People I've met
These are people that I have met in real-life
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- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
The son of a circuit-riding Methodist preacher in rural Alabama, Pat Buttram became one of America's best-known comic entertainers. He left Alabama a month before his 18th birthday to attend the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. An announcer from radio station WLS was on hand to interview members of the crowd and settled on Pat as a typical visitor from the South. The interview that followed was anything but typical. Pat made a hit with his hilarious observations on the fair and was immediately offered a job with the station. This led to a long and happy association with the popular "National Barn Dance" radio program. During those years Pat met Gene Autry, who took a liking to the young comic and later brought him to Hollywood to replace Smiley Burnette, who had found other work while Gene served in WWII. Together Pat and Gene made many western films and a television series, The Gene Autry Show (1950), which aired from 1950 until 1956. They remained close friends until Pat's death in 1994.
In 1952 Pat married actress Sheila Ryan, whom he had met on the set of Mule Train (1950). Over the next 40 years Pat prospered in radio, films and television, making stand-up appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) (aka "The Ed Sullivan Show") and lending his vocal talents to many animated television shows and films, including several Walt Disney features. In the early 1960s he revealed a flair for dramatic acting when Alfred Hitchcock tapped him for roles in two The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) episodes. His big television break came in 1965 with the role of "Mr. Haney" in the long-running CBS comedy Green Acres (1965). Throughout his career Pat was in constant demand as a toastmaster and after-dinner speaker, where his agile and sophisticated wit belied his "countrified" appearance. In 1982 Pat founded the Golden Boot Awards to honor actors, directors, stunt people and other industry professionals who have made significant contributions to the western film genre. Proceeds from the annual event are donated to the Motion Picture Health and Welfare Fund.Pat was part of a Kiwanis Club celebrity golf tournament for charity in Pismo Beach, CA when I was a kid. I didn't really know anything about him at the time, but I recognized him in Back to the Future 3, and I was excited to know him.- Marc McClure was born on 31 March 1957 in San Mateo, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Back to the Future (1985), Superman (1978) and Apollo 13 (1995). He has been married to Carol Courson Cowley since 16 August 1985. They have one child.Marc was also in the same Kiwanis Club celebrity golf tournament for charity that Pat was. I had seen him in Freaky Friday and Jimmy Olson in Superman, so I was much more impressed with meeting him than Pat at the time. He seemed like a fairly quiet man, very nice, and had a great sense of humor.
- Cissy King was born on 3 January 1946 in Trinidad, Colorado, USA.I grew up watching the Lawrence Welk Show as a kid (and I still watch it in reruns from time to time). Cissy was a guest at a function that my parents attended. At the end, they rushed up to our hotel room, fetched me, and we headed back downstairs, and I got to meet her, too. She gave me a hug and an autograph. She was so sweet, and so pretty. She seemed like a very nice person, and I was very glad to have met her.
- Visual Effects
- Special Effects
- Actor
American special effects wizard and miniature model-making virtuoso. McCune partnered John Dykstra as head of Apogee Inc. between 1978 and 1992. He was chief model maker for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) (in which he also had a small acting role as a Death Star gunner), the pilot for Battlestar Galactica (1978) and 80's classics Spaceballs (1987) and Ghostbusters II (1989). McCune created the iconic Millenium Falcon model, the X-Wing and Tie Fighter models, as well as bounty hunter Boba Fett's helmet. He is credited with putting the finishing touches to the famous droid R2 D2, originally designed by John Stears. For Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) he worked on the Klingon K'tinga Battlecruiser and the V'ger model. In 1992,taking over the lease and some of the remaining infrastructure from Apogee, he set up his own company, Grant McCune Design. In the capacity of miniature effects supervisor, he put his stamp on a number of seminal blockbusters, including Speed (1994), Batman Forever (1995) and Daylight (1996). McCune Design eventually folded in March 2016.
McCune held a degree in biology from California State University in Northridge and began his career as a laboratory technician. Much of his free time was spent creating models and dioramas. In 1978, he was selected by George Lucas to work on Star Wars, on the strength of his collaborative effort in creating the Great White Shark model for Jaws (1975). An expert photographer, McCune provided a brief insight into his work during a 2009 interview, stating: "The most important thing is what you see with your eye. Movies are a lot different from reality. This is because you've isolated the viewer's eye to a certain spot-you can't look anywhere else. If you're a photographer, you get the idea of what you need to do by analyzing what it is that needs to be set and where it is and how much detail it should have. All the best people who ever worked for me were first good with the eye".I was very honored to spend most of a day with Grant. He came to my college to give a lecture. I worked in the Media Services department, and I was responsible for seeing that everything was setup and working for his presentation that evening. He arrived early, and he shared lots of stories with me about working on Star Wars and some of the other features he worked on. It was very inspiring, and he was quite a fascinating person aside from the work he did. That day was one of the most memorable of my college career. So sad to discover he has passed.- Angelo M. Vitale is known for The Ultimate Game (2001) and Rampage (1987).Angelo hired me to do some computer work for him. His office was filled with sports memorabilia and also his movie. We talked about the movie he'd been in a bit before I got back to work.