isaiah's favorite actors and actresses
List activity
1.8K views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
1488 people
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
John Stephen Goodman's an American film, TV & stage actor. He was born in Affton, Missouri to Virginia Roos (Loosmore), a waitress and saleswoman & Leslie Francis Goodman, a postal worker who died when he was a small child. He's of English, Welsh & German ancestry. He's best known for his role as Dan Conner on the TV show Roseanne (1988), which ran until 1997 & for which he earned him a Best Actor Golden Globe in 1993. He's also noted for appearances in films of the Coen brothers, w/ prominent roles in Raising Arizona (1987) as an escaped convict, in Barton Fink (1991) as a congenial murderer, in The Big Lebowski (1998) as a volatile bowler & in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) as a cultured thief. Additionally, he has done voice work in numerous Disney & Pixar films, including the Sulley in Monsters, Inc. (2001). Having contributed to more than 50 films, he has also won 2 American Comedy Awards & hosted Saturday Night Live (1975) 14 times.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
John Cleese was born on October 27, 1939, in Weston-Super-Mare, England, to Muriel Evelyn (Cross) and Reginald Francis Cleese. He was born into a family of modest means, his father being an insurance salesman; but he was nonetheless sent off to private schools to obtain a good education. Here he was often tormented for his height, having reached a height of six feet by the age of twelve, and eventually discovered that being humorous could deflect aggressive behavior in others. He loved humor in and of itself, collected jokes, and, like many young Britons who would grow up to be comedians, was devoted to the radio comedy show, "The Goon Show," starring the legendary Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, and Harry Secombe.
Cleese did well in both sports and academics, but his real love was comedy. He attended Cambridge to read (study) Law, but devoted a great deal of time to the university's legendary Footlights group, writing and performing in comedy reviews, often in collaboration with future fellow Python Graham Chapman. Several of these comedy reviews met with great success, including one in particular which toured under the name "Cambridge Circus." When Cleese graduated, he went on to write for the BBC, then rejoined Cambridge Circus in 1964, which toured New Zealand and America. He remained in America after leaving Cambridge Circus, performing and doing a little journalism, and here met Terry Gilliam, another future Python.
Returning to England, he began appearing in a BBC radio series, "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again", based on Cambridge Circus. It ran for several years and also starred future Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. He also appeared, briefly, with Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman in At Last the 1948 Show (1967), for television, and a series of collaborations with some of the finest comedy-writing talent in England at the time, some of whom - Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Chapman - eventually joined him in Monty Python. These programs included The Frost Report (1966) and Marty Feldman's program Marty (1968). Eventually, however, the writers were themselves collected to be the talent for their own program, Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969), which displayed a strange and completely absorbing blend of low farce and high-concept absurdist humor, and remains influential to this day.
After three seasons of the intensity of Monty Python, Cleese left the show, though he collaborated with one or more of the other Pythons for decades to come, including the Python movies released in the mid-70s to early 80s - Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982), and The Meaning of Life (1983). Cleese and then-wife Connie Booth collaborated in the legendary television series Fawlty Towers (1975), as the sharp-tongued, rude, bumbling yet somehow lovable proprietor of an English seaside hotel. Cleese based this character on a proprietor he had met while staying with the other Pythons at a hotel in Torquay, England. Only a dozen episodes were made, but each is truly hilarious, and he is still closely associated with the program to this day.
Meanwhile Cleese had established a production company, Video Arts, for clever business training videos in which he generally starred, which were and continue to be enormously successful in the English-speaking world. He continues to act prolifically in movies, including in the hit comedy A Fish Called Wanda (1988), in the Harry Potter series, and in the James Bond series as the new Q, starting with The World Is Not Enough (1999), in which he began as R before graduating to Q. Cleese also supplies his voice to numerous animated and video projects, and frequently does commercials.
Besides the infamous Basil Fawlty character, Cleese's other well-known trademark is his rendition of an English upper-class toff. He has a daughter with Connie Booth and a daughter with his second wife, Barbara Trentham.
Education and learning are important elements of his life - he was Rector of the University of Saint Andrews from 1973 until 1976, and continues to be a professor-at-large of Cornell University in New York. Cleese lives in Santa Barbara, California.- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
James Adam Belushi was born June 15, 1954, in Chicago, to Agnes Demetri (Samaras) and Adam Anastos Belushi, a restaurant owner. His father was an Albanian immigrant, from Qytezë, and his mother was also of Albanian descent. The third of four children - his brother was comedian John Belushi - he grew up in Wheaton, Illinois. A high school teacher, impressed by his improvisational skills while giving speeches, convinced him to be in a school play. After that, he joined the school's drama club. Today, if asked why he got involved in acting, he will jokingly say, "Because of girls. In the drama club, there were about 20 girls and six guys. And the same thing with choir - more girls!". He attended the College of DuPage and Southern Illinois University, where he graduated with a degree in Speech and Theater Arts.
In 1977, he joined Chicago's Second City improv troupe and remained for three years. In 1979, Garry Marshall saw Jim performing for Second City and arranged for him to come to Hollywood and co-star in the TV pilot Who's Watching the Kids (1978) for Paramount and, then, for a role in the series Working Stiffs (1979) (co-starring Michael Keaton). Later, in 1983, he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975) for two years. Jim came to national attention in About Last Night (1986), playing the role he originated in the Chicago Apollo Theatre's production of David Mamet's Obie-award winning play "Sexual Perversity in Chicago". He resides in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer Sloan, their daughter Jamison and a son, Robert Belushi, from his first marriage.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Trisha Paytas was born on 8 May 1988 in Riverside, California, USA. She is an actress and producer. She has been married to Moses Hacmon since 11 December 2021. They have one child.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history.
Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences.
With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986); The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996), for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise.
In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever.- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
John Belushi was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, on January 24, 1949, to Agnes Demetri (Samaras) and Adam Anastos Belushi, a restaurant owner. His father was an Albanian immigrant, from Qytezë, and his mother was also of Albanian descent. He grew up in Wheaton, where the family moved when he was six. Though a young hellion in grade school, John became the perfect all-American boy during his high school years where he was co-captain of the Wheaton Central High School football team and was elected homecoming king his senior year. He also developed an interest in acting and appeared in the high school variety show. Encouraged by his drama teacher, John decided to put aside his plans to become a football coach to pursue a career in acting.
After graduation in 1967, John performed in summer stock in rural Indiana in a variety of roles from "Cardinal Wolsey" in "Anne of a Thousand Days" to a comic detective in "Ten Little Indians". In the fall of his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, John changed his image into a bad-boy appearance by growing his hair long and began to have problems with discipline and structure of attending classes.
Dropping out of Wisconsin, John spent the next two years at the College of DuPage, a junior college a few miles from his parents' Wheaton home, where his father began persuading him to become a partner in his restaurant, but John still preferred acting. While attending DuPage, John helped found the "West Compass Players", an improv comedy troupe patterned after Chicago's famous "Second City" ensemble.
In 1971, John made the leap to "Second City" itself where he performed in various on-stage comic performances with others, who included Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty. John loved his life at "Second City" where he performed six nights a week, perfecting the physical "gonzo" style of comedy he later made famous.
A year later, John and his live-in girlfriend from his high school years, Judith Belushi-Pisano, moved to New York because John had joined the cast of National Lampoon's Lemmings, an off-Broadway rock musical revue that was originally booked for a six-week run but played to full crowds for nearly 10 months.
In 1973, John was hired as a writer for the syndicated National Lampoon's Radio Hour which became the National Lampoon Show in 1975. John's big break came that same year when he joined the ground-breaking TV variety series Saturday Night Live (1975) which made him a star. The unpredictable, aggressively physical style of humor that he began on "Second City" flowered on SNL.
In 1978, while still working on Saturday Night Live (1975), John appeared in the movie Goin' South (1978) which starred and was directed by Jack Nicholson. It was here that director John Landis noticed John and decided to cast him in his movie National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). John's minor role as the notorious, beer-swilling "Bluto" made it a box-office smash and the year's top grossing comedy. Despite appearing in only a dozen scenes, John's performance stole the movie, which portrays college fraternity shenanigans at a small college set in the year 1962.
In 1979, John along with fellow SNL regular Dan Aykroyd quit the series to pursue movie projects. John and Dan Aykroyd appeared in minor roles in Steven Spielberg's financially unsuccessful 1941 (1979) and, the following year, in John Landis' The Blues Brothers (1980). Around this time, John's drug use began escalating. Cocaine, which was ubiquitous in show-business circles in the 1970's, became his drug of choice. After he first experimented with cocaine in the mid 1970s, John almost immediately became addicted to it. His frequent cocaine sniffing binges became a source of friction between him and Judy, whom he married in 1976.
John's love for blues and soul music inspired the "Blues Brothers". He and Aykroyd first appeared as Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues, a pair of white soul men dressed in black suits, skinny ties, fedora hats and Rayban sunglasses, as a warm-up act before the telecasts of Saturday Night Live (1975). Building on the success of their acts and the release of their album "A Briefcase Full of Blues", John and Dan Aykroyd starred in the movie, which gave John a chance to act with his favorite musical heroes including Ray Charles, James Brown and Aretha Franklin.
Although John's reputation for being an off-screen party animal is legendary, his generous side is less well known. Using some of his money, he bought his father a ranch outside San Diego for him to live. John helped set up some of his Chicago friends with their own businesses and even financially helped his younger brother, Jim Belushi, who followed his older brother's path to both "Second City" and Saturday Night Live (1975).
In 1981, John appeared in the movie Continental Divide (1981), playing a hard-nosed Chicago newspaperman who finds romance in Colorado with eagle expert Blair Brown. That same year, John and Dan Aykroyd appeared again in the movie Neighbors (1981), which gave them a chance to reverse roles, with John playing a straight-arrow family man whose life is turned upside down when a wild family man (Aykroyd) moves in next door.
In January 1982, John began work on the screenplay for another movie to be titled "Noble Rot". Also, John had checked into a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, a popular celebrity hotel in Los Angeles. John's drug use had been steadily increasing for over a year now, which alarmed his wife and friends, but he continued to promise Judy that he would quit someday. On March 5, 1982, John Belushi was found dead in his hotel room at the age of 33. The local coroner gave the cause of death as a lethal injection of cocaine and heroin. Several years later, John's drug dealing/drug user companion during his final weeks, Cathy Evelyn Smith, was tried and sentenced to three years in prison for supplying John with the drugs. Close friend James Taylor sang "That Lonesome Road" at a memorial service at Martha's Vineyard cemetery where John was buried.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Timothy James Curry was born on April 19, 1946 in Grappenhall, Cheshire, England. His mother, Maura Patricia (Langmead), was a school secretary, and his father, James Curry, was a Methodist Royal Navy chaplain. Curry studied Drama and English at Birmingham University, from which he graduated with Combined Honors. His first professional success was in the London production of "Hair", followed by more work in the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Glasgow Citizens Repertory Company, and the Royal Court Theatre where he created the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in "The Rocky Horror Show". He recreated the role in the Los Angeles and Broadway productions and starred in the screen version entitled The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Curry continued his career on the New York and London stages with starring roles in "Travesties", "Amadeus", "The Pirates of Penzance", "The Rivals", "Love for Love", "Dalliance", "The Threepenny Opera", "The Art of Success" and "My Favorite Year". He also starred in the United States tour of "Me and My Girl". He has received two Tony Award nominations for best actor and won the Royal Variety Club Award as "Stage Actor of the Year".
A composer and a singer, Tim Curry toured the United States and Europe with his own band and released four albums on A&M Records. In addition to an active movie and television career, he is a sought-after actor for CD-ROM productions. His distinctive voice can be heard on more than a dozen audio books, and in countless animated television series and videos. He lives in Los Angeles, California.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Music Department
Miley Ray Cyrus was born Destiny Hope Cyrus on November 23, 1992 in Franklin, Tennessee and raised in Thompson's Station, Tennessee to Tish Cyrus & Billy Ray Cyrus. She has five siblings - two half-brothers, a half-sister, and a younger brother and sister. Her parents named her because they hoped she would achieve greatness. Her childhood nickname, Smiley, due to her cheerful disposition, was eventually shortened to Miley. Her paternal grandfather was Democratic politician Ron Cyrus.
Cyrus was initially educated at Heritage Elementary School in Tennessee. When she turned eight, her family moved to Toronto, Canada, where Cyrus' father Billy Ray took a role in the TV series Doc (2001). It was around this time that Cyrus decided she wanted to act too. Her first role came alongside her father in Doc (2001). She also scored a small role in Tim Burton's Big Fish (2003).
In 2005, Cyrus was cast as the lead in the Disney series Hannah Montana (2006), about a teen leading a double life as a pop star. Again her father acted alongside her. The show was a smash and hit records, sell-out tours and merchandising deals soon followed. Cyrus became a teen superstar.
Following the success of Hannah Montana (2006), Cyrus made the move into other roles - including playing Ronnie Miller in The Last Song (2010) and Lola in LOL (2012) alongside Demi Moore.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Bob Hoskins was described by the director John Mackenzie as "an actor from the British tradition but with an almost American approach, an instinctive approach to acting and knowing how to work with the camera". He was born on October 26, 1942, in Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk, where his mother was living after being evacuated as a result of the heavy bombings. He is the son of Elsie Lillian (Hopkins), a nursery school teacher and cook, and Robert William Hoskins, Sr., who drove a lorry and worked as a bookkeeper. Growing up, Hoskins received only limited education and he left school at 15, but with a passion for language and literature instilled by his former English teacher.
A regular theatre-goer, Hoskins dreamed of starring on stage, but before he could do so he had to work odd jobs for a long time to make ends meet. His acting career started out more by accident than by design, when he accompanied a friend to watch some auditions, only to be confused for one of the people auditioning, getting a script pushed into his hands with the message "You're next". He got the part and acquired an agent. After some stage success, he expanded to television with roles in television series such as Villains (1972) and Thick as Thieves (1974). In the mid-'70s, he started his film career, standing out when he performed alongside Richard Dreyfuss in John Byrum's Inserts (1975) and in a smaller part in Richard Lester's Royal Flash (1975).
Hoskins broke through in 1978 in Dennis Potter's mini TV series, Pennies from Heaven (1978), playing "Arthur Parker", the doomed salesman. After this, a string of high-profile and successful films followed, starting with his true major movie debut in 1980's The Long Good Friday (1980) as the ultimately doomed "Harold Shand". This was followed by such works as The Cotton Club (1984), Mona Lisa (1986), which won him an Oscar nomination as well as a BAFTA award, Cannes Film Festival and Golden Globe), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) (Golden Globe nomination), Mermaids (1990), Hook (1991), Nixon (1995), Felicia's Journey (1999) and Enemy at the Gates (2001).
Hoskins always carefully balanced the riches of Hollywood with the labor of independent film, though leaned more towards the latter than the former. He worked at smaller projects such as Shane Meadows' debut TwentyFourSeven (1997), in which he starred as "Allen Darcy". Besides this, he found time to direct, write and star in The Raggedy Rawney (1988), as well as direct and star in Rainbow (1995), and contributing to HBO's Tales from the Crypt (1989) and Tube Tales (1999).
Suffering from Parkinson's disease in later years, Hoskins died of pneumonia at age 71 in a London hospital.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
The tall, handsome and muscular Scottish actor Sean Connery is best known as the original actor to portray James Bond in the hugely successful movie franchise, starring in seven films between 1962 and 1983. Some believed that such a career-defining role might leave him unable to escape it, but he proved the doubters wrong, becoming one of the most notable film actors of his generation, with a host of great movies to his name. This arguably culminated in his greatest acclaim in 1988, when Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an Irish cop in The Untouchables (1987), stealing the thunder from the movie's principal star Kevin Costner. Connery was polled as "The Greatest Living Scot" and "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". In 1989, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine, and in 1999, at age 69, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man of the Century."
Thomas "Sean" Connery was born on August 25, 1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. His mother, Euphemia Maclean, was a cleaning lady, and his father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and truck driver. He also had a, Neil Connery, a plasterer in Edinburgh, who was eight years younger. Before going into acting, Sean had many different jobs, such as a milkman, lorry driver, a laborer, artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, coffin polisher and bodybuilder. He also joined the Royal Navy, but was later discharged because of medical problems. At the age of 23, he had a choice between becoming a professional soccer player or an actor, and even though he showed much promise in the sport, he chose acting and said it was one of his more intelligent decisions.
No Road Back (1957) was Sean's first major movie role, and it was followed by several made-for-TV movies such as Anna Christie (1957), Macbeth (1961) and Anna Karenina (1961) as well as guest appearances on TV series, and also films such as Hell Drivers (1957), Another Time, Another Place (1958), Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and The Frightened City (1961). In 1962 he appeared in The Longest Day (1962) with a host of other stars.
His big breakthrough came in 1962 when he landed the role of secret agent James Bond in Dr. No (1962). He played James Bond in six more films: From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983).
After and during the success of the Bond films, he maintained a successful career as an actor and has appeared in films, including Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Time Bandits (1981), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Rising Sun (1993), The Rock (1996), Finding Forrester (2000) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).
Sean married actress Diane Cilento in 1962 and they had Sean's only child, Jason Connery, born on January 11, 1963. The couple announced their separation in February 1971 and filed for divorce 2½ years later. Sean then dated Jill St. John, Lana Wood, Magda Konopka and Carole Mallory. In 1975 he married Micheline Roquebrune and they stayed married, despite Sean's well-documented love affair with Lynsey de Paul in the late '80s. Sean had three stepchildren through his marriage to Micheline, who was one year his senior. He is also a grandfather. His son, Jason and Jason's ex-wife, actress Mia Sara had a son, Dashiell Connery, in 1997.
Sean Connery died at the age of 90 on October 31, 2020, in Nassau, the Bahamas, where he resided for many years.- Actor
- Writer
- Composer
Billy Connolly was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. He left school to work in the shipyards, becoming a welder, and joined the Territorial Army (in the parachute regiment) at around the same time. He developed an interest in folk music, eventually being an accomplished banjo player and a member of the band Humblebums with Gerry Rafferty (later of Baker Street fame). The jokes he told between songs eventually took over his act and he became a full-time comedian. Already a big star in Scotland, he became a household name in the UK after appearing on Parkinson (1971) in the early seventies. Billy has released many recordings and videos of his concert performances over the years. He has expanded his repertoire to include acting, appearing in a number of television dramas and films, most recently in the USA. In the 90s he made two documentary series for the BBC, about Scotland and Australia respectively, and in 1997 he starred in the award winning film Mrs. Brown (1997). He is one of the UK's top comedians.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Timothy Allen Dick was born on June 13, 1953, in Denver, Colorado, to Martha Katherine (Fox) and Gerald M. Dick. His father, a real estate salesman, was killed in a collision with a drunk driver while driving his family home from a University of Colorado football game, when Tim was eleven years old. His mother, a community service worker, remarried her high school sweetheart, an Episcopalian deacon, two years after Tim's father's death. He was raised with his many siblings and step-siblings. When Tim was young, his family moved to Birmingham, Michigan.
In high school, his favorite subject was shop, of course, and after high school, he attended Western Michigan University and graduated with a degree in Television Production in 1975. In 1978, he was arrested on drug charges and spent two years in jail. Upon his release, he had a new outlook on life and on a dare from a friend, started his comedy career at the Comedy Castle in Detroit. Later, he went on to do several cable specials, including, Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen (1988) and Tim Allen: Men Are Pigs (1990). In 1991, he became the star of his own hit television series on ABC called Home Improvement (1991). While continuing to film his television series throughout most of the 1990s, he starred in a string of blockbuster movies, including The Santa Clause (1994), Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Galaxy Quest (1999). In August 1996, he developed and unveiled his own signature line of power tools, manufactured by Ryobi. On top of all that, he has his own racing team, Tim Allen/Saleen RRRRacing. In May 1999, he ended his series Home Improvement (1991) after eight seasons and in 2001, he filmed such movies as Big Trouble (2002) and Joe Somebody (2001).- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
Candy was one of Canada's greatest and funniest character actors. His well-known role as the big hearted buffoon earned him classics in Uncle Buck (1989) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). His career has handed him some dry spells but Candy always rebounded.
Born in Newmarket, Ontario, in the year 1950, Candy was the son of Evangeline (Aker) and Sidney James Candy. His mother was of Ukrainian and Polish ancestry. Candy found his passion for drama while attending a community college. In 1971 Candy made his TV debut in an episode of Police Surgeon (1971) co-starring Sharon Farrell, John Hamelin, and Nick Mancuso. Candy then found a number of bit parts in other Canadian television shows and also in such small films as Tunnel Vision (1976) and Find the Lady (1976). However, his big success came at the age of twenty-seven, when he became part of the comedy group "Second City" in Toronto. Alongside such soon-to-be Canadian stars as Catherine O'Hara (one of Candy's lifelong friends), Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, and Harold Ramis, Candy was also part of the television show the group inspired. SCTV (1976) earned Candy a reputation for his quirky humor and his uncanny imitations of others.
After the television series, Candy appeared alongside fellow Canadian Dan Aykroyd in the Steven Spielberg flop 1941 (1979). However, other jobs followed and Candy landed a role, once again with Aykroyd, in the successful classic The Blues Brothers (1980). Candy played a parole officer who is part of the chase after Jake and Elwood Blues. The film was a hit and Candy followed up accordingly.
Candy acted in the smash hit Stripes (1981) where he played a dopey, overweight recruit affectionately nicknamed 'Ox'. After the success of Stripes (1981), Candy returned to the Second City with the other former stars, in SCTV Network (1981). Candy also hosted "Saturday Night Live" before landing himself a role in the Ron Howard film Splash (1983), a romantic comedy about a mermaid who washes ashore and learns to live like a human. Candy played a sleazy womanizing brother to the character played by Tom Hanks. The film was a bigger success than even Stripes (1981) and a number of people have said that Splash (1983) was his breakout role.
He took a second billing in the comedic film Brewster's Millions (1985) where a man must spend thirty million in order to inherit three hundred million from his deceased relative. Candy played the man's best friend, who accidentally gets in the way as much as helping out. Candy continued making films tirelessly, including the film Armed and Dangerous (1986) where he and Eugene Levy play characters who become security guards.
1987 was an especially good year to Candy, giving him two classic roles: Barf the Mawg in the Mel Brooks comedy Spaceballs (1987) and the bumbling salesman Del Griffith alongside Steve Martin's uptight character in the John Hughes film Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). The latter film is a golden classic and is one of Candy's greatest films. He followed up immediately with The Great Outdoors (1988), once again alongside Dan Aykroyd. Candy landed another classic role in the film Uncle Buck (1989) which was about a bumbling uncle who must look after his brother's three children.
Although he was in the smash hit Home Alone (1990), Candy's career fell into a slump, turning out unsuccessful films in the early nineties. This caused him to change his strategy by taking more serious roles. The first of these serious roles was the corrupt lawyer Dean Andrews in the 'Oliver Stone' film JFK (1991). The film was a big success, and Candy moved on from this victory to make the film Cool Runnings (1993) about the first Jamaican bobsled team.
Candy was well known for his size, six feet two and weighing around 300 pounds. However, he was very sensitive about the subject and in the nineties tried to lose weight and quit smoking. He was aware that heart attacks were in his family: both his father and his grandfather died of heart attacks and Candy wanted to prevent that happening to him as best he could.
In the mid-nineties Candy filmed the Michael Moore comedy Canadian Bacon (1995) then went to Mexico to film the western spoof Wagons East (1994). It was in Mexico that Candy had a heart attack and passed away in March 1994. Canadian Bacon (1995) was released a year after his death and is his last film.
Candy was loved by thousands of people who loved his classic antics in Splash (1983) and The Great Outdoors (1988). He was well-known for his roles in Stripes (1981) and Uncle Buck (1989) and he himself never forgot his Canadian background.- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Christopher Crosby Farley was born on February 15, 1964, in Madison, Wisconsin, to Mary Anne (Crosby) and Thomas Farley, who owned an oil company. Among his siblings are actors Kevin P. Farley and John Farley. He was of Irish heritage. Farley studied theatre and communications on Marquette University. After finishing university he was in the cast of the Second City Theatre, where he was discovered by the producer of the great comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975), Lorne Michaels. Farley worked on Saturday Night Live (1975) for five years during which he appeared in movies like Wayne's World (1992), Coneheads (1993), Billy Madison (1995) and finally Tommy Boy (1995), with his comic partner and SNL cast member David Spade. The duo later made one more movie called Black Sheep (1996). From that time on, Farley was one of the big comedy stars, and his fame was growing and growing.
After some more time, he made another "lone" movie, Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), which featured former SNL member Chris Rock. Farley was made even more famous, but with his growing fame, his problems grew bigger as well; he didn't want to be the "fat guy who falls down" any longer. Farley had several other problems, too, with alcohol and drug dependency. On December 18th, 1997, he died from a heroin (opiate) and cocaine overdose in his apartment in Chicago, where his body was found by his brother John the next day. Farley's weight of 296 pounds was a contributing factor in his death, but according to his autopsy the alcohol, marijuana and Prozac that was also found in his body, were not. Less than two months prior to his death, he had appeared alongside Chevy Chase on what would be Farley's only SNL show as host. Not unlike his idol John Belushi, he was credited for one more appearance after having left SNL and died at age 33. His death cause was also the same. In the year after Farley's departing, the movie Almost Heroes (1998), where he plays the leading role alongside Matthew Perry was released. He also makes cameo appearances in Dirty Work (1998)- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Michael John Myers was born in 1963 in Scarborough, Ontario, to Alice E. (Hind), an officer supervisor, and Eric Myers, an insurance agent. His parents were both English, and had served in the Royal Air Force and British Army, respectively.
Myers' television career really started in 1988, when he joined Saturday Night Live (1975), where he spent six seasons. He brought to life many memorable characters, such as Dieter and Wayne Cambell. His major movies include Wayne's World (1992), Wayne's World 2 (1993), So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993), the Austin Powers movies and The Cat in the Hat (2003).- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
JoJo was born Joanna Noëlle Levesque on December 20, 1990 in Brattleboro, Vermont and raised in Foxborough, Massachusetts to Diana Lynn Levesque (née Blagden) & Joel Maurice Levesque. She has Polish, English, Irish & Scottish ancestry on Diana's side and French-Canadian ancestry on Joel's side. Her mother, a church soloist and theatre performer, would sing hymns when JoJo was a baby. She grew up being a big fan of Whitney Houston, Etta James, Aretha Franklin & Ella Fitzgerald. A few years later she wanted to show her talent to the world and found an audition for Kids Say the Darndest Things (1998). She appeared at the audition and was allowed into the episode on the spot. Then, at Bill Cosby's request, she performed Respect for the audience, and got an amazing response from Cosby. That's when the calls started pouring in. First Oprah Winfrey asked her to appear on her super-popular talk show, followed by the Republican National Convention, the Boston Celtics, and Rosie O'Donnell. However, it was at the 2001 Gospelfest that she brought an entire crowd to its feet. Next she auditioned for America's Most Talented Kids (2003) competition. She didn't win, but she met a man named James Womack, who introduced her to an executive at Da Family Entertainment. She signed with them, and was offered two contracts before finding her match with Blackground Records. Before her single, Leave (Get Out) came out she toured with the prince of R'n'B, Mr Usher himself. Finally, her single came out and went directly to the top of the American charts.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Milla Jovovich is a Ukrainian-American actress, supermodel, fashion designer, singer and public figure, who was on the cover of more than a hundred magazines, and starred in such films as The Fifth Element (1997), Ultraviolet (2006), and the Resident Evil (2002) franchise.
Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich was born on December 17, 1975 in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now in Ukraine). Her Serbian father, Bogdan Jovovich, was a medical doctor in Kyiv. There, he met her mother, Galina Jovovich (née Loginova), a Russian actress. At the age of 5, in 1981, Milla emigrated with her parents from the Soviet Union, moving first to London, UK, then to Sacramento, California, and eventually settled in Los Angeles. There her parents worked as house cleaners for the household of director Brian De Palma. Her parents separated, and eventually divorced, because her father was arrested and spent several years in prison.
Young Milla Jovovich was brought up by her single mother in Los Angeles. In addition to her native Ukrainian, she also speaks Russian and English. However, in spite of her cosmopolitan background, Milla was ostracized by some of her classmates, as a kid who emigrated from the Soviet Union amidst the paranoia of the Cold War. Many emotional scars had affected her behavior, but she eventually emerged as a resilient, multi-talented, albeit rebellious and risk-taking girl. She was coached by her actress mother since her childhood, first at home, then studied music, ballet, and acting in Los Angeles.
She shot to international fame after she was spotted by the photographer Richard Avedon at the age of 11, and was featured in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements, and on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine 'Lei' which was her first cover shoot. She made her first professional model contract at the age of 12, and soon made it to the cover of 'The Face', 'Vogue', 'Cosmopolitan' and many other magazines. In 1994, she appeared on the cover of 'High Times' in the UK, at the age of 18. The total number of her magazine covers worldwide was over one hundred by 2004, and keeps counting. In 2004, she made $10.4 million, becoming the highest paid supermodel in the world.
Milla appeared in ad campaigns for Chanel, Versace, Emporio Armani, Donna Karen, DKNY, Celine, P&K, H&H, and continues her role as the worldwide spokesperson and model for L'Oreal. Thanks to their continued success with Milla, Giorgio Armani chose her to be the face of his fragrance, Night. In addition to Armani's fragrance, Milla was the face for Calvin Klein's Obsession and Christian Dior's Poison for over 10 years and has most recently become the new face for Donna Karan's Cashmere Mist fragrance, which debuts in August 2009. Milla continues to shoot with the fashion industry's most sought after photographers, including Peter Lindbergh, Mario Sorrenti, Craig McDean and Inez & Vinoodh.
Milla made her acting debut in the Disney Channel movie The Night Train to Kathmandu (1988) and she made guest appearances on television series including Married... with Children (1987) (in 1989 as a French exchange student), Paradise (1988) and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990). In 1988, at age 12, she made her film debut credited as Milla in a supporting role in Two Moon Junction (1988) by writer/director Zalman King. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she played several supporting roles as a teenage actress in film and on television, then starred in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991). In 1997, she co-starred opposite Bruce Willis in the sci-fi blockbuster The Fifth Element (1997), then she starred as the title character of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).
In the early 2000s, Milla had a few years of uncertainty in her acting career due to the uneven quality of her films, as well as some hectic events in her private life. She appeared with Mel Gibson in Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. She went on to co-star with Wes Bentley and Sarah Polley in The Claim (2000) and in Ben Stiller's spoof of the world of models and high-fashion, Zoolander (2001).
Milla achieved box office success in the U.S. and around the world with the action-packed thriller, Resident Evil (2002), based on the wildly popular video game, Resident Evil. It was written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Milla reprised her role as the zombie slaying heroine, Alice, in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), and again in Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016) A seventh resident Evil movie is in pre-production.
She received glowing reviews opposite Oscar-winner Adrien Brody and Illeana Douglas in Dummy (2002) which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. In the spring of 2006, Milla returned to the big screen as action heroine, Violet, in the futuristic film Ultraviolet (2006) directed by Kurt Wimmer.
Focusing on her personal sense of style, her love of fashion led Milla and her friend and business partner, Carmen Hawk, to launch their Jovovich-Hawk clothing line, which achieved instant acclaim in the domestic and international fashion world. The fresh, unique line garnered the attention of red carpet watchers and fashion magazines, including American Vogue, who featured Jovovich-Hawk on their coveted list of "10 Things to Watch Out for in 2005." A student of voice and guitar since she was very young, Milla began writing songs for her first record at the age of 15.
Her first album, "The Divine Comedy", was released by EMI Records in 1994. Informed by her experiences as a child growing up as a Russian emigrant in the Red-bashing Reagan era, the introspective European-folkish debut drew favorable reviews for Milla's songwriting and performing. She continues to write music, and has had songs featured on several film soundtracks. She has been writing music and lyrics to her song-demos, playing her guitar and sampling other sounds from her computer, and allowing free download and remix of her songs from her website.
Charitable work also plays a major part in Milla's life. She has served as Master of Ceremonies and co-chaired with Elizabeth Taylor for the amfAR and Cinema Against AIDS event at the Venice Film Festival, and has been heavily involved with The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, as well as The Wildlands Project.
For many years Milla Jovovich has been maintaining a healthier lifestyle, practicing yoga and meditation, trying to avoid junk food, and cooking for herself. Since she was a little girl, Milla has been writing a private diary, a habit she learned from her mother. She has been keeping a record of many good and bad facts of her life, her travels, her relationships, and all important ideas and events in her career, planning eventually to publish an autobiography. After dissolution of her two previous marriages, Milla Jovovich became engaged to film director Paul W.S. Anderson; their daughter, Ever Anderson, was born on November 3, 2007. They got married on August 22, 2009. Their second daughter, Dashiel Edan, was born on April 1, 2015.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
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).- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Robin McLaurin Williams was born on Saturday, July 21st, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, a great-great-grandson of Mississippi Governor and Senator, Anselm J. McLaurin. His mother, Laurie McLaurin (née Janin), was a former model from Mississippi, and his father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, was a Ford Motor Company executive from Indiana. Williams had English, German, French, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
Robin briefly studied political science at Claremont Men's College and theater at College of Marin before enrolling at The Juilliard School to focus on theater. After leaving Juilliard, he performed in nightclubs where he was discovered for the role of "Mork, from Ork", in an episode of Happy Days (1974). The episode, My Favorite Orkan (1978), led to his famous spin-off weekly TV series, Mork & Mindy (1978). He made his feature starring debut playing the title role in Popeye (1980), directed by Robert Altman.
Williams' continuous comedies and wild comic talents involved a great deal of improvisation, following in the footsteps of his idol Jonathan Winters. Williams also proved to be an effective dramatic actor, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991), before winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in Good Will Hunting (1997).
During the 1990s, Williams became a beloved hero to children the world over for his roles in a string of hit family-oriented films, including Hook (1991), FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Flubber (1997), and Bicentennial Man (1999). He continued entertaining children and families into the 21st century with his work in Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), Night at the Museum (2006), Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009), Happy Feet Two (2011), and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014). Other more adult-oriented films for which Williams received acclaim include The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Awakenings (1990), The Birdcage (1996), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), World's Greatest Dad (2009), and Boulevard (2014).
On Monday, August 11th, 2014, Robin Williams was found dead at his home in Tiburon, California USA, the victim of an apparent suicide, according to the Marin County Sheriff's Office. A 911 call was received at 11:55 a.m. PDT, firefighters and paramedics arrived at his home at 12:00 p.m. PDT, and he was pronounced dead at 12:02 p.m. PDT.- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Lindsay Dee Lohan was born in New York City, on 2 July 1986, to Dina Lohan and Michael Lohan. She began her career at age three as a Ford model, and also made appearances in over sixty television commercials, including spots for The Gap, Pizza Hut, Wendy's, and Jell-O (opposite Bill Cosby). Lohan made her acting debut in 1996 as the third actress to play Ali Fowler in the television drama Another World (1964). Shortly afterward she was hand-picked by Oscar-nominated writer Nancy Meyers as estranged twin sisters in an adaptation by Walt Disney Pictures of a novel by Erich Kästner, which marked Meyers' directorial debut. Lohan's first feature film, The Parent Trap (1998), a remake of The Parent Trap (1961), was a modest commercial success, earning her widespread critical acclaim and a Young Artist award for Best Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film, as well as Blockbuster Entertainment and YoungStar award nominations.
After signing a three-movie contract with Disney, she returned to the small screen to star in the made-for-TV movies Life-Size (2000) (opposite Tyra Banks) and Get a Clue (2002) (opposite Bug Hall). She also appeared as Rose in the pilot episode of the short-lived comedy series Bette (2000), which starred Bette Midler.
In June 2001 Lohan took a brief hiatus from acting. Her music career was launched over a year later, when Estefan Enterprises made a five-album production deal with her in September 2002, and she signed a recording contract with the reactivated Casablanca Records.
However, Lohan was not turning her back on her blossoming acting career. Just over a month previously she had been cast opposite Jamie Lee Curtis for another Disney adaptation of a novel, this time a fantasy comedy by Mary Rodgers. Freaky Friday (2003), a remake of Freaky Friday (1976), was a huge hit (generating over $160 million in worldwide box office receipts) and critics were spellbound by delightful performances from Lohan and Curtis (who went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination for her work). In addition, Lohan won the 2004 MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Female, as well as a Saturn award nomination and another Young Artist award nomination.
Lohan relocated permanently to Los Angeles between projects and moved into an apartment with fellow actress Raven-Symoné. She also dated pop star Aaron Carter for a short time.
Her next acting role was the title character in the comedy Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), a Disney adaptation of the novel by Dyan Sheldon. The film received scathing reviews upon its release and died a quick death at the box office, but even the harshest of critics were impressed by Lohan's charming turn as aspiring actress Lola.
Lohan's next project, Mean Girls (2004), saw her reunite with Freaky Friday (2003) director Mark Waters. Inspired by a non-fiction book by Rosalind Wiseman and written by Saturday Night Live (1975) scribe Tina Fey, the high-school comedy-drama opened to glowing reviews and grossed $86 million in the US. This earned her status as a bankable actress, and a salary of $7.5 million for the Donald Petrie romantic comedy Just My Luck (2006).
One of the most sought-after young actresses in the industry, she starred in Bobby (2006) (opposite Demi Moore and Sharon Stone), the Disney fantasy adventure Herbie Fully Loaded (2005) (a pseudo-sequel to The Love Bug (1969)) and the critically acclaimed A Prairie Home Companion (2006). On top of a thriving film career Lohan also launched a music career, releasing her debut album, "Speak," which hit shelves in December 2004.
In 2009 Lohan launched her own fashion line titled 6126, mainly focusing on the production of women's leggings. By spring she launched a self-tanning spray line titled "Sevin Nyne" and by the end of the year she became an artistic designer for fashion house Ungaro.
Lindsay continues her career in acting, having played a supporting role in the action film Machete (2010).- Actor
- Producer
- Music Department
Alec Baldwin is the oldest, and best-known, of the four Baldwin brothers in the acting business (the others are Stephen Baldwin, William Baldwin and Daniel Baldwin). Alexander Rae Baldwin III was born on April 3, 1958 in Massapequa, New York, the son of Carol Newcomb (Martineau) and Alexander Rae Baldwin Jr., a high school teacher and football coach at Massapequa High School. He is of Irish, as well as English, French, Scottish, and German, descent.
Alec Baldwin burst onto the TV scene in the early 1980s with appearances on several series, including The Doctors (1963) and Knots Landing (1979), before scoring feature film roles in Forever, Lulu (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), Working Girl (1988), Married to the Mob (1988) and Talk Radio (1988). In 1990, Baldwin appeared in the first on-screen adaptation of the "Jack Ryan" character created by mega-selling espionage author, Tom Clancy. The film, The Hunt for Red October (1990), was a box office and critical success, with Baldwin appearing alongside icy Sean Connery. Unfortunately, Baldwin fell out with Paramount Studios over future scripts for "Jack Ryan", and subsequent Ryan roles went to Harrison Ford.
Baldwin instead went to Broadway to perform "A Streetcar Named Desire", garnering a Tony nomination for his portrayal of "Stanley Kowalski" (he would reprise the role in a 1995 TV adaptation). Baldwin won over critics as a lowlife thief pursued by dogged cop Fred Ward in Miami Blues (1990), met his future wife Kim Basinger while filming the Neil Simon comedy, The Marrying Man (1991), starred in the film adaptation of the play, Prelude to a Kiss (1992) (in which he starred off-Broadway), and made an indelible ten-minute cameo as a hard-nosed real estate executive laying down the law in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He also made a similar tour-de-force monologue in the thriller, Malice (1993), as a doctor defending his practices, in which he stated, "Let me tell you something: I am God".
Demand for Baldwin's talents in the 1990s saw more scripts swiftly come his way, and he starred alongside his then-wife, Kim Basinger, in a remake of the Steve McQueen action flick, The Getaway (1994), brought to life the famous comic strip character, The Shadow (1994), and starred as an assistant district attorney in the civil rights drama, Ghosts of Mississippi (1996). Baldwin's distinctive vocal talents then saw him voice US-aired episodes of the highly popular UK children's show, Thomas & Friends (1984), plus later voice-only contributions to other animated/children's shows, including Clerks (2000), Cats & Dogs (2001), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004).
In the early 2000s, Baldwin and Basinger endured an acrimonious break-up that quickly became tabloid fodder but, while his divorce was high-profile, Baldwin excelled in a number of lower-profile supporting roles in a variety of films, including State and Main (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001), The Cooler (2003) (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor), The Aviator (2004), Along Came Polly (2004) and The Departed (2006). As he was excelling as a consummate character actor, Baldwin found a second career in television comedy. Already known for his comedic turns hosting Saturday Night Live (1975), he essayed an extended guest role on Will & Grace (1998) in 2005 before taking on what would arguably become his most famous role, that of network executive "Jack Donaghy", opposite Tina Fey in the highly-acclaimed sitcom, 30 Rock (2006). The role brought Baldwin two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes, and an unprecedented six Screen Actors Guild Awards (not including cast wins).
Continuing to appear in films as 30 Rock (2006) wrapped up its final season, Baldwin was engaged in 2012 to wed Hilaria Baldwin (aka Hilaria Lynn Thomas); the couple married on June 30, 2012.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
James Howard Woods was born on April 18, 1947 in Vernal, Utah, the son of Martha A. (Smith) and Gail Peyton Woods, a U.S. Army intelligence officer who died during Woods' childhood. James is of Irish, English, and German descent. He grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, with his mother and stepfather Thomas E. Dixon. He graduated from Pilgrim High School in 1965, near the top of his class. James earned a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; dropping out during his senior year in 1969, he then headed off to New York with his fraternity brother Martin Donovan to pursue aspirations to appear on the stage. After appearing in a handful of New York City theater productions, Woods scored his first film role in All the Way Home (1971) and followed that up with meager supporting roles in The Way We Were (1973) and The Choirboys (1977).
However, it was Woods' cold-blooded performance as the cop killer in The Onion Field (1979), based on a Joseph Wambaugh novel, that seized the attention of movie-goers to his on-screen power. Woods quickly followed up with another role in another Joseph Wambaugh film adaptation, The Black Marble (1980), as a sleazy and unstable cable-T.V.-station owner in David Cronenberg's mind-bending and prophetic Videodrome (1983), as gangster Max Bercovicz in Sergio Leones mammoth epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984), and scored a best actor Academy Award nomination as abrasive journalist Richard Boyle in Oliver Stone's gritty and unsettling Salvador (1986).
There seemed to be no stopping the rise of this star as he continued to amaze movie-goers with his remarkable versatility and his ability to create such intense, memorable characters. The decade of the 1990s started off strongly with high praise for his role as Roy Cohn in the television production of Citizen Cohn (1992). Woods was equally impressive as sneaky hustler Lester Diamond who cons Sharon Stone in Casino (1995), made a tremendous H.R. Haldeman in Nixon (1995), portrayed serial killer Carl Panzram in Killer: A Journal of Murder (1995), and then as accused civil rights assassin Byron De La Beckwith in Ghosts of Mississippi (1996).
Not to be typecast solely as hostile hoodlums, Woods has further expanded his range to encompass providing voice-overs for animated productions including Hercules (1997), Hooves of Fire (1999), and Stuart Little 2 (2002). Woods also appeared in the critically praised The Virgin Suicides (1999), in the coming-of-age movie Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), as a corrupt medico in Any Given Sunday (1999), and in the comedy-horror spoof Scary Movie 2 (2001). A remarkable performer with an incredibly diverse range of acting talent, Woods remains one of Hollywood's outstanding leading men.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Blue-eyed Vincent Cassel was born in Paris to a leading actor father, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and a journalist mother, Sabine Litique. Often labeled as a tough guy because of his roles, eclectic choices and talent have made of him a star of European cinema. First in La haine (1995), the young actor, actually coming from upper classes, succeeded to express the despair of a social class living in the suburbs of towns. This veracity in his play comes from the fact that he was in fact since years in connection with many hip-hop artists from the rising generation, (his own brother was leader of a legendary french rap group). Then the success of The Crimson Rivers (2000), where he plays a young French cop alongside Jean Reno, made of him "the man to count on." He never hid his taste for rap music, break dance, Capoeira, Brasil and his endless energy, but Vincent is also a family man, married to Monica Bellucci, his Italian co-star from The Apartment (1996) (aka The Apartment); and recently a father.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Actor, raconteur, art collector and connoisseur of haute cuisine are just some of the attributes associated with Vincent Price. He was born Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, to Marguerite Cobb "Daisy" (Wilcox) and Vincent Leonard Price, who was President of the National Candy Company. His grandfather, also named Vincent, invented Dr. Price's Baking Powder, which was tartar-based. His family was prosperous, as he said, "not rich enough to evoke envy but successful enough to demand respect." His uniquely cultivated voice and persona were the result of a well-rounded education which began when his family dispatched him on a tour of Europe's cultural centres. His secondary education eventually culminated in a B.A. in English from Yale University and a degree in art history from London's Courtauld Institute.
Famously, his name has long been a byword for Gothic horror on screen. However, Vincent Price was, first and foremost, a man of the stage. It is where he began his career and where it ended. He faced the footlights for the first time at the Gate Theatre in London. At the age of 23, he played Prince Albert in the premiere of Arthur Schnitzler 's 'Victoria Regina' and made such an impression on producer Gilbert Miller that he launched the play on Broadway that same year (legendary actress Helen Hayes played the title role). In early 1938, he was invited to join Orson Welles 's Mercury Theatre on a five-play contract, beginning with 'The Shoemaker's Holiday'. He gave what was described as "a polished performance". Thus established, Vincent continued to make sporadic forays to the Great White Way, including as the Duke of Buckingham in Shakespeare's 'Richard III' (in which a reviewer for the New Yorker found him to be "satisfactorily detestable") and as Oscar Wilde in his award-winning one man show 'Diversions and Delights', which he took on a hugely successful world-wide tour in 1978. While based in California, Vincent was instrumental in the success of the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, starring in several of their bigger productions, including 'Billy Budd' and 'The Winslow Boy'. In 1952, Vincent joined the national touring company of 'Don Juan in Hell' in which he was cast as the devil. Acting under the direction of Charles Laughton and accompanied by noted thespians Charles Boyer, Cedric Hardwicke and Agnes Moorehead, he later recalled this as one of his "greatest theatrical excitements".
As well as acting on stage, Vincent regularly performed on radio network programs, including Lux Radio Theatre, CBS Playhouse and shows for the BBC. He narrated or hosted assorted programs ranging from history (If these Walls Could Speak) to cuisine (Cooking Price-Wise). He wrote several best-selling books on his favourite subjects: art collecting and cookery. In 1962, he was approached by Sears Roebuck to act as a buying consultant "selling quality pictures to department store customers". As if that were not enough, he lectured for 15 years on art, poetry and even the history of villainy. He recorded numerous readings of poems by Edgar Allan Poe (nobody ever gave a better recital of "The Raven"!), Shelley and Whitman. He also served on the Arts Council of UCLA, was a member of the Fine Arts Committee for the White House, a former chairman of the Indian Arts & Crafts Board and on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
And besides all of that, Vincent Price remained a much sought-after motion picture actor. He made his first appearance on screen as a romantic lead in Service de Luxe (1938), a frothy Universal comedy which came and went without much fanfare. After that, he reprized his stage role as Master Hammon in an early television production of 'The Shoemaker's Holiday'. For one reason or another, Vincent was henceforth typecast as either historical figures (Sir Walter Raleigh, Duke of Clarence, Mormon leader Joseph Smith, King Charles II, Cardinal Richelieu, Omar Khayyam) or ineffectual charmers and gigolos. Under contract to 20th Century Fox (1940-46), Laura (1944) provided one of his better vehicles in the latter department, as did the lush Technicolor melodrama Leave Her to Heaven (1945) which had Vincent showcased in a notably powerful scene as a prosecuting attorney. His performance was singled out by the L.A. Times as meriting "attention as contending for Academy supporting honors".
His first fling with the horror genre was Dragonwyck (1946), a Gothic melodrama set in the Hudson Valley in the early 1800's. For the first time, Vincent played a part he actually coveted and fought hard to win. His character was in effect a precursor of those he would later make his own while working for Roger Corman and American-International. As demented, drug-addicted landowner Nicholas Van Ryn, he so effectively terrorized Gene Tierney's Miranda Wells that the influential columnist Louella Parsons wrote with rare praise: "The role of Van Ryn calls for a lot of acting and Vincent admits he's a ham and loves to act all over the place, but the fact that he has restrained himself and doesn't over-emote is a tribute to his ability". If Vincent was an occasional ham, he proved it with his Harry Lime pastiche Carwood in The Bribe (1949). Much better was his starring role in a minor western, The Baron of Arizona (1950), in which he was convincingly cast as a larcenous land office clerk attempting to create his own desert baronetcy.
With House of Wax (1953) , Vincent fine-tuned the character type he had established in Dragonwyck, adding both pathos and comic elements to the role of the maniacal sculptor Henry Jarrod. It was arduous work under heavy make-up which simulated hideous facial scarring and required three hours to apply and three hours to remove. He later commented that it "took his face months to heal because it was raw from peeling off wax each night". However, the picture proved a sound money maker for Warner Brothers and firmly established Vincent Price in a cult genre from which he was henceforth unable to escape. The majority of his subsequent films were decidedly low-budget affairs in which the star tended to be the sole mitigating factor: The Mad Magician (1954), The Fly (1958) (and its sequel), House on Haunted Hill (1959), the absurd The Tingler (1959) (easily the worst of the bunch) and The Bat (1959). With few exceptions, Vincent's acting range would rarely be stretched in the years to come.
Vincent's association with the genial Roger Corman began when he received a script for The Fall of the House of Usher, beginning a projected cycle of cost-effective films based on short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. As Roderick Usher, Vincent was Corman's "first and only choice". Though he was to receive a salary of $50,000 for the picture, it was his chance "to express the psychology of Poe's characters" and to "imbue the movie versions with the spirit of Poe" that clinched the deal for Vincent. He made another six films in this vein, all of them box office winners. Not Academy Award stuff, but nonetheless hugely enjoyable camp entertainment and popular with all but highbrow audiences. Who could forget Vincent at his scenery chewing best as the resurgent inquisitor, luring Barbara Steele into the crypt in The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)? Or as pompous wine aficionado Fortunato Luchresi in that deliriously funny wine tasting competition with Montresor Herringbone (Peter Lorre) in Tales of Terror (1962)? Best still, the climactic battle of the magicians pitting Vincent's Erasmus Craven against Boris Karloff's malevolent Dr. Scarabus in The Raven (1963) (arguably, the best offering in the Poe cycle). The Comedy of Terrors (1963) was played strictly for laughs, with the inimitable combo of Price and Lorre this time appearing as homicidal undertakers.
For the rest of the 60s, Vincent was content to remain in his niche, playing variations on the same theme in City in the Sea (1965) and Witchfinder General (1968) (as Matthew Hopkins). He also spoofed his screen personae as Dr. Goldfoot and as perennial villain Egghead in the Batman (1966) series. He rose once more to the occasion in the cult black comedy The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) (and its sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)) commenting that he had to play Anton Phibes "very seriously so that it would come out funny". The tagline, a parody of the ad for Love Story (1970), announced "love means never having to say you're ugly".
During the 70s and 80s, Vincent restricted himself mainly to voice-overs and TV guest appearances. His final role of note was as the inventor in Edward Scissorhands (1990), a role written specifically for him. The embodiment of gleeful, suave screen villainy, Vincent Price died in Los Angeles in October 1993 at the age of 82. People magazine eulogized him as "the Gable of Gothic." Much earlier, an English critic named Gilbert Adair spoke for many fans when he said "Every man his Price - and mine is Vincent."- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Emilio Estevez was born on May 12, 1962, in New York City. He is the eldest son of actor Martin Sheen, who at the time was just breaking into the business. His mother, Janet Sheen (née Templeton), was a former New York art student who had met Emilio's father right after he had moved to Manhattan. Martin and Janet had three other children, Charlie Sheen, Renée Estevez, and Ramon Estevez, all of whom became actors. His father is of half Spanish and half Irish descent, and his mother, whose family is from Kentucky, has English and Scottish ancestry.
He lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side until his family relocated to Malibu in 1968. Before graduating from Santa Monica High School in 1980, Estevez had already had a small role as a messenger boy in Apocalypse Now (1979), that was ultimately cut from the film.
Though his father had opted to use the stage name "Sheen" over his more ethnic birth name "Estevez," Emilio chose to retain the family name, hoping to avoid riding his father's coattails. He also thought the double "E" set of initials was "pretty."
He appeared in a few TV movies, the first of which was 17 Going on Nowhere (1980), before making his big-screen debut opposite Matt Dillon in 1982's Tex (1982). A part in The Outsiders (1983) followed, and Estevez made his first big splash as the punk rocker Otto in the cult classic Repo Man (1984).
Originally cast as Bender (The Criminal) in the seminal John Hughes flick The Breakfast Club (1985), Estevez took the part of Andrew (The Athlete) instead after Hughes could find no one else to fill the role. Another ensemble film, St. Elmo's Fire (1985) came next. Then Estevez made his screen-writing debut with That Was Then... This Is Now (1985), a film in which he also starred.
He then starred in the Stephen King thriller and cult hit Maximum Overdrive (1986), . The ambitious young actor added directing to his palette with Wisdom (1986) in 1986. Estevez went on to write, direct and star in the film Men at Work , Men at Work (1990) alongside his brother Charlie Sheen in 1989 . Originally written as an environmental comedy that follows two slacker garbage men who find a dead politician in a trash barrel,''Men at Work'' went on to be a moderate success and enjoys a "cult" status.
Estevez jumped back into making studio films with hits like Stakeout (1987) and Young Guns (1988), as well as their subsequent sequels.
In 1992, Emilio took on one of his most iconic and famous roles as Coach Gordon Bombay in The Mighty Ducks (1992). The enormously popular Disney film spawned two sequels and an NHL hockey team of the same name, but Estevez was interested in making more dramatic films.
In 1995, he agreed to make a brief appearance in D3: The Mighty Ducks (1996) in exchange for Disney helping him finance and distribute another effort as actor-director, The War at Home (1996). Though smiled on by critics, The War at Home (1996) received a very limited distribution by Disney and thus went largely unseen. The War at Home, filmed in Austin, Texas, is an exploration of the effects of PTSD on a Vietnam veteran who has returned to his Texas family's home in 1972. The film co-stars Oscar winner, Kathy Bates, Estevez ' s father Martin Sheen and Kimberly Williams . The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 1996 as an Official Selection. Estevez continued to work in films, both behind and in front of the camera, including a fourth effort as director and star, Rated X (2000), which co-starred brother Charlie Sheen and was a selection at the Sundance Film Festival in 2000.
In 2006, Emilio made the motion picture Bobby. Bobby (2006), a "day in the life" film. Robert F. Kennedy Estevez wrote, directed, and acted in the picture, which, follows 22 characters in the Ambassador Hotel on June 4th, 1968 on the day Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated following his win in the California primary. The film remains one of the starriest ensemble cast ever assembled with Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Laurence Fishburne, Harry Belafonte, Lindsay Lohan, Helen Hunt, Martin Sheen and many others in the cast. Distributed by The Weinstein Company, "Bobby" went on to be nominated for two Golden Globes, Best Original Song and Best Picture (Drama), as well as a Screen Actors Guild Best Ensemble nomination in 2006. He won a Hollywood Film Best Ensemble Award and received a 7-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival following his nomination for the prestigious Golden Lion for directing the film . The film had its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival where it was an Official Selection.
In 2009 Estevez filmed a new project which he wrote, produced and directed called, The Way, in Spain starring his father, Martin Sheen, in a story about a man who decides to make the Camino de Santiago after the death of his son in the French Pyrénées. It was released in the United States on October 7, 2011, following the premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 2010.
In 2019, Estevez released another feature film, The Public, starring Alec Baldwin, Christian Slater, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Taylor Shilling, Michael K. Williams and Estevez himself, which he also wrote, directed and produced. The movie was shot entirely inside the downtown Cincinnati Public Library during the winter of 2017. Once again, The Public enjoyed it's world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in 2018. The film was released in 2019 by Greenwich Entertainment and Universal Pictures.
In 2021, Emilio returns as Coach Gordon Bombay in the new Disney + series, The Mighty Ducks: Gamechangers.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
John William Ferrell was born in Irvine, California, to Betty Kay (Overman), a teacher, and Roy Lee Ferrell, Jr., a musician. His parents were originally from Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.
A graduate of the University of Southern California, Ferrell became interested in performing while a student at University High School in Irvine, where he made his school's daily morning announcements over the public address system in disguised voices. He started as a member of the Los Angeles comedy/improvisation group The Groundlings, where fellow cast members Ana Gasteyer, Maya Rudolph and former Saturday Night Live (1975) repertory players such as Laraine Newman, Jon Lovitz and Phil Hartman began their careers. It was there he met Chris Kattan and the two became good friends and both went on to Saturday Night Live (1975) later. He has also appeared on several television programs, including Strangers with Candy (1999), Grace Under Fire (1993) and Living Single (1993) during his time at The Groundlings. Will also lent his voice to the armless and legless dad of cartoon family "The Oblongs".
In 1995 he became a feature cast member at Saturday Night Live (1975) during the show's rapid re-casting. He was declared quite possibly the worst cast member ever during his first season. However, his talents of impersonations and range of characters shot him forward to making him arguably the greatest Saturday Night Live (1975) cast member ever. During his seven year run he is one of the few cast members to ever be nominated for an Emmy for a performance and played George W. Bush during the 2000 elections. He has appeared in every Saturday Night Live (1975) movie since his premiere on the show in 1995. In 2002 he left Saturday Night Live (1975) and was the only cast member to ever receive a farewell from all the current cast members at the end of the season finale show. Since leaving the show Will has pursued a career in films. In 2000, he married Viveca Paulin, and lives in L.A.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Alan Rickman was born on a council estate in Acton, West London, to Margaret Doreen Rose (Bartlett), of English and Welsh descent, and Bernard Rickman, of Irish descent, who worked at a factory. Alan Rickman had an older brother (David), a younger brother (Michael), and a younger sister (Sheila). When Alan was 8 years old, his father died. He attended Latymer Upper School on a scholarship. He studied Graphic Design at Chelsea College of Art and Design, where he met Rima Horton, who would later become his longtime partner.
After three years at Chelsea College, Rickman did graduate studies at the Royal College of Art. He opened a successful graphic design business, Graphiti, with friends and managed it for several years before his love of theatre led him to seek an audition with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). At the relatively late age of 26, Rickman received a scholarship to RADA, which started a professional acting career that has lasted nearly 40 years, a career which has spanned stage, screen and television, and overlapped into directing, as well. In 1987, he first came to the attention of American audiences as the Vicomte de Valmont in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" on Broadway (he was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in the role). Denied the role in the film version of the show, Rickman instead made his first film appearance opposite Bruce Willis in Die Hard (1988) as the villainous Hans Gruber. His take on the urbane villain set the standard for screen villains for decades to come.
Although often cited as being a master of playing villains, Rickman actually played a wide variety of characters, such as the romantic cello-playing ghost Jamie in Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply (1990) and the noble Colonel Brandon of Sense and Sensibility (1995). He treated audiences to his comedic abilities in such films as Dogma (1999), Galaxy Quest (1999) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), and roles like Dr. Alfred Blalock in Something the Lord Made (2004), and as Alex Hughes in Snow Cake (2006), showcased his ability to play ordinary men in extraordinary situations. Rickman even conquered the daunting task of singing a role in a Stephen Sondheim musical as he took on the role of Judge Turpin in the movie adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). In 2001, Rickman introduced himself to a whole new, younger generation of fans by taking on the role of Severus Snape in the film versions of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001). He continued to play the role through the eighth and last movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011).
Alan Rickman died of pancreatic cancer on 14 January 2016. He was 69 years old.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
John Felix Anthony Cena was born on April 23, 1977 in West Newbury, Massachusetts to Carol Cena and John Joseph Cena. He is of Italian (father) and French-Canadian and English (mother) descent, and is the grandson of baseball player Tony Lupien. When he was in college, he played football. He then continued on to be a bodybuilder and a limousine driver. The 6-foot-1 tall star weighs exactly at 240 pounds and is a very successful superstar in the WWE.
The Dr. of Thuganomics started training to be a wrestler at Ultimate Pro Wrestling where he also created the character, The Prototype. Cena first appeared on WWE in a match against Kurt Angle on the 27th of June, 2002 which ended up with him losing.
In 2004, John Cena's status as a celebrity began to develop. Cena won the United States Championship from Big Show. Not too long later, Cena lost the title but he gained it back soon. Cena then lost the title again to fellow WWE superstar, Carlito. During that time, Cena apparently got stabbed in the kidney by one of Carlito's bodyguards. This resulted in staying out of action for a month.
In 2005 and 2006 respectively, Cena was involved in controversies. He had a feud with champion John Bradshaw Layfield, manager Eric Bischoff and fellow wrestler Chris Jericho. Cena also had feuds with Edge and Umaga at that time. But even so, some friendships were formed. Cena is said to be friends with Carlito after they won a match with Jeff Hardy against Edge, Randy Orton and Johnny Nitro.
The year 2007 was a big year for Cena as he was involved in a wrestling match with Britney Spears' ex and rap star, Kevin Federline. John ended up losing that match thanks to some assistance from Umaga to Kevin Federline. Later that night, Cena took revenge by body slamming Kevin Federline backstage. The year 2007 also started pretty well for John Cena as he became the first person to defeat the Samoan Bulldozer, Umaga that year. The Chain Gang Soldier also teamed up with Shaun Michaels defeating the RKO tag team, Randy Orton and Edge. The match ended up with Cena and Michaels winning.
As of October 2007, Cena lost his WWE Championship title because of an injury. While wrestling against Mr. Kennedy, Cena tore his pectoral muscle while executing a hip toss. Although he finished the match and completed the rest of the scripted event, a check-up the next day showed that John's pectoral major muscle was torn completely from the bone, requiring seven months to a year rehabilitation. Not able to perform, WWE's CEO, Vince McMahon stripped him off the title and ended his reign.
In 2008, Cena made an unannounced return to action on January 27 as the final participant of the Royal Rumble match. He won the match, and the traditional WrestleMania title shot. Cena also had a match against JBL, which he defeated at Judgment Day and then at One Night Stand in a First Blood match. However, JBL defeated him at the New York City Parking Lot Brawl. In the month of August, Cena was replaced by Rey Mysterio after it was announced Cena had suffered a herniated disk in his neck which required surgery and he would be out of action indefinitely. According to reports, Cena underwent successive surgery to repair the herniated disk in his neck with Doctor Joseph Maroon on August 25.
Aside from wrestling, John has also made a name in the movie business. In 2006, a WWE franchise movie titled The Marine was released with John playing the lead character, John Triton. The movie received mixed reviews due to the poor story-line and discrimination to the US Marines. Even so, fans queued up to watch the movie as this was John's first big screen appearance.
The WWE wrestler also added recording artist to his resume as he released his debut rap album "You Can't See Me" which debuted at #15 on the US Billboard 200 chart. The album was recorded with his cousin Tha Trademarc. The album featured his entrance theme song, 'The Time Is Now' & a host of other singles performed by Cena. One of the songs he performed with popular rap band Estoric and a number of other songs Cena performed with famous rapper Bumpy Knuckles. Cena is the only professional wrestler to ever perform on BBC Two's long running TV show Top of the Pops.
While still active with WWE, Cena made a couple of guest appearances: Jimmy Kimmel Live! twice to promote his album. He has also appeared on popular shows like Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Fuse's Celebrity Playlist, Fox Sports Net's The Best Damn Sports Show Period, MADtv, G4's Training Camp and two appearances on MTV's Punk'd. He also served as a co-presenter, with Hulk Hogan, at the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, as a guest judge during the third week of the 2006 season of Nashville Star, and appeared at the 2007 Nickelodeon UK Kids Choice Awards 2007.
In fashion, The Champ has also made a few trademarks. Cena is often seen with knee-high denim jeans and throwback jerseys when he first started on WWE. Lately, Cena has been wearing a lot of Chain Gang merchandise. When his movie, The Marine was released, John was seen to be adding more military-inspired clothing to his outfit to promote his movie.
Cena graduated from Springfield College, Massachusetts with degrees in exercise physiology and human anatomy. He applied to 60 colleges and he got accepted by 58 of them but in the end, he chose Springfield College. He is the second eldest of five brothers and is said to be a family guy when he is not wrestling. His good friends are fellow wrestlers, John Hennigan, Batista, Randy Orton, Carlito, Jeff and Matt Hardy, whom he will have to fight.
John Cena is definitely going to be a big inspiration to all, whether in wrestling, fashion, music or even movies as his participation in the industry is already more than regular celebrity. With all he has achieved, fans can definitely expect to see more of this WWE superstar in the coming future.
Also, recently he has completed his new movie 12 Rounds produced by WWE Films. This movie was said to have finished filming when John suffered from his injury in 2007.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Liv Tyler is an actress of international renown and has been a familiar face on our screens for over two decades and counting. She began modelling at the age of fourteen before pursuing a career in acting. After making her film debut in Bruce Beresford's Silent Fall, she was cast by fledgling director James Mangold (who would go on to direct such hits as Girl, Interrupted, Walk the Line and Logan) in his first feature Heavy, a critical and commercial success that went on to gain cult status. This was followed by another indie cult hit, Empire Records, but it was the leading role in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty that catapulted her to stardom at the age of eighteen.
Liv was next seen in Tom Hanks' hugely successful passion project That Thing You Do!, his paean to the glory days of 1960s rock 'n' roll (as the child of a rock 'n' roll background, this was a film whose subject was also dear to Liv's heart). This was followed by Michael Bay's action blockbuster Armageddon, starring alongside Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Steve Buscemi, who would later go on to direct Liv in Lonesome Jim.
Liv had come to the attention of director Robert Altman in Stealing Beauty and the late, great auteur went on to cast her in two of his final projects, Cookie's Fortune and Dr T and the Women, describing her as "very serious, very prepared and very professional...I am crazy about her."
In between her work for Altman, Liv starred opposite Ralph Fiennes in Onegin, directed by his sister Martha, from the classic novel by Alexander Pushkin. Ralph Fiennes said of Liv, "We tested a lot of actresses but Liv has an acute sense of emotional truth that's not performed or projected, but just is."
In 2001, Liv portrayed Arwen in the ground-breaking epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
Nothing if not eclectic, Liv then defied expectations by starring in cult director Kevin Smith's gentle low-budget comedy Jersey Girl, re-uniting her with her Armageddon co-star Ben Affleck, before playing Betty, the female lead to Edward Norton's Bruce Banner in Marvel's The Incredible Hulk.
An actress who consistently refuses to be pigeonholed, Liv's career is one that cuts across genres; she cannot be defined by the roles she has chosen and is led, above all, by what speaks to her on an instinctual and emotional level. "It's very difficult to say no to whatever comes along," Tom Hanks has said of her, "...But she's saying no to all the right things."
In addition to her acting work, Liv has forged a decade-long relationship with Givenchy as the spokesperson for their fragrance and cosmetics line. Liv is also a brand ambassador for Triumph lingerie, developing a capsule collection that celebrates the company's commitment to body confidence, as exemplified by Liv herself, "a modern woman in every sense, a mother and actress with a fierce sense of femininity that women across the world can relate to."
Liv's previous design collaboration was with Belstaff, resulting in two capsule collections for the iconic British heritage brand. Liv has also been the face of commercial campaigns for several global brands, including Visa and Pantene.- Actor
- Music Department
- Composer
Steven Tyler was born on 26 March 1948 in Yonkers, New York, USA. He is an actor and composer, known for Be Cool (2005), Wayne's World 2 (1993) and Epic (2013). He was previously married to Teresa Barrick and Cyrinda Foxe.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
As the short, straight-man counterpart of the stellar husband-and-wife comedy team "Stiller & Meara", Jerry Stiller and wife Anne Meara were on top of the comedy game in the 1960s, a steady and hilarious presence on television variety, notably The Ed Sullivan Show (1948), on which they appeared 36 times. Decades later, Jerry's career was revitalized in the role of the raucous, gasket-blowing Frank Costanza on the sitcom classic Seinfeld (1989).
Jerry Stiller was born Gerald Isaac Stiller in the Unity Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, to Bella (Citron) and William Stiller, a bus driver. His paternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Galicia, and his mother was a Polish Jewish emigrant, from Frampol. In the beginning, Stiller was a drama major at the Syracuse University. Though he had played rather uneducated, blue-collar sorts for most of his career, he received his Bachelor of Science in Speech and Drama before making his acting debut on stage with Burgess Meredith in "The Silver Whistle" in 1951. While a member of the improvisational team The Compass Players (the company later evolved into the well-known Second City troupe), he met Anne.
They married in 1954 and began touring together on the national club circuit while giving new and inventive meaning to the term spousal comedy. This led to television prominence on "The Ed Sullivan Show", "The Tonight Show", "The Steve Allen Comedy Hour", "The Merv Griffin Show", as well as game shows "He Said, She Said", "You're Putting Me On" and "What's My Line?" as well as other talk/comedy venues.
After well over a decade of fame together, they decided to pursue individual successes and both found it. A Broadway favorite in such shows as "Hurlyburly", "The Ritz" (he later recreated his hilarious mobster family member role in the film The Ritz (1976)), "The Golden Apple", "Three Men on a Horse", "What's Wrong with This Picture" and "The Three Sisters", Stiller even appeared with Kevin Kline and Blythe Danner as Dogberry in William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1988. Musicals were not out of his range, either, as he created the role of Launce in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and co-starred as Nathan Detroit in a production of "Guys and Dolls". Although he kept afloat on television as a 1970s regular on The Paul Lynde Show (1972) and Joe and Sons (1975), he had some rocky years and Anne's pilot fizzled when they reunited for a possible "Stiller & Meara" sitcom.
Then came eight seasons as hypertensive Frank Costanza and his character star was reborn. Nominated for a 1997 Emmy Award and the recipient of the 1998 American Comedy Award, Stiller found back-to-back sitcom hits with The King of Queens (1998) as the irascible Arthur Spooner. He also appeared in a number of his successful son Ben Stiller's comedy pictures including Heavyweights (1995), Zoolander (2001), The Heartbreak Kid (2007) and Zoolander 2 (2016)
Into the millennium, Jerry has appeared in a number of independent films, including a starring role as a low-level director seeking a comeback in the comedy The Independent (2000); had a cameo in the off-color Rodney Dangerfield slapstick farce My 5 Wives (2000); played the slick Mr. Pinky in the film version of the Broadway musical hit Hairspray (2007); and featured roles in the romantic comedies Swinging with the Finkels (2011) and Excuse Me for Living (2012).
Daughter Amy Stiller is also a thriving actress. He and Anne wrote, performed and produced award-winning radio commercials together for such products as Blue Nun Wine, United Van Lines and Amalgamated Bank, among others. His autobiography "Married to Laughter" came out in 2000. Stiller's wife Anne passed away on May 23, 2015, and he passed away nearly five years later, on May 11, 2020, at age 92.- Music Artist
- Producer
- Actress
Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born on July 24, 1969 in The Bronx, New York City, New York to teacher Lupe López and computer specialist David López. The two Puerto Ricans were brought to the continental United States during their childhoods and eventually met while living in New York City. Their daughters would have a stable, middle-class upbringing.
Jennifer always dreamed of being a multi-tasking superstar. As a child, she enjoyed a variety of musical genres, mainly Afro-Caribbean rhythms like salsa, merengue, and bachata, and mainstream music like pop, hip-hop, and R&B. Although she loved music, the film industry also intrigued her. Her biggest influence was the Rita Moreno musical, West Side Story (1961). At 5, Jennifer began taking singing and dancing lessons. Aside from being a budding entertainer, Jennifer was also a Catholic schoolgirl, attending eight years at a Catholic elementary school named Holy Family, located in The Bronx, before graduating from all-girls prep school Preston High School after a four-year stay. At school, Jennifer was an amazing athlete and participated in track and field and tennis. She spent most of her upbringing in a two-story house in the Castle Hill neighborhood.
At 18, Jennifer moved out of her parents' home. After high school, she briefly worked in a law office and took dance classes at night. During this time, she continued dance classes at night. Her big break came when she was offered a job as a fly girl on Fox's hit comedy In Living Color (1990). After a two-year stay at In Living Color (1990) where actress Rosie Perez served as choreographer, Lopez then went on to dance for famed singer-actress Janet Jackson. Her first major film was Gregory Nava's My Family/Mi familia (1995), and her career went into overdrive when she portrayed late Tejana singer Selena in Selena (1997).- Actor
- Producer
Oliver Platt was born in Windsor, Ontario, to American parents, Sheila Maynard, a social worker, and Nicholas Platt, a career diplomat. His parents were both from upper-class families, and his maternal great-grandmother, Cynthia Roche, was the sister of Princess Diana's maternal grandfather, Maurice Roche.
Platt spent his childhood in Washington, D.C., Asia, and the Middle East. Oliver graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Drama in 1983 from Tufts University. He then trained at Shakespeare & Co. with Kristin Linklater.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Willard Carroll "Will" Smith II (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, comedian, producer, rapper, and songwriter. He has enjoyed success in television, film, and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him "the most powerful actor in Hollywood". Smith has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, and has won four Grammy Awards.
In the late 1980s, Smith achieved modest fame as a rapper under the name The Fresh Prince. In 1990, his popularity increased dramatically when he starred in the popular television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show ran for six seasons (1990-96) on NBC and has been syndicated consistently on various networks since then. After the series ended, Smith moved from television to film, and ultimately starred in numerous blockbuster films. He is the only actor to have eight consecutive films gross over $100 million in the domestic box office, eleven consecutive films gross over $150 million internationally, and eight consecutive films in which he starred open at the number one spot in the domestic box office tally.
Smith is ranked as the most bankable star worldwide by Forbes. As of 2014, 17 of the 21 films in which he has had leading roles have accumulated worldwide gross earnings of over $100 million each, five taking in over $500 million each in global box office receipts. As of 2014, his films have grossed $6.6 billion at the global box office. He has received Best Actor Oscar nominations for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness.
Smith was born in West Philadelphia, the son of Caroline (Bright), a Philadelphia school board administrator, and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr., a refrigeration engineer. He grew up in West Philadelphia's Wynnefield neighborhood, and was raised Baptist. He has three siblings, sister Pamela, who is four years older, and twins Harry and Ellen, who are three years younger. Smith attended Our Lady of Lourdes, a private Catholic elementary school in Philadelphia. His parents separated when he was 13, but did not actually divorce until around 2000.
Smith attended Overbrook High School. Though widely reported, it is untrue that Smith turned down a scholarship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); he never applied to college because he "wanted to rap." Smith says he was admitted to a "pre-engineering [summer] program" at MIT for high school students, but he did not attend. According to Smith, "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college."
Smith started as the MC of the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, with his childhood friend Jeffrey "DJ Jazzy Jeff" Townes as producer, as well as Ready Rock C (Clarence Holmes) as the human beat box. The trio was known for performing humorous, radio-friendly songs, most notably "Parents Just Don't Understand" and "Summertime". They gained critical acclaim and won the first Grammy awarded in the Rap category (1988).
Smith spent money freely around 1988 and 1989 and underpaid his income taxes. The Internal Revenue Service eventually assessed a $2.8 million tax debt against Smith, took many of his possessions, and garnished his income. Smith was nearly bankrupt in 1990, when the NBC television network signed him to a contract and built a sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, around him.
The show was successful and began his acting career. Smith set for himself the goal of becoming "the biggest movie star in the world", studying box office successes' common characteristics.
Smith's first major roles were in the drama Six Degrees of Separation (1993) and the action film Bad Boys (1995) in which he starred opposite Martin Lawrence.
In 1996, Smith starred as part of an ensemble cast in Roland Emmerich's Independence Day. The film was a massive blockbuster, becoming the second highest grossing film in history at the time and establishing Smith as a prime box office draw. He later struck gold again in the summer of 1997 alongside Tommy Lee Jones in the summer hit Men in Black playing Agent J. In 1998, Smith starred with Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State.
He turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix in favor of Wild Wild West (1999). Despite the disappointment of Wild Wild West, Smith has said that he harbors no regrets about his decision, asserting that Keanu Reeves's performance as Neo was superior to what Smith himself would have achieved, although in interviews subsequent to the release of Wild Wild West he stated that he "made a mistake on Wild Wild West. That could have been better."
In 2005, Smith was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for attending three premieres in a 24-hour time span.
He has planned to star in a feature film remake of the television series It Takes a Thief.
On December 10, 2007, Smith was honored at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Smith left an imprint of his hands and feet outside the world-renowned theater in front of many fans. Later that month, Smith starred in the film I Am Legend, released December 14, 2007. Despite marginally positive reviews, its opening was the largest ever for a film released in the United States during December. Smith himself has said that he considers the film to be "aggressively unique". A reviewer said that the film's commercial success "cemented [Smith's] standing as the number one box office draw in Hollywood." On December 1, 2008, TV Guide reported that Smith was selected as one of America's top ten most fascinating people of 2008 for a Barbara Walters ABC special that aired on December 4, 2008.
In 2008 Smith was reported to be developing a film entitled The Last Pharaoh, in which he would be starring as Taharqa. It was in 2008 that Smith starred in the superhero movie Hancock.
Men in Black III opened on May 25, 2012 with Smith again reprising his role as Agent J. This was his first major starring role in four years.
On August 19, 2011, it was announced that Smith had returned to the studio with producer La Mar Edwards to work on his fifth studio album. Edwards has worked with artists such as T.I., Chris Brown, and Game. Smith's most recent studio album, Lost and Found, was released in 2005.
Smith and his son Jaden played father and son in two productions: the 2006 biographical drama The Pursuit of Happyness, and the science fiction film After Earth, which was released on May 31, 2013.
Smith starred opposite Margot Robbie in the romance drama Focus. He played Nicky Spurgeon, a veteran con artist who takes a young, attractive woman under his wing. Focus was released on February 27, 2015. Smith was set to star in the Sci-Fic thriller Brilliance, an adaptation of Marcus Sakey's novel of the same name scripted by Jurassic Park writer David Koepp. But he left the project.
Smith played Dr. Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute in the sports-drama Concussion, who became the first person to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a football player's brain. CTE is a degenerative disease caused by severe trauma to the head that can be discovered only after death. Smith's involvement is mostly due to his last-minute exit from the Sci-Fi thriller-drama Brilliance. Concussion was directed by Peter Landesman and-bead filmed in Pittsburgh, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It received $14.4 million in film tax credits from Pennsylvania. Principal photography started on October 27, 2014. Actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw played his wife. Omalu served as a consultant.
As of November 2015, Smith is set to star in the independent drama Collateral Beauty, which will be directed by David Frankel. Smith will play a New York advertising executive who succumbs to an deep depression after a personal tragedy.
Nobel Peace Prize Concert December 11, 2009, in Oslo, Norway: Smith with wife Jada and children Jaden and Willow Smith married Sheree Zampino in 1992. They had one son, Trey Smith, born on November 11, 1992, and divorced in 1995. Trey appeared in his father's music video for the 1998 single "Just the Two of Us". He also acted in two episodes of the sitcom All of Us, and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and on the David Blaine: Real or Magic TV special.
Smith married actress Jada Koren Pinkett in 1997. Together they have two children: Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (born 1998), his co-star in The Pursuit of Happyness and After Earth, and Willow Camille Reign Smith (born 2000), who appeared as his daughter in I Am Legend. Smith and his brother Harry own Treyball Development Inc., a Beverly Hills-based company named after Trey. Smith and his family reside in Los Angeles, California.
Smith was consistently listed in Fortune Magazine's "Richest 40" list of the forty wealthiest Americans under the age of 40.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Christopher Julius Rock was born in Andrews, South Carolina and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. He is the son of Rosalie (Tingman), a teacher and social worker for the mentally handicapped, and Julius Rock, a truck driver and newspaper deliveryman, whose own father was a preacher.
Rock has been in stand-up comedy for several decades. He made his big screen debut in Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) and spent three years on the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975). He does commercials for 1-800 Collect and Nike and covered the presidential campaign for the show Politically Incorrect (1993). He lives in Alpine, New Jersey.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Edward Regan Murphy was born April 3, 1961 in Brooklyn, New York, to Lillian Lynch (born: Lillian Laney), a telephone operator, and Charles Edward Murphy, a transit police officer who was also an amateur comedian and actor. After his father died, his mother married Vernon Lynch, a foreman at a Breyer's Ice Cream plant. His brothers are Charlie Murphy & Vernon Lynch Jr. Eddie had aspirations of being in show business since he was a child. A bright kid growing up in the streets of New York, Murphy spent a great deal of time on impressions and comedy stand-up routines rather than academics. His sense of humor and wit made him a stand out amongst his classmates at Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School. By the time he was fifteen, Murphy worked as a stand-up comic on the lower part of New York, wooing audiences with his dead-on impressions of celebrities and outlooks on life.
In the early 1980s, at the age of 19, Murphy was offered a contract for the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players of Saturday Night Live (1975), where Murphy exercised his comedic abilities in impersonating African American figures and originating some of the show's most memorable characters: Velvet Jones, Mr. Robinson, and a disgruntled and angry Gumby. Murphy made his feature film debut in 48 Hrs. (1982), alongside Nick Nolte. The two's comedic and antagonistic chemistry, alongside Murphy's believable performance as a streetwise convict aiding a bitter, aging cop, won over critics and audiences. The next year, Murphy went two for two, with another hit, pairing him with John Landis, who later became a frequent collaborator with Murphy in Coming to America (1988) and Beverly Hills Cop III (1994). Beverly Hills Cop (1984) was the film that made Murphy a box-office superstar and most notably made him a celebrity worldwide, and it remains one of the all-time biggest domestic blockbusters in motion-picture history. Murphy's performance as a young Detroit cop in pursuit of his friend's murderers earned him a third consecutive Golden Globe nomination. Axel Foley became one of Murphy's signature characters. On top of his game, Murphy was unfazed by his success, that is until his box office appeal and choices in scripts resulted into a spotty mix of hits and misses into the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Films like The Golden Child (1986) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) were critically panned but were still massive draws at the box office. In 1989, Murphy, coming off another hit, Coming to America (1988), found failure with his directorial debut, Harlem Nights (1989). Another 48 Hrs. (1990), his turn as a hopeless romantic in Boomerang (1992) and as a suave vampire in Vampire In Brooklyn did little to resuscitate his career. However, his remake of Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor (1996) brought Murphy's drawing power back into fruition. From there, Murphy rebounded with occasional hits and misses but has long proven himself as a skilled comedic actor with laudable range pertaining to characterizations and mannerisms. Though he has grown up a lot since his fast-lane rise as a superstar in the 1980s, Murphy has lived the Hollywood lifestyle with controversy, criticism, scandal, and the admiration of millions worldwide for his talents. As Murphy had matured throughout the years, learning many lessons about the Hollywood game in the process, he settled down with more family-oriented humor with Doctor Dolittle (1998), Mulan (1998), Bowfinger (1999), and the animated smash Shrek (2001), in a supporting role that showcased Murphy's comedic personality and charm. Throughout the 2000s, he further starred in the hits The Haunted Mansion (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Dreamgirls (2006) (for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar), Norbit (2007), Shrek the Third (2007), and Shrek Forever After (2010).
Murphy was married to Nicole Mitchell Murphy from 1993 to 2006. Murphy has ten children.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Terry Crews was born in Flint, Michigan, to Patricia and Terry Crews Sr. He earned an art excellence scholarship to attend Western Michigan University and also earned a full-ride athletic scholarship to play football. Crews was an All-Conference defensive end, and was a major contributor on the 1988 MAC champion WMU Broncos. His college success was rewarded in 1991, when he was drafted by the NFL's Los Angeles Rams.
Crews played six years in the NFL, with stints at the L.A. Rams, San Diego Chargers , Rhein Fire (NFL Europe-Germany), Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles. While in the NFL, used his art talent by painting a line of NFL licensed lithographs for Sierra Sun Editions.
In 1996, Crews co-wrote and co-produced the independent feature film "Young Boys Incorporated" (1996).
Crews retired from the NFL in 1997 and moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Crews's first break came in 1999, when he auditioned for the extreme sports show called Battle Dome (1999), with other actor-athletes from around the country. Crews was chosen to be a series regular, known as the urban warrior T-Money.
In 2000, Crews made his big-screen debut in The 6th Day (2000). Since then, he has landed roles in Serving Sara (2002), Friday After Next (2002), Deliver Us from Eva (2003), Malibu's Most Wanted (2003), Starsky & Hutch (2004), Soul Plane (2004), White Chicks (2004), and the Mike Judge film, Idiocracy (2006).- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Jamie Foxx is an American actor, singer and comedian. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, for his work in the biographical film Ray (2004). The same year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the action film Collateral (2004). Other prominent acting roles include the title role in the film Django Unchained (2012), the supervillain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), and William Stacks in the modern version of Annie (2014).
Jamie Foxx was born Eric Marlon Bishop in Terrell, Texas, to Louise Annette Talley and Darrell Bishop, who worked as a stockbroker and had later changed his name to Shahid Abdula. His mother was an adopted child. When her marriage to his father failed, his maternal grandparents, Mark and Estelle Talley, stepped in and, at age seven months, adopted Jamie too. He has said that he had a very rigid upbringing that placed him in the Boy Scouts and the church choir. During high school, he played quarterback for his high school team and was good enough that he got press in Dallas newspapers. He studied music in college. He released a music album, "Peep This" (1994), and sings the theme song for his movie, Any Given Sunday (1999). However, in 1989, his life changed when a girlfriend challenged him to get up onstage at the Comedy Club. In fact, he says he took his androgynous stage name because he learned that women got preference for mike time on open stage nights. That led to his being cast on Roc (1991) and In Living Color (1990).
Foxx had his own WB television show from 1996 to 2001, the sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show (1996), in which he played Jamie King Jr. Foxx is also a Grammy Award-winning musician, producing four albums which have charted highly on the US Billboard 200: "Unpredictable" (2005), which topped the chart, "Intuition" (2008), "Best Night of My Life" (2010), and "Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses" (2015). In 2012, Foxx starred in the title role of the Quentin Tarantino written and directed Django Unchained (2012). Foxx starred alongside his Ray co-star Kerry Washington, as well as Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson. In 2013, Foxx was cast as President James Sawyer in White House Down (2013) alongside Channing Tatum. The following year, Foxx appeared as the villain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), and co-starred with Quvenzhané Wallis in Annie (2014), Sony's Will Smith and Jay-Z produced update of the comic strip-turned-musical.
He has two children, including Corinne Foxx, (born 1994), who resides with her mother.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Megan Denise Fox was born on May 16, 1986 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and raised in Rockwood, Tennessee to Gloria Darlene Tonachio (née Cisson), a real estate manager and Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. She began her drama and dance training at age 5 and at age 10, she moved to Port St. Lucie, Florida where she continued her training and finished school. Megan began acting and modeling at age 13 after winning several awards at the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina. At age 17, she tested out of school using correspondence and eventually moved to Los Angeles, California. Megan made her film debut as Brianna Wallace in the Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen film, Holiday in the Sun (2001). Her best-known roles are as Sam Witwicky's love interest, Mikaela Banes in Transformers (2007) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), as April O'Neil in the remake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), and as Jennifer Check in the horror comedy Jennifer's Body (2009).- Leslie Jean Mann was born in San Francisco, California. She was raised in Newport Beach, California by her mother, Janet Ann Ayres. At the age of seventeen, she launched her career, appearing in various TV commercials.
Her screen break came when she was cast as Nurse Mary in the short-lived Birdland (1994). Further TV and film roles followed, including The Cable Guy (1996), where she met her husband, Judd Apatow, who was a producer on the film. The story goes that after Mann left her audition for the role, Apatow turned to his colleagues and said "there goes the future Mrs. Apatow".
Further successes followed for Mann in such projects as George of the Jungle (1997) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005). She also appeared alongside her daughters - Maude Apatow and Iris Apatow - in Knocked Up (2007), Funny People (2009) and This Is 40 (2012). - Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Jane Marie Lynch is an American actress, comedian and author. She is known for starring as Sue Sylvester in the musical comedy series Glee (2009-2015), which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award. Lynch also gained recognition for her roles in Christopher Guest's mockumentary films, such as Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003) and For Your Consideration (2006).- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Born in New York City to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and Ontario-born New York socialite Frances Seymour Brokaw, Jane Seymour Fonda was destined early to an uncommon and influential life in the limelight. Although she initially showed little inclination to follow her father's trade, she was prompted by Joshua Logan to appear with her father in the 1954 Omaha Community Theatre production of "The Country Girl". Her interest in acting grew after meeting Lee Strasberg in 1958 and joining the Actors Studio. Her screen debut in Tall Story (1960) (directed by Logan) marked the beginning of a highly successful and respected acting career highlighted by two Academy Awards for her performances in Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978), and five Oscar nominations for Best Actress in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Julia (1977), The China Syndrome (1979), The Morning After (1986) and On Golden Pond (1981), which was the only film she made with her father. Her professional success contrasted with her personal life, which was often laden with scandal and controversy. Her appearance in several risqué movies (including Barbarella (1968)) by then-husband Roger Vadim was followed by what was to become her most debated and controversial period: her espousal of anti-establishment causes and especially her anti-war activities during the Vietnam War. Her political involvement continued with fellow activist and husband Tom Hayden in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1980s she started the aerobic exercise craze with the publication of the "Jane Fonda's Workout Book". She and Hayden divorced, and she married broadcasting mogul Ted Turner in 1991.- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France, to British parents, Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers. She moved to Oxfordshire when she was five, where she attended the Dragon School. From the age of six, Emma knew that she wanted to be an actress and, for a number of years, she trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing and acting. By the age of ten, she had performed and taken the lead in various Stagecoach productions and school plays.
In 1999, casting began for Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001), the film adaptation of British author J.K. Rowling's bestselling novel. Casting agents found Emma through her Oxford theatre teacher. After eight consistent auditions, producer David Heyman told Emma and fellow applicants, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, that they had been cast for the roles of the three leads, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. The release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) was Emma's cinematic screen debut. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. Critics praised the film and the performances of the three leading young actors. The highly distributed British newspaper, 'The Daily Telegraph', called her performance "admirable". Later, Emma was nominated for five awards for her performance in the film, winning the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film.
After the release of the first film of the highly successful franchise, Emma became one of the most well-known actresses in the world. She continued to play the role of Hermione Granger for nearly ten years, in all of the following Harry Potter films: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). Emma acquired two Critics' Choice Award nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for her work in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. The completion of the seventh and eight movies saw Emma receive nominations in 2011 for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award, and for Best Actress at the Jameson Empire Awards. The Harry Potter franchise won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in February 2011.
2011 saw Emma in Simon Curtis's My Week with Marilyn (2011), alongside a stellar cast of Oscar nominees including Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier, in addition to Eddie Redmayne, Dame Judi Dench, Dougray Scott, Zoe Wanamaker, Toby Jones and Dominic Cooper. Chronicling a week in Marilyn Monroe's life, the film featured Emma in the supporting role of Lucy, a costume assistant to Colin Clark (Redmayne). The film was released by The Weinstein Company and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. In 2012 Emma was seen in Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), starring opposite Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller. This independent drama centered around Charlie (Lerman), an introverted freshman who is taken under the wings of two seniors (Watson and Miller) who welcome him to the real world. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and received rave reviews. The film won the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie and Emma also picked up the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie Actress. Emma was awarded a second time for this role with the Best Supporting Actress Award at the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards where the film also won the Best Ensemble Performance Award.
In summer 2013, Emma starred in Sofia Coppola's American satirical black comedy crime film, The Bling Ring (2013), opposite Katie Chang and Israel Broussard. The film took inspiration from real events and followed a group of teenagers who, obsessed with fashion and fame, burgled the homes of celebrities in Los Angeles. The film opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Emma also appeared in a cameo role as herself in Seth Rogen's apocalypse comedy This Is The End (2013). The film tells the story about what happens to some of Hollywood's best loved celebrities when the apocalypse strikes during a party at James Franco's house.
In 2014, Emma was seen in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), opposite Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins. The film told the epic, biblical tale of Noah and the ark. Emma plays the role of Ila, a young woman who develops a close relationship with Noah's son, Shem (Booth). Noah made an outstanding $300m since its release in March. In 2015, Emma starred in Regression (2015), written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar and Occultum Luciferus. Also headlined by Oscar-nominated Ethan Hawke, and set in Minnesota in 1990, Regression tells the story of Detective Bruce Kenner (Hawke), who investigates the case of young Angela, played by Emma, who accuses her father of sexual abuse.
In 2012, Emma was honored with the Calvin Klein Emerging Star Award at the ELLE Women in Hollywood Awards. In 2013, Emma was awarded the Trailblazer Award at the MTV Movie Awards in April and was honored with the GQ Woman of the Year Award at the GQ Awards in September. Further to her acting career, Emma is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Emma graduated from Brown University in May 2014.
In 2017, Emma starred in the live-action Disney fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017), one of the biggest movies of all time in the U.S., and the dramatic thriller The Circle (2017).- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
French actress Léa Seydoux was born in 1985 in Paris, France, to Valérie Schlumberger, a philanthropist, and Henri Seydoux, a businessman. Her grandfather, Jérôme Seydoux, is chairman of Pathé, and her father is a great-grandson of businessman and inventor Marcel Schlumberger (her mother also descends from the Schlumberger family). Her parents are both of mixed French and Alsatian German descent, with more distant Venezuelan (Spanish, Basque) roots on her father's side.
Léa began her acting career in French cinema, appearing in films such as The Last Mistress (2007) and On War (2008). She first came to attention after she received her first César Award nomination for her performance in The Beautiful Person (2008), and won the Trophée Chopard, an award given to promising actors at the Cannes Film Festival. Since then, she has appeared in major Hollywood films including Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (2010), Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (2011), and Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011). In French cinema, she was nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for a second time for her role in Belle Épine (2010) and was nominated for the César Award for Best Actress for the film Farewell, My Queen (2012).
In 2013, Seydoux came to widespread attention when Seydoux and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos, alongside director Abdellatif Kechiche, were awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, for their involvement in the critically acclaimed film Blue Is the Warmest Colour (Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013)). As a special prize for their roles, Along with Jane Campion, Seydoux and Exarchopoulos are the only women to have ever won a Palme d'Or.
That same year, she also received the Lumières Award for Best Actress for the film Grand Central and, in 2014, she was nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award and starred in the films Beauty and the Beast, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Saint Laurent. In 2015 she played Madeleine Swann in the 24th James Bond film Spectre.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
George Lopez was born on April 23, 1961, in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California, the son of Frieda and Anatasio Lopez, a migrant worker. He is of Mestizo Mexican descent. He was deserted by his father when he was two months old and by his mother when he was 10 years old, but was raised by his maternal grandmother, Benita Gutierrez, a factory worker, and step-grandfather, Refugio Gutierrez, a construction worker. Lopez attended San Fernando High School, graduating in 1979. He is known for starring in his self-produced ABC sitcom George Lopez. His stand-up comedy examines race and ethnic relations, including Mexican American culture. Lopez has received several honors for his work and contributions to the Latino community, including the 2003 Imagen Vision Award, the 2003 Latino Spirit Award for Excellence in Television and the National Hispanic Media Coalition Impact Award. He was also named one of "The Top 25 Hispanics in America" by Time magazine in 2005. In 1993, Lopez married Ann Serrano. The couple has a daughter, Mayan, born in 1996. On September 27, 2010, Lopez announced that he and his wife had decided to end their marriage. Serrano filed for divorce on November 23, 2010, citing "irreconcilable differences. The divorce was finalized on July 1, 2011.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Melissa McCarthy was born in Plainfield, Illinois, to Sandra and Michael McCarthy, and was raised on her family's corn and soybean farm. She began her performing career as a stand-up comedian in New York where she appeared at the famous clubs, Stand Up New York and The Improv. She worked on her acting skills at The Actors Studio and appeared in many stage productions in the city before moving to Los Angeles in the late-1990s. She made a number of TV and movie appearances before making her big breakthrough as Sookie in Gilmore Girls (2000). A steady stream of comedy performances followed, leading to her starring role in the sitcom Mike & Molly (2010).
In the 2010s, McCarthy became known for her starring roles in the films Bridesmaids (2011), The Heat (2013), St. Vincent (2014), Spy (2015), Ghostbusters (2016), and Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018).- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Adam Richard Sandler was born September 9, 1966 in Brooklyn, New York, to Judith (Levine), a teacher at a nursery school, and Stanley Alan Sandler, an electrical engineer. He is of Russian Jewish descent. At 17, he took his first step towards becoming a stand-up comedian when he spontaneously took the stage at a Boston comedy club. He found he was a natural comic. He nurtured his talent while at New York University (graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1991) by performing regularly in clubs and at universities. During his freshman year, he snagged a recurring role as the Huxtable family's friend Smitty on The Cosby Show (1984). While working at a comedy club in L.A., he was "discovered" by Dennis Miller, who recommended him to Saturday Night Live (1975) producer Lorne Michaels and told him that Sandler had a big talent. This led to his being cast in the show in 1990, which he also wrote for in addition to performing. After Saturday Night Live (1975), Sandler went on to the movies, starring in such hit comedies as Airheads (1994), Happy Gilmore (1996), Billy Madison (1995) and Big Daddy (1999). He has also starred in Mr. Deeds (2002) alongside Winona Ryder; Eight Crazy Nights (2002), an animated movie about the Jewish festival of Chanukah; and Punch-Drunk Love (2002). He also writes and produces many of his own films and has composed songs for several of them, including The Wedding Singer (1998). Sandler has had several of his songs placed on the "Billboard" charts, including the classic "The Chanukah Song".- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Jacqueline Samantha Titone was born in 1974 in Coral Springs, Florida, to Lila Titone and Joseph Titone. She began modeling during high school and eventually became known nationally and internationally for modeling clothing for big name companies. Jackie was later introduced to the acting world, by Rob Schneider in the 1999 hit movie Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999), as "Sally".
With the success of this movie, Rob Schneider put in a good word for Jackie to his good-friend, Adam Sandler, who offered a part to Jackie in the movie Big Daddy (1999) in 1999. She played the waitress and was also a music assistant. In 2000, she played a part in the movie, Little Nicky (2000), alongside Adam Sandler, Reese Witherspoon, Patricia Arquette, and Quentin Tarantino. A year later, Adam Sandler and Jackie came together in a relationship.
Two years later, Jackie was given a main part in the animated movie, Eight Crazy Nights (2002) as the voice of "Jennifer", making this her first major role in a movie alongside a big star. In 2003, Danny DeVito offered a part to Jackie as the bartender in the movie, Duplex (2003).
On June 22, 2003, Adam and Jackie were married.
In 50 First Dates (2004), a 2004 hit comedy/romance movie, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore were offered parts in sharing the screen together. Drew and Adam had co-starred in major movies previously, but, this time, Adam demanded that his wife Jackie be given a part in this movie. The director, Peter Segal, didn't want to lose Adam as the main co-star and gave the part of the dentist to Jackie. Because Adam only starred in this movie, he wasn't able to offer a bigger part or a co-star part to his wife.
In the year of 2004, Jackie starred as herself on the TV episode Celebrity Weddings, just one day before her one-year wedding anniversary with Adam.
Raised a Christian, she converted to Judaism when marrying Adam.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Michael J. Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox on June 9, 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Phyllis Fox (née Piper), a payroll clerk, and William Fox. His parents moved their 10-year-old son, his three sisters, Kelli Fox, Karen, and Jacki, and his brother Steven, to Vancouver, British Columbia, after his father, a sergeant in the Canadian Army Signal Corps, retired. During these years Michael developed his desire to act. At 15 he successfully auditioned for the role of a 10-year-old in a series called Leo and Me (1978). Gaining attention as a bright new star in Canadian television and movies, Michael realized his love for acting when he appeared on stage in "The Shadow Box." At 18 he moved to Los Angeles and was offered a few television-series roles, but soon they stopped coming and he was surviving on boxes of macaroni and cheese. Then his agent called to tell him that he got the part of Alex P. Keaton on the situation comedy Family Ties (1982). He starred in the feature films Teen Wolf (1985), High School U.S.A. (1983), Poison Ivy (1985) and Back to the Future (1985).- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Nicole Austin was born in 1979 in Palos Verdes, California. Austin later lived in Albequerque, New Mexico at the age of 10. She began dancing and acting during her childhood and teenage years. Once becoming an adult, Austin began to modeling in swimsuit competitions, calendars, catalogs and videos. Once becoming a model, Austin enlarged her breasts to 39DD. In 1999, she married Mike Williams, but they divorced. She married rapper Ice-T in 2001. She and Ice-T are expecting their first child.- Actor
- Producer
- Composer
The legendary gangsta hip-hop emcee Ice-T was born Tracy Marrow on February 16, 1958, in Newark, New Jersey. He moved to Los Angeles, California, to live with his paternal aunt after the death of his father while he was in the sixth grade; his mother had died earlier when he was in the third grade. His aunt lived in the South Los Angeles district of Crenshaw, colloquially referred to as South Central. He became immersed in the street life of the inner-city and eventually became a member of the West Side Rollin 30s Original Harlem Crips.
In 1979, Marrow joined the Army after leaving Crenshaw High School, but his 4-year hitch was enough for him, as he was a leader, not a follower. "I didn't like total submission to a leader other than myself," he said. After ETSing from the Army in 1983, he returned to South Central with the intention of becoming a hip-hop musician. More than music, his life got caught up in street life as as a jewel thief and as a pimp. (His nomme de guerre, Ice T, is an homage to the fabled pimp and raconteur Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck). He committed himself totally to his music after a 1985 car crash.
As a musician, Ice-T played a major role in the creation of the gangsta incarnation of hip-hop music and was a colossus of the West Coast hip-hop scene, despite his East Coast, greater New York, origins. Though his music displays a political consciousness, like the indictments of racism that were a hallmark of seminal hip-hop group Public Enemy, it also is nihilistic as befits a chronicler of street life. His most infamous song, the heavy metal "Cop Killer," was one of the major battle in the cultural wars of the 1990s, in which cultural conservatives enlisted the Moses of the right wing, Charlton Heston, to get Ice-T dropped from his then-label, Sire/Warner Bros.
The charismatic Ice-T has also achieved success as an actor in movies and on TV. He plays Detective Odafin Tutuola on the TV series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), which is ironic for someone famous for "Cop Killer" and his feud with the L.A.P.D. Ice-T currently resides in North Bergen, New Jersey, with his wife, Coco Austin.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Ice Cube was born in South Central Los Angeles, to Doris (Benjamin), a custodian and hospital clerk, and Hosea Jackson, a UCLA groundskeeper. He first came to public notice as a singer and songwriter with the controversial and influential band N.W.A. His compositions with that group included many of the classic cuts from their debut LP "Straight Outta Compton" (Ruthless/Priority, 1989), including the title track, "Gangsta Gangsta" and "Express Yourself". He quit the band over business differences in 1990 and began a still-growing series of commercially and critically acclaimed solo albums, starting with "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted" (Priority, 1990). His second solo album, "Death Certificate" (Priority, 1991), a concept album about the fall and rise of the Black man, sold two million copies, and his subsequent solo output (six albums to date total) has sold over ten million copies. He has also discovered Yoyo, Del the Funky Homosapien, K-Dee and Mack 10. He has also produced, written, toured and recorded with Public Enemy, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, George Clinton, The D.O.C., Michel'e, Big Daddy Kane, WC & The Madd Circle (which spawned the solo career of Coolio), former N.W.A. bandmate Dr. Dre and Cypress Hill. He has also recorded with two post-N.W.A. side-project bands, Da Lench Mob ("Guerillas In Tha Mist", Street Knowledge/East-West, 1991) and Westside Connection ("Bow Down", Priority, 1996). His movie career has been no less stellar. Ice Cube's debut in Boyz n the Hood (1991) led to more roles in such films as Trespass (1992), Dangerous Ground (1997) and Anaconda (1997). He also appeared as himself in the comedy CB4 (1993). He is also no stranger to the other side of the camera, directing videos for himself as well as Prince and Color Me Badd, as well as co-writing his screenwriting debut, Friday (1995).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Jerry Trainor was born on January 21, 1977, and is an American television and movie actor. Jerry graduated from the University of San Diego High School, which is now known as Cathedral Catholic High School, and Jerry's mother teaches both pre-calculus and calculus there. It has been said that Jerry used to be Drake Bell's assistant. Jerry is best-known for his roles in two Nickelodeon shows: Drake & Josh (2004) as Crazy Steve and iCarly (2007) as Spencer Shay.- Actress
- Producer
- Sound Department
Zendaya (which means "to give thanks" in the language of Shona) is an American actress and singer born in Oakland, California. She began her career appearing as a child model working for Macy's, Mervyns and Old Navy. She was a backup dancer before gaining prominence for her role as Rocky Blue on the Disney Channel sitcom Shake It Up (2010) which also includes Bella Thorne, Kenton Duty and Roshon Fegan. Zendaya was a contestant on the sixteenth season of the competition series Dancing with the Stars. She went on to produce and star as K.C. Cooper in the Disney Channel sitcom K.C. Undercover (2015) She made her film breakthrough in 2017, starring as Michelle "MJ" Jones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and as Anne Wheeler in the musical drama film The Greatest Showman (2017) alongside actors such as Tom Holland, Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron. Besides acting, singing and dancing she is an ambassador for Convoy of Hope. She has written a book, launched her own clothing line (Daya by Zendaya) and proved herself to be a great role model for young girls all around the world.- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Miranda Taylor Cosgrove was born May 14, 1993 in Los Angeles, California, to Christina (Casey) and Tom Cosgrove, who owns a dry-cleaning business. She was discovered at a young age singing and dancing around a table in a restaurant, where an agent saw her talent and quickly signed her. Miranda's career started with commercials for Burger King, McDonalds and more as she auditioned for many roles and finally won her first role as the band's manager in the movie, School of Rock (2003).
While filming School of Rock (2003) in New York, she was informed that her pilot Drake & Josh (2004) had been picked up. She co-starred as Drake and Josh's little sister, while making brief appearances on other Nickelodeon shows, before landing in her own show for the network, iCarly (2007). Her iCarly (2007) popularity helped her launch a singing career, and she was named an MTV Pop Rookie for 2009. Her debut album, "Sparks Fly", was released in 2010 and reached #8 on the Billboard 200 chart, along with two EPs: "About You Now" in 2009, and "High Maintenance" in 2011.
While continuing her singing career, Miranda has expanded upon her voice-over work for the children's movies, including Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie (2005), and the Despicable Me (2010) films and related shorts, as well as expanding her film work with Yours, Mine & Ours (2005), Keeping Up with the Steins (2006) and The Wild Stallion (2009). Her TV reach has extended beyond Nickelodeon, with an appearance on the CBS legal drama The Good Wife (2009) during the show's second season. She has served as a spokesperson for Neutrogena skin care products since 2010.
She lives in Los Angeles with her family.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Mia Sara is an American actress. She is best known for Legend (1985) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).
She also had minor roles in A Stranger Among Us (1992) and Timecop (1994).
In 1996, she married Jason Connery, son of Sean Connery, with whom she performed in Bullet to Beijing (1995). In June 1997, they had a son, Dashiell Quinn Connery. The couple divorced in 2002.
She is now married to Brian Henson, oldest son of Muppets creator Jim Henson. They have one daughter, Amelia Jane Henson, born in 2005.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Hugh was born in Oxford, England on June 11, 1959, to Patricia (Laidlaw) and William George Ranald Mundell "Ran" Laurie, a doctor, both of Scottish descent. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge. Son of an Olympic gold medalist in the sport, he rowed for the England youth team (1977) and for Cambridge (1980). He met Emma Thompson at Cambridge in 1978 when both joined "Footlights" and was introduced to Stephen Fry by Emma in 1980. Hugh is married and lives in Los Angeles. His wife and three children, who previously lived in London, are moving to Los Angeles to live with him. Besides acting and comedy, he has written the best-selling thriller The Gun Seller. A second novel, titled The Paper Soldier, is forthcoming.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Dan Stevens was born at Croydon in Surrey on 10th October 1982. His parents are teachers. He was educated at Tonbridge School and trained in acting at the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. He studied English Literature at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Whilst he was a Cambridge undergraduate, he acted in several student drama productions. He played the title role in the Marlowe Dramatic Society's production of William Shakespeare's play, "Macbeth". This was staged at the Cambridge Arts Theatre from Tuesday 26th February to Saturday 2nd March 2002. The cast also featured Rebecca Hall in the roles of Lady Macbeth and Hecate. During one of his university summer holidays in August 2003 he went to Slovakia where he filmed his scenes for the Hallmark production of Frankenstein (2004). Dan played the part of Henry Clerval and the mini-series was first broadcast on American television on 5th October 2004. Shortly after graduating from Cambridge Dan was nominated for an Ian Charleson award for his performance as Orlando in "As You Like It" at the Rose Theatre at Kingston in Surrey. "As You Like It" was directed by Peter Hall and ran from 30th November to 18th December 2004. This production for the Peter Hall Company subsequently went on a tour of America in the early months of 2005, playing at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, the Curran Theater in San Francisco and the Harvey Theater at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. It featured Rebecca Hall in the role of Rosalind.
Dan was reunited with the director Peter Hall when he played Claudio in a new production of the Shakespeare play, "Much Ado About Nothing", for the Peter Hall Company at the Theatre Royal in Bath from 29th June to 6th August 2005. In February 2006 Dan played the parts of Marban and Maitland in a revival of Howard Brenton's controversial play, "The Romans in Britain", directed by Samuel West at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. Then in May 2006 he played Nick Guest, the protagonist in The Line of Beauty (2006). This three part television mini-series was adapted by Andrew Davies from the 2004 Booker prize winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst. The Line of Beauty (2006) is about Nick Guest's relationship with his university friend Toby Fedden. The story takes place in the 1980s. It is set against the backdrop of Margaret Thatcher's free market economic policies and the spread of the acquired immunity deficiency syndrome, (AIDS). These two social developments directly affect the characters in the story because Toby's father Gerald is a Conservative member of parliament and Nick is homosexual.
Whilst The Line of Beauty (2006) was being broadcast on BBC television, Dan was appearing as Simon Bliss in the Noël Coward play, "Hay Fever". This play was staged at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London from 11th April to 5th August 2006 and the cast also included Judi Dench in the role of Judith Bliss. At the end of the year Dan played Lord Holmwood in a television dramatization of Dracula (2006), which was broadcast on 28th December 2006. In 2007 Dan played the part of Michael Faber in Miss Marple: Nemesis (2007), an Agatha Christie adaptation with Geraldine McEwan in the role of Miss Jane Marple. He also featured in the cast of Maxwell (2007), a television drama about the famous newspaper magnate. Maxwell (2007) was first broadcast on British television on 4th May 2007. David Suchet played Robert Maxwell, and Dan took the part of Basil Brookes, one of the press baron's financial directors.
Dan played the part of Edward Ferrars in a television dramatization of Jane Austen's novel, Sense & Sensibility (2008). This was broadcast in three episodes on BBC1 between Tuesday 1st and Sunday 13th January 2008. The novel was adapted for television by Andrew Davies, whom Dan had previously worked with on The Line of Beauty (2006). Davies felt that the part of Edward Ferrars was underdeveloped in the book, and so he deliberately added scenes not included in the novel to help draw out the character. So, for instance, we saw Edward out horse riding on the Norland estate and chopping logs at Barton Cottage. In the DVD audio commentary Dan joked that this was the best example of log chopping ever seen on British television! After Sense & Sensibility (2008), Dan featured in the cast of "The Tennis Court", a BBC Radio 4 Saturday play broadcast on 19th January 2008. He also played Nicky Lancaster in a revival of the Noël Coward play, "The Vortex", at the Apollo Theatre in London from Wednesday 20th February to Saturday 7th June 2008. This was another collaboration with the stage director, Peter Hall. Dan played the eponymous hero of "Dickens Confidential", a six part radio drama series set in the 1830s which imagines what might have happened if Charles Dickens had continued his career as a journalist. This was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between Monday 9th June and Monday 14th July 2008. He played the part of Peregrine in 'Orley Farm', the BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial. This was a three part adaptation of the novel by Anthony Trollope broadcast between Sunday 28th December 2008 and Sunday 11th January 2009. A month later he played Duval in the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour drama, 'The Lady of the Camellias'. This was broadcast between Monday 2nd and Friday 6th February 2009.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Kiefer Sutherland was born in London, England, UK, to Canadian actors Shirley Douglas and Donald Sutherland, who moved to California shortly after his birth. His maternal grandfather, Tommy Douglas, was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who was a Premier of Saskatchewan for over 17 years and led the national NDP party for almost 10.
Kiefer got his first film role in the comedy drama Max Dugan Returns (1983). Sutherland's first major role was in the Canadian drama The Bay Boy (1984), which earned Sutherland and director Daniel Petrie, Genie award nominations for best actor and best director, respectively. Following his success in The Bay Boy, Sutherland eventually moved to Los Angeles and landed television appearances in "The Mission", an episode of Amazing Stories (1985) and in the telefilm Trapped in Silence (1986) with Marsha Mason.
In 1992, Sutherland starred opposite Ray Liotta and Forest Whitaker in Article 99 (1992) and in the military drama A Few Good Men (1992) also starring Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. Later, in 1994, he starred with Jeff Bridges and Nancy Travis in the American version of The Vanishing (1993) for 20th Century Fox. In 1997, he co-starred with William Hurt and Rufus Sewell in Dark City (1998), directed by Alex Proyas, which was a special presentation at the Cannes Film Festival. Sutherland also added his second directorial credit and starred in Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997) alongside Kevin Pollak, Mykelti Williamson, Rod Steiger and Martin Sheen. He stars in the Fox drama series 24 (2001) as Jack Bauer for which he has earned a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama Series. Most recently, he has been seen in the movie Phone Booth (2002) as a man who calls up someone at a phone booth and threatens to kill them if they hang up.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
The towering presence of Canadian actor Donald Sutherland is often noticed, as are his legendary contributions to cinema. He has appeared in almost 200 different shows and films. He is also the father of renowned actor Kiefer Sutherland, among others.
Donald McNichol Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, to Dorothy Isobel (McNichol) and Frederick McLea Sutherland, who worked in sales and electricity. He has Scottish, as well as German and English, ancestry. Sutherland worked several different jobs - he was a radio DJ in his youth - and was almost set on becoming an engineer after graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in engineering. However, he also graduated with a degree in drama, and he chose to abandon becoming an engineer in favour of an actor.
Sutherland's first roles were bit parts and consisted of such films as the horror film Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) which starred Christopher Lee. He was also appearing in episodes of TV shows such as "The Saint" and "Court Martial". Sutherland's break would come soon, though, and it would come in the form of a war film in which he was barely cast.
The reason he was barely cast was because he had been a last-minute replacement for an actor that had dropped out of the film. The role he played was that of the dopey but loyal Vernon Pinkley in the war film The Dirty Dozen (1967). The film also starred Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, and Telly Savalas. The picture was an instant success as an action/war film, and Sutherland played upon this success by taking another role in a war film: this was, however, a comedy called M*A*S*H (1970) which landed Sutherland the starring role alongside Elliott Gould and Tom Skerritt. This is now considered a classic among film goers, and the 35-year old actor was only getting warmed up.
Sutherland took a number of other roles in between these two films, such as the theatrical adaptation Oedipus the King (1968), the musical Joanna (1968) and the Clint Eastwood-helmed war comedy Kelly's Heroes (1970). It was Kelly's Heroes (1970) that became more well-known, and it reunited Sutherland with Telly Savalas. 1970 and 1971 offered Sutherland a number of other films, the best of them would have to be Klute (1971). The film, which made Jane Fonda a star, is about a prostitute whose friend is mysteriously murdered. Sutherland received no critical acclaim like his co-star Fonda (she won an Oscar) but his career did not fade.
Moving on from Klute (1971), Sutherland landed roles such as the lead in the thriller Lady Ice (1973), and another lead in the western Alien Thunder (1974). These films did not match up to "Klute"'s success, though Sutherland took a supporting role that would become one of his most infamous and most critically acclaimed. He played the role of the murderous fascist leader in the Bernardo Bertolucci Italian epic 1900 (1976). Sutherland also gained another memorable role as a marijuana-smoking university professor in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) among other work that he did in this time.
Another classic role came in the form of the Robert Redford film, Ordinary People (1980). Sutherland portrays an older father figure who must deal with his children in an emotional drama of a film. It won Best Picture, and while both the supporting stars were nominated for Oscars, Sutherland once again did not receive any Academy Award nomination. He moved on to play a Nazi spy in a film based on Ken Follett's book "Eye of the Needle" and he would star alongside Al Pacino in the commercial and critical disaster that was Revolution (1985). While it drove Al Pacino out of films for four years, Sutherland continued to find work. This work led to the dramatic, well-told story of apartheid A Dry White Season (1989) alongside the legendary actor Marlon Brando.
Sutherland's next big success came in the Oliver Stone film JFK (1991) where Sutherland plays the chilling role of Mister X, an anonymous source who gives crucial information about the politics surrounding President Kennedy. Once again, he was passed over at the Oscars, though Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for his performance as Clay Shaw. Sutherland went on to appear in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Shadow of the Wolf (1992), and Disclosure (1994).
The new millennium provided an interesting turn in Sutherland's career: reuniting with such former collaborators as Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones, Sutherland starred in Space Cowboys (2000). He also appeared as the father figure to Nicole Kidman's character in Cold Mountain (2003) and Charlize Theron's character in The Italian Job (2003). He has also made a fascinating, Oscar-worthy performance as the revolutionist Mr. Thorne in Land of the Blind (2006) and also as a judge in Reign Over Me (2007). Recently, he has joined forces with his son Rossif Sutherland and Canadian comic Russell Peters with the new comedy The Con Artist (2010), as well as acting alongside Jamie Bell and Channing Tatum in the sword-and-sandal film The Eagle (2011). Sutherland has also taken a role in the remake of Charles Bronson's film The Mechanic (1972).
Donald Sutherland has made a lasting legacy on Hollywood, whether portraying a chilling and horrifying villain, or playing the older respectable character in his films. A true character actor, Sutherland is one of Canada's most well-known names and will hopefully continue on being so long after his time.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Kevin Kline was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Margaret and Robert Joseph Kline, who owned several stores. His father was of German Jewish descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. After attending Indiana University in Bloomington, Kline studied at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1972, Kline joined the Acting Company in New York which was run by John Houseman. With this company, Kline performed Shakespeare across the country. On the stage, Kline has won two Tony Awards for his work in the musicals "On the Twentieth Century" (1978) and "The Pirates of Penzance" (1981). After working on the Television soap Search for Tomorrow (1951), Kline went to Hollywood where his first film was Sophie's Choice (1982). He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. His work in the ensemble cast of The Big Chill (1983) would again be highly successful, so that when Lawrence Kasdan wrote Silverado (1985), Kline would again be part of the cast. With his role as Otto "Don't call me Stupid!" West in the film A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Kline would win the Oscar for Supporting Actor. Kline could play classic roles such as Hamlet in Hamlet (1990); or a swashbuckling actor like Douglas Fairbanks in Chaplin (1992); or a comedic role in Soapdish (1991). In all the films that he has worked in, it is hard to find a performance that is not well done. In 1989, Kline married actress Phoebe Cates.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Dan Hedaya is a familiar face from his work in films and on TV, where he often plays a villain (although he had a good comic turn as the charmingly sleazy Nick Tortelli, Carla's ex-husband, in Cheers (1982) and its short-lived spin-off The Tortellis (1987)). He has also done much stage work, appearing opposite Alien: Resurrection (1997) star Sigourney Weaver in "The Conjuring an Event" at the American Place Theater. Other stage performances include Broadway roles such as "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel" and many New York Shakespeare Festival productions.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Bob Dishy was born on 12 January 1934 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Along Came Polly (2004), The Wackness (2008) and Don Juan DeMarco (1994). He has been married to Judy Graubart since 1986. They have two children.- Producer
- Actor
- Director
Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller was born on November 30, 1965, in New York City, New York, to legendary comedians Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. His father was of Austrian Jewish and Polish Jewish descent, and his mother was of Irish Catholic descent (she converted to Judaism).
His parents made no real effort to keep their son away from the Hollywood lifestyle and he grew up among the stars, wondering just why his parents were so popular. At a young age, he and his sister Amy Stiller would perform plays at home, wearing Amy's tights to perform Shakespeare. Ben also picked up an interest in being on the other side of the camera and, at age 10, began shooting films on his Super 8 camera. The plots were always simple: someone would pick on the shy, awkward Stiller ... and then he would always get his revenge. This desire for revenge on the popular, good-looking people may have motivated his teen-angst opus Reality Bites (1994) later in his career. He both directed and performed in the film, which co-starred Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke.
Before he got to Hollywood, he put in several consistently solid years in the theater. After dropping out of UCLA, he performed in the Tony Award winner, "The House of Blue Leaves". While working on the play, Stiller shot a short spoof of The Color of Money (1986) starring him (in the Tom Cruise role) and his The House of Blue Leaves (1987) costar John Mahoney (in the Paul Newman role). The short film was so funny that Lorne Michaels purchased it and aired it on Saturday Night Live (1975). This led to his spending a year on the show in 1989.
Stiller made his big screen debut in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun (1987) in 1987. Demonstrating early on the multifaceted tone his career would take, he soon stepped behind the camera to direct Back to Brooklyn for MTV. The network was impressed and gave Stiller his own show, The Ben Stiller Show (1992). He recruited fellow offbeat comedians Janeane Garofalo and Andy Dick and created a bitingly satirical show. MTV ended up passing on it, but it was picked up by Fox. Unfortunately, the show was a ratings miss. Stiller was soon out of work, although he did have the satisfaction of picking up an Emmy for the show after its cancellation.
For a while, Stiller had to settle for guest appearance work. While doing this, he saved up his cash and in the end was able to scrape enough together to make Reality Bites (1994), now a cult classic which is looked upon favorably by the generation it depicted. Ben continued to work steadily for a time, particularly in independent productions where he was more at ease. However, he never quite managed to catch a big break. His first big budget directing job was Jim Carrey's The Cable Guy (1996). Although many critics were impressed, Jim Carrey's fans were not. In 1998, There's Something About Mary (1998) had propelled Stiller into the mainstream spotlight. He also starred in such hit movies as Keeping the Faith (2000) and Meet the Parents (2000).- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Kyle Orlando Massey was born on August 28, 1991, in Atlanta, Georgia. His first acting job was in "The Wizard of Oz," but his big break came after he was cast in the popular Disney sitcom That's So Raven (2003), where he starred as Cory, the mischievous, money-obsessed brother of the main character, Raven-Symoné. Massey is also the star of the Disney Channel original movie Life Is Ruff (2005), in which his hip-hop single "It's a Dog" is featured. He even starred in a music video of "Yin Yang Yo," which premiered in September 2006. Kyle is now the star of Cory in the House (2007), a spin-off of "Raven."- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
John Cusack is, like most of his characters, an unconventional hero. Wary of fame and repelled by formulaic Hollywood fare, he has built a successful career playing underdogs and odd men out--all the while avoiding the media spotlight. John was born in Evanston, Illinois, to an Irish-American family. With the exception of mom Nancy (née Carolan), a former math teacher, the Cusack clan is all show business: father Dick Cusack was an actor and filmmaker, and John's siblings Joan Cusack, Ann Cusack, Bill Cusack and Susie Cusack are all thespians by trade. Like his brother and sisters, John became a member of Chicago's Piven Theatre Workshop while he was still in elementary school. By age 12, he already had several stage productions, commercial voice overs and industrial films under his belt. He made his feature film debut at 17, acting alongside Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy in the romantic comedy Class (1983). His next role, as a member of Anthony Michael Hall's geek brigade in Sixteen Candles (1984), put him on track to becoming a teen-flick fixture. Cusack remained on the periphery of the Brat Pack, sidestepping the meteoric rise and fall of most of his contemporaries, but he stayed busy with leads in films like The Sure Thing (1985) and Better Off Dead (1985). Young Cusack is probably best remembered for what could be considered his last adolescent role: the stereo-blaring romantic Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything (1989). A year later, he hit theaters as a grown-up, playing a bush-league con man caught between his manipulative mother and headstrong girlfriend in The Grifters (1990).
The next few years were relatively quiet for the actor, but he filled in the gaps with off-screen projects. He directed and produced several shows for the Chicago-based theater group The New Criminals, which he founded in 1988 (modeling it after Tim Robbins' Actors' Gang in Los Angeles) to promote political and avant-garde stage work. Four years later, Cusack's high school friends Steve Pink and D.V. DeVincentis joined him in starting a sister company for film, New Crime Productions. New Crime's first feature was the sharply written comedy Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), which touched off a career renaissance for Cusack. In addition to co-scripting, he starred as a world-weary hit man who goes home for his ten-year high school reunion and tries to rekindle a romance with the girl he stood up on prom night (Minnie Driver). In an instance of life imitating art, Cusack actually did go home for his ten-year reunion (to honor a bet about the film's financing) and ended up in a real-life romance with Driver. Cusack's next appearance was as a federal agent (or, as he described it, "the first post-Heston, non-biblical action star in sandals") in Con Air (1997), a movie he chose because he felt it was time to make smart business decisions. He followed that with Clint Eastwood's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), in which he played a Yankee reporter entangled in a Savannah murder case.
Cusack has always favored offbeat material, so it was no surprise when he turned up in the fiercely original Being John Malkovich (1999). Long-haired, bearded and bespectacled, he was almost unrecognizable in the role of a frustrated puppeteer who stumbles across a portal into the brain of actor John Malkovich. The convincing performance won him a Best Actor nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards. In 2000, Cusack was back to his clean-shaven self in High Fidelity (2000), another New Crime production. He worked with Steve Pink and D.V. DeVincentis to adapt Nick Hornby's popular novel (relocating the story to their native Chicago), then starred as the sarcastic record store owner who revisits his "Top 5" breakups to find out why he's so unlucky in love. The real Cusack has been romantically linked with several celebs, including Driver, Alison Eastwood, Claire Forlani and Neve Campbell. He's also something of a family man, acting frequently opposite sister Joan Cusack and pulling other Cusacks into his films on a regular basis. He seems pleased with the spate of projects on his horizon, but admits that he still hasn't reached his ultimate goal: to be involved in a "great piece of art".- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Actress Joan Cusack was born on October 11, 1962 in New York City and is the daughter of Nancy (née Carolan) and Dick Cusack. Her father was an advertising executive, writer and actor, and her mother was a mathematics teacher. Her siblings - Susie Cusack, John Cusack, Ann Cusack and Bill Cusack are also actors. Her family is of Irish descent.
Raised in Evanston, Illinois, Cusack was actively encouraged to explore her creativity by her parents, and as a child, she joined the Piven Theater Workshop. She went on to learn and perform improvisation at the Story Theater and The Ark. Later, she attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, graduating with a bachelor's degree in English. Whilst at university, Cusack took some small film roles, but her big break came after graduation, when she joined the cast of the legendary "Saturday Night Live". However, she only stayed for one season before moving onto explore other projects.
Cusack produced a memorable turn in the acclaimed Broadcast News (1987), and she earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Working Girl (1988). Other notable films include Addams Family Values (1993), Corrina, Corrina (1994), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) and In & Out (1997), which earned her a second Oscar nomination. One of her most well-known roles was Rosalie Mullins, the principal of Horace Green Elementary School in School of Rock (2003). She also provided, superbly, the voice of Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl in Toy Story 2 (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010) and Toy Story 4 (2019). On television, she scored a role on Shameless (2011), with her work garnering her an Emmy nomination.
Joan Cusack is married to an attorney, Dick Burke. They have two sons - Dylan and Miles.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
As might be said for the late and great comedians Harvey Korman and Madeline Kahn, it seems that Mel Brooks was the only director on the planet who knew how to best utilize this funnyman's talents on film. Brooks once remarked that, whenever he cast Dom in one of his films he'd add an extra two days to the shooting schedule because of delays between takes due to the constant laughter from cast and crew at Dom's improvisations.
The lovable, butterball comedian was a mainstay on 1960s and '70s TV variety as a "second banana," or comic-relief player. While his harsher critics believed his schtick would be better served in smaller doses, Dom nevertheless went on to find some range in a few moving, more restrained projects. Those few glimpses behind all the mirth and merriment revealed a dramatic actor waiting to be unleashed. As they say, behind every clown's smile, one finds tears.
He was born Dominick DeLuise on August 1, 1933, in Brooklyn, New York, to parents John, a sanitation engineer, and Vicenza (DeStefano) DeLuise, both Italian immigrants. A natural school-class clown, his irrepressible sense of humor helped Dom fit in at school, and he started drawing belly laughs fairly young in his very first school play that had him portraying an inert copper penny! He later attended New York's High School of Performing Arts, but when it came to college, he decided to major in biology at Tufts University, outside Boston. That decision failed to expunge the idea of being a comedian from his head and heart, however, and that determination finally prevailed.
Dom's formative years as an actor were spent apprenticing at the Cleveland Playhouse, where which he gamely played roles in everything from contemporary shows like "Guys and Dolls" and "Stalag 17" to classics like "The School for Scandal" and even "Hamlet." He earned his first professional paycheck playing the titular Bernie the dog in "Bernie's Last Wish." Dom also got a taste of what it was like in front of the camera in Cleveland, appearing on the local TV kiddie's show "Tip Top Clubhouse."
Back in NYC, he took over the lead role of Tinker the toymaker in another children's local program, Tinker's Workshop (1954), for one season in 1958. He also started making noise on the off-Broadway scene. Appearing in the plays "The Jackass" and "All in Love," he became part of the featured ensemble of the 1961 musical revue "An Evening with Harry Stoones," which included 19-year-old Barbra Streisand. More outlandish musical roles came his way in the early 1960s with "Little Mary Sunshine" (as Corporal Billy Jester) and "The Student Gypsy, or the Prince of Liederkrantz" (his Broadway debut as Muffin T. Raggamuffin). While appearing in the lighthearted summer stock spoof "Summer & Smirk" in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Dom met fellow performer Carol Arthur (née Carol Arata). They married on November 23, 1965. Their three sons, Peter DeLuise, Michael DeLuise and David DeLuise all eventually found their way into show business. In 1971, Dom returned successfully to Broadway in a perfectly-suited Neil Simon vehicle, "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers."
Dom was first noticed on the smaller screen, creating the sketch character of Dominick the Great, a magician who tries in vain to mask his inept prestidigitations with feigned dignity on Garry Moore's popular show. The comedian truly thrived in this TV variety atmosphere and soon began popping up seemingly everywhere: (The Hollywood Palace (1964), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967), The Jackie Gleason Show (1966)). Balding, blushing, dimpled and moon-faced (comparisons to a ripe tomato were not wide of the mark), he was readily equipped with a high-wattage, Cheshire Cat smile that became his trademark. At his best, looking embarrassed or agitated, the laughs usually came at his own expense, whether playing a panic-stricken klutz or squirming nervous-Nelly type. Dom took his magician character to the ensemble comedy show The Entertainers (1964), which also showcased Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart, and found more regular employment as a bumbling private eye in puppeteer Shari Lewis' daytime children's program, and as a foil for Dean Martin on the entertainer's regular and summer replacement shows. Dom again repeated his Dominick the Great character on Martin's show and received great reception. He later found himself part of Martin's "in-crowd" of comedians on his "celebrity roasts."
Dom's obvious comic genius was more readily evident, and succeeded better, in tandem with other performers than it was on its own. Hosting duties for his very first comedy/variety program The Dom DeLuise Show (1968), which featured wife Carol as part of the regular roster, lasted only one summer. The sitcom Lotsa Luck! (1973), which showcased Dom as bachelor Stanley Belmont having to contend with a live-in mother (a harping Kathleen Freeman) and sister (an ungainly Beverly Sanders), was canceled after its first season. He gave it a rest for awhile before trying once again with the sketch-like sitcom The Dom DeLuise Show (1987), but it, too, quickly faded. Another brief stint was as host of a revamped Candid Camera (1991).
While Dom made an unlikely film debut as a high-strung Air Force technician in the gripping nuclear drama Fail Safe (1964) starring Henry Fonda, it was in zany, irreverent comedy that he found his true calling. Appearing in support of others such as Sid Caesar and Mary Tyler Moore, respectively, in the so-so comedies The Busy Body (1967) and What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968), he proved a delight as an inept, dim-witted spy in the Doris Day caper The Glass Bottom Boat (1966).
Mel Brooks first cast Dom as the miserly Russian Orthodox priest, Father Fyodor, in his film The Twelve Chairs (1970), and found plenty of room for the comedian after that -- as campy director Buddy Bizarre in Blazing Saddles (1974), the silly-ass director's assistant in Silent Movie (1976), Emperor Nero in History of the World: Part I (1981), the voice of the cheese-oozing Pizza the Hutt in the "Star Wars" parody Spaceballs (1987), and as Sherwood Forest's very own puffy-cheeked Godfather, Don Giovanni, in Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993).
A very close friend of action star Burt Reynolds, Dom romped through a number of Reynolds' freewheeling films as well, including Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), The Cannonball Run (1981) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). One of his finest scene-stealing film roles, in fact, was as Reynolds' schizo pal in The End (1978). Dom went on to direct a number of stage productions for his close friend at the Burt Reynolds Theatre in Jupiter, Florida -- among them "Butterflies Are Free," "Same Time, Next Year" (starring Burt and Carol Burnett), "Brighton Beach Memoirs" (starring son Peter), and the musical "Jump" (featuring wife Carol). Still another comic buddy, Gene Wilder, handed Dom the roles of the indulgent opera star in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975) and harassed movie mogul Adolf Zitz in The World's Greatest Lover (1977). Dom later joined Wilder once again, along with Wilder's wife Gilda Radner, in the leaden comedy Haunted Honeymoon (1986), a clumsy haunted-house spoof that even Dom, in full drag, could not salvage.
Change-of-pace roles were few and far between. One that did come Dom's way was the compulsive-eating protagonist in Fatso (1980). Directed by and co-starring Brooks' wife Anne Bancroft, Dom managed to mix comedy with pathos. Obesity was also a chronic, real-life problem for the comedian and, at one point in 1999, it was reported that he had tipped the scales at 325 lbs. On a positive note, this passion for food actually fed into a more lucrative sideline -- as a respected chef and culinary author ("Eat This" and "Eat This Too") in which he appeared all over the tube cooking and demonstrating his favorite recipes. He also found time to write children's books on the side.
Dom tackled broad comedy films with great abandon -- a wallflower he was not -- but they were hit-or-miss. Some of his biggest misses were the Mae West disaster Sextette (1977), the Dudley Moore showcase Wholly Moses! (1980) (although Dom was arguably the best thing in it), Loose Cannons (1990), in which he appeared as portly pornographer Harry "The Hippo" Gutterman, Driving Me Crazy (1991), which filmed far away in Germany, and The Silence of the Hams (1994), a parody on the horror genre in which he played Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza.
Films could also be a family affair. True to life, Dom played a sympathetic kiddie show host in the moving TV-movie Happy (1983). Also the executive producer, he was joined by wife Carol and all three sons in the cast. In addition, Dom offered a cameo in Between the Sheets (2003), a film written by Peter, directed, edited and executive-produced by Michael, and featuring roles for the rest of the family.
Dom's voiceover skills did not go untapped, either, in films including the animated features The Secret of NIMH (1982), An American Tail (1986) and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), plus all of their offshoots. The heavily-bearded DeLuise even displayed scene-stealing antics on the operatic scene, once playing the speaking part of Frosch the Jailer in Johann Srauss II's operetta "Die ," at the Metropolitan Opera.
Suffering from various physical ailments in later years, some of which were exacerbated by his chronic obesity and diabetes, Dom's health declined, and he died in 2009 at age 75. His wife and three children survive him, as do three grandchildren.- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Elegant Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, while her Australian parents were there on educational visas.
Kidman is the daughter of Janelle Ann (Glenny), a nursing instructor, and Antony David Kidman, a biochemist and clinical psychologist. She is of English, Irish, and Scottish descent. Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where Nicole's father pursued his research on breast cancer, and then, three years later, made the pilgrimage back to her parents' native Sydney in Australia, where Nicole was raised. Young Nicole's first love was ballet, but she eventually took up mime and drama as well (her first stage role was a bleating sheep in an elementary school Christmas pageant). In her adolescent years, acting edged out the other arts and became a kind of refuge -- as her classmates sought out fun in the sun, the fair-skinned Kidman retreated to dark rehearsal halls to practice her craft. She worked regularly at the Philip Street Theater, where she once received a personal letter of praise and encouragement from audience member Jane Campion (then a film student). Kidman eventually dropped out of high school to pursue acting full-time. She broke into movies at age 16, landing a role in the Australian holiday favorite Bush Christmas (1983). That appearance touched off a flurry of film and television offers, including a lead in BMX Bandits (1983) and a turn as a schoolgirl-turned-protester in the miniseries Vietnam (1987) (for which she won her first Australian Film Institute Award). With the help of an American agent, she eventually made her US debut opposite Sam Neill in the at-sea thriller Dead Calm (1989).
Kidman's next casting coup scored her more than exposure. While starring as Tom Cruise's doctor/love interest in the racetrack romance Days of Thunder (1990), she won over the Hollywood hunk hook, line and sinker. After a whirlwind courtship (and decent box office returns), the couple wed on December 24, 1990. Determined not to let her new marital status overshadow her fledgling career, the actress pressed on. She appeared as a catty high school senior in the Australian film Flirting (1991), then as Dustin Hoffman's moll in the gangster flick Billy Bathgate (1991). She reunited with Cruise for Far and Away (1992), the story of young Irish lovers who flee to America in the late 1800s, and starred opposite Michael Keaton in the tear-tugger My Life (1993). Despite her steady employment, critics and moviegoers still had not quite warmed to Kidman as a leading lady. She tried to spice up her image by seducing Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995), but achieved her real breakthrough with Gus Van Sant's To Die For (1995). As a fame-crazed housewife determined to eliminate any obstacle in her path, Kidman proved that she had an impressive range and deadly comic timing. She took home a Golden Globe and several critics' awards for the performance. In 1996, Kidman stepped into a corset to work with her countrywoman and onetime admirer, Jane Campion, on the adaptation of Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady (1996). A few months later, she tore across the screen as a nuclear weapons expert in The Peacemaker (1997), adding "action star" to her professional repertoire.
She and Cruise then disappeared into a notoriously long, secretive shoot for Stanley Kubrick's sexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut (1999). The couple's on-screen shenanigans prompted an increase in public speculation about their sex life (rumors had long been circulating that their marriage was a cover-up for Cruise's rumored homosexuality); tired of denying tabloid attacks, they successfully sued The Star for a story alleging that they needed a sex therapist to coach them through love scenes. Family life has always been a priority for Kidman. Born to social activists (mother was a feminist; father, a labor advocate), Nicole and her little sister, Antonia Kidman, discussed current events around the dinner table and participated in their parents' campaigns by passing out pamphlets on street corners. When her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, 17-year-old Nicole stopped working and took a massage course so that she could provide physical therapy (her mother eventually beat the cancer). She and Cruise adopted two children: Isabella Jane (born 1993) and Connor Antony (born 1995). Despite their rock-solid image, the couple announced in early 2001 that they were separating due to career conflicts. Her marriage to Cruise ended mid-summer of 2001.- Dick Van Patten began acting as a child. He made his first of 27 Broadway appearances at age seven in "Tapestry in Grey." After, he appeared in numerous films, including Freaky Friday (1976), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Spaceballs (1987). His television credits include his best-known role on the 1980s comedy-drama Eight Is Enough (1977), on which he played Tom Bradford, the patriarchal head of the pack.
Van Patten authored several bestselling books, including "How To Get Your Child Into Show Business" and his autobiography, "Eighty Is Not Enough." He was also known for lending his name to "Natural Balance," a line of high-end dog food that is intended to be indistinguishable from stews and other dishes, that are normally intended for human consumption. He was married to Pat Poole (née Patricia Poole) for 61 years; the union produced three sons: Nels Van Patten, James Van Patten, and Vincent Van Patten. - Actor
- Producer
- Director
Mickey Rooney was born Joe Yule Jr. on September 23, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. He first took the stage as a toddler in his parents vaudeville act at 17 months old. He made his first film appearance in 1926. The following year, he played the lead character in the first Mickey McGuire short film. It was in this popular film series that he took the stage name Mickey Rooney. Rooney reached new heights in 1937 with A Family Affair, the film that introduced the country to Andy Hardy, the popular all-American teenager. This beloved character appeared in nearly 20 films and helped make Rooney the top star at the box office in 1939, 1940 and 1941. Rooney also proved himself an excellent dramatic actor as a delinquent in Boys Town (1938) starring Spencer Tracy. In 1938, he was awarded a Juvenile Academy Award.
Teaming up with Judy Garland, Rooney also appeared in a string of musicals, including Babes in Arms (1939) the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role, Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes on Broadway (1941), and Girl Crazy (1943). He and Garland immediately became best of friends. "We weren't just a team, we were magic," Rooney once said. During that time he also appeared with Elizabeth Taylor in the now classic National Velvet (1944). Rooney joined the service that same year, where he helped to entertain the troops and worked on the American Armed Forces Network. He returned to Hollywood after 21 months in Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946), did a remake of a Robert Taylor film, The Crowd Roars (1932) called Killer McCoy (1947) and portrayed composer Lorenz Hart in Words and Music (1948). He also appeared in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. Rooney played Hepburn's Japanese neighbor, Mr. Yunioshi. A sign of the times, Rooney played the part for comic relief which he later regretted feeling the role was offensive. He once again showed his incredible range in the dramatic role of a boxing trainer with Anthony Quinn and Jackie Gleason in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). In the late 1960s and 1970s Rooney showed audiences and critics alike why he was one of Hollywood's most enduring stars. He gave an impressive performance in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film The Black Stallion (1979), which brought him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He also turned to the stage in 1979 in Sugar Babies with Ann Miller, and was nominated for a Tony Award. During that time he also portrayed the Wizard in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Eartha Kitt at New York's Madison Square Garden, which also had a successful run nationally.
Rooney appeared in four television series': The Mickey Rooney Show (1954) (1954-1955), a comedy sit-com in 1964 with Sammee Tong called Mickey, One of the Boys in 1982 with Dana Carvey and Nathan Lane, and The New Adventures of the Black Stallion (1990) from 1990-1993. In 1981, Rooney won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of a mentally challenged man in Bill (1981). The critical acclaim continued to flow for the veteran performer, with Rooney receiving an honorary Academy Award "in recognition of his 60 years of versatility in a variety of memorable film performances". More recently he has appeared in such films as Night at the Museum (2006) with Ben Stiller and The Muppets (2011) with Amy Adams and Jason Segel.
Rooney's personal life, including his frequent trips to the altar, has proved to be just as epic as his on-screen performances. His first wife was one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, actress Ava Gardner. Mickey permanently separated from his eighth wife Jan in June of 2012. In 2011 Rooney filed elder abuse and fraud charges against stepson Christopher Aber and Aber's wife. At Rooney's request, the Superior Court issued a restraining order against the Aber's demanding they stay 100 yards from Rooney, as well as Mickey's other son Mark Rooney and Mark's wife Charlene. Just prior, Rooney mustered the strength to break his silence and appeared before the Senate in Washington D.C. telling of his own heartbreaking story of abuse in an effort to live a peaceful, full life and help others who may be similarly suffering in silence.
Rooney requested through the Superior Court to permanently reside with his son Mark Rooney, who is a musician and Marks wife Charlene, an artist, in the Hollywood Hills. He legally separated from his eighth wife in June of 2012. Ironically, after eight failed marriages he never looked or felt better and finally found happiness and peace in the single life. Mickey, Mark and Charlene focused on health, happiness and creative endeavors and it showed. Mickey Rooney had once again landed on his feet reminding us that he was a survivor. Rooney died on April 6th 2014. He was taking his afternoon nap and never woke. One week before his death Mark and Charlene surprised him by reunited him with a long lost love, the racetrack. He was ecstatic to be back after decades and ran into his old friends Mel Brooks and Dick Van Patten.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Ernest Borgnine was born Ermes Effron Borgnino on January 24, 1917 in Hamden, Connecticut. His parents were Anna (Boselli), who had emigrated from Carpi (MO), Italy, and Camillo Borgnino, who had emigrated from Ottiglio (AL), Italy. As an only child, Ernest enjoyed most sports, especially boxing, but took no real interest in acting. At age 18, after graduating from high school in New Haven, and undecided about his future career, he joined the United States Navy, where he stayed for ten years until leaving in 1945. After a few factory jobs, his mother suggested that his forceful personality could make him suitable for a career in acting, and Borgnine promptly enrolled at the Randall School of Drama in Hartford. After completing the course, he joined Robert Porterfield's famous Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, staying there for four years, undertaking odd jobs and playing every type of role imaginable. His big break came in 1949, when he made his acting debut on Broadway playing a male nurse in "Harvey".
In 1951, Borgnine moved to Los Angeles to pursue a movie career, and made his film debut as Bill Street in The Whistle at Eaton Falls (1951). His career took off in 1953 when he was cast in the role of Sergeant "Fatso" Judson in From Here to Eternity (1953). This memorable performance led to numerous supporting roles as "heavies" in a steady string of dramas and westerns. He played against type in 1955 by securing the lead role of Marty Piletti, a shy and sensitive butcher, in Marty (1955). He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, despite strong competition from Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, James Dean and James Cagney. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Borgnine performed memorably in such films as The Catered Affair (1956), Ice Station Zebra (1968) and Emperor of the North (1973). Between 1962 and 1966, he played Lt. Commander Quinton McHale in the popular television series McHale's Navy (1962). In early 1984, he returned to television as Dominic Santini in the action series Airwolf (1984) co-starring Jan-Michael Vincent, and in 1995, he was cast in the comedy series The Single Guy (1995) as doorman Manny Cordoba. He also appeared in several made-for-TV movies.
Ernest Borgnine has often stated that acting was his greatest passion. His amazing 61-year career (1951 - 2012) included appearances in well over 100 feature films and as a regular in three television series, as well as voice-overs in animated films such as All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996), Small Soldiers (1998), and a continued role in the series SpongeBob SquarePants (1999). Between 1973 until his death, Ernest was married to Tova Traesnaes, who heads her own cosmetics company. They lived in Beverly Hills, California, where Ernest assisted his wife between film projects. When not acting, Ernest actively supported numerous charities and spoke tirelessly at benefits throughout the country. He has been awarded several honorary doctorates from colleges across the United States as well as numerous Lifetime Achievement Awards. In 1996, Ernest purchased a bus and traveled across the United States to see the country and meet his many fans. On December 17, 1999, he presented the University of North Alabama with a collection of scripts from his film and television career, due to his long friendship with North Alabama alumnus and actor George Lindsey (died May 6, 2012), who was an artist in residence at North Alabama.
Ernest Borgnine passed away aged 95 on July 8, 2012, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, of renal failure. He is survived by his wife Tova, their children and his younger sister Evelyn (1926-2013)- 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.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black was born on August 28, 1969 in Santa Monica, California and raised in Hermosa Beach, California to Judith Love Cohen & Thomas William Black, both satellite engineers. He is of Russian Jewish & British-German ancestry. Black attended the University of California at Los Angeles. While at UCLA, he was a member of Tim Robbins' acting troupe & it was through this collaboration that led to his 1992 film debut in Bob Roberts (1992). Although he was just a background voice in his first film, Jack's appearances in such television shows as The X-Files (1993), his breakthrough performance in High Fidelity (2000) & his rock-comedy band, Tenacious D have created an ever-growing cult following.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Kevin Farley (accomplished actor, writer, director) has truly established himself as a comedic presence both on the big screen and television.
Kevin was born in Madison, Wisconsin, to Mary Anne (Crosby) and Thomas Farley, who owned an oil company. Among his siblings are actors John Farley and the late Chris Farley. He is of Irish heritage. He has two other brothers and sisters--Barb, a nursery school teacher, and Tom Jr., who works for a marketing firm. His cousin is James Duncan Farley Jr., CEO of Ford Motor Company. Kevin majored in Business at Marquette University in Milwaukee. After graduation, for six years he sold asphalt for his father's company, Scotch Oil. However, Chris soon convinced him to try show business. Kevin first went on stage at the Chicago ImprovOlympic.
Farley eventually moved to Chicago and studied at the famed Second City. The minute he relocated to Los Angeles he began landing roles in films such as Tommy Boy and Black Sheep. Then Farley landed a starring role as "Doug Linus" on MTV's sitcom 2gether where he was met with rave reviews. After that Farley appeared in numerous TV series programs such as That '70s Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Joey, Just Shoot Me, Curb Your Enthusiasm and many more. When Farley moved more into feature films, his unsurprising emphasis was exclusively on comedy. He appeared in the Adam Sandler animated comedy Eight Crazy Nights, and soon after The Waterboy, Dirty Work, the Cedric the Entertainer laugh-fest Johnson Family Vacation to name a few.
In 2008, Farley starred in the lead role of An American Carol, playing a cynical, anti-American "Hollywood" filmmaker who sets out on a crusade to abolish the 4th of July holiday. He is visited by three spirits who take him on a hilarious journey in an attempt to show him the true meaning of America. This comedy film (directed by David Zucker) is a parody of liberal filmmaker Michael Moore that "lampoons contemporary American culture, particularly Hollywood." It uses the framework of A Christmas Carol but moves the setting of the story from Christmas to Independence Day. The supporting cast included Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight, Dennis Hopper, and Leslie Nielsen. Farley co-wrote, directed and starred in Hollywood Wine. The film also stars Chazz Palminteri, Chris Kattan, David Spade, Norm MacDonald and Jeremy London.
Multi tasking is easy for Farley - he does it all with a fabulously contagious sense of humor, both on screen and off. Kevin resides in New York.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Drew Carey was born on 23 May 1958 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for The Drew Carey Show (1995), Robots (2005) and Jack and Jill (2011).- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Broderick Stephen Harvey, Sr. is an American television host, actor, writer, producer, and comedian. He hosts The Steve Harvey Morning Show, Family Feud, Celebrity Family Feud, the Miss Universe competition, Family Feud Africa, and the arbitration-based court comedy Judge Steve Harvey.
Harvey began his career as a comedian. He performed stand-up comedy in the early 1980s and hosted Showtime at the Apollo and The Steve Harvey Show on The WB. He was later featured in The Original Kings of Comedy after starring in the Kings of Comedy Tour. His last stand-up show was in 2012.
Harvey is the host of both Family Feud and Celebrity Family Feud, holding this role since 2010. He also hosted Little Big Shots, Little Big Shots Forever Young, and Steve Harvey's Funderdome. As an author, he has written four books, including his bestseller Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, which was published in March 2009.
In 2017, Harvey founded Steve Harvey Global, an entertainment company that houses his production company East 112 and various other ventures. He launched an African version of Family Feud and also invested in the HDNet takeover along with Anthem Sports and Entertainment. He and his wife Marjorie are the founders of The Steve and Marjorie Harvey Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on youth education.
He is a seven-time Daytime Emmy Award winner, two-time Marconi Award winner, and a 14-time NAACP Image Award winner in various categories.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Film and stage actor and theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, suburb of Fairport to Marilyn (Loucks), a lawyer and judge, and Gordon Stowell Hoffman, a Xerox employee, and was mostly of German, Irish, English and Dutch ancestry. After becoming involved in high school theatrics, he attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a B.F.A. degree in Drama in 1989.
He made his feature film debut in the indie production Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole (1991) as Phil Hoffman, and his first role in a major release came the next year in My New Gun (1992). While he had supporting roles in some other major productions like Scent of a Woman (1992) and Twister (1996), his breakthrough role came in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997).
He quickly became an icon of indie cinema, establishing a reputation as one of the screen's finest actors, in a variety of supporting and second leads in indie and major features, including Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998), Flawless (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and State and Main (2000). He also appeared in supporting roles in such mainstream, big-budget features as Red Dragon (2002), Cold Mountain (2003) and Mission: Impossible III (2006).
Hoffman was also quite active on the stage. On Broadway, he has earned two Tony nominations, as Best Actor (Play) in 2000 for a revival of Sam Shepard's "True West" and as Best Actor (Featured Role - Play) in 2003 for a revival of Eugene O'Neill (I)'s "Long Day's Journey into Night". His other acting credits in the New York theater include "The Seagull" (directed by Mike Nichols for The New York Shakespeare Festival), "Defying Gravity", "The Merchant of Venice" (directed by Peter Sellars), "Shopping and F*@%ing" and "The Author's Voice" (Drama Desk nomination).
He was the Co-Artistic Director of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York, for which he directed "Our Lady of 121st Street" by Stephen Adly Guirgis. He also directed "In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings" and "Jesus Hopped the A Train" by Guirgis for LAByrinth, and "The Glory of Living" by Rebecca Gilman at the Manhattan Class Company.
Hoffman consolidated his reputation as one of the finest actors under the age of 40 with his turn in the title role of Capote (2005), for which he won the Los Angeles Film Critics Award as Best Actor. In 2006, he was awarded the Best Actor Oscar for the same role.
On February 2, 2014, Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in an apartment in Greenwich village, New York. Investigators found Hoffman with a syringe in his arm and two open envelopes of heroin next to him. Mr. Hoffman was long known to struggle with addiction. In 2006, he said in an interview with "60 Minutes" that he had given up drugs and alcohol many years earlier, when he was age 22. In 2013, he checked into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days after a reliance on prescription pills resulted in his briefly turning again to heroin.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Jonah Hill was born and raised in Los Angeles, the son of Sharon Feldstein (née Chalkin), a fashion designer and costume stylist, and Richard Feldstein, a tour accountant for Guns N' Roses. He is the brother of music manager Jordan Feldstein and actress Beanie Feldstein. He graduated from Crossroads School in Santa Monica and went on to The New School in New York to study drama.
He began writing and performing in plays while at college in New York, and managed to get himself introduced to Dustin Hoffman, through whom he got an audition for his first film role in I Heart Huckabees (2004). A succession of increasingly high-profile film and TV parts followed until he eventually landed one of the starring roles in the teen hit, Superbad (2007). Continuing to write and act, more roles followed as well as popular appearances on US TV talk shows.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
An actor, comedian and writer, Seth Rogen has come a long way from doing stand-up comedy as a teen.
Rogen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Sandy (Belogus), a social worker, and Mark Rogen, who worked for non-profits. His father is American-born and his mother is Canadian. He is of Russian Jewish descent. He attended Vancouver Talmud Torah Elementary School and Point Grey Secondary School (although he dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles) and was known for the stand-up comedy he performed at Camp Miriam, a Habonim Dror camp. At sixteen, Rogen placed second in the 1998 Vancouver Amateur Comedy Contest.
Soon after that he landed his first role in Judd Apatow's short-lived but well regarded TV series Freaks and Geeks (1999), taking on the role of Ken Miller. Though the show only lasted one season, it was the launching pad for many careers, including Rogen, Apatow, James Franco, and Jason Segel. This early work sharpened Rogen's keen improvisational skills, which he's used on many projects since.
Following Freaks and Geeks (1999), he participated in a few unsuccessful television projects, and then joined the American television version of Da Ali G Show (2000) as a writer during its second and last season, along with his childhood friend and writing partner Evan Goldberg. The writing team received an Emmy nomination. As a huge fan of the first season, Rogen was thrilled to get the chance to work with Sacha Baron Cohen.
Continuing his work with Apatow, he joined the cast of Apatow's debut film The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and is credited as co-producer. After that he took the lead in Knocked Up (2007), Apatow's second movie and a huge success. He's since been a frequent collaborator with Apatow, in projects such as Superbad (2007), Pineapple Express (2008) and Funny People (2009). He co-wrote Superbad (2007), with Goldberg; the pair started the project when they were teens. They won the Canadian Comedy Award for Best Writing in a Film in 2008. They later wrote Pineapple Express (2008) and The Green Hornet (2011), also starring Rogen.
A talented voice artist, Rogen is in the animated films Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Kung Fu Panda (2008), and Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), and has voiced characters for The Simpsons (1989) and American Dad! (2005).
Rogen was named the Canadian Comedy Person of the Year by the Canadian Comedy Awards in both 2008 and 2009.
Rogen lives in Los Angeles with Lauren Miller Rogen, whom he met in 2004. They became engaged in September 2010 and married in October 2011.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Highly influential, and always controversial, African-American actor/comedian who was equally well known for his colorful language during his live comedy shows, as for his fast paced life, multiple marriages and battles with drug addiction. He has been acknowledged by many modern comic artist's as a key influence on their careers, and Pryor's observational humor on African-American life in the USA during the 1970s was razor sharp brilliance.
He was born Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor III on December 1, 1940, in Peoria, Illinois, the son of Gertrude L. (Thomas) and LeRoy "Buck Carter" Pryor. His mother, a prostitute, abandoned him when he was ten years of age, after which he was raised in his grandmother's brothel. Unfortunately, Pryor was molested at the age of six by a teenage neighbor, and later by a neighborhood preacher. To escape this troubled life, the young Pryor was an avid movie fan and a regular visitor to local movie theaters in Peoria. After numerous jobs, including truck driver and meat packer, the young Pryor did a stint in the US Army between 1958 & 1960 in which he performed in amateur theater shows. After he left the services in 1960, Pryor started singing in small clubs, but inadvertently found that humor was his real forte.
Pryor spent time in both New York & Las Vegas, honing his comic craft. However, his unconventional approach to humor sometimes made bookings difficult to come by and this eventually saw Pryor heading to Los Angeles. He first broke into films with minor roles in The Busy Body (1967) and Wild in the Streets (1968). However, his performance as a drug addicted piano player in Lady Sings the Blues (1972), really got the attention of fans and film critics alike.
He made his first appearance with Gene Wilder in the very popular action/comedy Silver Streak (1976), played three different characters in Which Way Is Up? (1977) and portrayed real-life stock-car driver "Wendell Scott" in Greased Lightning (1977). Proving he was more than just a comedian, Pryor wowed audiences as a disenchanted auto worker who is seduced into betraying his friends and easy money in the Paul Schrader working class drama Blue Collar (1978), also starring Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel. Always a strong advocate of African-American talent, Pryor next took a key role in The Wiz (1978), starring an all African-American cast, including Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, retelling the story of The Wizard of Oz (1939). His next four screen roles were primarily cameos in California Suite (1978); The Muppet Movie (1979); Wholly Moses! (1980) and In God We Trust (or Gimme That Prime Time Religion) (1980). However, Pryor teamed up with Gene Wilder once more for the prison comedy Stir Crazy (1980), which did strong box office business.
His next few films were a mixed bag of material, often inhibiting Pryor's talent, with equally mixed returns at the box office. Pryor then scored second billing to Christopher Reeve in the big budget Superman III (1983), and starred alongside fellow funny man John Candy in Brewster's Millions (1985) before revealing his inner self in the autobiographical Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986). Again, Pryor was somewhat hampered by poor material in his following film ventures. However, he did turn up again in See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) with Gene Wilder, but the final product was not as sharp as their previous pairings. Pryor then partnered on-screen with two other very popular African-American comic's. The legendary Redd Foxx and 1980s comic newcomer Eddie Murphy starred with Pryor in the gangster film Harlem Nights (1989) which was also directed by Eddie Murphy. Having contracted multiple sclerosis in 1986, Pryor's remaining film appearances were primarily cameos apart from his fourth and final outing with Gene Wilder in the lukewarm Another You (1991), and his final appearance in a film production was a small role in the David Lynch road flick Lost Highway (1997).
Fans of this outrageous comic genius are encouraged to see his live specials Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin' (1971); the dynamic Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979); Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982) and Richard Pryor... Here and Now (1983). In addition, The Richard Pryor Show (1977) is a must-have for any Richard Pryor fans' DVD collection.
Unknown to many, Pryor was a long time advocate against animal cruelty, and he campaigned against fast food chains and circus shows to address issues of animal welfare. He was married a total of seven times, and fathered eight children.
After long battles with ill health, Richard Pryor passed away on December 10th, 2005.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Comedian Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope in Eltham, London, England, the fifth of seven sons of Avis (Townes), light opera singer, and William Henry Hope, a stonemason from Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. His maternal grandmother was Welsh. Hope moved to Bristol before emigrating with his parents to the USA in 1908. After some years onstage as a dancer and comedian, he made his first film appearance in The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938) singing "Thanks for the Memory", which became his signature tune.
In partnership with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, he appeared in the highly successful "Road to ..." comedies (1940-52), and in many others until the early 1970s. During World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars he spent much time entertaining the troops in the field. For these activities and for his continued contributions to the industry he received five honorary Academy Awards.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Bing Crosby was born Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr. in Tacoma, Washington, the fourth of seven children of Catherine (Harrigan) and Harry Lincoln Crosby, a brewery bookkeeper. He was of English and Irish descent. Crosby studied law at Gonzaga University in Spokane but was more interested in playing the drums and singing with a local band. Bing and the band's piano player, Al Rinker, left Spokane for Los Angeles in 1925. In the early 1930s Bing's brother Everett sent a record of Bing singing "I Surrender, Dear" to the president of CBS. His live performances from New York were carried over the national radio network for 20 consecutive weeks in 1932. His radio success led Paramount Pictures to include him in The Big Broadcast (1932), a film featuring radio favorites. His songs about not needing a bundle of money to make life happy was the right message for the decade of the Great Depression. His relaxed, low-key style carried over into the series of "Road" comedies he made with pal Bob Hope. He won the best actor Oscar for playing an easygoing priest in Going My Way (1944). He showed that he was indeed an actor as well as a performer when he played an alcoholic actor down on his luck opposite Grace Kelly in The Country Girl (1954). Playing golf was what he liked to do best. He died at age 74 playing golf at a course outside Madrid, Spain, after completing a tour of England that had included a sold-out engagement at the London Palladium.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Daniel Jacob Radcliffe was born on July 23, 1989 in Fulham, London, England, to casting agent Marcia Gresham (née Jacobson) and literary agent Alan Radcliffe. His father is from a Northern Irish Protestant background, while his mother was born in South Africa, to a Jewish family (from Lithuania, Poland, Russia, and Germany). Daniel began performing in small school productions as a young boy. Soon enough, he landed a role in David Copperfield (1999), as the young David Copperfield. A couple of years later, he landed a role as Mark Pendel in The Tailor of Panama (2001), the son of Harry and Louisa Pendel (Geoffrey Rush and Jamie Lee Curtis). Curtis had indeed pointed out to Daniel's mother that he could be Harry Potter himself. Soon afterwards, Daniel was cast as Harry Potter by director, Chris Columbus in the film that hit theaters in November 16, 2001, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001). He was recognized worldwide after this film was released. Pleasing audiences and critics everywhere, filming on its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), commenced shortly afterwards. He appeared again as Harry in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) directed by Alfonso Cuarón, and then appeared in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) directed by Mike Newell. Shortly afterwards, he finished filming December Boys (2007) in Adelaide, Australia, Kangaroo Island, and Geelong, Australia which began on the 14 November 2005 and ended sometime in December. On January 27, 2006, he attended the South Bank Awards Show to present the award for "Breakthrough Artist of the Year" to Billie Piper. Daniel reprised his famous character once again for the next installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007). In February 2007, he took on his first stage role in the West End play Equus, to worldwide praise from fans and critics alike. Also that year, he starred in the television movie My Boy Jack (2007), which aired on 11 November 2007 in the UK.
After voicing a character in an episode of the animated television series The Simpsons in late 2010, Radcliffe debuted as J. Pierrepont Finch in the 2011 Broadway revival How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, a role previously held by Broadway veterans Robert Morse and Matthew Broderick. Other cast members included John Larroquette, Rose Hemingway and Mary Faber. Both the actor and production received good reviews, with USA Today commenting: "Radcliffe ultimately succeeds not by overshadowing his fellow cast members, but by working in conscientious harmony with them - and having a blast in the process." Radcliffe's performance in the show earned him Drama Desk Award, Drama League Award and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations. The production itself later received nine Tony Award nominations. Radcliffe left the show on 1 January 2012. His first post-Harry Potter project was the 2012 horror film The Woman in Black, adapted from the 1983 novel by Susan Hill. The film was released on 3 February 2012 in the United States and Canada, and was released on 10 February in the UK. Radcliffe portrays a man sent to deal with the legal matters of a mysterious woman who has just died, and soon after he begins to experience strange events from the ghost of a woman dressed in black. He has said he was "incredibly excited" to be part of the film and described the script as "beautifully written".
In 2013, he portrayed American poet Allen Ginsberg in the thriller drama Kill Your Darlings (2013), directed by John Krokidas. He also starred in an Irish-Canadian romantic comedy film The F Word directed by Michael Dowseand written by Elan Mastai, based on TJ Dawe and Michael Rinaldi's play Toothpaste and Cigars and then he starred in an American dark fantasy horror film directed by Alexandre Aja Horns. Both of the films premiered at the 38th Toronto International Film Festival. Radcliffe also performed at the Noël Coward Theatre in the stage play revival of Martin McDonagh's dark comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan as the lead, Billy Claven, for which he won the WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actor in a Play. In 2015, Radcliffe starred as Igor in a science fiction horror film Victor Frankenstein (2015), directed by Paul McGuigan and written by Max Landis, which was based on contemporary adaptations of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein. In 2016, he appeared as a wealthy villain in the mystery/action film Now You See Me 2 (2016), and as an oftentimes mobile corpse in the indie fantasy Swiss Army Man (2016).
Now being one of the world's most recognizable people, Daniel leads a somewhat normal life. He has made friends working on the Harry Potter films, which include his co-stars Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint was born in Harlow, Essex, England, the elder son of Joanne (Parsons) and Nigel Grint, who dealt in memorabilia. The first of 5 children, Rupert has one brother and three sisters.
Rupert grew up in Hertfordshire, the English county directly to the north of London, conveniently placed for commuting to Leavesden Film Studios. Before successfully auditioning for the Harry Potter films, Rupert attended Richard Hale Secondary School in Hertford: here he took an active interest in school plays, being cast as Rumplestilskin in the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. He was also a regular attendee at weekend drama classes at Top Hat Stage School, also in Hertford.
Time at school was limited, as Rupert was needed on set for the Harry Potter films, where all of the child actors were tutored for four hours a day on set, to keep up with legal requirements. During the summer of 2004, he took his GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) exams and completed his formal education.- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
Ed left his hometown two years after graduating from Plainwell High School (Plainwell, Michigan) at the age of 20 with $41 in his pocket and hitched a ride California to pursue his dream of being not a "star", but a steady working Hollywood "actor". His very first experience in the "biz" was auditioning for and subsequently winning the lead role of Howard The Duck. Initially he was told "you are too tall" (he keeps that letter readily available in his living-room and often refers to it with a humble smile).
Early in his career, Ed had performed many of his own stunts such as being run over by a big rig, flying on wires, fight scenes, being tossed, thrown & dropped great distances, and crashing through the windshield of a moving vehicle. However, his most impressive stunts just might be his Full Body Burns in the first Child's Play movie and his Full Body Burn while "flying" on wires in Leprechaun 3.
Ed Gale has appeared in over 130 Television Shows, Films, and Commercials to date; playing some of Hollywood's most famous (and infamous) characters such as "Howard" in the movie Howard The Duck; "Chucky" in Child's Play, Child's Play 2, and the Bride of Chucky; "Birdie the Early Bird" in one of the very few McDonland's commercials in which "Birdie" actually flew; "Tasha" (the baby dinosaur in the ABC Saturday morning kids show The New Land of the Lost; and the "The Mole" in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Other popular films to Ed Gale's credit include; Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Mom & Dad Save the World, and the Christmas Holiday Hit: the Polar Express.
Out of Costume, Ed has played some rather notable "human" roles as well; "Hank Tarver" (The District), "Oscar" (3rd Rock from the Sun), "Stan" (Santa, Jr.), "Benson" (Call Me Claus), "Mr. Larry Briggs" (The Hughley's), "Jimmy" (Just Shoot Me), and "Baby Jesus" (Grounded for Life).
Ed is probably most recognized for his roles as "Lavalle" (Bones), "Little Prisoner" (My Name is Earl), "Simon McKay" (Baywatch) and as the "Little Man" (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)
Ed has starred, co-starred, & guest starred along side of some of the biggest names in Hollywood, the likes of which include: Lea Thompson, Kym Whitley, John Candy, Mel Brooks, Keanu Reeves, Catherine Hicks, Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Matthew McConaughey, Ray Liotta, Charlton Heston, Billy Bob Thornton, Jeffrey Jones, Teri Garr, Hal Sparks, Holly Robinson-Peete, Caroline Rhea, Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, Bobby Lee and many, many more!
Ed Gale is no stranger to Television Commercials either, pitching such products as: Burger King, Toys R US, Cingular Wireless, Best Buy, Progressive Insurance, Nike, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (with Fabio), Kinko's, Twisted Metal 4, Taco Bell, Polaroid Cameras, Snapple, McDonald's, Holiday Inn, Nissan Cars (Japan), California Eggs, & Sony Video. (just to name a few!)- Actor
- Producer
- Music Department
John Joseph Travolta was born in Englewood, New Jersey, one of six children of Helen Travolta (née Helen Cecilia Burke) and Salvatore/Samuel J. Travolta. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. His father owned a tire repair shop called Travolta Tires in Hillsdale, NJ. Travolta started acting appearing in a local production of "Who'll Save the Plowboy?". His mother, herself an actress and dancer, enrolled him in a drama school in New York, where he studied voice, dancing and acting. He decided to combine all three of these skills and become a musical comedy performer. At 16 he landed his first professional job in a summer stock production of the musical "Bye Bye Birdie". He quit school at 16 and moved to New York, and worked regularly in summer stock and on television commercials. When work became scarce in New York, he went to Hollywood and appeared in minor roles in several series. A role in the national touring company of the hit 1950s musical "Grease" brought him back to New York. An opening in the New York production of "Grease" gave him his first Broadway role at age 18. After "Grease", he became a member of the company of the Broadway show "Over Here", which starred The Andrews Sisters. After ten months in "Over Here", he decided to try Hollywood once again. Once back in Hollywood, he had little trouble getting roles in numerous television shows. He was seen on The Rookies (1972), Emergency! (1972) and Medical Center (1969) and also made a movie, The Devil's Rain (1975), which was shot in New Mexico. The day he returned to Hollywood from New Mexico, he was called to an audition for a new situation comedy series ABC was planning to produce called Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). He got the part of Vinnie Barbarino and the series went on the air during the 1975 fall season.
He starred in a number of monumental films, earning his first Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for his role in the blockbuster Saturday Night Fever (1977), which launched the disco phenomenon in the 1970s. He went on to star in the big-screen version of the long-running musical Grease (1978) and the wildly successful Urban Cowboy (1980), which also influenced trends in popular culture. Additional film credits include the Brian De Palma thrillers Carrie (1976) and Blow Out (1981), as well as Amy Heckerling's hit comedy Look Who's Talking (1989) and Nora Ephron's comic hit Michael (1996). Travolta starred in Phenomenon (1996) and took an equally distinctive turn as an action star in John Woo's top-grossing Broken Arrow (1996). He also starred in the classic Face/Off (1997) opposite Nicolas Cage, and The General's Daughter (1999), co-starring Madeleine Stowe. In 2005, Travolta reprised the role of ultra cool Chili Palmer in the Get Shorty (1995) sequel Be Cool (2005). In addition, he starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in the critically-acclaimed independent feature film A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), which was screened at the Venice Film Festival, where both Travolta and the films won rave reviews. In February 2011, John was honored by Europe's leading weekly program magazine HORZU, with the prestigious Golden Camera Award for "Best Actor International" in Berlin, Germany. Other recent feature film credits include box-office hit-comedy "Wild Hogs", the action-thriller Ladder 49 (2004), the movie version of the successful comic book The Punisher (2004), the drama Basic (2003), the psychological thriller Domestic Disturbance (2001), the hit action picture Swordfish (2001), the infamous sci-fi movie Battlefield Earth (2000), based upon the best-selling novel by L. Ron Hubbard, and Lonely Hearts (2006).
Travolta has been honored twice with Academy Award nominations, the latest for his riveting portrayal of a philosophical hit-man in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). He also received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for this highly-acclaimed role and was named Best Actor by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, among other distinguished awards. Travolta garnered further praise as a Mafioso-turned-movie producer in the comedy sensation Get Shorty (1995), winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy. In 1998, Travolta was honored by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts with the Britanna Award: and in that same year he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago Film Festival. Travolta also won the prestigious Alan J. Pakula Award from the US Broadcast Critics Association for his performance in A Civil Action (1998), based on the best-selling book and directed by Steven Zaillian. He was nominated again for a Golden Globe for his performance in Primary Colors (1998), directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring Emma Thompson and Billy Bob Thornton, and in 2008, he received his sixth Golden Globe nomination for his role as "Edna Turnblad" in the big-screen, box-office hit, Hairspray (2007). As a result of this performance, the Chicago Film Critics and the Santa Barbara Film Festival decided to recognize Travolta with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his role.
In addition, Travolta starred opposite Denzel Washington in Tony Scott's remake The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), and he provided the voice of the lead character in Walt Disney Pictures' animated hit Bolt (2008), which was nominated for a 2009 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and a Golden Globe for Best Animated Film, in addition to Best Song for John and Miley Cyrus' duet titled, "I Thought I Lost You".
Next, Travolta starred in Walt Disney Pictures' Old Dogs (2009), along with Robin Williams, Kelly Preston and Ella Bleu Travolta, followed by the action thriller From Paris with Love (2010), starring opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers. In 2012, John starred alongside Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch and Demián Bichir in Oliver Stone's, Savages (2012). The film was based on Don Winslow's best-selling crime novel that was named one of The New York Times' Top 10 Books of 2010. John was most recently seen in Killing Season (2013), co-starring Robert De Niro, and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. John recently completed production on the Boston-based film, The Forger (2014), alongside Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer and Critic's Choice nominee Tye Sheridan. John plays a second-generation petty thief who arranges to get out of prison to spend time with his ailing son (Sheridan) by taking on a job with his father (Plummer) to pay back the syndicate that arranged his release. John has received 2 prestigious aviation awards: in 2003, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Foundation Award for Excellence for his efforts to promote commercial flying, and, in 2007, The Living Legends Ambassador of Aviation award.
John holds 11 jet licenses: 747, 707, Gulfstream II, Lear 24, Hawker 1251A, Eclipse Jet, Vampire Jet, Canadair CL-141 Jet, Soko Jet, Citation ISP and Challenger. Travolta is the Qantas Airways Global Goodwill "Ambassador-at-Large" and piloted the original Qantas 707 during "Spirit of Friendship" global tour in July/August 2002. John is also a business aircraft brand ambassador for Learjet, Challenger and Global jets for the world's leading business aircraft manufacturer, Bombardier. John flew the 707 to New Orleans after the 2005 hurricane disaster bringing food and medical supplies, and in 2010, again flew the 707, this time to Haiti after the earthquake, carrying supplies, doctors and volunteers.
John, along with his late wife, actress Kelly Preston (1962-2020), were very involved in their charity, The Jett Travolta Foundation, which raises money for children with educational needs.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Arsenio Hall was born on 12 February 1956 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for Coming to America (1988), Harlem Nights (1989) and Coming 2 America (2021).- Michael Vartan came to international acclaim with his starring role as 'Agent Michael Vaughn' on the worldwide hit ABC series, "Alias," which ran for five seasons. With upcoming film and television roles, he continues to explore the different facets of his talent and versatility.
Vartan currently stars in E!'s original one-hour drama series "The Arrangement," about the relationship between an A-list movie star 'Kyle West' (Josh Henderson) and his beautiful young co-star 'Megan Morrison' (Christine Evangelista). Vartan portrays 'Terrence Anderson,' best friend, producing partner and mentor to 'Kyle,' as well as leader of a fictitious self-help organization called the Institute of the Higher Mind. His influence on Kyle's life is pervasive, and when 'Kyle' begins to date 'Megan,' 'Terrence' becomes particularly invested, presenting her with a marriage contract to ensure that the 'The Arrangement' goes as planned. E! will debut the 10-episode first season on March 5, 2017.
He played a key role in Season 2 of A&E's "Bates Motel" as 'George,' a charming divorcé who caught the eye of Norma (played by Emmy-nominee Vera Farmiga). He also had a recurring role in USA Network's "Satisfaction." He previously starred for three seasons alongside Jada Pinkett Smith in TNT's medical drama "HawthoRNe."
On the feature front, Vartan next appears in the indie thriller "Small Town Crime," with Academy Award nominee John Hawkes. The storyline revolves around a boozing ex-cop 'Mike' (Hawkes) who becomes a makeshift private investigator to solve the murder of a young prostitute. Vartan plays 'Detective Scott Crawford' who is investigating the murder and knows that 'Mike' has messed up in the past, yet to a certain extent still believes in him and trusts him to carry out his private investigation as long as he reports back to him with his findings. The film will make its World Premiere at the SXSW Film Festival on March 11, 2017.
Vartan previously starred opposite Zoe Saldana ("Avatar") in TriStar Pictures' "Colombiana." In 2011, he starred opposite Jessica Chastain, as 'Brad Benton' in the independent film "Jolene: My Life," for director Dan Ireland ("The Whole Wide World"). Based on a story from critically acclaimed author, E.L. Doctorow ("Ragtime," "Billy Bathgate").
He previously starred opposite Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez in New Line's summer blockbuster, "Monster-In-Law." He also starred opposite Robin Williams in the psychological thriller, "One Hour Photo." Additional film credits include a starring role opposite Drew Barrymore in the romantic comedy "Never Been Kissed."
Born in Paris to a French father and an American mother, Vartan grew up in the tiny Normandy village of Fleury until the age of 16 when he moved to Los Angeles to live with his mother, who encouraged him to take acting classes.
After starring in two small French films, Vartan grabbed the attention of the film world with his breakthrough performance in the 1993 Italian epic, "Fiorile," directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. Soon after, Vartan signed with an agent and landed a role in "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar," playing the bigoted small-town thug who harasses three drag queens (Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo). He went on to star opposite David Schwimmer as one of his best friends in "The Pallbearer," a comedy of escapades surrounding three old high school pals coping with bachelorhood, marriage and a case of mistaken identity. He also starred in Sony Pictures Classics' "The Myth of Fingerprints" with Julianne Moore.
For television, Vartan appeared in the two-part TNT mini-series "The Mists of Avalon," a retelling of the legendary story of Camelot. He portrayed 'Sir Lancelot,' opposite Angelica Huston, Julianna Margulies and Joan Allen.
In his limited free time, Vartan feeds his obsession with sports, particularly ice hockey. "If it weren't for acting, I'd give anything to play a professional sport," he says, still holding onto his life-long dream. - Actor
- Writer
- Director
Deadpan comedian Charles Sydney Grodin (originally Grodinsky) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of Russian/Polish ancestry and raised in a Jewish orthodox home. He attended the University of Miami but dropped out, opting instead for the life of a struggling actor. The movie A Place in the Sun (1951) was said to have steered him towards his chosen profession. In his own words: "It was two things. One is I think I developed an overwhelming crush on Elizabeth Taylor. And two, Montgomery Clift made acting look like 'Gee, well that looks pretty easy - just a guy talking.'".
After a spell with Uta Hagen (1956-59), he attended Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio before making his stage debut on Broadway in 1962. Though he appeared on screen from as early as 1954, Grodin did not make a great deal of headway in this medium until he attracted critical notice playing the small but crucial role of obstetrician Dr. C.C. Hill in Rosemary's Baby (1968). More substantial roles soon followed. His first major starring turn was in The Heartbreak Kid (1972), a black comedy written by Neil Simon and directed by Elaine May. Grodin managed to inject charm and humanity in what was essentially an egotistical central character. Film reviewer Roger Ebert praised his performance, describing the actor as a "kind of Dustin Hoffman-as-overachiever", an opinion which was echoed by Vincent Canby of the New York Times. Ironically, Grodin had earlier turned down the pivotal role in The Graduate (1967) which propelled Hoffman to stardom (he also -- probably unwisely -- spurned the role of oceanographer Matt Hooper in Jaws (1975) which instead went to Richard Dreyfuss).
Grodin's ultimate breakthrough came on the Broadway stage in "Same Time Next Year" (1975) (opposite Ellen Burstyn), a hugely successful romantic comedy about two people, each married to someone else, who conduct an extramarital affair for a single day over the course of 24 years in the same room of a northern Californian inn. Though the two leads left the show after seven months, Grodin was now much sought-after in Hollywood as a droll comic actor and cast in a string of hit comedies: Heaven Can Wait (1978), Seems Like Old Times (1980), The Lonely Guy (1984) and Midnight Run (1988). He also appeared to sterling effect in the underrated farce The Couch Trip (1988), in which he co-starred with Walter Matthau and Dan Aykroyd as the brittle psychiatrist and radio host Dr. George Maitlin. Arguably his most popular box office success was opposite the titular Saint Bernard canine in the family-oriented comedy Beethoven (1992). Despite less than enthusiastic critical reviews, the film was a hit with audiences, grossed $147.2 million worldwide and spawned a sequel.
In the mid-1990s, Grodin reinvented himself as a television host (The Charles Grodin Show (1995)) and political commentator. He made frequent guest appearances on talk shows with Carson or Letterman, typically adopting the persona of a belligerent tongue-in-cheek character to facilitate "comically uncomfortable situations on the set". Grodin was also a prolific author, both of fiction and non-fiction. An autobiography was entitled "It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here: My Journey Through Show Business" (1989). Charles Grodin died at age 86 of bone marrow cancer on May 18, 2021 at his home in Wilton, Connecticut.- Producer
- Writer
- Actress
Bonnie Lynn Hunt is an American actress and comedienne who is known for her work in Rain Man, Beethoven, Jumanji, Jerry Maguire, The Green Mile and Cheaper by the Dozen. She voiced in the Disney films A Bug's Life, Zootopia, Monsters, Inc, Toy Story 3 and Cars. She was married to John Murphy but got separated in 2006.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Bill Paxton was born on May 17, 1955 in Fort Worth, Texas. He was the son of Mary Lou (Gray) and John Lane Paxton, a businessman and actor (as John Paxton). Bill moved to Los Angeles, California at age eighteen, where he found work in the film industry as a set dresser for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. He made his film debut in the Corman film Crazy Mama (1975), directed by Jonathan Demme. Moving to New York, Paxton studied acting under Stella Adler at New York University. After landing a small role in Stripes (1981), he found steady work in low-budget films and television. He also directed, wrote and produced award-winning short films including Barnes & Barnes: Fish Heads (1980), which aired on Saturday Night Live (1975). His first appearance in a James Cameron film was a small role in The Terminator (1984), followed by his very memorable performance as Private Hudson in Aliens (1986) and as the nomadic vampire Severen in Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987). Bill also appeared in John Hughes' Weird Science (1985), as Wyatt Donnelly's sadistic older brother Chet. Although he continued to work steadily in film and television, his big break did not come until his lead role in the critically acclaimed film-noir One False Move (1991). This quickly led to strong supporting roles as Wyatt Earp's naive younger brother Morgan in Tombstone (1993) and as Fred Haise, one of the three astronauts, in Apollo 13 (1995), as well as in James Cameron's offering True Lies (1994).
Bill died on February 25, 2017, in Los Angeles, from complications following heart surgery. He was 61.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has called a "fractured" family. He moved around a great deal after his parents' divorce, living with a succession of step-families. No problems, no alcoholism - just a confused childhood. He has no acting experience in college and credits the fact that he could not get cast in a college play with actually starting his career. He went downtown, and auditioned for a community theater play, was invited by the director of that play to go to Cleveland, and there his acting career started.
Ron Howard was working on Splash (1983), a fantasy-comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a business executive. Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, which eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role and the film went on to become a surprise box office success, grossing more than $69 million. After several flops and a moderate success with the comedy Dragnet (1987), Hanks' stature in the film industry rose. The broad success with the fantasy-comedy Big (1988) established him as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the film industry as an actor. For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor.
Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his "modern era of movie making ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top". This "modern era" began for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and then with Philadelphia (1993). The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves. Richard Schickel of Time magazine called his performance "charming", and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation.
In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost 35 pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated, "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." Hanks won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia. During his acceptance speech, he revealed that his high school drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth and former classmate John Gilkerson, two people with whom he was close, were gay.
Hanks followed Philadelphia with the blockbuster Forrest Gump (1994) which grossed a worldwide total of over $600 million at the box office. Hanks remarked: "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life ... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars.
Hanks' next role - astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the docudrama Apollo 13 (1995) - reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's computer-animated film Toy Story (1995), as the voice of Sheriff Woody. A year later, he made his directing debut with the musical comedy That Thing You Do! (1996) about the rise and fall of a 1960s pop group, also playing the role of a music producer.
As of 2022, Hanks is 66-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and has remained active in the film industry for more than four decades.- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Actor
Tom Jones was born Thomas Jones Woodward in Pontypridd, South Wales, to a traditional coal-mining family, the son of Freda (Jones) and Thomas Woodward. His father was of English descent and his mother was of Welsh and English ancestry. He began singing at an early age in church and in the school choir. Left school at 16 and was married, having a son a year later. He brought in money for his family from an assortment of jobs, singing in pubs at night. By 1963, he was playing regularly with his own group in the demanding atmosphere of working mens clubs. Gordon Mills, a performer who had branched out into songwriting and management went to see him. He became his manager and landed him a record contract in 1964. They made a great team and had huge international success with their second single, a song penned by Mr Mills -- "It's Not Unusual." An avalanche of gold singles and albums followed. Mr Jones, a vocal powerhouse, has sustained his popularity for over three decades, and his recordings have spanned the spectrum of musical styles.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Born February 24, 1947, in East Los Angeles, at The First Japanese Hospital to Pedro Olmos and Eleanor Huizar. Raised on Cheesebrough's Lane, he attended Greenwood Elementary and Montebello Junior High. He then graduated from Montebello High School in 1964. After which he received an Associative Arts Degree in Sociology and Criminal Justice at East Los Angeles College in 1966. Olmos since then has gone on to receive many accolades from the City of Montebello, including the Alumni of The Year from Montebello High School in 2014, and Man of the Year Award from The Mexican American Opportunity Foundation in 2015.
He has achieved extraordinary success as an actor, producer and humanitarian. The Tony, Emmy and Academy Award® Nominated actor, is probably best known to young audiences for his work on the SYFY television series "Battlestar Galatica" as Admiral William Adama. Although the series kept the actor busy during its run from 2003 through 2009, it didn't stop him from directing the HBO movie "Walkout" in 2007, for which he earned a DGA Nomination in the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television category.
Olmos' career in entertainment spans over 30 years. In that time he created a signature style and aesthetic that he applies to every artist endeavor, often grounding his characters in reality and gravitas. His dedication to his craft has brought him attention across the industry, and with audiences worldwide.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Tommy Lee Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school for boys in Dallas, on a scholarship, and went to Harvard on another scholarship. He roomed with future Vice President Al Gore and played offensive guard in the famous 29-29 Harvard-Yale football game of '68 known as "The Tie." He received a B.A. in English literature and graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1969.
Following college, he moved to New York and began his theatrical career on Broadway in "A Patriot for Me" (1969). In 1970, he made his film debut in Love Story (1970). While living in New York, he continued to appear in various plays, both on- and off-Broadway: "Fortune and Men's Eyes" (1969); "Four on a Garden" (1971); "Blue Boys" (1972); "Ulysses in Nighttown" (1974). During this time, he also appeared on a daytime soap opera, One Life to Live (1968) as Dr. Mark Toland from 1971-75. He moved with wife Kate Lardner, granddaughter of short-story writer/columnist Ring Lardner, and her two children from a previous marriage, to Los Angeles.
There he began to get some roles on television: Charlie's Angels (1976) (pilot episode); Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976); and The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977). While working on the movie Back Roads (1981), he met and fell in love with Kimberlea Cloughley, whom he later married. More roles in television--both on network and cable--stage and film garnered him a reputation as a strong, explosive, thoughtful actor who could handle supporting as well as leading roles. He made his directorial debut in The Good Old Boys (1995) on TNT. In addition to directing and starring in the film, he co-wrote the teleplay (with J.T. Allen). The film, based on Elmer Kelton's novel, is set in west Texas where Jones has strong family ties. Consequently, this story of a cowboy facing the end of an era has special meaning for him.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Award-winning actor Esai Morales is a graduate of New York's High School for the Performing Arts. He was born in Brooklyn, to Puerto Rican parents, and began his acting career on the stage, first appearing in El Hermano at the Ensemble Theatre Studio and at New York's Shakespeare Festival In The Park in The Tempest. He had his feature film debut in Bad Boys and his breakthrough role as Bob Morales in La Bamba made him a star, contributing to making the film the most commercially successful Latino-themed Rock biopic of all time.
In 1997 Esai Morales co-founded the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, created to advance the presence of Latinos in the media, telecommunications and entertainment industries. The NHFA has provided scholarships to hundreds of Hispanic students in excess of 1 million dollars. Theater performances include Oscar Wilde's Salome with Al Pacino (Broadway) Joe Papp's production of The Tempest with Raul Julia (New York's Shakespeare in the Park Festival) Tamer of Horses (Los Angeles Theater Center) The Exonerated, directed by Bob Balaban and his musical theater debut on The Mambo Kings. Film credits include Bad Boys, La Bamba, Rapa Nui, Mi Familia, Fast Food Nation, Paid in Full, The Line, Atlas Shrugged: Part II, Jarhead II: Field of Fire, The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca and Gun Hill Road a film he starred and executive produced. The film was a grand Jury Nominee at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. Television credits comprise the Emmy award-winning series NYPD BLUE (ABC) Resurrection Blvd (Showtime) American Family (PBS) Miami Vice (NBC) Fame (NBC) Law and Order: SVU (NBC) The Burning Season: The Chico Mendes Story (HBO) Vanished (FOX) Burn Notice (USA) Jericho (CBS) Caprica (Syfy) Fairly Legal (USA) Criminal Minds (CBS) Major Crimes (TNT) and Saving Westbrook High. Morales plays the role of President of The United States on The Brink, HBO's dark comedy about a geopolitical crisis.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
George Harris Kennedy, Jr. was born on February 18, 1925 in New York City, to Helen (Kieselbach), a ballet dancer, and George Harris Kennedy, an orchestra leader and musician. Following high school graduation, Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army in 1943 with the hope to become a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps. Instead, he wound up in the infantry, served under General George S. Patton and distinguished himself with valor. He won two Bronze Stars and four rows of combat and service ribbons.
A World War II veteran, Kennedy at one stage in his career cornered the market at playing tough, no-nonsense characters who were either quite crooked or possessed hearts of gold. Kennedy notched up an impressive 200+ appearances in both television and films, and was well respected within the Hollywood community. He started out on television Westerns in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), Rawhide (1959), Maverick (1957), Colt .45 (1957), among others) before scoring minor roles in films including Lonely Are the Brave (1962), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965).
The late 1960s was a very busy period for Kennedy, and he was strongly in favor with casting agents, appearing in Hurry Sundown (1967), The Dirty Dozen (1967) and scoring an Oscar win as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cool Hand Luke (1967). The disaster film boom of the 1970s was also kind to Kennedy and his talents were in demand for Airport (1970) and the three subsequent sequels, as a grizzled police officer in Earthquake (1974), plus the buddy/road film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) as vicious bank robber Red Leary.
The 1980s saw Kennedy appear in a mishmash of roles, playing various characters; however, Kennedy and Leslie Nielsen surprised everyone with their comedic talents in the hugely successful The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), and the two screen veterans exaggerate themselves again, in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). From 1988-1991, he also played Ewing family nemesis Carter McKay on the CBS prime-time soap opera Dallas (1978).
Kennedy also played President Warren G. Harding in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House (1979) and had a long standing role on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless (1973). He remained busy in Hollywood and lent his distinctive voice to the animated Cats Don't Dance (1997) and the children's action film Small Soldiers (1998). A Hollywood stalwart for nearly 50 years, he is one of the most enjoyable actors to watch on screen. His last role was in the film The Gambler (2014), as Mark Wahlberg's character's grandfather.
George Kennedy died of natural causes in Middleton, Idaho on February 28, 2016, only ten days after his 91st birthday.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
James Harvey Kennedy was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, on May 25, 1970. He became interested in acting at the age of 15, and appeared in a movie for the first time at age 19, as an extra in Dead Poets Society (1989). His first role in a movie was as Brad in the film Road to Flin Flon (2000), which was filmed in the early 1990s but was not released until spring 2000. He is most popular for playing the role of the movie buff, geeky Randy Meeks, in Scream (1996), Scream 2 (1997), and Scream 3 (2000). In 1998, he won a Blockbuster Award for Best Supporting Actor in a horror movie for his role as Randy Meeks in Scream 2 (1997).- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Suave and handsome Australian actor arrived in Hollywood in the 1950s, and built himself up from a supporting actor into taking the lead in several well-remembered movies. Arguably his most fondly remembered role was that as George (Herbert George Wells), the inventor, in George Pal's spectacular The Time Machine (1960). As the movie finished with George, and his best friend Filby Alan Young seemingly parting forever, both actors were brought back together in 1993 to film a 30-minute epilogue to the original movie! Taylor's virile, matinée idol looks also assisted him in scoring the lead of Mitch Brenner in Alfred Hitchcock's creepy thriller The Birds (1963), the role of Jane Fonda's love interest in Sunday in New York (1963), the title role in John Ford's biopic of Irish playwright Sean O'Casey in Young Cassidy (1965), and a co-starring role in The Train Robbers (1973) with John Wayne. Taylor also appeared as Bette Davis future son-in-law in the well-received film The Catered Affair (1956). He also gave a sterling performance as the German-American Nazi Major trying to fool James Garner in 36 Hours (1964). Later, Taylor made many westerns and action movies during the 1960s and 1970s; however, none of these were much better than "B" pictures and failed to push his star to the next level. Additionally, Taylor was cast as the lead in several TV series including Bearcats! (1971), Masquerade (1983), and Outlaws (1986); however, none of them truly ignited viewer interest, and they were cancelled after only one or two seasons. Most fans would agree that Rod Taylor's last great role was in the wonderful Australian film The Picture Show Man (1977), about a travelling sideshow bringing "moving pictures" to remote towns in the Australian outback.