, and he took home the trophy twice, in 1968 and 1969. After the series, Klemperer carved out an impressive musical career as a conductor and also served as a narrator with many major U.S. symphony orchestras. He was an accomplished concert violinist.Hogan's Heroes- Actress
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Forever embraced as the mumbling, bumbling Aunt Clara on the Bewitched (1964) television series, endearing character actress Marion Lorne had a five-decade-long career on the stage before ever becoming a familiar TV household name.
Born Marion Lorne MacDougall on August 12, 1883 (other sources list 1885 and 1888), she grew up in her native Pennsylvania, the daughter of Scottish and English immigrants. Trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, she appeared in stock shows, and was on the Broadway boards by 1905. She married English playwright Walter C. Hackett and performed in many of his plays throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including "Hyde Park Corner" and "The Gay Adventure". They at one point settled in England where they co-founded the Whitehall Theater. It was there that Marion began to sharpen and patent her fidgety comedy eccentrics in such plays as "Pansy's Arabian Knight," "Sorry You've Been Troubled," "Espionage" and "London After Dark". Upon Hackett's death in 1944, she returned to the States and again, after a brief retirement, became a hit in such tailor-made stage shows as "Harvey".
Marion made a definitive impression via her movie debut at age 60+ in Alfred Hitchcock's immortal suspenser Strangers on a Train (1951) as murderer Robert Walker's clueless, smothering mother. Surprisingly Hollywood used her only a couple more times on film after that auspicious beginning -- a grievously sad waste of a supremely talented comedienne. Marion wisely turned to TV instead and proved a dithery delight in such sitcoms as Mister Peepers (1952) and Sally (1957), gaining quirky status as well as part of the comedy ensemble on The Garry Moore Show (1958).
It was, however, her role as Elizabeth Montgomery's befuddled, muttering, doorknob-collecting witch-aunt on Bewitched (1964) -- whether bouncing into walls or conjuring up some unintended piece of witchcraft -- that put a lasting sheen on her long career. For that role she deservedly won an Emmy trophy for "Best Supporting Actress" -- albeit posthumously. Montgomery accepted her award. Sadly, Marion succumbed to a heart attack on May 9, 1968, just ten days before the actual ceremony. Elizabeth Montgomery gave a touching acceptance speech on her behalf.Bewitched- Actor
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Character actor Milburn Stone, the beloved "Doc Adams" on TV's long-running western classic Gunsmoke (1955), was born in Kansas on July 5, 1904. Acting must have been in his blood as the nephew of Broadway comedian Fred Stone for Milburn left home as a teenager to find work with touring repertory troupes. Emulating his famous uncle Fred, he appeared in vaudeville as part of a song-and-dance team called "Stone and Strain."
Following a minor appearance on Broadway in "The Jayhawkers," Milburn moved to Los Angeles in 1935 to try his luck in films. He toiled for years in mostly unbilled parts for 'poverty row' Monogram Pictures and a few major studios, apprenticing in a number of background roles as both benign fellows (clerks, reporters, sailors, detectives) and bad guys (convicts, robbers, henchmen) in such films as Ladies Crave Excitement (1935), The Fighting Marines (1935), The Princess Comes Across (1936), Banjo on My Knee (1936) and They Gave Him a Gun (1937)
Out of the blue he would occasionally nab a heroic film lead in films as the crime drama Federal Bullets (1937) and The Judge (1949) or serial thrillers as The Great Alaskan Mystery (1944) and The Master Key (1945), then would invariably go right back to unbilled status in his very next role. One memorable featured part (which was also unbilled) was as debater Stephen A. Douglass in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). In addition he played a regular support role as pal/co-pilot "Skeeter Milligan" in the "Tommy Tailspin" airborne film quickies Mystery Plane (1939), Sky Patrol (1939) and Danger Flight (1939).
Other higher visible support roles occurred in such films as the Roy Rogers western Colorado (1940), as well as Captive Wild Woman (1943), The Frozen Ghost (1945), Roadblock (1951), Black Tuesday (1954), Smoke Signal (1955). He also went on to appear in a couple of John Ford's later features such as Simone Bär and The Long Gray Line (1955).
When the crusty but lovable role of "Doc Adams" finally landed at his feet in 1955, Milburn was only too appreciative to experience a steady paycheck. He became an "overnight" star and, along with Matt Dillon's James Arness, earned an Emmy Award for "supporting actor" and stayed a citizen of Dodge City throughout its entire 20-year run (500 episodes). In 1971, Stone was temporarily sidelined by a heart attack and briefly replaced by another "doc" played by Pat Hingle. The ever-durable Stone missed only seven episodes, however, and did return on a more limited basis.
Fully retired to his ranch in 1975 after the show's cancellation, he was eventually awarded an honorary doctorate from St. Mary of the Plains College in (of course) Dodge City, Kansas. Married to Jane Garrison, the 75-year-old veteran died of a heart attack on June 12, 1980 in La Jolla, California. His wife passed away much later in 2002.Gunsmoke- Beautiful green-eyed Barbara Jeanne Anderson is best remembered on screen as the socialite- turned San Francisco police Officer Eve Whitfield in the first four seasons of the NBC police drama Ironside (1967), starring Raymond Burr. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of an enlisted navy man. In her teens, her family moved to Memphis, Tennesse, following her father's latest posting. Barbara took elocution lessons to overcome, first, her strong Brooklyn accent, and then, her newly-acquired Southern drawl. She attended Memphis State University, took part in amateur dramatics and made her professional acting bow with the Southwestern University Players. In 1963, she was voted "Miss Memphis".
Having relocated to California to further her career prospects, Barbara joined the ensemble of the Los Angeles Art Theatre for two years, acting at night, while making ends meet during the daytime as a phone receptionist and telemarketer. Her career was launched after she was noticed by a talent agent playing the lead role of Cyrenne in a stage production of Rattle of a Simple Man (Diane Cilento played this role in the 1964 film).
Signed to a contract with Universal, Barbara's first acting assignment was an episode of The Virginian (1962), followed by guest spots in Star Trek (1966) (as Lenore Karidian) and Mannix (1967). She also made her debut as Eve Whitfield in the Ironside (1967) movie-length TV pilot. Her subsequent role in the series won her a 1968 Primetime Emmy for 'Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Drama'. After she left Ironside in 1971, her spot in the show was taken by Elizabeth Baur for whom a new character, Fran Belding, was created.
Barbara had another recurring role in the final season of Mission: Impossible (1966) as Mimi Davis, an ex-con and recovering alcoholic who was adept at role play and participated in seven missions for the team. Until the early 80's, she continued to make guest appearances in TV movies and prime time shows like Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969), Hawaii Five-O (1968) and Simon & Simon (1981). In 1993, she returned to the screen one final time to reunite with her fellow cast members for The Return of Ironside (1993). Ironically, Elizabeth Baur, who had replaced her in the series, also retired after this film. Raymond Burr died just four months after it went to air.
Barbara left show business in 1993 to devote time to family life, to playing tennis, sailing and painting. The actor Don Burnett, her husband since 1971, had likewise retired early and become a successful investment broker.Ironside - Actress
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One of the most natural beauties of the 1960s with a gentle voice and personality to match, blonde Hope Lange was born in Redding Ridge, Connecticut, and performed on stage from the age of nine. She studied both drama and dance under Martha Graham, did some modeling and then worked in stock companies and on television, dancing on Jackie Gleason shows. She acted in just a handful of motion pictures, garnering an Academy Award nomination for one, and later won two Emmys for her best-loved role on television.
Hope was one of four children of an actress mother, upon whose shoulders fell the responsibility of supporting the family after the premature death of her father, the composer/arranger John Lange, at age 61 in 1942. Along with her siblings, she worked as a waitress in the family's Greenwich Village restaurant, 'Minette's of Washington Square'. By chance, she made the acquaintance of Eleanor Roosevelt, who owned an apartment in the village, and ended up walking the former First Lady's prized Scotch terrier, Fala. This got her photo into a newspaper, which, in turn, led to an advertising job with pictures on the June 1949 cover of 'Radio-Electronics', sporting the futuristic red 'Man from Mars' pith helmet with built-in radio. Still just fifteen years old, Hope spent the next two years at college in Oregon and New York, then found her first job in television and was subsequently signed by 20th Century-Fox.
After successful screen tests, Lange made her motion picture debut in Bus Stop (1956) (Barbara Eden was one of her competitors for the part) opposite Marilyn Monroe and husband-to-be Don Murray. Even the great Marilyn was said to have felt a little threatened by another blonde who was not only beautiful but five years younger and could act as well. After playing the wife of the titular character in The True Story of Jesse James (1957), a picture which she later referred to as a 'turkey', Lange was cast as the fragile Selena Cross in the melodramatic but good-looking soap opera Peyton Place (1957). This movie was regarded as risqué and controversial at the time, dealing with previously taboo subjects such as rape and incest. For her part of the abused girl, raped by her alcoholic stepfather, whom she finally kills in self-defense, Lange received an Academy Award nomination.
The glossy production values of The Best of Everything (1959), a film about ambitious New York career women working in a magazine publishing house, overshadowed most of the character development. However, Lange (who was billed above the established star Joan Crawford) was dealt with most favorably by the critics. According to Bosley Crowther of The New York Times: "Simply because she has the most to do, and does it gracefully, Miss Lange comes off best' (October 9,1959). The following decade was to be a period of mixed fortunes for Hope Lange.
In 1961, Lange began a long-standing relationship with fellow actor Glenn Ford and left husband Don Murray. Ford, in his dual role of star and associate producer, put pressure on director Frank Capra to cast Lange as the female lead in his next motion picture, the whimsical Damon Runyon-inspired comedy Pocketful of Miracles (1961), even though Shirley Jones had already been assigned to the role. Capra reluctantly gave way, though Hope Lange was likely miscast as the wisecracking showgirl. Lange again co-starred with Ford in the glossy romantic melodrama Love Is a Ball (1963), wherein acting took a back seat to sumptuous costumes and the French Riviera. On the negative side of the ledger, Lange had unsuccessfully auditioned for the part of Maria in West Side Story (1961), which ultimately went to Natalie Wood. Instead, she was cast as Elvis Presley's psychiatrist in Wild in the Country (1961), which was generally panned by critics, except for Variety singling out her performance above the rest as 'intelligent' and 'sensitive'. Lange was also slated to appear as love interest to George Peppard in How the West Was Won (1962), but her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.
Turning increasingly towards television, Hope Lange achieved her most lasting fame as the popular star of the amiable sitcom The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (1968) as a widow who (with two kids and a housekeeper) takes up residence in a quaint cottage also inhabited by the cantankerous ghost of a sea captain (Edward Mulhare). The show ran for three seasons and Lange won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series (1969 and 1970). In her only other recurring TV role, she played Dick Van Dyke's wife in The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971), but with less rewarding results. She received good notices for portraying Charles Bronson's dying wife, the victim of the original Death Wish (1974) and its raison d'etre. She then acted primarily on television, with few exceptions, including Blue Velvet (1986) and Clear and Present Danger (1994) as a U.S. senator. In 1977, she replaced Tony Award-winning Ellen Burstyn in the starring role of Doris in 'Same Time, Next Year' on Broadway.
In the early '90s, Lange underwent surgery for a brain tumour. While the operation was successful, her health remained precarious and she limited her screen appearances, retiring altogether in 1998. She died of an intestinal infection in December 2003, aged 70.The Ghost and Mrs. Muir- Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carl Betz formed a repertory theatre company while still in high school, then worked in summer stock. He served in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, then attended Carnegie Tech. Following graduation, he worked as a radio announcer. He made his Broadway debut in "The Long Watch". He was given a contract at Twentieth Century-Fox, and appeared in supporting roles in a number of films before moving into television. After a brief period working in soap operas, he was cast as Dr. Alex Stone on the popular The Donna Reed Show (1958) and spent eight years there. He followed that show with another series, Judd for the Defense (1967), in which he played a masterful attorney. He worked primarily in television, in both guest appearances and TV movies, throughout the Seventies, though he continued to work on stage around the U.S. He fought a gallant fight against early cancer and died in 1978.Judd, for the Defense
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Susan Saint James was a lovely and slightly loony TV successor to Shirley MacLaine. Her mildly kooky and clumsy free spirits came into vogue during the "free love" era of the late '60s.
Of German, Irish and English ancestry, Saint James was born Susan Jane Miller in Los Angeles on August 14, 1946, to Charles Daniel Miller, a businessman, and Constance Geiger Miller. Both her mother and grandmother were schoolteachers. Raised in Rockford, Illinois, Susan was a model briefly during her teens in both the U.S. and France. She later attended the Connecticut College for Women.
Luck in Hollywood came almost immediately to her when she landed a seven-year contract with Universal Studios. As if that wasn't enough, her very first TV job would be a plum "girl Friday" role on a TV movie pilot starring ultra-cool Anthony Franciosa and sexy femme fatale Jill St. John.
As an eager but awkward amateur sleuth in the whodunnit crime mystery Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966), audiences immediately took to Susan as the editorial assistant to investigative reporter Franciosa who snooped way too much and often found herself in life-threatening circumstances. Saint James would continue her role as Peggy Maxwell when the series was picked up. The Name of the Game (1968), with its revolving trio of stars Anthony Franciosa, Robert Stack and Gene Barry, became a hit and Susan earned three Emmy nominations, copping the trophy on her first try during the 1968-69 season.
Cleverly downplaying her sexy allure and model good looks for a more down-to-earth appeal, Susan also had a fun recurring role as an equally klutzy thief who complicates things for Robert Wagner's suave cat burglar in It Takes a Thief (1968). She hit her TV peak, however, as Police Commissioner Rock Hudson's plucky wife in McMillan & Wife (1971) from 1971 to 1976, her character still managing to get into her usual share of danger and trouble. She earned three more Emmy nominations.
Having gotten her feet wet on the big screen with a few featured/co-star roles in the private eye drama P.J. (1967), the convent comedy Where Angels Go Trouble Follows! (1968), and the crime thriller Jigsaw (1968), Susan earned particular notice in the '70s with the action comedy Outlaw Blues (1977) opposite Peter Fonda, the cult Dracula spoof Love at First Bite (1979) opposite George Hamilton, and the female buddy crime caper How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980) with Jane Curtin and Jessica Lange. Surprisingly, none of these were the foundation for a lasting movie career.
Wisely, Susan returned to her comfy TV series format co-starring (again) with Jane Curtin in the liberal-minded sitcom Kate & Allie (1984), which lasted five seasons. She earned two additional Emmy nominations playing an adventurous libber versus Curtin's more conservative character. Saint James also thrived on TV movie comedies and dramas with several vehicles, including Magic Carpet (1972), Desperate Women (1978), Night Cries (1978), The Girls in the Office (1979), The Kid from Nowhere (1982) and I Take These Men (1983) coming her way.
Saint James chose to back away from the limelight following the cancellation of Kate & Allie (1984). Moving to Connecticut, she devoted her time to raising a family and dedicating herself to charity work, notably the Special Olympics, for which she served on the board of directors. Since then, she has received several honors as a spokesperson for volunteerism.
In later years, Susan appeared infrequently on talk shows (David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey) and in rare guest star parts on such shows as "M*A*S*H." She went on to grace the first episode of The Drew Carey Show (1995), in which niece Christa Miller was a co-star. More recently, she has been seen on episodes of the TV series "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "Suits" and had a recurring role on several 2020 episodes of "Upland." In 2008, Susan received a star on the Walk of Fame for her TV work.
Formerly married to writer/producer Richard Neubert and makeup artist Tom Lucas, Saint James is married to NBC executive Dick Ebersol, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live (1975). She is the mother of five children, two by Lucas and three by Ebersol.The Love of the Game- Actor
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A man of all mediums, this veteran, Manhattan-born character actor was named after his great-grandfather, Lincolnesque Congressman William Windom. Born in 1923, the son of Paul Windom, an architect, and the former Isobel Wells Peckham, Bill attended Williams College and the University of Kentucky, among others, before serving in the Army during WWII. After the war, he studied at both Fordham and Columbia universities in New York City before settling on an acting career. Trained at the American Repertory Theatre (1946-1961), he made his minor Broadway debut with the company in November of 1946 with revolving productions of "Henry VIII", "What Every Woman Knows", "John Gabriel Borkman" and "Androcles and the Lion". The following year, he continued building up his Broadway resume with roles in "Yellow Jack" and as the "White Rabbit" in a production of "Alice in Wonderland".
In the early 1950s, a new avenue opened up to Bill: television. For the duration of the decade, he shifted between stage, which included Broadway roles in "A Girl Can Tell" (1953), "Mademoiselle Colombe" (1954), "Fallen Angels" (1956), "The Greatest Man Alive" (1957) and "Viva Madison Avenue!" (1960), and TV drama, with stalwart work in such programs as Robert Montgomery Presents (1950) and Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951).
Major attention came Windom's way on TV moving into the following decade. In addition to hundreds of guest appearances on the most popular shows of the day (Combat! (1962), The Fugitive (1963), All in the Family (1971), Dallas (1978), Highway to Heaven (1984)), his standout work included a co-starring role opposite the luminous Inger Stevens in the popular light comedy series The Farmer's Daughter (1963). On the show, Windom portrayed widower "Glen Morley", a decent congressman who eventually falls in love with his pert and pretty Swedish governess "Katy Holstrum" (played by Stevens). Prior to this success, both he and Ms. Stevens had been singularly recognized for their sterling performances on various episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959). Following this success, Windom enjoyed critical notice as the cartoonist/protagonist whose vivid imagination causes problems on the homefront on the Thurberesque weekly series My World and Welcome to It (1969). Despite the show's critical merit and Windom's "Best Actor" Emmy win, the show, years ahead of its time, lasted only one season. Decades later, Windom would play James Thurber on stage in one-man shows.
The native New Yorker went on to essay a number of loungy Southerners and down-home types with incredible ease--both heroes and villains. He offered strong support in his film debut as Gregory Peck's opposing counsel in the Alabama-based To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and went on to play prelate Norman Vincent Peale's father in One Man's Way (1964) starring Don Murray. Windom demonstrated the maturity to carry off the character even though he was only 5 years older than Murray. He also delivered a variety of pungent roles in such films as The Detective (1968) (as a closeted gay married man), Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud (1970) (as a political blowhard facing a series of murders) and The Man (1972) (as a racist politician).
Growing slier and stockier over the years, Windom provided TV audiences with a colorful gallery of characters, ranging from avuncular and ingratiating, to cantankerous and unscrupulous. He became a regular for over a decade on the Angela Lansbury whodunit series Murder, She Wrote (1984), joining the show in its second season as "Dr. Seth Hazlitt". He briefly left "Murder" to work on another series, Parenthood (1990), which was based on the highly popular 1989 movie starring Steve Martin. Here, Ed Begley Jr. took over the Martin part and Windom assumed Jason Robards's patriarchal role as Begley's father. The show was off the air within a few months, however, and Windom was invited back to the mystery series -- a semi-regular until the show folded in 1997.
In addition, Windom reprised a Star Trek (1966) portrayal as "Commodore Matt Decker," appeared in scores of mini-movies, has given voice to various book readings, presented a second one-man show (this time that of combat reporter Ernie Pyle), and continued to film at age 80+, his latest being Yesterday's Dreams (2005).
The five-times-married Windom was wed (for 36 years) to writer Patricia Veronica Tunder at the time of his death of congestive heart failure at age 88. A chess, tennis and sailing enthusiast, he is survived by four children: Rachel, Heather Juliet, Hope and Rebel Russell.Two step-daughters, Debora and Maggie as well as four grandchildren. He died at his home in Woodacre, California, on August 16, 2012.My World and Welcome to It- Actress
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Susan Hampshire, the English actress who has won three Emmy Awards, was born in Kensington, London on May 12, 1937. Her original ambition was to be a nurse, but she could not pass her O-Level exam in Latin. (She found out when she was 30 years old that she was dyslexic, and her work on dyslexia subsequently brought her the Officer of the British Empire award.) She decided to become an actress and gained training in the theater. She made her movie debut, at 10 years old, in The Woman in the Hall (1947) but her proper debut was in the Laurence Harvey picture, Expresso Bongo (1959), in 1958. Her career has never faltered.
Hampshire made a name for herself in her native Britain, appearing in Katy (1962) on TV in 1962 for the BBC. Walt Disney signed her to star in the 1964 family picture, The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963), but it was her role in the 1967 BBC mini-series, The Forsyte Saga (1967), that made her famous and won her the first of her three Emmy Awards. Shown in the United States on the precursor to PBS, the great popularity of the series led the new PBS to create Masterpiece (1971). The First Churchills (1969), in which Hampshire played "Sarah Churchill", was the first series offered on "Masterpiece Theater" and brought her her second Emmy. In 1973, she won her third, playing "Becky Sharp" in Vanity Fair (1967), for a mini-series that had been released in the UK in 1967.
Susan Hampshire has continued to be active on television and in the theater. She has been married to her second husband, the theatrical impresario, Sir Eddie Kulukundis, since 1981.The Forsyte Saga
The First Churchills- Award-winning Greek-American actor Michael Constantine (born 22 May 1927) is best known for his portrayal of the Windex bottle-toting family patriarch "Gus Portokalos" in the sleeper hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). Before his appearance in that movie and the subsequent TV series based on it, he was primarily known for his portrayal of principal Seymour Kaufman in the series Room 222 (1969), for which he won a 1970 Emmy Award as Best Supporting Actor (in 1971, he also received a second Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actor for the role).
Michael Constantine was born Constantine Joanides in Reading, Pennsylvania, to Greek parents, Andromache (Fotiadou) and Theoharis Ioannides, a steel worker. He made his Broadway debut as part of the ensemble of the hit play "Inherit the Wind," which made its bow at the National Theatre on April 21, 1955, and closed on June 22, 1957, after 806 performances. During the run of the play, Constantine managed to work his way up into the part of "Conklin". His next appearance on the Great White Way was in "Compulsion," a dramatization of the Leopold & Loeb trial, in which he played three parts: speakeasy owner "Al," defense attorney "Jonathan Wilk" and "Dr. Ball." The show had a modest run of 140 performances in the 1957-58 season at the Ambassador Theatre.
On October 19, 1959, Constantine was part of the opening-night cast of the hit play "The Miracle Worker," appearing in the role of "Anagnos." It ran for 719 performances at the Playhouse through July 1, 1961, but his next play, "The Egg", was a flop, lasting but one week (eight performances) at the Cort in January 1962. His last turn on Broadway was in Tony Richardson's staging of Bertolt Brecht's mediation on the rise of Adolf Hitler, "Arturo Ui" (a.k.a. "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui"). Constantine played the character "Dogsborough" in support of the great Broadway star Christopher Plummer's "Arturo Ui." It, too, was a one-week flop, lasting but eight performances at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in November 1963. Constantine's Broadway career was at an end.
He made his motion picture debut in The Last Mile (1959) in support of Mickey Rooney, but had already begun appearing in the medium in which he made his reputation, television, the year before. He appeared in teleplays on the omnibus television anthologies Armstrong Circle Theatre (1950) and Play of the Week (1959) and made numerous guest appearances on TV series, where his ethnic look made him valuable as heavies on such programs as The Untouchables (1959). In film, he appeared in such productions as Robert Rossen's classic The Hustler (1961), If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) and the film version of Woody Allen's play, Don't Drink the Water (1969), the latter two films revealing his flair for comedy.
Constantine was a regular on the series Hey, Landlord (1966). His stint on Room 222 (1969) was followed by his star-turn in the short-lived series Sirota's Court (1976), for which he received his second Golden Globe nomination, this time as Best Leading Actor in a Musical or Comedy TV Series, in 1976. After that, he remained steadily employed but his career remained rather quiet until cast he was cast in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002).
Michael Constantine died in August 2021. He was 94.Room 222 - Actress
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Karen Valentine was born on a chicken farm in northern California and made her professional debut, at the age of 16, on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) (aka "The Ed Sullivan Show"). After performing as a contestant on a live national broadcast of "The Miss Teenage America Pageant", Ed Sullivan phoned during the ceremonies and invited her to appear on his iconic variety show the following week. She has since starred in countless productions on stage and screen, including the acclaimed series, Room 222 (1969) as student teacher Alice Johnson, for which she received an Emmy Award. She was a regular panelist on the popular game show The Hollywood Squares (Daytime) (1965), exchanging quips with Paul Lynde, George Gobel and host Peter Marshall. Over the years she has starred in many made-for-television movies, series episodes and variety specials, as well as several feature films. She has been a fixture on TV talk shows and guest-hosted for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962). Across the country, Ms. Valentine has appeared in many stage productions, on Broadway and off, as well as touring with national companies.Room 222- Actor
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James Brolin is an American actor. Brolin has won two Golden Globes and an Emmy. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 27, 1998. He is the father of actor Josh Brolin.
He is best known for his TV roles such as Stephen Kiley on Marcus Welby, M.D.(1969-1976), Peter McDermott on Hotel (1983-1988), and John Short in Life in Pieces (2015-2019), and his film roles such as Sgt. Jerome K. Weber in Skyjacked (1972), John Blane in Westworld (1973), General Ralph Landry in Traffic (2000), Jack Barnes in Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Emperor Zurg in the 2022 Toy Story spin-off film Lightyear.Marcus Welby, M.D.- A classy, smart-looking African-American actress who broke racial barriers in 1970s Hollywood but suffered greatly in her private life years after her TV glory days, award-winning actress Gail Fisher was born on August 18, 1935, in Orange, New Jersey, the youngest of five children. Her father, a carpenter, died when she was only two years old and the family was destitute, living in the slums ("Potters Crossing") with their widowed mother Ona Fisher. Gail was a cheerleader as a teen and found some joy performing a leading role in one of her Metuchen High School plays in Metuchen, New Jersey. Beauty pageants became a source of pride during this period, earning distinction on the beauty-pageant circuit and becoming the first African-American semifinalist in the New Jersey State Fair beauty contest. A multiple pageant winner, among her titles were "Miss Transit," "Miss Black New Jersey" and "Miss Press Photographer."
Thanks to a contest sponsored by Coca-Cola, Gail won the chance to study acting at New York's American Academy of Arts for two years. She trained under Lee Strasberg for a time and subsequently became a member (the first African-American accepted) of the Repertory Theater at Lincoln Center, where she worked with Elia Kazan and Herbert Blau. The young serene beauty also worked as a model at the time and even worked in a factory to pay bills. In 1964 she married John Levy (1912-2012), a bassist and pioneer jazz talent manager whose clients included some of the jazz world's biggest names (Nancy Wilson, Joe Williams, Cannonball Adderley, Betty Carter, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Abbey Lincoln, Shirley Horn, Les McCann, Wes Montgomery). He also managed Gail's acting career. John and Gail, who was his second wife, had two children, Samara and Jole.
In 1965, teacher Herbert Blau cast Gail in a classical stage production of "Danton's Death" in 1965. Gail also understudied Ruby Dee in "Purlie Victorious" on Broadway and toured with a production of "A Raisin in the Sun". The 25-year-old broke into TV years earlier in 1959, appearing in the syndicated program "Play of the Week" entitled "Simply Heavenly," a musical starring Mel Stewart and Claudia McNeil, and also played a singer in the series "The Defenders" and a judge on daytime's "General Hospital". During the early part of the 1960s, she made history when she appeared in a nationally televised commercial for All laundry detergent and became the first black performer to be given dialogue.
The crime series Mannix (1967) starring Mike Connors was revamped in its second season due to mediocre ratings and Gail was added to the mix as Peggy Fair, Mannix's widowed secretary whose murdered husband, a cop, was a friend to the detective and who was now raising their small son alone. Sometimes Peggy would go undercover as a housekeeper or prostitute to help him solve crimes. The public immediately took to the dusky-voiced actress and the ratings soared. Any slight hint of romance between the Peggy Fair and Joe Mannix characters was never acted upon as CBS (who initially was hesitant in hiring a black woman in this role), or any other network for that matter, would not allow an interracial romance. Gail went on to win an Emmy (the first black actress to do so -- besting Susan Saint James of "McMillan and Wife" and Barbara Anderson of "Ironside") and two Golden Globe trophies (the first black actress to win this award) in the process. In between she made amiable guest appearances on such popular TV series as "My Three Sons," "Love, American Style" and "Room 222."
Once "Mannix" was canceled in 1975, however, acting offers slowed down considerably and chaos rose beneath her usually calm and controlled exterior. Not in keeping with her public image, she flew into a series of marriages and divorces and developed a major drug problem. She made tabloid headlines in 1978 when she was busted for possession of marijuana and cocaine and for using an illegal phone device. She entered rehab and eventually recovered but her career was irreparably damaged. Sporadic acting roles came in such series as "Medical Center," "Fantasy Island," "Knight Rider" and "Hotel," and the TV movie Donor (1990) and the grade-Z crime film Mankillers (1987) co-starring Edd Byrnes, but they were very few and far between. Fisher was married at least twice and had two daughters, Samara and Jole, from her marriage to John Levy, which ended in divorce in 1972 during the run of "Mannix". She briefly married second husband Robert A. Walker the following year.
Gail's battle with drug addiction contributed to her health decline. A diabetic as well, she was later diagnosed with emphysema. Gail died of renal failure in Los Angeles in 2000 at age 65 and was cremated. News of her death did not surface until four months later. Survived by brother Herbert and sister Ona, another brother, Clifton, died of heart failure twelve hours after Gail's passing. Gail was such a class act on TV.Mannix - Actor
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As a film character actor, Klugman was the epitome of the everyman. He was one of the pioneers of television acting in the 1950s, and is best remembered for his 1970s TV work as Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple (1970) and as the medical examiner on Quincy M.E. (1976).The Odd Couple- Actress
- Soundtrack
Jean Stapleton was born Jeanne Murray in Manhattan, New York City, to Marie A. (Stapleton), an opera singer, and Joseph Edward Murray, a billboard advertising salesman. Her paternal grandparents were Irish. She was a cousin of actress Betty Jane Watson. Other relatives in show business were her uncle, Joseph E. Deming, a vaudevillian; and her brother Jack Stapleton, a stage actor. She graduated from Wadleigh High School, NYC, in 1939. She worked as a secretary before becoming an actress. Stapleton made her stage debut at the Greenwood Playhouse, Peaks Island, Maine, in the summer of 1941, and her New York stage debut in "The Corn Is Green" (1948). She appeared on Broadway in the musicals "Damn Yankees" (1955) and "Bells Are Ringing" (1956), and later repeated her roles in the movie versions (Damn Yankees (1958) and Bells Are Ringing (1960)). Her other Broadway roles included the original companies of "Rhinoceros" (1961) and "Funny Girl" (1964). Stapleton also played Abby Brewster in the 1986-87 revival of "Arsenic and Old Lace".All in the Family- Actor
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Hal Holbrook was an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor who was one of the great craftsmen of stage and screen. He was best known for his performance as Mark Twain, for which he won a Tony and the first of his ten Emmy Award nominations. Aside from the stage, Holbrook made his reputation primarily on television, and was memorable as Abraham Lincoln, as Senator Hays Stowe on The Bold Ones: The Senator (1970) and as Capt. Lloyd Bucher on Pueblo (1973). All of these roles brought him Emmy Awards, with Pueblo (1973) bringing him two, as Best Lead Actor in a Drama and Actor of the Year - Special. On January 22, 2008, he became the oldest male performer ever nominated for an Academy Award, for his supporting turn in Into the Wild (2007).
He was born Harold Rowe Holbrook, Jr. on February 17, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Eileen (Davenport), a vaudeville dancer, and Harold Rowe Holbrook, Sr. Raised primarily in South Weymouth, Massachusetts by his paternal grandparents, Holbrook attended the Culver Academies. During World War II, Holbrook served in the Army in Newfoundland. After the war, he attended Denison University, graduating in 1948. While at Denison, Holbrook's senior honors project concerned Mark Twain.
He later developed "Mark Twain Tonight!," the one-man show in which he impersonates the great American writer Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens. Holbrook learned his craft on the boards and by appearing in the TV soap opera The Brighter Day (1954). He first played Mark Twain as a solo act in 1954, at Lock Haven State Teachers College in Pennsylvania. The show was a success that created a buzz. After seeing the performance, Ed Sullivan, the host of TV's premier variety show, featured him on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) on February 12, 1956. This lead to an international tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, which included appearances in Iron Curtain countries. Holbrook brought the show to Off-Broadway in 1959. He even played Mark Twain for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 1966 "Mark Twain Tonight" Broadway production brought Holbrook even more acclaim, and the Tony Award. The show was taped and Holbrook won an Emmy nomination. He reprised the show on Broadway in 1977 and in 2005. By that time, he had played Samuel Clemens on stage over 2,000 times.
Among Holbrook's more famous roles was "The Major" in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's "Incident at Vichy", as Martin Sheen's significant other in the controversial and acclaimed TV movie That Certain Summer (1972), the first TV movie to sympathetically portray homosexuality, and as Abraham Lincoln in Carl Sandburg's acclaimed TV biography of the 16th President Lincoln (1974), a role he also portrayed in excellent performances too in North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and North & South: Book 2, Love & War (1986). He also is known for his portrayal of the enigmatic "Deep Throat" in All the President's Men (1976), one of the major cinema events of the mid-'70s. In the 1990s, he had a regular supporting role in the TV series Evening Shade (1990), playing Burt Reynolds' character's father-in-law.
Hal Holbrook died on January 23, 2021, at 95 years, in Beverly Hills. He was buried in McLemoresville Cemetery in Tennessee with his wife Dixie Carter.The Bold Ones: The Senator- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Edward Asner was born of Russian Jewish parentage in Kansas City, to Morris David Asner (founder and owner of the Kansas City-based Asner Iron & Metal Company) and his wife Elizabeth "Lizzie" (Seliger). After attending college, Ed worked various jobs, including in a steel mill, as a door-to-door salesman and on an assembly line for General Motors. Between 1947 and 1949, he attended the University of Chicago. The onset of the Korean War saw him drafted into the U.S. Army Signals Corps and posted to France where he was primarily assigned clerical tasks. Upon demobilization, Asner joined the Playwrights Theatre Company in Chicago but soon progressed to New York. In 1955, he appeared off-Broadway in the leading role of the beggar king Jonathan Peachum in Brecht's Threepenny Opera. Five years later, he made his debut on the Great White Way in the courtroom drama Face of a Hero, co-starring alongside Jack Lemmon. He also began regular TV work in anthology drama.
From the early '60s, Asner, now based in California, earned his living as a busy supporting actor. His many noted guest appearances included turns in Route 66 (1960), The Untouchables (1959), The Fugitive (1963), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) (sinister dictator-in-exile Brynov), The Invaders (1967) (twice -- as aliens) and How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (1998) (one of a couple of ghostly residents in a haunted mansion). Heavy-set and distinctively gravelly-voiced, Asner established his reputation as tough, robust and uncompromising (though, on occasion, good-hearted) authority figures. Excellent at conveying menace, he was memorably cast as the brutish patriarch Axel Jordache in Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) and as the slave ship's morally conflicted master, Captain Thomas Davies, in Roots (1977), which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award in 1977. The immensely prolific Asner (417 IMDB screen credits!) would receive seven Emmys in total (from 21 nominations), all Primetime, and become the only actor to win in both the comedy and drama category for the same role. That was also the part which made Asner a household name: the gruff, snarky newspaper editor Lou Grant (1977). Grant began as a mainstay on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), a 30-minute sitcom.
When the character was promoted to West Coast editor of The Los Angeles Tribune, Asner went on to star in his own much acclaimed drama series. Despite consistently high ratings, the show was axed after five seasons amid rumours of disharmony between the star and producers, possibly due to the former's outspoken political views. Indeed, Asner has been a controversial figure as an activist and campaigner, engaged in a variety of humanitarian and political issues. A self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, he published a book in 2017, amusingly titled "The Grouchy Historian: An Old-Time Lefty Defends Our Constitution Against Right-Wing Hypocrites and Nutjobs."
Between 1981 and 1985, Asner served twice as President of the Screen Actors Guild, during which time he was critical of former SAG President Ronald Reagan -- then the president of a greater concern -- for his Central American policy. In 1996, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and in 2002 received the Screen Actors Guild's Life Achievement Award. In addition to appearing on screen and stage, he performed extensive work for radio, video games and animated TV series. He voiced the lead character Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's Oscar-winning production of Up (2009), starred as Santa in Elf (2003), and played Nicholas Drago in The Games Maker (2014). Ed passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 91 on August 29, 2021.The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Lou Grant- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Making people laugh was only one facet of Valerie Harper's career, which extended from the stage to television and feature films. A native of Suffern, New York -- "I was born to suffer" -- Harper began her career as a dancer with the corps de ballet at Radio City Hall during its spectacular heyday. She gradually moved into acting, working in everything from industrial shows to regional theatre to the Second City comedy troupe of Chicago. Eventually, she made it to Broadway in productions of Dear Liar, the Tony Award winning Story Theatre, Something Different and Metamorphosis. Stardom came with television, including four Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for her work in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and Rhoda (1974), in which the latter she played the title role. Harper won Harvard's Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year, and her Rhoda's Wedding episode set that 1974's ratings record. Since retiring Rhoda Morganstern to re-runs, Harper was active on stage and in movies. Her feature films included Freebie and the Bean (1974), Chapter Two (1979), The Last Married Couple in America (1980) and Blame It on Rio (1984). In television, she starred on all three networks in movies of the week, including Farrell for the People (1982) (NBC), Don't Go to Sleep (1982) (ABC) and An Invasion of Privacy (1983) (CBS). A strong supporter of women's rights, Harper worked since the mid-80s on a film with second husband Tony Cacciotti which will probably never reach fruition after all this time, based on a true story involving domestic violence.The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Rhoda- Actor
- Soundtrack
David Burns was born on 22 June 1901 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Saint in London (1939), Let's Make Love (1960) and She Couldn't Say No (1940). He was married to Mildred Todd. He died on 12 March 1971 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.The Price- Tall, reedy, thin-browed, light-haired British award-winning theatre actress Margaret Leighton was born in Worchestershire, England, on February 26, 1922, the daughter of a businessman. Expressing an early desire to act, she quit school at age 15 and auditioned and joined Sir Barry Jackson's Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Becoming one of his star students, he hired her as a stage manager and offered her the small role of Dorothy in the stage play Laugh with Me (1938). The play marked her professional stage debut. The play was immediately taken to the BBC-TV (Laugh with Me (1938). During these productive repertory years, she involved herself in the classical plays Chekov, Shakespeare, and Shaw, among others..
In 1944, Margaret made her London debut at the Old Vic, playing the daughter of the troll king in 'Peer Gynt. Joining the company under the auspices of Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, she earned distinction as a classical stage actress. In 1946, she made her Broadway debut in repertory with productions of Henry IV, Parts I and II (as Lady Percy), Uncle Vanya (as Yelena), and others.
The opulent actress with strikingly odd, yet fascinating facial features stole more than a few plays and films away from the stars with her stunning portrayals of neurotic, brittle matrons. Her unique brand of sophisticated eccentricity went on to captivate both Broadway and London audiences with her many theatre offerings, particularly her portrayals of Celia Coplestone in The Cocktail Party (1950) and Orinthia in a revival of The Apple Cart (1953). Her New York performance as Mrs. Shankland in Terence Rattigan's drama Separate Tables (1956) earned her a Tony Award. She returned to Broadway in 1959, to play Beatrice in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, before returning in 1962 as Hannah in The Night of the Iguana, and earning her second Best Actress Tony. She'd continue to return to Broadway throughout the 1960's with such plays as, The Chinese Prime Minister, Slapstick Tragedy, and the 1967 heralded production of The Little Foxes,first playing Birdie before taking over the role of Regina.
During the 1950's and 1960's, Margaret would alternate between working on British and U.S. films. She made her British debut as Catherine Winslow in Rattigan's The Winslow Boy (1948) starring Robert Donat, then co-starred opposite David Niven in the period biopic Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948). Hitchcock used her next in one of his lesser known romantic crime films Under Capricorn (1949) before entangling herself in a romantic triangle with Celia Johnson and Noël Coward in The Astonished Heart (1950), which was both written and directed by Coward. In the crimer Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951), Margaret plays a Scotland Yard sergeant who pulls the master sleuth (Walter Pidgeon) out of retirement to infiltrate a vicious gang together, while in the mystery crime drama, Murder on Monday (1952), the touching drama The Holly and the Ivy (1952) and the saucy comedy A Novel Affair (1957), she reunited with her Old Vic theatre mentor, Ralph Richardson.
Margaret married (1947) and divorced (1955) noted publisher Max Reinhardt (of Reinhardt & Evans), known for his collection of letters and photographs from playwright and novelist George Bernard Shaw. Her second husband would be actor Laurence Harvey who starred in the British crime thriller The Good Die Young (1954) in which Margaret made a co-starring appearance as his abused wife. They would marry later in 1957.
Margaret earned her first top cinematic billing as Helen Teckman in The Teckman Mystery (1954) and reunited with David Niven in the military film Court Martial (1954). Playing a Southern aristocrat in the U.S. filming of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (1959) starring Yul Brynner, she followed that in the 1960's with a co-star part opposite Peter Sellers in the comedy Waltz of the Toreadors (1962) and an all-star American cast headed by Henry Fonda in the potent political drama The Best Man (1964). The black comedy The Loved One (1965) and the dramatic 7 Women (1965), playing one of several ladies in peril at a Chinese mission, followed.
Appearing in TV-movie versions of literary classics including Arms and the Man,As You LIke It. Margaret began to make guest appearances on TV programs, including; Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955),Playhouse 90 (1956), in addition to a recurring role on Dr. Kildare (1961)
Divorced from Harvey in 1961, Margaret's third and final marriage to actor Michael Wilding in 1964 was an enduring match-up. The couple went on to co-star in the period piece Lady Caroline Lamb (1972). Other notable screen credits include Marriage a la Mode (1955), Waltz of the Toreadors (1962), The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) and the made-for-TV, Great Expectations (1974) as Miss Havisham. Margaret would receive her only Oscar nomination for her support role in The Go-Between (1971), as Julie Christie's manipulative, class-conscious mother.
In 1971, Margaret was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but didn't let it slow her down for quite some time. She continued to perform in such films as X, Y & Zee (1972), The Nelson Affair (1973) and the TV horror offering Frankenstein: The True Story (1973). By 1975, when she was no longer capable of walking, she continued to act giving an over-the-top comic performance in A Dirty Knight's Work (1976). Margaret passed away on 13 January, 1976. Margaret had no children by any of her marriages.Hamlet - Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Carroll was born in Manhattan and raised in Forest Hills, a heavily Jewish community in New York City's borough of Queens. After graduating from high school in 1942, O'Connor joined the Merchant Marines and worked on ships in the Atlantic. In 1946, he enrolled at the University of Montana to study English. While there, he became interested in theater. During one of the amateur productions, he met his future wife, Nancy Fields, whom he married in 1951. He moved to Ireland where he continued his theatrical studies at the National University of Ireland. He was discovered during one of his college productions and was signed to appear at the Dublin Gate Theater. He worked in theater in Europe until 1954 when he returned to New York. His attempts to land on Broadway failed and he taught high school until 1958. Finally in 1958, he landed an Off-Broadway production, "Ulysses in Nighttown". He followed that with a Broadway production that was directed by 'Burgess Meredith', "God and Kate Murphy", in which he was both an understudy and an assistant stage manager. At the same time, he was getting attention on TV. He worked in a great many character roles throughout the 1960s. A pilot for "Those Were The Days" was first shot in 1968 based on the English hit, "Till Death Do Us Part", but was rejected by the networks. In 1971, it was re-shot and re-cast as All in the Family (1971) and the rest is history.All in the Family
In the Heat of the Night- Actor
- Producer
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Peter Michael Falk was born on September 16, 1927, in New York City, New York. At the age of 3, his right eye was surgically removed due to cancer. He graduated from Ossining High School, where he was president of his class. His early career choices involved becoming a certified public accountant, and he worked as an efficiency expert for the Budget Bureau of the state of Connecticut before becoming an actor. On choosing to change careers, he studied the acting art with Eva Le Gallienne and Sanford Meisner. His most famous role is that of the detective Columbo (1971); however, this was not his first foray into acting the role of a detective. During a high school play, he stood in for such a role when the original student actor fell sick. He has been married twice, and is the father of two children:Catherine, a private detective in real life, and Jackie. He was diagnosed with dementia in 2008, which was most likely brought on by Alzheimer's disease, from which he died on June 23, 2011.Columbo- Actress
- Soundtrack
Few in modern British history have come as far or achieved as much from humble beginnings as Glenda Jackson did. From acclaimed actress to respected MP (Member of Parliament), she was known for her high intelligence and meticulous approach to her work. She was born to a working-class household in Birkenhead, where her father was a bricklayer and her mother was a cleaning lady. When she was very young, her father was recruited into the Navy, where he worked aboard a minesweeper. She graduated from school at 16 and worked for a while in a pharmacy. However, she found this boring and dead-end and wanted better for herself. Her life changed forever when she was accepted into the prestigious Royal Acadamy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 18. Her work impressed all who observed it. At age 22, she married Roy Hodges.
Her first work came on the stage, where she won a role in an adaptation of "Separate Tables", and made a positive impression on critics and audiences alike. This led to film roles, modest at first, but she approached them with great determination. She first came to the public's notice when she won a supporting role in the controversial film Marat/Sade (1967), and is acknowledged to have stolen the show. She quickly became a member of Britain's A-List. Her first starring role came in the offbeat drama Negatives (1968), in which she out-shone the oddball material. The following year, controversial director Ken Russell gave her a starring role in his adaptation of the 1920s romance Women in Love (1969), in which she co-starred with Oliver Reed. The film was a major success, and Jackson's performance won her an Academy Award for Best Actress. In the process, she became an international celebrity, known world-wide, yet she didn't place as much value on the status and fame as most do. She did, however, become a major admirer of Russell (who had great admiration for her in return) and acted in more of his films. She starred in the controversial The Music Lovers (1971), although it required her to do a nude scene, something that made her very uncomfortable. The film was not a success, but she agreed to do a cameo appearance in his next film, The Boy Friend (1971). Although her role as an obnoxious actress was very small, she once again performed with great aplomb.
1971 turned out to be a key year for her. She took a risk by appearing in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), as a divorced businesswoman in a dead-end affair with a shallow bisexual artist, but the film turned out to be another major success. She accepted the starring role in the British Broadcasting Corporation's much anticipated biography of Queen Elizabeth I, and her performance in the finished film, Elizabeth R (1971), was praised not only by critics and fans, but is cited by historians as the most accurate portrayal of the beloved former queen ever seen. The same year, she successfully played the role of Queen Elizabeth I again in the historical drama Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). That same year, she appeared in the popular comedy series The Morecambe & Wise Show (1968) in a skit as Queen Cleopatra, which is considered on of the funniest TV skits in British television, and also proof that she could do comedy just as well as costume melodrama. One who saw and raved about her performance was director Melvin Frank, who proceeded to cast her in the romantic comedy A Touch of Class (1973), co-starring George Segal. The two stars had a chemistry which brought out the best in each other, and the film was not only a major hit in both the United States and Great Britain, but won her a second Academy Award. She continued to impress by refusing obvious commercial roles and seeking out serious artistic work. She gave strong performances in The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) and The Incredible Sarah (1976), in which she portrayed the legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt. However, some of her films didn't register with the public, like The Triple Echo (1972), The Maids (1975), and Nasty Habits (1977). In addition, her marriage fell apart in 1976. But her career remained at the top and in 1978 she was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire. That year, she made a comeback in the comedy House Calls (1978), co-starring Walter Matthau. The success of this film which led to a popular television spin-off in the United States the following year. In 1979, she and Segal re-teamed in Lost and Found (1979), but they were unable to overcome the routine script. She again co-starred with Oliver Reed in The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978), but the film was another disappointment.
During the 1980s, she appeared in Hopscotch (1980) also co-starring Walter Matthau, and HealtH (1980) with Lauren Bacall, with disappointing results, although Jackson herself was never blamed. Her performance in the TV biography Sakharov (1984), in which she played Yelena Bonner, devoted wife of imprisoned Russian nuclear scientist Andrei Sakharov opposite Jason Robards, won rave reviews. However, the next film Turtle Diary (1985), was only a modest success, and the ensemble comedy Beyond Therapy (1987) was a critical and box office disaster and Jackson herself got some of the worst reviews of her career.
As the 1980s ended, Jackson continued to act, but became more focused on public affairs. She grew up in a household that was staunchly supportive of the Labour Party. She had disliked the policies of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, even though she admired some of her personal attributes, and strongly disapproved of Thatcher's successor, John Major. She was unhappy with the direction of British government policies, and in 1992 ran for Parliament. Although running in an area (Hampstead and Highgate) which was not heavily supportive of her party, she won by a slim margin and immediately became its most famous newly elective member. However, those who expected that she would rest on her laurels and fame were mistaken. She immediately took an interest in transportation issues, and in 1997 was appointed Junior Transportation Minister by Prime Minister Tony Blair. However, she was critical of some of Blair's policies and is considered an inter-party opponent of Blair's moderate faction. She was considered a traditional Labour Party activist, but is not affiliated with the faction known as The Looney Left. In 2000, she ran for Mayor of London, but lost the Labour nomination to fellow MP Frank Dobson, an ally of Blair, who then lost the election to an independent candidate, Ken Livingstone.
In 2005, she ran again and won the nomination, but lost to Livingstone, winning 38% of the vote. When Blair announced he would not seek reelection as Prime Minister in 2006, Jackson's name was mentioned as a possible successor, although she didn't encourage this speculation. In 2010, she sought reelection to parliament and was almost defeated, winning by only 42 votes.
In 2013, she responded to the death of Margaret Thatcher by strongly denouncing her policies, which was condemned by many as graceless. In 2015, elections for parliament were called again but she didn't seek reelection. She was succeeded in Parliament by Christopher Philp, a Conservative Party member who had been Jackson's opponent in 2010.Elizabeth R- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Cute as a button and with a petite, porcelain prettiness and vulnerability that endeared her to the American public, Sally Struthers nabbed a series role in the early 1970s and became a solid part of TV history as a member of a dysfunctional family quartet in the milestone sitcom, All in the Family (1971).
She was born Sally Ann Struthers, the daughter of a surgeon, on July 28, 1948, in Portland, Oregon. Raised there, she pursued an acting career following high school. She eventually moved to Los Angeles and trained at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts, earning a scholarship as its "most promising student." She performed briefly in regional stock plays until finding her break as both a commercial actress and dancer on TV.
A recurring dancer/performer on such variety shows as The Smothers Brothers Summer Show (1970) and The Tim Conway Comedy Hour (1970), the pert-nosed, blue-eyed, curly blonde cutie showed starlet promise in films, offering ditsy support in the Jack Nicholson starrer, Five Easy Pieces (1970), and the chase film, The Getaway (1972), top-lining Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw.
And, then came the iconic series All in the Family (1971). Also starring Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton as conservative parents Archie and Edith, and Rob Reiner as liberal husband Mike, Struthers went on to win two supporting Emmy Awards and four Golden Globe nominations as kewpie-doll Gloria Bunker Strivic, Archie Bunker's "little goil."
Seen occasionally guesting elsewhere on such popular TV programs as "Love, American Style," "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," "Ironside," "Laugh-In," "Sonny and Cher" and as the voice of teenage Pebbles Flintstone on the spin-off cartoon series The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (1971), Sally, along with Rob, finally left the popular family show after seven seasons, both eager to grow away from their strong TV images. While Reiner stepped away from the camera and became a noted director, Sally continued to act. She made her Broadway debut in "Wally's Cafe" in 1981 and returned, four years later, with a gender-bending version of "The Odd Couple" as neat-freak "Florence" opposite Rita Moreno's slovenly "Olive". In addition, she found steady work in both topical and light-hearted 70's TV movies with Aloha Means Goodbye (1974), Hey, I'm Alive (1975), The Great Houdini (1976), My Husband Is Missing (1978), ...and Your Name Is Jonah (1979), A Gun in the House (1981), to name a few.
When offers began to dry up for Sally, she returned to the TV series fold in the early 1980s spinning off her "Gloria" character, sans Rob Reiner, with the self-titled sitcom, Gloria (1982). Without Reiner (the plot had the couple split and her focusing on raising son Joey), the ensemble formula that worked so well for her earlier was missing here and the show died in its freshman year. To compensate, however, Sally's baby-doll voice worked extremely well for her in cartoons. She remained active off-camera, providing little girl voices for Saturday morning entertainment, notably her teenage "Pebbles Flintstone" character.
In addition to Yo Yogi! (1991) and Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), other TVanimated voice-over work included TaleSpin (1990) as "Rebecca 'Becky' Cunningham" and, notably, puppeteer Jim Henson's creative prehistoric sitcom, Dinosaurs (1991), playing dino-daughter "Charlene Sinclair."
As she grew older, Sally continued delighting fans with broader shtick in plus-sized parts. She showed that she had lost none of the fun for which she was known, by providing hearty comedy relief when she joined the prime-time series Nine to Five (1982) and as a guest in "Charles in Charge," "Sister Kate" and "Murder, She Wrote."
The musical stage was another popular venue. Over the years, she has patented the by-the-book principal "Miss Lynch", with her many "Grease" tours, and as the scheming orphanage operator "Miss Hannigan" in a number of road productions of "Annie." She went on to cop a 2002 Los Angeles "Ovation" award for her delightfully over-the-top "Agnes Gooch" in "Mame", starring Carol Lawrence and in 2012, she performed in both "Always...Patsy Cline" as Louise Segar, and "9 to 5: The Musical" as nosy Roz Klein. In 2014, Struthers toured in the 50th anniversary production in the title role of "Hello, Dolly!"
Into the millennium, Sally has guested on such series as "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" and "The Division," had recurring roles on Still Standing (2002) and Gilmore Girls (2000), and was seen in featured or cameo roles in such independent films as the drama A Month of Sundays (2001), the mystery thriller Reeseville (2003), the Mario Van Peebles biopic Baadasssss! (2003), the comedy Monster Heroes (2010), and the musical comedies Waiting in the Wings: The Musical (2014), Hollywood Musical! (2015), Still Waiting in the Wings (2018) and Christmas Harmony (2018).
Divorced, Sally is the mother of one daughter who has made a career for herself as a clinical psychologist.
For years, Sally was a prime spokesperson for the Christian Children's Fund on TV, fervently (and often tearfully) appealing for viewer's monetary assistance in finding an end to starvation in under-developed countries.All in the Family- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jack Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter, Jr. on September 18, 1920 in Newark, New Jersey, to Laura M. (Costello) and John Warden Lebzelter. His father was of German and Irish descent, and his mother was of Irish ancestry. Raised in Louisville, Kentucky, at the age of seventeen, young Jack Lebzelter was expelled from Louisville's DuPont Manual High School for repeatedly fighting. Good with his fists, he turned professional, boxing as a welterweight under the name "Johnny Costello", adopting his mother's maiden name. The purses were poor, so he soon left the ring and worked as a bouncer at a night club. He also worked as a lifeguard before signing up with the U.S. Navy in 1938. He served in China with the Yangtze River Patrol for the best part of his three-year hitch before joining the Merchant Marine in 1941.
Though the Merchant Marine paid better than the Navy, Warden was dissatisfied with his life aboard ship on the long convoy runs and quit in 1942 in order to enlist in the U.S. Army. He became a paratrooper with the elite 101st Airborne Division, and missed the June 1944 invasion of Normandy due to a leg badly broken by landing on a fence during a nighttime practice jump shortly before D-Day. Many of his comrades lost their lives during the Normandy invasion, but the future Jack Warden was spared that ordeal. Recuperating from his injuries, he read a play by Clifford Odets given to him by a fellow soldier who was an actor in civilian life. He was so moved by the play, he decided to become an actor after the war. After recovering from his badly shattered leg, Warden saw action at the Battle of the Bulge, Nazi Germany's last major offensive. He was demobilized with the rank of sergeant and decided to pursue an acting career on the G.I. Bill. He moved to New York City to attend acting school, then joined the company of Theatre '47 in Dallas in 1947 as a professional actor, taking his middle name as his surname. This repertory company, run by Margo Jones, became famous in the 1940s and '50s for producing Tennessee Williams's plays. The experience gave him a valuable grounding in both classic and contemporary drama, and he shuttled between Texas and New York for five years as he was in demand as an actor. Warden made his television debut in 1948, though he continued to perform on stage (he appeared in a stage production in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1966)). After several years in small, local productions, he made both his Broadway debut in the 1952 Broadway revival of Odets' "Golden Boy" and, three years later, originated the role of "Marco" in the original Broadway production of Miller's "A View From the Bridge". On film, he and fellow World War II veteran, Lee Marvin (Marine Corps, South Pacific), made their debut in You're in the Navy Now (1951) (a.k.a. "U.S.S. Teakettle"), uncredited, along with fellow vet Charles Bronson, then billed as "Charles Buchinsky".
With his athletic physique, he was routinely cast in bit parts as soldiers (including the sympathetic barracks-mate of Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra in the Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity (1953). He played the coach on TV's Mister Peepers (1952) with Wally Cox.
Aside from From Here to Eternity (1953) (The Best Picture Oscar winner for 1953), other famous roles in the 1950s included Juror #7 (a disinterested salesman who wants a quick conviction to get the trial over with) in 12 Angry Men (1957) - a film that proved to be his career breakthrough - the bigoted foreman in Edge of the City (1957) and one of the submariners commended by Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in the World War II drama, Run Silent Run Deep (1958). In 1959, Warden capped off the decade with a memorable appearance in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode, The Lonely (1959), in the series premier year of 1959. As "James Corry", Warden created a sensitive portrayal of a convicted felon marooned on an asteroid, sentenced to serve a lifetime sentence, who falls in love with a robot. It was a character quite different from his role as Juror #7.
In the 1960s and early 70s, his most memorable work was on television, playing a detective in The Asphalt Jungle (1961), The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965) and N.Y.P.D. (1967). He opened up the decade of the 1970s by winning an Emmy Award playing football coach "George Halas" in Brian's Song (1971), the highly-rated and acclaimed TV movie based on Gale Sayers's memoir, "I Am Third". He appeared again as a detective in the TV series, Jigsaw John (1976), in the mid-1970s, The Bad News Bears (1979) and appeared in a pilot for a planned revival of Topper (1937) in 1979.
His collaboration with Warren Beatty in two 1970s films brought him to the summit of his career as he displayed a flair for comedy in both Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). As the faintly sinister businessman "Lester" and as the perpetually befuddled football trainer "Max Corkle", Warden received Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actor. Other memorable roles in the period were as the metro news editor of the "Washington Post" in All the President's Men (1976), the German doctor in Death on the Nile (1978), the senile, gun-toting judge in And Justice for All (1979), the President of the United States in Being There (1979), the twin car salesmen in Used Cars (1980) and Paul Newman's law partner in The Verdict (1982).
This was the peak of Warden's career, as he entered his early sixties. He single-handedly made Andrew Bergman's So Fine (1981) watchable, but after that film, the quality of his roles declined. He made a third stab at TV, again appearing as a detective in Crazy Like a Fox (1984) in the mid-1980s. He played the shifty convenience store owner "Big Ben" in Problem Child (1990) and its two sequels, a role unworthy of his talent, but he shone again as the Broadway high-roller "Julian Marx" in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994). After appearing in Warren Beatty's Bulworth (1998), Warden's last film was The Replacements (2000) in 2000. He then lived in retirement in New York City with his girlfriend, Marucha Hinds. He was married to French stage actress Wanda Ottoni, best known for her role as the object of Joe Besser's desire in The Three Stooges short, Fifi Blows Her Top (1958). She gave up her career after her marriage. They had one son, Christopher, but had been separated for many years.Brian's Song- Actress
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Jenny Agutter was born on December 20, 1952, in Taunton, Somerset, England, UK. The daughter of an army officer, she spent her childhood traveling and living in different countries. Her film career began at the age of 12 in East of Sudan (1964), which was quickly followed by Ballerina: Part 1 (1966) and Ballerina: Part 2 (1966), and A Man Could Get Killed (1966). Other films and television appearances in her early career include Gates to Paradise (1968), Long After Summer (1967), Star! (1968), I Start Counting (1970), The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens (1970), and The Wild Duck (1971).
In 1970, she appeared in what was her real big break as a child star: The Railway Children (1970), as "Bobbie". The next year, Hollywood called and she spent several years there, appearing in such works as The Cherry Orchard (1971), Walkabout (1971), and The Snow Goose (1971) with Richard Harris, for which she received an Emmy Award. She also appeared in the critically acclaimed A War of Children (1972) and Shelley (1972).
In 1976, Jenny really came to the attention of US film audiences with her starring role in the science-fiction classic Logan's Run (1976) with Michael York. Though not a critical favorite, it was a huge box-office success and spawned a television series. She also starred alongside Richard Chamberlain in a well-received made-for-TV version of the famous Dumas tale The Man in the Iron Mask (1977) and turned in a solid performance in the WW II thriller The Eagle Has Landed (1976) with Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland. The next year, she starred in Peter Shaffer's weighty Equus (1977) as "Jill Mason", alongside Richard Burton. Among her other TV and film work during the 1970s were Dominique (1979), School Play (1979), and The Riddle of the Sands (1979).
In 1981, she played "Desdemona" opposite William Marshall in The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (1981). Other Shakespeare performances include "King Lear", Love's Labour's Lost (1985) as "Rosaline" for the BBC and Romeo & Juliet (1993) as "Lady Capulet". During this time, she was in numerous films and television series, including Sweet William (1980), Beulah Land (1980), The Survivor (1981), Amy (1981), and one of the films for which she is most fondly remembered, An American Werewolf in London (1981). She also appeared in This Office Life (1984), Secret Places (1984), Silas Marner (1985), Dark Tower (1987), Miss Right (1982), and King of the Wind (1990).
In the 1990s, she concentrated mainly on television, with roles in TECX (1990); Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (1990); Red Dwarf (1988); The All New Alexei Sayle Show (1994); The Buccaneers (1995); And the Beat Goes On (1996); September (1996) with Edward Fox, Michael York, Virginia McKenna, and Jacqueline Bisset; A Respectable Trade (1998) with Warren Clarke, Anna Massey, and Richard Briers. Her theatrical films during this period included Darkman (1990) with Liam Neeson; and Blue Juice (1995) with Sean Pertwee, Ewan McGregor, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. She also appeared as "Mrs. Bruce" in two feature-length episodes of the popular ITV series Bramwell (1995) in which she starred with Jemma Redgrave. She has also made several guest appearances in TV shows such as The Red Dwarf (1998); Boon (1986); The Equalizer (1985) with Edward Woodward; The Twilight Zone (1985); Magnum, P.I. (1980) and The Six Million Dollar Man (1974).
Jenny married to Johan Tham in August 1990. They have one son Jonathan, born in December 1990 and live in Cornwall, England, UK. Her particular love is charity work for The Diabetic Association and NCH Action for Children - a charity which provides home and other help for homeless children - with which she has been involved for many years.The Snow Goose- Actor
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Richard Earl Thomas is an American actor. He is best known for his leading role as budding author John-Boy Walton in the CBS drama series The Waltons for which he won an Emmy Award from two nominations and received two Golden Globe Award nominations. He also starred in the 1990 television mini-series adaptation of Stephen King's epic horror novel It and played Special Agent Frank Gaad on FX's spy thriller series The Americans.The Waltons- Actress
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Four-time Best Actress Emmy Award winner Michael Learned was born on April 9, 1939 in Washington, D.C. The oldest of six daughters of a U.S. State Department employee, she was raised on her family's farm in Connecticut. The family moved to Austria when she was age 11, and it was while attending boarding school in England that she fell in love with the theater and decided to become an actress.
Learned married Oscar winner Robert Donat's nephew Peter Donat, a Canadian citizen, when she was 17 years old, a marriage that lasted 17 years and produced three sons. She learned her craft while acting for the Shakespeare Festivals in both Canada and the U.S. while simultaneously raising a family. She and her husband Peter acted together with San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in the early 1970s. Her breakthrough came when she was appearing in an ACT production of Noël Coward's "Private Lives", where she was spotted by producer Lee Rich, who cast her as Olivia Walton in his new television series about a Depression era family, The Waltons (1972).
Learned won three Emmy Awards playing the role, and another Emmy for her next foray into series TV, Nurse (1981). She escaped typecasting as Olivia Walton (although she re-prised the role that made her famous in a 1995 TV-movie reunion) while appearing on numerous shows and TV movies, including top-drawer, made-for-TV specials such as the 1986 adaptation of Arthur Miller's All My Sons (1987) with co-star James Whitmore.The Waltons
Nurse- Actor
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Actor Ted Knight paid his dues with nearly two decades of relatively obscure dramatic, often villainous television work, before finding enduring fame in a scene-stealing supporting turn on a classic 1970s sitcom, hilariously overplaying a silver-haired, self-important imbecile. Although the conceited "stuffed shirt" typecast plagued him for the rest of his career, the self-proclaimed "Polish Prince of Comedy" continued on good-naturedly, earning lead status on his own comedy series. The Connecticut-born actor was christened Tadeusz (Theodore) Wladyslaw Konopka, the son of a Polish-American family in his native town of Terryville, Connecticut. A high school dropout, he enlisted for World War II duty and eventually became a decorated member of the A Company, 296th Combat Engineer Battalion.
During his tour of duty, Ted developed an interest in acting, returning home in the post-war years to study his craft in Hartford, Connecticut, at the Randall School of Dramatic Arts. A fascination with puppetry and ventriloquism led to his first steady paycheck, as the host of a children's radio show (WJAR) in Providence, Rhode Island (1950-1955). Following this, Ted found more work (WROW-TV) in Albany, New York, hosting a children's variety show while playing radio announcer for its sister radio station, WROW.
Heading west to Los Angeles, California in 1957, Ted spent most of his early years providing slick commercial voiceovers and earning minor roles on television (Sea Hunt (1958)) and film (Psycho (1960)). He appeared regularly on the short-lived, The New Loretta Young Show (1962), and the daytime soap opera, The Young Marrieds (1964). Other television guest appearances sprouted including dramatic (The Twilight Zone (1959), The Fugitive (1963), Gunsmoke (1955), Highway Patrol (1955), Bonanza (1959), Combat! (1962)) as well as occasional comedic parts (McHale's Navy (1962), Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964), Get Smart (1965)). But nothing monumental pushed his career forward.
Ted's well-modulated voice was his moneymaker during the lean years, whether as an announcer/narrator or cartoon voice character. However, this anonymity ended went he copped the role of inept, pearly-toothed WJM anchorman "Ted Baxter" on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970). The arrogant but highly insecure character earned Knight two supporting Emmy trophies (1973, 1976) but severely pigeon-holed him for the rest of his career. However, the genial actor made the best of it and continued on stage ("Some of My Best Friends") and in commercials and TV spots that were similar in persona. In 1975, a musical album entitled "Hi, Guys!" (a catchphrase of the Baxter character) was released, which included a series of bizarre novelty songs.
Knight eventually starred opposite Nancy Dussault in his own television series, Too Close for Comfort (1980), which had a healthy run despite the fact that Knight, as the lead, was more subdued than on the Mary Tyler Moore classic. Renamed "The Ted Knight Show" after it became a syndicated series, the series finally ended in 1986 only due to Knight's terminal illness. The actor's sole post-Ted Baxter movie role was as a judge in the golf-themed comedy, Caddyshack (1980), in which he continually bumped heads with the film's star, Rodney Dangerfield.
Knight was initially diagnosed with cancer in 1977, for which he was treated over an extended period of time. In 1985, the television star's conditioned worsened and the 62-year-old actor died on August 26, 1986, following surgery for a growth in his urinary tract. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California (his marker reads Theodore C. Konopka), and was survived by his wife of 38 years, Dorothy Knight (nee Smith), and their three children, Ted Knight Jr., Elyse Knight and Eric Knight.The Mary Tyler Moore Show- Actor
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Scott Jacoby was born on 26 November 1956 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is an actor and director, known for The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), That Certain Summer (1972) and Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue (1977). He has been married to Lyn Jacoby since 23 June 1985. They have two children.That Certain Summer- Actress
- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Ellen Corby was born Ellen Hansen on June 3, 1911, in Racine, Wisconsin. She played many uncredited bit parts from the late '20s through the '30s. Ellen would not be seen on the big screen again until 1945 in Cornered (1945). In 1946, she appeared in 14 films, although mostly in small, minor roles. One of them was in the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946). One of the highlights of her career came about in 1948 in I Remember Mama (1948) as Aunt Trina. Ellen garnered a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, which was ultimately won by Claire Trevor in Key Largo (1948). The Oscar nomination didn't send her to the heights she had hoped. This wonderful actress continued in roles that were mostly minor compared to some of her contemporaries. However, it was television where she would receive the acclaim that had eluded her on the screen. Time after time she played parts that were absolutely outstanding. One of the funniest was as Myrt "Hubcaps" Lesh in The Andy Griffith Show (1960). She was the ringleader of a gang that stole cars and then sold them, and she sold Barney Fife a stolen car that turned out to be a real lemon. The series that brought her worldwide recognition, though, was the highly acclaimed The Waltons (1972) as Esther "Grandma" Walton. The role got her Emmy awards in 1973, 1974, and 1975. Although a stroke in 1976 slowed her down, Ellen still made appearances on the series. Her last TV appearance was in 1997 in the TV movie A Walton Easter (1997). On April 14, 1999, Ellen died at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She was 87 years old.The Waltons- Actor
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Alan Alda (born under the name Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo) is an American actor, comedian, film director, and screenwriter from New York City. His father was the Italian-American actor Robert Alda. Alda's best known role was playing chief surgeon Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the medical-themed sitcom M*A*S*H (1972-1983) for 11 seasons. He twice won the "Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series" for this role. Alda was later nominated for the "Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor", for his portrayal of career politician Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961) in the biographical film "The Aviator" (2004). The film depicted Brewster's opposition to the commercial interests of Howard Hughes, and the alleged political corruption which caused the end of Brewster's career.
In 1936, Alda was born in the Bronx, New York City. By that time, his father Robert Alda (1914-1986) had already started performing in vaudeville and burlesque theaters. Alda's mother was former beauty queen Joan Browne. Alda had Italian ancestry on his father's side of the family, and Irish ancestry on his mother's side of the family. Alda spend much of his childhood touring the United States with his father, as his father's acting job required frequent travel.
In 1943, Alda contracted polio. His parents chose to administer a painful treatment regimen, "consisting of applying hot woolen blankets to his limbs and stretching his muscles". This treatment had been developed by the Australian nurse Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952), and was based on the principle of muscle rehabilitation. Though the treatment was considered controversial, it seemingly helped Alda to recover his mobility.
Alda received his secondary education at Archbishop Stepinac High School, an all-boys Roman Catholic high school located in White Plains, New York, United States. The school was named in honor of Aloysius Stepinac (1898 - 1960), the Archbishop of Zagreb who was hero-worshiped for his conviction for treason by communist Yugoslavia. Alda received his college education at Fordham University, a Jesuit research university located in New York City. He graduated In 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
During his college years, Alda worked for the radio station WFUV. The station was owned by Fordham University, and was operated by its students. Alda joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) , a training program intended for prospective commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. He subsequently entered the United States Army Reserve. He served for a year at Fort Benning, a United States Army post straddling the Alabama-Georgia border . He then spend 6 months stationed in Korea. His official rank at that time was that of a gunnery officer, though Alda claims that he was placed in charge of a mess tent.
In 1956, Alda was introduced to Jewish-American musician Arlene Weiss (a clarinetist). They soon bonded due to their similar tastes in humor, and started dating each other. They were married on March 15, 1957. They had three daughters, born between 1958 and 1961.
Alda started his acting career in the mid-1950s, as a theatrical actor. He joined the Compass Players (1955-1958), a short-lived improvisational theatre revue which was based in Chicago. He subsequently joined the improvisational group Second City, and the regional theater company Cleveland Play House for its 1958-1959 season. In 1958, he had his first guest star role in television. He appeared in an episode of "The Phil Silvers Show", a military-themed sitcom about a swindler operating within the United States Army.
Alda made his film debut in the comedy-drama film "Gone Are the Days!" (1963). The film was a satire of segregation and bigotry, based on a play written by Ossie Davis (1917-2005). Alda was part of the recurring cast of "That Was the Week That Was" (1963-1965), a political satire series which targeted various political figures of the era. It was based on a British satire series of the same name. Most episodes of the American version are considered lost, though there are surviving audio recordings.
In 1968, Alda had his first starring role in a film. He portrayed sports journalist George Plimpton (1927-2003) in the sports comedy "Paper Lion". The film depicted Plimpton's brief term as a player of the Detroit Lions, and focused on his inexperience and ineptitude as a football player.
Alda played the accountant Morton Krim in the World War II-themed war comedy "The Extraordinary Seaman" (1969). The film depicts four sailors of the United States Navy who have been stranded on an island of the Philippines. They encounter the ghost of a British naval officer who was killed in World War I, and he encourages them to launch an attack on Japanese positions. Due to the ghost's perpetual bad luck, their attack is ill-fated.
Alda next played the male lead in the drama film "Jenny" (1970). In the film, main character Jenny Marsh (played by Marlo Thomas) was impregnated in a one-night-stand and has few options in life. Her acquaintance Delano (played by Alda) agrees to marry her and to claim the child's paternity, in an effort to avoid being drafted for war service. The film depicts the problems of a typical "marriage of convenience" (a marriage contracted for reasons other than that of love and commitment), and Delano's attempts to maintain both his marriage and his long-term relationship with another woman. The film earned 2,825,000 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
Alda also played the main character in the crime film "The Moonshine War" (1970), which was set in Prohibition-era Kentucky. He played John "Son" Martin, a man whose main source of income is the production of moonshine whiskey. An acquaintance in the Internal Revenue Service starts pressuring him for a cut on the profits. When Son refuses, the acquaintance reports his activities to a violent gang leader and his henchmen. Son has to outwit the gang in order to survive. The film was one of several films greenlit by Louis Polk and Herb Solow, the then-new co-leaders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Alda had his first role in a horror film, when he played the main character in the occult-themed horror film "The Mephisto Waltz" (1971). He played music journalist Myles Clarkson, who unexpectedly befriends piano virtuoso Duncan Ely (played by Curd Jürgens). He does not realize that Ely is dying due to cancer, and that he intends to perform a body-swapping spell to take over Clarkson's body. Once the spell succeeds, Ely starts a new career in Clarkson's body and kills Clarkson's daughter. Ely fails to realize that his new "wife" Paula Clarkson (played by Jacqueline Bisset) intends to use the same spell to swap bodies with Ely's adult daughter. Bisset was praised for her "chillingly effective" performance, but film critics argued that Alda had been miscast in this role.
Alda had a scarier role in the psychological thriller "To Kill a Clown" (1972), playing disturbed Vietnam War veteran Evelyn Ritchie. Ritchie was once a military officer, but retired after having one of his legs amputated. He agrees to become the landlord of a young married couple, despite his intense dislike for the artistic lifestyle of his tenant Timothy Frischer (played by Heath Lamberts). He starts treating Frischer as a military subordinate, and insists on keeping both of his tenants as prisoners in their residence. The young couple soon learn that Ritchie has sadistic tendencies, and that he had a history of tormenting his subordinates throughout his military career.
Alda had the big break in his career when cast to play chief surgeon Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the medical-themed sitcom M*A*S*H (1972-1983). The series depicted life within a "Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" (MASH) during the Korean War (1950-1953). It was based on the novel "MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors" (1968) by military surgeon H. Richard Hornberger. The series often questioned the United States' role in the Cold War, and satirized authority figures. Its ratings placed it among the top 10 most viewed shows throughout most of its run, and it was critically acclaimed. Alda appeared in all 256 episodes of the series, which helped him become a household name in the United States. Alda eventually served as the series' producer, creative consultant, and co-writer.
Alda played the male lead in the romantic comedy "Same Time, Next Year" (1978), which was his first film role since the early 1970s. The film depicts an extramarital affair which lasts for 26 years (1951-1977), despite the two lovers only meeting once per year. The film also covers the effects time has on the couple's political ideologies, and how they react to the deaths of various family members. The film was partially shot at the Heritage House Inn in Little River, California. The inn became a popular romantic getaway due to the film's enduring popularity. Alda was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy", but the award was instead won by rival actor Warren Beatty.
Alda was part of the ensemble cast in the comedy film "California Suite" (1978). He played successful screenwriter Bill Warren, who is involved in a custody dispute with his ex-wife, the workaholic Hannah Warren (played by Jane Fonda). Both parents claim custody over their adolescent daughter Jenny Warren (played by Dana Plato), and have little regard for Jenny's plans about her own life. The film's cast was nominated for several awards, but Alda was overshadowed by his co-stars.
Alda received his first screenwriting credit for the political drama film "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" (1979). He also played the film's eponymous character. He portrayed an ambitious American senator, whose marriage seems to be deteriorating. He briefly has an extramarital affair with labor lawyer Karen Traynor (played by Meryl Streep), but decides against seeking a divorce. The film earned about 19.6 million dollars at the worldwide box office. Alda was praised more for his ability as a screenwriter than his acting in this film. Streep was nominated for several acting awards for her supporting role, having a breakthrough in her career.
Alda made his directorial debut with the romantic comedy film "The Four Seasons" (1981), depicting the relationships between three upper middle-class married couples. Alda kept for himself the role of Jack Burroughs, a lawyer who has a tendency towards expressing narrow moral attitudes. The film was an unexpected box office hit, earning about 50,4 million dollars at the box office. It was the ninth highest-grossing film of 1981, and won the "Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film". Alda was again nominated for the "Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy", but the award was instead won by rival actor Dudley Moore.
Alda had a hiatus in his acting and directing career during the early 1980s, as he had to take care of his terminally-ill parents. He attempted a comeback by directing the comedy film "Sweet Liberty" (1986), which parodies Hollywood filmmaking. Alda kept for himself the role of Michael Burgess, a college professor and historical novelist. Burgess wants to oversee the adaptation of his historically-accurate and realistic novel into a Hollywood film, but soon realizes that the film's screenwriter has turned the film into a historically inaccurate soap opera. He then sets out to sabotage the film. The film only earned 14.2 million dollars at the box office, despite the critical praise for its leading actors. The poor box office performance was attributed to its release time at movie theaters. It was directly competing with two more lucrative films, "Top Gun" and "Short Circuit".
Alda's next directing effort was the romantic comedy "A New Life" (1988), which depicted the problems faced by middle-aged divorced people. Alda played Steve Giardino, a workaholic businessman who received a divorce after more than 25 years of marriage. His attempts to pursue a new romance are complicated by his inexperience at dating and his unwillingness to father children again. Giardino soon suffers a heart attack due to his poor eating habits. He falls in love with the female physician attending to his problem, Dr. Kay Hutton (played by Veronica Hamel). The film was a box-office flop, only earning 7,7 million dollars at the box office. Critics found the film pleasant, but predictable.
Alda played pompous television producer Lester in the comedy-drama film "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989). In the film, Lester wants to finance a documentary celebrating his own life and work. He hires his brother-in-law to direct it, documentary filmmaker Clifford "Cliff" Stern (played by Woody Allen). He is unaware that Stern despises him. Stern uses the film to expose Lester's mistreatment of his employees, and Lester's sexual harassment towards actresses. The film earned 18,2 million dollars at the box office. For his role, Alda won the "National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor".
Alda had his final directing credit with the romantic comedy "Betsy's Wedding" (1990). Alda played the main role of Eddie Hopper, a construction contractor who insists on organizing a lavish wedding for his beloved daughter Betsy Hopper (played by Molly Ringwald). Since Eddie can not actually afford the wedding expenses, he requests financial assistance from loan sharks. The film earned 19.7 million dollars at the box office, but its leading actresses (Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy) were both nominated for Golden Raspberry Awards. Unlike Alda's previous directing efforts, critics were mostly hostile towards the film.
Alda played the evil mentor Leo Green in the erotic thriller "Whispers in the Dark" (1992). In the film, main character Ann Hecker (a psychiatrist, played by Annabella Sciorra) seeks help from her mentor Leo Green due to suffering from disturbing dreams. Hecker is soon implicated in the murder of her female patient Eve Abergray (played by Deborah Unger), and then in the murder of the police detective investigating the case. She eventually realizes that her mentor has been obsessed with her for years. He committed both murders in a misguided attempt to protect her. This was Alda's first villainous role in a film since the early 1970s. The film only earned 11.1 million dollars at the box office.
In 1993, Alda became the new host of the science-themed television program "Scientific American Frontiers" (1990-2005). The series was a spin-off of the popular science magazine "Scientific American" (1845-). The show typically focused on new technology, and on scientific and medical discoveries. Alda remained the host for 12 years, and was credited with inspiring youngsters to follow scientific careers.
Alda was reduced to the supporting role of the protagonist's confidant in the black comedy film "Manhattan Murder Mystery" (1993). The main plot involved amateur detectives who were investigating the mysterious death of a neighbor, who seemed to have died twice and on two entirely different locations. They eventually realize that they have stumbled on the deaths of two sisters with a close family resemblance, and that the motive for the murders was their family fortune. The film only earned 11.2 million dollars at the box office. Its perceived failure led to the termination of a long-term deal between director Woody Allen and the film studio TriStar Pictures.
Alda had a more comedic role in the political satire film "Canadian Bacon" (1995). The film satirized international relations between Canada and the United States. Alda played an unnamed President of the United States who wants to start a new war to boost his sagging poll numbers, but lacks a credible enemy to serve as an opponent. He finds that Russia is not interested in renewed hostilities, and a proposal to declare war on international terrorism is rejected as absurd. So he uses a flimsy excuse to declare war on Canada, and uses television channels to transmit anti-Canada propaganda to the gullible American population. The film was a box office flop, despite featuring a large cast of Canadian actors. It is mostly remembered as the final film appearance for actor John Candy.
Alda next had a supporting role in the black comedy "Flirting with Disaster" (1996). In the film, an adult, married man searches throughout the United States for the biological parents who gave him up for adoption. He eventually learns that his biological father is Richard Schlichting (played by Alda), a man who has devoted the last 30 years in producing and distributing "lysergic acid diethylamide" (LSD). The family reunion is less than happy, and the protagonist is introduced to a biological brother who despises him. The film earned 14,7 million dollars at the box office.
Alda had another villainous role in the action thriller film "Murder at 1600" (1997), playing national security adviser Alvin Jordan. In the film, Jordan has organized a conspiracy in order to blackmail the President of the United States into resigning, and to start a second Korean War. The conspiracy involved murdering a White House secretary (who had a brief affair with the president) and framing the President for murdering her. The film earned 41,1 million dollars at the worldwide box office, Alda's most profitable film in a decade.
Alda played news anchorman Kevin Hollander in the media-themed thriller "Mad City" (1997). In the film, a fired museum guard takes several people hostage at his former workplace. The news media decides to exploit the situation for profit, and several reporters compete in trying to get the lion's share of the publicity. The situation escalates until the museum guard becomes a suicide bomber. The film only earned 10.5 million dollars at the box office.
Alda's career had declined in the early 2000s, but this situation was only temporary. In 2004, Alda joined the recurring cast of the political television series "The West Wing" (1999-2006). The series depicted the administration of a fictional United States president and his staff. Alda played Republican senator Arnold Vinick for 28 episodes. His character was depicted as a fiscal conservative, who was opposed to corporate welfare and resented to Christian' right's influence on his political party. Vinick became the new Secretary of State in the finale of the series. For his role, Alda won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2006.
Alda's film career experienced a revival with his portrayal of career politician Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961) in the biographical film "The Aviator" (2004). He was nominated for the "Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor", the first Academy Award nomination in Alda's career. The award was instead won by rival actor Morgan Freeman. The critical acclaim for his role went against years of criticism for his acting abilities. Alda received several new offers for film roles.
Alda remained active as an actor throughout the 2000s and 2010s. He published three different memoirs between 2005 and 2017, covering different aspects of his life and career. In July 2018, he announced in an interview that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2015. While this has not ended his acting career, he feared that the effects could be distracting to viewers of his work.
From 2018 to 2020, Alda had a recurring role in the crime drama television series "Ray Donovan" (2013-2020). The series depicted the life and career of a professional "fixer" of the entertainment industry, in charge of bribes, payoffs, threats, crime-scene clean-up, and other illegal activities. Alda also appeared in the spin-off film "Ray Donovan: The Movie" (2022), which concluded remaining plot-lines from the series. By 2022, Alda was 86-years-old. He may no longer be in his prime, but the aging actor seems to have no plans to retire yet.M*A*S*H
The West Wing- Actor
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Of Greek descent on both sides, the son of immigrants, Savalas was a soldier during World War II, although most of his enlistment records were destroyed in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973. He later studied psychology at Columbia University under the GI Bill.
Iconically bald, he often played character roles, sometimes as sadists or psychotics. He became famous in the 1970s when his role as Det. Theo Kojak in the TV movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973) was expanded into the gritty Kojak (1973) TV series (1973-78).Kojak- Actor
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Robert Reiner was born in New York City, to Estelle Reiner (née Lebost) and Emmy-winning actor, comedian, writer, and producer Carl Reiner.
As a child, his father was his role model, as Carl Reiner created and starred in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Estelle was also an inspiration for him to become a director; her experience as a singer helped him understand how music was used in a scene. Rob often felt pressured about measuring up to his father's successful streak, with twelve Emmys and other prestigious awards.
When Rob graduated high school, his parents advised him to participate in Summer Theatre. Reiner got a job as an apprentice in the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania. He went on to UCLA Film School to further his education. Reiner felt he still wasn't successful even having a recurring role on one of the biggest shows in the country, All in the Family. He began his directing career with the Oscar-nominated films This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, and The Princess Bride.
In 1987, with these successful box-office movies under his belt, Reiner founded his own production company, Castle Rock Entertainment; along with Martin Shafer, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick, and Alan Horn. Under Castle Rock Entertainment, he went to direct Oscar-nominated films When Harry Met Sally, Misery, and A Few Good Men. Reiner has credited former co-star Carroll O'Connor in helping him get into the directing business, showing Reiner the ropes.
Reiner is known as a political activist, co-founding the American Foundation For Equal Rights, a group that was an advisory for same-sex-marriage. He has spoken at several rallies on several topics, an advocate for social change regarding such issues as domestic violence and tobacco use.
Reiner made cameo appearances on television shows 30 Rock, The Simpsons, and Hannah Montana, and in films The First Wives Club, Bullets Over Broadway, Primary Colors, and Throw Momma From The Train, among many others.All in the Family- Actress
- Soundtrack
The legendary actress set a record when at age 82, she appeared on Dancing with the Stars (2005). Cloris Leachman was born on April 30, 1926 in Des Moines, Iowa to Berkeley Claiborne "Buck" Leachman and the former Cloris Wallace. Her father's family owned a lumber company, Leachman Lumber Co. She was of Czech (from her maternal grandmother) and English descent. After graduating from high school, Leachman attended Illinois State University and Northwestern University, where she majored in drama. After winning the title of Miss Chicago 1946 (as part of the Miss America pageant), she acted with the Des Moines Playhouse before moving to New York.
Leachman made her credited debut in 1948 in an episode of The Ford Theatre Hour (1948) and appeared in many television anthologies and series before becoming a regular on The Bob & Ray Show (1951) in 1952. Her movie debut was memorable, playing the doomed blonde femme fatale Christina Bailey in Robert Aldrich's classic noir Kiss Me Deadly (1955). Other than a role in Rod Serling's movie The Rack (1956) in support of Paul Newman, Leachman remained a television actress throughout the 1950s and the 1960s, appearing in only two movies during the latter decade, The Chapman Report (1962) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Though she would win an Oscar for Peter Bogdanovich's adaptation of Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show (1971) and appear in three Mel Brooks movies, it was in television that her career remained and her fame was assured in the 1970s and into the second decade of the new millennium.
Leachman was nominated five times for an Emmy Award playing Phyllis Lindstrom, Mary Tyler Moore's landlady and self-described best friend on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and on the spin-off series Phyllis (1975). She won twice as Best Supporting Actress in a comedy for her "Mary Tyler Moore" gig and won a Golden Globe Award as a leading performer in comedy for "Phyllis", but her first Emmy Award came in the category Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in 1973 for the television movie A Brand New Life (1973). She also won two Emmy Awards as a supporting player for Malcolm in the Middle (2000).
She was married to director-producer George Englund from 1953 to 1979. They had five children together. Cloris Leachman died of natural causes on January 27, 2021 in Encinitas, California.The Mary Tyler Moore Show- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
As one of Hollywood's tallest actors standing at 6' 3", he will always be noticed. Michael Moriarty is one of the great character T.V. actors of all time. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1941. Moriarty was to move to London, England, where he built up a name as a great stage actor. It was also here he attended London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts as a Fullbright Scholar and as a student of Stella Adler. Michael Moriarty also had early employment selling encyclopedias and tyres. Moriarty from 1971 was to star in a number of successful movies, like Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and The Last Detail (1973), but his biggest success was to follow when he won a Golden Globe for his performance as the cruel, old, vicious Erik Dorf in Holocaust (1978) (a 1978 mini series), which also stars James Woods.The Glass Menagerie- Actress
- Producer
Joanna Miles, the Emmy Award-winning American actress, was born on March 6, 1940 in Nice, France to expatriate American abstract painter Jeanne Miles and French painter-museum curator Johannes Schiefer. Escaping the war, she was relocated to the United States in 1941. She graduated from the progressive Putney School in 1958. She began her career in New York, acting in a number of plays, television shows and films. On receiving numerous rewards, she reached the apogee of her career, playing "Laura Wingfield" in the 1973 TV production of "The Glass Menagerie", with co-stars Katharine Hepburn, Sam Waterston and Michael Moriarty, for which Mrs. Miles and Michael Moriarty won Emmy Awards. In 1990, for nine years, Mrs. Miles founded and was the Artistic Director of the Playwright's Group in LA. She also is the vice-president of "Brandman Productions". Mrs. Miles has continued to work steadily in TV, films and theater. She is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio and the Motion Picture Academy. Most recently, in 2012, she starred in "Women In Shorts", at the Working Stage Theater, "Women On Time" in 2015 and "Front Door Open" at the Greenway Court Theater in 2016 in which she won The Edon Award for best actress, among a few other play readings around town "The Widow Kinsky"" at the Blank Theater. An ex-New Yorker, she lives in LA with her husband, writer, producer and novelist Michael Brandman. Her son, Miles Brandman, is a film writer, director and playwright. Her stepson, Steven J. Brandman, is a television producer. In 2018 Joanna received The Marquis Who's Who Lifetime Achievement Award.The Glass Menagerie- Actor
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Tony Randall was born on February 26, 1920 in Tulsa, Oklahoma as Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg. He attended Tulsa Central High School and later Northwestern University and New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. After graduating, he starred in two plays: George Bernard Shaw's 'Candida' alongside Jane Cowl and Emlyn Williams' 'The Corn Is Green' alongside Ethel Barrymore. After four years with the United States Army Signal Corps in World War II, Randall found work at Montgomery County's Olney Theatre before heading back to New York City to continue his acting career.
During the 1940s, Randall appeared mostly in supporting roles in Broadway plays. He was given his first leading role in 1955 with 'Inherit the Wind'. Randall managed to nab a Tony Award nomination for his starring role in 1958's 'Oh, Captain!', although the play itself bombed.
His first role in a feature film came about in 1957, playing a supporting character in the Ginger Rogers vehicle Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957). The same year, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his role as the titular writer for television advertising in the satirical comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957). Randall also lent his support to the three famous Doris Day-Rock Hudson pairings Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), and Send Me No Flowers (1964), securing Golden Globe nominations for the former two. Randall worked quite prolifically throughout the 1960s; notable roles include a public relations employee in the Marilyn Monroe romantic musical Let's Make Love (1960), seven quite different characters in the oddball 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), iconic detective Hercule Poirot in The Alphabet Murders (1965), an architect who inadvertently releases a djinn in the fantasy The Brass Bottle (1964), and a man who lives in an underwater house with his family in the adventure Hello Down There (1969).
Randall's first major television role was as a history teacher on Mister Peepers (1952); he joined the cast in 1955. After the series ended, he had numerous guest spots on such shows as The United States Steel Hour (1953), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), Love, American Style (1969), and Here's Lucy (1968). He wouldn't return to TV in a major role until 1970, when he played sardonic neat freak Felix Unger in ABC's The Odd Couple (1970) opposite Jack Klugman. He earned Emmy nominations for each season, finally winning in 1975 for its last. He later starred in The Tony Randall Show (1976) as a Philadelphia judge, and Love, Sidney (1981) as a gay artist. The former earned him one Golden Globe nomination and the latter earned him two. He reunited with Jack Klugman for the 1993 TV movie The Odd Couple: Together Again (1993).
Both during and after his stints on TV, Randall had small roles in a few well-known films such as Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972), The King of Comedy (1982), My Little Pony: The Movie (1986), and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). He continued to guest-star on television shows, but would never return to the small screen as a leading man. He also continued to work on-stage, albeit infrequently.
Randall passed away in his sleep on May 17, 2004 of pneumonia he had contracted following coronary bypass surgery in December 2003. He is survived by his wife, Heather Harlan, whom he wed in 1995, and their two children. Randall had previously been married to Florence Gibbs from 1938 until her death in 1992.The Odd Couple- Actor
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American actor who began as a child in Our Gang comedies and reappeared as a powerful adult performer of leading and character roles. Born in New Jersey, the young Mickey Gubitosi won a role in MGM's Our Gang series at the age of 5. As one of the more prominent children in the Gang, he gained attention for his cute good looks and his lovable, if somewhat melancholy, personality.
In 1940 he took on the stage name Bobby Blake (though he continued to use the name Mickey Gubitosi in the Our Gang series for another three years) and began playing child roles in a wide range of films. He gained a good deal of fame as the Indian sidekick Little Beaver in the Red Ryder series of Westerns. Though roles were sporadic as he grew to manhood, he was never long off the screen (except for a period of military service, 1954-56). But despite some fine work in films like Pork Chop Hill (1959) and Town Without Pity (1961), his career did not take off until his stunning portrayal of killer Perry Smith in In Cold Blood (1967). A number of telling performances in films of the next decade, stardom in a popular television series (Baretta (1975), and several ruefully comic appearances as a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) made him a popular figure even as his personal difficulties increased.
Consumed with anger over his treatment by his family and the studio as a child, he denigrated his early work, suffered bouts of difficulty with drugs, and became known as a difficult, perfectionist person to work with. He quit his successful TV series Hell Town (1985) when his personal demons became overwhelming. After a self-imposed exile of nearly eight years, during which he struggled to right his life, he successfully returned to films and television work, appearing renewed and more confident in himself and his work.
In 2001, though, the murder of his wife, Bonnie Bakley, thrust Blake into the limelight in a different way. Admittedly having married Bakley through the coercion of her pregnancy, a routine Bakley had apparently tried with various other celebrities, Blake made no denial of his distaste for the woman, but was by all accounts thrilled with the daughter born to them. Blake was arrested for his wife's murder, but the presumption of innocence trumped when jurors didn't believe what they thought was flimsy evidence, and Blake was acquitted in a trial that made worldwide headlines. Reportedly broke from legal costs, Blake indicated hopefulness that he might be allowed to return to acting work.Baretta- Actress
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Born in London, Jean Marsh became interested in show business while taking dancing and mime classes as therapy for a childhood illness. After attending a charm school and working as a model, she started acting in repertory and took voice lessons. Her repertory work was supplemented by a number of film appearances as a dancer. She then spent three years in America, appearing in Sir John Gielgud's Broadway production of "Much Ado About Nothing" and numerous TV shows, including an episode of The Twilight Zone (1959). Returning to London, she won roles on stage, film and TV. It was during this period that she appeared in Doctor Who (1963), first as Princess Joanna in "The Crusade" and then as Sara Kingdom in "The Daleks' Master Plan." In the early 1970s she co-created and starred in LWT's Upstairs, Downstairs (1971). Since then she has maintained a very busy career in the theatre, on TV - including a starring role in the US sitcom Nine to Five (1982) and films such as Return to Oz (1985) and Willow (1988). She also co-created another successful series, The House of Eliott (1991).Upstairs, Downstairs- Actress
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Betty White was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Christine Tess (Cachikis), a homemaker, and Horace Logan White, a lighting company executive for the Crouse-Hinds Electric Company. She was of Danish, Greek, English, and Welsh descent.
Although she was best known as the devious Sue Ann Nivens on the classic sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and the ditzy Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls (1985), Betty White had been in television for a long, long time before those two shows, having had her own series, Life with Elizabeth (1952) in 1952.
She was married three times, lastly for eighteen years, until widowed, to TV game-show host Allen Ludden.
She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and she was known for her tireless efforts on behalf of animals.
Betty White died on 31 December 2021, at the age of 99.The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Golden Girls- Actor
- Soundtrack
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.The Waltons- Actor
- Soundtrack
A former song-and-dance man and veteran of vaudeville, burlesque and Broadway, Jack Albertson is best known to audiences as "The Man" in the TV series Chico and the Man (1974), for which he won an Emmy. In 1968 Albertson, the brother of actress Mabel Albertson, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in The Subject Was Roses (1968), a part which also won him the Tony award during its Broadway run.Chico and the Man- Hailing from Long Beach, California, talented character actor Anthony Zerbe has kept busy in Hollywood and on stage since the late 1960s, often playing villainous or untrustworthy characters, with his narrow gaze and unsettling smirk. Zerbe was born May 20, 1936 in Long Beach, and served a stint in the United States Air Force before heading off to New York to study drama under noted acting coach Stella Adler. He made his screen debut as Dutchie, one of Charlton Heston's fellow cowhands in the western Will Penny (1967), played a miner in The Molly Maguires (1970), was a post-apocalyptic, lunatic messiah in The Omega Man (1971), hustled a naive Paul Newman in The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), played a leper colony leader in Papillon (1973) and a former lawman gone bad in Rooster Cogburn (1975).
Zerbe also starred alongside David Janssen in the television series Harry O (1973) as the urbane, nattily dressed Lieutenant K.C. Trench, Janssen's sometime nemesis, for which he picked up an Emmy Award. Definitely in strong demand for sinister roles, Zerbe played a crazed scientist in the corny Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978), was an arrogant father in The Dead Zone (1983), made a great General Ulysses S. Grant in North & South: Book 2, Love & War (1986), starred in the military drama Opposing Force (1986) and suffered a grisly demise in an airlock full of money in the James Bond thriller Licence to Kill (1989). Most recently, Zerbe has been seen as Councillor Hamann in The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003).
In addition to his extensive television and film appearances, Zerbe has appeared in Broadway productions including "The Little Foxes", "Terra Nova" and "Solomon's Child". He was in residence for five summer seasons at The Old Globe Theatre playing several key Shakespearean characters to strong critical acclaim. He has also held residencies at the Theatre of the Living Arts in Philadelphia, the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. In 2003, he toured across several states with Roscoe Lee Browne in their production of "Behind the Broken Words", a performance of 20th-century poetry, comedy and drama.Harry O - Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Actress-comedienne Bea Arthur was born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922 in New York City to a Jewish family. She grew up in Maryland, where her parents ran a dress shop. At 12 years old, she was the tallest girl in her school at 5'9".
She earned the title of "Wittiest Girl" in her school, and her dream was to be in show business, but she didn't think her family would support her. She then worked as a laboratory technician, and in the Marine Corps; she drove a truck, and worked as a typist. Her brief first marriage ended in divorce. Afterwards, she told her parents that she wanted to pursue a career in show business, and they supported her decision to join the New York's Dramatic Workshop for the New School for Social Research.
Arthur (her acting name based on a variation of her first husband's surname) played classical and dramatic roles, but it would be years before she found her niche in comedy. Her breakthrough came on stage while appearing in the musical play "The Threepenny Opera," with Lotte Lenya. For one season in the 1950's, she was a regular on Sid Caesar's television show,Caesar's Hour (1954). In 1964, she became truly famous as Yente the Matchmaker, in the original Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof". Despite this being a small supporting role, Arthur stole the show night after night.
In 1966, she went to work on a new Broadway musical, "Mame", directed by her second husband, Gene Saks, winning a Tony Award for the featured role of Vera Charles. The show's star, Angela Lansbury, also won a Tony Award, and she and Bea became lifelong friends. In 1971, Arthur appeared on the hit sitcom All in the Family (1971) as Maude Findlay, Edith Bunker's cousin, who was forever driving Archie Bunker crazy with her liberal politics. The guest appearance led to Arthur's own series, Maude (1972). The show was a hit, running for six years, during which many controversial topics of the time, including abortion, were tackled, and Bea won her first Emmy Award. While doing Maude (1972), Arthur repeated the role of Vera Charles in the film version of Mame (1974), again directed by Gene Saks, but it was a dismal flop. She also appeared on The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). While appearing in Maude (1972), she raised her two sons, whom she had adopted with husband Gene Saks. After the show ended, so did her marriage to Saks. She never remarried. She became a lifelong animal rights' activist.
In 1983, she started working on a new sitcom, Amanda's (1983), patterned after Britain's Fawlty Towers (1975) but it was short-lived. In 1985, The Golden Girls (1985) made its debut. Co-starring Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show was about the lives of three middle-aged women, and one elderly mother, (played by Getty, who was actually younger than White and Arthur), living in Miami. It was an immediate hit, running for seven seasons. All of the cast members, including Arthur, won Emmy Awards during the show's run. She left when she thought each show was at its peak. The producers realized the shows wouldn't be the same without her. In 1992, The Golden Girls (1985) was canceled. Arthur kept a low profile, appearing in only two movies: For Better or Worse (1995) and Enemies of Laughter (2000).
In 1999, Arthur made an appearance at The N.Y. Friars Club Roast of Jerry Stiller (1999). She did a one-woman stage show in 2001, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. In 2003, she reunited with Betty White and Rue McClanahan for The Golden Girls (1985) reunion special on the Lifetime Channel. Noticeably absent was supporting actress Estelle Getty, who was ill. The three lead actresses made appearances together for the rest of the decade to promote DVD releases of The Golden Girls (1985). They appeared together for the last time in 1998, at the TV Land Awards, receiving a standing ovation as they accepted the Pop Culture Award. She attended her induction into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, with Angela Lansbury.
On April 25, 2009, at home with her family, Arthur died of cancer. She was 86. She was survived by her two sons, Matthew and Daniel, and her grandchildren, Kyra and Violet. In her will, she left $300,000 to New York's Ali Forney Center, an organization supporting homeless LGBT youths.Maude
The Golden Girls- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Amiable and handsome James Garner had obtained success in both films and television, often playing variations of the charming anti-hero/con-man persona he first developed in Maverick, the offbeat western TV series that shot him to stardom in the late 1950s.
James Garner was born James Scott Bumgarner in Norman, Oklahoma, to Mildred Scott (Meek) and Weldon Warren Bumgarner, a carpet layer. He dropped out of high school at 16 to join the Merchant Marines. He worked in a variety of jobs and received 2 Purple Hearts when he was wounded twice during the Korean War. He had his first chance to act when a friend got him a non-speaking role in the Broadway stage play "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954)". Part of his work was to read lines to the lead actors and he began to learn the craft of acting. This play led to small television roles, television commercials and eventually a contract with Warner Brothers. Director David Butler saw something in Garner and gave him all the attention he needed when he appeared in The Girl He Left Behind (1956). After co-starring in a handful of films during 1956-57, Warner Brothers gave Garner a co-starring role in the the western series Maverick (1957). Originally planned to alternate between Bart Maverick (Jack Kelly) and Bret Maverick (Garner), the show quickly turned into the Bret Maverick Show. As Maverick, Garner was cool, good-natured, likable and always ready to use his wits to get him in or out of trouble. The series was highly successful, and Garner continued in it into 1960 when he left the series in a dispute over money.
In the early 1960s Garner returned to films, often playing the same type of character he had played on "Maverick". His successful films included The Thrill of It All (1963), Move Over, Darling (1963), The Great Escape (1963) and The Americanization of Emily (1964). After that, his career wandered and when he appeared in the automobile racing movie Grand Prix (1966), he got the bug to race professionally. Soon, this ambition turned to supporting a racing team, not unlike what Paul Newman would do in later years.
Garner found great success in the western comedy Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969). He tried to repeat his success with a sequel, Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971), but it wasn't up to the standards of the first one. After 11 years off the small screen, Garner returned to television in a role not unlike that in Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969). The show was Nichols (1971) and he played the sheriff who would try to solve all problems with his wits and without gun play. When the show was canceled, Garner took the news by having Nichols shot dead, never to return in a sequel. In 1974 he got the role for which he will probably be best remembered, as wry private eye Jim Rockford in the classic The Rockford Files (1974). This became his second major television hit, with Noah Beery Jr. and Stuart Margolin, and in 1977 he won an Emmy for his portrayal. However, a combination of injuries and the discovery that Universal Pictures' "creative bookkeeping" would not give him any of the huge profits the show generated soon soured him and the show ended in 1980. In the 1980s Garner appeared in few movies, but the ones he did make were darker than the likable Garner of old. These included Tank (1984) and Murphy's Romance (1985). For the latter, he was nominated for both the Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Returning to the western mode, he co-starred with the young Bruce Willis in Sunset (1988), a mythical story of Wyatt Earp, Tom Mix and 1920s Hollywood.
In the 1990s Garner received rave reviews for his role in the acclaimed television movie about corporate greed, Barbarians at the Gate (1993). After that he appeared in the theatrical remake of his old television series, Maverick (1994), opposite Mel Gibson. Most of his appearances after that were in numerous TV movies based upon The Rockford Files (1974). His most recent films were My Fellow Americans (1996) and Space Cowboys (2000) .The Rockford Files- Actress
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Lindsay Wagner makes little distinction between her life as an actress, advocate, mother or author. What unites these various parts is a commitment through her work and her personal life to exploring and advancing human potential.
Lindsay first came to prominence in the critically-acclaimed role of Susan Fields in The Paper Chase (1973), but received household recognition worldwide when she broke the mold for women on television with her iconic portrayal of Jaime Sommers. As she collaborated with the writers, The Bionic Woman (1976) became an inspiration around the world and, in 1977, Lindsay won the Emmy for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series".
Her now-strong influence in the media and a desire to use that as a way to communicate ideas to help people in their personal journey is demonstrated in so many of the films in which she starred, such as: The Incredible Journey of Doctor Meg Laurel (1979), the struggle between naturopathic and allopathic healthcare (1979); I Want to Live (1983), the moral dilemma regarding capital punishment (1983); Child's Cry (1986), child sexual abuse (1986); The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story (1988), some root complexities of terrorism (1988); Evil in Clear River (1988), the quiet rise of the Neo-Nazi movement in America (1988); Shattered Dreams (1990), on family violence, which she also co-produced (1991); Fighting for My Daughter (1995), highlighting the problem of teen prostitution (1995); Thicker Than Water (2005), expressing compassion for the animal kingdom and the importance of family (2005); Four Extraordinary Women (2006), the emotional effect of breast cancer on family members (2006). As a result of the volume of her successful productions, she was often referred to as the "Queen of TV Movies".
Lindsay has long been acknowledged as one of the top leading spokespersons in the United States, a role she took very seriously with regard to the impact it would have on the public, which in turn reinforced her position as a respected voice in the community. She was given a Genii Award as "Performer of the Year" in 1985. Lindsay has co-authored a bestselling vegetarian cookbook, "The High Road to Health" (1990) and "Lindsay Wagner's New Beauty: The Acupressure Facelift" (1986). She has recently released a meditation CD, "Open to Oneness".
Off-screen, Lindsay is passionate about the study and sharing of holistic healing modalities, integrating mind, body and spirit. For 25 years, she has been the Honorary Chair of ICAN (Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect). She has also been heavily involved in human rights, domestic violence, animal welfare and the environment. From 2003-2006, in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Lindsay co-facilitated a counseling group for convicted batterers and their families. Her work utilized a range of psychological and spiritual techniques.
For the public, Lindsay facilitates experiential "Quiet the Mind & Open the Heart" workshops and retreats. These programs are designed to help overcome our own personal challenges, while accessing the peace and joy that is naturally within us. Lindsay offers these programs to the public as well as special interest groups as a way of sharing, that which has greatly impacted her life.The Bionic Woman- Actor
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- Soundtrack
Gary Burghoff was born on 24 May 1943 in Bristol, Connecticut, USA. He is an actor and director, known for M*A*S*H (1972), M*A*S*H (1970) and Behind the Waterfall (1995). He was previously married to Elisabeth Bostrom and Janet Gayle.M*A*S*H- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Mary Kay Place (born September 23, 1947) is an American actress, singer, director, and screenwriter. She is known for portraying Loretta Haggers on the television series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, a role that won her the 1977 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series. Her numerous film appearances include Private Benjamin (1980), The Big Chill (1983), Captain Ron (1992) and Francis Ford Coppola's 1997 drama The Rainmaker. Place also recorded three studio albums for Columbia Records, one in the Haggers persona, which included the Top Ten country music hit "Baby Boy." For her performance in Diane (2018), Place won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress.Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman- A long-time member of the famed Actor's Studio, Gary Frank began studying with Lee Strasberg in 1969, as well as renowned teachers Peggy Feury and Bill Traylor. Gary's career on film began in 1974 when he was cast by director Richard Donner in the television movie "Senior Year", which went on to become the CBS TV series Sons and Daughters (1974). Gary became a contract player at Universal Studios until the series was canceled after one season; two days later he was cast by director Mark Rydell and producer Mike Nichols to play Willie Lawrence in the critically acclaimed ABC series Family (1976), for which he won an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1977. After a successful five-season run on "Family", Gary went on to do television movies, features and an impressive array of guest parts on almost every major TV series in the '80s and '90s. "Family" also enjoyed a very successful run as a syndicated series in Europe during those years, as evidenced by the amount of fan mail he and the rest of the cast received from viewers overseas.
Also a writer, Gary has written a stack of scripts and is writing his first novel. Married for 30 years to producer Carroll Newman, they have one daughter who is a senior in the USC School of Film, who intends to follow in her parents' footsteps, as well as her grandfather's, Academy Award-winning composer Lionel Newman.Family - Actress
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Actor Kristy McNichol is best known for her role as "Buddy" in the Spelling/Goldberg hit TV series Family (1976), where she won 2 Emmy awards and was nominated for a Golden Globe. McNichol began her career with guest appearances on such popular TV series as Starsky and Hutch, The Bionic Woman, Love American Style and The Love Boat, the list goes on. Her first role as a series regular came with the role of Patricia Apple in the CBS television series Apple's Way (1974). McNichol began her feature film career in the Burt Reynolds comedy "The End" and went on to star with Dennis Quaid and Mark Hamill in "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia", "Two Moon Junction" with Louise Fletcher, "The Pirate Movie" with Christopher Atkins, "Just the Way You Are", "The Forgotten One", and "You Can't Hurry Love". Her television movie credits include "Women of Valor", "Like Mom, Like Me", "Summer of My German Soldier", "Love, Mary", "My Old Man" and many more. Kristy also performed voice characters in several animated TV series including "Extreme Ghostbusters and Steven Spielberg's animated "Invasion America". Kristy starred in the hit movie "Little Darlings" with Tatum O'Neil which won her a People's Choice Award. Other TV credits include the Witt, Thomas, Harris hit series "Empty Nest". Kristy's films include Neil Simon's "Only When I Laugh" with Marsha Mason, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination, Alan Pakula's "Dream Lover" and Samuel Fuller's "White Dog".
Kristy devotes a lot of her time to charity work. Not only is Kristy McNichol a renowned actor but she is also a singer. Albums include The Pirate Movie (1982) soundtrack, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981) soundtrack and the Kristy and Jimmy McNichol album on RCA Records.Family- Renowned and highly respected actress Sada Thompson has earned critical acclaim both on stage and TV for her noble, strong-minded matrons, but her more challenging and compelling work has come when her characters have displayed darker, more neurotic tones.
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, she was the eldest of three children of magazine editor Hugh Woodruff Thompson and his wife Corlyss Gibson. After a family move to New Jersey, Sada developed an interest in acting, performing in school plays. She subsequently studied drama at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
Upon graduating in 1949, she began to build up her resume in regional stock and with repertory companies appearing in such productions as "Hay Fever", "The Little Foxes", "Born Yesterday", "The Clandestine Marriage" and "The Cocktail Party". Making her off-Broadway debut in 1955 with the first concert reading of Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood", Sada won a 1957 Drama Desk award for her work in both The Misanthrope" and "The River Line" and, thereafter, started leaning heavily toward the classics -- "Much Ado About Nothing," "Othello," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "Twelfth Night," "The Tempest" and "Richard II" to name a few. The 1970s began exceptionally well, hitting her zenith with complex, transcending performances in both "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds" (earning both Drama Desk and Obie awards) and "Twigs," in which she captured the Tony (as well as Drama Desk, Obie and Sarah Siddons awards) in which she played four roles--three sisters and their elderly mother.
This renewed attention for Sada finally lent itself to film and TV work. The dark-haired, somewhat plump-figured woman with classy but slightly offbeat features was not deemed marketable for film. So, despite adding distinctive support to the dramas Desperate Characters (1971) and The Pursuit of Happiness (1971), it was television that would garner her the attention she longed for and deserved. She won her first Emmy nomination playing Mary Todd Lincoln in Lincoln (1974) opposite Hal Holbrook's Honest Abe. The following year, she earned another nomination as Jack Lemmon's put-upon wife in The Entertainer (1975), a TV remake of the 1960 British film. The Emmy would finally come to her for her sensible mother role in the touching dramatic series Family (1976). As the proper, intelligent, slightly remote Kate Lawrence," mother of three, Sada became a TV symbol of strength, courage and integrity during the show's four seasons. She went on to receive two more Emmy nominations as Rhea Perlman's mother on Cheers (1982) and as accused California schoolteacher Virginia McMartin, on trial for sexual abuse, in the mini-movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995). The quality of her performance along with those of fellow actors James Woods, Shirley Knight and Henry Thomas (of E.T. fame), lent an air of distinction to the obvious tabloid-driven material.
In addition to other socially-relevant mini-movies, Sada occasionally returned to her beloved theater roots. She won a second Sarah Siddons award for the title role in "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989), and enjoyed a return to Broadway after nearly 20 years with "Any Given Day" in 1993. Elsewhere, her warm, soothing voice has been used frequently in documentary narratives and books-on-tape. Ms. Thompson, who lived in Connecticut with long-time husband (since 1949) Donald Stewart, had one daughter, Liza Stewart, a costume designer. She died in a Danbury hospital of lung disease on May 4, 2011, at age 83.Family - Actress
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Julie Deborah Kavner is an American actress. She first attracted notice for her role as Brenda Morgenstern, the younger sister of Valerie Harper's title character in the sitcom Rhoda (1974), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She is best known for her voice role as Marge Simpson on the animated television series The Simpsons (1989). She also voices other characters for the show, including Marge's mother, Jacqueline Bouvier, and sisters Patty and Selma Bouvier.Rhoda- Actor
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Robert Francis Vaughn was born on November 22, 1932 at Charity Hospital in New York City, the son of show business parents, Marcella Frances (Gaudel) and Gerald Walter Vaughn. His father was a radio actor and his mother starred on stage. Robert came to the public's attention first with his Oscar-nominated role, in The Young Philadelphians (1959). The next year, he was one of the seven in the western classic The Magnificent Seven (1960). Despite being in such popular films, he generally found work on television. He appeared over 200 times in guest roles in the late 1950s to early 1960s. It was in 1963 that he received his first major role in The Lieutenant (1963). Robert took the role with the intention of making the transition from being a guest-star actor to being a co-star on television. It was due to his work in this series that producer Norman Felton offered him the role of Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964).
Four extremely successful years (1964-68) followed as the series became one of the most popular television series of the 1960s. It made Vaughn an international television star, but he wanted to embark on a career in film, and did so soon after the series ended in 1968 by co-starring in Bullitt (1968) with Steve McQueen. Now working in film full-time, he starred in The Bridge at Remagen (1969) and The Mind of Mr. Soames (1970), before making a change by going back to television, this time in England. He took a lead role in the series The Protectors (1972) and stayed in England for the first half of the 1970s. He returned to the United States in the mid-1970s and embarked on a very successful run of television miniseries roles that resulted in his receiving an Emmy Award in 1978 for Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977) and a nomination the following year for Backstairs at the White House (1979).
The 1970s proved a important time in Robert's life, as in 1974, he married actress Linda Staab, and completed his thesis on Hollywood blacklisting during the McCarthy "Red Scare" era, published in 1972 as "Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting". During the 1980s, he mixed television with film. Roles in such films as S.O.B. (1981), Superman III (1983), The Delta Force (1986) and Black Moon Rising (1986) were highlights. In television, he appeared in many successful series, most notably in The A-Team (1983) and Emerald Point N.A.S. (1983).
He continued with a diverse range of projects, appearing on stage on numerous occasions. The 1990s saw the same variety of roles. Made-for-TV movies were a popular choice for him, as well as such series as As the World Turns (1956), The Nanny (1993) and Law & Order (1990). He had a role in the 1998 series remake of the classic film in which he appeared, The Magnificent Seven (1998). He also appeared in major features such as Joe's Apartment (1996) and BASEketball (1998), and in smaller roles in subsequent years.
Robert died of acute leukemia on November 11, 2016 in Ridgefield, Connecticut. His last acting credit, Gold Star (2017), was released the year of his death.Washington: Behind Closed Doors- Nancy Marchand's mother, a pianist, sent her shy daughter to acting classes in hopes of breaking her out of her shell. As a student at Carnegie Tech (Carnegie Mellon University), she studied the works of William Shakespeare and the other great playwrights and, upon graduation, set off for New York City. She received acclaim in the part of the tavern hostess in Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" at the City Center in 1951. Her list of theater works include "The Cocktail Hour" and "The Balcony" (an Obie for both), "White Lies and Black Comedy" (Tony nominations for both), "The Octette Bridge Club" and "Morning's at Seven". She worked at many of the great theaters in the United States, including the Brattle Theatre, Long Wharf, Lincoln Center Repertory Company and the Goodman Theatre. During her illustrious theater career, she won the role of Mrs. Pynchon in the TV series Lou Grant (1977) with Ed Asner, for which she won four Emmys. Her last accolade was her role as Livia Soprano in HBO's The Sopranos (1999), for which she won a Golden Globe.Lou Grant
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When Ruth Gordon convinced her father, a sea captain, to let her pursue acting she came to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She acted in a few silents made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1915. She made her Broadway debut in "Peter Pan" as Nibs the same year. The next 20 years she spent on stage, even appearing at the Old Vic in London in the successful run of "The Country Wife" in 1936. Nearly 25 years after her film debut, she returned to movies briefly. Her most memorable role during this period in the early 1940s was as Mary Todd in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940).
She left Hollywood to return to theater. Back in New York, she married Garson Kanin in 1942 (her first husband Gregory Kelly, a stage actor, died in 1927). She began writing plays, and, later, her husband and she collaborated on screenplays for Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, whose screen relationship was modeled on their own marriage. She returned to film acting during the 1960s. It is during this last period of her career that she became a movie star, with memorable roles in Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Harold and Maude (1971). She wrote several books during the mid-1970s and appeared on TV. She won an Emmy for her role on Taxi (1978) in 1979.Taxi- Actor
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Ron Leibman was born on 11 October 1937 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Garden State (2004), Zorro: The Gay Blade (1981) and Kaz (1978). He was married to Jessica Walter and Linda Lavin. He died on 6 December 2019 in New York City, New York, USA.Kaz- Actress
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Mariette Hartley was born Mary Loretta, a name she dislikes, in Weston, Connecticut. She was raised in accordance with the principles espoused by her behavioral psychologist grandfather, John B. Watson, who believed that children should never be held or cuddled. She says that the lack of warmth at home is what drove her to the theatre. She studied with John Houseman at the Repertory Stratford and with Eva Le Gallienne at Lucille Lortel's White Barn Theatre. It took her six years to get her first movie, Ride the High Country (1962) with Joel McCrea. She then made a series of TV appearances and sitcoms. She is most known, however, for her series of Polaroid commercials with James Garner. Mariette's father committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot in 1962. Her family kept it a secret for 25 years, but she eventually revealed the incident. This brought her considerable acclaim for speaking out about her devastation. She co-founded a suicide prevention foundation based on her own past situation. She continues to work in the theatre and, in 2000, was hosting the syndicated Wild About Animals (1995). Her children, Justine E. Boyriven (b. 1978) is an actress and singer, and Sean Boyriven (b. 1975) is a film-school graduate.The Incredible Hulk- Actor
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Robert Peter Williams Guillaume was an actor from St. Louis, Missouri who was known for playing Rafiki from The Lion King, Benson DuBois from Soap and Benson, and Nathan Detroit from Guys and Dolls. He had five children from two marriages. He passed away in October 24, 2017 due to prostate cancer complications.Soap
Benson- Actor
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Stuart Margolin, the Emmy Award-winning actor and director, was born in Davenport, Iowa. He won two Best Supporting Actor Emmies playing James Garner's former cell-mate "Angel" Martin in The Rockford Files (1974).
Margolin made his debut in The Gertrude Berg Show (1961) before becoming a series regular on Ensign O'Toole (1962) the following year. His acting career has now spanned more than 50 years.
Most of Margolin's work has been on television, where he also has worked as a director since he helmed an episode of Love, American Style (1969) in 1973. He has been directing episodic TV and made-for-TV movies for 37 years. He has been nominated twice for directing Emmies: in 1987 for a Prime Time Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Variety or Music Program for The Tracey Ullman Show (1987) and in 1999 and a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Children's Special for The Sweetest Gift (1998).The Rockford Files- Actor
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Originally a student of playwriting at Columbia University, Richard Mulligan began his acting career in regional theater and soon after made his Broadway debut in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "All the Way Home". In addition to his continuing Broadway career, Mulligan had successfully transferred his unique comedic talents to film and television. On the big screen, he had appeared in such films as Little Big Man (1970), The Big Bus (1976), Teachers (1984) and The Heavenly Kid (1985). He had also performed in a number of Blake Edwards' films, including S.O.B. (1981), Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), Micki + Maude (1984) and A Fine Mess (1986). Mulligan had made numerous guest-starring television appearances, but it was his role as Burt Campbell in Witt-Thomas-Harris' offbeat sitcom Soap (1977) that earned him his first Emmy Award. He also starred in the short-lived sitcom Reggie (1983). His movie-of-the-week and miniseries credits include Pueblo (1973), Poker Alice (1987), Harvey (1996) and the acclaimed Guess Who's Coming for Christmas? (1990) with Beau Bridges. He was the brother of director Robert Mulligan.Soap
Empty Nest- Actress
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Cathryn Damon was born on 11 September 1930 in Seattle, Washington, USA. She was an actress, known for Soap (1977), She's Having a Baby (1988) and Webster (1983). She was married to Richard Towers. She died on 4 May 1987 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Soap- Actress
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Arguably best remembered for her role as Miss Ellie, the Ewing family matriarch on the long-running TV series Dallas (1978), Barbara Bel Geddes had earlier scored success on stage and screen long before gaining more lasting fame on television. She was born in New York City on Halloween Day 1922, the daughter of noted theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes, who staged more than 200 plays. After growing up amidst the theatre, Bel Geddes began acting on stage at age 18 and soon moved on to Broadway. The silver screen also beckoned; she made her film debut in The Long Night (1947). She was quickly labeled a star, gracing the cover of Life magazine on April 12, 1948. Her third motion picture, I Remember Mama (1948), garnered Bel Geddes an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. Other notable films include Panic in the Streets (1950) directed by Elia Kazan; Alfred Hitchcock's classic mystery-thriller Vertigo (1958) with James Stewart and Kim Novak; and The Five Pennies (1959) opposite Danny Kaye. Though she achieved immediate success in films, Bel Geddes also continued to tread the boards on Broadway, since theatre was her first love. In 1952, she received the prestigious Woman of the Year Award from Hasty Pudding Theatricals USA, America's oldest theater company. She was nominated for Tony Awards as best dramatic actress for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1956 and for the lead in Mary, Mary in 1961. Bel Geddes made several TV appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) and other programs in the mid 1950s, but her greatest television role came as Miss Ellie Ewing Farlow on Dallas (1978), which enjoyed a run of 13 years (1978-1991). She won the Emmy Award for best actress in 1980 and was nominated in the same category in 1979 and 1981. Bel Geddes left the show for health reasons during the 1984-85 season, with Donna Reed taking over the role of Miss Ellie. Bel Geddes returned for the 1985-86 season and continued on Dallas (1978) until 1990, when she effectively retired from acting. She did not appear in either of the two Dallas TV reunion movies. On August 8, 2005, she died following a long illness.Dallas- Actor
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Harry Morgan was a prolific character actor who starred in over 100 films and was a stage performer. Known to a younger generation of fans as "Col. Sherman T. Potter" on M*A*S*H (1972). Also known for his commanding personality throughout his career, he tackled movies and television in a way no other actor would do it.
Born Harry Bratsberg in Detroit, Michigan to Anna Olsen, a homemaker who immigrated from Sweden, and Henry Bratsberg, a mechanic who immigrated from Norway. After graduating from Muskegon High School in Muskegon, Michigan, he took on a salesman job before becoming a successful actor.
Several of his most memorable film roles were: The Omaha Trail (1942), in the next quarter-century, he would also appear in The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), Wing and a Prayer (1944), State Fair (1945), Dragonwyck (1946), All My Sons (1948), Red Light (1949), Outside the Wall (1950), Dark City (1950) where he met future Dragnet 1967 (1967) co-star Jack Webb, who would be best friends until Webb's death, late in 1982, along with Appointment with Danger (1950). His films credits also include: High Noon (1952), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), Strategic Air Command (1955), among many others. He also co-starred with James Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) and Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971).
On television, he is fondly remembered as Spring Byington's jokingly henpecked neighbor, "Pete Porter" on December Bride (1954), where he became the show's scene-stealer. It was also based on a popular radio show that transferred into television. The show was an immediate success to viewers, which led him into starring his own short-lived spin-off series, Pete and Gladys (1960), which co-starred Cara Williams, who met Morgan in the movie, The Saxon Charm (1948).
Morgan began his eight-year association with old friend, Jack Webb, and Universal, starting with Dragnet 1967 (1967), which he played Off. Bill Gannon. For the second time, like December Bride (1954) before this, it was an immediate hit, where it tackled a lot of topics. Dragnet was canceled in 1970, after a 4-season run, due to Morgan's best friend and co-star (Jack Webb) leaving the show to continue producing other shows, such as Adam-12 (1968) and Emergency! (1972). Morgan would later work with Webb in both short-lived series, The D.A. (1971), opposite Robert Conrad and Hec Ramsey (1972), opposite Richard Boone. After those roles, Morgan ended his contract with both Universal and Mark VII, to sign with 20th Century Fox.
Morgan's biggest role was that of a tough-talking, commanding, fun-loving, serious Army Officer, "Col. Sherman T. Potter" on M*A*S*H (1972), when he replaced McLean Stevenson, who left the show to unsuccessfully star in his own sitcom. For the third time, the show was still a hit with fans, and at 60, he was nominated for Emmies nine times and won his first and only Emmy in 1980, for Outstanding Supporting Actor. By 1983, M*A*S*H's series was getting very expensive, as well as with the cast, hence, CBS reduced it to 16 episodes. Despite M*A*S*H's finale in 1983, Morgan went on to star in a short-lived spin-off series AfterMASH (1983), co-starring Jamie Farr and William Christopher, from the original M*A*S*H (1972) series, without series' star Alan Alda.
He also co-starred in 2 more short-lived series, as he was over 70, beginning with Blacke's Magic (1986) with Hal Linden and his final role with You Can't Take It with You (1987). That same year, he reprised his role, for a second time as "Off. Bill Gannon" in the film, Dragnet (1987), which starred Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks. Then, he guest-starred in several shows such as: The Twilight Zone (1985), Renegade (1992), The Jeff Foxworthy Show (1995), for the third time, he also reprised his "Off. Bill Gannon" role, supplying his voice on The Simpsons (1989). Towards the end of his acting career, as he reached 80, he had a recurring role as the older college professor on 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996), opposite John Lithgow. Afterwards, he retired from show business and lived with his family. Harry Morgan died on December 7, 2011 at 96. On confirming his death, his son Charles said that he had been recently treated for pneumonia. Morgan was also one of the oldest living Hollywood male actors.M*A*S*H- Actress
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Equally versatile at comedy and drama, Loretta Swit was born on November 4, 1937, in Passaic, New Jersey. Her parents, Polish immigrants, were not in favor of her making a stab at a show business career. Performing on stage from age 7, however, nothing and nobody could deter her.
A natural singer who trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before finding work in repertory companies, her features were deemed a bit too plain and hard for ingénue roles so she attempted musicals and light comedy, imbuing her characters with a snappy, comic edge. Beginning with the 1967 national touring company of "Any Wednesday", starring Gardner McKay, she forged ahead as a scene-stealing "Pigeon sister" opposite Don Rickles and Ernest Borgnine in an L.A. run of "The Odd Couple" and, from there, earned more laughs as the hopelessly awkward "Agnes Gooch" in the Las Vegas version of "Mame" starring Susan Hayward and (later) Celeste Holm.
Arriving in Hollywood in 1970, Loretta merited some attention by lightening up a number of dramas with her humorous, off-centered performances on such TV fare as Gunsmoke (1955), Mission: Impossible (1966), Hawaii Five-O (1968) and Mannix (1967). Her star-making role, however, came within two years of moving to the West Coast when she inherited Sally Kellerman's vitriolic "Hot Lips" Houlihan movie character for the TV series version of M*A*S*H (1972). She stayed with the show the entire eleven seasons and was Emmy-nominated every season the show was on the air (except the first).
Although Loretta's post-"M*A*S*H" career may appear less noteworthy (it would be hard to imagine anything that could top her bookend Emmy wins on the M*A*S*H series), she has nonetheless remained quite active and provided colorful support in a handful of films including S.O.B. (1981), Beer (1985), Whoops Apocalypse (1986), Forest Warrior (1996) and Beach Movie (1998). She also kept up her TV visibility with episodic appearances and occasional mini-movies, including originating the role of "Chris Cagney" in the TV pilot of Pilot (1981). Returning to singing on occasion, she also inherited the Linda Lavin role in the TV version of the stage musical It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman! (1975).
On stage, she made her Broadway debut opposite That Girl (1966)'s Ted Bessell in "Same Time, Next Year" in 1975 and later replaced Cleo Laine on Broadway in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". Honored with the Sarah Siddons award for her title role in "Shirley Valentine" (over 1,000 performances) in Chicago, she has more recently toured in productions of "The Vagina Monologues" and played the musical title role of "Mame" in 2003. Loretta also was a five-season host of the 1992 cable-TV wildlife series "Those Incredible Animals" (1992).
After her smash success on "M*A*S*H," Loretta went the dramatic TV movie route with leads in such vehicles as The Execution (1985), Miracle at Moreaux (1985), Dreams of Gold: The Mel Fisher Story (1986), A Matter of Principal (1990) and Hell Hath No Fury (1991). She also appeared in a few guest spots on the series "The Love Boat," "Dolly," "Murder, She Wrote," "The New Burke's Law" and "Diagnosis Murder" before she left the big and small screens. After a decade, Loretta was spotted in the film drama Play the Flute (2019).
Off-stage, Loretta was once married to actor Dennis Holahan, whom she met on the set of M*A*S*H (1972), in 1983. They had no children and divorced in 1995. Her natural spark and trademark blonde, curly mane are more prevalent these days at animal activist fundraisers. A strict vegetarian, she has served as a spokesperson for the Humane Society of the United States and has been multi-honored for her long-time dedication and passion to animals. She is also the author of a book on needlepoint (A Needlepoint Scrapbook), runs her own line of jewelry and exhibits watercolor paintings. As a result, little has been seen of Loretta on film and TV, into the millennium.M*A*S*H